Who Will Be Left To Turn Off The Lights?

I am stunned.

Tonight I received a notice on Facebook that Sandee's Stamps is closing in 

Waterford. I started to visit this store back when it was known simply as Jane's. It was not too far from my daughter's work place and I would often meet her there and we would do dinner afterwards or I would stop solo and then drive to Royal Oak where she lived for a bit.

Imagine how cool it was when Courtney actually moved right down the road from the stamp place and we eventually took a class or two.  I was so happy to have a place that fed my creativity and had the friendliest of employees. 

Then the store was sold, daughter moved, I had a car accident, husband was no longer working and Michigan was sinking into unemployment hell.  I tried to visit at least every so many months, but winter roads often kept me home, so I tagged along if husband had a luncheon or I was doing my big grocery shopping trip. I tried to do my part but I couldn't financially keep the store going with my small bag full of treasures.

Sandee's will start the going out of business sale today, May 12th and the store hours can be found at the name link. You can also get any info from the Facebook page Sandee's Stamps as they update the sale information.

I had always hoped I could bring my grand daughter to this store when she was a tad older,  maybe next year at 3. I won't get to do that now. And one more sanctuary of artistic bliss will now be filled with ghosts of stampers past. There really isn't anyplace left. As even the big box stores downsize the paper crafting aisles, magazines cease publication and scores of former stampers sell their unused wares on Ebay, I find I no longer wish to add a link to the long list of stores at the bottom of the blog. If I put one in open, I put two in closing.

Turn off the lights. Perhaps someone will have left some glow in the dark ink to guide  future stampers. 

Birthday Girl!

Happy 1st birthday, Avanelle. Live long and prosper.

Nuttin' Honey

Nothing to report other than the humidity is taking a toll on my paper. I will get back to cards when the summer chores are done and the paper cutter doesn't have a fit going thru card stock. But I might make a stamp show this weekend! Knee, please cooperate!

Scrap Tales of Brighton Is Closing

Sadly the Michigan economy sucked the life out of another local artsy/crafty store. The sale starts today July 14 and continues thru August 7. For info, check the  Scrap Tales site for any updates as the sale begins at 20% off. Shop early for best selections. I hope to make a trip this weekend, as I totally missed the Scrapbook Zone closing due to a horrible viral thing last month.

This store is about an hour from me and I tried to make a visit every quarter or so, but when the store was sold a while back, I found I wasn't making a visit quite as often. My style and wants have changed over the last two or three years and I have long ago gravitated toward stamping instead of scrapbooking. I think other paper crafters are finding the same dilemma and either were stamping or scrapping.  The stamping supplies got thinner at Scrap Tales and less diverse after the new owners took over, so I got my fix elsewhere. I did take a few classes here and they were quite extraordinary as this example will show.

I don't even want to speculate on who is next to go, but I have the feeling we are not done with losing the crafty comforts of Michigan. 

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.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

I am not much into Christmas anymore. Long story but the greed turned me off so bad, I just said no more. I have not put up a tree in 13 years and it's just as well as my animals have no clue to decorum. One cat actually tried to fry himself by biting a wire one year. He was never right in the head again. 

I put this card together over a year ago. It is not stamped but instead it is a vintage image printed on card stock. I had originally wanted to take a class for this type of card but when the weather got bad and I could not drive, I asked the proprietor of the stamp shop to save me a kit. She did but there were many items missing one of which was the class instructions. So I did it my way.

Here is a close up of the icy glitter that resembles snowflakes on the little girl. I always wanted a muff when I was younger. Not real fur, however and I think that is all that was sold at Smith Bridgeman's in downtown Flint when I was shopping with my gramma. We always looked at the cute dresses and shoes but somehow I ended up with jammies and socks.  I am going to visit the lone kiddie shop left in the area this weekend to see if I can find a perfect Christmas dress for grandkidlet Avanelle. I used to shop at Laurie's in Grand Blanc for my own kids for special occasions. I don't think I could afford to clothe a teenager these days with all the designer labels that are must haves . Me, I look for BOGO deals.

With Age Comes Wisdom (At Least I Am Hoping)

This is another oldie but goodie. I originally made a graduation card from this with a sprig of fresh rosemary tucked in the ribbon at the bottom.  It smelled great but sorta dried out. Still smelled good but sorta fell apart. Guess I wasn't so wise after all.

These are Great Impression stamps from about two years ago?  I took a punch and cut the punchie in half to give it a "quote" balloon look for the stamped phrase. The owls were colored with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol. Some of the other pieces were from my Iris cart but I didn't like the original base card which was the dark blue bits that I ended up cutting up. So I swapped out a textured yellow piece.  I did NOT intentionally make this U of M colors. Everyone knows I bleed green and white and Tom Izzo is my hero. 

Special Note

A card from a long time ago. I wanted to reshoot it but I sent it away, I think. Oh well.

The images are from Great Impression and were part of a class at Jane's/Sandee's.  Since  I can't take the classes, they often save class kits for me. Whatever works. I never make the cards the way the class instructor says anyway.

This card is a teacher card.  At least that is what I think.

One Crazy Dog

If my dog Jackson were a rubber stamp, this would be it. Right down to the wide eyed google eyeball, he is a configuration of crazy and nuts. 

 

Here, a close up.

I believe this stamp is from Inkadinkado.

woof.

.................

Sweet

Old Basic Grey cardstocks, a rub on and some dollar acrylic stickers.

Close up of stickers/rub on combo. The sweet crystals were also a dollar find, however it said sweetheart. I cut it up. Someday the heart will appear.

XOXO

While everyone else is gearing up for Christmas, I am going backwards. I present you with a love card. Supposedly, I can't work current. Is there a place in the working world that pays dinero that will let me do that? Too bad, but I ain't gonna do it any different.  I already have laid out items for 4th of July and something really cool for sailors/ship people. Do they have a holiday or not? Oh, and I am working on the graduation card I owe from last May. 

When I found this plain canvas to print with Inkjet in the clearance aisle at Joann's, I fell in love with the idea of shabby chic and how to use up scraps and dollar store finds to make something very unique. The last two years at the local stamp shows there have been a couple of companies that sell vintage photos or old images on CD or DVD and I have gobbled them up. There are also many free vintage images online and if you google free vintage clip art, you will have an all day feast!

An example of a dollar store find is this acrylic circle with XOXO. The entire sheet held at least a dozen circles with various words or images. I bought it several years ago and the color just matched this card so well.

Multiple layers make up this card from the printed image of an old valentine (all die cut using Spellbinders) , the green and black paper embossed and sanded (this is black with green interior) , two layers of die cut and embossed textured card stock in matching colors to the image and then three layers of designer card stock punched and off set. You would think this card was heavy but it's not. Each layer on top is pop-dotted and the lower layers just rest on each other. The base card is pitch black and textured.

I tied the top with organza ribbon and applied the acrylic circle as I didn't like the knot in the ribbon.  I noticed it was upside down, but I too am off kilter, so it works. Can you find the other mess up on the card? I double dog dare ya!  All items are from the infamous Iris cart.