A day trip to Minneapolis and a haul

On the second day of our weekend trip, Wayne and I left really early from Duluth to drive to Minneapolis :)
1st stop was Cabalas...which is one of Wayne's favourite stores.
I used to love it until they stopped selling their Bear Claw chocolate bars :(
But I did pick up a warm red plaid throw blanket :)

When we left it had stopped snowing, but the roads weren't clear...but he is used to driving on these type of road conditions, so he drove while I crocheted another baby afghan :)

Our next stop was one of my stores....Blicks.
I picked up some Gamsol as I am almost out and some art journal mediums to play with :)

We then went to Mall of America for some yummy banana caramel crepes and cinibon sticks...soooo yummy.
Yes, we only stopped in at MOA for food, lol.
Then we headed to Joann's and I picked up some more art journaling supplies ;)
They let me use so many coupons...I really did good :)

Our last stop on our way back to our hotel in Duluth was Pine City Scrapbooking.

I love this store, so much to look at and I like how they have their products displayed.

Sadly we didn't have a lot of time to browse in that store as we had a bit of a drive still ahead of us.

We went to 5 Guys for supper....oh I wish I had one of their burgers and order of fries right now!!

I hope you all have a very creative day :)

Tracy :)

More Shop, shop, shopping

 Another full day of shopping…..love shopping, teehee.
We left the hotel at 6:20am…I fell asleep on our drive to Rogers MN.
Our first stop was at Cabela's. I was very sad as they didn't have any chocolate Bear Claws :(
I had finished my last one the other day as I knew we were coming here.
I was planning on stocking up…but no such luck.

Our next stop was Joanns :)

I found a few Tim Holtz products…oh yes and a bit of washi tape ;)

I always look forward to checking out Blick's.

I was looking for some Black Gesso.

I purchased this huge container for .20c more than one of the tiny containers.

I can share this with my friends :)

We then went to Ikea.
I picked up a couple of floor lamps….this was all I was looking for and was happy to find them for $8.95 each.
I will share those when I get home and set them up :)
Guess what I found at Ikea as well….washi tape, teehee.
The wings stamp is from Hobby Lobby when we got back to Duluth.

We also hit up a Tuesday Morning.
This one usually doesn't have much, but I found a few goodies :)
Yes, those are a couple of journals….but I may take the pages out, and use them for notes or for when I write letters.

Found another Hobby Lobby :)
Wayne didn't think I would be long, so he stayed in the jeep…surprise, I found more ;)
I love anything with the months or days on it, so when I saw these Month stickers, and they were under $2.00 for a set of 2 I picked them up….good thing I really checked them out, as there was only 1/2 a month in a pages…so I needed 2 different packages to make up a year…weird eh?

On our way back to Duluth, we always stop at Pine City Scrapbooking.
I love this store!!!
Wayne talked me into getting this dragonfly die/embossing I had my eye on for a while now.
Most everything else (besides the Prima girl stamps and the TH bat stencil) are dies…I have quite a few cards I am planning on making with those deer and tree dies :)

When we got back to Duluth, we were thinking of stopping off at Red Lobster again…but when we saw so many waiting outside, we decided to check out 5 guys instead.
After supper, we went to the mall to pick up a treat for Heather and then to Barnes & Noble.

Funny Story:
When we were leaving Joanns, just before Wayne was about to back up, there was a lady standing waiting for us to go, while Wayne was waiting for her to walk.
She didn't move, so Wayne put the jeep in park, so she would go…she still was waiting….so I waved her to go.
She then walked to my window…so I thought she was parked beside us.
I opened my window and apologized, while laughing saying I didn't realize that she was parked beside up.
Turns out…she didn't park beside us.
She said she was doing a Minnesota Nice and was letting us go first. But then noticed our licence plate and that we were from Canada. Then it made sense to her, as Canadians are known for being so courteous….her words not mine, lol.

We all had a good chuckle…then as she walked away, she apologized for the Jays loss, lol. She said she was rooting for them.

As much as I love to shop, I am looking forward to getting home and creating with my new goodies.

I hope you all had a creative day today :)

Tracy :)

Let the Adventure Begin…again

The title for this post should probably read "Let the Shopping Begin" lol.
We are on our December Family Get away :)

Our first step was of course to Cabela's…..Wayne's favourite store.
Don't judge me on my quantity of Bear Claws…these have to last me a while :)
I was surprised to see that the Cabela's in Winnipeg didn't carry them…she didn't even know what they were.
Also some yummy warm candied Cashews and Peacans :)

Now onto what you are really here to see…my creative goodies ;)
After Cabela's we stopped off at Blicks art.
I was excited to pick up some more of these inks/markers.
I wanted to get a dark and light shade of each colour.
I have to say, I am so happy that I take photos of all of my supplies as I purchase them.
The reason….it is so easy to keep track of what I have.
When I took photos of my last Pitt pen haul, for my blog post, I turned the markers so I could see the names of the colours.
This way I was guaranteed not to purchase the same colours, and the photos are on my phone, so right at my fingertips :)

We also stopped off at a Tuesday Morning.
We went to 2 of them today and here is what I found at the first one.
I love these red buckets for Christmas decor that Ashley showed me, as she knew I would love them.
I picked up these cool napkins for some creative fun ;)
2 Stencils, some neat book covers and this number stamp set.
I also bought 2 of these clear containers. I am planning on putting them in my drawers in my craft room for storing smaller embellishments.
See, I'm at least thinking of organizing my craft room ;)

I did more creative shopping, but I will share that in tomorrows post…..just in case I don't find anything tomorrow ;)

When Heather and Kristy asked if we could go to Winnipeg to see Lights in concert, I had told them we could go, but we wouldn't be going on our December Family Trip.
They were fine with it…but Ashley wasn't, lol.
Ashley wanted to go and felt ripped off as she didn't have a vote.
She said this would've been her last family trip as she is getting married this summer, and then start her own family.
Wayne being the hard ass that he tries to be, had asked me if Ashley really wanted to go on a Family  trip, we could.
I wasn't upset about him over-riding me, teehee.

I hope you all had a very Creative Friday :)

Tracy :)

Colour Swatch and a Night out with Friends

I put together my Coloured Pencil colour swatch.
I stamped the frames last week and coloured them all in today.
I used Gamsol to smooth and shade the pencil lines.
All those pretty colours just make me smile :)

Here is something else that makes me smile…my friends.
We started this tradition last year. We go out for dinner and then a movie to celebrate our birthdays.
It was Lynne's birthday last month and we finally got out to celebrate it :)
I am on the left, Lynne is in the back, Sharon on the right, and Denise is in the front :)

Lynne wanted to go out for Chinese food.
The lovely ladies who served us, noticed the gift bag, so sang Happy Birthday to Lynne (which they called Lamb chop) with a egg roll with a candle stuck in it.

Here is my fortune :)
We purchased a lottery ticket and marked down all of our fortune's lucky numbers on it.
The draw is tomorrow, here is hoping we win big ;)

This is the movie we went to see.
There were some funny parts to it.
I keep threatening that when it is my birthday, I am going to pick a scary movie, lol.
None of my friends like scary movies ;)

So my healthy eating didn't go very well tonight. I only ate until I was comfortable, but Lynne did make me eat a few pieces of liquorice ;)

I hope you all had a wonderful and creative Tuesday :)

Tracy :)

Colouring with Pencils..No Joke ;)

It is my friend Lynne's birthday.
Actually it was last Friday, but I wasn't here.
So I altered this $1.00 kraft gift bag to put her gift in.
I stamped the butterflies on the background and then added designer paper, some flowers, butterflies and my image I coloured up with my new coloured pencils :)

This is the first time I have tried using coloured pencils and gamsol.
If you know me, then you know that when I try something creative, I go all out.
I want to use what I make, even if it for practice.
So not knowing what I was doing, I coloured her face…it looks a bit on the yellow side for the shaded areas, but all in all, I think it is usable.

For her hair, I used only 2 colours of brown.
I left some areas uncoloured as that would act as yet another colour or a deeper highlight.
I then blended it all with my Gamsol and blending stump.

Then I went on to the other parts of the image.
Not to bad if I say so myself ;)
If any of you pro's out there have any tips for me, I would love to hear them :)

Here is a close up of the finished image on the bag.

I know most use Prismacolor pencils, but the artist at Blick's told me she preferred the Blick's brand of pencils.
I had a bit of a dilemma when choosing which brand, as I know I could find beautiful colour combinations on YouTube, where if I bought the Blicks brand I would have to figure out on my own, which colours would work good together.
So, I asked to try both brands. I found the Blicks brand to be more smooth when I coloured with them.
The price was quite a bit cheaper as well, but the deciding factor was the smoothness of them.

To help me decipher the coloured pencil colours, I am planning on making a colour chart.
I don't usually do this, I just normally wing it.
But I thought I would with these coloured pencils.
I made a grid on the type of paper that I will been using for the pencils and then I stamped this open image on the grid.
I will add the colours as I go along. This way I don't have to clean my blending stumps after each colour as I would be using them for whichever image I am colouring at the time.
I think I will be copying this chart as it took a few tries to get this perfect and without smears, lol.

Onto My Day:
Ashley had an appointment early this morning and wanted me to come with her.
We had a storm last night, and her jeep doors and windows were frozen. She had to pour hot water on the windows for them to thaw out.
When I went to open the door, the handle (and the whole door) was so frozen, Ashley had to open it from the inside.
When I got home, I stayed in the rest of the day.
Tomorrow is suppose to be more of the same….sadly, this isn't an April fools joke :(

I hope you all had a very creative Tuesday :)

Tracy :)