stampin4fun: birthday

Hi Friends! I just thought I would share some happy things from this past weekend.

I guess I was too busy enjoying the weekend to take many photos but hopefully you'll still get the vibe of how I spent my weekend.

Friday was a bit of a blur...I worked during the day and then in the evening I tried to throw things together for Saturday.

I had committed to being a vendor at a local church's garage sale event.

I hadn't done an event like this since before the pandemic!

Fortunately I was able to dig up some things that would work and managed to set up and be ready in time for the 8am start time on Saturday morning!

I almost never do outdoor fairs because the weather elements and paper do not really mix well together.

I'll also share a little anxiety of mine. It's so hard talking to strangers!

Especially strangers who know nothing about me or the joy of stamping!

Eeekk so scary!

I usually have to spend the first hour talking to myself and reminding myself of all the beautiful people I have met at vendor fairs who later came to classes and became friends or team members!

I tried to just breathe and enjoy the sunshine and be grateful to be outside.

Did I mention that Saturday was my birthday? I was wondering why I agreed to do a vendor fair on my birthday when I could be at home with my family or relaxing and stamping?

Once I get through the first hour or two, I usually feel a lot better!

This lovely lady Bev came and chatted with me several times. She's also a demonstrator but I love it how encouraging she was and I love it that she knew all about me because of my blog and my live videos. She knows I don't enjoy camping but that I loved vacationing in Europe.

I love being a part of the stampin community and in the end I was so glad to be out there chatting and meeting new people and people I already knew like Bev!

When I got home Kevin gave me a wonderful card that he made himself!!!

He had rummaged in my craft room and found an open kit and created this card.

I was impressed he managed to find an appropriate sentiment on my shelf of stamps and chose to use that instead of the stamp set that came with the kit. (because that kit was a thank you kit)

Those all inclusive card kits are the best! Even my husband can stamp with them!

When I got home from the vendor experience, I took a wonderful nap and then we went for dinner. My choice: all you can eat Japanese food! Yum!

Sunday was father's day.

Believe it or not I didn't give Kevin a card.

I will however, share a card we made at this month's lunch, laugh and craft!

This is basically the same layout as a card I did in my live video.

Just change up the paper and colours and it's a whole new card!

Thanks for letting me share my lovely weekend with you!

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Hello friends! Sorry it's taken me a while to post last week's card that I demonstrated on my live video.

I wanted to share the card but I also wanted to share stories and photos from Kevin's 50th birthday since that was a key purpose of making this fancy card!

First, here's the card:

It might be hard to see in the photo but there is a window and you can turn the wheel on the side to reveal other images/messages.

Isn't that fun??

Make sure to watch the video replay to see how the card is made and I'll paste the supply list below. Don't forget the counting sheep stamp set and dies are only while supplies last during this Saleabration promotion which ends Sept. 30th!!

So onto the stories and photos of Kevin's 50th birthday celebration.

I wanted to make everything a surprise. I think I succeeded.

I really wanted to do something extraordinary because it seems that 50 is a special birthday year.

It took me a long time to come up with ideas. I mean what could I do for a guy that seems to have everything and is generally happy?

Is it even possible to make him happier than he is?

Surprise #1

Thanks to a lead from a friend, I hired Party Helpers by Sol and late on Thursday night she came and set up this birthday signage. The theming was perfect since he's an elementary school principal and loves technology and the colour Pacific Point Blue.

I was able to show him the signs and wish him a happy birthday before he went off to work.

Our youngest son Nathaniel was determined to wake up early to wish his dad a happy birthday before work but you could see he was so sleepy! Still, he set his alarm and gave his dad the special gifts he had purchased with his own money.

Nathaniel's rationale for buying the stuffies was that it would remind his dad about him since he loves stuffed animals. I am a bit suspicious of this reasoning and suspect perhaps it was a ploy for him to have more stuffed animals. :P

Surprise #2

I rented a Tesla 3 for Kevin to enjoy until Saturday night.

I have to tell you that the whole experience of renting the car was like a comedy show!

After many false starts, I finally learned about a website called Turo. It's like air b&B but for cars. Owners post their cars that they will personally rent and we use this Turo platform to communicate and arrange details.

I finally figured out how to set up an account and book the car. The owner was very thorough and communicated clearly a whole list of important details such as how to pick up the car, how to get the key etc etc.

If you didn't know, the Tesla is an ELECTRIC car. I was given a video to watch on how to do everything from open the car door to how to drive and charge the car.

I was starting to feel concerned that this was more than I could handle.

I then discovered that as the one who booked the car, I was the only one authorized to drive the car!

This would not do.

I then had to do the whole set up account business all over again but pretending I was Kevin. This involved secretly taking photos of his drivers license while he was napping one day and texting my son in Ottawa to see if I could use his phone number for the account verification code and using my business email address.

For some reason the photo I uploaded for Kevin for the account was sideways and I couldn't figure out how to fix it for the life of me.

Fortunately it seemed to work and Turo didn't ask for a real time photo as they had for my account so I was able to add Kevin as a driver to my booked car without him knowing. Phew.

A week before I was to pick up the car, I suddenly realized I couldn't drive to pick up the car myself because I couldn't leave my car on some random Toronto street.

Time to call my dear friend Gloria who is like a sister to me. I knew she was taking a sabbatical year off work and it turned out she was available to help!

She thought she was just driving me to pick up the car but when she arrived at my home I asked if she would help me with decorating the snack bags/treats that were an important part of Surprise #3.

Of course she was kind and gracious and helped me. She also reminded me to take photos!

Don't worry. I had already prestamped everything and a helper had helped assemble all the tags so we just had to tie them to the bags and stuff the macarons in the cello envelopes and staple the tag to the front.

I had hidden the macarons in the fridge and all the other snack bag treats in Stampin' Up! boxes in my basement. It wasn't until Friday morning when Kevin left for work that I went into high gear stuffing all the bags!

The real comedy show started when we arrived at the car pick up location. This car is so technologically advanced that I could use an app on my phone to unlock the car door. Then I had to use a device like an ipad in the car to open the glove box.

Then it took me forever to figure out how to adjust the mirrors

Then I had to rewatch the "how to" video that was sent to me because I couldn't remember how to actually make the car move.

The whole time my friend Gloria was taking photos and shouting phrases like a cheerleader on the side.

"everything is going great Genevieve"

"You can figure this out"

"What a great wife you are to do something so out of your comfort zone"

Please enjoy her photos.

This was all happening on a random side street somewhere in Toronto.

I was starting to laugh uncontrollably and wondered if I would be able to drive the car to surprise Kevin at school after all.

I also wondered if the owner of the car was hiding behind a tree watching me and regretting that he had allowed me to rent his car. Actually scratch that. He probably didn't have to hide behind a tree because the car probably had cameras inside and outside.

I just about died when I had done a little test drive around the block and parked in the same spot I had picked up the car and the side mirrors automatically folded themselves in. There was more uncontrollable laughing and mild panic as I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to manually force them open again so that I could drive the car on the highway.

I finally found the appropriate spot to click on the ipad type device in the car.

Off to surprise Kevin at school!

I had already warned the school secretary I was coming with a surprise so she told me where to park and went to get Kevin.

She used a story about a very insistent parent at the door who needed to speak to him about COVID.

Kevin was in the kindergarten yard with a child in each hand was was unable to come to speak to this insistent parent.

After several attempts, the secretary gave up and told Kevin it was me.

This didn't change matters at all so I was led to the outside of the kindergarten yard to talk to him.

I could see he was busy working so I gave him the key fob and quick low down ("do not attempt to drive the car until you watch the videos I send you")

I felt a bit justified about my confusion when picking up the car as Kevin told me it took him 15 minutes to get out of his school parking lot at the end of the day.

Surprise #3

I had invited friends to drop by our home so they could share their birthday wishes. We kept everything outdoors as it seemed safer with the pandemic.

I was very thankful it didn't rain Friday so Kevin was surprised to discover that we weren't going out to eat for his birthday afterall and that he should prepare for guests arriving randomly all evening.

Everyone got a snack bag and could mingle in the front or backyard.

It ended up being a birthday weekend for Kevin since he could drive around in the car on Saturday and then we did dinner together on Saturday and I didn't get around to giving him his card until Sunday!