Facing Reality

 Well, I had to face reality……I am not a card maker or a scrapbook artist.

While living in Las Vegas my cousin introduced me to Stampin’ Up and I fell in love with all their cute stamp designs. 

  On a rampage I went, buying stamps, paper, cards, ink, fun decorative scissors, you name it I had it.  My cousin held classes on how to use all the products and I was there to learn. 

She made it look so easy and as long as I could follow her designs I was semi-good at it, well kind of.

There truly is an art to scrap booking and card making and I do not have that talent.

I made some cards and even sent some out.  

Now in hindsight I really think I victimized the poor person that received the cards!  

My husband told me they were good…I think only because I had invested so much money in buying all the supplies.

Last year my daughter, sister and I were even going to make cards for the military men and women stationed over sees and help Operation Write Home:

  http://operationwritehome.org/

We spent three days doing this and following their great layouts.  

I looked at my cards and then at my sister and we both burst out laughing.  

I finally said, “I think I need to stick to the two things I do best:  Eating and Painting. 

So I have put the stamps and the supplies up for sale in my Etsy shop HERE.

Time to destash and hopefully all the wonderful card makers out there could use these stamps and supplies!

Right now it is even a better deal with 15% off in my Etsy shop using CIJ2013 code.

I am even up for making a deal on these so if you are interested please feel free to contact me.

Since I do know how to paint I am having a giveaway on my Facebook page and you could win the photo there.  Hopefully not an eye sore like my cards were!

It is located HERE.

Hoping you have a creative day in whatever you create.

I will stick to eating and painting!

Enjoy your day,

Barb

I used too...

...Love to cross-stitch.  

It was a favorite past time.  

It was my first love.  

When I was on bed rest during my pregnancies it was a life saver from boredom.

You could take it anywhere with you and stitch away!!

Then came kids and I found painting.

So a few years back I decided I was going to pick up cross stitching again for the amount of time I was spending in the car or waiting for kids at whatever activity they were at.

This is a bib for a friend of mine who's son is now 4...not sure it will fit any more.

This one I went to work on and found out I needed bifocals...I really am not that old!

May I remind you I have a 16 and 13 year old...OK, had them late in life.

This was immediately put on hold due to vanity.  

This one I did for my husband when we got married.

Luckily I did this one for my daughter before she grew out of dolls.

Do not have one for my son.

Found  a box with loads of supplies for cross stitching.

 I have been adding them to my Etsy shop in the Craft Supply/Destash section.  

Click HERE to see some of the listings.

Really!?!?  There must have been a good sale on all of this.  

You know us crafty types can never pass up a sale or have enough supplies.

But in my case, at present, just so many supplies and so little time.

If you happen to be interested in any of it drop me a line.

Hope you on the east coast are warm. 

 We are still in the single digits and my hands need to go warm up!

Enjoy your day,

Barb

End of an Era…

When I first stared tole painting in the late 1990’s The two huge craft supply stores were Provo Craft and Zim’s Craft Supply. Loads of great patterns and wood products. Every time I came to Salt Lake City from Las Vegas I would come armed with money and a huge list of items that folks in Vegas wanted me to pick up for them.

One summer I came up specifically to go to the tent sale outside the Provo Craft store in Provo. They would have a huge clearance sale every year to clear out inventory. It was a place for me to go "mental".

A number of years ago Provo Craft went out of business and converted their inventory to Robert’s Craft.  Still a great place to shop but not as much inventory.

Right after we moved to Utah I heard that Zim’s Craft Supply was going out of business. Needless to say I was there about every day for weeks just to make sure I had not left something behind that I would need. So now Zim’s is no longer there with all those fantastic Nutcrackers, sleds and fabulous different styles of wood, tin and other fun things to paint on.

So what brings me to all these memories? We were out doing errands and I remembered that Robert’s Craft was having a huge going out of business sale. So my husband stop and we walked into what I can only call "chaos". Millions of people with carts piled high with craft supplies. My husband thought it was hysterical “remember when you use to do that”?   Little did he know I had already been there and picked up the last of the brushes and paint that was available. This brought back good memories but it also made me sad. It will never be like it was when I first started to paint.

 I came home and started looking through all my boxes. I have so much stuff that I will never paint it all. Yes, we crafters are all the same so many ideas and never enough time. I decided to keep some of it and share some of it. I have set up an area in my Etsy shop for de-stashing.

Click here it see what I have listed so far. I am amazed at what I have been unearthing. My son asked if we were moving in or out? I am also amazed that I bought all this and have yet to paint any of it.

I blame teenagers.

Thank you for treading down memory lane with me today. I think instead of being sad I will start thinking of how best to paint some of this. That will cheer me up!!

Enjoy your day, 

Barb