VC Rocks II

The other day I posted some pictures from my virtual stamp group. Those were the gift card swap. Here are the pictures from the quilt card swap. The first one is mine and the rest are the ones I received in the swap.

VC Rocks!

VC Rocks is a Yahoo group that I am involved in. It is a "virtual convention" for those involved in Stampin' Up that cannot make it to the Annual Convention in Salt Lake City. This is my second year being involved in the group. I do the minimum required to stay involved because it goes on during June and July when I am busy with my summer camps. This year I decided to join 2 swaps. I did the Gift Card Swap and the Quilt Card Swap. Here are the pictures of the Gift Card Swap.
I'm not sure how many pictures I can upload in one post, so I'll do another post that has the pictures of the Quilt Cards in it in the next couple of days.

Stampin' Up Deal of the Week

Have you ever wanted to try the Stampin' Up Fire Jeweled Brads?? Now is the time to try them. Originally $10.95, you can get them this week for $6.99.
If you want to order some let me know!!!!! I'll keep you posted on the next deal come Monday or Tuesday!

Stampin' Up Deal of the Week

This weeks "deal" with Stampin' Up is the Big Shot Doctor's Bag. Normally it's $69.99, but you can get it for $49.95 from July 6 (10 am MT) - July 13 (9:50 am MT). This bag is used for transporting the Big Shot.
If you are interested in this bag or any other Stampin' Up products just give me a shout! I'd be more than happy of order you something.

New Stampin' Up Catalog

Well, the new Stampin' Up Catalog is out today. How exciting is this? I'm very excited because stamping/card making has become one of my favorite hobbies and it has turned into a side job for me. I really don't make any money on it, but it's nice to get the discount. Here's a peak of the catalog.

Stampin' Up is also doing something different this month. They are having "weekly" specials. This weeks special is the scallop edge punch. Normally this punch is $15.95, but for the next 5 days you can get it for $10.99. They are not letting us know ahead of time what the specials are so keep tuning in if you are interested.

If you are intersted in a catalog our would like more information about Stampin' Up please let me know.

Happy Father's Day....

one week late! I've been so busy with my camps that I haven't had too much time to post. I did call my dad on Father's Day and talked to him for about 45 minutes. Here's the card that I sent my dad.On the inside of the card it said "I Whaley Love You" and it had a picture of a whale. I love using stamps like this to make cards for my dad. He appreciates them so much and loves showing them off to people who stop by to visit.
For Eric's dad I went a different route. Since his parents have been know to fish and camp, I decided to use this bear/camping set.
Well, my stamping group is getting together in about an hour, so I need to get going to finish getting my stuff ready. Hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures.

Busy Summer

Well, summer has officially started up here. Two weeks ago we had two days that were around 71. That's really warm for this time of year. Usually we are in the low 60's, like today. I am onto my third week of camp kids. The first week went pretty good, except for a student missing her flight (it was all my fault). I had the wrong leaving time on our travel sheets. I had her flight at 5:00 pm and it was actually 4:00 pm. She had to spend the night because that was the last flight to the village for both airlines that service the village for the day. Week 2 started off quiet and slow, but once the kids got to know each other they were a great bunch. We are on to week 3 and everything is going good this week. The students are really getting along good even though they are from 8 different villages. This week will be the first time that we have a few returning students. Cross your fingers that it goes well. Well, I'm going to enjoy the rest of my evening before I have to go into work tomorrow.

Another Crochet Project

Well, I finished another afghan about 2 weeks ago and am finally getting around to posting a picture of it. I am now almost finished with the afghans that I needed to make. I have one left and this has been the toughest one yet to come up with some type of design. It's for my new little nephew. My sister has not been very helpful coming up with a design. So sis, since I know you will be reading this, got any ideas for me?????

Belated Birthday

Well, my birthday has come and gone for another year (it was on Mother's Day). I wanted to share with you a great present that one of the girls I work with put together for me. She went around collecting 'well wishes' one the little cards she put inside of the jar. I thought it was a great birthday present from the people at work. Now I really need to come up with something great for her birthday here next week!!!!! Any suggestions big sis????

Goldilocks has got a bear!

Okay, Eric actually got the bear and my hair isn't as blonde (hence Goldilocks) as it used to be, but I've wanted him to get one since we moved up here.Look at this beauty! It measured 8 ft tall (okay, I was just informed that it is 8 ft from nose to tail, if it stood straight up it would be about 10 ft). The head is huge and so are the paws. The claws are longer than my fingers. Check out Eric holding one of the paws.
Eric has been thinking about how he wants to mount the hide. He was originally thinking of doing a hanging rug, but also thought a full body would be cool too (on all fours not standing). Guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my mom and mother-in-law. I sent them cards earlier in the week and hopefully they have gotten them by now. I have been wanted to post a picture of the cards I made, but wanted to make sure they got them in the mail first before I posted them here. Well, I'm not waiting any more. Drum roll please.........................................................
It was hard to get a decent shot of the cards because there is glitter on the petals and leaves and it isn't showing up as glittery as they really are. Here's a link and here too that I found the idea from. If you want the directions on how to make them follow this link. I hope all the mothers out there reading this are having (or had) a great mothers day.

Teacher Appreciation

So, late in the afternoon on Wednesday, the campus director came to my office and asked me what I was doing the next couple of nights (the first thought that came to my mind was that she needed a babysitter for her boys. Don't ask me why that came to mind, but it did.) She said that she forgot that it was Teacher Appreciation week and was wondering if I could make cards for the faculty.

I said "Sure, how many?"
"Oh about 30 of them" she replied.

Good thing I had two nights to make them. I told her if she got my the sayings she wanted on them I would get to work. Well, she turned that job over to the Assistant Director, who was too busy to get anything to me on Wednesday evening. I didn' want to start a card until I knew how long the saying would be. Well, I finally got something on Thursday. I spend from about 6:30 - 11:00 pm making 34 cards. I was lucky I found something that was simple, but looked nice. I was able to use up alot of my papers from my stamping group. Here's just one of the cards and then a picture of the pile of cards. No two cards were the same (okay, maybe one or two were the same, but I think there were 30 different paper combos!)
Well, I'm off to do some more card making or maybe a little crocheting. I still have to finish the basketball blanket. I'm done with the base, but I need to decide what type of border is going around it.

Hello Spring? Are you out there???

Well, I hope you all in the lower 48 are enjoying your spring weather. Currently at 10:00 pm we are at a cool 34 degrees. Spring has been trying to show it's wonderful self, but winter just doesn't want to leave yet! The light is coming fast gaining more than 5 minutes a day. Sun rises about 6:00 am and sets about 11:30 pm. This past weekend we had temperatures in the high 50, low 60s. I don't even think we hit 40 today. We have had some flooding upriver about 150 miles working its way down. The river isn't quite ready to go yet, but the warmer weather this past weekend has loosened some of the upriver ice. Reports are that there are ice chunks as big as cars and houses.

In other news, Eric is currently out grizzly huntin'. He left on Saturday with a buddy to go looking for grizzly bears. They are only about 70 miles from here, but they had to fly into their dropoff site. I'm hoping he comes back with a 9 footer! That would be awesome. Mount that sucker full body, cool!!!!

I have some pictures of the mother's day cards I'm sending out, but I can't post them yet because I think a mom or two checks this thing out. I'll post them either this weekend or early next week. Well, I'm going to start getting ready for bed. Talk with you all later.

Happy Earth Day!

This is the official poster of Earth Day 2009 according to www.earthday.net


*****Oh big sis, is this day also the birthday of my newest little nephew, or is he still hanging in there?????????

Weekend in Anchorage

Well, I was lucky to get to Anchorage over Easter weekend. Mt. Redoubt has calmed down and didn't give me any problems. We spent Friday and Saturday doing some shopping. Kohl's just opened up last week and it's right next to Target, so I got to do a little shopping at both places. Friday night we decided to do dinner and a movie. We went to the Bear Tooth Theatre which actually does dinner with a movie (dinner theatre). The great thing is you order your food and then go sit down and start watching the movies and they will bring the food out to you when it's ready. We were lucky enough to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop. We just missed it back in January when it opened. I was suprised at how good of a movie it actually was. I was expecting the typical Kevin James comedy, but it was really good! On Saturday we decided to go to a regular movie. We went and saw Observe and Report. Horrible movie. It's another mall security movie and it is horrible compared to Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

On Easter Sunday we decided to take a road trip. We drove down the Seward Hwy to Girdwood. This is the first time I've been somewhere else in Alaska besides Anchorage, Bethel and Marshall!These pictures (above and below) are pictures of the mudflats south of Anchorage. Those big chunks you see are actually huge pieces of ice. The get hung up on the mudflats when the tide goes out.

Here are a couple of pictures of Eric and I. The one above is at Beluga Point. It's a stop on the Seward Hwy where you can sometimes see Beluga whales in the water. We didn't see any. The picture below is the mandatory "in the vehicle while traveling" picture.

The above picture is a view of the mountains from the airplane. I wanted to get a picture of Mt. Redoubt, but we didn't have a clear enough view of it from our flight pattern. The pilot was talking about there being an ash cloud at about 15,000 ft, while we were traveling at 30,000+ ft.

Finally I will leave you with this picture. This is Bethel from the air on April 13, 2009. You think we have a little bit of snow left?????? This is the second pass we had to take for the landing. The first pass we were lined up, hand the landing gear down, descending nicely and all of a sudden the plane starts going back up. Apparently some other smaller plane was either coming in or going out and we had to back off. I like this picture because you can see how far spread out Bethel is. Our house is out of the picture on the bottom right.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to everyone out there in blogging land. (I'm doing a little scheduled post here because if the weather and Mt. Redoubt work with me, I will be joining Eric in Anchorage over the weekend.)

Here are some pictures of the Easter treats I made for everyone at work. I thought they turned out pretty good.

And I just have to show you the cutest card. This little "chick" is made using the Big Shot Top Note die and some punches. I made a few of these for the people I work with.

I'm Going to College

*****Sidenote - Just realized that I started this post on April 8 and never got around to posting it.

Well, actually I've been to college already and I've been working at colleges for longer than I can remember. Okay, I remember, but I've always worked at colleges so it seems like forever. Anyways............2 1/2 weeks ago today, I (my program) helped to host an I'm Going to College program for 4 different 6th grade classes here in town. A total of 64 kids came to the college to learn about different careers.


The kids were supposed to get piggy banks with a penny in them as a start to their college savings. Unfortunately there wasn't enough money in the budget to actually purchase the piggy banks, so I came up with a clever idea for a "nest egg" for the kids. Here's how they turned out. This is actually the matchbox die cut for the Big Shot from Stampin' Up.

'Tis the Season

Application season that is. I always love this time of year because I start getting a whole lot of applications in the mail for my summer camps. This is what my mailbox looked like today.

By measure of the ruler, it almost measured 5 inches. I'm not sure how many applications there was, but there were alot.

On a side note, I made a card to go along with the baby afghan I finished (the moose/plane one). It doesn't have anything to do with mooses and airplanes, but I love how it turned out.

DU Banquet

I hear $150, who will give me $175.

Well, it didn't raise as much as I would have liked, but neither did alot of the other auction items. The main competition to my afghan was a Flannel quilted quilt. Usually the quilts go for over $300, but last night the quilt only went for $225. With that being said, my DU afghan went for $150. One of my good friends and her husband actually bought it. Their 9 year old son put claims on it before they were out the door. I know it will be well used and cared for. Now, it's time to get busy working on the basketball one I'm doing for cash. I think I have all of the yarns I need, so it's just getting started.

Well, supper should be here soon. We decided to order out since Eric leaves for Fairbanks tomorrow.

The Flying Moose

Well, I have finally finished the Moose afghan. I think it turned out pretty good. Hopefully the recipients will think so too. It's for one of Eric's buddies. Him and his wife are both moose biologists and the guy does a little flying. They had a little girl about a month ago. It will be sent to Kenai to them provided that Mt. Redoubt doesn't decide to throw-up any more ash.

This Saturday is the Ducks Unlimited banquet. I have been told that my afghan will be going on the live auction. I'm so excited. I'll keep you posted on how much money it brings in.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do for my sister who's expecting her 3rd boy here in a few weeks. She's given me some vague ideas, but I haven't been able to come up with anything yet. In the meantime, I was asked if I would make a blanket (for profit ;) ) for a lady at one of the agencies in town. The baby is a year old and the parts are really big into basketball. This is what I came up with for her.