The trick is...

After several years of card-making, I finally figured out the trick to be overly-productive at my friend Nancy's stamping evening at Michael's.  ( Her event is from 3 to 9 p.m. on the first Saturday of each month. )

Hours before the event, I go through my card-making supplies and say to myself, "What stamps have I not used recently?  Which embellishments have been in this box for ages?" 

I pull out the not-recently-used stamps and the long-forgotten embellishments and I take ONLY those items.

Tonight my goal was to make cards for some smallish envelopes that my mom had given me over a year ago.

The envelope size was 3-1/2 inches by 4-3/4 (ish).  Not my standard A4 envelopes.  But cute and I had a ridiculous amount of this new size...and I was running low on my beloved A4's.

I pulled out kiddish stamps and 2 containers of square brads.  I used all by 3 stamps and none of the brads.  You win some and you lose some.

All in all, I assembled and colored 29 cards.  14 designs with some duplicates here and there.

I played around with my early birthday present colored pencils.  Ooooooh and I bought a colorless blender marker-y pen.  It blends the colored pencils so they have a watercolor finish.  No one else in the room had ever heard of this lovely piece of crafting equipment.  And you're welcome, Rockford Michael's store because you sold out tonight.

After stamping, the girls were headed to Thai Hut for nourishment.  Kathy and I opted to head to respective places of residence as we had both been gone from said locations since circa 9 a.m.

Back-tracking...IKEA was lovely.  I thoroughly enjoyed spending the beginning part of my day with my organization-loving co-worker.  We spent nearly 3 hours in IKEA and then sought nourishment at Sweet Tomatoes.  I forgot how much I love that soup and salad joint.

The weather today was February-esque at best and obstinate at worst.  It fluctuated between sunny & blustery to spitting snow-flurries & blustery.  One minute the snow would cease and sun would shine and the next said co-worker and I were looking outside questioning, "What is happening?"

April in the Midwest.

Joy.

I am praying tomorrow is "normal" and April-esque.  Because snow.......ain't nobody got time for dat!!!!