rockford crop retreat

I have to say, I had a great time at the Outlaws' weekend crop in Rockford. Even tho I didn't get to do any "real" scrapping, because Carrie and I worked on CKU stuff all weekend... But it was just so rockin' great to see everyone again. We all get along so well, it's always fun to see them and do stuff together.

The best thing about this particular retreat is that they make all the meals and clean up for us. woohoo!! Life doesn't get much better. lol I'm (obviously) not all that into cleaning, especially doing dishes, so baby, rock on. We just got to play all weekend. yay!

Here's a picture of our group that one of the owners was nice enough to take for us. From the left, there's Carrie, me, Bobi, Mackenzie (in her own terms, an Outlaw offspring! lol), Amy, Mary Kay, Dawn and Brie. Great group of gals!

woohoo

I am wigging out. Totally wired beyond belief. Why, you ask? Because at this time tomorrow, I'll be at a hotel in Indy, and the next day I'll be in Nashville for CKU! Ok, for some folks a scrapbook school may not be at the top of their want-to-do list, but for me - oh yeah! I'm all over that. I am SO looking forward to seeing Emily again, and meeting my dormies, esp. Becky.

Speaking of dorms... our dorm gets to perform this year! major woohoo!! The CKU staff selects only 3 dorms to perform at each CKU. My dorm was chosen for Provo 2005, and we WON. My 2006 Chicago dorm was not selected. :-( But YAY! we get to perform in Nashville this year, and we're gonna kick butt! Our dorm name is '007 Nashville - Live and Let Scrap. Yep, that means a Bond/spy theme. So we've been working on all the contest stuff. OMG, I can't wait. It'll be so much fun. And I think our badges and centerpiece will be great this year too.

I'm also looking forward to my classes, learning new cool stuff, seeing some of the instructors. And this year I'm participating in a state basket swap, so I'm eager for that. Ok... explanation... A state basket swap - each person who participates brings a basket (or other container) filled with goodies that represent their state, at least one item has to be scrapbook related and at least one item has to be food. Then somehow we exchange baskets, I'm not sure of the process for that. My gf Carrie and I are both in this swap, so we're making our baskets the same. We emailed and mailed a bunch of companies, and some very generous companies donated: Berres Bros Coffee Roasters, Door County Visitors Bureau, Lakefront Brewery, MacFarlane Pheasants Inc., O&H Danish Bakery, Wausau Paper, Wisconsin Dairyland Fudge, Wisconsin Dells Visitor & Convention Bureau, and Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association. Many thanks to those companies!! Participants in this swap are only supposed to spend $25 (excluding the cost of the container), which goes really fast. The donations we received will make our baskets so great - we almost wish we could just exchange with each other! lol Anyway, the theme of our baskets is "Taste of Wisconsin" so Carrie came up with a great idea to make little recipe books (scrapped of course!) to include. Plus we're buying a little this, a little that, of food items that WI is known for: honey, cranberries, cherries, maple syrup, cheese curds, jerky, etc. I honestly do think our baskets will be the best at CKU, and I'm really looking forward to showing them off.

another layout done!

Oh, goodness. This was the absolute toughest topic for me. I had no idea what to use, where too look, anything. The topic - "Make Me Laugh." And yes... I do laugh. Quite a bit actually. People sometimes ask why I'm laughing. Guess it's because I'm usually in a good mood! But what really makes me laugh? Good question.

So I searched online, "funny" "funny pictures" "funny sayings" etc. I found some things that tickled my funny bone, and decided to scraplift a layout from twopeas, and picked out some cute paper... and this is the result:


And here are the tags for my previous two cjs:


And yes, I really like this picture of me!