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That was the familiar confident sound of the brass knocker at my front door announcing Steffi's arrival....... canvas tote bag in hand. Inside that bag were always a floral-print chair cushion, several pairs of scissors, adhesives, some scraps of ribbon, and various other crafting supplies. As she carefully claimed and arranged her place at the table, she always had a story to share with us about something intriguing - a new restaurant that had opened, a talk she was giving in Seattle, or maybe just a rare deer that had wandered through their property recently. But whatever her news, it was always delivered with that unique, charming, spunky flair that I just have to call "SO Steffi".
Once she was settled, stamping class could begin.
And so it went - for the past dozen years. Through monthly Stamp-a-Stack gatherings & Stampers 30 Club meetings, annual Christmas Card classes, Stamp Camps and classes that featured more complex projects, and even a one-time-only opportunity to take a trip into Seattle with a dozen of us excited, enthusiastic stampers for a full-day seminar last spring.... year after year, Steffi charmed her stamping friends with her SO-Steffi style. In spite of advancing arthritis in her hands and a myriad of other health challenges, she continued to persevere with her stamping and papercrafting - even though it often meant she had to turn certain delicate details over to me to finish for her. It was always a privilege to help her, and I count myself the most fortunate of all of us to have been here for every one of those memorable events.
There will not only be a very empty chair, but an empty place in our hearts when we gather 'round the stamping table again next week; Steffi left not only us, but her adoring husband Rick, and countless numbers of other friends and fans far and wide last Monday.
As I've chatted with the friends in our stamping circle as well as our neighbors here locally this week, I've noticed the same words keep coming up in our conversations: charming, spunky, adorable, endearing, fascinating..... and I just smile and nod my head. Yep, all those and more. She certainly was.
A peculiar thing about many stampers is that we often like to stamp cards, but then we sometimes have a hard time giving them away. But not Steffi. She was a prolific card "sender" as well. She would often make upwards of 8 - 10 cards at a time here at our monthly stamping sessions, and I'm fairly confident she did indeed send out nearly every one. As the holiday season approached she made both Hanukkah cards and Christmas cards - and sent to each friend accordingly. And every year I had the privilege of helping her make several (often somewhat complex) custom gifts for special people in her life. One such special person was Rick - and he told me she had given him this Valentines mailbox right before she was hospitalized. When I visited at their home, I smiled to see it attractively displayed in their kitchen - chocolates tumbling out just like I'd envisioned.
Late last year Steffi's sister Nina came up from the Los Angeles area to visit. Steffi was anxious to bring Nina over to say hi and show her some of the cards and recent class projects that I always have on display around here. While we chatted, Nina spotted a certain card design that she particularly liked, and she announced to Steffi that she wanted a set of those cards for her birthday. So as soon as Nina's visit was over, Steffi ordered the necessary supplies, and then early this month she and I met so that I could give her some pointers on how to recreate that particular card design. (Well, a version that was similar, although not an exact copy.) She had decided to make 4 of those cards, and when she returned for Stamp Club a week later (Tuesday, Feb. 9th) she proudly displayed those 4 beautiful completed cards, explaining to the ladies at the table that they were to be her sister's birthday gift because Nina had special-ordered them. I can still see Steffi's happy smile as she passed those cards around and everyone admired them - and we could tell she'd worked meticulously to make that special gift for her sister.
Five days later Steffi was in the hospital. As the days crawled by and her condition grew more grave, I felt the need to ask Rick when Nina's birthday was. I'm sure that probably seemed an odd question to be asked at the time, but I figured he would likely not know of the existence of those special cards,and I felt compelled to make sure that Nina would receive her birthday gift from her sister. Well, Rick checked his records and announced the date, which turned out to be later in the spring. "Oh good", I remember thinking, "there'll be plenty of time to hunt down and send those cards later."
Well. Turns out I needn't have worried myself about those cards - because according to Nina, by the time I started asking around she'd already received them in the mail - more than 2 months in advance of her birthday! Ever the orchestrator, SO-Steffi strikes again!
I only knew Steffi the last dozen years of her life - after she and Rick had moved to Whidbey Island from Southern California. But those of us around the stamping table certainly enjoyed her fascinating stories of her younger years - in a time and place that seems such a contrast to the context in which we knew her. You can read about her colorful Hollywood years in recent pieces in the Los Angeles Times (here and here), and also in a post by local blogger, Sue Frause. I just had to share about the Steffi *I* knew and admired.
We'll be gathering around the same stamping table again next week. And there'll be an empty chair with a hard wooden seat. Steffi won't need her cushion this time, but I'm sure she'll be there with us. I'll watch for familiar ink smudges.
Woo Hoo!! It only took 3 days, but I think I've finally got Stamp-the-Rock's Facebook posts to stream here, too! I untimately decided to switch to Firefox from Internet Explorer, and suddenly the exact same process I'd been doing for several days without success - suddenly worked! Coincidence? Hmmm.....
Anyway, at least for the time being, you'll find entries from Stamp-the-Rock's Facebook wall streaming here in my left-hand column (scroll down to get there), and if you're not already a fan of Stamp-the-Rock on Facebook, please consider becoming one so you can let me know what's on your mind!
And please bear with me as I figure out this Facebook stuff; this newbie's still tip-toeing around very gingerly, lol!
Did you know you can still order some of the goodies you loved from the 2009 Holiday Mini Catalog? If you've been prowling around my online store you may have noticed them interspersed in there, but until recently there hasn't been a compiled and published *list* of what's still available.
But now we've got an official list. No pictures incorporated into it though, but you can click the links individually. Or, better yet, get out your Holiday Mini and indicate on each page which items are still active - and then "unretire" that Holiday Mini and keep it with your other current catalogs.
So today I'm taking another direction in my post. While it's not directly related to stamping, and I have no stamped project to discuss, it's still definitely related to "what I do", and if you're reading this post I presume you're using a computer, and therefore this topic may pertain to you, too. So here goes.....
Have you ever experienced that sinking feeling of doom that sweeps over you right at that moment when your computer starts spitting out gibberish - or locks up altogether and refuses to boot up? And you just KNOW in an instant that potentially hundreds of your precious photos, your contacts list, and perhaps years' worth of tax files and other important documents and files are probably just about to go bye-bye?
Well *I've* been there. And having experienced that dreadful moment of desperation I know that I never, ever want to have to experience it again!
Oh yes. Having had one of the earliest PC's to find their way into people's homes (btw, did you know I began telecommuting as a programmer for a well-known company way back in 1983 after my son was born?) I, of all people, have known for literally decades that owning a hard drive means it's not a question of IF your hard drive will crash someday - but rather, "when?" And during those same years I've at various times gone through the laborious task of backing up all my data - first to floppies, and then when the backups took hours and hours and over 100 floppies that needed to be inserted sequentially, I graduated to CD's, and then when it took a half-dozen or more CD's to complete an entire backup I ultimately switched to a series of external hard drives.
But in spite of my efforts to be "good" and keep up with the chore, it seemed time and technology too often stood in my way - and when the absolute worst eventually happened one morning, wouldn't you know my back-up was not only very outdated, but most of it proved unreadable, too. Thank GOODNESS I hadn't made a complete switch to digital photography yet, so most of my losses were contained to business files, and not personal pictures. Probably my biggest fear at the time was for the 3 years' worth of tax data files that were on that drive, but thankfully I found someone who was able to pull them off for me. (For a hefty price, of course..... and massive amounts of worry in the meantime that THAT would be the time I'd get audited by the IRS.)
And so in that year I set about to redesign and rewrite from scratch all my business files, determined that that same thing would never happen to me again. Little did I know that the new replacement computer would last less than a year before it, too, would suffer a serious problem that required reinstalling Windows, a ton of money paid to yet another guru, and a full weeks' worth of pulling files off to CD's in order to preserve them yet again.
And so it was that a few years ago when I stumbled upon Carbonite's Online Backup service I was READY for it! And honestly, astonished that this "just set it and forget it" system would automatically make sure that my files were backed up at all times - without my even having to think about them.
Now, given my difficult and unfortunate experiences with backup software and hardware in the past, I was plenty leary of something that only cost (at the time) just under $50 a year..... and claimed to accept an unlimited amount of data for storage online. I couldn't quite grasp how that all would work, but I was curious enough to accept their offer of a free trial, figuring I could just let the trial expire like I end up doing with 3/4 of the "free trials" I accept in the software realm.
But this "free trial" was different! I was SO impressed that less than an hour after I installed it, I went back the website and bought a one-year subscription. And I've renewed every year since - including today.
Over the years I have had at least 3 times I can recall where Carbonite has saved my you-know-what. One of those times would have been another complete disaster had I not had Carbonite, and the other couple of times would have just been major headaches. But each time my computer's decided to burp I've been able to go to the Carbonite site and recover the files I've needed with only a couple of clicks - including the time I had to reinstall the entire hard drive's-worth of files.
So do YOU have efficient, reliable, and current (off-site) backups of your data? If so, congratulations!
But if not, I encourage you to take a look at Carbonite. While it's gone up $5 a year since I first started using it (now at $54.95), they've added remote access as an additional included service. (Remote access means you can access any of your files from another computer should you ever need to.) But it's still free to give it a try. And I think $54.95 a year is mighty cheap insurance anyway. I'm a confirmed fan!
PS: I expect that I'll probably be upgrading to a new computer within a year or so - and it should be pretty easy to download my files to the new computer and have them return to their same locations where I'm accustomed to finding them. I'm looking forward to my easiest transition ever.
This one's from Christie P. - as a momento of our time together at Convention 2009. And while it's not visible in this view, the inside of the card showcases a photo of the Sea to Sea Stampers (my demonstrator group) who attended last summer. Lots of fun, we had!
Ok, are you starting to think I've about run the Valentine's theme into the ground? Well today's THE official day and I promise this'll be the last Valentine's project for this season. (In case you hadn't figured it out, I'm a sucker for hearts and pink & red, lol.) But I just had to show you this very last one because it's a card I designed with My Digital Studio, Stampin' Up!®'s digital papercrafting software.
This card is printed out onto Whisper White cardstock, which yields a nice feel to the card, but I notice that the colors as interpretted by my home printer have a tendency to vary on Whisper White cardstock - even from one printing to the next, even if reprinting the very same card. So I suppose that's one of the reasons why Stampin' Up!® really encourages printing through *their* printer - and why that's really what I personally prefer, as well. But in this case it turned out to be one of those "I need it right now" situations, so here's how it ended up!
Main colors are Pretty in Pink, Real Red, and Whisper White. Shadings were created by adjusting the opacity levels of the pink and white - one of the features I make liberal use of!
Several years ago I started "Family Favorites" recipe collections for the extended members of my family as gifts. The idea is that over time I'd be building a collection of recipes that are traditions or have meanings among the various families included in this ongoing project, and each year at Christmas time I design another 2-page 6" x 6" layout featuring one such shared recipe - and I (hand)make a copy for each family.
This past Christmas I chose to feature a recipe submitted by my daughter-in-law that has been popular in HER extended family. It's called Snickers Salad, and although I had never heard of it before she submitted this recipe, I have since met at least 2 other people who have! (Funny how when *I* was growing up, "salad" never had candy bars in it, lol!) Anyway, I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but by looking at the ingredients, it sure doesn't sound like you could go wrong!
So today I thought I'd share my 2009 recipe layout with you. Some of the elements you'll probalby recognize include the use of the Big Shot & several dies, as well as a section designed with My Digital Studio (the upper section of the left-hand page).
So. I wonder...... Are YOU familiar with Snickers Salad, too? If so, please leave me a comment and tell me about it!
I'm very excited this evening - looking forward to our triannual Sea to Sea Stampers demonstrator group potluck brunch and shoebox swap tomorrow morning!
And presuming that it's late enough in the evening that no one who's attending will still be up and wandering around the internet, I'm going to go ahead and post the project I'll be providing for our shoebox swap.
This little box is made with one of Stampin' Up!®'s exclusive dies (for the Big Shot machine) - "Bitty Box & Envelope". (Except I didn't use the envelope part for this project.) The hole in the top was punched with the Full Heart punch, and a wrapped chocolate candy from the grocery store is positioned immediately below - on a Very Vanilla liner. (No, the box isn't really an open-bottom thingie like it kind of appears in the photo, lol!) I thought for a little while about using a piece of window sheet under the heart-shaped hole, but decided against it; I kinda like the open look this gave.
The little "Love" heart comes from the "I {Heart} Hearts" stamp set ($2 to the Red Cross to benefit Haiti recovery efforts) - then the stamped image was punched out with the new small heart punch. (Which I absolutely adore, btw!)
Don't you just love Valentines Day?!? I think I'm going to be a little sad when I put away the pink and red in just another day or so......
But between then and now, we've got some demonstrator fun to share! Wouldn't you like to join us at our next gathering in May?
So we're about half-way through Sale-a-Bration 2010 already! (Not sure how that happened, but I think it's got something to do with time racing faster and faster the older I get, lol.)
Anyway, by now I expect all of Stampin' Up!'s US fans probably already know they can choose one of more than 80 Sale-a-Bration bonus items with every $50 order they place....... and hostesses know they'll receive one of those same bonus items free with every $300 in sales at their workshop........ but did you also know there are additional special offers for brand-new demonstrators?
Here's what's on tap for those who decide that *now* sounds like a pretty good time to start getting their own demonstrator perks and opportunities:
#1) Whether you choose the Standard Demonstrator Starter Kit (regularly $199) - or the newer Digital Plus Starter Kit (regularly $185) - right now during Sale-a-Bration you'll enjoy a 15% savings on the purchase price of either!
#2) And as an additional Sale-a-Bration bonus, you'll also get to choose another current stamp set of your choice (over and above what usually comes in your starter kit) - up to a $47.95 value!
#3) And perhaps best of all, those who make the decision to join us NOW will still be able to treat their friends and family to an entire month of Sale-a-Bration as they launch their new demonstratorships!
Check here for a listing of some of those demostrator perks awaiting you when you're ready, and then let's chat!
This little Valentines treat features Stampin' Up!'s new Heart Treat Cups and coordinating stamp set "Sweetheart" - both of which are write-in products that were added after the publication of our Occasions Mini catalog. It's designed such that when the pink layer of cardstock is slid to the side a heart-shaped hole opens up so the candies can be accessed without damaging the card.
This hole was made by punching with the Full Heart punch through the white cardstock layer, and then making a slightly larger heart-shaped hole in the red layer with the heart die from the Punch Windows set of Magnetic Movers and Shapers. (Page 201 of the 2009/2010 Idea Book & Catalog.)
Candies were a gift from my mom - from a candy store in the mall.
Would you be sick if you lost the pictures or files on your computer? Then take a look at Carbonite; it has saved MY you-know-what SEVERAL times in the past year or so!
How fun is THIS?!? Personalized M & M's for any occasion!
