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Having a Crafty Yard Sale!

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Aug 22, 2007 in Crafts, Yardsale Finds

After almost drowning in all the stamps and stuff in my craft room, I’ve decided to have a small yard sale this weekend. 

I’ll be selling about 100 retired Stampin’ Up! stamp sets, some retired paper and other accessories as well as stamps and inks from other companies.

I think I’ll also put out some craft show projects that I still have on hand and some vintage ephemera and other finds that I’ve collected but haven’t had a chance to use yet.

Plus, I’m also going to venture up into my attic (now THERE’S a scary thing to do!) and grab some of the things that are just in the front – bags of kid’s clothes, toys, and other household things that are piled up in there.  Hopefully, I’ll make it out alive!

We’ll need to have a bigger yard sale later this fall, but I thought I’d have a smaller one now to increase my cash flow this month.

And…it looks like I’ll be doing it alone.  Since Daisy is still recovering from being spayed on Monday, it doesn’t look like she’ll be able to go on our camping trip this weekend.  And we are also puppy-sitting Bella, Andrew’s other dog, while her family is at the shore next week.  I can’t imagine trying to keep Daisy calm while there’s a puppy in the camper!  So I’m going to stay home with Daisy while Bella goes on her first camping trip with the rest of the family.

Hmmm…a weekend alone with no children…sounds like a nice break, even WITH a yard sale!

The yard sale will be both Friday and Saturday mornings and will be listed in the Gloucester County Times and online as well – if you’d like more info, just send me an email…

 
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Getting Ready for the Fall Semester and Other Stuff

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Aug 21, 2007 in Uncategorized

Just a quick update for those who asked – yes, I am definitely teaching at Rowan University this fall!

I will be teaching Computers and Society on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  I have been working on my syllabus and semester schedule all weekend and I think I have the class all planned out.

The funny thing is, I’ve been online doing research for some of the privacy topics and have done Google searches on things like ‘Patriot Act’, ‘NSLs’ and ‘DOPA’.  Now I’m wondering how long it will be until I’m on one of the government suspected terrorist lists!  Just kidding of course – I was just doing research for my class – REALLY!!!!

I also got my artist comp copy of Stamper’s Sampler Take Ten magazine today.  In addition to those cards included in the Guest Artist article, I found in the magazine at least six other cards that I submitted to them.  And several others that they requested and that I submitted are not included, so I wonder if they’ll be in an upcoming issue…

 
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Camping at Frontier Town

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Aug 21, 2007 in Family Stuff, Our Goldendoodle Puppies

We spent a few days last week camping in Ocean City, Maryland at our favorite campground, Frontier Town. We just love it there – it’s right on the bay, has its own western theme park, golf course, restaurant, ice cream parlor and even a waterpark that’s free for campers! Do you think Emily is enjoying herself at the waterpark?

 

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Since the campground is right on the bay, there is a nice breeze that keeps it cool and keeps the bugs away. Of course, sometimes the breeze is a little too strong as you can tell by Daisy’s fur…

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I can’t help but laugh out loud every time I see those photos!

The kids also did a little bit of fishing at the campground…

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And we took some time to just enjoy the scenery too…

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Daisy also did a little exploring in the water.

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It looks SO funny when just the bottoms of her paws get wet! It looks almost like Chinese footbinding…

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We also took a ride to the beach at Assateague Island, just five minutes away from the campground. It’s home to the famous wild ponies that roam the island.

Here’s one we saw on the way in to the park:

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We were in the car and Daisy was barking like crazy at that pony!

And when we left the beach, there was another pony by our truck in the parking lot:

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How would you explain THAT to your car insurance company?

We had a wonderful time on the beach – we stayed for almost five hours! It was so nice – the entire beach was practically empty and we let Daisy run in the surf off of her leash. Well…once she got used to the water, that is. She wasn’t so sure at first…

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Eventually, she got used to it and had a great time! We also met a nice couple who had a golden retriever puppy about the same age as Daisy. The dogs played together for a LONG time – until they were both exhausted!

It was another great trip – in fact, before we left the campground, we made reservations again for next year!

 
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Quick Thank You Card

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Aug 20, 2007 in Cards

Just a photo of a quick Thank You card I made for my friend Linda after her visit. 

I made this using elements from Paula’s Kit Club – my FAVORITE online club for papercrafting!  Everything she puts together is so unique – and all the kit pieces coordinate so well.  In fact, all the kits are SO beautiful, I find myself hesitant to every actually use any of the pieces.  But for Linda, I broke one kit open and parted with some of the pieces.

These pieces are from Paula’s “For the Birds” theme kit from March, 2007:

 

Bird card

 
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Summer Visitors

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Aug 20, 2007 in Family Stuff

We were lucky enough to have some wonderful visitors last week – my dear friend Linda and her children Zachary and Kylee came from Melbourne, Florida to stay with us for a few days.  We had so much fun while they were here!

We went to Lake Kandle and enjoyed two sunny days there.  Her children had never swam in a lake before and the one at Lake Kandle is wonderful!

One day, a bunch of kids worked together to create a small canal that ran the entire length of the sandy beach by the lake:

The canal

What fun – it gave us a chance to relax and the kids were occupied all afternoon!

The kids also managed to get in some fishing time:

Fishing at Lake Kandle

Emily and Zach fishing 

Speaking of the kids, ours all got along so well!  Here’s a cute shot of all the children on my front porch:

All the kids and Daisy on the porch

You can see who’s worming their way into that photo – Daisy Doodle!  Linda has been considering a new puppy for her family and after she met Daisy, she wants a doodle too!  In fact, I think if she could have, she would have slipped Daisy into her suitcase and taken Daisy back to Florida with her – but I made sure to check Linda’s luggage before she left. 🙂

Our friend Kim also stopped by during the week.  We managed to get a nice photo of the three of us:

Linda, Kathy and Kim

That’s Linda on the left, me in the middle and Kim on the right.  We’ve known each other for SO long – it’s great to have friends that are with you through all the different seasons of your life.

Speaking of which, it was Kim’s birthday and we visited her at her home “down the shore” while Linda was in town.  We also visited a beach near the Atlantic City casinos and had some fun in the surf and sand – the kids took advantage of the sunny weather to get in some serious tanning on the beach:

Sunning in Brigantine

And here we are enjoying the sun ourselves:

The girls on the beach

Yes, that’s right ladies – I posted a shot of us in our swimsuits on my blog!!!!  And Linda, I love how you managed to crop your own legs out of the photo before you sent it to me… 🙂 

I hope they’re STILL my friends after I posted that photo – but hey – I’m in it too!

Anyway…during her visit, we also managed to tour our little town of Pitman.  Linda was amazed that how no matter where we went in town, we ran into someone I knew.  Such is life in a small town!

By Pitman Grove Sign

Downtown Pitman

At the library

Water Ice

We were so sad to see Linda and her children go home.  We had such a nice time – I hope they’ll come to visit us every year!

 
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I’ll Be the Guest Artist in the Autumn Issue of Stampers’ Sampler Take Ten!

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Aug 19, 2007 in Cards, Crafts

I know I posted before that I was going to be featured as tue guest artist in Take Ten magazine – but I just found out which issue.

You can find me in the pages of the Autumn issue, available September 1st!

Here’s a link to a sneak preview of the issue:

http://www.stampington.com/html/tss_take_ten_autumn07.html

Two pages of my work can be seen if you scroll down the page – look under “What’s Inside” and scroll down to the two preview Guest Artist pages.  My cards are the ones with the seashell theme and the ‘Love and Scandal’ theme.

The issue will contain more of my work, an interview and a photo of myself.  A copy can be ordered from the link above if you are interested.

I can’t wait to see the whole issue!

 
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More of My Projects On Display at Convention

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Aug 6, 2007 in Cards, Crafts, Scrapbooks

I was just browsing through some more photos from the Stampin’ Up! Convention in Denver, and noticed two more of my projects on display – how exciting!

One is this card that I made as a contest entry:

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I used ribbons curled around each other to form flowers.  The blue flower is velvet ribbon and the brown flowers are a puckered ribbon – both were from the Winter Mini last year.  I also used the scallop punch at the bottom and used the oval punch for the leaves.  The background is the Floral stamp.  I really liked this one – I’m glad they chose to display it (even if it didn’t win).

The other entry I saw was this little scrapbook page:

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The photo is from the Philadelphia Flower show in March, 2006.  A bunch of ladies went together and I thought this would make a cute page (again, not good enough to win, but good enough to put on display).  I embossed the butterfly, “F” and flower with black embossing powder and used sticky tape with microbeads as a ‘frame’ around the photo.  So…if you’re in this photo -  you’re on display in Denver, ladies! 🙂

 

 
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Open House Make-and-Takes

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Aug 5, 2007 in Crafts, Other items

As promised, here are a few quick photos of the make-and-take projects I had at my New Catalog Open House the other night.

First, we made a VERY simple embellishment for a water bottle. It holds a pack of powdered drink mix that can be poured into the bottle. This design is very generic (it uses SU!’s Outlaw paper and Really Rust cardstock), but you could adapt the idea for a birthday party, picnic, meeting…whatever event you need.

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Next, we made a card out of a transparency. This idea is very big right now in scrapbooking and card making magazines. I scraplifted the design from Sencie, a SplitCoastStampers user – here’s a link to her original design on SCS. Thanks so much for the inspiration, Sencie! 🙂

And here is my version:

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The card base is a clear transparency and the patterned paper is held in place by the bow tied at the top of the card. I stamped the flourish with white StazOn ink and used white ink on the edges as well. The greeting can be written on the reverse side of the patterned paper or on the transparency itself with a Sharpie.

 
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My Latest Summer Read

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Aug 5, 2007 in Books I'm Reading

I managed to finish another book this weekend while lounging at the pool at Knoebels (plus, since there was no cable TV at the campground, I had plenty of time to read while we were waiting for a small rain shower to pass).

I read The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani, a new book that just came out last month.

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It follows the story of a young girl in 17th century Iran who has a string of unfortunate events in her life. Her father dies before she is to be married and she and her mother must take desperate measures to survive. They are dependent upon the kindness of some VERY distant relatives who exploit them for personal and financial gains. It seems that the young girl is a very talented rug-maker and fine tunes her craft while living with these relatives (her uncle is a master rug designer), but since she is a woman, the first priority in her life is to find a suitable husband.

The language in the book is so descriptive – especially when describing foods, colors and smells. It isn’t hard at all to create a mental picture of the city of Isfahan and its treasures. And even though this is historical fiction, the details of the time are secondary to the story itself.

The main character is never named directly – something the author did purposefully to pay tribute to the many anonymous artisans in Iran. I also enjoyed reading the author’s notes in the back of the book where she shares the inspirations for many parts of the story.

Definitely a good read and a great escape!

 
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Camping at Knoebels With "Daisy The Wonderdog"

Posted by Kathy Torrence on Aug 5, 2007 in Family Stuff, Our Goldendoodle Puppies

We just returned from our latest camping adventure at Knoebels, a wonderful, family amusement park in Elysburg, PA. 

 

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It’s not like other amusement parks such as Six Flags, Busch Gardens or Disneyworld – there is no admission price for the park.  Instead of paying one price, you pay per ride – and the prices are SO reasonable!  Mike insisted that we purchase $100 worth of tickets (they discounted them 15%) and at the end of three days at the park, we had only used a little less than half that amount of the tickets – that’s with all five of us riding for three days! We also ate dinner at the park for $14 – again, for all FIVE of us!  It’s so nice to feel like you got your money’s worth on a trip.

 

Emily on a ride

 

Knoebels also has two campgrounds associated with it – we stayed at Lake Glory.  It was a nice campground, but it didn’t have activities, a pool or swimming lake like others at which we’ve stayed.  The real attraction is just Knoebels itself.

But the amusement park does have a large pool and play area where we swam for most of the days we were there (it was SO hot!).  There was also a small kids water area where Emily spent most of her time.  I was content to just hang out by the pool and read my latest book (more about that in my Books I’m Reading category).

And the best part about Knoebels was that they allow dogs inside the amusement park (not the pool, but anywhere in the rest of the park) – how great is that?  You don’t have to leave your dog inside your camper while the rest of your family is having fun! 

 

Andrew and Daisy in the camper

 

Mike and Daisy

 

Now of course, Daisy took full advantage of this fact and quickly built her own following.  It was like traveling with a rock star or…Tom Cruise!  EVERYONE had to stop and pet her – and she just ate it up.  By the end of the trip, my kids were reciting the answers to all the questions we would get…it always went something like this…

“Your dog is SO cute!  Can I pet her?”

Sure.

“What kind of dog IS she?”

A goldendoodle.

“A golden-WHAT?  What is a goldendoodle?”

A mix between a golden retriever and standard poodle.

“How old is she?”

Six months old.

“Wow!  She’s just a puppy!  How big will she get?”

About 60-65 pounds.

“Does she shed?”

No.

“Is she easy to train?”

Yes, very.

At this point, the conversation would continue between Daisy and her admirer (as if we were no longer there at all).

Here she is, getting ready to work a crowd by one of the roller coasters:

Daisy looking for admirers at Knoebels

And waiting for Mike and Emily on the log flume ride:

 

Daisy, Andrew and Matt waiting by the flume

 

She LOVED getting so much attention…but after a while, it was difficult to get around or even just to leave the park!  Now I can understand how celebrities feel!  Well…sort of, anyway.

We had several people take Daisy’s photo and one woman walked up to us in a crowd and said loudly, “Is this DAISY?!?!”.  Apparently, she had heard all the hype from the campground and was searching for her in the park.

Hmmm…maybe we should start charging for personal appearances.  Or get Daisy her OWN blog…

Knoebels

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