Rebounding from the Flood

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving, with plenty of family, food, and most of all a season to remember how much we have to be thankful for. I have been on a "eucharisteo" journey, a journey of being deliberate about having eyes to see how blessed we are, a journey giving thanks for 1000 gifts. Please know how much you are a part of that journey.

We are taking this opportunity to respond to so many of you who have been so kind to remember and care for us since the Flood of 2013. It still amazes us to remember the morning of September 12 and how, even though we had heard the strong rain all night, we had no idea what lay ahead of us. Now that Highways 7, 34, and 36 are reopened, we are seeing more and more of our friends who are coming back to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain Memories. The resounding question has been "How can we help?". So we've put together a letter that attempts to answer that question. From our heart to yours. With thanks.

Estes Park

Flood Recovery Update

December 3, 2013

Dear RMM friends,

Since the September floods, we have heard from many of you with this question: "How can we help RMM overcome its newest challenges?" From our heart to yours, abundant thanks. Here is a list of action items that would a big help.

Remember Colorado. In your thoughts and prayers.

Visit Estes Park. Shop RMM on Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays, 10 – 4, all winter. Beginning in March, we'll be back to our seasonal hours of Monday - Saturday, 10 - 5.

Shop by Phone. If you are unable to travel, but need supplies, call us with your phone orders at 970.577.1415. Every little bit will help. Flat rate shipping & handling is only $7.95.

Shop On-Line. We have re-launched RMM's ON LINE STORE. It is stocked with top picks from RMM’s brick & mortar shop. All items have been selected to make great gifts for anyone who loves Estes Park, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, & the Great Outdoors. Our flat rate shipping & handling is just $7.95.

Follow RMM on Facebook. From any page at RMMemories.com, click the Facebook icon at the top right corner, or search "Rocky Mountain Memories" on Facebook and “Like”.

Like our Pages & Products. Check out RMM’s New ON LINE STORE & New GALLERY pages. Then help us extend our reach. Click “Like” at the bottom of each page or product you believe others might like to see.

Share our Story. From any page within RMMemories.com, click “Share” in the left hand column.

Plan a Class for you and your friends! Call Cheryl @ 970.577.1415 for details or to arrange.

We also need your feedback to debug the redesign of our new site and tell us what we missed. Hey, feel free to tell us what you like, too!

We are working long & hard to make Rocky Mountain Memories a better experience for you. Thank you all for your patience, friendship & loyalty. And, thanks for making RMM a place for doing the things we love with the people we love, like you!.

Our best hopes, and a blessed Christmas season, to you.


We are all looking forward to a GREAT 2014!

Rick & Cheryl

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Location:Cherokee Dr,Estes Park,United States

Wow, what a week!

Rick and I are so amazed and thankful. Firstly, because of God's protection as we found our little shop safe and dry from the flood waters that swept through Estes Park on Thursday, September 12. And secondly, because of all the prayers and notes and thoughts and texts and emails from you, our very dear friends.

It had rained all night, but we just thought the river would be up. We woke up to news the the schools were closed and that Highways 34 and 36 were closed. Little did we know that Estes Park, along with communities all over the state of Colorado were to experience a historic flood.

We want to give you an update on things directly related to the shop:

Fall Festival: We regret to say we will have to cancel Fall Festival 2013. We are so sorry to have to make this call, but it is necessary for the safety of our customers and due to restricted access over Highways 34 and 36. The store is fine, but you won't be able to get to us. We'll be contacting students who have already paid for classes to refund your class tuition.

Store Hours: Once its announced that the roads are open to non essential traffic, we'll be back on our normal schedule. Until then our hours will be limited, but we are still open. Visitors who are still here and Estes Park residents can call or email me and we'll make an appointment to be at the store for you.

Thank you so much for your support. Colorado is a collection of resilient, amazing people and are showing that now every day. I'm proud to be a part of this community. As we learn more, we will update you on the website, on Cheryl's blog, Facebook and by email. Everyday things are getting better. Hold on to the best thought with thanksgiving! Mountain strong!


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Location:RMM: Dry, Thankful & Open!

Lyric Mini Book

Hi, friends.  I'm very excited to highlight the features in Candy's Lyric Mini Book that you can complete in a class with her on September 21.   I have other mini books in my collection I've made over the years and I can't wait to add this one.

Pretty details include this shimmery blue butterfly that you'll make to grace the cover of the album.

I couldn't believe when Candy told me how she created this aperture for the arched gothic window.  Clever girl.

You can see in this close up of the pocket on this page the lacey effect created by Tim Holtz On the Edge Distressed Doily die.

Every page includes a pocket for you to tuck away tags, photos, ephemera, and other bits for your pretty book!

LOVE this tag!  Made with B Line's Elegant Home stamp and cut with a Memory Box die.

Tim's Photo Wheel creates the pocket on this page.  How about that crown on the "queen bee"?  :-)

Hope you'll join us for this class.  You'll treasure this one for a long time!

Dimensional Frame

Hey, here's the first in a series of blog posts to give you a better look at the upcoming projects for Fall Festival 2013.  Candy Colwell is so excited to teach her Dimensional Frame at Rocky Mountain Memories.  She's filled 2 big classes already in Missouri and she is sure you're going to love it, too!  "The ladies just really got into how fun it was, adding layers of gesso, ink, flowers and embellishments.  The art and techniques can be used for all kinds of art projects.  You can add the embellishments YOU like and choose your own colors.  Customize it for your style!"
Click on any of the photos below for greater detail.

This close up of the upper left corner of the frame highlights trims, a grungeboard heart, and resin embellishments from Melissa Francis.  We've ordered a whole new selection of Maya Road trims, just in time for Candy's classes!

We have Maya Road antique skeleton keys and a selection of ink sprays to choose from.  This sample was made with Dylusions Mist, or you can choose from a selection of Maya Mists or Ranger Color Wash sprays.  If you have ink sprays at home in colors you like, feel free to bring those along!

Your kit will include a selection of embellishments for decorating your frame, but you can also purchase pieces you want to add.  We'll have a whole new selection of flowers and embellishments from Prima as well as old favorites from Tim Holtz and Ideaology.

Classes are filling so call the shop at 970.577.1415 or email to sign up!

Meet Candy Colwell!

I can't wait for you all to meet my dear friend, Candy Colwell. I've known Candy since April of 2011 when we attended Ranger U together. I know you'll love her talent and grace as much as I do. Be sure and check out her blog, candycreates.blogspot.com, to see her work.

Candy showing her handiwork at Ranger U. I don't know who that guy is standing behind her. ;-)

Candy will be teaching at Rocky Mountain Memories during our Fall Festival September 18-21. Don't miss out on the chance to get to take her classes!
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Location:E Elkhorn Ave,Estes Park,United States

Sweet girls from Germany!

Some people just make your whole day delightful! These two came by the shop recently and and asked me about classes. Unfortunately, there was nothing scheduled during their stay in Estes Park they could take advantage of. So we just did a make & take.

Distress Inks make it ridiculously easy to create a background and stamp a beautiful card. Quick and easy elegance, what could be better!







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Location:140 Moraine Avenue,Estes Park,United States

Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks!!

I am JAZZED. At the end of the day (a phrase so overused I save it for truly momentous occasions) its about the ink, right? Today we got the NEW Wendy Vecchi signature Archival Inks. GREAT colors. Great. Very WV, very RMM, perfect for your earthy, natural, vintage and grunge projects. Yum. Come get inky. Happy day!!


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Location:Cherokee Dr,Estes Park,United States

Antiquities Embossing Powders

I am an admitted Ranger groupie, but I LOVE these embossing powders. They give a grainy, earthy finish instead of the shiny result you get with most embossing powders. Easy to use and they work great with vintage and shabby chic styles. Come check out all the new colors we just got in at Rocky Mountain Memories!


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My Other Passion

Besides paper and ink, I love to refresh old furniture. I reworked my studio a few weeks ago and needed a piece for die cutting. I knew just the dimensions and configuration I needed and decided I'd wait until exactly the right piece came along. Which took about 2 weeks. GREAT!! Here's the one I found, a cherry sideboard.



I bought it a garage sale in a bundle, along with a sofa table and two side tables.






I've only finished one piece, the one I needed for die cutting. Sort of a Vagabond table. :-) Here's the final result, installed & ready to go:



Love it!! I've got a desk I need to complete before I can start working on these other three pieces. But summer is here and its so nice working on these out on the deck.
Reuse, recycle, repurpose. And make things pretty!!

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Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste

I wanted to freshen up our front window at the shop and knew I wanted to make a sign. I wanted it to be sort of like a sign you'd find on a hiking trail, but with a message. We've got this B Line stamp in the store and thought it would be perfect. But how to create it?? Wendy Vecchi's Embossing Paste to the rescue!




I printed out the message on my computer, sizing the text to fit my sign post. Rick built this for me out of some reclaimed wood (he is the KING of reclaimed wood!) and it was just what I had pictured.




I cut the letters out and attached them to some vinyl flooring scraps I got at Lowe's. The picture above shows the print out in red and the letters I had cut out in black on the vinyl. The red means nothing, except that I had run out of black ink on my printer!








I used a hot knife and cut the letters out of the vinyl, creating a custom stencil. The vinyl flooring was perfect because it had a foam backing and was about 1/8" thick. I wanted an extra thick stencil for this project.




Using my palate knife, I applied this yummy stuff through the stencils onto the wooden sign. I colored some white paste with Vintage Photo Distress Reinker. Awesome. Because I laid down such a thick layer of Embossing Paste, I let it dry overnight. I'm sure it didn't take that long, but I wanted it to cure thoroughly.




So here's our window. It turned out really great with some other vintage hiking equipment. The first afternoon we had TWO different people come in and ask if they could buy the sign! Well, you could, except its PRICELESS!! Thanks, Wendy, this was just the thing for our message to our guests this year!
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Location:Custom Sign Making with Wendy's Embossing Paste

Weekend Recap

We are having a beautiful Memorial Day weekend at Rocky Mountain Memories. It was "instant summer" weather-wise (thanks for the phrase, Kris Hazelton!). The river is just roaring, the sun is warm and the air is cool. I love this time of year!

Susan Mostek taught a great card class Saturday morning continuing her Kittie Korner theme. These cards are so lovely and easy to make with Memory Box dies. You have another chance to take this class Tuesday, June 18!!


The spring weather brings back our yearly guests to Estes Park! I always love it when friends from Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, California, New York, Oklahoma, and all over the country, indeed all over the world, come back to enjoy the Rocky Mountains. This special lady was in the shop this weekend.
We were chatting as she shopped and she asked me, "Do you know what my cats names are? Cricut and Gypsy." Ha! How cute and what a way to demonstrate your love for scrapbooking. This is Carol, from Iowa. Thanks, Carol for coming to visit. Hope you enjoy your Colorado vacation!!



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Art of Pen Pals

I'm taking a really AWESOME online class with Ronda Palazzari called Art of Pen Pals. Ronda is giving us all kinds of exercises and challenges as we exchange letters and art with a pen pal. Mine is in Belgium!

One of our exerices was to create a Correspondence Portfolio to keep all of our stuff in. Its come in very handy for me and was a LOT of fun to make. I can't stop embellishing it, so I said to myself in a very strong voice today, "Enough, stop!" Here's the cover:





And open:


This class is full, but you should take an online class with Ronda. She's SO prepared, and offers so much content. One of my bestest teachers, love her! http://rondapalazzari.typepad.com/

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Stamping Collective

Great fun this morning with the ladies of Stamping Collective! We had a blast playing with Distress Inks & Stains and then did a make & take with the techniques we learned. What a creative group, they had great ideas. They were simply lovely!

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Distress Reinker Storage

Another of my finds at the Crossroads Sale was this sweet little storage chest. I love the glass doors that keep everything tidy, but visually accessible.
Lately I've been on a reorganization tear. Maybe its just that spring cleaning bug, but I feel the need!! Until now, I've kept my Distress Reinkers (and all other reinkers, but I have a LOT of Distress Reinkers) in a very sweet, cloth covered little cheese box. Very sweet, but really hard to get to my reinkers and really hard to see the colors. So I came up with this system and I think I'm going to like it.



I typed an alphabetical list of all 48 Distress colors and arranged them into groups of 6. I taped the labels to the back of the little cabinet. I staggered them so they are arranged directly in back of the reinkers on that row.



Then I lined the reinkers up single file, 6 at a time, and placed them in the cabinet starting with the one at the back. Then, I took a piece of pattered paper and cut it 6 x 6, scoring it at 3". I folded on the score and taped down the L shaped paper. It keeps the reinkers from falling all over.



I love the way this little unit keeps some of the things that I need, but don't use every single day, tidy and accessible!
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Location:Fall River,Estes Park,United States

A Week of Short Bloggies

Today's the first day of a week of short blogs. My life is very busy and I have a bit of a struggle being consistent with my blog, but I'm trying a new way. Day 1. Begin!!
Most of you know that at the shop we have a beautiful classroom table with a collection of different chairs. I'm always on the hunt for new ones and I replace the least pretty ones. As I rotate a new, pretty one in, an older, not-pretty one goes out. I found some GORGEOUS ones yesterday. Two of them. I bought both, of course.

Fabulous, right? Join us for classes at RMM and maybe YOU can sit in these lovelies.
We got these at the Annual Crossroads Garage Sale. Its held yearly, the first weekend in May. If you haven't been, you gotta go! This is a sale that benefits Crossroads Ministries, our local food bank. Crossroads does much more that just help people who need food. There are lots of resources to help with rent, utility bills, or other ways. Its done in a very responsible way and they have lots of knowledge and resources that help people work toward self sufficiency. I have worked with this ministry for a few years and am very proud of the work they do.
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Location:Cherokee Dr,Estes Park,United States

Ranger Nation

This Friday's Ranger Nation is going to feature Tim Holtz's newest gift to us, Distress Paints! These are really unique paints that introduce an opaque (can't see through it) option to the Distress line of mediums. The inks, markers and stains are all transparent. These paints are transparent and workable when wet or mixed with water, but opaque when dry.

In this class we'll be using the Distress Paints on a variety of surfaces and experimenting with using them alone and with water. You'll paint on paper, clay, metal, glass and fabric. You'll learn blending techniques with the paints, which is very different than blending inks because they are opaque. Take home a tag booklet and little flower pot, just in time for spring!

There are still a few spots left in class, so if you'd like to learn about Distress Paint, sign up now! Call the shop at 970.577.1415 or email me at cheryl@RMMemories.com.


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Location:140MoraineAve,Estes Park,United States

Distress Paints in the House!

All 24 colors! This was one of the hottest things at CHA this year from the Duke of Distress, of course, Tim Holtz. These paints are different from anything you've used. Distress, yet paint. Water based, yet acrylic. Reactive with water, yet permanent when dry. Paper, plastic, glass, metal, anything you want to change color! Right here, right now at Rocky Mountain Memories.


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Location:140 Moraine Ave, Estes Park, United States

Beautiful New Prima!

Double click on this picture to see the detail of these great new Prima embellishments.  These are going to fit perfectly into your paper arts projects & pages.  IMO, one of Prima's best offerings in a long time!

So you've made your tag or card and want to send it to a friend, but all those embellishments!  All that bulk!  How to mail it?  Will it arrive trashed?  Not with these clear boxes.  How fun for your loved ones to go to their mailbox and find your art, clearly seen.

I mailed one to myself as a test and it arrived perfectly.  We've got lots of these at the shop, ready for you!

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Location:140 Moraine Avenue,Estes Park,United States

What Was the Buzz at CHA?

Have you heard about them? Do u want yours? They are at RMM!! Now!!  This cool tool was on everyone's list at the Craft & Hobby Association show this year, and we just received ours at Rocky Mountain Memories.  You won't believe how quick and easy it is to create your own envelope of any size for your cards, art journals, and other paper projects.  Come by and pick up yours before they're gone!

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Valentine Classes @ RMM

Susan Mostek packed the house for her Valentine Triple Heart Easel card class yesterday. Full classes, morning and afternoon. It was awesome!

You know that girls just wanna have fun!!



The very pretty Chari Hogslett; what a sweetie.  That's Sharon Kierstein in front of her and Linda Williams on the right.

Linda Williams, Barb Atwell, CJ Kirn, Lael Wagner & Karen Domenico, rocking their vintage valentines!

Two of the nicest ladies I've ever met.  The graceful, positive and loving spirit they bring to class is life giving!
Holly Williams & Penny Hart.

So there we were, minding our own business, when an Ewok comes in the shop.  I just had to get his picture.  Thanks for being a paper crafting puppy, Zak!

As is often the case, we had a few contributions to the "lost & found" bucket.  I think I know the owners for a couple of these, but call me and claim them for sure.  In any case, I'll keep them safe & warm till they are retrieved.  I return all lost & found items except for candy, which is confiscated & disposed of promptly.  ;-p

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Location:140 Moraine Avenue, Estes Park, CO