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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