CHA Summer Set Up

The iLoveToCreate booth was fabulous! Alyson and I worked our booties off setting it up with the weird help of the union dudes. I promise, I could have gone out for lunch and had a cocktail in the same time it took one of those guys to walk across the booth space. But, as you can see if you click on the pic for a closer look, we did it, and it looked great.

The iLoveToCreate team at home did a fantastic job of coordinating the whole thing, with lots of hands on deck. Mandy was wonderful, and Patty & Alexa were outrageously creative with the whole set-up. I loved all the gold frames around the Aleene's adhesives.

I was all set to go with my Aleene's Adhesives Make & Take demo. Looks all nice and neat at this point, before the crazy crafty buyers hit the booth.


And this blur of action is how it looked when they came to take advantage of the action at our booth. It was like someone was directing craft traffic straight to our booth.

Keep coming back, and I'll show you some of the tacky jewelry we were making... with Tacky Glue, no less.

iLoveToCreate

Our new iLoveToCreate sign being hoisted above our booth at CHA gave me goosebumps! I've got lots more pics on my iphone, so keep checking back for more...

I Heart Brini!

I just love Brini Maxwell, and I was checking out crafty videos on youtube and found this great highlights video! My favorite is the Styrofoam fruit!

We made it to California!

We made it to California, and my favorite grocery store.. Trader Joes. This bottle of wine cracked me up! The $2 Chuck was right there, ready for us to throw in our cart, too. Yeah!

Angelcots.... these white apricots were soooo juicy. They have a cute name, too.

Clovis is soooo pretty, quaint, and pedestrian friendly. We have spent many evenings on the outdoor patio eating Italian food, Mexican food, and having a nice glass of wine or frosty mugs of beer. Our fave coffee shop keeps giving us cookies when we drop by, and the owners even invited us to their house for their 4th of July swim party! We feel like we've found a new hometown.

We've just about finished unpacking everything, and I put this shelf off for last. (sigh)

But, I do have to use my books for inspiration, and I seem to be LOTS more creative when I'm organized.

We decided to make the "media room" our home office. Yeppers, I have to SHARE with Scott-poo. I love my "new" drafting table since we spray painted it bright red.

Anyway, the french doors are clear glass and show all of the clutter in there and can be seen from the living room, kitchen and dining rooms. Soooo, I saw a crafting/gluing opportunity!

I had these IKEA curtain panels left over from a stage that I set for one of Scott's videos, and thought they just might work for a door covering.

They're great, because I can still see through them, but they obscure the view just enough.

Ta-Da! All I needed was a little adhesive, scissors, and cool curtain panels.

Moving across America...

Mom was happy to see this humungous box of yarn that Scott had to use a dolly to move into her quilt shop. I just couldn't see me sitting and crocheting or knitting in my immediate future, seeing how I'm taking on this new corporate gig with Duncan Enterprises. I'm thinkin' my time is going to be preeeety busy with paint, glue, transfers, appliques, ceramics, and FUN!

I had another box, the same size...filled with fabric, but gave it to Robyn because as you can see...my Mom has TONS of fabric in her quilting stash! Now you see where I get my organizing gene. I was totally jealous of her neat little color-coordinated stash of fabric. By the way, it's all washed, dried and pressed. Ready for her next quilt, to sell on Pearls Quilts.com.

Dumpster dive sewing machine!!! Mom and Dad were at the local dumpster and emptying their trash when they saw this couple getting ready to toss this beautiful machine in with all the ewie trash! They politely asked the couple if they minded if they took it instead and of course in a couple of minutes it was in their trunk. It's beautiful! In mint condition. I never heard of a Necchi-Alco, but Mom said that it was from Sears. And....she offered it to me. Do you know how hard it was to turn it down?! But I already have a beautiful Singer and a Janome that both do everything from sewing drapes to embroidering. Mom has FIVE machines! I left there with sewing machine envy....woweee zoweee!

One of mom's latest quilt creations...all hand embroidered. She and Dad have a hand-guided quilting machine and this one has their signature perfection stitching. Gorgeous & amazing! It will sell fast.

But THIS one is all HAND quilted. I just stood there in awe. I can't believe she labors over these meticulous quilts for months, and then SELLS them.

I know this pic is a little blurry with my cell phone camera, but I took it in the quilt shop of all the quilts waiting to be sold out of the antique wardrobe. Scott's mom would love the batik fabric in the quilt at the top of the stack. Her bedroom is totally modern.

Coconut cream pie, baybeeeeee. My Mom's is the BEST!

This bear was on the corner of Mom & Dad's street at Grand Lake O' the Cherokees, where a dead tree had been turned into art by a chain saw artist.

Crafting in the car.... yeppers. That's me and Scott sculptured in play dough. I couldn't just sit there! And besides, our 3 year old grandson Zane gave me the play dough. When we were packing the car to leave, he disappeared for a bit, and suddenly he was in the front seat, placing a tub of play dough in my drink holder. He looked up at me and said "There, grammy!" He and I had made everything from the play dough... hamburgers, dinosaur eggs, happy faces, and a whole family. I think that tub of play dough was the best present, EVer....

A beautiful sunset just before we found a hotel in Gallup, New Mexico.

Next morning in Gallup, the coffee shop Camille's had these amazing lamps.

Now, I must go to flea markets and find lamps to combine for our new house!

This century plant was in full bloom in Sedona. I'll bet it was 20 feet tall.

Another tie-dye spotting! These were so cute at the gift shop in Sedona.

Ahhh....wine by the fire pit in Sedona. Consilience Wine, made by some of our close friends in Santa Barbara. The perfect ending to a perfect day.

Movin' and a groovin'....

Yes, we're movin' and a groovin' all the way from Nashville to Clovis, California. So, here we go with a new adventure!



Scott makes everything fun, and the ABF Dude was happy to get in the moment when we told him that he was going to be on camera for a video. Scott made a great barter deal with the ABF company and has been doing a time lapse on the whole thing!



Purge, baby purge! That's my motto... I am going through every single craft bin and re-organizing everything.



Does anybody remember the Favor Maker? I love this little machine! Now, all I need is a party....



Wow! An old craft book from my childhood. It's GIANT! Love it... have to craft something from it. Maybe the hair curlers keeper made out of a bleach bottle???



Random crafting....Robyn came to the rescue and picked up tons of fabric and craft tools. We couldn't resist a crafty moment on the driveway when she needed to know how to work the die cutting machine.



Jammie lightened our load by taking away extra photography equipment. Thank goodnes for her roomy car.

I did it! All my crafty stuff is snug as a bug and ready to rock-n-roll.



Finally, five re-lo-cubes are full and we shut the doors, and began our journey across America to our new home and new jobs with Duncan Enterprises....

Before we left Nashville, the gang from work gave us a going away party in downtown Nashville. I rode a mechanical bull, and of course, had to tell Elvis goodbye...


Of course we had to make a stop at a Cracker Barrel for some snacks. Scott got the extra large
size of Smarties...they were about the size of a nickel.



We stopped in Oklahoma to visit family, and found the coolest t-shirts that were tie-dyed at our fave pizza joint in Norman. Mine's purple and pink!




We stopped at the Cadillac Ranch and had a blast with a video we did for www.IloveToCreate.com in graffiti on one of the cars with Tulip paints.


The view from our balcony in Sedona was absolutely incredible. We got to meet up with some Arizona friends, and had an amazing dinner by a babbling brook filled with ducks.


We were both mesmerized by these windmills in Tehachepi, CA. There were too many to count!



The crazy octagon-dome house near Yucca, CA. Octa-home...not to be confused with Octa-Mom.
Sorry.


We made it! The cubes are unpacked, and we are settling into our cute little house at Harlan Ranch in Clovis.


We decided to take time out from unpacking to check out the Clovis farmers market tonight. Yeahhh!!! The band was decent, it wasn't toooo hot, and it was fun to check out our new neighbors.



I loved these jugs of fresh flowers. Scott loves, loves, loves sunflowers.



And I love Austin Powers. How funny is this? He was in front of a darling tea room and I couldn't resist the kodak moment. Grooooovy baby...



Snagged some organic garlic.



Scarfed down some yummmmy corn on the cob. Woohooo!



And the trees in the parking lot were amazing.

Now, back to the unpacking and getting ready for our new jobs on Monday. I'll keep you posted!