I'm sure that, while there is no evidence that you were concerned when I did not surface yesterday, many of you had begun to organize the search and rescue teams to look for me.  (Right???  Just smile and nod....)  I'm back to report mission accomplished.  While the "resistance/enemy" (think husband, children, laundry, etc....) each did their individual best to keep me from my scrapbooking area on Sunday, I eventually prevailed.  At approximately 11:30 AM I sat down to begin the reconstruction.  I had just removed the matted picture from the background paper and begun to play with some new papers when the enemy made it's first attack!  "Mom, can you find my shoes for me?"  (I was agreeable to this demand, as it seemed that having one less of the "enemy" in the house was a good idea....)  At least 20 minutes of continued interruption followed before I could return to the desk.  Keep in mind that it's now lunchtime.  I think I had about 15 minutes before the rest of the family figured this out.  As I know you can all relate, I won't bore you with the details of the battle that I fought for the rest of the day....but I will say that the time involved was about 5 hours, and the actual work time was about 30 minutes!  Around 4:30 I'd finished the page, thanks in no small part to many of you.  So many wonderful ideas that were contributed played around in my mind and kept the creative juices going! 

The Stickles sat on the shelf for this episode.....I was afraid to break it out!  (The remaining Stickles on the matted photo still seemed like more than enough.)  FYI, Stickles will scrape off transparencies!  I liked the suggestions of using handmade paper and of adding a little more red to the page.  While the Stickles did come off the transparency at the top of the page, there was residue that would not come off the paper at the bottom of where the mat had been.  The answer was to create a camouflage 1" strip, which matched the one at the top....this time stamped with dragonflies.  (It's important to note here that I was STRONGLY tempted to douse these little guys with the Stickles!)  I was still unable to do my own journaling, as my mind wasn't really on the story of the page.  A little help from Tennyson and some Google work turned up some good thoughts though.  I'll post the finished product below, and I'm still open to feedback!

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Meanwhile, all the fun with this page has me thinking.  (Is that a good thing you may wonder?)  How many of you are willing to share your disasters?  What can we learn from the real Stickle Pros?  How about a contest??  Let's see the best and the worst of the Stickles projects out there!  Check your secret hiding places and/or your albums for your entries and send a digital picture (resize/compress it for e-mail, doc, or web sites) of your work to kim@snippinsnapscrap.com by Friday Feb. 8th.  Be sure to let me know if this is for the "Best Of" or "Worst Of" contest.  (It may not be as obvious to the rest of us as it is to you...)  Everyone, please be sure to vote on your favorites from both contests.  (Let us know your vote by making a comment on the blog.)  I will give the winners of each contest 5 bottles of Stickles!  The top 3 entries in  the "Best Of" contest will receive the official designation of "Stickle Ho", and the top 3 entries in the "Worst Of" contest will receive the official designation of "Stickle Ho Wannabe", all compete with a certificate!  (You know you want one of these framed and hanging in your work area!)  BTW, I'm not going to be competing in this so the floor is wide open!       

And since you asked, (just smile and nod) the reason I didn't get back to y'all yesterday is due to the fact that I am having technical difficulties with the Stickle Stock Up Sale post.  My evil plan was to send out the info on the sale with this entry so that you could read it all at one time (and be tempted by all the glitter to place an order).  Since it will probably be tomorrow before I have the sale page ironed out, I decided I'd better get back to you with the status of my mission, so that you wouldn't worry too much about my well being........  So I'm ok, the page is ok, and you don't need to send anybody to look for me after all!  Send in your Stickles Samples!

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