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Showing posts from March, 2013

Nancy Sara Burns Maxam

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I won't be posting for the rest of the week, my  wonderful mother in law and friend of 12 years suddenly and very unexpectedly passed away Friday.  Nancy was born in 1940, married Richard in 1961, went on to have four sons who grew to be good men, husbands and fathers.  I am married to her third Son, Steven.  There are 9 grand children by birth and my children by adoption.  In every one of the Maxams I see her love and strength.  The Maxam's are a wonderful loving family , Nancy will be missed and her memory Cherished.         Nancy Sara Burns Maxam   August 12th, 1940 March 29th 2013   You are loved

Invisable markers

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        Like everyone else I have my favorite coloring methods and I was reminded this week of how much I like my favorites.  What reminded me was a lovely sales person trying to sell me on the importance of owning a set of alcohol markers that sold in her shop for 6.95 each.   A complete set would run around 3,000.00, the reinkers would be another 2,300.+ and who wants an incomplete set??  Actually I get a little drooly just thinking about owning a complete set... yes this is a Internet photo... But  a complete set, throw in storage containers, a few new nibs and must have other necessities and you are looking at a capitol investment of 6,000.00 for magic markers to color with.  Now maybe I am crazy but that sounds like way to much money to do something that looks like my water coloring that cost me 24.00 every two years.  If I were an illustrator, If I had any skill in marker coloring, if I had a sponsor or a huge gift certificate, I'm pretty sure I'd want to try it.  But s

Ribbon envy and WOYWW #199

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Happy WOYWW#199!  The world wide blog hop Starts here: http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/  On Weds our time around 2am.    Julia does a wonderful job of hosting this work desk fun!    I start the post early so I can get it linked before it ends over in OZ!!      What started an innocent pin from pintrest turned in to a little bit of  coveting (I know I am the only person that goes to pintrest and says I want that!!!) and then into a great idea!!  Now I am thinking this is a shop photo and not part of a private collection, but no matter I wanted it for my own card making!!!!   Okay now you want it too, I know it, even if you can't say it!! I could just see all the beautiful cards I could make and sell, if I only had all this ribbon and maybe even a little more! That is what happens when you start to covet, you never have enough! So I had this flash of insight   Use what I already have!  What I have is yards and yards of beautiful premium quilting fabric that I am not quilting with

Road trip to a new Shop!!

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Today was a fun day, last minute so to speak I asked Steve to take me to a terrific stamp store in Simsbury CT as they were having a "Tag Sale".  For those of you who have never had the opportunity to go to one of these this is how they work:  A local stamp/scrapbook stores will take in stamp/scrap items from their customers to be sold at tag sale prices.  The shop will have the tag sale and the donors items that are sold are tallied and the donor receives a store credit for the amount of their sales.  So this is a win win for everyone!!  I went through my supplies and discovered I had one available stamp pad I could drop off. Needless to say I didn't!                                                           Here is a photo of the shop   Inside was a stampers dream come true! This was a very easy shop to shop in, a huge variety of things layed out in a manner that was fun to shop in and not overwhelming.   Firstly the staff was so friendly and helpful. This is Sharon and

Card Shop is Open!!

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I've been working at selling my cards locally in several stores as well as on the Web.  Our .com store "MaxammadeStudio.com" has been very difficult to use, We are looking for a new web host but in the mean time I'm setting up the studio store here! The categories are in the pages columns off to the right side bar just click on the appropriate titles! Do take a look at the ordering page for ordering instructions.   Today I put up the first batch of cards, I will have many more and if there is an interest I will also sell paper and embellishments.  My home page will be the same, now you'll be able to easily purchase the cards if you don't want to make your own!! One of the first things I did was to make a new photo box to take new pictures of the cards:   This is foam core held together with shipping tape hinges!  When I'm not using it, it folds down flat and is 10x15 inches and a snap to put away!!   The rest of my room looks like a bomb went off and since

Snowing again and WOYWW# 198

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       Snowing again! Other than a little snow in March the good news is it is time to see what's happening on desk tops across the world!  You can continue the fun by going over to the UK and  Julia's blog here: http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/ Today on my desk is a swap finish for Oriental Stamp Arts ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OrientalStampArt )    This was for  the Horse Mingle: I used a magenta stamp for this image, heat embossed with black ink and black powder on a 90# parchment card stock.  I then painted it with H2o's.  The turquoise is a bold brush recollections marker that I also used to turn the background white of the ribbon into  turquoise. I layered the card on black then gold.   The card base is a 90# faux leather black card stock. The card image is about 4.75x 5.75 I cut the base to be 10x6 and brought the two long edges together to form a pocket. I used a round punch to make "tabs"  I'll show you a more obvious color:        To close t

WOYWW#197 it's 2:30 am

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It is WOYWW#197!  Go Here to Julia's blog to join the rest of the world wide blog! http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/   I am Posting my blog at 2:30 am EST , Why? I don't know I keep asking my self why I'm up making kiddie cards at 2:30 am - Even Hallmark which is 15 miles away is closed!! My Dog is up because I am up, the cat is sitting on something in here I will be working on next, and I am typing. No wait I am keyboarding, Typing is something I failed at about 30 years ago. I have a big order to produce which requires a start up for a local store, I need to have about 150 cards for all occasions ready for next week, and then a couple dozen for another local shop also next week.  This is good! Tonight I started making a batch of baby cards, first welcome and then birthday.  I've got the birthday done, and all the parts of the welcome baby cards they need to be assembled. So that is what is on my work desk, baby cards! First the card bases in baby colors, I'll e

Little Sparrow

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I made a batch of Sparrow cards  yesterday and today.  I am trying a less is more look.  There are a lot of  CAS challenges out there with great examples of clean and simple.  CAS poses more of a challenge in getting a beautiful and interesting card with minimal surface treatments than  cards with many layers and interesting items on it.  Since I strive to keep all my cards mailable in an envelope I don't do to many with alot of 3d embellishments.    The stamping industry has created and developed so many wonderful, beautiful tools and embellishments for this art form it is almost hard to keep up with.   When I started out stamping I had  images -  some of them I cut myself on purchased linoleum tiles and even one from an old sole of a shoe - and an old office type black ink pad.  What this made you do was develop good composition. In the early 80's  rubber stamp sets were starting to appear in stationary, museum and fine gift catalogs, Posh impressions and their wonderful prod