missbossypants crafts now at UP THE STREET!

I am SO EXCITED! I was a vendor at the Bellies, Babies and Beyond show this past spring, and did some great networking. I met a scrapbooking supplies vendor who ran her own online store called UP THE STREET. Tara's creations are beautiful! She uses the newest, cutting-edge supplies and techniques, and sells them too!

Tara told me in the spring that she would soon be opening an actual bricks and mortar store, and was interested in selling some of my products on consignment. I immediately agreed. Are you kidding me!?! Of course I would LOVE to have my products showcased in an actual store, let alone one full of beautiful things!

Well, that store has been built and is now open. It is GORGEOUS!!! It is located in an historic building at the main crossroads in Strathroy (my hometown!). This building was originally one of the Hotels in town, back when people travelled by stagecoach and steam train. It eventually morphed into The Derby Inn... home of Strathroy's Rock & Roll. It was the bar in town that had live bands, cold beer, dirty old men, equally dirty carpet, and equally old furniture. It was much loved, and finally closed down about 2 years ago. The facade had been horrendously ruined with porthole-style windows with 70's style tinted and textured glass, as well as a brick veneer on the exterior walls. It was not a pretty sight. It was believed that the place was so rundown, it would be next to impossible to renovate and reuse the building. It was bought by a local antique and art dealer/picture framer who had the vision to revitalize this old building.

Here's how Tara's portion of the building looks now:

Its neat, clean lines are beautiful, while the architecture and form of the original building was retained. It seems to have been a successful revitalization project for both the building owner, as well as the Municipality (funds were provided by the Town to aid in the revitalization of this downtown building).

Tara's store is bright and attractive, and has a million things to look at (and purchase!)

Scrapbooking supplies are intermingled with antiques, old-fashioned sweets and products made from vintage supplies. Glassware is soon to be added to the great mix of products!

The most exciting part.... (for me, anyways!)..... I dropped off my wares today, and they will be set out in the store, ready for purchase as early as tomorrow!!! That's right, you can now stroll downtown Strathroy, and purchase some missbossypants goodies! Some items that will be available at UP THE STREET include: Flaxseed Ouchie Bags, Women's scarves, Kid's aprons, Baby Bibs, and Felt Food! Cup Cozies will be added soon, once I can add more to my inventory (i.e. pump out some more in my basement "sweat shop").

UP THE STREET is located at 2 Front St. West, Strathroy, and here online.

Stop by, check out the store, and tell Tara I sent you!

I found it!

I found the 13th scrapbook page pic! This is one of my favourites. I scraplifted the idea, not the actual layout. It was a layout that used a lot of bling and embellishments. Sounded good to me! (It's actually a lot more sparkly/blingy/exciting in real person. The white letters are covered in clear glass balls which gives it a really cool effect!)

.....and yes, the bottle cap in the top right corner of the pic IS from a Pomtini cooler. They're tasty, and good for page inspiration! :)

Scrapbooking weekend

On the weekend of April 23-25, I went to a scrapbooking weekend just for girls. It was funny, I looked at all the ladies there (24 of us!), and said, "wow, just think of all the little kiddies at home with their daddies right now, eating Kraft dinner and hot dogs, and watching cartoons to their heart's content!" Not a problem though, kids need a good dose of mac and cheese once in a while, and mommas NEED to get away sometimes too!

Just look at all that $$ sitting there! The amount of money we all spend on scrapbooking supplies is crazy, but when you see the outcome of it, it makes it all worthwhile!

Row 1 of tables

Row 2 of tables.
I really should have taken a picture of another table that stood on its own - FULL of cricut machines. It's in the distance there, the round table on the right of the picture. Spread out through the entire room, I think there were approximately 10 machines there, all cutting, humming and creating away.

A posed picture of me working away. I was finally out of my funk, and starting to create something I was happy with.

Working at one of the cricut "stations" are my best friend Amanda (tongue out - so classy!), and "our" cousin Krista (deer in headlights look - really, I don't think I scared her!) Krista is Amanda's first cousin, and our moms are first cousins, so that makes us... like 2nd or 3rd cousins, right? We have a great time cackling and carrying on.

oh, the treat table.... we get fed VERY well at this resort, but still we always feel the need to fill another table with snacks. You know, for extra energy to make it late into the night.... I took this picture early on - it actually got more full as people started hauling out more and more candy, chips, fruit and breads. mmmmmmm!

Another sweet pic of the girlies - so silly!


Ok, so here's a rundown of all that I got accomplished...
Amanda and I arrived on Friday evening around 5pm. It takes me forever to get unpacked, settled and actually started on a page, and then takes me FOREVER AND A YEAR to finish an actual page. I agonize over placement, colours, embellishments, etc. I was also in a bit of a funk, not really living up to my true scrapbook potential, but hey, I got some pages done. That's all that matters, right? We packed up and checked out at 4pm on Sunday afternoon. We were there about 47 hours total. So, I estimate that I had a grand total of 26 hours of scrapbooking in 2.5 days, and finished 12 pages. That's an average of 2.17 hours per page. That's actually pretty quick for me! I must have been on a roll!

Anyways, here are pics of what I got done:
And wouldn't you know, I don't have a picture of my all-time, absolute FAVOURITE page that I completed. It'll just have to have its own blog post later!

Princesses on Ice - hard to see the light pink in the title. I HATE this page. It looks like I went back 5 years in scrapbooking history, and did it in that style. But, it's done, and I'm not one to pull pages apart and re-do them.

Fair Time. Not exactly happy with this one, but it's better than the last. I was in a square-themed funk that day, and this was the result. It seems to need a little more or something. Maybe someday I'll have just the right thing for it.

6th Birthday Party. Ok, you're going to notice a theme here - the good pages are probably scrap lifts. This one is definitely a scraplift, but with a few changes from moi. I love the colours of this one!

1st Grade - also a scraplift. It needed to be simple, since the paper was so gorgeous! I bought this years ago, and was so scared to cut into it, but now I'm so glad I did! and since I used it so sparingly, I have lots leftover for another page sometime!

Family Picture Day - I can't honestly remember who's book I made this for - Sweety's or Monkey's. I think it's for monkey, since I have other great pictures of sweety from this photo shoot day. I'm not sold on the darkish gray background, but I was in a bit of a "just get it done" mood, so that's how it is!

TOO LOUD! - my first page I finished that weekend. I like it, but I don't. You know that feeling? I lean more towards the liking it side, but it needs something.

Girls can like dinosaurs too - I love this title (thanks to Amanda!) I had a lot of pictures of events that I needed to do pages for both kids. I'm glad I didn't just do 2 of each page, since each of the kids had a completely different experience at this show!

little hero - this one reminds me of being a little "arts and crafty" and "paper piece-y", but it's cute for the age that he is in this picture. We were all sharing cricut cartridges with each other, and I think we all went a little crazy discovering all the fun shapes and fonts we could use. As you can see, I had a great time with the fireman accessories from the Everyday paper dolls cartridge!

All I ever wanted was a DS - I L.O.V.E this page!!! and it WAS NOT a scraplift. That's all me, baby! I love to do pages that are not centred around a specific holiday or theme, since I can just do what I want with it. This has to do with Sweety's Christmas present, but I played off the colours in the pictures for the theme.

Falling into FUN - I have a really hard time doing fall pages, since the fall colours aren't my preferred pallette. (and I hate the fact that our maple tree turns yellow in the fall instead of a beautiful orange or red colour) I do, however, like how this page turned out. It was, of course, a scraplift!

So, there you have it! The fruits of my labour a couple weekends ago!
When I get the chance to photograph the best of the bunch, I'll post it too. I'm not sure why it didn't get photographed, perhaps it was still drying (it has ALOT of bling on it!)

Have a great springtime week!