Mpressed With Marsha

A blog I have become a fan of recently not ony has inspired me with the blogger's wonderful artistic creations, but also with her flair for beautiful decor.

A post I especially loved at Marsha's Mpressions detailed renovations to her scrapbook room with rustic vintage pieces, including hanging a vintage printer's drawer on the wall to store wooden stamps.

So on our upcoming trip to the US, I made it a point to hit at least one antique shop to see what I could find to add to MY scrapbook room. Little did I know that minutes after walking into The Old Albertville Creamery in Albertville, Minnesota, I would look down to find the EXACT SAME PRINTER'S DRAWER!

I couldn't believe my luck. So now it hangs in my room, which has yet to be repainted... but at least I now can display my collection of wooden rubber stamps too!

Thank you Marsha!

Open For Business

I've finally done something I was asked to do last year... yes, I DO procrastinate, don't I?

What did I do?

Well, I finally opened some shops at CafePress, creating some products with my original artwork on them.

I doubt I shall get any many sales, but that's okay. The main reason I wanted to try it is to create some items for myself, and perhaps a few trinkets for future bloggy giveaways.

I'm going to add more with older artwork and some of my photographs... so we'll see how it goes. You can window shop here:

MAUREEN'S GALLERIES AT CAFE PRESS

New Cutting Tool

The other day I was getting frustrated. I wanted to create a card with a see-through window in the middle of the front panel. However, my punches only allow me to cut a hole near the edge of a paper, so I ended up having to hand-cut (and badly, IMHO) a hole for the background image to peek through.

Then I came across this tool at Michael's... not in the scrapbooking section, where hole cutters can run nearly $ 37. I found this doohicky in the art section; for a mere $ 6. It has six spare blades (which are very sharp), and two pencil nibs for drawing instead of cutting, circles of various sizes.


So of course, I had to try it out:

And am most pleased with how it works! So let that be a lesson; you can find lots of things OUTSIDE the scrapbooking section too.

Using My New Stamps

While in the States a few weeks back, I splurged on a whole mess of new stamps. Since I do cards for work and family, I had to expand my collection of stamps (especially Happy Birthday ones).

To my delight, I found three sets of adorable Penny Black stamps at Archiver's at the Mall of America. Here are just a few of nearly two dozen I completed recently:

On this card, I used All Night Media's Clear Liquid Embossing over the balloons to give them a shiny raised texture.

Moleskine Sketches

A few weeks back, I finally got myself something I've wanted for awhile; a small pocket "Moleskine" and a set of good sketching pencils. I made a case to carry them in my purse, so I can draw wherever and whenever I please.

Here are two of my first drawings. I hope to fill the entire book one day!


My first sketch...

done in our living room while Sheba, our oldest cat slept on her favorite recliner.

When she woke up, she sat with me and I did a closeup of her beautiful green eye.
















My second page, a sketch from a photo this time...

of the little Fledgling Robin

(you can read the story on my Rather Be Blogging Blog here).

Cute and scruffy all in one.