BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!

For ages we have had requests to have a weekend long crop.

Since we don't have any facilities for sleeping or showering,

we have had to make do with coming and going

for the weekend.

People have enjoyed this, but still wanted a crop

where they could just sleep when they wanted

and crop as late or as early as they wanted.

Well our BIG ANNOUNCEMENT is

that we are going to do it!

We will be hosting a crop at

Dunkirk Camp and Conference Center

Friday, February 7 - Sunday, February 9, 2014

The cost will be $100/person

This will include accommodations

(You will need to bring your own bed linens)

food and a space to scrap/craft.

We haven't pulled all the plans together yet,

but when we have all the particulars we will let you know.

Space is limited, so sign up soon.

You can leave a message on our facebook page,

leave a comment her on our blog or

give us a call.

We are very excited about our plans and hope you are too.

 Here are a few pictures

that I took during a crop I attended at DCC in August.

 

 These are a couple pictures of our spacious cropping area

 
As usual, my space is a big mess,

but I had plenty of room to work.

Everyone who had scrapped with me knows 

no matter how much room I have it's always filled

up and a mess!

More news to come!

 

 

 

 



Layouts

Hello from My Happy Place!

I thought I'd share a few layouts that I have done recently.

One of my scrappy friends challenge our group of scrappers to do something that was outside of our comfort zone.

These first 2 pictures are just that.

The first one wasn't so hard, but the 2nd one was a whole other story.

 

This layout is long over due!

I took this picture of Dave on our first date.

Dave hadn't had his camera for more than a few months,

he wanted to get out and try it out, so we went to the

"Alabama Swamps"

This isn't in Alabama at all, but not far from where we live

in Western New York State.

When my friend, Jen looked at it she asked

"Where's Kristie?"

My answer, "Well, he didn't take any pictures of me."

Guess he didn't know that this was the start of something big.

Not only our relationship, but also his becoming a photographer.

 

These 2 pages were very tough for me and were totally

out of my comfort zone. (Sorry about that glare!)

I have a problem using just one picture on a page and this was no exception.  I hemmed and hawed over these pages.

Finally, Jen, that same friend, told me that I should leave it like it is.

That they looked great.

So I did.  It was so hard to not fill up that empty space!

You can see I'm a bit behind in my scrapping,

Kelsie was 6 in this picture and she is 23 now. 

Jaryd was about 4 and is now 20.

These are a couple of my favorite pictures of our kids.

 

When my family gets together for Christmas,

I try to get a picture of all the great grandchildren together. 

Of course since there were 7 of them, I had to take a bunch of pictures. 

I don't think there is a one with all of them smiling and looking at the camera.  In fact I know there isn't, but they are all so darn cute!

"Aunt Kristie and The Greats"

Every Christmas I take a picture of myself with each of the Greats.

That's what I call my great nieces and nephews.

There is another one, Sienna, who wasn't at that

Backstrom Family Christmas.

She was only a matter of months at that time

and was with her Mom at her family Christmas.

 

Well, that's it for now. 

I hope you have enjoyed seeing a few of my layouts.

What is outside your comfort zone?

Why don't you take the challenge and create something

outside the box?

I did it, you can too.

 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Leave me a comment and let me know what is outside your comfort zone.

Come again soon.

 

~Scrap Queen Kristie~

Weekend away crop

 Thought I'd share some pictures from our

Weekend Away Crop.

We had a full house of scrappers and crafters for the weekend.

Started on Friday afternoon and ended on Sunday afternoon.

Marie working on her "recipe" scrapbook.

Danielle and Theresa, tried and true friends.

Judy checking out what she has finished.

Norma deciding on what to do next.

Danell shares a layout.

Jen shows us a beautiful Thanksgiving layout.

Now ya gotta get the pictures on there, Jen!

 

Cheryl creating an original layout.

Who doesn't love Paula's Donuts?

Apparently Jannine and Judy do.

 

A fun layout that Danielle worked on.

This is one of the layouts I did that weekend.

Yes!  I did actually do more than one!

 

Lorraine works on a poster for the "garden" at work

  

How many ways can you used this massage tool?

 

Here is another layout I was working on.

See, told you I did more than one!

 

I think I can speak for everyone there when I say it was a wonderful weekend.  Great company, lots of laughs, tasty food (some of us had the Chiavetta's chicken BBQ) and great fun.

 

What are people doing at MHP?

Hello My Happy Place friends!

I thought you might like to see some things that people are doing at

 My Happy Place.

Here are a few pictures from the crop we had on Saturday, February 23rd

Jen was working on some hedgehog images

 that will someday be made into cards. 

They turned out adorable!

Cheryl colored these sweet angels that will make their way onto cards.

Danell has been working on her son, Ryan's graduation from high school.

This is just one of the wonderful layouts she has done.

Here are some layouts done for a scrapbook about

DECA a group in one of the local high schools.

These young ladies were new to My Happy Place,

but obviously not to scrapbooking.

Who doesn't want their baby shower scrapped?

I'm guessing it was probably a girl, what do you think?

Lovely job, Julie.

 

These are just a few of the things that were happening at MHP that day.

Lots more was created..... layouts, cards, gift boxes, home made tissue tape!

Hope to see y'all there soon.

We will have the schedule for April, May and June out soon.

Thanks for stopping by, come again soon, you never know what we'll be showing you here.

~Scrap Queen Kristie~

Souper Crop

Hello My Happy Place friends!

Just wanted to share a few pictures from

The 2nd Annual Souper Crop

that took place this past Saturday, February 9th, 2013 at

My Happy Place.

I planned to take more pictures to share, but somehow

even though I'm an avid scrapper and photographer,

it just didn't happen.

But I do have some pictures of the "goodie cups" that everyone found at their seats.

Each cropper got a soup cup, which some of them used to take some of the leftovers home in.

In the cup was a "Cup of Soup" packet, in a MHP soup mug,

some chocolates, a ticket for a drink and a "can of soup"

We used the can of soup to play our trivia game throughout the day.

Scrap Queens Danielle and Kristie had a set of cans and would draw a can and called out the kind of soup that was drawn. 

Whoever had that kind of soup would play the trivia game.

 

We had 3 cans of Campbell's Soup and the "contestant" would choose

Cream of Mushroom, Chicken Noodle or Tomato.

Under the cans were the choices of trivia:

Scrapbooking/Crafting Trivia

Soup Trivia

You choose

Then if they answered correctly they would win a prize package.

If they didn't answer correctly they could choose a consolation prize.

We also gave tickets through out the day for random things.

Things like, if you had trees in a picture in front of you,

or if there was a child under 5 on your layout.

Those tickets went into a drawing for the end of the day.

Lorraine was the lucky winner of this prize pack.

 

For dinner we, of course, had soups.

Chicken Tortilla,

Cream of Mushroom,

Cream of Potato

and

Squash Bisque

All home made and delicious.

Dessert was chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies and brownies.

Our scrappers brought snacks to share, so we had plenty of munchies.

 

We did learn some interesting things about scrapbooking and soups, too.

Did you know that Thomas Jefferson, Rutherford B. Hayes, Mark Twain and Andy Warhol were all avid scrapbookers?

Did you know that the first soup in history was in 6000 BC? 

And what kind was it?  Hippopotamus! 

How they know this, I haven't a clue, but it's and interesting tidbit anyway.

Did you know The Campbell Soup company was started way back in 1869!

 

I think everyone there had a great time, we made some new scrappy friends and had a great time with some of the tried and true MHP friends too.

If you weren't lucky enough to be at the "Souper Crop"

try to come and do some scrapping/crafting with us another time.

You'll be sure to have fun with the ladies at MHP, we're a pretty friendly bunch.

Check out our schedule, by clicking on the
My Happy Place Schedule tab at the top of the page.

We have plenty to choose from.

Hope to see you soon.

 

~Scrap Queen Kristie~

Layouts

Hello scrappy, crafty friends!

I just thought I'd share a couple layouts I did recently at
My Happy Place

and they are both about MHP.

As you can see, I'm way behind on my scrapping.

The first one is from the very first all weekend crop.

They are pictures from when we went out to dinner to

TGI Friday's on Satuday evening,

This 2nd one is from a 2009 all day crop

at MHP.
Fun time!

Do you see yourself in any of these pictures?

Leave a comment and let me know you saw yourself!

 

~Scrap Queen Kristie~

Masking

Hi all you My Happy Place fans!

Here is a card I made for the Eureka! Stamps challenge for this week.

I'm on the design team and each week I make a card for the challenge on the 

Eureka! Stamps Blog.

The theme for this week is 

"Layer It Up and Let It Snow"

Kind of funny considering that it was around 60 degrees this weekend!

Have you ever used masking on a card?

I used a mask to stamp the trees onto this card.

It's an easy process and I'd be glad to help you learn more about it.

Just ask me about it when you are at My Happy Place next time.

I'd be glad to teach you.

Thanks for stopping in today, glad to have you.

 I hope you'll be stopping by My Happy Place soon and asking about masking.

~ Scrap Queen Kristie~

Some cards to share

 Hello My Happy Place friends!

I just wanted to share a few cards that I've made recently.

They each have a special or different technique that I'd be glad to share with you.

When you come to MHP, just ask me and I'd be glad to share.

If you know ahead of time that you'd like to learn one of these techniques,

let me know and I will be sure to have the supplies handy

as they are not all things I keep with me at MHP.

Just leave a comment here or a message on our facebook page.

 

I made this card for the QKR Stampede design team challenge

"Make It Sparkle"

The background has heat embossing as well as glitter,

the snowmen are covered with glitter.

 I made this card using a homemade diffuser for the dry embossing.

 You can see better in this picture that there is a 

circle behind the butterfly that has no embossing in it.

  On this card, I used gold embossing powder on the
"magic dust"

 This card is actually a gift card holder.

The tree is embossed with gold embossing powder and heat embossed.

Here is where the gift card is hidden.

So let me know if you'd like to know more about these different techniques.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Hope to see you soon at My Happy Place!

~Crop Queen Kristie~