Please Excuse My Blog

I did a code edit and screwed it up. I don't have time to fix it right now. Maybe never.  So just ignore me.

Sigh-Destination Marysville Is Also Closing.

I have never been to this store. It has been open less than two years and will be closing May 28, 2011. Another piece of the Michigan economy gone to hell. Click the link for address etc. Honestly, I don't think I even know where Marysville is. But a Google map will help you if you want to hit the final sale days. Sigh.

Scrapbook Zone Closing.

This is one store I didn't think I would ever have to list under closing or closed. I have always loved this store in Farmington Hills. I preferred the older location because it was easier for me to get to off the multiple freeways I had to take to get there. Plus added benefit was a Panera across the street!

The Scrapbook Zone had more cardstock colors than any store I had ever been to. I have visited  many a store that had the basics or professed to have the most cardstock but the Zone had every color imaginable and if you couldn't find something to match, the color didn't exist. There was always a cool stamp at 40% off each month and the most incredible examples up for viewing of art that employees and customers had made. I still remember someone "borrowing" an heirloom scrapbook someone made and I never did find out if it was returned. 

But the oddest shopping night in the store, they were shop lifted. This very well dressed woman kept trolling the aisles and I thought she was weird but so are many people  Then the cops show up. Yeah, that was a fun trip, and the last one I actually took on my own before hubby retired. I am going to miss this store and now have absolutely no reason to visit the area. I am at the point where I say "why bother to leave the house"?  All my former haunts are going away.

I'll Be Back

If you haven't noticed, I don't have much up here lately. I am taking a long break while I weave some other items in my head. I have cards almost finished, as I color them when I have some time. Photographing them is the problem. I just like the way they look outside in natural light. It's still sort of cold and damp and often windy here, so I am still in partial hibernation.

But something neat came my way. No ink is involved altho sometimes paper is. I have begun writing restaurant reviews for the local newspaper's web site.  I work on them when I can, often editing into the wee hours. Then they have to pass muster with a real editor.  That is the part I personally don't like. Reasons starting with I think, they get dumbed down, as if readers can't decipher a word over 4 letters. But it's  a byline. I pay for the food, I don't get paid for the review. I will use this experience for the better. Plus my photos look better than the food actually tastes at times. You can read some of the reviews HERE or my intact reviews here with photos. I did notice this evening that at least one of my published reviews on the paper's site is missing.  Maybe the eatery kicked up a fuss? I never trash a place but will say it like it is.

Come back here in a few weeks and maybe I will have some new inky stuff up. And who knows, the otherness might just be published on my blog. At least I am the only censor there.

Want To Learn Distress Ink Watercoloring? For Free?

Of course you do! The incredible colors you get from using Tim Holtz Distress Distress Inks to color your images will knock your socks off.  These inks especially come in handy with the  Magnolia images and getting correct skin colors. I have personally been wanting to learn the right way to do this type of water coloring and have been watching You Tube videos with foreign languages I don't understand. Ethnic skin is the hardest altho I thought I had a good thing going with my Prismacolors UNTIL I saw the images done with Distress Inks. One of my favorite bloggers Ying Pang used Distress inks on this card.

Well now YOU  can take a class to learn the correct way. But if you are lucky enough, you might win a free tuition to a class. See that blinkie to the side? Click that and find out more about the classes. Click HERE to get a chance to win a class.

The Economic Bleed Continues.

It gets to be kind of a drag to have to report  former creative playgrounds  that have closed  over and over.  I still remember the first time I discovered Karen's Creative Stamping in a strip mall in Davison, Michigan and was so delighted I called my daughter to meet me after work. We both took classes here and spent a lot of  pretty greenbacks, too.

Karen's moved into a scrapbook shoppe that had closed due to bad management and was then loads bigger than the previous stamp store, and she inherited all the store stock thus becoming I think,  more scrap store than stamp store.  I think that was her downfall and she became less of a destination on Friday afternoons for me.  Both daughter and I had issues with the way some employees were treated by the owner and felt we could not return and feel good about it.  It took me months to get over not heading out for a stamp fix and then to the gym.

I have known about this closing "unofficially" for several months, altho I knew it was coming probably for several years. I even hinted at it in 2009 in a blog post and many times since. Tonight, Karen sent out an email confirming what actually happened in late December.  I wish her well. At least she has a regular  job as a school teacher and her husband fixes computers.  Her employees will not fair so well.

I know a couple of special people who worked at Karen's that I would love to give a shout out to. Pat Farlin (lost your email but hope you are looking forward to golf!) and Joan Stier (I have your package ready, I just need a ride to the PO and a Valium for dealing with the employees there ;P  ). Both these ladies are so terrifically talented in the paper arts!

There isn't much left open these days in my stomping grounds but always check the side bar for the latest. Sadly, I have been deleting names on the closed list after 3 years, so that list is much much longer that you know.  I am  hoping to add some happy news to the list someday.

Glitter is Contagious? Really??

BITE ME!

Scrapbookers Inc in White Lake---Going Out of Business

After 8 years in two locations-both out of the way-another store is closing. Scrapbookers Inc in White Lake, Michigan is closing. The going out of business sale starts Jan 2 at 40% off.  I really liked this store when it was in it's former location  in Commerce Township (even if it was hard to get there) because it's so pretty in the fall in the overly treed area and twisting roads up and down hills. It was neat.

I tried to go once to the new location after hubby was golfing and I dropped him off at Camp Dearborn. Sadly they were closed on a day that should have been a business day, so I never got to visit the new place. It's again, an hour's drive if not more for me. I don't get to the area much anymore since daughter moved away. I don't know if I want to try and make a trip as honestly, what I want just doesn't seem to make it to the local stores, so I either buy online or go without. 

 5951 Highland Road {M-59} * White Lake, MI *248-714-9441

Live Laugh Love Scrap in Oxford Closing

This little out of the way store just east of the Palace of Auburn Hills has been around for a while. It's been a couple of years since I visited it, but there was no reason to go there with hubby not working anymore down that way. It will be gone Thursday.

So if you are in the area, stop and get a deal or two of 50% off or more as there are only two days left-I heard  storage and store fixtures remain  available, too. Look HERE for directions and hours. Sad to see another local business go, and I think another will be listed here very soon. Support your local happy places, whether retail or eatery.

Old St.Nick

This is another in the style of vintage nostalgia similar to my last posting. I did this about a year ago, too. As before, these are printed on an ink jet printer.

This close up is to show you where the icy glitter is placed. You will also see the puffy snow-like paint around the sign St Nick is holding.

If you want vintage images, try Googling for them. Many are free. There are also a few companies that sell discs full of them by themes such as Twisted Papers. I even found some in the embroidery aisle a few years ago at Joann's.  Whatever works. Scraps were used for layering and some cheesy old edge punch (really badly punched) from Fiskars completed the card.