Good for what ails ya!

Jane and I went to a postcard show today. May I just say that going to a postcard show is as good as Christmas morning as far as I am concerned. Talk about being surrounded by glorious vintage images!!!! Here are three of the wonderful cards I got today. What I want to do is figure out how I can make collage sheets of some of the images from my collection. You know make all the pictures a good size to put on a sheet and then be able to sell them. I have been thinking of this for awhile, but have to figure out the logistics.
I have been going to postcard shows for years now. I always go with my Mom. This is the first time I went without her and I missed her. We have been collecting postcards by artists such as Philip Boileau

Cecilia Shand


Harrison FisherMargaret Tarrant

and many others. It is amazing how many beautiful vintage illustrations there are, especially from the first 30 years of the 20th Century. Stunning really.

Today's focus was on photographic images, mostly of women and children, that we can use in our art work. Jane and I found lots of great black and white real photo postcards and then we found this catagory of handtinted photos that were so beautiful. We came away with quite a haul and had a really good time besides. I could look at postcards everyday!!!

NEW BANNER!!!!!!

Thank you to the most wonderful and talented Heather Simpson-Bluhm who updated my banner!!! I love, love, love it!!! She used one of my brides with glasses pictures! I loved my old banner and I will miss it so much! But I love this new one too!!! I think it will be fun to change them every now and then!! (as long as my banner changer does not not mind!). Since I have no idea how much work is involved in changing/creating banners I can just sit here and ask for the changes...Heather does not seem to mind (at least not yet!). Heather, if you do mind, Please let me know!!! Heather is also the co-creator of the wonderful zine, Portals. If you have not seen it yet, please check it out. It is top notch. There is even a little picture of me and my stamping area in the current issue!!!!

Heather also did new banners for my friends Beth and Kim!!!! Totally cool!!!! I would like to see all Heather's banners in one place cause they are so cool!!!

Toot Toot!!!!

Toot: A shopping spree. Shopping with wild abandon with your closest loved one or a group of bestest girlfriends.

Mike and I went on a toot yesterday. We had a really fun time. Originally, we were going to toot and go see a movie afterwards, but the strong hold of the toot just kept going and we did not see a movie......just had an extended tooot.

Above you will see the new book by Sally Jean Alexander. The craft blogging world has been abuzz about this book and I found ONE copy at Borders which I promptly picked up and held to my chest with glee!!! Talk about beautiful and inspiring eye candy! Even if I never make a piece of jewelry there is so much stuff in here to springboard from and drool over it makes the book totally worth it!

When we started our day it was for lunch at Panera. Bread and soup! My fave!!! Then we went across the parking lot so I could show Mike the wonders of Staples. He liked it too!

Then we were off so I could use my coupons! I had coupons from Hobby Lobby, Joanne's, Borders, and Michaels. And being a true marketing lemming I could not let those coupons go to waste! Hobby Lobbey yielded some really cool trim at 40% off. On a side trip to Best Buy Mike was able to complete our Wilco CD collection and add some more to our U2 collection. I got the new CD by soprano Renee Fleming.

Then at Joanns Mike used my 50% off coupon and got one of his favorite magazines
Cook's Illustrated. If you don't know about this magazine (or its sister magazine, Cook's Country) and you love to cook, you must find these magazines. They are totally well done, beautiful, and have real and pertinent information in them!
Cancer Vixen has been on my wishlist for a long time. It just came out. It is a graphic novel (comic book style). I read the entire book last night!!! So good!! I love memoirs done in the graphic novel style. It is a totally different reading experience than just reading straight type, I find that I am much more immersed in the author's story this way. It is sort of like being deposited straight into the story! I highly recommend this book. If you have liked any of my previous suggestions, I implore you to go right out and buy this book today. You will not be sorry!
The new stamps above are from a toot the previous day with Miss Jane, aka, Fire Chief Jane! Aren't they totally lovely! The top two are from Postmodern Design. I am seriously going ape over every one of their stamps. They are genius.
Got this magazine with a 40% off coupon. It looks fun and fluffy!!


Yesterday at Borders I had my first book store latte!!!! Oh my goodness I felt like all those people I usually see browsing books and sipping their coffee. It was seriously weird!!! I had a Seattle's Best Vanilla Latte. Very good!! I went through the stacks and brought over about 8 books. Went through them and decided which I had to have right this instant. Those were the above-mentioned Sally Jean book, Cancer Vixen, and the above hot off the press book by Joyce Carol Oates. It looks very good and I started it last night, but did not get very far cause I fell asleep. No comment on the book there, it was after I had already read Cancer Vixen....

All in all a perfect day spent with my dear sweet husband....and to top it all off.....take out dinner was brought home from my all-time favorite restaurant....TACO BELL!!!!

Compete and Total Obsession

Here are two cards I recently made. I am loving the combination of vintage photos and rub-ons!!!!! The word Photographie on the top picture is a 7 Gypsies rub-on. The quality of their rub-ons is very high....if you see some in the store get them!

I am completely and totally obsessed with a Christmas gift exchange I am lucky enough to be in. I want to work on it every waking moment, except that darn job keeps getting in the way. I would work on it tonight, but I am just too pooped. This weekend should be clear sailing for the project though.

My friend Jane and I went to Staples today. I wanted to copy a bunch of vintage photos and our friend Shari told us that Staples does copies for 39 cents a page!!! Wow! Plus the man who helped us out was just the best, answered all of our questions and gave us tutorials on how to use the machine. I will be going there for all my copy needs!!!

Technique Tag Books

My friend Jane and I made a "naughty" run up to a stamp store about 25 miles from home this week. While there oohing and ahhing over some Tim Holtz Stamper's Anonymous stamps we wree treated to some demos of new techniques. The store owner had each of her techniques illustrated on tags and they were held together with a round binder clip....so two days later we decided to make our technique tag books!!! Above is my first page. The technique this illustrates is just a picture adhereed to the tag and a sentiment stamped on it. However, the part that is tagworthy is that the whole tag was brushed over with Golden's Clear Tar Gel. It gives the tag (or ATC) a finished and really cool look. We first saw this done on some ATCs when we were at Valley Ridge and they were awesome!

Above is the technique we learned at the stamp store this week. I call it the Plaid Technique. It is done with Ranger's Alcohol Inks....apply three different colors to your felt applicator. Then drag the applicator over glossy paper horizontally. Re-ink, and then drag applicator vertically. Voila...you have a plaid background. This is so addictive!!! You will want to check out tons of color combos!
I wondered what would happen if I used the same technique but on a matte coated paper. The look is great! More subtle and more vintage looking than on gloss. I used Matte coated paper from the Paper Cut for the sample above. The numbers were stamped with Versifine. They smeared a little, so I think drying overnight before doing anything would be a good idea.

Finally, see below. We went ooh and ahh over the new product by Ranger. Acrylic paints in a super convienent dauber packaging. They are called Dabbers....the paint is in a plastic bottle with a cap and applicator all in one. Very easy to use and not very messy at all! The colors are super wonderful. The tag below was first painted in .5 seconds with a pink, foam flower stamped with a darker shade of pink, and tag edged with a light blue dabber. Quick, easy, and fun!!!

It was really nice to play with techniques and to make this little tag book. I plan on adding to it over the next months and tying some ribbons around the metal ring binder.

It is great when you get so excited about the little things in life!!!

Magazine Heaven

I am in magazine heaven!!!!!! Look what I will be spending my weekend with........new issues of all of these lovely offerings!!!! Cloth, Paper, Scissors is such a cool magazine. I have not looked in it yet but the tag "Altered Vintage Postcards" has really got me hepped up!!! Plus, I think there is an article by the lovely Lesley Riley in there too!
I really love Legacy too! Anything Somerset Studios puts out I am thrilled by. The next issue of Legacy is going to have cover art by Linda Harre of Studio Stuff!!!!! Can't wait to see that! I may be camping out at Barnes and Noble!
My lovely friend Beth told me about Somerset Workshop at about 2 p.m. on Friday. I owned this copy by 6 p.m. on Friday!!! She said there were tons of cool projects in here with great instructions. I have only browsed through the mag for about 2 minutes so far, but I have to agree that it looks like a total winner!!! Wahooooo!
I read about this magazine on another blog (can't remember which one right now), and it sounded very interesting. I have not really read it yet, but on first glance it looks completely and totally cool!!!!
Well, what can you say about an entire special issue of Country Living devoted to antiques!!! I will be a whirling dervish of drool by the time I get through this one!!!!!

Let me know if I have sent anyone out to the magazine stand at the speed of light will you?????

Teamwork, Teamwork, Rah, Rah, Rah!!!

Above and below are greeting cards I made yesterday. Before I made them I was trying to make some "art" with ATCs and an Alphabetica journal page but nothing was turning out well, so I quit with those for the time being and went back to an area where I felt confident. I like how these two turned out. For all of you who might be drooling over those buttons, they are by Foofala from the Hall Pass collection, a whole big bag of them for $5.99! They are so cool!
The card below was made for me by my friend Jane!! It captures us drinking our Starbucks last week. We sat outside for a few minutes and a pesky bee would not leave us alone! Scene captured below!
As for the teamwork mentioned above, Jane and I had a fabulous idea today....the Jane and Laura Co-Op!!!! We both have a little problem when it comes to being domestic divas. The problem is that we are on the opposite end of the spectrum from that. Our houses need help, and when we try and take control by ourselves we become easily overwhelmed, so we are going to do our housework together, at least until we get organized and under control. Today Jane came over to my house (with Pumkin Spice Lattes' in hand, which is an expensive habit that we will not be able to keep up on a daily basis!). We straightend the bedroom, put the winter comforter on, put away laundry, discussed Jane's future employment options, and started organizing my stamp room. We only worked from the time I got home until the time I had to pick Mike up from the train, but we accomplished a lot. Tomorrow, we work here again, and then later this week we will be based out of Jane's house. It feels so great to get this stuff done, and it kind of reminds me of being a pre-teen when I used to hang out with my girlfriends all the time. It was like their house was my house, and we did everything together. There is something very comforting and reassuring about that.......Rah, Rah!!!!!