A Very Heartfelt Thank You…

Nov 20, 2011

Some days you know you are stand­ing exactly where you should. I say “some” days because there are oth­ers when I feel as if I’m beat­ing my head up against the wall or slowly rid­ing a bike up the steep­est moun­tain in Amer­ica and I’m ask­ing myself why I stay in this indus­try. The answer– always– is that I love it so much. I under­stand that with suc­cess comes frus­tra­tion. You just have to work your way through it and keep mov­ing for­ward, even if mov­ing for­ward means just one step a day you are still mov­ing for­ward. So, with all that said, at this moment I feel I’m exactly where I should be standing.

… because yes­ter­day was one of those days. Filled with antic­i­pa­tion, excite­ment and fear. Lots and lots and lots of fear! I was so lucky to be able to debut my new stamp line “Anti­quated Col­lec­tion” with Pink Per­sim­mon dur­ing an online chat at A Cherry On Top. Every­one there was so pos­i­tive and sup­port­ive. Pam Ben­nett was extremely help­ful in orga­niz­ing this chat. Every­thing went so smoothly, it was impres­sive. I had so much fun chat­ting about each stamp set as she posted the images one by one. With each kind word, the fear slowly left. Then, as Pam started post­ing all the awe­some projects cre­ated with the help of some spe­cial friends… Ronda Palaz­zari, Karin Aguirre, Tammy Tut­terow and Kris­tii Lockart… my heart was com­pletely filled with hap­pi­ness and loads of gratitude.

This line of stamps has been inside my head for quite a long time. I’ve always loved images from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. They were all hand drawn (no com­put­ers back then), and the clothes were so styl­ish and fash­ion­able. Any time I came across some while shop­ping at flea mar­kets or antique stores I would pick them up and place them in a box in my scrap­room for safe keep­ing. The only prob­lem when find­ing these images is there was usu­ally only one, so if I wanted to use any in projects to teach I had an issue. One day I decided I wanted to solve my prob­lem and find a stamp com­pany to closely work with that would allow me to keep my vision of the stamp line and keep all the detail of each image intact. Hav­ing worked with Darcy McNairy and Judi Ander­sen with Pink Per­sim­mon off and on since 2008, I asked what they thought. After sev­eral months of hard work from Judi and Darcy, here we sit with a beau­ti­ful vin­tage stamp col­lec­tion exactly as I had envi­sioned it… gor­geous vin­tage images with incred­i­ble detail. I can­not thank Judi and Darcy enough for help­ing me obtain a goal I have had in mind for quite some time. It is awe­some work­ing with you two.

Anti­quated Col­lec­tion is a trib­ute to the era of ascots, para­sols, fancy hats, patent leather shoes and all things charm­ing and endear­ing. If you would like a chance to win a stamp set of your choice all you have to do is visit Pink Per­sim­mon and leave a com­ment on their blog post HERE  and/or Like our Face­book Page HERE and share one of the posts listed on your Face­book page. Once we hit 200 Likes we will give one lucky win­ner a stamp set of their choice.

Now, I’m off to cre­ate projects with a heart full of excite­ment and loads of cre­ative energy. I’m so in love with all this vin­tage good­ness… I’d love to hear what you think.

Hugs!