Funny thing these web pages. 

When you first consider making a website, you have all kinds of clever things to say.  So you set about the task of laying out the site, putting the basic pages together, you have to decide... should I use gifs or jpegs... you spend hours (in my case days) spreading pictures around evenly so the page has the best possible load time...you use this font with that color and vise-versa...  you have your successes and you have your failures (I thought most of my failures were actually successes ... but then Melissa, let me know that "No"... they were indeed failures...).

Finally after endless nights of re-hyperlinking, shrinking pictures, enlarging pictures, crashing the computer and reinstalling the driver for your scanner ... you have a web site... BUT when you go back to write those "Clever Things" ... Your mind goes blank.  

So, here I sit with blank mind and blank Page... funny things these web pages... or did I say that already?  Anyway, having nothing clever to say anymore, I will simply write Something about Melissa ( lil Missy ), my wife.  Oh yea, and I better talk about her Stamping Stuff since that's what this website is supposed to be about. 

Here's the scoop, I was a skeptic about all this crafty/stampy stuff until Missy really got into it.  Over night, she started making some really cool stuff (even from a guys perspective).  She comes up with ideas that when spoken orally get her little more than one of those cursory "sounds nice dear" 's that get exchanged between H's and W's.  But the finished products... Wow... very impressive.  My personal favorites are the ones that include pictures of our kids (by the way ... want one?  I have at least one extra kid on any given day...).  She gets some ideas from trade magazines, from other stampers and some she improvises (so far the ideas that I've pitched have all been failures...).  

I can tell you this... Stamping ain't just paper and ink!  In fact, sometimes it doesn't involve paper or ink... whoever thought up this stuff?  Velvet Stamping, Candle Stamping, Tile Stamping and the more unthinkable the more the ladies go nuts!

Most of the projects displayed on this site, are much more involved than just stamping on paper... they require "engineering and assembly", for lack of a better term.  Many of them involve the use of Translucent Papers, Paper with real flower petals and leaves pressed in them, metal eyelets, pine needles, wires, spacers, ribbons and even transparent envelopes.  Then just for good measure, many are embossed, which requires getting blasted with a special heat gun to melt this metal powdery stuff so that it rises and becomes kind of 3D'ish.  

Unfortunately, many of the images look like the cards were squashed on a scanner... which is funny because most of the cards were squashed on a scanner.  To really appreciate them, you have to hold one and mentally dissect each ingredient used to create it.  And even if it "isn't your thing"... rest assured there is at least one that will "tickle your fancy".  By the Way, the last time I openly volunteered... "I don't like that one"... IT ended up as a Sample in a magazine... so now if I don't fancy one... I just say "looks nice dear".... like H's and W's do ya know.

If you've read this far than you are either really bored ... or you're looking for tipyo's... so I'll finish by saying this... 

Look around.  If you're in need of inspiration, stamps or supplies... if you like hand made stuff... if you're another stamper/scrapper wondering why her husband won't write her web page... if you're a crafty person looking for ideas and projects... you might just stumble across something that suites your need.

The next time you see something kind of cool and artsy.. but a little bit out there... and you think "who comes up with this stuff?" ... think of 'lil Missy.