Watch for quick and easy holiday decorating ideas on AM Northwest on December 21 at 9:00am.

Learn how to make Penny Rugs on AM Northwest November 16th. The show is broadcast in the Pacific Northwest on ABC from 9:00am-10:00am.

Where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday the kids were getting out of school for the Summer and suddenly it is Fall. Our summer just zipped by. Here are some highlights..

July

• My parents 50th wedding aniversary celebration in Boise, Idaho (my home town) It was a really fun weekend and I finished their scrapbook just in time.
  
• Trip to Chicago for ACCI (Association of Crafts and Creative Industry). I worked in the Fiskars booth. The theme was Christmas in July and everything was decorated for the Holidays.
• Trip to Richmond, Virginia to take our daugher to summer camp. I got to spend a few very relaxing days at our friends cottage on the Bay. It was heaven!!! I also got to go junk/antique shopping with our neighbor. That shopping trip was the beginning of a new hobby for me. Help me! I have been bitten by the depression glass bug. I am just fasinated by the different patterns and history of this glassware. My husband says that I am deep into depression. HA Ha
  

August

• Went on a family vacation to the other Vancouver. Vancouver British Columbia that is. We had a wonderful time. Our favoite place was Grandville Island. It is full of artisans shops and has an unbeliviable farmers market.
  
• Trip to San Jose for a Scrapbook Expo show. My husband was also in San Jose at the same time so we stayed an extra day and enjoyed the time together. We stayed in an area called Santana Row. What a great place!!
  

September

• Finished the last projects for my book and shipped them to Ohio!!
  
• Attended a one day seminare in San Jose titled Breakthrough Thinking. I really enjoyed the class and learned some new communication skills and an awareness of how all of us interact with each other.
  
• The kids went back to school and I finally got to take some time off work.
  

October

• Tim and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary!!
  
• Trip to Florida for a Memory Expo show
  
• Worked on updating my web site. (this is a never ending process)

Well, that is an overview of our last few months. I am looking forward to working in my studio this month and maybe sneak in a few trips to the antique stores....

EXCITING NEWS!!! My new book will be available in April 2005. It is filled with home decorating projects for every room in your home. The title is Papercrafting Room by Room. Watch my web site for updates and availability.

Watch AM Northwest tomorrow for decorating ideas for Fall. I will be showing how make a floral arrangement that is inspired by the changing season. The show airs in the Pacific Northwest beginning at 9:00am.

What do ice cream sodas and pincushions have in common? Find out tomorrow on AM Northwest.

Watch AM Northwest today between 9:00 and 10:00am. Today's craft segment show how to make three beautiful desk organizers. The projects will feature Brenda Walton's decorative papers and three dimensional stickers.

Look for new projects in these recent publications:

Paper Creations Magazine
Summer 2004
Pages 54-57
Five projects under the title Summer Clam Bake

Paper Works Magazine
June 2004
Page 33
Aspire Plaque

Woodworking for Women Magazine
May 2004
Pages 33-35
Classic Magnet Board

Pages 44-45
Playtime Chalkboard

Scrapbook Retailer Magazine
December 2003/January 2004
Page 36
Tips for Marketing cutting tools

After being gone from home for two weeks....it is really nice to be back in my studio. Today, I am cleaning. What fun!! I can never be creative without making a huge mess. How about you? Clutter everywhere....so I am purging the clutter today. It feels good to tidy up my studio. Now I am ready for my next project. I will be creating some projects for a Christmas in July. This will be for ACCI (Association of Creative and Craft Industry) show in July. It is a little hard to think about Christmas in the middle of May. Hmmmmm...think snow...think jingle bells, think winter.. I think I will go back to cleaning instead...

Backpacking trip...

The week before I went to Ohio for the book photo shoot, I went backpacking with my husband and some friends from Corvallis Oregon. This is our second annual backpacking trip. This year we flew to Las Vegas (the temperature was 107 when we arrived, last year at this same time it was snowing) and then drove through Zion National Park and east to Page AZ. Our destination was Piria Canyon. It is a 40 mile hike from White House Trailhead to Lees Ferry Trailhead. We did this in four days with everything on our backs. Can you imagine...no cell phones, no pagers, no STARBUCKS, or nail salons for four days! YIKEs!! It was truly an incredible experience. In some areas the canyon walls were 800 feet tall and only about 20 feet wide. We crossed the Piria river numerous times. The area is incredibly beautiful and you can only get to it by hiking. I was inspired by the colors of the sandstone. I think I will paint our family room this summer "Navajo Sandstone". I had to purchase new boots this year so I was worried about blisters. I spend several weeks breaking in the boots before we left for the trip. Lucky..Me..No blisters. Here is the funny thing....While I was in Ohio doing research (this is what I call shopping) I got a blister from my flip flops. I guess next time I will have to break in the flip flops before I attempt any strenuous shopping...I mean research!!

Through out the month of April and May I worked on projects for my new book. Last week I went to Ohio for the photo shoot. I shipped all of the finished projects and supplies to recreate each project to Ohio. During the week I was there, I made each of the projects again as Christine photographed the steps. I learned a lot about the publishing process and the photography for the book. Christine did a fabulous job with the photos and just before I left, she showed me some of the slides. Wow...Was that ever exciting. I will spend the next month writing instructions and "filler" for the book. My Editor, Tonia, is such a great help with this. She wrote an outline of instructions for each project while I was making them in their studio. Thanks Tonia and Christine!!

I attended another Memories Expo show the first weekend of April. It was held in Chicago and I worked in the Michaels booth for Fiskars. We did "make and takes" each day. The first day we made a scrapbook page that was black,white, and gray. The second day we made a scrapbook page using Anna Griffin papers in muted greens and creams. Both projects used the ShapeCutter (one of my favorite tools!) and an embossing system. If you have never had an opportunity to experiment with embossing, I would highly recommend it. There are lots of different ways of embossing, some require a light box, and others do not. Embossing is an impressive way to embellish cards and other paper crafts.

Here is a quick summary of the past few weeks….

I went to the Beach a few weeks ago for our annual “Girls at the Beach” weekend. We had so much fun!! I had just gotten a new “toy”. It is called Quickutz and it makes small die cuts for cards and scrapbooking. I picked up some blank cards on the way out of town and we stayed up until 2:00am two nights in a row to make cards. We also painted a bench for our friend (owner of the beach house) and we each added our own signature design to the bench. It was great fun!!!

We had lots of company last week and hosted a reception for our Aunt. She was honored by the YWCA and Clark College as being a Women of Achievement for 2004. It was very exciting and we enjoyed visiting with all of her friends and our family.

Last Wednesday evening some of my friends come out to my studio and we had a wonderful time making cigar box purses. This is a great “girlfriends’ party” if you like to get together and create!!

When I was at HIA I taped a segment for the Carol Duval show. What a thrill!! The show aired last Saturday on HGTV. It will run again on March 26 at 9:00ET/PT.

I went into Portland this morning to the KATU studio. The craft segment today was fabric handbags. You can find the instructions to this craft in the project section on my web page.

Tomorrow I am speaking to a group of women at a Presbyterian church. They are having an Irish Coffee and I am going to give a little presentation about the creative process. I am also going to talk a little bit about Spiritual gifts. I found a great Bible verse that recognizes the gift of creativity. If you would like to read it go to Exodus 31:4-5 and 35:34-35.

I kept very busy at the Memory Expo in Las Vegas. I had a wonderful opportunity to meet and work with Brenda Walton. She is a very talented artist and has licensed her art work with K&Company. You can see her work on her web site www.brendawalton.com.

This has been a crazy couple of weeks. Of course when are they not crazy? I think that comes with being an artist. My kids refer to me as their crazy artist mom. Hmmmm…I wonder if that is a compliment? I think the craziness comes from working, having kids, being a single parent when my husband travels, and all the other “life” stuff.

Next week I am starting my new book projects. This is very exciting to me. I have been planning, and designing, and plotting for several months now and I feel like I am ready to burst. It is finally time to get all that stuff out of my head and transform it into something real and tangible. I kidnapped my mom yesterday and we went shopping for “book stuff”. It was so much fun. I just love being able to shop and call it work!

I am off to Las Vegas at the end of the week for the first Memory Expo of the year. I will be teaching for Fiskars and leading some very fun make and takes in the Michaels booth.

Post HIA (Hobby Industry Association)

HIA was held in Dallas this year. I must say that I got my exercise walking from one end of the show room to the other. Wow!

There was an enormous amount of "vintage" papers and embellishments at this show. I remember only one company at ACCI last year that had this look. Now....it seems to me that everyone grabbed that look and tried to make it their own. Come on people...have an original idea!!! Sorry, I will get off my soap box now.

The "buzz" of the show was a new "hot" (literally) tool that is used to make very unique textures with embossing powder. It looks like a wood burning tool but has three different tips. One of the tips looks like a little rake. It was exciting to see something new and innovative. Bravo!!

Retro paper designs are continuing to emerge. I suspect that we will soon see some really fun embellishments to go with the papers.


Here are some highlights from my trip to HIA.

•Lisened to Barbara Bush speak. I was very impressed with her. I really did not know what to expect. She was very funny and shared stories about her family, faith, and love for needlepoint.

•Watched Thomas Kincaid presented Barbara Bush with an original painting that he had created specifically for her.

* Worked in the Fiskars booth during the show. What a nice group of people!!

• Spent time with my designer friends Sandy and Patt. We missed you Jayne

•Taped a short craft segment for the Carol Duvall show. Way exciting!!!!!

•Found some wonderful papers that I want to use in my new book

•Saw enough scrapbook stuff to last a lifetime HA!!

We have two teenagers at our house as of February 1st. We celebrated Abbey’s thirteenth birthday last weekend and the weekend before that we celebrated Tucker’s seventeenth birthday. How did we get here so fast?

Abbey and I celebrated her milestone birthday with a Mother/Daughter trip to the Bonneville Hot Springs Resort and Spa. After the Hot Springs we went into Portland for a hair cut and make-up lessons. YIKES!!! I have been telling her…”no make-up until you are thirteen”… Now I wish I had said sixteen…What was I thinking?

Watch for projects in a new magazine titled “Paper Creations”. It will be published each quarter and I will be designing projects for each issue. Each set of projects will have a party theme for the season. It is really fun to be working with Jane Guthrie again. She is back at All American Crafts and is the editor of two new paper magazines.

Exciting news....

My book proposal to Northlight was accepted in December and I will begin working on the projects this week. Yippee!!

A tribute to my Grandmother

My grandmother was well known for her cherry pies. There was something special about her pie crusts. I tried to learn her technique one time but struggled with her measurement methods. She just knew that it was a handful of this and “about” this much of that.

She was also known for her beautiful crochet and needle work. She made very beautiful lace for pillow cases and table skirts.

I spent a week at my grandparent’s home every summer when I was is grade school. During those visits she would teach me embroidery stitches. She untangled many knots from my thread during that time. I will always cherish those memories.

Summary of December

We had wonderful holiday celebrations early in the month which included a family gathering at my parents home, a friendship dinner, and a Christmas celebration for Tim’s work group.

We were saddened by the passing of my Grandmother. We went to Idaho for her funeral and returned to Washington on Christmas Eve.

Summary of November,

The annual “craft and coffee” party was fun and we all enjoyed sharing our wedding and childhood photos.

Our family went to Idaho for Thanksgiving and were lucky to miss most of the snow storm on the way over the Blue Mountains