Waiting, waiting, waiting.....

My new SU catalogs have arrived in Concord, to be delivered tomorrow. So what am I doing to kill time until then? Trying to learn the words to The Llama Song, of course. Llamas are my favorite animals, after my standard poodle, Max. Actually, if Max had a longer neck and different ears, there are times when his coat is growing out and he could pass for a llama.

Anyway, just click here if you want to hear the llama song.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.......

Llama, llama, duck!

What has Brown done for you lately?

This is the time of year that all Stampin' Up! Demonstrators absolutely love and hate at the same time. The new SU catalog is on its way to demonstrators all over the world - individual copies are arriving via postal service and cartons of catalogs are being delivered by UPS. Catalogs have been received in lots of states, but nothing has come to Clayton yet! I did track my order of 4 cartons to be delivered by UPS, and they should arrive tomorrow - Wednesday. I sent an e-mail announcing this to a demonstrator friend of mine, who promptly sent me this hilarious "memo from UPS to its drivers". I think this pretty well sets the tone of what it is like to be a demonstrator in the last week of June. My driver will have a ZipLoc baggie of chocolate chip cookies and a big plastic cup of ice and lemonade waiting for him when he arrives at my door tomorrow. Enjoy reading this!!!!

UPS Memo To: Drivers and Security

Date: June 20th , 2007

Subject: Crazy Stampin' Up! Ladies

This time of the year has come around once again. Stampin' Up! is releasing the New Idea Book and Catalog. Please be extremely cautious of Stampin' Up! demonstrators (SUDs) for the next two weeks.

How to Deliver the New Idea Book and Catalog:

1. Be sure you have fixed your squeaky brakes - if not, park your truck two blocks away so the SUD can not hear you coming.

2. Put in your earplugs and secure your safety glasses.

3. If you see children looking out the window, put your finger up to your lips and say "SHHHH".. They are on a "lookout" for you and are being paid to "alert" their mothers (SUDs) when they see you coming to the door.

4. Approach the front door and very quietly, set the package down in front of the door (Make sure you place it in FRONT so when she opens the door, the box will be in the way and give you a little more time to escape).

5. Back up as far as you can and reach for the doorbell, (BE READY TO RUN !!!). Ring the doorbell and make a mad dash back to your truck and drive away....DO NOT LOOK BACK !!!

The UPS corporation is informing you of this because in the past years, SUDs have been known to scream at the top of their lungs with excitement and try to tackle you with hugs for delivering their catalogs. After you have been smothered with appreciation for getting them their catalogs on time, watch out for flying packaging material as they will open up the box before you have had a chance to leave, or they have gone inside. They have also been know to drive up next to you at a stop light in their mini vans and SUVs and ask if you have a package for them. Turn up your radio and pretend you cannot hear them. Do not let them approach your delivery truck at an intersection. SUDs have been know to stop traffic and throw all your packages off the trucks until they find their new Idea Book and catalog.

Best of luck to you with this mission, and remember: Let's Be Safe Out There!!!!!

Where have I been?

Well, you may well wonder where have I been for the last week? Lots happening to keep me busy and away from the computer.

First of all, we decided (with a LOT of help from Megan) that we needed to have a vegetable garden this year. We decided to wait until all of the foundation work was done on the house, thinking that we could put most of the veggies in the flower beds on the back side of the house. Well, the foundation guys screwed THAT up for us when they left us with "new dirt" that contained sludge and cow manure! Not quite what you want to grow edibles in, ya know? So we then decided to build a raised bed on the side of the house.

Megan and I went out to purchase the building materials and then Megan and Brian built the 4' X 8' planting box. We took it out of the garage to the side yard and dug the holes for the 4 corner posts and planted the box in the ground. Then we used some of the disgusting clay soil that we are so well know for out here and put a 3" layer in the bottom. Yesterday, Brain and I went out and bought 16 cubic feet of planting mix and Megan and spent the evening after bocce mixing it in with the clay soil already in the bed. It really looks good!

This evening we will plant the seedlings that we started as seeds in Dixie cups a couple of weeks ago. I bought a Patio tomato plant, too. If all goes well, we will be eating home grown corn, zucchini, Anaheim chile, pole beans, lettuce, beets and carrots along with tiny tomatoes.

The other item that has taken a lot of my time is the arrival of the new Stampin' Up! catalog. I have not received my copies yet, but a demonstrator is Southern California received her copy on Friday. I have been glued to some of the demonstrator bulletin boards - reading, salivating, and planning my first purchases. It sounds like there will be some awesome stamp sets and accessories this coming year. Highlights include textured 12 X 12 cardstock and a Crop-a-dile! If you have never seen or used a Crop-a-dile, I can tell you that it is a great tool for effortlessly making holes and setting eyelets. It punches holes easily in chipboard and coasters! It will be one of my first purchases.

OK, off to the Post Office to see if my demonstrator catalog arrived from Stampin' Up!.......

The World's Easiest Cake

No stamping today, but I do want to share one of my all-time favorite recipes with you - the South African quilters' yogurt cake. This cake is easy and fast to make up, and wonderfully moist. But before I give you the recipe, I would like to share the story of how this recipe came to me.



While living in South Africa, I decided to teach quilting out of my home because I needed money to purchase fabric for my own quilts. Now you need to know that food is central to anything that South Africans do, including classes of any sort. They are especially fond of "tea", which occurs at least twice during any day (once in the morning and once in the afternoon). "Tea" does not imply that the beverage called tea is actually drunk, tea implies that one stops whatever one is doing for at least 30 minutes to drink some sort of beverage and eat sweets. In fact, coffee is becoming the preferred beverage for tea. Anyway, one of my students brought this cake to class one day, and left the un-eaten remains for me to share with my family. Because of its' simplicity, this cake became the staple tea item that I served at all future classes. The ease of the cake is that the most of the ingredients are measured in the empty yogurt cup. I hope you enjoy this!

Place all ingredients (in order listed) in mixing bowl:

1 - 6 oz. cup of yogurt, any flavor (our favorite is strawberry, YUM!)

3 empty yogurt cups full of self rising flour

2 empty yogurt cups of sugar (note: recipe works well with Splenda!)

1 empty yogurt cup of oil

1 tsp. vanilla or almond extract

3 whole eggs

Mix well. Pour into an oiled and floured bundt pan (or 2 prepared loaf pans). Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Turn cake out of pan(s) when cool.



If you ever ask me to bring something to a potluck, odds are that I will either bring this yogurt cake, bread pudding, or my chicken enchiladas (depending on the amount of time I have to cook). I hope you enjoy this cake as much as my family and I do.

Sneak Peek From the New Catalog!

So, are you looking at the card to the right and wondering "Where did Sandi get that stamp and that patterned paper?" Well, the awesome stamp comes from the NEW Baroque Motifs stamp set and the paper is the NEW Brocade Background Double Sided Designer Series Paper. But wait, you may ask what color is that card stock that holds the awesome stamped image? This is called River Rock and is one of the 6 NEW In Colors that will be released as card stock and Classic Ink. River Rock has some of the same qualities that Sahara Sand has - it looks like different colors depending upon what you put next to it. When it came right out of the package, River Rock looked like a yellow putty color. But WOW, just put it next to Old Olive (the predominant color in the Brocade Background paper) and River Rock looks like a very pale olive green. I just love new colors!

I am participating in 4 different swaps with other demonstrators, using new products that will be in the new Fall/Winter catalog. This is just one of the three card designs I am making for a BIO (By Invitation Only) swap with other demonstrators from across the country. Participating in swaps is just one way I get ideas and designs for classes and workshops - you don't really think that I thought up all of those designs by myself, did you? Holy Guacamole, if I had to think of all of those by myself I would be awake 22 hours every day!

Stay tuned for some additional sneak peaks in the coming weeks...

Together Matchbook Album

I am trying to patiently wait for the new Stampin' Up! Fall Winter catalog to appear. This time is full of both excitement and sadness - excited to see all of the new stamp sets and accessories, but sad to see some of my favorite stamp sets retiring. So, I am distracting myself by making more mini albums.

This matchbook album is made with the Petals and Paisleys Double Sided Designer Series Paper in the Spring Mini catalog. The cover of this mini album is made from the striped sheet that is printed with the together. I thought it was perfect for a matchbook album, and the word together defined the album subject. The decoration is a flower made from 6 different paper strips punched using the Word Window punch, then trimmed at each end. The flower center is a clear button backed with the pink and with polka dot paper, then some white grosgrain threaded through the holes and tied.

The inside pages were all done with the Petals and Paisleys paper, the Round Tab Punch, Soft Subtles Brads, The Rough Edge Mini Alphabet, Everydya Flexible Phrases Stamp Set and the Little Reminders tin of Accent And Elements self-adhesive die cuts.

Beware the Nigerian Scam!

So, first things first. The card in today's post was done with one of my all time favorite sets - Cart Postale. This set was in the SU Winter Mini Catalog, and I am really hoping that it will reappear in the new catalog available July 1st. But let's go on to the warning that is the purpose of this post.


I was minding my own business yesterday afternoon, putting away supplies from an awesome stamping event at my neighbor's 10th birthday party (by the way, 10 year old girls are the BEST - they listen to directions and don't trash your stamps!). Anyway, the phone rang and a gentleman introduced himself as a service agent from a Southern CA branch of my bank. He wanted to know if I had written a huge check (in excess of $4,500) to someone I had never heard of. Ummmm- no, not me. Then this gentleman from the bank wanted the last 4 digits of my social security number so that he could be sure that he was talking to the right person. Well, NOBODY gets my social security number, so I told him that no, I could not do that.


So, here is the part that YOU need to know to protect yourself. NEVER give any identifying information over the telephone to anyone. It is possible for the bank to find a way to identify you without giving any information. I told him that I had no way of knowing who he was, so he had to find another way of identifying me. He proceeded to ask me to respond to a series of statements that could be answered yes or no. He included wrong information in the there, and when I said no, he would repeat the statement with right or wrong info until I answered yes, then he would go on to another statement. When he was satisfied as to who I was, I asked him to look on his computer screen and tell me who I wrote my last 4 check to, the dates and the amounts (the bank has this information in their computers and should be able to give this information to you - if they say that they can't, then you are more than likely not talking to anyone from your bank!)


So, after 30 minutes and a couple of back and forth phone calls, it seems that I was a victim of the Nigerian scam. Someone that I had written a check to at some time in the past had sold my name, address and account information to a scam ring in Nigeria. The scammers sent a computer generated check to some guy in Southern California that responded to an e-mail that wanted him to cash a check to help them get money out of the country - he could keep some but needed to send the rest back to Nigeria, Since the checking account was compromised, we went down to the bank to close that account and open another. But you can be sure that I will be doing far fewer transactions with checks. The husband of a friend and co-worker is an undercover cop that works the fraud division, and he told us that it is possible to take a check and dip it in brake fluid to "wash it" - it is held upside down during the washing so that your signature remains, but all of the rest of the check that you wrote (who paid to, date and amount) disappears and can be filled in again.


So, I lost a couple of hours on a Saturday, but it is far better than losing money to a scam. Be vigilant and remember to not give any identifying information over the phone.


Returning to stamping/scrapping tomorrow - stay tuned!

Out of Africa, A Small Scrapbook

I want to share one of my favorite small scrapbooks with you today, one that features photos from a trip we made to the Kruger Park when we returned to South Africa to visit family and friends in 1997. This album is made from a 5 X 5 chipboard album from Stampin' Up!(R), and all pages have been altered. The cover includes a scrap of Sentimental Journey Designer Series Paper, twill tape and HodgePodge Hardware (all from Stampin' Up!), some photos from our trip and a small compass. Using the new SU Spiral Punch on the cover paper and photos means that they perfectily around the binding coils and cover all of the chipboard cover, fit right up to the edge.

To alter the pages, I dis-assembled the album and applied Summer Sun and Close to Cocoa Classic Inks (also SU) directly onto each page using a make up sponge. I love the fact that it gave the pages a more rustic look and feel, adding visual texture and deleting "white space" - which drives me crazy in small books. I also think that the inked pages look more like the South African dirt found in Kruger Park. The whole album only took 2 days, with 3/4 of the time devoted to inking all of the pages.

This album contains twenty 2-sided pages, and I can't possibly put all of them on here. So I am just going to give you a taste of a South African photo safari - most of the photos here were taken from inside our car as we drove through the Park. This is an experience not to be missed, make sure you go if you ever get the chance. Click on the images to see a larger view.

This first layout shows information about our camp. A map is always a good thing to put into a scrapbook about a trip The pocket on the right side holds a small tag book that contains 6 photos of our bungalow. This is an easy way to add more photos to a small scrapbook.

The game viewing truck on the left goes out at sunrise and sunset to view the animals that are going to the watering holes or preparing to hunt. Every truck has armed trackers to protect against hungry lions. On a lighter note, we did get to meet Timon and Pumba up close and personal. Meerkats and wart hogs are everywhere in the Park.

All wildlife has the right of way in Kruger Park, especially the elephants. Elephants are known to charge cars and trucks, so all we could do was stop our car and wait wait for them to move along.

This big guy decided that he was unhappy with the tree that was in his path, so he tore it out- roots and all! This is when the trip gets scary,

There is nothing more wondrous than watching the sun set and listening to the sounds of the animals, all the time knowing that you are safe behind the fence of your camp.

Today it is born!

Today I caved and started my blog. Why not, you may ask - everyone else is blogging!

And so, welcome to my blog, The Paper Gypsy. What a funny name! I tried to think of something that would reflect who I am, and a Paper Gypsy was the only possible answer. The Paper part comes from my love of creating cards, scrapbook pages, and mini books from paper. I am a stamper at heart and the feeling of putting ink to rubber and then adding that to paper is my idea of peace.

And Gypsy comes from the fact that I have spent most of my life traveling, either to a new place to live or for business. I have had the good fortune to have lived in Chicago, Phoenix, Oakland, Honolulu, Denver, Johannesburg (South Africa), and now Clayton. I even lived in Switerland for 6 weeks one summer while I was still in high school! The fact that I have spent the last 13 years in Clayton probably means that I have to hang up my travelling shoes and hand in my honorary gypsy card. But I still like to sneak away for the occasional week-end trip or the annual week in Yosemite.

With this blog I will be sharing mostly my love of paper and stamping with you, but will also sneak in the occasional trip, great recipe, some interesting yarn finds for socks, and the progress of this year's vegetable garden (if it ever gets started!)

Please come back and visit often. Ciao for now!