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