"Bugs eye view"

Hey Local Friends!!!!

Did you get someone you love a Cricut Machine during a black friday sale and have no idea how to use it? Does someone you love have a Cricut that they are not using? Are you looking for someone to show you what the machine does?

Private and group classes are able to be scheduled and gift certificates are available! Contact me for more information!

Shoeboxes 2011!

Seventeen years ago Samaritan's Purse started a ministry called "Operation Christmas Child" the idea was to pack a shoebox with simple gifts; personal care items and school supplies and give those shoeboxes to hurting and needy children all over the world with the message of the good news of God's love for them. That first year my son was a baby and we did one box. The 2nd year I had 2 kids so we did two boxes. As our family grew we did more boxes to correspond with each child till one day those kids said "mom lets do more!" So we did 5 boxes. Then one year one of the kids said "Ya know mom, this would be great for shoeboxes, we should save stuff all year round so we can do more." That year we did 22 boxes. The next year I got my church involved, we did 30 something boxes the first year. The following year I had another gal start saving stuff all year round and we filled 70 something. The numbers kept growing till last year we did 276 boxes! And still...

Our numbers kept growing.

As our numbers grew I needed to find creative ways to support our projects. Being part of the crafting community I looked their for help. Scrapbook Expo allowed us to run their baggage check and collect supplies and have raffle tickets for a gift basket from At the Blue Barn and a new "Scrap-n-Easel" from Contain ya crafts. Many of my scrapbooking friends came out to help at the expo as well. Local crafters came out to an event again donating supplies for boxes and buying raffle tickets for another fabulous gift basket. Plus companies such as Unibind, Creative Options, Epiphany Crafts, Craftwell, Xyron, Fiskateers, Hydrangea Hippo, Contain Ya Crafts, Faithfully Yours, MemoryWorks consultant Kemi Foresteri, Close to My Heart Consultant Lori Brown, October Afternoon and more donated make and take items, door prizes, and goodie bag items to the event! All these events (and then some) helped gather not only supplies but funds to purchase supplies and help offset the cost of shipping shoeboxes.

It's no secret, I love doing shoeboxes. It's such a simple way to reach out. Things we take for granted like soap and a toothbrush are some of the kids favorite gifts to receive and for some kids this is the first present they have every received in their lives! I also love shoeboxes because of what it allows me to do within my community. When someone decides to be a missionary to another country. They start raising support, gathering their supplies etc. They get sent on their trip and we hear about it when they get back. With coordinating shoeboxes I get a chance to encourage my church, family and friends to be missionaries right where they are at!

It's incredible to be able to help kids not just my kids or my church kids, but my nephews, and friends kids and even other kids in the community to take that step to look beyond themselves to reach out to others. It's a privilege to be able to hear "wow this was so much fun...I love helping, I can't wait to do it next year." and "I'm so glad I came, knowing that one more child gets a present cause of what I did is AWESOME!"

Well I can spill the beans! This year we packed 351 shoeboxes!!! Thank you again to everyone that helped make this possible!!!

US of Fiskateers-Illinois event!

Wow, where do I start?? The day was amazing. Bright and early a fabulous team of hostesses showed up at the church to help decorate, set up and get things ready for 40 some fiskateers (and 4 fiskateens) that were attending the event. Our set up time flew by all too quickly though and soon fiskateers started showing up ready to craft! The "senior most" fiksateer Misty #33 met gals at the door and gave them a welcome goodie bag. Lori #5613 was available to collect their cards for Operation Write Home.

After finding a seat, their first stop was with Dot #6703 where she not only did a make and take with them (showcasing her fabulous rosettes) but made name tags using the new "snip-snip" squeeze punch. After our group was done with that Alex #3614 played a "getting to know you game" were we found out some fun snippets of info about our fellow fiskateers. From there we tested our knowledge of "trivial state facts" with an Illinois Quiz. The better you did on the quiz the sooner you got to choose your prize.

Three unsuspecting Fiskateers that found a pumpkin punch inside their table favors were the lucky contestants for our very own version of "Minute to Craft it" They were given 10 minutes to decorate a wooden frame using items from the "Trash to Stash" table. (People could bring in their cast off and ununsed/unwanted supplies and hopefully find them a new home, after all one persons trash can find it's way into another one's stash!) The 10 minutes flew and Linda #3567, Helen #7288, and Mandi #4722 shared with us their lovely frames and told us a little of the inspiration behind their decoration. After the competition the Trash to Stash table was open! It was CRAZY from 1 1/2 foot piles stretching down 16 feet of table to a few scattered pieces of cardstock and some sticker sheets in a matter of minutes!

When the craziness died down, the fabulous Ashani #4682 our food coordinator announced that lunch was served. After lunch there was more time for crafting, including another make and take. Everyone got to compare Fiskars trimmers including the new LED trimmer while creating an adorable pumpkin with me and then a surprise "pop quiz" on all things Fiskateer! We finished our time together with a couple of group photos. Before we knew it, our time together was over and we were hugging everyone goodbye!

We are already talking about when we can meet again because we had so much fun! Thanks to everyone that came out to spend the day crafting, making cards for Operation Write Home (We collected 155 cards!!) and just being fabulous! The day was truly special!!!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Scrapbook Expo St. Charles, IL

Hey Local Peeps, I still need one person to help on both Friday August 19, 2011 and Saturday August 20, 2011 at the Scrapbook Expo in St. Charles, IL. We will be working at the baggage check and collecting supplies/raising funds for Operation Christmas Child. If you can volunteer some time email me.

Thanks

The final day

All good things must come to an end and so as CHA wrapped up I have a few things to finish taking care of! Like pictures and catalog picking up and pictures! That's right I was so busy looking and seeing and doing at CHA the only real pictures I got were when someone took the camera from me and snapped away. Thursday I set out to take pictures of some of my favorite things from the show.

One of my favorites was this gorgeous dress from "I love to create" , the wings, the detail it was simply breathtaking. As I mentioned before designers from CHA had a "dress form" contest and the dresses were amazing but this one was my hands down favorite!

I didn't have much time to nose around the show floor on Thursday for there was a brief run to the Supershow. It was being held in conjunction with the jewelry show this year and that's where the Fiskateers decided to hold their meet up! It was great connecting with my orange clad pals! Plus our ever generous leads had orange bags of treasures for us!

(Ok looking closely at this photo now...notice how Mandi and I are the tallest ones and not only right smack dab in the middle but in "orange and green" lol and thanks Karen for the photo btw.)

After the hugging and gabbing died down it was back over to the show to pick up the last of the catalogs I needed and say goodbyes to some of my friends working in booths. PLUS I had to run by the Photocentric booth and grab my stampmaker and packs. Good thing I had the BIG tote with me cause it was over full. In fact Madison from Echo Park saw me dragging the thing and grabbed it from me for an aisle or two to give me a break (thanks Madison :)

At the close of the show I met up with Kimberlee and Joanne because we had plans to go to the Splitcoast Stampers "Cupcakes and Cocktails" party that evening. We all knew we needed some protein before eating sweets and went to Gibsons for some of their "sliders." Gibsons is a fabulous steakhouse and their sliders are anything but the traditional kind. These were tender chunks of filet between two of the cutest little buns imaginable served up with a huge basket of fries (yum) and the cutest little ketchup bottle that came home with me for my ketchup loving husband! We have a family joke about how much he LOVES the stuff and so I knew it would be the perfect souvenir for him. (Before you all start going "oooh Betsy stole the ketchup bottle"...they send them home with you!!!!)

We got to the party with about 20 minutes to spare and spent the time chatting and trying to stay awake. All of us were really tired but excited to see some more friends! After being welcomed by the Splitcoast staff family and handed fabulous goodie bags filled with Flower soft, stamps from several different companies and coupons and other fun stuff we were met with

very yummy cupcakes! So we ate, drank, and were merry :) Only water for this chick but I was slowly coming around and getting a sugar buzz from the cupcakes..lol. Towards the end of the evening we found a couple of bar stools to sit on and a gal came up to talk to us. A few minutes later she introduced me to her sister.

Her sister Joy was from Texas, and not just any part the very city my daughter was in at the moment. She was there on a mission trip and when Joy found out about that she got so excited and wanted to know her name so she could pray for her and before our conversation ended she had given me her contact information telling me "I know I'm not "mom" but you are here in Illinois and I'm 10 minutes from her, if she needs anything, or gets hurt, or just gets home sick I can be there in 10 minutes and see how I can help." My daughter had been really on my heart that morning and to "just so happen" to meet someone not only offering to pray for her, but offering to help her if she needed it was overwhelming! It was the perfect ending to a rather exciting week. Just like a big hug from God.

CHA day 2 (ended in green hands and pink glitter :)

Well now today really needs to be told in pictures! My day started EARLY I didn't want to hit rush hour traffic again so I left about 6:20am and made it there in record time (like 20 till 8, yeah 2 hours before the show. BUT who should wander by but Fiskateer Legend Wendy Jo so she kept me company (as she was waiting to get in as well.)

Once the floor opened we were off with a bang. I found my pal Joanne Saumels and we were walking together and ran into Fiskateer Lead Cheryl and paused for a photo op infront of the Northridge booth.

I wanted to do make and takes today so that's what I did! I stopped by the Tim Holtz/Ranger area and made a cute birdcage necklace Joanne, cool thing about that is I had been wanting a bird cage necklace and didn't want to pay the $20 for it...so much better I got to make one! We also played at the Beadalon booth making twirled wire beads while waiting for Margot Potter (to sign her new book!)

When we were done with Beadalon, we ran over to the Creative Options booth cause they were doing a drawing I won a tackle box (Creative options is owned by Plano Molding they make tackle/tool boxes) that got promptly taken over my pal Maxine (yes she just whipped out her phone showed me a picture of her landing this HUGE fish and took the tackle box out of my hands ...LOL)

From there we went to the CHA Minute to craft it challenge. Where Maxine and I were both picked to compete! (There was another gal named Susan she was from Canada) that rounded out the competition. We had 10 minutes to create "something" out of one of those clear boxes (like you would store a beanie baby in) It was still competition and all of us won really cool prizes Maxine got a Pink Paislee gift bag filled with goodies, I don't remember Susan's prize but I WON the CHALLENGE and got a $100 assortment of Faber-Castell items!

Two kits-one to create an art journal and one to do a mixed media canvas, plus all their new gelato colors and a couple of other sets of tools. I had been dreaming of getting that stuff it was so wonderful to WIN IT!

Joanne and I stopped by the Faber-Castell booth when I was done just so I could thank them for the wonderful prizes. I also wanted to do their make and take to learn how to use all that stuff!!!

From there we went to the Bazzill booth to see Miz Angela and Miz Rebecca (fabulous lead Fiskateers) dressed to the nines in fabulous paper dresses made out of entirely bazzill products! They were wonderful.

After this we split up I had a blogger/press event for Provo Craft. It was their Cricut "make and greet." A lot more "low key" than they usually do but fun no the less. Joanne had to head home to clean up her leaky air conditioner :(

Following the Provo/Cricut event I got to play with Plaid paints and paint a flower (the only problem with that is the guy had the same look on his face as my art teacher did when I tried to paint (that ohh I need to be encouraging so I can't let my expression look anything but.) Then wandering by Wallnut Hallow found they had an unclaimed spot in their make and take class. I snatched it up because we were going to get to use one of the Top 20 CHA picks their new "card keeper box. The class was to decorate one of their new boxes. They hold standard A2 sized cards and who doesn't need to organize their cards! We used glimmer mist and prima resist papers and flowers fun stuff. I liked the way mine turned out!

Finishing up my day of make and takes I created a necklace at the "I love to create" booth. We used their press and stick adhesive to create a cute necklace out of a washer, beads, charms and glitter!

Crazy day but my hands are green and I'm sparkly with pink glitter so it must have been a fabulous day!

A few of the day's make and takes (along with my stamp and bracelet from Photocentric :)

CHA day 1 (the day of names!)

Ahhh CHA the lure of new products, the thrill of trying new techniques, the fun of seeing friends. CHA "week" is also a bit crazy. Early long days and even longer crazy nights but I wouldn't change it for the world!

My first day of CHA started rather early. I wanted to finish getting photos and certificates into envelopes for our crop sponsors. We had so many wonderful manufacturers and retailers sponsoring the last crop we did for Operation Christmas Child I needed to recognize them because they are what helped make the crop so fabulous. Each of our sponsors received a certificate and letter from me thanking them along with some photos of their part of the event.

My goal for the day was to personally hand out the certificates to each of our sponsors. Little did I know my day would have even more fun in store! I got to the show at 8 :15ish to run into Fiksateers Mandie Wade and Lori Brown... and then saw Miz Maxine and none other than Lead Fiskateer Cheryl Waters! Hugging, and talking and a few pix and then...

The acting prez of the Craft and Hobby Association says "who's been here the longest waiting in line" My hand pipes up with WE HAVE and then I get escorted up to the front of the line and am then introduced to the Mayor of Rosemont! "This is Betsy Burnett she's an educator/demonstrator member of CHA and she is our VIP of the day!" Before I knew it, I'm in line with him and Lori and Mandie posing for photos before the press to open the show. What a fabulous experience!!!

After the "running of the crafters" (translate crafters running for whatever "good" freebie a manufacturer is offering at the time. This time it was Studio Callico for a new collection pack. )was done the pace of the show slowed down a tad for me. I had such a good time going from one sponsor to another thanking them for help with our Operation Christmas Child crop. Creative Options, Unibind, Craftwell, Epiphany Crafts, Contain-ya-Craft, Fiskateers, Lori Brown, Scrapbook Chick, Xyron, Hydrangea Hippo...there were so many companies to thank. It was great to be able to thank them in person for their help with the event!

In my wanderings I ran into my friend Karen working with Scrapbook Royalty as well as Fiskateer Legend Stephanie Hamen who was demoing a really nead fabric glue at Beacon Adhesives. Then hugs with lead Fiskateer Tami Bayer and while there Sarah Podzell (our wonderful community coordinator and Fiskateers.) I stopped to do a make-n-take with Lead Fiskateer Angela Daniels and her wonderful orange go-go boots at the I Love to Create booth with the NEW punches (yup the scissor one !!!) While there someone near and dear to my heart N50 Jane Hasty (who trained me all those years ago as a Fiskars demonstrator.)

Towards the end of my day I ran into Fiskateer legend Wendy Jo Avey at the Craft Fusion event where she competed for some fabulous prizes (sorry that' Wendy Jo's story to tell but I may be able to be bribed for the photos :) I also got to sit down and do a make and take with Ken Oliver from Unibind (he was on the sponsor list so it was great to be able to sit down and chat with him for a few.)

Even though I had seen all sorts of wonderful people, I was missing one Lead Fiskateer on my list. Have no fear though, at the very end of the day I ran into none other than Rebecca Peck at the Upholstery Studio. The fun part about that was I had won an awesome staple gun from them at a Ustream chat Rebecca hosted. (I did have to confess mom took over the gun and I haven't seen it since though :) it's only fitting cause she's redoing a chair for me)

As the day wound down. I was excited that it was only the first day and I had already seen so many of my friends. I couldn't wait to see what day 2 would have for me!