My Haul at Michael's and The True Treasure of The Day

Melissa, Creative Genius and Fairy Godmother of Coupons at Paper Imagery Designs, recently posted a coupon that saved everyone 40% off every item purchased at Michael's. Braving a nearly 200 mile round trip to Oklahoma City and severe weather, I stocked up on the following:

1. 10 Rolls of Pink Ribbon - I wrap everything I mail, sell, send, gift, etc., in white paper and pink ribbon. :) It's my Misti Rose signature.
2. 2 cans of "Ballet Slipper" Pink Satin Indoor/Outdoor Krylon Spray Paint and 2 Cans of Folk Art Pearl Glaze Spray Paint. I'm making a very special chandelier ... out of one I bought at a junk store. I'll post pictures to my blog when I finish it. I promise it will be over the top tacky when I'm done! lol
3. The "Old World" Stack of Papers ... I have no papers - I hand paint everything or use backgrounds from rugs out of my antique magazines.
4. The K & Company "Margo" Stack of Papers.
5. Glitter Glue in Black, Silver, Light Pink, Lighter Pink, Fuschia, Copper, Gold, Green and Red (I know how to use this... yay!)
6. 9mm jump rings, 7mm jump rings, crimp beads, crimp covers, Sterling lever back earring findings, split rings (yes I NEED to start making jewelry :::makes gagging noise at the thought of WORKING:::).
7. A BIG BITE Crop A Dile ... no idea how to use this but Elena said I needed one so VOILA I got one!
8. 23 loose sheets of the most beautiful papers... some from velvet, some that are stitched, some from handmade paper, some are vellum... all are very cool. I can't imagine ever cutting them but they are inspirational! :)
9. These cute little glass jars that say Got Flowers? by Fabric Fancies. Yes, I have flowers! I have Black flowers, I have Red flowers, I have Teal flowers, I have Silver flowers and I have ... yes ... PINK flowers! No IDEA what to do with them but they're really super cute so I will just start gluing them to everything... can't go wrong!
10. I now own SOBO glue - which I have been assured by Melissa, Melanie, AND Melinda is the very best ever. ;)
11. I have a Carte Postale rubber stamp and a little tiny alphabet by Image Tree stamps. I think I prefer the see-through acrylic stamps... since I believe I'd like to be able to see what I'm doing; however, these rubber stamps were lovely and I couldn't resist.
12. Brads... Brads with crystals (sparklies... yay!), Brads with snowflakes (Christmas... yay!), and Brads that look like old rusty stuff (antiques... yay!). No idea what to do with it. Blaming this on Elena as well... thought I needed something to stick in the holes the Crop O Dile made. Besides, if you're a member of PID you know EVERYTHING IS ELENA'S FAULT. ;)
13. Tim Holtz stuff: Adirondack Alcohol Blending Solution. Alcohol Ink Applicator. Alcohol Ink Applicator Felt (2 Packages). Alcohol Ink Packages: Cottage Path, Gold & Silver, Farmers Market, Pearl & Copper, and Cabin Cupboard. I also bought the following Distress Inks: Walnut Stain, Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Fired Brick, and Weathered Wood. I have no idea how to use any of that! The good news is I went to Amazon.Com last night and ordered both of his DVDs. lol
14. Staedtler Water Color Crayons.
15. InkaDinkaDoo Blending Chalks.
16. A bunch of beads for... jewelry making. :P
17. Somehow I got an embossing pad and inker... lol and no embossing powders. Oh well I'd been there about 5 hours at that point!

Ok so that's all cool and great but the ultra uber cool thing I got was this amazing to DIE FOR chandelier I found at this antique store after we got done at Michaels ... we had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory ... OH MY GAWD ... two glasses of wine (for me... Bobby drinks sweet iced tea like any good southwestern Oklahoman), steak Diane, CHEESE CAKE, a trip through Macy's.

THEN we went antiquing ... three stores in to it and all I'm seeing is stores with junk and reproductions mixed in. I can't tell you how furious this makes me as a girl who knows her antiques and refuses to pay book (another gripe of mine... this ain't New York sweetheart... we do NOT pay BOOK for our antiques... what ARE these people thinking! They want to sell me reproductions, act like they're antiques, and then try to charge me book on top of it? Not on their sweet little ol' life!) Anyway, I ramble!

We get to store number three, my darling husband does not complain... ever... even this late in the day. This store is so big it has got to cover at least 1/4 of a city block. Back in the depths of the store I see this chandelier covered with AB prisms and the tackiest... erm... most beautiful fretwork and I am in love. IN LOVE. My exhorbitant but oh so delightful 100 mile trip to Michael's is forgotten. The chandelier is hanging on a chain from the top of a 20' ceiling, it is unlit, and you can not see the price tag.

I beg Bobby to climb up there and check it out to see how much it is because on a BIG PINK STICKY (Angie, darling, I thought of you!) it says 50% off! Bobby refuses because he will not climb on someone's dining room set they have for sale to see how much that chandelier is. Well of course, I have no such qualms. I just march my delicate flower self over to the neighboring booth and grab that chair from the 70s they're trying to sell for the same price as something from France in the 1800s and climb right on up there and see that the chandelier is marked down from $500 to $250.

Well then, of course, I need that chandelier plugged in to see if it will work! Bobby absolutely refuses! I swear! Is he not a firefighter with 20 years of practice climbing up and down 120' ladders on the swaying bouncing back of a bucket truck?! Yes he is! I plant my hands on my hips and inform him he needs to get up there and plug that chandelier in to that extension cord so that I can see it lit up in all of its glory. He will not do it... it does not belong to him and he is not climbing on someone else's stuff without asking. Gosh I hate people with principles! They're such a pain in the butt sometimes!! I had to actually go find the lady who was working at the store and ask her to come and get an extension chord and a ladder and plug in the chandelier. Absolutely a hoot because she looks at Bobby and says "Well I just got new bi-focals yesterday and I can't climb up there... can you do it?" lol

When I get my new treasure all cleaned up I will post a picture of it on my blog! When it is plugged in the AB crystals cast the prettiest shade of pink. I have a beautiful chandelier over my bed that I thought would be hard to beat but this one is destined to be hung in my office over my desk and I think it is going to top them all!

Best Wishes to Everyone ... Please be Surviving the Weather,
~Misti

Bribery... is it Ethical?

I have decided that the blogs I am immediately drawn to are the ones filled with beautiful pictures. (This of course does not include the blogs belonging to people I know... I'm drawn to those because of the bits and pieces of what is important to them are posted - beautiful word images of their lives even if there isn't a single photo posted.) SO I digress... we all know this if you read my blog. When I have the time to randomly search the blog world for people who create altered art, those blogs that I immediately stop and OOOH and AAAHHH over like a small child at the Fourth of July show put on by the largest Army post you've ever come across, would be the ones in which the photo images seem to have been taken by the folks at Somerset.

Now, I can write a story with the best of them. I can tell you tales of pirates meeting beneath the seas and having a mermaid ball. I can describe the feel of antique silk taken from the hem of the ball gown worn by a French maiden during the 1800s ... explaining to my reader that the only reason I have it is because it snagged on my great great grandmother's iron staircase as said maiden fled down the steps to escape the revolution because her Great Aunt was Mme. Marie (yes that Marie!) and my GG Grandmother ran to retrieve said scrap of silk just before her Chateau was burned to the ground by the revolutionaries! (Those bastar... erm... jerks!!)

What I can NOT seem to do is take a decent photograph to SAVE MY LIFE. Not from the pirates and not from those chateau burning, silk gown snagging, head lopping, cake eating revolutionaries!

So, do you think it would be ethical of me to say ... send my artwork to someone to have it photographed if I would just be willing to give it to them so that I could have beautiful photographs too? Would that be bribery? (Am I starting to sound like I'm whining? Because let me tell ya... I'm whining!!!) My mother always said fair exchange is no robbery! I really have to get this whole photo thing figured out. I'm trying to balance this against the fact that the holiday season is coming up and I really REALLY need to be making jewelry to sell instead of playing with paper. :S

I hope everyone is really looking forward to fall. Summer is almost over in Oklahoma and that means it's almost time for me to get to go back outside. I can't wait!

Best wishes,
Misti

Artwork and Horrific Pictures

I've been merrily "art working" my way along with the ladies at the PID group (Paper Imagery Designs is having a great sale, by the way). Each week I try to take beautiful photos to post to the image database... and each week I fail miserably. There is glare from the flash, the photos are fuzzy, I can't get close enough for the details to show up, I'm too close... you get the idea.

Imagine my surprise as I'm reading along through the digest of daily group posts and I see someone refer to SCANNING their artwork. :::thud!::: You can scan paper?! Who would have guessed! lol Consider me knowledge enhanced. I swore that next week I would scan my challenge piece and have something lovely to post to the photo database... Consider my dismay when someone came up with the great idea of having an inchies cube swap. Another masterful plan down the tubes. Granted, this is not the challenge of the week but I'm now sitting here trying to figure out exactly how I'm going to fit my inchies cube in to the scanner. It doesn't look good...

Anyway, I'm posting a photo of one of my Misti Rose original bracelets today. Unique bracelets are always available for sale at www.MistiRose.com and custom orders are welcome.

I hope everyone is surviving the heat, rain and hurricanes!

~Misti

The Mermaid Tiara, The Weekly Challenge, and The Ladies on the Paper Imagery Designs Yahoo Blog List

If you are an altered artist, someone who does assemblage art, or a person who stamps, draws, paints, colors, scribbles, or just likes to visit... I would invite you to meet the friendliest, most supportive group of women I have ever met on the internet via the blog list at Paper Imagery Designs (You can locate them via link to the right). Not only are they talented, they're cheerful! I guarantee they will give you the "warm fuzzies" AND cheerfully share their vast knowledge of the "how to's" of altered art.

Soooo here's this week's story...

Each week, Paper Imagery Designs (PID) hosts a challenge for members of their blog. This week, the challenge was "Atop the Head." Since I missed last week's challenge, I rushed around and gathered up all the things I needed to create the lovely mermaid tiara I envisioned for this project. Working feverishly (well ok, not feverishly but for a couple of hours after work every day this week), I finished my mermaid tiara up on Thursday.

I snap a hundred pictures of said mermaid tiara to get one that is somewhat tolerable and post her image to the photo area of the PID bulletin board. I should point out that all week members of PID have been posting photos of their challenge entries... and I have been restraining myself and not looking at their art. My genius thought is that I will post my project and have one great big reveal after mine is up! Sound enough in theory... So, I post the chosen photo of said mermaid tiara.

I open the folder... all of these gorgeous ATCs have been posted to the challenge folder. Are you with me here? For those of you not familiar with the "lingo" ... Artist Trading Cards! The PID ladies have created all of these beautiful ATCs featuring things on or about someone's head for the "Atop the Head" challenge and somehow... in my fervor... I have... A MERMAID TIARA! Ugh!!! So much for the big reveal! *Insert photo of me banging my head on my desk* I have revealed that I'm an idiot and can't read the instructions. lol There are now a dozen lovely ATCs and one giant mermaid tiara sitting in the weekly challenge folder at Paper Imagery Designs.

I hope everyone is surviving the heat!

Best wishes,

Misti Rose