Christmas Come and Gone

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Mine was wonderful! I really enjoy spending time with my family and I especially love giving gifts. I love seeing the expressions on peoples faces when they get what they want.

My son got almost everything he wanted and today I spent most of the day putting them together. I think by now he has opened every toy and played with it at least once. I can officially say I am an expert at reading Star Wars Legos directions...and I my ability to have patience, while my son puts the parts together at a snails pace, is very good. Well not that everything is together, and he knows how to play with them, I can have me time.

I took a bunch of pictures, did you? I can't wait to sit and scrap this Friday. So if you are not busy and would love to get those wonderful Christmas pictures into albums, join me for a fun filled evening of scrapbooking and rubber stamping this Friday, December 28th, 6pm to Midnight. The cost is $10 per participant and includes: pizza dinner, snacks, beverages, use of my tools, goodie bags, raffles and fun! Please contact me ASAP to reserve your seat. Seats are limited.

Christmas is Coming

I love the days leading up to Christmas. All the gifts are bought and wrapped, now it's time to just sit and wait...not!

My favorite thing to do is to tease my husband about what he's getting. I know, I know, I'm as bad as one of the kids. Well I was the youngest growing up, so my poor husband gets the payback my brother should be receiving. I look at it this way, I'm not teasing our son.

Well I hope everyone is having as much fun as me.

Merry Christmas

I'm still here!

I have been so bad about keeping up with my blog, I apologize for not posting lately. I'm sure many of you feel like me at time of year, over stressed. Ever since Thanksgiving, I have been very busy, Christmas shopping, present wrapping, making Christmas cards, new lights and new cushions for the crop room, and lets not forget studying for Finals. I will soon be doing a happy dance Thursday, Dec. 13th. I will be done with all my Finals and ready to tackle the rest of my list of things to do. Well back to my studies.

And don't forget, Friday, Dec. 14th, I will be hosting a crop in my home. The cost is $10 per participant, includes: dinner, snacks, use of my tools, raffles and fun. Contact me if you would like to join us.

November 17th All Day Scrap & Stamp Follow-up

The All Day Scrap-N-Stamp was a HUGE success! We had a great time and everyone won a door prize. Raffle tickets were given out throughout the day and everyone was anxious to receive them. There were six lucky ladies that walked away with some wonderful raffle prizes. It was truely a day of many prizes!

I also had many requests for another All Day Scrap-N-Stamp. I am working on another date in February which will be anounced very soon! Keep your eyes and ears open so you can be the first to sign-up.

November 17th All Day Scrap & Stamp

I'm really excited about the All Day Scrap & Stamp this Saturday. It will be a full house. We have 12 ladies scrapping and stamping with us and door prizes for everyone. In addition, we have 6 BIG prizes that will be raffled at 8pm. Raffled tickets will be earned throughout the day. We are going to have a GREAT time!

Sycamore Pumpkin Fest Craft Show Winners!

I had a great time meeting everyone at the craft show. It was a huge success and I will definitely be participating in this event again. Congratulations to the following ladies that won a FREE crop ($10 value).

Catherin Finn
Linda Walz
Bethany Montgomery
Rebecca Eduard

Watch your mailbox for your gift certificate. I hope to see everyone again soon!

Tails Rescued Dogs

We have been spending time working with the rescued dogs at the Tails Humane Society and loving every minute of it. Here are some photos of the dogs we walked and played with. These dogs are wonderful and hopefully will be adopted by loving families. If you don't know the story about these animals and many others, please visit: http://www.tailshumanesociety.org/ and click on Hoarding Rescue. It will break your heart.

Ask and You Shall Receive

Many of you can’t wait until Nov. 30th for the next midnight crop, so I have scheduled an All Day Scrap-N-Stamp for you. It will be November 17th from 10AM to 10PM! You MUST register by 11/11/07. It will be just like the scrapbook retreat that myself and few other scrappers were on. We will have challenges, prizes, raffles and everyone will receive a door prize! I am looking forward to all the fun, so register quickly while seats are available.

The Slammer and Friday's Crop

Well I think I'm finally recovered from last weekend's scrapbook retreat at The Slammer. We had a great time and they are thinking of doing another one next spring! I can't wait to go again! Everyone won a doorprize, we also played dirty santa, we had challenges to complete which helped us win more raffles. Here are a few pictures from the event.

This past Friday's crop was also a hit. I really enjoyed everyone. We had Nancy join us for the first time and she said she'll be back. Karen joined us again. She made her first scrapbook page with us last month and couldn't wait to show it to her daughter. Well ladies we've hooked another one. I love when new people get excited about scrapbooking, I always remember my first time. I wanted it ALL. And now 11 years later, I'm still on the same mission.

Remember to check my new website by October 15th and drop me an email to win a free crop!

NEW! Creative Escape Website

Well I've finally jumped into the cyber world with both feet. I'm so excited about my new website. You can see the completed pages I have for sale, list of upcoming events, discounts I'm offering and so much more. So click on over and check it out: www.creativeescapeil.com. Drop me an email and let me know what you think, you'll be entered into a drawing for a FREE crop!

Christmas Card Stamp-a-Stack

Look at the wonderful cards we will be making at the Christmas Card Stamp-a-stack. If you would like to join us, please contact me by Friday 10AM. I still have seats available.

You will be making 5 sets of these beautiful cards including envelopes. The cost is $25 for 25 cards.

If you can't make it on Friday night and would still like to make these cards, please contact me.

Friday Crop - 9/7/07

Hi ladies,
I still have seats available for this Friday's crop. Please let me know ASAP if you'd like to join in on all the fun. bridgette_scraps@comcast.net

DeKalb Cornfest

I want to thank everyone that stopped by my booth at DeKalb Cornfest. I had a great time meeting so many people.

The winners of the FREE Crop are: Karen Mason, Jean Gilmer, Angela Caminata, Doreen Langereis and Kristin Lenschow.

The winner of the basket is: Sandy Jonker.

Pazzle Machine

Well I have to say I have the most wonderful husband. The night of the expo, I told my husband about the amazing Pazzle machine. Well he told me to buy if for my early Christmas present! I was so excited, but there was a problem...I had my booth in the DeKalb Cornfest Craft Show and couldn't go back on Saturday. So my dh went back to the Expo for me. Can you just picture this 6'3" man standing in a sea of women? He had to take our 6 year old son with hime and I guess my son wanted to go shopping for me. And all my husband wanted to do is get the heck out of there. Now we just have to wait for it to arrive.

Scrapbook Expo

I just returned home from the Scrapbook Expo in St. Charles. It was nice, but they didn't have anything new. I wish they would move it back to October like it used to be. That's just after all the new things are out and you get to see them first hand. I did like the demonstrations of the Bind-it-all, but I contained myself. But then I saw the Pazzle die cut machine. It blew me away! I was a good girl and didn't buy it just then...I'm going to save my money and buy it later! The one I want is almost $700. Maybe next year.

If you were able to get to the Scrapbook Expo, please let me know your thoughts.

Toadally Adorable

I just finished making this scrapbook page and LOVE IT! This is why I need a little girl, I love working with flowers and pink. Dillon's favorite color used to be pink, but he says he's grown up now and it's not a very boyish color.

All the paper piecing is handmade including the tear bears. I love these bears and you'll probably see them again in a lot of my pages.

I told my husband that if we had a girl, there would be no way I would sell this, It's "Toadally Adorable." Stop by my booth at Cornfest to see it in person.

Wedding Tin

Hello, I made this wedding paint can for a customer and love the way it turned out. I just had to share it with all of you. The wedding colors are champaign and green.

You can see more of it on my yahoo group, under photos. There is a link at the bottom of this page to sign up for my Creative Escape yahoo group. You can see other things I made and additional pictures of the scrap room.

Painted Scrap Room

I finally got around to taking some pictures of my crop room now that it's painted. I still have some work to do in there, but that will have to wait until after the Cornfest Craftshow. The farthest end of the room still needs to be painted, but we want to pull out the bar anyways so I don't want to put too much work into it for nothing. I may just wait until the bar is gone. You'll have to come and see it yourself. Come to a crop, they're a lot of fun!

Oh and here is a picture before the paint to give you something to compare it too.

New Halloween Page complete

I just finished another premade scrapbook page for the Cornfest craft show. I am soooo excited about this one, because it's my first attempt at Tear Bears and they turned out adorable...my personal opinion. Please come see me at Cornfest and check it out in person. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Hubby's first time in a LSS.

I forgot to mention that my dh had his first trip to a scrapbook store last Saturday. He wanted to check out a Kayak store in Rockford he found on the internet, and I decided to go with him just get out of the house. On the way up there we past "Captured Moments - Scrapbook Superstore" and of course I had to point it out to him. Well on the way back he pulled in there because I was such a good sport about standing around looking at a bunch of boats and paddles.

Now don't get me wrong, I like to go kayaking too, but the whole "let's discuss the dimension of a kayak and the weight of a paddle" bores me. My feelings are, give me a boat and paddle and show me the water.

Well anyways, when we walked in he was shocked at how much stuff there was. Then he started asking me questions about all the tools and such. He finally got bored and said that I could shop. You don't have to tell me twice. Well after I bought my whole $15 worth of stuff (I was being good) I said I was ready to go. He asked if I had gotten what I wanted, and what do you think I said..."well there is something else that I want but that's ok." Being the loving husband that he is, he asked what it was. It's the Blossom Alphabet set for the Quickutz Revolution (which I can use on my cuttlebug), it was on sale for $90 (reg. $150). I showed it to him, and boy was he in a good mood because he said I could get it! I jumped up and down, let out a squeel, and gave him a big hug. All the women in the store laughed and he became the hero for the day. I'm sure they're still talking about what a wonderful husband he is and what a freak I am.

Later that night, I asked him what he thought of the store and he said, "I didn't know there were stores dedicated to just scrapbooking." Well DUH! Where does he think I'm going when I tell him I'm going to the scrapbook store? So again, I dropped my little hint about openning my own SB store. Now that he's seen a thriving store, he became a little more open to the idea...at least for the moment.

Well enough of my rambling, I hope you enjoyed my little story.

BTW - I used my new "Blossom" alpha set on my Trick-or-Treat page below.

I got some work done.

I finally got some pictures of the pages I completed the last couple of days. Some of you will probably recognize the "Trick-or-Treat" page from Friday's crop. I finally finished it on Saturday. I am working on another Halloween page, but I'm not quite done yet. I figured I'd give you a sneak peak of what I will have for sale at the Cornfest Craft Show.

Please give me any constructive criticism if you like. It's always helpful and many times other people see things that I don't.

I hope you like them.

Friday's Crop Follow-up

Last nights crop was a lot of fun! I was so pumped after everyone left that I didn't go to bed until 4am. I am scheduling the next crop for Friday, September 7th, 6pm to Midnight (or ???).

I learned a lot from all of the ladies that came. I will pass these little tidbits on to you.

1. Natalie uses Pizza Hut's medium pizza boxes for storing and organizing her 12 x 12 papers. She frequent PH often and when she is checking out, she asks for a box for her crafts and they give one to her...FREE! Love it!

2. Vickie told me that you can register your Cricut and all your cartridges on-line. You can also make a wish list for additional cartridges on-line. These lists can be printed out to give to people for gift lists. I did not know this and so consequently, this is was one of the things I was doing until 4am.

3. Jenny told us that the USB port on the back of the Cricut machine will be usable this fall. I can't wait! And she also told us about a kids version of the Cuddle Bug die cut machine...Dillon will love this. And I wasn't the only one that couldn't sleep after cropping last night, Jenny sent me the link to find out more about the Cricut at 1:50 am: http://www.provocraft.com/blog/index.php. Another reason I didn't go to bed.

4. Last but not least, I will be putting a file on my Creative Escape Yahoo Group for poems, sayings and quotes for everyone to share. You are all welcome to join my group, see the yahoo group sign-up at the bottom of my blog.

If there is anything else I missed, please don't hesitate to send me an email so I can post it to everyone.

Well off to do some more scrapping.

Meetup Group

Hi Ladies,
I haven't had much time to post lately, summer is going by soooooo fast. Most of the scrapbook room is painted but there a few minor areas that I want to paint.

I have started a Meetup Group at www.meetup.com. This a great little sight for people to join allowing people to meet other people in their area with the same interests. It also has a great feature where people can RSVP to my events a web page that I created on it. Check it out!

My meetup page link is: http://scrapbook.meetup.com/1674/. Take a peak and tell me what you think.

The Painting has begun!

Well it is finally happening! The scrapbook room is getting a fresh coat of pain all around. It is coming together nicely. I'm hoping to be done by midweek and have a few pictures posted by the end of the week. Check back soon for updates.

Address Tin

I finally finished an address tin that somebody asked me to make for them. I really like it and want to make one for myself now. I hope you like it.

I am having a friend over to scrap tomorrow while my son is away at VBS. I can't wait to dive into all my pictures. I hope to have some more pictures up tomorrow night.

Enjoy!

I've Finally Done It

I finally have a blog site. I don't know how good I will be at this, but I'm willing to give it a try.

I hope to put pictures of the things I make and hope you enjoy them. I will also be posting pictures to my yahoo group and dates of upcoming scrap events there as well. If you are interested in getting on my yahoo group, please let me know so I can send you an invite.

Well ta ta for now. Check back soon for pictures.