Windy City Visit -- Part 2

We had a grand day yesterday as the Windy City Visit continued.  After I gave Pam and Sarah what I call the "nickel tour" of Downtown Chicago and all its interesting surrounding sites we headed over to an old neighborhood of mine for a scrumptious lunch at the retro cafe "Kitsch'n."

This neighborhood known as "Roscoe Village" was not so cool and trendy when I grew up here, but it's a wonderful little community now on the north side of the city.

After lunch we headed over to Stampland which is an actual museum and stamp making site owned by William "Picasso" Gaglione and Darlene Domel.  The history of the thousands and thousands of vintage stamps they own was fascinating.  As was the class Darlene gave us using masking tape and dusting brushes.

I cannot tell you how warm, inviting -- and funny these two were:)

You know our visit included shopping afterwards.  Check out their enormous inventory of stamps!

After that it was off to Greek Town for some Saganaki, Moussaka, Lamb Chops, etc.

A great day!

Windy City Visit

Pam and Sarah "flew" into Chicago for their visit this week.....

......literally, due to records winds we have been having here.

We've had great fun together .....doing a lot of drinking (as you can see above.. lol ) and, of course,

shopping as you can see below.

(That's Pam, Sarah and Me enjoying lunch together.  We are off to Stampland tomorrow, so more about that later.)

Tag Tuesday Challenge -- Orange & Black

Today's Tag Tuesday challenge is a simple one and inspired by a popular color combination of this season, orange and black.    You can make any kind of tag you wish, just use the colors of black and orange on your tag.

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I got back to some stamping on my tag this week.  The bird and branch is from Tim Holtz and the sentiment is from Cloud Nine Designs.  I love the acorn, but can't remember who makes that.

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This will be a two-week challenge as I'll be having my cruising buddies (can you believe that Tim Holtz cruise we took was a year ago already?)  over for a visit this next week, and I think I'll be somewhat preoccupied.  Yes, Sarah and Pam will be staying a few days with me and I'm quite looking forward to it.  I'll be sure to let you know what we were up to later on. 

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Tag Tuesday Challenge -- Moon

This week's challenge will take on another sign of the season -- Moon.  Well, I guess Harvest Moon is more like it.  But just to keep it a wide enough challenge we'll just go with Moon! 

For my tag I painted the tag with black acrylic paint.  I then added white pigment ink around the edges. I stamped the alphabet and embossed it in orange.  As I was creating this tag, the little sentiment came to me, so I boldly added it in my own writing (which seems such a scary thing to do).

Art Creations Friday

I've had so little time lately to play along with other challenges, but this week's offering from Art Creations Friday was too good to pass up.  I used the gorgeous background that was given as a challenge to create my tea cup.  This template was sitting on my craft table as it's the newest template challenge being shared in the Oct/Nov Stampers Sampler.

Go to Art Creations Friday to download it and play along if you'd like!  I had fun with this.

Tag Tuesday Challenge -- Pumpkins

It's that time of year again.   October definitely means pumpkins around here.  So our challenge this week is to include a pumpkin on your tag.

That sounds easy enough, doesn't it?

If you are in need of something with pumpkins on it, check out the Graphics Fairy link below for free clip art.  That's where I got my vintage seed catalog image.

http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/2010/08/vintage-halloween-clip-art-pumpkin.html#links.

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Published/Tag Tuesday/And a Little Coincidence

The newest Stampers Sampler arrived in this week's mail and I was happy to find a few of the items I submitted for their Christmas challenge inside.  

One of the items included was this tag you may recognize from a Tag Tuesday challenge.  I am pretty sure it was for the colors of Christmas (Pink & Brown) series we did last year.

I wonder if there are any other Tuesday Taggers out there who might submit their tags for publication?

From the ones I've seen submitted for Tag Tuesday, they are certainly publication-worthy.

I was also thrilled that one of the cards I submitted (St. Nicholas card above) shared a page with the very talented Debbie Kaste.  (She created the angel tag above.) If you are a fan of the Stampington publications, I am sure you have seen her work in Stampers Sampler and Take Ten.  In fact, she recently was the Guest Artist in Stampers Sampler.

Which is how I knew what she looked like.

And how I knew it was Debbie when she walked into the scrapbooking store I was at recently.

That's the coincidence part of this post.

Debbie visits my blog occasionally so she knew who I was when I introduced myself.

We had a wonderful little chat and it was fun getting to know a little bit about each other.

  

Above is another card of mine that was published in this edition of Stampers Sampler.

ETA:  So I've come to find out that the beautiful book on the cover was created by one of our Tuesday Taggers, Tracy Evans.  Congrats to you, Tracy!