Lemonade, anyone?

Have you highlighted all your new favorites? Chosen the stamp sets that you love best in the new Stampin' Up! catalog? Are you ready for my rubber stamp garage sale this Saturday?

If you live anywhere near Arlington Heights, IL, you should plan to clear the decks this Saturday morning and be here at 9:00! This is the one day of the year that I let my customers and friends (future customers) pick and choose from my shelves and take home retired products, samples, card samples, etc. And -- here is the best part -- the prices are FANTASTIC!! so bring your cash and wear sunscreen. No early birds, unless you are a VIP -- past hostess or club member.

I don't want to have to summon the stampin' police! So please respect the clock, let me get the tables set up and then everyone can have a fair shot at the stamps and products that have recently retired!

This past Saturday was a fun marathon of stamping organized by Glenda T in Bartlett. She pulls together 20 card ideas and preps all the materials so we can use a bunch of new products and have samples to show our customers. God Bless her, it is a massive undertaking and she does it every 6 to 8 weeks and we love her for it! Even if we leave exhausted and crabby -- err, energized and excited!

I am sharing 4 of the cards here, I got maybe half of them photographed between rain showers and Father's Day festivities. The top card shows off the Lemon Zest stamp set, Lemon Builder Punch and Wood Crate Framelit. So cute! It was totally appropriate that I was making this card near the end of the day. I had lost my vim and vigor and when I got up to use the BigShot someone was rifling through my stuff when I came back. I almost had a hissy fit, which is not very becoming on a woman of my age. . . but, seriously folks, don't touch my cards! Your hands are full of ink and glue and embossing paste (yes, I know where those hands have been) and I put my cards away in a ziplock bag inside a snaplock bin. What the heck are you doing standing at my placemat, using the inkpads & stamps while my cardstock and embellishments are laid out? Be respectful and work at your own spot, don't mess up my stuff and wait your turn!

I quickly asked her to move it, move it, out of my work space, out of my stuff. I gathered up and moved on, to come back when she was elsewhere. There is "stamping etiquette" at these events, just to maintain your project's clean and beautiful finish. So remember that the next time you attend an event. And I will too!

Quirky Critters is the set featured on the following 3 cards. Now I am super glad Glenda chose this set, because it is highly unlikely that I will offer this set to my customers in a class. Sure, they are cute but not my style. I am just not interested in owning a narwhal, now or ever. Sorry. Nor a sloth. Nope. Maybe the snail, but, there's a lot of critters that just don't need to come home with me, LOL

So, remember to get on over here on Saturday. See how long it takes before I run in the house to suck down air conditioning like a drowning man! Pray the rain comes all week and Saturday morning is sunny, cloudy, or anything but rainy. And bring a crafty friend!

Happy stamping!
Dee Tollaksen