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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.

Open_House_MnT-2

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:

Open_House_MnT

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.

image

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. 

 

At Knoebels-2

 

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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