TAKING A FEW DAYS OFF THE NET!

I have so many art commitments that I decided to stay off the internet this weekend and focus on what I need to do.  I am involved in two tag swaps in two different groups:

In one group, (Lillian's Group which is awesome) we are swapping Paris themed tags.  There are approximately 17 in this swap so I made twenty just in case! This is my contribution:

They were fun to make!  We are swapping fabric and lace to go with the tags also!

The other swap is in a private group.  This swap was inspired by a VIDEO I showed you guys recently.  We agreed to make these tags using Tim Holtz products.  This is my contribution for this swap:

Again, tons of fun to make!  We are swapping lace and fabric to go with the tags.

So between yesterday and this evening I have made 40 tags!!  I am quite pleased with the fact that I got these done.  I was worried about not being able to meet the deadlines!!

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

CHARLIE UPDATE!!

So many people have been asking me about Charlie.  After a couple of stumbles he is doing FANTASTIC.   He is sober, healthy and relatively happy (no new girl right now!).  I am so very very proud of him and so grateful that God has taken him into his arms and protected him!!!

Thank you for asking ladies!

TIM'S VIDEO OF CRUISE

Thought you guys would enjoy seeing a little bit of our cruise through Tim's eyes.

Enjoy!

NO TIME FOR BLOGGING LATELY!!

Between my daughter's baby shower yesterday (major drama) and work, I have not been able to post in the last week!  I will, however, do as promised and write about our wonderful cruise.  I will also share the pictures and drama of Kristina's baby shower!

Be back!!!

GO CHECK IT OUT!

I will post the first day of the cruise tonight but you HAVE to go see Val's blog.  She has some fantastic pictures of the Freedom of the Seas.  I have to say I did not take pictures of the ship - none!

So.... go check it out!

A LITTLE... OKAY ALOT... OVERWHELMED!

I know I promised a cruise rundown starting today but I just got home (8:00 pm) after my first day back at work and the crazies were crawling out from under rocks today!  All good.  I just ignored them !

BUT, I have to admit - albeit grudgingly - that I am a little overwhelmed by all my new toys!!!  I have no IDEA on earth where I am going to put all this stuff!!!

Okay, smart ass, I know what you are thinking :  "Oh really?  Poor you!!! NOT!"  Don't get me wrong, I am still quite happy with all my new "stuff" - I just don't handle messes well and right now my studio is a MESS.

Tomorrow I will go shopping for storage solutions but for now I will just do my best to ignore it.

So, let's see... where do we begin?  Oh yes, here goes:

Bernie and I (my husband who "sacrifices" and comes with me on these cruises) left Key Largo early on Saturday morning.  The cruise wasn't leaving until Sunday but (a) it would be quite silly to travel the same day in case something happens and (b) we were meeting Eileen and Pat in Disney.  It was a five hour drive but well worth the destination don't you think?

We stayed at the Saratoga Springs Resort in Disney.  Like everything at Disney, it's very pretty but not a resort I would return to.  Boring.  VERY boring.

I had spoken to Eileen at about 3:00 pm and she had just gotten to her resort (Port Orleans - ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS resort!!  Loved it!).  Anyway, I digress....  We agreed to meet up a little later for dinner.

Once we got to our hotel and showered and changed (it was, after all, Saturday), I spent a couple of hours calling Eileen's cell phone with no success! Of course I did not have Pat's so there was nothing I could do but leave messages.

Could my sweet Eileen have ditched me??????  Not!  Turns out that Eileen and Pat were going through a little drama of their own!  Eileen's iPhone had literally DIED.  Not as in dead battery - as in dead phone!

She is cool without a phone but there was one significant problem with that.... She had my cell phone number on her phone.  So not only could I not contact her... She had no way of contacting me because she didn't know my number by heart.  (This is a perfect example of how we are all so damned tied into technology we cease to function when our toys do!)

Eileen and Pat had to go to the Magic Kingdom on a bus, the tram and then the monorails in order to get to a computer.  Why you ask?  Well, Pat and Eileen and I are on several yahoo groups together so she went into all these groups to see if I had listed my phone number on any of them!  Well, they found it and called me from Pat's phone.  That only took about 3 hours!

Eventually they made it back to their hotel and we picked them up.  Beautiful resort!!  You open the doors and you ARE in New Orleans!  Only Disney.  They have jazz music playing and the "streets" of the resort are exact duplicates of the beautiful streets of New Orleans.  Definitely a hotel everyone should visit!

From Port Orleans we went to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack - one of my favorite restaurants and had a wonderful seafood meal and some pretty fantastic margaritas!  I am sure Eileen and/or Pat took pictures of the meal and it will be on Eileen's blog.  I took some pictures but did it with the Instax so can not share!

After the meal we went back to our hotels to get some sleep before this much anticipated cruise!

I AM BACK!!!!

As expected it was a wonderful time.  I got to see a lot of the ladies I had met during the last cruise, some old friends from Louisiana and of course my peeps that went also!

I have to unpack and rest up for the coming week from hell but it was so worth it!!!

I have tons to tell you about but will do it tomorrow.  Between my blog and Eileen's wonderful wonderful blog you wont miss a thing!

But now to the REALLY important stuff!!!  The STUFF!!!!  And how much stuff did I bring you ask?  Well, I had taken an empty duffel bag and ended up buying another and a small tote.  Yep!!  Lots of very cool Tim Stuff!!!!  Lots of it was given to us, (he's like the male Oprah with these give aways!) and lots of stuff I bought!  Definitely in a happy place.

During the last day farewell party we had food and drinks and most importantly a raffel!   I NEVER win in these things but THIS time was different!!

I won an ENTIRE SET (interpret as every single color) of Archival ink pads; a huge package of letters AND.... ready for it?????  A VAGABOND!  How cool is that!!!   Okay, so I already have all the ink pads AND a Vagabond but it's still totally cool to win!!!

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the "stuff" (and NO, I have no idea where I am going to fit all this!). Those of you who have come to my Keys 4 Art Retreat KNOW that my studio is already overflowing!

Tons and tons of deliciousness!!!  I have two great totes and a bunch of products from the new District Market line.  I have... well, just about everything!!!  It's Christmas!

We worked on two great projects, a journal book and a configuration tray but they are still packed.  Will give you guys a run down tomorrow.

Oh, most important!!!  Here are some pictures of my peeps!!!

My husband is so cool to put up with the craziness!! But of course being on a gorgeous ship with pools and bars makes it much easier to BE cool!

I think my biggest accomplishment was not beating the hell out of some of the ladies on this cruise (and yes, you all know who you are!).  Talk about out-of-your-mind crazies!!!  What is UP with that!?  (Picture those girls you see crying and fainting in the old Beatles footage but on CRACK!).  Okay, so maybe they were not crying OR fainting... but they were totally nuts!

I'm only going to tell you that at one point when Tim opened the door to The Market Place which Mario runs (the shopping area) (we were the second group to go in), he actually stepped outside and said PLEASE BE NICE!  The first group had gone nuts on each other over STUFF!!!

Yep, fun filled days of arguing and cat fights OVER WHO GOT INTO THE ROOM FIRST FOR CLASSES!!!  You would think there would not be enough chairs!!  People were in line over an hour early!  Of course Eileen sent me in first so I could get seats for the 4 of us to sit together in case someone had to be punched!!!  Unbelievable!  Wait until you hear the stories!!!

See you all back here tomorrow for day one of our voyage!