A typical Saturday ..

My Saturday's are usually quite hectic, especially the one prior to my monthly workshops, and today was no different. It actually started last night when I did my annual volunteer thing for the city where I live. They have a Valentine Family Fun Night where they set up long tables and a lot of supply tables with card stock, ribbon, stickers, and a ton of other stuff, and families come to spend an evening making Valentine's Day cards. About 150 people come every year, and this is my third year as a volunteer. I have a little embossing station set up at the Glitter Table, and I usually have a pretty long line, with repeat customers. :-) This year I was down to one heart stamp (and I managed to forget it, and had to run home real quick - yikes!), and I bring my Versamarker and several embossing powders. It is a mad rush for about 1 1/2 hours, then everyone is gone. The kids really have a blast, and so do I! But I get home very late - like after 9 pm, so my body is wasted after a full work day plus all that bending over to talk to kids, some of whom are only about as tall as the table. Oh, my achin' back!

Were you aware that you can sustain minor injury with repetative motions? Like winding over 200 spools of ribbon onto wooden clothes pins? My massage therapist warned me about that, and she will probably yell at me next week while I yelp when she works on my arms and hands. Between that and the bending over the embossing station, I was pretty achy this morning.

So errands finished, I started to cut the card stock for my workshops on Sunday and Tuesday. I only have 15 people coming, so compared to some other Demos, that is not a lot of kits to make, but remember, I was wounded going into this! By the time I was collating the stacks o'card stock into the kits, I found myself having to bend backwards to stretch my back between kits. I am a mess.

So I finally got 3 of my 5 stations set up by doing a little cleaning and putting away and setting up and shifting and putting away some more. As I put away the bag from Recollections - ha, 'put away'...I moved it from the Kitchen where people sit to place orders (the Ordering Station) into my Craft Room (another HA!), and I took a second to check out the contents of the bag. Guess what I found - more ribbon. Sigh...4 packs of three ribbons each that had to be wound onto clothes pins and stored. Just a small diversion.

Then, as I prepared to clean off another section of table to set up station #4, I found a card just asking to be completed, so I took a break and made this:

Recipe: Stamps - by Creative Mode; Paper - Sahara Sand, Close to Cocoa, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White, misc polka dot paper; Ink - Basic Brown, Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel, More Mustard, Pumpkin Pie; Other - Blender Pen, Misc ribbon.

Maybe not my best work, but I love this guy! And when I paired him with the polka dot paper, I had to pull out my nifty new storage box of pink ribbons :-) and I selected a narrow hot pink polka dot to go with it. My watercoloring skills need practice, but I am okay with how this turned out. I started with a Blender Pen and Creamy Caramel, then added Close to Cocoa, and it looked boring. I added some More Mustard and it really brightened him up!

Well, I've got to go clean up now and set up my last two stations. Technically I am still way ahead of schedule, as I am usually doing this about 11:30 pm, so all is not lost. Once I am done, though, I plan to lie on the floor and see if my back stops aching. Ugh, don't get old!