back to the land I like to call...

normal. The life where my towels and bathroom sink are not magically cleaned by the Disney resort staff but were magically cleaned by my magical husband (God bless the man) while I was gone. The life where instead of being served dinner at a hibachi restaurant in "Japan" (i.e. Epcot) or dessert at an ice cream shop straight out of the 50's, I serve three squares a day and clean up the kitchen more times than that, although I myself fail to see how that is actually possible. Ah, how I've missed it! Haha! No, really, I did, I swear! Or at least, it's nice to go away, and miss (just for a few days) and be missed... know what I mean? It's nice to come home and be reminded that I am needed, and not just to do stuff for people, because frankly, my husband is pretty much a parenting rock star and handled getting 3 kids to 3 different places and back again and fed and loved on and into bed and on and on and on without so much as the tiniest of hitches. (Other than being on the phone with him at one point and hearing "Hold on... HEY! Stop shining that flashlight in her EYEBALL!" I didn't hear anything to cause a moment of concern.) I went with my longtime friend, Cindy (who owns Emma's Paperie) and my other longime friend, Anabelle (who, miraculously, has escaped meeting me until now). We shopped and shopped and shopped. And shopped some more. And then, when we needed a break, we shopped. And the fruit of all that shopping will soon be appearing in the store, so enjoy. And by that I mean, SHOP! It's only right after all the shopping we did. Highlights of the trip... did I already say that I did not have to make meals or change diapers? Oh, you probably want to hear about the show highlights. Hmmmm... let's see... Anabelle and I will probably be appearing on a late-night infomercial coming to a television set near you at some point in the near future. Yeah... I only wish I was kidding about that, but unfortunately for you and for me, I am not. Making Memories filmed an infomercial for the Slice (which I actually do love and really want... debating about whether to invest in my first electric die cutter ever) and Anbelle and I were in the crowd. The girls in front of us were very, um, enthusiastic, so the camera was in our direction pretty much the whole time. Soooo... if you are pulling a late-night-craft-a-thon and my pretty mug happens to appear on the TV in front of you... please... for the love of all that is crafty... please... never tell me. Or anyone else, for that matter. I'll save some more of the highlights for later this week. Although I will say, yes, I did go to the consumer show. Yes, I did visit the Papertrey booth. And yes, I did get my free set. Woohooo! Hoping to ink it up tomorrow! I'll leave you with a little project I did for Emma's just a while back. I'm not sure what I was thinking... I think I wanted to go a bit outside the box for the colors. I like how it turned out, although it is a bit different for me. I really loved doing the sentiment over the image like that, so I've continued to use that on a few things. It's a subtle way to highlight it and bring a bit more interest without doing too much. I kind of pictured this as a sympathy card and as a general rule I try to keep sympathy cards pretty simple, so no ribbon, no embellishments. I actually really like this stamp set. I'm pretty particular about stamps and this set has a few images in it (like the embellished flourish and berry branch) that I will use consistently. Sets need to be very multi-functional for me and althought this one does not have sentiments, it's still a winner.

Later!

CS = Kraft, White (PTI) PP = Urban Prairie Hayloft Paper (Basic Grey) Stamps = Bridgeport (SEI) Ink = Elegant Eggplant, Chocolate Chip (SU); Versamark (Tsukineko) Rubs = Sentiments Rub-On Transfers (Crate Paper) Other = Slit Punch (SU), foam tape