Weekend Getaway at Cattail Retreat

October 24, 2018October 24, 20186 Comments

We had a fabulous time during our weekend getaway at Cattail Retreat. We split the room with half working on paper crafts and half working on quilting and gifts. Creativity was flowing in all directions!

First up was piling kits for upcoming Christmas card making sessions. I took advantage of the free table space until other guests arrived. That’s about 100 kits pictured. I did another 100 after these were stuffed in their envelopes.

The design for these kits uses retired designer series paper and ribbon…gingerbread punch is in our annual catalog!

Since Halloween is next week, I designed a spooky pillow gift. Dawn sewed a fun pouch to share as a pillow gift too. Thanks Dawn!

After my kit piling was done, I worked on reducing my whisper white paper scrap pile by punching bows from the Candy Cane builder punch. I used all my scraps and created about 150 bows. I stamped the hohoho words using real red ink from the coordinating Candy Cane Season stamp set. They are attached to glue dots strips for easy assembly.

We had lots of great food including taco dip, chili, southwest black bean soup and chicken chili in tomato sauce. Treats were an apple pie from #NorskeNook, gluten free brownies from #chocolatecoveredkatie and mango turmeric #Nessallakombucha. All delicious!

I set aside my paper crafts to hook a few loops on my pear centerpiece. The photo on the left is progress from the August retreat, the first 2 pears hooked. The photo on the right is progress made this weekend. I completed 3 pears! #patience and #goals learned while rug hooking for sure! It takes me a couple of hours to hook 1 pear.

Group photo right before packing up with some of the quilts worked on while at retreat in the background. We missed a few people that departed early.

The original retreaters…Tiffany on left, me in the center and Jeanette on the right. They are scrapbooking super stars! They design layouts and print photos prior to the weekend. During retreat, they match photos with layouts. They stay on task and usually meet their goal and matching all the photos with layouts. Pretty impressive since they have littles and take advantage of life experiences so have lots of memories to keep!

Thanks for a great weekend! Catch you next time at Cattail Retreat!

Super Awesome Weekend Getawayer Shirley

P.S. Future retreats are February 8-10, 2019, August 9-11, 2019 and October 18-20, 2019. Message me if you are interested in attending these dates. Thanks!

Willy Street Annual Meeting and Party

July 22, 2018July 21, 2018Leave a comment

I am a member of the Willy Street Co-op in Madison. They host an annual meeting and party on the hottest day of the year! Last year, I had Mom to keep me company.

This year, I was on my own and got there early. The next photo is me in line with the same building as the top photo. I was right next to the tree just beyond the red van this year.

This many people were earlier birds than I was.

The next photo is what I brought along to work on while in line while sitting on Lava Buns. I did not realize until I started working on assembling that I brought an appropriately colored and themed project. An eggplant and dark purple colors are in the #WillyStreet logo. Co-op brings to mind fabulous produce in all gloriousness like what is printed on the patterned paper.

I had a nice conversation with a young man while in line. He works in education and seems well fitted for his job. He was hoping to score almond butter in his gift bag. I got espresso peanut butter #yumbutter so he might have gotten that variety too.

We enjoyed samples from many vendors including #nessalla #chocolateshoppeicecream #zanzibaryum #wiscopop #tierrafarm #albertsfreshproduce

Falafel with hummus, green salad and cookie rounded out the grazing.

Maybe next year it will be cool enough to stay and enjoy the music. I headed to my air conditioned coolness as quick as I could!

Super Awesome Willy Street Co-op Member Shirley Merker

You might be a scrapbooking foodie if…

February 11, 2018February 10, 2018Leave a comment

you color coordinate your kombucha to your scrapbook layout! Look at this gorgeous lemon lime twist colored NessAlla kombucha logo and the bermuda bay colored sticker towards the bottom…

Both of these colors are featured in the Bubbles and Fizz designer series paper. So it was destiny that I scrapbook my kombucha journey. The NessAlla stickers are the perfect memorabilia since they are flat and won’t add much thickness to the page.

I just need to add my favorite NessAlla flavors, my home brewing observations, the SCOBY drive thru story. You know, the journaling part that gets done later.

side by side, 12×12 inch layouts with the brew that inspired it!

Can you see the different basic black mat widths around the edges? The one on the left has a 1/4 inch mat. The one on the right has a 1/2 inch mat. I’ll have to walk around the layout a few more days to decide which mat I like. Nothing is taped down yet so I can make some adjustments and add more journaling space if needed. It usually takes a few days for a layout to be finished for me. I’ll pull out all the supplies I want to use and make a rough design. After a few days of walking around the layout and making adjustments, I can declare it is done!

Supplies used:

12×12 basic black cardstock for the base layer (matches the popped bubbles on the dsp)

Bubbles and Fizz designer series paper which is earned free with a $50 Sale-A-Bration order

lemon lime twist, bermuda bay, calypso coral (on the assorted sized bubbles) cardstock

whisper white cardstock

Bottles and Bubbles framelits

Stitched Shapes framelits

All paper crafting supplies can be ordered at my online store here.

To find NessAlla kombucha near you, visit their website here for locations. They have tappers at Willy Street Co-op in the Madison area which makes it convenient to reuse their bottles.

Are you a scrapbooking foodie? Add a comment if you are and what your favorite foodie adventure is that you scrapbooked.

And yes, lemongrass ginger is my favorite flavor followed by hibiscus cardamom ginger when I am feeling I need a little red spice in my life.

Until next time,

Super Awesome Scrapbooker Shirley

CASEing the Blog Hop Design 2

January 9, 2018January 8, 20182 Comments

I participated and helped coordinate a Sale-A-Bration 2018 Blog Hop that was posted last week. If you missed it, click here to hop along.

I got the idea to CASE the designs shared on the other blogs. I am CASEing Terri Stewart for day 2. Click here to see her designs. She used the Party Pandas stamp set for some fun cards.

I had a growing pile of cut ends from Bubbles and Fizz designer series paper(dsp) from creating a stack of cards yesterday. I remembered Terri Stewart used strips of dsp on her card so I knew I could CASE her card while reducing my scrape pile.

I decided the easiest way to align the 4 x 1 1/4 inch dsp strips was on a calypso coral cardstock mat that was cut to 4 1/8 x 5 3/8 inches. I next cut the largest square stitched shapes framelit from powder pink cardstock. I had bottles already cut using the coordinating framelits from yesterday’s cutting session so it was easy to add 3 bottles to the front of the card.

The pink love mini tinsel trim makes a secure bow and fun embellishment that can be extended to the other side of the card. I decided to pull the ends to match the feeling of the sentiment, like bubbling over.

The tinsel trim is too narrow for a full, glue dot. So I rolled it as shown below using my paper piercing tool. The tool makes easy pick up to transfer the glue dot under the curves of the trim to anchor it in just the right spots.

Close up of the final card. I also stamped bermuda bay bubbles and the sentiment from the Bubble Over stamp set. A vellum straw adds the last detail.

When I saw the Bubble Over bundle, I knew this would be the first set to add to my stash because I am a kombucha home brewer and drinker.

The NessAlla kombucha growler is from our local brewers who are 2 friends that are now girl bosses of their own company. They brew all year favorites and seasonals that taste so good and are good for you! Right now, my favorite flavor is lemongrass ginger. I seem to follow the seasons and this has a nice warm, brown tone. Check out their website here to find out if they distribute in your area.

I’ll have another Blog Hop CASE shortly so check back in a day or 2. Thanks for stopping by!

Super Awesome Stamper Shirley