We arrived in this mountain resort town on a hot and dry sunny day to find the most charming shop and shop owners at the Cat's Meow.
"Bring the dogs in, so they don't get hot!", Sharon said right away!
Sharon is not only the owner of the Cat's Meow, but also the head of the county SPCA- and you can see she has a soft spot for animals, including the two store cats that she kept in the back while our dogs toured the air conditioned store. Sharon also organizes a terrific annual stamping workshop, called the Great Yosemite Stamp Escape, that is wildly popular. The event is famous, and draws students from all around the globe!
Here I am with Sharon (left) and Melissa (on the right), who helped me set up and change out 3 sessions of students (51 wonderful people!) throughout the day. She provided pizza for students in between classes, which was a treat, and everyone felt quite welcome and taken care of.
Here's one of our Halloween samples in the store - we used the Locina Buckle die (98184) to embellish some black ribbon.
Sharon had lots of amazing ideas in the store - check out what she did with our Flowering Christmas Tree die (98195)! She cut the tree out of dark green paper and bright red paper, then cut the flowers out of the red paper and layered things together. Some sparkly jewel stickers finished things off!
I saw this sample and was blown away! It is our Arboscello Tree die (98155) and they drew in tiny lines over the branches for texture! The glitter glue on the leaves looked so beautiful!
Our Running Monkey (B1734) was on a card trying to "catch" some little butterflies.
As we were getting ready for class, one of our dogs decided to monitor the students, just in case things got a little unruly!
On a side note, I do get to meet a lot of interesting people when I go on these trips. Most of the students have stamping as a hobby and some students have stamping as a form of stress relief and creative play, to balance out their busy lives. I did meet a sweet person at class, who designed the robots that are on Mars right now (no joke!) and she filled us in on the latest news about the mission. As she was sharing with us updates of how some of the robots' wheels were getting stuck in the Martian sand, and the pride her team felt knowing that the robots had lasted much longer on their mission than anyone anticipated, I thought about how the simple process of "coloring" connects people from all walks of life.
After the sessions had ended, we restocked the store from the van (Memory Box on Wheels!) and chatted with Sharon and Melissa. Sharon let the cats, Peachy and Mittens (above, with Monica, notice his 7 toes!), out of the backroom. As soon as the dogs saw the cats, there was a 30 second dash through the store, as cats ran for their lives, dogs chasing and growling, and Monica and I trying to grab our dogs that were tearing around fixtures at 90 miles per hour!
As soon as the dogs figured out the the cats were as big (maybe bigger) than they were, things settled down and peace was restored. Sharon, lover of all animals, wasn't worried, and the cats found spots to lay up on the counter, out of the reach of curious little dogs.
Thanks again Dave for coming and teaching, we had a wonderful time visiting with you, Monica, Biscuit and Kip. Would love to have met the kids, but I am sure they were having a blast at tennis camp. We hope you are seriously thinking about our offer to teach at the stamp escape in May. I know everyone would love it!
Posted by: Melissa Cash | August 04, 2011 at 02:35 PM
Dave, It was nice to meet you in Marietta, GA! I got the blog post up today. Safe travels!
Posted by: Holly Craft | August 08, 2011 at 05:21 AM
What a nice post! It's fun to watch your travels and see other stamp stores! I will have to come here next time we go to Yo. Hope you guys are still having a great time! Thanks for sharing the awesome samples.
Posted by: Wanda G (stampcat) | August 15, 2011 at 03:31 PM