Cedaroma Lodge

Well hello there friends!  I know it's been awhile since I've posted.  I did start a post a week or so ago, I wanted to let you know about my winning a week's stay at cabin here in Wisconsin.  I liked Discover Wisconsin on Facebook awhile ago. I entered to win their giveaways every so often but have never thought much about it.  Isn't that how it usually goes?  Well sometime around Christmas or shortly thereafter a friend commented on Facebook something to the effect of how did it feel to win?  I was puzzled and typed huh?  She typed you didn't know you won a week's stay at Cedaroma Lodge in St Germain, WI?  I typed no...of course I was in the process of checking it out for myself.  Sure enough!  It was there on the Discover Wisconsin page and the Cedaroma Facebook page and then I got the email confirming it. I was on the quest of who to take with me.  I thought of my sons first, we all need a break.  Then a dear friend mentioned that it would probably be more fun to do a girl's getaway. So I contacted friends and family who I thought needed a break.  I thought it would be fun to craft/scrapbook/make cards together.  So many couldn't get away for a whole week.  Which I was beginning to doubt myself as I'm a temp worker with no benefits.  I emailed Lynn the owner of Cedaroma Lodge and asked if I took part of the week and would it be okay to gift the rest of the week? She gave me the okay.  Well finding someone to take the rest of the week was just as difficult.  I did find one friend that was able to go with.  She works with Mitchell at Goodwill and we've been scrap booking together for over a year now.  She is one of the nicest people I've met since moving to this area.  She is always positive and kind just what I've needed after all the ups and lots of downs I've been through.

We decided to go over this past weekend.  My birthday was on Monday the 4th, and I thought it would be fun to just be able to relax, scrap and of course eat!  We had wine and other liquor with us, but only drank the wine. Our first night there it was minus 10 degrees F. We did turn on the gas fireplace to warm up our toesies.  Sooo cold that Dawn's van did not start the next day. Thankfully, she is a member of Triple A.  We got some good scrappin' in   Sunday and Monday morning. We packed up and left on Monday,  a day early because of an impending snowstorm.  Neither one of us wanted to drive in that.

I must say that you really should give Cedaroma Lodge a visit! Whether you're a winter sports fan, a fisherman or like Dawn and I enjoy the indoors while crafty our little hearts out. Believe me, if it were warmer weather Dawn and I would've done more outdoor things. We both enjoy fishing, hiking and nature photography. 

Lynn the owner, is such a nice person always responding to my emails and coming up to the cabin to meet us.  Another great tidbit, she is allowing me to come back next month to finish off my stay since I was not able to take a week all at one time! How cool is that?  Here are some photos of the cabin and how we set up our scrapbooking stash.  Now believe me Dawn has all her scrapbooking stash in her van, so my stuff is about 1/4 of this stash here. Grins.

Scrap goodies

How we finally set up since the light was best here

Dawn scrappin' away

Morning view from our cabin's porch

Cabin number 5, our cabin

Our cabin from the parking spot

I had to include a photo of the fireplace going

I also want to tell you that March and April are perfect times to go to Cedaroma lodge to craft your little heart out, whatever your hobby may be. Right now they're having a promotion, the 3rd night is free. The promotion runs until May 2, 2013. The beds are super comfy and the towels very plush.  If you're like me and like a good hot shower with the water full blast, you'll get  one here!  So often you stay somewhere and the water is so light and just drips out of the shower head. 
That's it for now, I'll put up another post showing you the things I did accomplish while scrappin' in the cabin. Have a great weekend!

Happy Easter! and a couple of layouts

Hope you had a wonderful Holiday, whichever way you celebrate it.

As you can see from my previous post I got a chance to spend time with family a few weeks ago. I hadn't seen my nephew and great nephew in years.  It was so nice to see them and get to spend time with them. I only wish that my two could have been there too.  Of course when you haven't seen someone in a long time you get as many photos as you can.  Josh was 2 the last time I got photos of him and he'll be 9 in July.  

I won some BoBunny Ad Lib at my LSS Picture This a week prior to getting together with family.  With the colors in the photos it was easy to use Ad Lib for the layouts I did. I only wish it wasn't discontinued.  I will have to see if I can find some online when pay day rolls around.  I like the wording of document everyday, celebrate life, etc.  I think too often we only take photos and scrap special occasions.  When we should also let our future generations know what everyday life was like too.  I enjoy history, so it was easy for me to think that way. I always enjoyed reading the post cards and cards my grandmother saved from family and friends.  I remember she kept them in a wooden box.  I enjoyed getting a little peek into their life.  Well enough of my jibber jabber. Here are a couple of layouts I came up with. I was inspired by PageMaps (March Maps) for the layouts below. I really enjoy that site, Becky Fleck is so very talented. I was so lucky to have a friend loan me her cricut so I was able to cut the title for the Siblings layout below. 

Four Generations of Olson Men Sam, Jayson, Josh and Dad

Me, my brother Sam and my sister Kim

 I am entering the Four Generations layout in the Here Comes the Boys Anything but a Card challenge.  I found the challenge listed on Feline Playful. You can click the graphic to the right to find challenges for scrapbooking, cardmaking and altered art.  I'm trying to find more masculine challenges since as you can see there are quite a few men in my family.  Smiles.

Thanks for stopping by! Sure hope your holiday weekend was wonderful!!!

Sweet or Savory?

I can't believe Valentine's Day is just over a week away!  Where does the time go?  I mentioned before that I've made some scrappin' friends. We really enjoy getting together when we can. I also love that Mitch goes to crops too.  One Friday he and Dawn went just the two of them.   

 I'm thrilled to be holding my first ever Altered Frap set class on Saturday Feb. 11 at 1pm at Picture This.  I have made two samples and will let them choose which one they want to make.  My creative and clever son Mitch came up with Sweet or Savory as our way to promote the class.  The choices are to make a Valentine's Gift Set or a Picnic Storage set.  I think the picnic storage one is winning out from the ones I've talked to.  

 I filled the Valentine frap bottles with foot soak salts, chocolate and hot cocoa mix.  It's up to your imagination what you can put in the bottles and of course make these gift sets for. Dawn and Mitch are always coming up with new ideas. 

I've been pretty creative lately. On Friday Mitch and Dawn had the day off (they work together) so Mitch went over to her house to see about viruses on her computer and then later we met at Picture This to do some card-making and scrappin'.  I made three whole cards in the time that we were there...but it's just nice to  be able to talk, laugh and relax a bit. Being creative always improves my mood. I will show you the cards I made and Mitch's scrapbook pages.

Love this Unity stamp and the embossing folder

Dawn let me use some of her punches and I punched a lot of paper.   All of a sudden this card came together. Another great Unity Stamp.

I thought it would be great to make a card to go with the Valentine's Gift Set.

Mitch is doing fashion layouts. I think he wants to show his great fashion sense.

 

Well that's it for now. I don't want to overwhelm you with all I've been creating lately.  My neglected blog needs more posts then, don't you think?  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Happy New Year!

So it's almost two weeks into the new year and I'm finally wishing everyone a Happy and Healthy 2012!!  After the past couple of years I'm ready for an awesome year.  As you might have noticed by the time of day this is posted I've been having bouts of insomnia.  This is one time when being unemployed is good - taking a nap later if I can squeeze it in.  A few weeks ago my netbook decided she'd served her purpose for long enough - just over two years.  Hoping that tax refund time is good to me. Very thankful for Mitch sharing his laptop with me.

I guess I should show you a couple of things I did for Christmas.  I won't post anymore altered journals for the moment, unless you ask.  I did a couple with a coaster sticky notes holder and coaster notebook. I called them a kitchen set as the journal was done so the recipient could add recipes.  Also Curt inspired me to do a mini book for my parents as they lost one of their labs (black lab) last year. Sadie was such a good dog.  Scared of thunder and lightning though, she once crawled in bed with me when it was storming.  I was going to do my first paper bag album, but when I found this mini flip book that I made about three years ago, I thought that might be a better choice.  I found the MAMBI doggie stickers at M's.  

Last year our calendar was a weekly tear off calendar with dog quotes.  I used a few of the quotes on some of the pages. I created some journal spots so my parents could add any of their thoughts or memories.  My mom called and thanked me for the pictures.  


Here is a card I made.  Actually made a couple of these in different colors but only got a photo of this one which was my first one.  Dawn allowed me to open her Spellbinders Poinsettia Shapeabilities at the last crop we went to in Dec. I sat and cut out 6-8 of these in red, grey lavender color and this pink.  I really love the Memory Box paper that I used.  I wish I would've bought more than one sheet of this.  I used a sakura glitter pen to add a little glitz to the petals.  

Well that's it for now. I suppose I should try and get some sleep.  I hope to be a bit better at blogging this year. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!