Horseback Riding

Well I'm catching up on my November's activities. Just a short post from when John and I went riding. We went again the next week, but didn't take pictures that day. The day of the pictures, it was a really mild day with lots of sunshine. I only had to wear a light jacket! We go down to Footbridge Park in Blairstown and ride to the airport and get coffee or a bite to eat at the Airport Cafe. Then here's another picture of us outside the cafe at the airport. Some nice lady came along and offered to get a picture for us.

SU Holiday Party

Well I don't know what happened to November by it just flew right by! I did get a chance to go horseback riding with my husband during a couple of the warm days we had. Also this month my wonderful upline Tina had us get together for our annual Holiday party. We usually have this in December, but think everyone was busy to do December. Anyway we had a great time. Everyone brought an appetizer or a dessert to share. Pauline brought a star/card/ornament and Tina insisted that we all make one. We also all made a gift to swap. It had to be something made with SU products. Here's a picture of the box I made and the inside. I also made some ornaments to go in the box. Some were ornaments I made last year using the die cut "peace, love, joy, cheer". I also had made the star/card/ornament that Pauline had brought to show everyone and another ornament we made from our shoebox swap in September or October. It was Louise DelVecchio's. You use DSP and the ornament punch. It was so simple I made a few later that week. We play a game to see who gets what. It's a lot of fun and you may not go home with the gift you first pick, but you do go home with one of the gifts. I forgot my camera to take pictures of all the gifts, but if you go to Colleen's blog, she has pictures of all the gifts. Enjoy! Cyndy

Halloween

Well now that I seem to be back up and running, I thought I'd get at least one picture posted of our recent Municipal Alliance event. Every year the Frelinghuysen Municipal Alliance sponsors the "open house" at our town hall. We do a drug and alcohol free events and Halloween is one of our biggest events. We prepare hot dogs, punch, hot drinks along with lots of candy! We had 150 hot dogs and had to borrow some that were left there. Even though the weather was iffy, we had a great turnout! Here's a picture of our crew and som of our place decked out! Everyone seemed to have a great time!

Computer

Well I think I finally have everything running ok. Had some major problems and still working on getting everything back to what it was. Had to send in my laptop to have one key fixed. Well they couldn't just fix the one, they had to replace the whole thing! Well I bought a new 16GB flashdrive to back up everything. That went fine. Used it a couple of times and then couldn't get it to read on any computer! Oh, how crushed I am! I'm missing pictures from June through October along with numerous files which will takes months to replace. Looking into having a data recovery company try and retrieve the files. Let you know how that goes! So when I got my laptop back, I had to put all my software back on. Thought that was no big deal! Spent the week doing that, a little at a time. Then it started "not responding" to everything, whether I was just trying to open a file or surfing the web! I spent the entire last Friday fixing that! I was having a real meltdown! I was planning on spending the day preparing for the craft show I was doing the next day at the local Blairstown Presbyterian Church. Welll that didn't happen. I have things working again, brought it into the office and had Brandon do his magic so I could work at the office as well. I'm still putting all my favorites back into my favorites file AGAIN! There is that love/hate relationship you have with your computer. I hope all that kind of stuff is behind me. I think I'm going to look into an external hard drive I can use to back up everything from time to time. This is not worth all the frustration and time!

Stamp swap

Well I sent in my laptop in the shop to get the one "key" that popped off. I've been dredding doing this, but needs to be done. Now I have to use my husband's computer which is so as malasses! So here is a quick post of some of the projects we did at my upline Tina meeting the other night. This first one, is the one I did. My sideline Ginger Gould did a similar one with us in a fall theme. The instructions were posted on our SU site and had wanted to make one for the longest time. It's such a cute little book. Would go perfect in your bag to show off your family!

This one was designed by Colleen Benedetto. Such a cute little wagon. We kept on saying all the wonderful things we could put in it as well as make it for different holidays.

This ornament to the right was designed by Louise Del Velvecchio, this was so easy yet so elegant!

The snowman ornament was designed by Tracy Bakunas, this was another quicky but again so cute.

The next one was this Top Note box. Love the holiday paper in the catalog, was going to get, but forgot, got to make sure I pick up this pack! This box was designed by Kathryn Roberts. Beautiful!

These last two were also fun, and just as charming! The left one was using our matchbox die cut and the new sizzlet folder die for the tags, the sizzlet die for the trees, snowflake & bird and the embossing folder. Debbie Modrowsky designed these. The far right was designed by none other then our fabulous upline Tina Rosenkraus. This was using the boxes in the holiday mini as well and a piece from one of the extended Bigz die cuts. You could put a photo there and use it as an ornament or just a decoration during the holidays. Loved all these projects and now have some great ideas for classes!

Enjoy! Cyndy

Octoberfest

Well I finally uploaded my pictures from Octoberfest and Eileen sent me a couple so I can share our group photo. I had a great time and came home exhausted! My Elizabeth girls (as I call them, but they are not all from Elizabeth!) stopped at Newton for dinner and then on to Shoprite to pick up their last essentials for the weekend and got lost getting to camp. My local friend Debbie and I reserved our sleeping spot and then hung out in the dinning hall for the rest of everyone.

Saturday, the weather was beautiful and the first half was rather relaxing. After breakfast I treated myself to a massage and then went to my basketry class. The class was taught by my friend Debbie Zvanut. She told me some time ago that my sister Pam was the one that taught her how to weave! Well Debbie does a beautiful job on her baskets and I always enjoy taking her classes. My friends from Elizabeth and I decided were going to go out to her place, outside of Allentown, and make a basket some weekend. Well I didn't get my basket done during the class. I never do, but did finish later that night (that was around 2am!). We had a lunch break, which was great as usual (so was breakfast). They always have so much food. Here are pictures of me finishing my basket with my instuctor and my finished basket!

The afternoon, I taught two stamping classes. One was a stationery box with a card, gift card & tag to put into it. My other friend Debbie helped me to prepare for these classes along with helping me teach them as well. This class was a bit difficult and took a bit longer, but we got it done! The second class was much easier. They made an explosion box. Here is a picture of my sample, along with what the inside looked like. I found several different variations on the internet. The one we made was just one sheet of 12x12 cardstock for the base and an 8 1/8" square of DSP for the lid. Everyone was able to use more of their creativity on this one. Wish I had taken some pictures while they were working on them, but at this point I was pretty tired! Everyone who wasn't done used the free time we had before dinner to finish up.

After dinner we had a white elephant sale. In case you don't know what that is, everyone brings stuff they don't want anymore, they sell raffle tickets and you take a chance at winning what you put your tickets to. Camp earned enough money to buy a new funyak! Way to go!

Saturday evening after dinner, they had a fire in the dinning hall (not to worry, it was in the fireplace) and sang girl scout songs. I was a bit tired and wanted to finish my basket, so I along with the rest of our group went back to our cabin to hang out. Some did some scrapbooking, some just read and others finished their projects as well. My friend Diane wasn't able to take my explosion box class, so she stopped in to make one herself (sort of!) My friend Diane is not a crafter and always lets me know, but I think secrectly she enjoys it! So this time as she made her box, I got her to be more involved. Here is a picture of her making her box.

Finally here is a picture of our group! My Elizabeth girls are planning another adult weekend in Febuary, can't wait!That's all for now! Will have to be out in that nasty weather later today. It's the Marching Band "Music Under the Stars" fund raiser. The band is doing quite well so far this year, they have come in first place at each competition. They are a very focused group of kids and really put their all into their performance. I hope they move things indoors, but will be prepared to be outside if necessary!

Last Wish

Going through my email this evening I received this information today from my pastor and thought, why not post this on my blog and I could really get the information out. This boy, Ethan Theilmann, from Franklin, NJ who is seriously ill and is hospitalized at Newton Hospital.
He has a final wish to receive a thousand birthday cards to celebrate his upcoming birthday on Monday, October 19th.
If you are able to send him a card, his family would be much appreciative.
The mailing address is: Ethan Theilmann, 19 Auche Drive, Franklin, NJ 07416.
Let's try and grant his wish, I know we can do this!