I got this nice surprise yesterday from DebbyD! Thanks Deb! It’s the Kreativ Blogger Award! Debby is super talented, she is a member at WeScrap and she’s taken some of my online classes. Check out her blog: http://drdewilde.blogspot.com/  Debby is also in the Fresh Face Contest right now at WeScrap! 

With the award came some simple rules: 

1. The winner may put the logo on their blog.
2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Provide links to their blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.

So I have gone through the comments that were posted here a couple days ago for the giveaway and randomly chose 5 of the ones who had blogs listed. I think all these ladies are fabulous! 

1. Vicky Kelly  http://vickykelly.wordpress.com/

2. Allison Cope http://yourmemoriescanada.blogspot.com

3. Tammy http://creativedomesticity.blogspot.com/

4. Amanda Dunn http://amandaanndunn.blogspot.com/

5. Sue Gerdes  http://susiesscrappers.blogspot.com 

On another note: I am extremely tired today. Last night I drove across the border with some friends to go to the midnight madness sale at the Seattle Premium outlets. We didn’t get down there until 10:30pm and a few of the stores had opened early (like Banana Republic and Gap). The line ups were huge! Between waiting in line to get into the store, waiting in line for change rooms, and then waiting in line to pay, we spent hours and hours in line ups!! Was it worth it? I’m not sure. We did get some incredibly good deals, but all the lines and crowds were brutal. I got home at 5:30am this morning so I’ve only had about 4 hours sleep. At least it’s Friday!! Happy Friday everybody!

Heather H: won the Betcha Didn’t Know Mini Album kit  

and

Susie: won the Favorites Mini Maze Book Kit

Congrats to both of you! Please send me your addresses and I will get these kits shipped off to you right away!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!

7 new online classes were just posted at WeScrap, so I’m going to do 2 giveaways – one for a “Betcha Didn’t Know” coaster mini album class and one for “Favorites” Mini Maze Book. All you need to do is post a comment here by Tuesday night at 11:59pm (PST) and I will have random.org choose 2 winners, which I will post up on Wednesday. The class kits will be mailed to the winners on Friday morning. 

I’ll be running the popular technique classes again starting in January – 101 (FREE to everyone), 102, and I’m starting a brand new one – Techniques 103!! It’s going to be awesome! There’s already been lots of sign ups for it, so if you’d like to sign up for any of these Technique classes, you can register here

Here are a few sneak peeks of the Holiday Clear Mini Album class – I had a lot of fun making these, and there was lots of product left over from the kit! I love it when that happens : )  (There are a few different variations on this book)

There are only a few spots left in this class so if you were wanting to sign up, you still can! Registration for this class will end on Thursday as the kits need to be mailed out Friday. 

I turned 31 yesterday. I spent most of the day doing homework, working on projects and writing a speech for my class presentation. Fun stuff, lol. 

However, a special treat was that my best friend got to accompany me to school last night. Angus was part of my presentation in my Public Speaking Class so he came and spent the entire 3 hour class with me. He was as good as gold, never made a peep the entire class, and spent most of it sleeping on my lap with his head resting on the desk, so adorable. 

My instructor made an announcement at the beginning of class that we had a special guest joining us, Angus of course, hehe. Then after the class he said Angus was so good that he wished all the students were as well behaved as him. I’m so proud : )

Angus at school

on our way

It was a quick but fun trip to Seattle for the Creating Keepsakes Convention. I taught 2 classes, both on mini books, and as promised, here are some photos of the finished Maze book for those who took the class. I learned the hard way that one bind it all machine is NOT enough for 40 people in a one hour class, so a big thank you to everyone for being so patient! I am going to invest in at least one more BIA for when I’m teaching away from a store. 

My mum came with me for the trip and I’m really glad she was able to come! Even though we were exhausted from all the driving (and getting lost a couple times along the way!), we still had a fun time! Thanks for coming Mum! 

A short post for tonight, but I’ve gotta go study for an exam that I have tomorrow morning. Only 3 weeks left of school! Woohoo!! 

I have eaten way way too much candy this weekend! This is why I do not go and buy Halloween candy until Halloween day, cause otherwise I will eat it all before the trick or treaters come to the door. Even buying it only hours before they came I still managed to eat quite a bit! lol

It was another busy week, and I cannot believe it is now NOVEMBER!!!! 

Here’s a recap of this past week:

Tuesday I had to do a demonstration speech in my Public Speaking class so I demonstrated how to make a mini book (of course!). I showed everyone how to make a maze book and I did the entire thing in 4 minutes. A record for me I think. I spent hours on the previous weekend making 18 little maze books, so that I could give one out to all my classmates as I was doing the demonstration. I made little tags using some ink blending techniques that Tim Holtz taught us at Ranger U, and I put everyone’s name on a tag and their first initial on their mini book. 

the stack of maze books

one for everyone...

Thursday night Jodi and Dasha came over for dinner and to help us carve all the pumpkins. It was Jodi’s birthday – poor girl having to carve pumpkins on her birthday! lol! After we ate dinner and had yummy cake, we set to work in our kitchen, which we transformed to a pumpkin carving factory, for the evening. 

Look at this mess....

Brent and Jodi spent forever carving their intricate designs on their punmpkins, and Brent also showed Dasha how to do it. Those are the ones where you have to poke the image onto the pumpkin with a tiny poking tool, then cut it out with a narrow little saw. I just don’t have the patience for doing that. I like cleaning the pumpkins out and that’s really it. Actually the whole thrill of the pumpkin thing for me is picking them out in the pumpkin patch. I really don’t like actually carving them at all.  Since we had 6 big pumpkins between all of us, I was told that I needed to carve one too. So I ended up carving 2 of them, each in less than a minute. Simple designs but that’s ok. I call them my 30 second pumpkins!

Fuzzy needs a haircut...

On Friday I picked Dasha up at school and brought her over to our place for a couple hours until Jodi finished work and met us here. Jodi did such a great job on Dasha’s costume, she was the cutest little Starbuck’s cup! 

 Our friends Tim & Alicia arrived from Victoria after dinner to stay with us for the weekend. We all just wanted to hang out and take it easy for the evening but somehow the conversation got onto the new Guitar Hero World Tour for the Wii that just got released. It’s supposedly sold out here everywhere but I ended up getting on the phone and calling every Walmart in the city as well as Best Buy and Toys R Us, and everywhere was sold out. As a last resort I called the closest Target to us (in Washington) and they had one left. The guy put it on hold for me, so I got off the phone and told Brent I found one – at Target across the border, lol. I didn’t think he’d actually go, but after discussing it with Tim for a whole minute, they both jumped up and bolted out the door. It was already 9:00pm and Target closed at 10, plus they still had to drive to the border, and get through the border. They made it through though, after the border guard got a good chuckle at the two guys rushing across the border to buy Guitar Hero. They made it to Target a few minutes before it closed, and returned home at 10:30…with Guitar Hero of course.

 I have to say it is pretty cool, very similar to Rock Band that we played once before but this one has better songs. It also has a better drum set and the guitar is wireless. The guys had it all hooked up in about 5 minutes then we all played it until 2am!!!!! I haven’t stayed up that late in…..I don’t even know….it’s been a LONG time. 

Saturday night we had a couple more friends over for a little party. We played cranium, scattegories and of course, more Guitar Hero.

Let's Party!!

Alicia and Nina

Alicia's beautiful cupcakes!

Tobie (Tim & Alicia's dog) loved this toy so much, he wouldn't put it down