Busy, busy, busy

It was pointed out to me the diasters this post was, full of typos and bad grammar. I have corrected the many typos and am reposting for your pleasure. That's what I get for rushing! Timing is everything and wow the timing has been stressful on our purchase of The Stamp Barn. Not only did we have to get everything from their Ottawa Valley shop to our store, we had to try and sort the stock (over 900 images!) not only so can we find them easily but so that we would know what images Rodney and Sharon had in their collections. A catalogue is never quite the same as holding a stamp in your hand and just to make things really interesting, we have been getting ready for the shows that Tom & Rose-Marie are attending over the next few weeks. On Monday, March 28 Tom and Rose-Marie attended the Canadian Craft and Hobby Association show in Brampton. I am sure you have heard of CHA. These are the same people as CHA but geared towards Canadian stores. This is a retailers only show that has been revived by this year's organziers. The show was well attended by both vendors and retailers which was very encouraging considering the challenges the paper craft industry has faced over the last few years. If the attendance is any indication, rest assured paper crafts are alive and well in Ontario. As you can see the booth at a wholesale show looks very different from the booth that you will see when you get to ScrapFest Kitchener on April 9. Notice the Letrasets??? Yes they have arrived and let me tell you I am loving those markers. I will tell you more about them tomorrow. :D

Back to Work

The first quarter of the year was very quiet at the store, so it gave me the opportunity to take some time off and get work done in my real life. Donna & I are both back to work now and all of us at Frog's Whiskers Ink have been looking forward to sharing some very exciting news.

I am sure many of you will have heard of Stamp Barn and Sunshine Designs. Owners, Rodney & Sharon Stead decided they wanted a change of direction in their lives and approached Tom & Rose-Marie about purchasing their company. After much negotiating they reached a mutually agreeable arrangement. We are pleased to announce effective immediately

Frog's Whiskers Ink is now the proud owner of

Stamp Barn

and all its design companies.

This merger will add over 900 images to our catalogue. For those of you not familiar with their designs you are in for a treat. I had my first opportunity to see the many of the stamps today and there are so many I would like to add to my collection. It may be a while before I actually take home a pay cheque. SIGH!!!! Oh well hazard of the job I guess. We encourage you to look at the Stamp Barn website and call or email for your order. It is going to take us some time to get everything switched over to our system but we do have all of the images available for you to purchase immediately.

We do have one more announcement but there are some details I need before I can do that here. I will be posting the information here soon. Welcom back

Bring it to Class

Over the years we have provided everything you will need to complete your projects during Rose-Marie`s classes. We have found however as more products become available that our clients have their favourite tools. So we have decided to no longer provide these supplies. When you come to class we ask that you bring a class kit which should contain:

- adhesive (tape and/or glue)

- scissors

- pen and pencil

- eraser

- ruler

- stylus or bone folder

- paper trimmer (optional)

Thank you for the understanding and we look forward to creating wth you.

Life's LIttle Charms

We are pleased to introduce a new stamp company from designer Monika Brint. Life's Little Charms are set of small images that are quite small, most no bigger than 1.5 " x 1.5". Join us at the store from Jan 27 until Jan. 29 for the release party of Life's Little Charms.

During those days Rose-Marie will be teaching classes using these adorable little images to create bookmarks, tags and small cards. Contact the store for details.

October Challenge - con't

Darlene must have jumped all over this one...no pun intended. She headed to the grocery store and picked up brown paper lunch bags. She cut ears, stamped Rosewood Easter Eggs across the bottom and coloured them. Next she added googlie eyes, drew on a mouth, fluff nose & fishing line whiskers. The tag is Rosewood Flourish Easter Egg stamped on shiny gold card stock. This cute little bag could be made in any size to deliver gifts from the Easter bunny or they would make great favour bags for a children's party.

Lauralee's bag is as usual a work of art. She stamped the Hero Arts background stamp in brown ink, coloured in the hearts with a red Marvy marker and highlighted the image with a white gel pen. She used a Nestibility to cut the heart shape in the bag and then lined the bag with some beautiful hand made paper. Walnut Distress ink on the edges of the bag adds dimension. Lauralee created her tag with the same heart shaped Nestibility in white card stock. She attached the cut shape from the bag to complete her tag. A twine bow, some walnut distress ink and raffia make an adorable bag & tag combination.

Cassie had brightly coloured bags to work with. She used a coordinating stamp and punch set from Stampin' Up to create the butterflies which she coloured with chalk. Her tag was a die cut that she stamped with Rosewood Paper Swirl and coloured with Bic Mark-Its. Cassie stamped Rosewood Friend on scrap paper, trimmed it out and dragged the edges with the red Mark-It to pull it all together.

Barb's card was layered onto a cream coloured card that she distress with olive pigment ink. The brown card stock was passed the CB folder swirls. She stamped Rosewood Northern Pine which she cut in half and layered onto green card stock. She used the same sentiment on her bag. Barb also created a similar layered image on the reverse of her bag. I apologize for the lack of a photo for the reverse of Barb's bag.


Barb had a fantastic interpretation of this challenge. She created her bag from newspaper based on instructions she found here. She did tell me that she made the bag a size bigger than the instruction make. I'm not sure where the sentiment is from but she created a great focal point by setting the brown mat off centre. The tag was created using her Cricuit "A Child's Year" cartridge. Don't you just love that shape?

October Challenge

Donna gave us what seemed to be a pretty straight forward challenge for October. Create a gift bag and make a tag or card to go with it. The bag could be made or purchased and it could be any size. The only stipulation was that your challenge project must contain at least 1 stamped image. Simple enough right? Apparently not, we all had difficulty with this one. Not that the completed challenges were gorgeous, we just didn't love our individual efforts for a variety of reasons.


First is Jacqui's project. Jacqui recently discovered House Mouse Designs and she used this adorable image for her tag which she has coloured with pencil crayons and blended with gamasol. She has found gamasol to be a better blending medium.

On a simple kraft bag she wrapped a large image (coloured in the same manner as the tag) but first she did some machine stitching to create a border. So cute!!!!






Next is Donna's contribution. She created a beautiful layered tag by first stamping and embossing on vellum. I am guessing she cut the vellum to match the tag underneath. I thought at first she had used a die to cut both elements but further inspection says no.

Next she clear embossed some small flower images and created a resist using distress inks on a simple kraft tag purchased from the dollar store.



On her pretty purple bag she used a stamp from Stampin' Up, which she stamped in purple and clear embossed. She inked the panel and distressed the edges of the stamped image. She used a corner rounder to chomp out the corners and added gems. The mat layers are cut using decorative scissors.

For my project I dug out an old PSX ornament stamp that I stamped all over the bag with Brilliance ink. I cut the tag and bag medallion from a Spellbinder die. The bag medallion I put through a CB folder. I stamped the reverse of the acrylic tag with the same PSX stamp in brown Staz On but I thought it looked boring, so through the xyron it went and a shot of glitter added some zip.



Tomorrow I will add the bags and card from the remaining ladies.

Happy New Year all

My girls have gone back to school (heir school board was one of the last to return to classes) and life begins to return to the normal routine. Our little dog Max is very thankful. He has been missing his nap time.



First we would like to congratulate Tammy on winning our mail in Christmas card contest. Tom has posted a photo here. Although I don't remember seeing this card in person (I have been off since before Christmas) I am guessing Tammy has used a combination of stamping and Peel-Offs to create this striking card. Thank you to all who entered. It always so interesting to see your creations with Rosewood Stamps. Our next contest will be a Valentine's theme, so get those hearts and flowers ready.



Looking back over my recent posts, I see that I am behind again on my challenge posts. I have photographs taken but I guess I haven't taken the time to write them up. Life should slow down a bit now that the holiday season is over.