The Stampin' Grounds

No Pics, No Posts

As you may have noticed, I haven't been posting much for the past couple of weeks.  There is a huge reason for that - my camera was stolen!  <snif>  Yep - no camera to take pics!  VERY frustrating, as I have made the most ADORABLE projects that I want to share with you! 

So, I have had to order a new camera, and while I am waiting, I'm afraid you will have to imagine the awesome things I'm making. 

OH WAIT!  OR, you can come on out on Saturday for my Open House, where I will be showing you LOTS of new projects for the holidays!  From Halloween to Christmas - you are going to love this stuff!  There are only a few spaces left in the morning session, and several left in the afternoon, so come on out!  RSVP HERE for a make n' take!

In the meantime, cross your fingers that I get my camera soon!

Clearance Rack BLOWOUT!

WOW!  Check this out - Stampin' Up! has added a clearance rack to my online store!  You can get items for up to 79% off!! 

Click Here!

• then click 'SHOP NOW'
• then click 'Clearance Rack' in the left column.

You aren't going to believe all the bargains you will find!  They are ONLY available on my online store, and they are ONLY while supplies last, so get in there and get shopping!

Here's an idea of what you will see! (listed this morning):

WOO HOO!  I LOVE Bargains!!

Christmas Stamp a Stack WEDNESDAY!

For those of you who like to plan ahead, WEDNESDAY, Sep. 30th is the first seasonal Christmas Stamp a Stack of cards event! 

Come get the season started by making 12 Christmas Cards with matching stamped envelopes - 4 cards each of 3 designs!  Won't you be happy when your Christmas cards are all stamped and ready to send?!  RSVP NOW! Registration closes VERY SOON! 

$25 Class Fee, 2.5 Hour class

Wednesday, September 30th
7-9:30pm
My Studio, Vancouver, BC (address will be given upon registration)

Reminder - Oct 3rd Christmas & Halloween Planning Open House!

Just a quick reminder to everyone that Oct. 3rd is rapidly approaching!  Are you planning to attend my Christmas and Halloween planning Open House?  Did you know that there are only 1/2 the tickets left already?  You won't get a make n' take or a chair if you don't sign up!  Here's the info:

Looking for Christmas Card and Project ideas?  Halloween??  Want to learn more about the new product lines introduced in the Mini Catalog?  This is the event to attend!

Fabulous Door Prizes, Lots of Learning, and a Grand Prize draw of a FREE Bigshot OR My Digital Studios!

This Open House will be a little different - I want to show you as many ideas as possible to get your creative juices flowing into this holiday season, so plan to bring a notebook and take some notes!  I will be teaching ink and paper techniques, seasonal project ideas, My Digital Studio basics, and more!  There will be less time to gab, but more time for ideas!

The theme is THANKSGIVING, HALLOWEEN and of course, CHRISTMAS!

RSVP early - due to the nature of the event, I will be limiting seats to 20 for each session - morning 9-noon, OR afternoon 1-4pm.

See you here!

Canyoneering at Founders Circle (part 2)

So, up we went up the nearest little 'mountain', warming up for our potential bad-guy smack down.  You can imagine our extreme disappointment when we reached the road into the slot canyon, and there was the sign 'road closed'.  <sigh>  We were turned away and this time informed that due to union regulations, we were being surplussed in favour of 'real cops'.  <humph!>  So much for the excitement of both a slot-canyon AND bad guy chasing!  Or so we thought....

Since our guides had planned a special day for us and it was thwarted, they quickly scrambled and planned us a NEW adventure for the day, bigger, better and harder than the one planned!

So, off we went with Feo to first have the most incredible gourmet lunch ever, prepared by him!  Not a bad day so far - a short hike, and then a gourmet lunch - and even my vegetarian lunch was the best ever - YUMM!

Our guides then took us to our next destination, where they taught us to rappel down a boulder, and then a cliff.  The only rappelling I had ever done before this was in university, when I used to rock-wall climb, and I have to say that it's not the same thing at all!  Yep, I was scared, but I did it!  Here are some pics from the experience:

Here we are, getting the crash course in rappelling...

Here I am going over the boulder first (my first rappel) - note the ease and look of confidence... You should have seen me once I had actually gone over the boulder!  LOL (not so confident!)

And me on the 'Real Rappel' - and believe it or not, I actually was pretty confident by this point!  Once I got over the edge, it was actually kind of fun! 

My friend Lynsay Mahon going down the 'big rock' - check out the height - cool, eh?!  That's one of our guides at the bottom in red!  (the speck roughly below her bum)

Here's the view from the bottom up:

When we got to the bottom, we landed in this beautiful kind of sheltered area - SO gorgeous down there!

After we all got down from the 'big ol' rock', we found out that our next adventure was to zip-line across a 600 foot canyon - WOW!  I didn't get any shots of the canyon itself, but here's a shot at least of me going across!  WHEE!!

At the end we had a scramble and quick climb (roped in) to the top of the cliff, and then a short walk back to the car.  The entire day was about 9 hours of adventure, and while I was scared a lot of the time, I am SO glad I did it, and if I ever have the chance to do it again, I would do it in a heartbeat. 

Probably the coolest part about the experience was that I got to hang out with 9 friends from Founders Circle, and we got to share this adventure together.  Founders Circle gives you the time to really get to know each other in off-site events, if you choose - what a gift!  What a chance of a lifetime!  I am so blessed.

In closing (for this part of the trip), I want to thank Paragon Adventures, our guides, for their amazing guidance, support and teaching on this trip - if you are EVER anywhere NEAR St. George (as in Vegas, or some other city), you HAVE to contact them - you won't regret it - honestly the best adventure company I have ever seen, and you know you are in safe hands.  They are so good, I am considering dragging Tom down with me for a vacation canyoneering there sometime!  Click on the pic below to get to their site!

More on the Official Events of Founders Circle soon!

On a Side Note - My Digital Scrapbook!

I just finished my first 'My Digital Studios' page!  What do you think??  This is of Tom and I in Hawaii at the Incentive Trip this past year - I'm going to put together a scrapbook of our time together and have it printed into a book - I can't wait!  I'll keep you posted as I create it, and share my pages with you.

I LOVE this program - it has been incredibly easy to create these pages. I WILL be showing you a few things using this new program at my Open House on OCTOBER 3rd  - be sure to RSVP if you are planning to come!  I will be showcasing LOTS of new products and I will be GIVING AWAY a My Digital Studio that day!

If you want to receive your own My Digital Studio program as soon as you possibly can, I will be placing an 'early bird' order on October 1st for everyone who wants to get their hands on it ASAP!  Please let me know if you want to be the first to get it!  Every person who places an order for this program will receive THREE CLASSES from me on the program!!  

On this particular page, I used the following My Digital Studio elements:

• Whisper White background Paper
• "Distressed' Baja Breeze Designer Paper (as a background, and then as an 'image layer'
• 'Friends' 24-7 Medium Stamp
• 'Torn Edges - Distressed' Stamp in Baja Breeze and Chocolate Chip
• Baja Breeze Brad
• 'One Of a Kind Large Flower' - Chocolate Chip
• Baja Breeze Layer for Photo

Stampers 10 On a Mission... (Founders Circle Day 2 Report)

So, Thursday morning, bright and early, I woke up and boarded a white van with 9 of my Stampin' friends.  What you don't know is that this group of unlikely-looking stampers are actually a highly sophisticated, terribly dangerous group of FBI/CIA agents called....

'The Stampers 10'.. 

When things get rough out there, they often call on us to 'stamp out' the trouble, using our brains, beauty and brawn.  We never know when we'll get a call, and Thursday was no different. 

Suspecting nothing, we all gathered aboard the transportation vehicle, driven by Fio, our brave, fearless driver and mission controller (as we later discovered).  While we suspected nothing, I suppose we all knew something was up, as our leader, Kim Peck, had arranged our activity for the day to be 'rappelling into a slot canyon' and 'canyoneering' throughout pools of water as we made our way back to the vehicle.  Hmm... a strange activity for sure for 10 seasoned stampers, as only two of us had ever rappelled before (on completely separate missions). 

Believing this to be a training exercise, we headed out for the so-called 'adventure'.   Upon arriving at the location of the slot canyon, we were stopped by an unmarked vehicle containing police/FBI agents, who were watching a circling helicopter - we knew this did not bode well.  We were told that 6 armed and dangerous men from the Mexican Mafia were loose in the mountains, as they were running a marijuana farm in the hills.  There were 80 police, FBI and DEA agents already covering the hills, trying to catch them before they escaped back to Mexico.

Wondering what our role was to be, they told us that we were their 'secret weapon', and that they were going to use us when and if things 'went wrong'.   You see, our fee of stampets, embellishments, Bigshots and paper on missions is often confusing to them - our last mission resulted in many hours of back and forth with their accounts payable dept. that bashful blue cardstock is NOT the same as brilliant blue, and they needed to replace it tout de suite!  As a result, they try to only use us if absolutely necessary. 

We decided to 'warm up' while waiting for them to sort out 'the bad guys', by taking a hike up a nearby mountain to scope out the situation and check out the local views.. little did we know what adventure would follow from there!......

Founders Circle 2009

So, if you haven't heard, this week is my awesome week of FOUNDERS CIRCLE!  WOO HOO!  I'd normally be posting up a storm, but the internet service here is really spotty, and my camera has gone missing <!>.  But, I've managed a connection now, so I'm going to borrow some pics from Ange's blog (#1 Rising Star this year, and one of my first level downline!  I'm only SLIGHTLY proud as you can see!)  Here's a pic of her in front of her door - we each get a room to ourselves with our names on the door - so cute!

In the meantime, I thought I would at least update you a bit on the trip so far.  I arrived on Wednesday morning after pulling an all-nighter the night before (I had to leave for the airport at 4am) and spent the entire afternoon getting the longest, best massage of my life.. ahhhhhhhhh.....  I rarely get massages, so it is a real treat to have gotten one here - one that my Sweetie, Tom, insisted upon!  THANKS TOM!! :)

That evening Stampin' Up! put on a fantastic soiree for us - a dinner with stunning table linens, turkey dinner and beautiful cards from her too.  It was so beautiful! 

Shelli welcomed us all, and we spent the evening reconnecting with each other. 

I bagged out early, as I had a big hike the next day scheduled, as a few of us were going to rappel into a slot canyon and hike our way out - so exciting!  So, off to bed I went, and when I arrived in my room, the first pillow gift was on my bed - a brand new stampset (can't show you it even, as it won't be out until the Spring Mini!) with new ribbons and a pack of in-colour markers too!  How thoughtful. :)

Now, the next installment in this series gets pretty dramatic.. check back for info about my day of canyoneering.. what was supposed to be a simple rappel into a slot canyon and then a hike turned into much, much more. 

It all started with the Mexican Mafia..........

BigShot Technique Class WEDNESDAY the 9th

Just a reminder - I will be holding a class on Using your Bigshot with INK on Wednesday, Sep 9th, from 7-9pm.  If you are a member of the Bigshot Club, you will receive this class for free as part of your club membership.  You may drop into this class for a $10 fee.  I will put samples up in the next couple of days, so watch out for them!

Please RSVP as either a club member or a drop-in here!