Happy Monday Scrap N Stamping Friends..

Can you believe it? Monday is here again already. Where DID our weekend go?  OH yes, that's right - Railfair in Ottawa was this past weekend.  My teddybear is a member of the train club, so it's not a big secret where our weekend was spent.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining -- well not really..

I am interested as well - the boys can play with the trains -- I want to play with the scenery!  

It is amazing to me how life-like some of the layouts are - in many cases you can enlarge the photo and if you didn't know any better you might think that the photos were actually real.  There are some truly amazing artisans out there.  

I am finding it frustrating, however, that when faced with a month of weekends, that somehow everybody seems to be plotting for the same weekend each month so other things have to fall off the plate we'd dearly loved to have taken in.  This time around I missed out on the Thousand Islands Writers Festival, and an invitation to a Scrapbooking weekend at NavCan.  There just aren't enough hours in the day - or for us lately days in a weekend!!

I had thought about packing up a bag and doing some stamping this weekend, but then decided instead to pick up some tree forms, and play with that instead.  I'd actually never made any before, so I took my Powder Pals with me, and used that to catch the excess foam bits.  I made about 5 trees total just puttering around with the materials to see how they'd turned out.  I chose a mix of red, green, orange and yellow to create a tree with fall foliage, and was giggling to myself about how I could adorn it further with my Stipple brushes, and ink.  I am always amazed at how many of my interests and hobbies overlap so seamlessly if only I take the time to take a look at it. 

So..  I was just puddling around with it, not having done it before and was pretty happy with the results.  I was amused to see a few passers by taking pictures of me making trees.  My teddybear stole my trees from the table and put them on one of the modules, and I was pleasantly surprised when its owner was so excited to see them, and complimented me on my artistry.  To be honest, I was a little worried that there was going to be a problem since we'd just added these.  They weren't glued or anything, my teddybear just wanted me to see how they'd fit in.  By the end of the day I'd received several compliments, and the owner of that particular module told me to keep up the good work. I promised to make him some trees to actually attach to the layout if he wanted and he seemed to like that idea.  I'm gathering from my hubby that many of the fellows like playing with the trains, but the scenery not so much.. so it's win win for me. :)  Another fellow asked me if I wanted to help with the 800 or so trees he'd just bought.  Wow! I'm not sure that I'm quite THERE yet, but it was nice that he thought my trees turned out well enough for such a huge project. 

I'm finding myself a little pensive and reflective this morning.  Getting my business off the ground has been a lot like making these trees.  When you love what you're doing, other people can see that.  That positive energy surrounds everything, and it attracts others to come and see what you are doing.  When you love what you do, it hardly seems fair to call it work..   So this morning as my hubby heads off to work, I'm thinking more about going off to PLAY.  :)

Today I wait for the arrival of the Big Brown Truck - as two orders are due to arrive.  There are two more parcels coming this week as well, though probably not til Tuesday and Wednesday - The UPS tracking thingy said Monday up until last night but now some of it has shifted..  so we'll see.  I guess I'll be seeing a lot of my favorite delivery truck this week!

I'll be putting in an order tomorrow afternoon or evening if anyone needs anything.  Drop me a line :)  www.iscrapnstamp.stampinup.net  

However you choose to spend your Monday today, try to throw a little Creativity at it, and splash some color around :)