Heirlooms Antique Shop

This is an amazing store filled to the brim with inviting items. The displays were carefully and cleverly arranged. I spent a lot of $$.....and you'll want to mark this as a great place to shop!


I could have spent days in this store! Inspiration was everywhere....and the big bonus is: the staff is friendly and helpful.

Versatile Blogger Award

Connie at Monkey Mind awarded me the Versatile Blogger award:

To accept this award I have to:
* reveal 7 truths about myself
* select 7 blogs that I would like to share the award with

Here seven of my truths (I have lots).

1. I contradict myself most of the time and I have listed six examples below.

2. I thought I was only a “dog” person and previously only had dogs. I said "I hate cats". After being a cat mom for seven years with two adorable cats…I have to say is that I love my cats which makes me a cat person too.

3. Traveling abroad is exciting to me but I can not travel alone except anywhere USA.....I drive a lot of places that are over ten hours away alone. So next year when I have a trip scheduled to Paris, my daughter will be traveling with me.

4. I am a farm girl and really love the farm countryside and look forward to having a country home. However, I am going to be living downtown Minneapolis soon which is like a mini-New York City. And I love my new surroundings!

5. I grew up learning all the cooking skills from baking, pastries, and meals and I cook a bunch. But I enjoy eating at restaurants the most.

6. After experiencing three floods which completely wiped out everything we owned….I have a hard time holding onto things I don’t use or need. I donate to three organizations every month.

7. I come from a huge family (over 68 cousins) and have lots of friends. However, my favorite time spent is being "Home Alone".

Here are the seven blogs I would like to see participate:

1. A Place to Flourish

2. Blooming Ideas

3. Lucky Dog

4. InkyBruStudio

5. RGR Designs

6. Vintage Moon Studio

7. Sew Whats New

Sweet Tooth Heaven

The Mom & Pop Candy store was an absolute delight. Their welcome prop was a vintage treasure.


















































The store had a delicious aroma and so many choices.








I saw candies that I hadn't seen since I was a little girl.

A Fun Place To Be

McKinney, Texas.....you HAVE to experience the historic downtown!



My traveling companions and I ate lunch at Cadillac Pizza. We had the most awesome pizza ever!



Then we began our treasure hunt. This store had lots of wonderful antique goodies. I loved the old stairs.










Can you imagine just how many foot steps it took to wear down the stair treads....I don't think I would ever want to replace them.




This old building had the tin ceilings, too.








This is a view from above. So what I bought from this store were lots of old cabinet cards. (Photos with advertising on the back).

Thanks Bernie!

I met Bernie Berlin recently and found her to be a fun and delightful person. How she finds the time to make art and manage her passion of running A Place To Bark is amazing.

When she found out that I love making ATC's, she showed me a few of her favorite techniques.

These are a few of my ATC's that I made....all from scraps of paper and poor stamped images. It was fun making new ATC's from paper that I would have thrown out.
I was so inspired by playing with this method that I ended up making about 20 ATC's and will post them later.

I'll list the steps in making these ATC's in future posts so that you can have your own good dose of fun!









A rubber stamp image, scrap booking paper, and decorative paper is what I used for this ATC.














I used scraps from other projects including the photo for this ATC.











I named this ATC "Undecided" because it was so different than the others that I had made. I just enjoyed the textures and colors....and I did not add any images
I punched out some circles and added a dimensional dot on top for interest. This was made using scrap booking paper and my left over shaving cream paper.

Alice Stuck in Wax

I recently had the opportunity to watch a demo with Suze Weinberg using beeswax. I have made a few collage pieces using beeswax but following some tips that Suze mentioned made all the difference in the ATC's I made.

She builds up layers of beeswax before she applies her collage images. And scrapping the final application I think is the big secret.

The photos don't show all the details...i.e. perfect pearls powder that was added and the texturing.

My base is stampboard material.

B * I * N * G * O

An artist in my art swap group requested an altered Jenni Bowlin bingo card. This was a really fun project for me because I also requested an altered bingo card. Altering is one of my favorite art challenges.

A vintage photo of two children were in my stash just waiting to be altered!

After scanning and resizing to the proper proportions of the bingo card, I colored their clothes using Copic markers.





I added a "love" charm along with pink felt flowers in different sizes. Lace was added to the bottom border.

The children's hands were poised just perfectly for holding objects, too!








This is the front side view. I mounted the bingo card onto a larger decorated matboard and added a ribbon hanger.








This is the opposite side of the bingo card. I used the new Tim Holtz Bingo texture folder and metal from Ten Seconds Studio. The metal was sanded.

The stamped image is from Catherine Moore's Character Construction collection and colored with Copic markers.

Bookmark for Judi

The request was to make a bookmark with a photo or an interesting fact about yourself. My dilemma was using a childhood photo when I only have about three to choose from.

I decided on a photo when I was three (enlarged)..... and being the cowgirl was easy. I used a clear plastic tag. The collage was made after first applying the alcohol inks.

I couldn't resist sewing and adding the suede trim at the bottom.

Electric Charge

We all know the familiar types of charges....MC, Visa, Discover. I experienced a new type of charge....the kind for artists. It's called an "electric" charge.

Snoopy Dance includes:
Trip to Dallas: 240.63 miles
Travel Time Estimate: 3 hours, 59 minutes
Cost of Fuel: $47.00
Cost of Tim Holtz's classes $285.00
Lucky Participants Per Class: 75
Receiving the #10 ticket to register:
P R I C E L E S S

A special thank you to Monica, Donna, and Melody. The crowd was impatient, unruly, and unappreciative and yet you all remained professional, patient, and kind. Your customers can easily forget your time and effort that is involved in preparing for instructors to teach classes. Thank you for giving Tim Holtz a destination to teach classes. There are so many artists who do not have a store close where they can have the privilege of taking a class from Tim. And your store along with your amazing staff is worth all of my effort.

Stamp Asylum ROCKS!

Here are the photos of the classes that I will be taking.....I can hardly wait!

Mrs. Brady

My recent purchase of Artistic Outpost stamps along with the text pages that were removed from an old book, came together for some fun ATC's.

The coloring was made using Copic markers. This time, I made ATC's without a whole lot of embellishments!

This is the end result of lots of fun!