Two more sleeps!

On Thursday, I'm flying out to Saskatchewan to see my dear, sweet friend, Amanda!

I can't even tell you how excited I am.  I'm beyond excited.  My head is spinning with trying to pack up not only for my five day stay in SK, but also the SK Scraps crop on Friday night and Saturday AND the Hands On! photography™ workshop that I'll be teaching on the Sunday!

I have decided that I am NOT going to overpack for the crop.  The last time I flew out for the SK Scraps crop, I brought TONS of stuff and didn't even complete ONE layout.  No way.  Not this time.  I have a DT project that is due on the day after I get back so I will be bringing that with a basic kit.  I will have Melissa print me some photos to bring with her and I figured that I will just beg, borrow or buy what I need, if I get my DT project done!

I'm just looking forward to hanging with the SK girls and having some girl time.  Even though five sleeps is a LONG time to be away from my sweetie and my kids...  thank goodness for Skype!

SK Scraps!

I know I'm late in getting this post up, with pictures, but that's what happens when I take five days off for a little fun!

Okay, so we had ALOT of fun!! :D

Disclaimer: Rather than drag my Nikon D70 & gear to SK, I only brought my little Coolpix camera with me. And while it normally takes great pictures, I inadvertently turned the flash off, so alot of the pictures are blurry and grainy. And while I'd like to give credit to the photographers, it was handed off quite a bit so I'm not sure who took which photo!

I flew out of London on Thursday (03/19) - Gary took the day off and he and Aili drove me to the airport. Connor was off at his grandparents for the March break. It was a very late night on Wednesday, packing, as you can tell by this shot in the terminal before I got on the plane:

And please disregard the crazy hair on the girl - I honestly can't do a thing with it!

The flight was relatively uneventful, landing briefly (as in just enough time to get off the plane, visit the loo and jump on another plane!) in Winnipeg. I arrived in Saskatoon around 4pm and was met by the welcoming committee: Amanda, my promotions coordinator; her adorable kids, R & C; and her mom, Janet.

After corralling my suitcases (FIVE bags... for a FOUR night stay!!), we ran some errands and met Amanda's hubby for dinner. Then we raced over to Kate's house, where she graciously opened her house for us to basically run in, pack some goody bags and then race back to the airport to pick up Lori, my design team coordinator, who flew in on a later flight.

After picking up Lori, we headed to Amanda's little town (and I mean LITTLE!!). She teased us mercilessly, being "city girls" at our shock over her tiny town! It's literally a grid of about 15 streets!

We stayed up, way too late, chatting and packing up the rest of the goody bags, and then headed over to Janet's in the morning. A quick trip to Staples for last minute supplies, knocked around the LSS for a while and then met up with Dawn for lunch.

Lori brought Amanda and Janet these beautiful artsy necklaces, that Amanda's modeling here:We all got ready and joked about how it felt like we were back in high school, getting ready for the school dance! :) Picture three grown women: one blow-drying her hair, the other curling hers and yet another putting on her make-up - all while one of their mom's watched from the doorway!!

We managed to cram all of our scrapping stuff (for the FOUR of us!) into Janet's truck and headed to the school. And as we were walking in, who pulled up ahead of us, but Jackie Ludlage, editor of Canadian Scrapbooker magazine - hence, my boss for the last four years! It was so great to finally meet her in person - she's just as great in person as on the phone & in email!

I also got to meet the other girls on the CS magazine team: Heather Starosielski (so tiny and beautiful in person!) and Jayme Loge (who was so nice to take our money all weekend! :)), not to mention Allison Orthner (what a firecracker! LOVE this girl!!)

And last but not least, Leica Forrest, who is not only on the CS team with me, but just joined my 2009 Cre8ive Crew! The legend lives on... that girl's hair is TO DIE FOR!! And she's gorgeous, funny and super nice to boot! {hugs}

Leica & her team did a great job decorating! I loved the little Tiki hut greeting centre: Leica had put together about 7 or 8 tables, smack dab in the centre of the room for the Just Cre8 team and members - it was awesome!! And PINK! :D Some of the members have been with us since the beginning and some are fairly new to us, but it was so wonderful to finally put personalities to the usernames! Lori, Amanda, Janet and I shared the table with Kate and her friend, Megan; Melissa, my technical coordinator (she's alot taller than I expected!! :)); Sarah, who drove down from Regina; Dawn, Andrea, Corinne, Karen, Sheryl, Charmaine, and Jacqueline, who flew in from Alberta!

We also had a little side table (which grew to three!) which we had plans to use the second day to sell some Just Cre8 products. Amanda and Lori set up their albums, so people could view their DT work with the kits. So to say that we were at the centre of attention would be accurate - it didn't help that we were also pretty loud, laughing and having fun!

Leica planned an amazing crop - the goody bags were awesome (boo hoo - I didn't get a photo)and the prizes! OMGosh - for $20, we got an arm's length (and I used Leica's arm, since I think she's 6'9" or something... :D) - here, Amanda and I took a self portrait with our leis of tickets. Actually, I took this, holding the camera away from us.... Note: this is why I didn't use MY arm length for tickets... and NO, we hadn't been drinking!!

I won one of Jackie's first giveaways-This snappy little monogram stamper set from JustRite! She was walking around and said, "Okay, ladies... a movie opens tonight..." She didn't get any further before I yelled out, "TWILIGHT!"

It pays to have a hubby who follows movie release dates - and who understands his wife's obsession with the Twilight series! :D

I was also spoiled by some of our table members: 1) Kate brought yummy Peeps w/ nests;
2) Jacqueline gave out bags of scrapping goodies with a thoughtful postcard from her hometown;
3) Plus, I managed to snarf a Canadian Scrapbooker mug (pink inside!) from Jackie!
4) Dawn was so kind and generous - she created this gorgeous personalized book for me (along with so many others). Isn't it just beautiful?
It took us a few hours to settle in and dig into our scrapping - we were having too much fun! Here's proof - Lori couldn't express her love for her embellishments in words:We left the crop around midnight and stayed at Janet's for the night, since she's only about 20 minutes away. In the morning, I presented them with a little gift each to thank them for their hospitality.For the record, Amanda doesn't normally wear that bow in her hair (at least, I don't THINK she does??) - It was part of the gift wrapping! As for Janet's hair... well.... ditto re: my comment on Aili's hair, above... :D

We spent much of the morning, setting out product and selling. I met so many great people!! It's so much fun to meet people who share the same passion as you.

Thanks to Lori, for her trade show expertise in setting up, and a special thanks to Amanda, for helping me sell the product, hosting a guided tour of http://www.justcre8.com/ and for being the official spokesperson for Just Cre8 that weekend!

We also had a local radio DJ drop in! He made the mistake of calling scrapbookers "glorified sticker collectors"... Well, needless to say, the scrapping community didn't take it sitting down... There was quite a discussion in our forum which led to a challenge issued by a few of our members for Dave Scharf, from C95 radio in Saskatoon, to come on out and see what scrapbooking was all about...

He took them up on their offer and came, hat in hand... Not only did Dawn present him with his very own personalized book...

but she also created a scrapbook for him about his dog that was put down several weeks prior. I think he now "gets" that scrapbooking is not just papers, stickers and glue - it's about telling the story, preserving the memories and leaving the legacy to our future generations. We managed to rope him into a Just Cre8 team photo,

before we made him sit down to make his very first tag:

He was such a great sport! He definitely changed his mind and we were all elevated to the status of "nutbar hobbyists", I think was the term he used! :)

Speaking of dedicated, Lori didn't break stride and kept right on cre8ing - the girl was on fire, getting a few layouts picked up that weekend, for publication! And you get an awesome view of the Just Cre8 shirts, designed by the lovely and talented Melissa Buhler of GreenPixel Design and GreenPixel Printing, shown hard at work on the right.

For the most part, the rest of the day/evening was spent visiting, taking photos, etc. I did not get ONE layout completed!! I should have just left that bag at home!

Here's a few favourites of our Just Cre8 members and new friends:

Amanda, with Corinne (JC8 username: Corinne) - it was SOOOO wonderful to meet this amazing, generous person IRL. I ADORE Corinne!! Last year, she alone created over 1,100 cards and donated to the troops overseas so that they would have cards to send home. And amazingly, while at this crop, she created FIFTY-SIX 8x8 layouts to donate to the families of sick kids in Royal University Hospital, in Saskatoon. FIFTY-SIX!!!

Puts me to shame, that girl - yes, she does...

And her down-and-dirty rice is so good! :D

Karen (JC8 username: scrappinsisterk) - official photographer and pirate lover of the group! Can't wait to see her proofs from the weekend!

This is the incredible group of ladies who received personalized books from Dawn - so fortunate to have a little piece of DawnDawn artwork!

As you can see, it was quite a hoot, trying to organize this many people - and see? I wasn't lying about Leica's gorgeous hair!

Cre8ive Crew meets Canadian Scrapbooker! And we're all practicing Allison's tip for turkey necks and sexy "HI"'s... :D

As the night wore on, so did the sanity:

Congrats to two of our JC8 members, who won the layout contests! Andrea (JC8 username: Andy) will have her layout published in the final issue of Canadian Scrapbook Basics!

And Sheryl (JC8 username: SherBear) will be featured in the next issue of the magazine!! Plus, two of her layouts were picked for Honourable Mentions! WTG, ladies!!

As the night came to a close, we began saying our good-byes and exchanging contact info. Another new friend that I was happy to finally meet was Kate - this girl is not only stunning (look at those dimples!), but she is the most enthusiastic and upbeat person I have met!!

And now she's got me saying, "SHUT THE DOOR!" But I have her saying, "HOLD THE PHONE!" so we're even... :D

Sigh... what a great crop. Seriously, one of the most fun (and least productive!) that I have ever been to! I realized afterwards that there were so many more people that I wanted photos with... :(

The next day, we vegged at Janet's home. A few of the girls popped over for a visit and a lovely yummy brunch and later, we had dinner with Amanda's family. Amanda and I popped out of the house for a bit to run to the store.

Something told me to bring my camera.

See? You wouldn't have believed it otherwise, right??

Yep. That's the store.

Told you it was a small community! And this was in Janet's town, which is BIGGER than Amanda's town, er, village, um, I mean group of houses. LOL!

We stayed up late to watch Twilight (yum!) and then headed to the airport to drop me off for my 10:20am flight. I realized I didn't get any pictures in the air, once we landed in Calgary for my 2.5 hr layover, so I snapped this one, while taxi-ing into the terminal.

And then my battery died!!

Which was really a pity, too, since Julie drove in to meet me for lunch, while waiting for my flight! I've "known" Julie for a while now, from my former DT forum and now Just Cre8 so it was so great to finally meet her! Another one who is absolutely gorgeous in person - she looks like Natasha Henstridge!

My dear friend, Crystal, also drove in to meet me but sadly, she got lost so we only had minutes to meet and visit! But it was so nice to see her in person, after years of online friendship!

Sadly, not ONE of us thought to ask someone to snap a photo! :(

Next time!!

And there will be a next time - despite the teasing from friends of my heading to SK for March Break, it was definitely worth it!!

If you've made it this far, WOW! Thanks for reading! :)

Booked!

My flight, that is!

Yep - you heard it right... I'm actually going on a trip!! I know, I know, unheard of around these parts but all the stars aligned and I'm leaving on a jet plane!

To Saskatchewan!!

Now, before you call me crazy for booking a flight to a decidedly NON-TROPICAL destination (not that you aren't saying anything I haven't already thought! :)), let me say that this will be sort of a business trip...

For those of you who do not live, breathe and eat scrapbooking like the rest of us, there is a Saskatchewan Scraps! crop on March 19th & 20th in Saskatoon, hosted by the talented and lovely Leica Forrest, fellow Canadian Scrapbooker team member.

AND... the last time Amanda had flown to Ontario (for the second time!), she made me promise that I would come out and see her next time! She even promised me a Slushie from the Co-op! ;) I promised that I would try, but definitely not until springtime...

Well, combine the excitement over the crop by the SK girls in the Just Cre8 forum and a seat sale from WestJet and well... looks like I'm flying to SK!! I actually hemmed and hawed for a day or so and finally, while MSN'ing with Gary on the day of the sale, we had this conversation:

Me: Amanda really wants me to fly out for the crop in March
Him: So go then!
Me: I dunno - our mortgage is coming due, and we're getting the new car... and I really wanted to work on getting our finances in good shape this year...
Him: There's always going to be a mortgage and a car payment and bills. Go and enjoy yourself - you work too hard.
Me: I dunno...
Him: Hey, you know what I want for my birthday in March?
Me: (a little disconcerted that he would change topics so quickly) Peace and quiet?? :D
Him: A round trip ticket to SK for you.
Me: (not sure if I should be offended or not...) So you and the kids can have a big party?
Him: Heck no! I'm going to ditch the kids and have a big party! :D Seriously, you should do this - take the time now and go have fun.

So if you didn't have ample opportunity to realize why I married this guy, you now have proof! Needless to say, I booked my trip that afternoon and have started the countdown!! I'm still crossing my fingers that Lori will be able to make the trip with me...

I leave on Thursday, Mar. 19th from London at 1pm and land in SK at 4pm, with a brief 40 minute layover in Winnipeg. And I'm leaving SK at 11am on Monday, Mar. 23rd and arriving in London at 8pm, with a layover in Calgary of about 2.5 hours. So any of my AB friends, if you're close enough to come out, let's meet for lunch!!

Now to figure out not only what to pack to WEAR, but what to bring for the crop... :)