SUNDAY INSPIRATION

What inspires you?  I know that Tim Holtz's creativity always inspires me.  I love that we have our own Holtz here...Nanci Holts-ford.

Nanci is going to teach the Tim Holtz inspired Christmas tags classes.  There will be three classes, held on October 27, November 3, and November 15, during which we will make 12 tags. If you attend all 3 classes and complete all 12 tags you will get your own frame to showcase them absolutely FREE!  I am so excited that we are doing this.  Nanci does a great job teaching these classes and I can't wait to make the 12 tags and display them in the frame.

 Creativity was all over the store yesterday during the Christmas Chaos.  

Tammy and Kourtneigh Foster took this project and put their own spin on it.

Tammy got into the new Authentique papers and used them to make her's into a western themed photo holder.

Kourtneigh used the "When Pigs Fly" paper by Graphic 45 to make her's into a board to use at work.

Everyone was hard at work on their snowman screens.

Linda Pettigrew busily painting the signs for her snowman.

Teryia putting the letters on her sign.

Karen Willett was a necklace making machine!!!   They were all so cute.

Some who couldn't be there bought kits to go so that they could create some of the projects at a later date.  Everyone had a great time creating Christmas projects all day long.  

I hope you can join us for the Christmas Tag classes and enjoy creating these beautiful tags to display in your home. See you there!

IT'S CATURDAY CHRISTMAS CHAOS!!!

 

It is Caturday at Cat's and it is CHRISTMAS CHAOS around here!  No, we aren't dressing Cat up in a reindeer suit....we value our lives, after all!  LOL!

 

What is Christmas Chaos???   Well, it is your day to choose the things you want to make.  Which will it be.....or will it be all????

Christmas mini album

gift card or small gift bag

Wine bottle bag:

Christmas list organizer:

 

 Christmas Card/Photo display canvas

Will you make a necklace

or will you make the snowman screen with this

or this?

I know I'm planning to be in on the Christmas chaos.  It's a great way to get some Christmas gifts out of the way.  Plus you can create some Christmas decor or an organizer to help you with the chaos around the holidays. 




While you are at the store, you can check out some of the fabulous new products that have arrived.  The Christmas collections are beautiful and there is one to fit everyone's preferences.  There are beautiful fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving selections to pick from.  In addition, Cat has the beautiful new Heidi Swapp mists and mistables for you to purchase and play with. 

 

Come on down to the store and join in on the fun surrounding

CHRISTMAS CHAOS! 

See you at the store!

FEATURE FRIDAY

Yes, it is FRIDAY!!!  YEAH!!!

It is Friday and this week we are featuring the fun and fabulous Vickie Robbins.

You may remember Vickie from the bag sale and her huge haul of goodies from Cat's.  I believe when she got home and tallied up the value of her bag it was over $1000.  Not bad for a $50 investment!  She is definitely a shopper to be reckoned with.   I asked Vickie to send me a brief bio so that we could all get to know her a little better:



My husband, Glen, and I live in Stephenville and just recently celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary in September.  We have two children Megan 23, and Colton 19, who have provided me with alot of scrapbooking material over the years. 

This is a mini album that Vickie made for her daughter's prom pictures---BEAUTIFUL!

Fun layout she made of her son skiing.  LOVE all of the textures on it!



I have run a daycare in my home for 15 years and I really love my job. I have kept scrapbooks over the years with pictures of the children I've kept and enjoy looking back at them to see how each one of them has grown up. I try to keep in contact with their families through Facebook.   In addition, I have been active with our college ministry at our church for the last 3 years and gotten to know a lot of great students. Since they are in Stephenville only a few years it's great to preserve those memories in scrapbooks.

This is a beautiful birthday mini abum that Vickie made.

 

I started scrapbooking in the fall of 1999 and went to my first crop in January of 2000 when a scrapbook club started meeting. I was hooked after my first time going. Now 12 years later I'm as hooked as I was then except I have alot more stuff to haul around.  Scrapbooking has allowed me to meet alot of people that I wouldn't have met otherwise and formed friendships that will last a lifetime. My friends and I scrapbook as often as we can, it is a great stress reliever. We enjoy the time spent at Cat's and her retreats are like mini vacations. So, I don't see myself quitting anytime soon.

This is a layout of her grandmother and her great-grandchildren.  Love all of the flowers and borders...beautiful!

 

Vickie is a very organized and neat scrapbooker.  Her table is always so neat, which is something I can't even imagine, but wish I could do.  Nanci and I love giving her a hard time over her neat table at retreats and crops.  If you follow Vickie on Facebook, you have read her fun poems leading up to retreat time.

 

Crop on CROPPA!!!

THANKFUL THURSDAY - SALE

Today is Thursday, what are you thankful for?  We are so very thankful for you, our customers.  As a token of our appreciation to our wonderful customers, TODAY ONLY you can enjoy 15% off of your entire purchase by showing this post to Cat.  This includes these new, beautiful papers that arrived on Monday:

Look at these cute fall papers from Echo Park.  They have the cutest deer and owl on them.

This is Echo Park's whimsical Christmas line.  Really cute!

Then, we have the super elegant Webster's Pages.  Look at that tree....I am LOVING it!

Cute page to commemorate getting the tree and bringing it home.   And of course there is some beautiful trim to add to the pages.  

 

Look at all of the beautiful stickers and embellishments for the Webster's Pages.  They have some more beautiful bloomers and cameos that go with this paper as well as a 6" paper pad. 

I hope you can come by the store today to take advantage of the 15% off by showing this post to Cat.  Remember, we are open until 8:00 pm tonight to give you more time to come by and stock up on all of your scrapbooking essentials.

WOW WEDNESDAY - BLOG CANDY GIVEAWAY - LAST WEEK'S WINNER

Because of the issues with blogger, I wasn't able to post the winner of last week's WOW Wednesday blog hop.  Random.org picked #10, which was Pat from Allison's blog.  Congratulations Pat and contact Cat at the store to collect your prize.

At Cat's, we love to see the work of our wonderful customers, so we have a blog hop each week so that we can can be WOW'ed by our customers' handiwork. 

You do not have to have a blog to participate.  Denise Case has been participating by linking up her creations on Sketch Inspiration. This is how she is doing it: If you have an online gallery at Two Peas, Splitcoast Stampers, Scrapbook.com, Sketch Inspirations (must be using a sketch inspiration sketch), FlickR, or any other online gallery, you can participate. When Mr. Linky asks for your url, just copy and paste the url (that part up at the top where it says http://www/......) of the page of your creation. I have an online gallery at Splitcoast Stampers and if I wanted to link up a card, I would go to my gallery and then click on the card I wanted to link up...let's say it is the Things are Looking Up card. So, I click on that card and then copy and paste the url (http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2081676?&cat=500&ppuser=192963) in the blank. TaDa....it is linked up to Mr. Linky! I hope this encourages more to participate in our WOW Wednesdays.

To be considered for the blog candy, you must post a project that you have created. WOW Wednesday must also be mentioned in your post and be sure to let your blog readers know that there is blog candy being given away to a random participant or commenter.

I hope you will share your fabulous creations with us. If you didn't have time to create anything, I hope you will share some love on everyone else's creations--we all love that positive reinforcement!





TUESDAY CHRISTMAS TEMPTATIONS (edited)

HAPPY 25TH ANNIVERSARY, CAT AND RAY

I hope you have many more years of happiness together.
***********************************************************************************************

There are lots of things for you to be tempted with this fabulous Tuesday.  Fall is in the air and Christmas products are in the store.   The new products are all so beautiful. 

This is the beautiful Carta Bella line, Christmas Day.

Do I hear an Echo?  Echo Park "This and That Christmas" arrived yesterday and is just as beautiful as all Echo Park products.  It is the perfect blend of crisp images and vintage. 

 

I had originally shared more Christmas goodies on the blog today, but apparently Blogger had different ideas.  When it posted everything, it left off quite a few things.  Just wanted to edit the post to re-add the anniversary wishes to Cat and Ray and the stickers for the Echo Park line.  I know that blogger and I will make up soon and the blog will get back to normal.  Thanks for your patience in the meantime.

 

MARVELOUS MONDAY

It truly is a Marvelous Monday!  Blogger is finally letting me make this post.  Still having issues, but hopefully it will hold together and let me make this post. It is trying to log me out every few seconds, but at least it is letting me make the post. 

Trisha posted Sketch #339 over on Sketch Inspiration yesterday.  I hope that you will have a chance to create a layout or card using this sketch. 

Our lovely Nita Griffith created this fabulous page using Sketch #338 from last week.  We miss Nita and are anxious for her to return home from Saint Louis so we can see her smiling face again.

This more of the beautiful Authentique papers.  I absolutely love this line of papers and Nita created a beautiful layout using it. 

Have you signed up for any of the classes at the Jingle All the Way event this Saturday?  It's a great way to get some Christmas gifts ready for giving.

You can make this canvas to display all of your Christmas cards or give it to a friend to use for their cards.

Make some of these little felt bags to use for small gifts and gift cards.

This is an adorable mini album to either give someone or use yourself to preserve those holiday memories.

This is a really cute organizer to keep track of all of those many lists associated with the holiday season. 

Planning to give some wine as gifts this Christmas?  This burlap bag is a really cute way to present someone with that bottle of wine this year.

I hope you are able to join us this Saturday and take care of some of the gifts on your list this year.  See you there!

FEATURE FRIDAY

Today we are featuring someone we all know and love, Valerie Light.  Valerie works at Cat's on Thursday afternoons and evenings as well as the crops on the 1st and 3rd Saturday's.  She is pictured above with her precious granddaughter, Kennedy, aka Peanut.  Kennedy is featured on many layouts throughout the store that Valerie has created.  I asked Valerie to send me a short bio so we could learn a little more about her:

I started scrapbooking in 2004 when I was invited to a "Creative Memories" crop. I was hooked. I didn't know there was such a thing as scrapbook stores until I had a friend who worked for a small scrapbook store in Mineral Wells now known as "Cat's Creations". Cathy bought the store in August 2004 and I began to visit often, attending crops and some of the classes. I attended the first retreat that Cat's Creations hosted. In 2006 Cathy asked me about working part time for her at the store and I said "yes".  I've come a long way since then!

I don't know what Valerie's first layouts looked like, but the ones she creates now are simply amazing.  Love the pinks and browns.  In addition to being a talented scrapper, Valerie is a very accomplished photographer.  The photos on her pages are always so beautiful.

More from Valerie:  I got serious about making cards about 2 yrs ago. I had made a few cards from time to time in the early years of my scrapbooking but I was never pleased with the finished product until I got introduced to Operation Write Home. This organization makes cards for people in the military to send home to family and friends. There are MANY tutorials and tips for making well crafted cards and I have learned so much! I am now very pleased with the cards I make!

Yes, I do believe this is a very well-crafted card.  LOVE the "rope' hanging on the corner of the horse image.  Beautiful!

This is an adorable card.  LOVE the pawprint brads.  So many wonderful features on this card!

Valerie continuing:  My husband, Doyle and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary September 11th. We have a daughter and son-in-law and two granddaughters with another grandchild on the way! I also have a horse, dog and cat. (Our herd has diminished over the years). My primary part time job is being secretary at my church. I am a very outdoors type person. Enjoying riding, hiking or taking walks with my dog. My favorite thing to do is watch a beautiful sunset (and photograph it) or watch the weather. I am an avid weather watcher and have been nicknamed the "weather woman"!  I have made so many wonderful friends through this hobby. I have learned so much and keep learning new things.

This is a beautiful layout that Valerie created featuring some of her spectacular photography.  Love how she made the "faith" pennants. 

Valerie inspires all who know her and is Cat's right hand person.  Cat and Valerie have been known to completely rearrange the store, starting on a Thursday and finishing up on Saturday.   

I hope you have enjoyed learning a little more about Valerie.  I know I have enjoyed featuring Valerie and her beautiful work today.

Don't forget about the Operation Write Home Birthday Bash at the store Saturday afternoon from 1-5:00 pm.  Sandy Trefger has made kits for us to put together to make some beautiful cards for our troops.  All that you need is a $5 donation for postage and some adhesive.  She has made it very simple for us to make these cards.

In addition, if you bring some handmade cards to donate to Operation Write Home or donate some cash to help page for postage, you will receive a 15% discount on any purchases through Saturday.  

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and that your plans include a trip to the store. 

THANKFUL THURSDAY SALE

It's Thursday...what are you thankful for?  At Cat's we are so very thankful for YOU, our customers...without you there would be no Cat's! 

Through Saturday, if you bring some handmade cards to the store to donate to Operation Write Home or make a cash donation to help defray postage expenses, you will receive 15% off of your purchase. 

Just a reminder that the Operation Write Home card making party is this Saturday, September 22nd  at the store, 1 p.m.-5p.m. Come help us assemble cards for the heroes!  Sandy Trefger has made card kits all ready to go.   All you need to bring is your adhesive, $5 cash to donate for shipping for OWH and. if you want, a snack to share. Please let Cat or Sandy know if you will be there. You can call the store or go to the store's facebook page, click on the event tab and mark "Joining."    I hope you will be able to join us for this fun and worthwhile event. 

 

Everyone at the retreat really liked the new papers from Reminisce.   The vintage Christmas, fruit labels, and Halloween were all very popular as well as the beautiful fall papers. 

The Rejoice line of papers from BoBunny were also very popular at the retreat. 

Kitty France made this gorgeous layout featuring her precious daughters when they were little using some of the products from the new Christmas papers and embellishments.  This layout is simply amazing!

I hope you have a wonderful Thursday and are able to come by the store to take advantage of the sale.  Operations Write Home is the "Hallmark in a box" for our military men and women so they have cards to send to their loved ones.  Make a donation of handmade cards or cash and enjoy 15% off of your purchase.  Remember that we are open until 8:00 pm tonight so you have some extra time to visit the store.

SEE YOU AT THE STORE!