Inch by Inch & Meeting someone famous

Here’s a card I whipped up this morning using Garden Party Critters by Taylored Expressions for today’s Featured Stamper Challenge at SCS {FS187}.  It was fun to make *I love the clean & simple designs!*  I chose this card of Emily’s to case, changing up the stamp,s ribbon and cardstock but stayed with part of her color scheme of red & white – I just wanted to use some of the pretty sunshine yellow silk ribbon in the TE store – if you haven’t tried that yet and LOVE ribbon, it’s a must have!!  After I colored my worm, I had to make him shine with some Glossy Accents!  I love that I was able to capture the shine in my photo so you can see!
Now for some personal stuff about meeting someone famous, if you read my blog yesterday I said we were heading out to San Antonio to geocache and check out a few consignment/antique stores on the hunt for an apothecary piece of furniture.  Well, one of the stops would also be at the famous Toilet Seat Museum by Barney Smith.  I wasn’t sure what to expect other than there was a geocache at the museum and the reason we needed to go was because it was not going to be around for much longer.  I found out Barney (a retired plumber of 35 years) is 89 years old and his lovely wife of 71 years is very ill (given 4 mos to live about 9 months ago). 
It was truly an amazing little adventure looking at all his elaborately decorated toilet seats which commemorated popular culture like Star Wars, Cinderella and McDonald’s to legendary stars like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and Michael Jackson to Vietnam Veterans, Red Hatters and the President. Some of my favorites were the travel ones!  I forgot to mention he has been featured on television shows like the Early Show, The View and Montel Williams!  He had a whole section of magazines and books he has been featured in and even played the above segments on a little t.v. he had in the museum.  He had 4 Geocaching toilet seats!  #3 and #4 are what they are holding in the picture above. In this picture, John is signing #4 with both of our geocaching names (he is thenkengrene and I am serenity_girl) so there is a little piece of us in the famous museum now!!

View Full Album

Here is an album with over 20 pictures so you can see more of my favorite toilet seat art!
We ended up staying in there for at least an hour, Barney was very talkative but I enjoyed every minute of it, especially toward the end when we were talking about his ‘birthday’ toilet seats which span the years ‘70 - ‘89.  He asked us if he told us the story of a little boy when he was young who broke both his arms trying to impress a little girl (twice) and how the little boy ended up marrying her and how they even played together as babies!  Of course he was talking about himself and his wife!  The story brought tears to my eyes just thinking about how blessed they have been to spend all these years together as best friends!! 
***I will always remember this special little geogaching trip, John!  I know I complain a lot when we’re on them about how hot it is and how much longer we plan on doing it, but it’s times like these I am thankful for this crazy hobby you like so much!*** Thanks to Lee & her husband James for introducing it to us!!