Cincinnati, OH - August 7 & 8, 2009

Stampaway, USA XVII was fun as always. The theme for the Friday night party was "Wear Your Art Out" and many of the vendors and customers did. The party on Friday night is from 7:45 to 11pm and it's always great to see the costumes. We caught some of the stampers for a picture.

Dah Daubers girls were definitely a favorite.
This was the back of their shirts.

Diane, Leeanna, Christy & Linda

Dah Daubers...Aren't they GREAT?

Cynthia wore her art on her shirt.

This is Kelley, wings and all, still smiling at 11pm.

Some of the vendors dressed up, wearing their art:

Ron & Sarah from The Paper Cut

Karen and Greg (yes, Greg is in the pink) from Marco's Paper

Jim & Janelle from PK Glitz

Pam from MorningStar

Mary Jo McGraw demos for Carmen's Veranda

Now we are at home for a couple of weeks as we prepare for our fall line-up to NY, PA and VA. Be sure to check our convention schedule on our website: www.stamplajolla.com and watch for our new stamps which will be posted soon.

Novi, MI - August 1 & 2, 2009

The Novi show was fun and exciting. Karen joined us for the fifth year and we always have so much fun with her at our demo table. We were happy to see many friends we've made in previous years in Michigan.

Karen glittered all day.

Winston-Salem, NC - July 25 & 26, 2009

We had a great time at the Winston-Salem show. It was held at the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds and we met so many happy stampers who were thrilled to have a show in their area. We are looking forward to returning to this show in 2010.

Robin did a wonderful demo using the Stamp La Jolla glitter.

Winston-Salem...here we come!

We are excited about the new show next weekend (July 25 & 26) in Winston-Salem, NC. We have never done a show in NC...close, but not actually in NC and we've had lots of people contacting us about this show.

For more information regarding this show, go to the Stamp Scrap Art Tour's website at www.stampscraparttour.com Also check out their blog at SSAT Blog Jackie just did an e-interview about Stamp La Jolla and we have a coupon on the blog that you can use at our booth at the NC show.

We hope to see many of you there.

Pittsburgh, PA - July 11 & 12, 2009

Last weekend we were in Pittsburgh for the Stamp Scrap Art Tour Rubber Stamp Convention. We we fortunate to find one of our friends from the RSC board who agreed to help us in our booth. Jeannine stepped right in on Saturday to do our make and take and then came back on Sunday to demo our glitter and stained glass technique all day. I was so excited, I forgot to take a picture, but another vendor snapped this one.

Jeannine was fantastic!

West Springfield, MA - June 6 & 7, 2009

We traveled to West Springfield, MA for the fourth year. We always enjoy visiting this area of the country.

Suzie helped us in our booth again this year.
It's great having her at our make and take table.

The drive home was uneventful until we got to this section of I-80 in PA where they had removed the top surface of the road. We were only on it for a couple of miles when we lost the tread from one of our rear tires.

It's very loud and scary when a tire comes apart on the freeway! This one was no exception and it dented the van and bent the exhaust system.

We had an interesting experience with the repairman our roadside service sent to change the tire...and it was NOT a good one! After about a three hour delay, we were back on the road and made it home safely.

This tire still had almost 20,000 miles under warranty! It sure doesn't look like it here! We were very thankful that we were safe throughout the ordeal. We have four new tires now and we'll be ready to hit the road for Pittsburgh, PA right after the 4th of July.

Southfield, MI - May 30 & 31, 2009

It was fun to return to Michigan for the show in Southfield this year.

Awna traveled to do our make and take project and play in the glitter.
She did it all this weekend and we really appreciated having her help.

MaryAnn & Awna

Akron, OH - April 25 & 26, 2009

The Akron show was double our usual fun, because we had two of our friends helping us with the make and take projects and the glitter demo on Saturday.

Donna and Awna helping and explaining it all.

Donna was helping customers with their make and take project
using the Sugar Dust or Sugar Beads and the Beadable Tape.

Awna was sparkling by the end of the day filled with glitter projects.

Allentown, PA - April 4 & 5, 2009

We had not been to the Allentown show for a couple of years and it was great to be back.

JP manned the make and take table.

We met these happy stampers who were laughing and having a great time at the show. I love their matching sweatshirts.

Marge, Holly, Diane & Michele

On Sunday we had our adorable granddaughters with us. They spent spring break week visiting and they were very helpful on Sunday at the show.

Painting a rose with the Twinkling H2Os.

Painting the Gerber Daisy.

Learning to make change at the register.

Oaks, PA - March 28 & 29, 2009

At the end of March we took a trip over to Eastern Pennsylvania for a couple of shows. The first one was in Oaks, a suburb of Philadelphia. It was the first time for a show there and it was great.

Our friend, Jackie Lewis, came by our booth on Sunday to take some pictures to post on the Stamp Scrap Art Tour blog and she did a great job showing our make and take project in pictures. I thought I'd share them with you here:

Usually JP does our make and take project, but it was my turn to sit down for awhile. I'm not sure what I'm doing here, but possibly pointing out the different images to choose from.

We start by using our Square Frame stamp H602 and stamping a smaller stamp inside the frame. Our Spiral Dragonfly D633 is one of our favorite stamps to use in the frame but as you can see, almost any stamp will work great.

The Open Rose and the Gathered Flowers stamps are also very popular. We start by stamping the square frame on our Smooth Finish Watercolor Paper using Stazon Ink. Choose the stamp you want to use in the square and mask it if necessary so that it isn't outside the frame. Then cut the paper just a little larger than the frame.

We like to use the Twinkling H2O paints and the waterbrush to color the image. You can use nearly anything to color, but we like these paints with the mica in them to add that little extra shimmer to the project.

Once the image is dry, we cover it with a piece of Beadable Tape that is cut the same size as the Square Frame stamp. We also carry the tape in 9 x 9 inch squares that you can cut to any size or shape you need.

Once the tape is down, we press out all of the air bubbles and make sure it's down tight and then pull the blue liner up off of the tape.

We offer a choice of either Sugar Dust or Sugar Beads to pour onto the sticky tape. These are both very tiny clear glass beads. The Sugar Dust is incredibly fine and smaller than the Sugar Beads.

We shake off the extra beads and put them back in the container for our next project. This project is complete as it is, or you can attach it to the front of a card, add a word stamp and you have a finished project.

We'll be offering this make and take at most of the shows we do this year, so be sure to check our show schedule for one near you and please stop by to try our make and take project.

Rockford, IL - March 14 & 15, 2009

In March we went to Rockford for one of our favorite shows. We missed having Rhonda working with us in our booth, but it was great seeing other friends we've made in the area. It's always great getting a Chicago style deep-dish pizza when we're in Rockford.

Columbia, SC February 21 & 22, 2009

In February we traveled down to South Carolina for a show in Columbia. JP was busy working at our make and take table here.

Mesquite, Texas Show - January 17, 2009

We stayed in Grapevine and did some resting and shopping during the week between the Grapevine and Mesquite shows. Grapevine Mills is the largest outlet mall I've ever been to. They claim to have over 1.6 million square feet of shopping, entertainment and restaurants with over 180 stores! Well...it is in Texas...everything is bigger in Texas!

The show in Mesquite was so much fun! Stacy came back to work our make and take table again. (We love Stacy!) We were able to see many of the people we've come to know from our last ten years of Texas shows and we almost met someone from our very small village in Ohio where we live. It's a long story.....

We had another ice storm on Tuesday in Memphis, TN. There was very little snow, but the roads were covered with ice and there was a roll-over, spin-out or collision at nearly every bridge and overpass. It was terrifying, but we made it through without any problems.

At least the traffic going east was moving. We were very happy we were not in this major backup of the westbound lanes. Once we made it through TN we had dry weather the rest of the way home. Very cold, but thankfully dry!

Grapevine, Texas - January 10, 2009

We left for Texas on January 6th in the middle of an ice storm. It was treacherous driving until we crossed the Ohio River and then it just rained the rest of the day. We enjoyed the rest of our trip and were so happy to see our Texas friends. One of our friends we were happiest to see was Stacy.

Stacy had fun doing our make and take at Grapevine.

Here's what Riley does all day long while we're busy at the shows. She is a great traveler and waits patiently for us to get back to her.