I definitely am not 32 any more!! When I first signed up as a Demonstrator, I was 32 years old. I had 3 sweet babies (4, 2 and 3 months) and a lot more energy. Fast-forward 15 years (you can do the math!) and I now have 3 teenage boys...one almost out of his teens and in college; one a senior in high school, and my youngest is a freshman. And I don't have nearly as much energy!
My sister and I always go out after each Stamp Camp/Spring Soiree' to dinner and a movie. Back in my "younger days", I did TWO sessions of Stamp Camp (Saturday and Sunday). Keep in mind my Stamp Camp/Spring Soiree' is an all-day affair - helpers arrive by 9am to work on their projects before guests arrive at noon and we aren't done until 4:30 or so. It's delightfully fun...and exhausting! Chelcey and I would finish Stamp Camp, head to dinner, then TWO movies. I wouldn't get home until around 2am and inevitably I would've locked myself out of the house because I left the keys in the diaper bag that Doug took to Sterling with him to take the boys away from all of the hoopla. Sterling is about 2 hours away from my home so getting there to get the keys was never an option. I have crawled through my kitchen window more times than I can count over the years!!! I'd get up by 6:30 am to begin making chili for the next session then be ready for my next round of helpers/stampers. Sounds insane but it was so much fun!!!
My days of diaper bags have long gone...as have my window-crawling adventures. And I no longer do two sessions of Stamp Camp/Spring Soiree'. And we no longer go to two movies! To be honest, I have a really hard time staying awake through ONE movie! I think the last two movies we've seen I've snoozed a bit during the film. Shhhh...don't tell Chelcey! As if she didn't know...!!! ;-D However, I cherish this tradition with my sister and would gladly sleep through part of a movie to spend a sister-evening just with her.
I was embarrassingly sore on Sunday after Spring Soiree' this past weekend. I guess lugging tables and chairs up and down stairs isn't as easy as it used to be, either. When did this all happen, anyway???
What hasn't changed is my love for this event. I have changed it up recently (changed the name to Spring Soiree' plus other adjustments) and the new format seemed to be enjoyed by all who were here. Each guest got a bag of goodies right off the bat that they used on their projects...plus took the extras home with them. They made some pretty big projects, too! While I think I need to rein that in a bit, the overall consensus is they loved the projects!
One of the projects was like the frame that I made at our Holiday Team Event back in December. I didn't change it up much at all because I still love it. This time, we used the new Designer Rosette Die instead of scoring all of the lines using the Simply Scored. Simply Scored is an amazing tool (and comes with a NEW Diagonal Template...coming March 1st!!!!), but the die is SO much easier to use for rosettes! Some tips:
- If you use a full 6" width piece of cardstock or Designer Paper in the die, it works much better than thinner strips. The thin strips tend to "shift" so they come out funky. I don't know why, but the 6" width works like a charm!
- And a little goes a long way! We used a 1 3/4" wide strip to make the 4" rosette base.
- You'll need two strips, as one strip won't make it all the way around into a complete circle.
- Use Sticky Strip to attach your ends together THEN accordian fold the strip. Finally, anchor the last two ends together once it's folded so you get your pleats going in the right direction.
- This is forgiving! If your pleats aren't perfect, you won't be able to notice once the rosette is assembled.
- Keep in mind if you use 12" strips for one rosette and 11" strips for the other rosette, they won't "nest" neatly. Just stack them!
- Use hot-glue to anchor your rosettes together.
I especially love it when stampers get creative. And because they each had a whole package of Twitterpated Designer Paper, they had a multitude of choices. The different color/paper combos all turned out fabulous!!
We are having a couple of very full weeks here in the Bazata home. My grandpa's service is this Saturday, so there have been lots of preparations, comforting, and chatting with my aunt, sister and one of my cousins as well as my own family. Devin will be coming home for the weekend and we'll see friends and relatives that we haven't seen in a long while. I am looking forward to catching up and celebrating my grandpa's long life. I'm sure we'll be a mess, too, but that's part of it, right?
Please visit again and I do hope to see you at my next Card Cafe' on March 15th. We're making some wonderful cards...don't miss it. :-)
Hugs!
