Weekend Recap

So my new friends and members of AYM from St. Louis arrived on Thursday night. We started off with our AYM meeting on Friday morning. It was so much fun to have them here for an actual meeting. They got to meet some of the other gals and share their layouts. I'll have them posted on the AYM Blog later today.

Then it was pool time and lunch. Unfortunately, Carla had to leave early due to a bit of a family emergency. I hated that for her, but knew she needed to get home to be with her daughter and new baby. As bad as we felt for her, it didn't dampen our spirits for too long. After dropping her at the airport, I took Erin and (the other) Carla on a little tour of Nashville---downtown, Music Row, Blue Bird Cafe and pointed out a few of the stars homes. Back here, we met Stephanie and Mindy for happy hour. Butch served the drinks.

I had planned for us to have dinner at the world famous Lovelace Cafe. I picked up Karolyn and Pam to join us. There was an hour and a half wait, so we took a couple of pictures and browsed the shops. The girls were able to buy a few Nashville souvenirs.

 From left: Carla, Karolyn, Pam, me and Erin.

We still had nearly an hour wait, so decided to let Morgan hook us up at The Corner Pub instead. The food there is really good so it was a good alternative to wasting our evening waiting at the Lovelace.

After dinner, the plan was to show off Pam and Karolyn's scrapbook rooms. The girls enjoyed getting to see them. I should have snapped a few shots, but I didn't think of it. Instead, I did get one of Karolyn's new gallery wall in her dining room. It turned out so awesome!

After our little tour, it was home for a lesson. Prior to their arrival, I asked the girls what they would like to learn or if there was anything they were having problems with. Their answers were organization, techniques and embellishing. I created a page that can be used as a title or end page using some trendy techniques.

 On this layout, I taught them how to create a simple sunburst at the top of the page. Then, using a scalloped punch, we embellished the flowers with a vintage fiber and sewed on "mother of pearl" heart buttons. That was enough for one day!

On Saturday, we got an early start for Murfreesboro, TN and the Creating Keepsakes Scrapbook Convention for some shopping. Karolyn went with us. We all made quite a few purchases---lunch at Chili's, home to drop Karolyn and then to Nashville Needleworks so Carla could "break the bank!" She bought the hand-painted canvas for the "Gingerbread Train." It's spectacular and should keep her busy for awhile.

After a brief rest when we got home, we started in on a layout. I had told them to bring a couple of pictures with them. The title of the page is "True Story."

I decided to go with a yellow and grey color scheme---so popular right now. We talked about grouping embellishments, carrying things from one side of the page to the other to keep the eye flowing smoothly through the layout. We used washi tape, buttons, lots of layering and finished it up with stitching. Erin had put "sewing" as something she would never do on her "never list" layout and was giving me a hard time for making that layout "not true" now. I got a kick out of that.

For dinner, I served my "gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches." The little girls have been calling them that for years. Really, all it is is a specialty bread and 2 types of cheese. Recently, took it a step further base on a grilled cheese sandwich I had at First Watch. Here's my version:

Gourmet Grilled Cheese
Some type of good bakery bread---I used a 9 grain.
Butter bread, dip in parmesan cheese. Place in pan, top with a slice of cheddar and a slice of Swiss. Butter another slice of bread and dip in parmesan for the top. It will brown up nicely without sticking.

In the summer, I like to add a slice of tomato to the sandwich and use sour dough bread. Really, I like just about any type of grilled cheese sandwich---well, maybe except plain white bread.

All in all, it was my idea of a perfect weekend---nothing but hanging with friends, scrapbooking and talking about scrapbooking---can't get any better than that!!