I'm gonna need a truck

Seriously...I think I will need a UHaul to get to the crop next Saturday...that and a couple hefty guys named Moose and Bull to move it all. I just started packing stuff for the Crop for Tornado Relief and OMG! I already filled two and a half huge totes and the event is still 10 days away! By the day of the crop I'll probably have 4 more totes filled! I filled tote numero uno with all sorts of good stuff....boxes of tea for breakfast, lots of yummy munchies and candy, some drinks and other necessities for the event and that's just the beginning...I still have many more drinks to pack plus paper goods and such. Tote numero dos is awesome...if you slapped a bow on it it would be the bestest scrappy gift evah! It's filled to the brim with scrappy goodness that was donated by some very generous people and companies! I've just started getting donations in and I can't believe how much there is already! So far I've gotten a fab box of lace cut paper from Creative Imaginations , 3 awesome prize packs from Fancy Pants Designs and a gift certificate from Heartfelt Memories. In addition to all that scrappy goodness some of the peeps from ClubCK very generously donated all sorts of awesome scrappiness...Hope, Laurie and Jennifer sent boxes packed with tons of great scrappy products! Talk about a tote full of happy scrappy goodness. If that wasn't enough scrappiness to make you drool I topped that tote off with all sorts of great papers from Canson. The third tote isn't filled but it's well on it's way...so far I packed it with lots of fabulous products that were donated by some local consultants... Sue King /Thirty One, Michelle Labonte /Tupperware and Megan Tacy Joy /Mary Kay plus 2 beautiful pairs of earrings donated by Amanda on ClubCK. In addition to all that I packed even more great prizes that were donated by local businesses...baseball tickets donated by the Blue Sox and a certificate for spray tanning. We are definitely going to have some great prizes. And I haven't even gotten everything yet...I still have packages coming from the generous folks at Un-Du, Die Cuts with a View and Little Yellow Bicycle (can't wait to get those packages...hurry up UPS)! Plus more more more more! Honestly now that I think of it I will need way more than 4 totes to pack it all. It will be nothing short of a miracle if I can get all the stuff I need to bring to the crop in my van. I mean really by the time I pack all the totes and the coolers I need and goodie bags I don't know if there will be room to bring my crop bag!

Doing a happy dance

Not because I got ants in my pants...but because of Fancy Pants! Fancy Pants Designs that is! I know lame rhyme but it amused me so i used it LOL. Anyways back to my happiness and Fancy Pants...i've been contacting companies like crazy trying to get donations for our Crop for Tornado Relief Fundraiser and one of my fave companies...Fancy Pants...has agreed to donate 3 prize packs for the event! Woohoo! Isn't that just awesome of them? I think it's beyond awesome! Who the heck is not going to want some Fancy Pants goodness...noone that's who. Lisa over at Fancy Pants couldn't have been nicer...she got back to me right away and said they would be happy to help and she even posted a link to our event on their facebook page. Isn't that just even more awesome...of course it is! Got to love when people go that little extra bit to help you out! You should all pop over to their page and LIKE them and tell them how awesome they are for helping us out because they are awesome! Lisa says the prize packs are already on their way so I'll be stalking the mailman ...can't wait to see all that scrappy goodness. I'll have to try to contain myself as much as possible though...don't think anyone is going to want me drooling all over their great Fancy Pants prize pack LOL.

Busy busy...planning a very important event

So as many of you know I live in Massachusetts and also as many of you may know on June 1st our area was hit by devastating F-3 tornados that left a 39 mile path of destruction. As a result many many people in our area are in dire need of assistance. Some families lost everything and many families are still living in shelters. I was lucky...as were my family and friends...that we all escaped harm and were fortunate enough not to have been directly effected by the tornados even though many of us work or live close to the tornado ravaged areas. Realizing just how fortunate I was and after seeing countless images of the destruction the tornados caused I felt I had to do something to help. I immediately got food and clothes together for donations and have already made a couple trips with loads of donated items but it just seemed like it wasn't enough. More needed to be done. Something bigger. So I decided to plan a crop to raise money for tornado relief. So I've been incredibly busy planning for this event which takes place in less than a month! Yikes. Thankfully I have the help of my scrapping buddies ...Jennifer Ingle (justjingle.blogspot.com), Stacy Deprey and Tina Whitney who have been helping with donations and planning...these ladies rock and have been absolutely amazing. I honestly don't think I could've pulled this off without their help. Here's our flier for the event...



In addition to my fabulous friends, I have been very fortunate that so many businesses have stepped up to help us make this event a huge success including the Hampton Inn in Chicopee where the event will be held...it's a beautiful hotel and the staff there has been top notch. In addition I'd like to thank all the great local scrapbook stores for stepping up including ... Paper, Paper in Northampton, Ink Paper Scissors in Sturbridge, Heartfelt Memories in Brattleboro, Vermont and Life's Memories and More in Palmer, MA all of whom have very generously made donations to our event. We have more companies offering their help and donations each day and tomorrow I am going to link you up with several of them including some of my favorite companies and some really great kit clubs

3 stores 3 days ...what I bought

so wanna hear all about the goodies I got this weekend? of course you do! I bet you can't guess what I bought the most of? If you guessed paper then you know me very well LOL! Seems no matter how much I have I always want more! As for the rest of what I bought...here's a store by store breakdown...

Store #1...Life's Memories and More in Palmer...I got more Undu (love that stuff...even talked my friend Tina into buying her 1st bottle)...also got 5 packs of thickers (my 2nd love), little yellow bicycle 6x6 decorative edge cardstock, magic mesh, jenni bowlin journaling cards, 9 pieces of paper, 2 cats eyes and a versamark ink. A really good haul!

Store #2....Ink, Paper, Scissors in Sturbridge...3 more packs of thickers (dear lizzy fantastic white and wine and delight in black), luxe labels, crate paper emma's shop phrases, jilli bean blossom journaling sprouts, little yellow bicycle corrugated shapes, a page kit and 34 sheets of paper!!!

Store # 3 ... absolutely everything in topsfield...I got 5 glimmer mist (on clearance!!!) glitz hoopla rubons, cosmo cricket odds and ends labels, october afternoon 5 & dime chip n stick (so cute), studio calico elementary labels and lots more paper (18 sheets) plus a little something special for a gift for someone.

Was very excited to get home on Sunday night and go through it all especially all that pretty paper...I got a total of 61 sheets! Got quite a variety too...papers from american crafts, basic grey, bobunny, cosmo cricket, crate paper, creative imaginations, dream street, flair, gcd, glitz, graphic 45, jillibean soup, kaisercraft, karen foster, little yellow bicycle, luxe, october afternoon, paper loft, pebbles, pink paislee, scenic route, studio calico, sassafrass lass! Wheew...what a list! Hopefully all of it will tie me over for a while because my wallet needs some serious time to recover!

days 2 and 3

well the weekend is over and i'm back to report on days 2 and 3! I had an amazing time! Spent my time galavanting through the eastern part of the state...got to visit with some good friends, have a few drinks, do some scrap shopping (yes more!) and even got to hang with one of the cutest babies evah! If your jealous ..you should be!
Let's start with Saturday... the plan was to drive an hour to Natick with a quick side trip to Sturbridge...except my quick side trip took a little longer because my GPS was misbehaving very badly. After giving my GPS a good what for I decided it was useless and turned it off and went it on my own... luckily I was on the right street just had to find the building. After a little searching found my destination... Ink Paper Scissors! Ink Paper Scissors is one of my fave stores...they recently just moved hence my inability to locate them. I know I just went shopping on Friday but I had to stop there to drop off a flier for a crop I'm hosting to raise money for victims of the Massachusetts tornado (more on that this week). So it was a win win...got to do some good deed work and got to do some more shopping. Got some good stuff...mostly paper (as always!). After I gave my wallet it's second workout for the weekend I headed onto Natick where I got to meet up with my super duper good friend from Florida...the one the only ~kim~ ! Kim and I have been friends online for a couple years now but we've only met once so I was super excited to see her again. She's home visiting her family so I got to party with them for the night....her family is awesome. Her sweet mom even put me up for the night so I wouldn't have to get a hotel. Unfortunately the time went by too fast and before we knew it it was Sunday morning and it was time for me to head on to my next destination. So after a quick breakfast at Dunkin with Kim I was off to Billerica. Which for anyone who lives on the eastern half of the state is pronounced Bill-Rick-A...but...since I'm from the western half of the state I pronounced it Bill-err-ick-a...something my good friends from the east enjoyed teasing me about LOL. So off I went to Bill Rick A to see yet another really good friend...my buddy Kerry. Kerry and her hubby were recently blessed with a beautiful baby girl and I was dying to go meet her (oh and see them too LOL). Got a little lost again because my GPS still was misbehaving but I finally got there. Kerry gave me a tour of her beautiful house including her fabulous scrap space...lots of great goodies and I love all her Ikea stuff...got to get to one of them one day. Was very excited to meet the new baby....she is an absolute doll. Picture perfect in every way. After oohing and ahhing at the baby for a while, Kerry gave her husband detailed instructions on taking care of baby and we were off and running to yet another scrap store! Kerry wanted to take me to a store near her I've never been too called Absolutely Everything...with a name like that how could I resist! Well after a quick detour through New Hampshire (Kerry's turn to get lost and get mad at her GPS) we got to the store and it was amazing! They have everything from stamps and inks to stuff for collage, ATC's and cards plus a good selection of scrap supplies. I had to try to behave since this was store #3 in 3 days but sticking to my budget was a lost cause once Kerry told me there was a clearance table and I found glimmer mist for 50% off! So glad I passed up buying it at the other 2 stores. Ending up getting 5 of them plus even more paper cause I didn't get enough at the other 2 stores LOL. After shopping it was back to Kerry's to ooh and ahh over the baby some more ....wish I could've borrowed her and taken her home for a few days! Finally had to call it a day and head home...was bummed to have to leave but it was such a great weekend. Want to thank Kim and her family and Kerry and her hubby for letting me invade their spaces for the weekend.

3 day weekend - day 1

OK everyone I'm back as promised and you didn't have to wait even close to eight months this time. Would've posted sooner but I was busy ALL day....SCRAPPING! That's right ...ALL day...on a Friday! Gots me a 3 day weekend this weekend and I spent day numero uno as a guest at my buddy Tina's house scrapping all day. I didn't get much done but we had a great time. Start time was 9:30 but I got there 2 hours late but it was because I was doing some good deeds so it's all good. Got a little scrapping in and then we broke for lunch and then we decided to take a little field trip and headed out to stop at a local scrapbook store. Haven't been shopping in ages so I was like a kid in a candy store oohing and ahhing over everything. Came home with a bunch of fun goodies...got bunches of thickers, some MME transparencies and of course paper ...gots to have me some new paper...such a junkie. After the shopping we headed back to scrap some more. Had a heck of a time getting anything done...didn't even take out my tape runner until 6 p.m....I'm crazy slow sometime LOL. We broke for dinner ...Tina's fab hubby made us some steaks...he rocks. After some good chow it was back to scrapping and I finally got a little moojo flowing and managed to finish 3 layouts by the time I left at 11:00 ...probably could've got a little more done but I was trying to watch the Bruins game at the same time. Stinkin Canucks. Anywhoo...back to the scrapping stuff...I can't post any pics of the new layouts just yet...too wiped out to bother with all that right now but I pinky promise to get em up and posted next week. I'd do it this weekend but I've got big plans! Stay tuned for more details!

I'm back

Break out the balloons and confetti and let's all celebrate this momentus occasion...I am blogging again. In case you missed it I took a short break from blogging...that is if you consider eight months short... I can't believe it's been that long! So did ya all miss me? I know at least one of ya did (Hi Leslie!). Sorry to be absent for so long but that is just how I roll sometimes. One minute I'm crazy into something ...next minute not so much. Guess it's a good thing I'm not getting paid for blogging or I'd be flat busted broke. I haven't been scrapping tons but the I've made the most of the time I have spent scrapping and have tons of layouts to share and some cool things to show you. So stay tuned. I promise I'll be back soon.