MaryRay

1. Tell us a little about yourself, your family, your job, your home, etc.
     I am in my late 40s and I've been a stay-at-home Mom for the past 11 years. I got to live a wild and crazy single life for a LONG time and made some major mistakes. I was painfully shy and had to repeat Kindergarten because of it! Frank Sinatra lived in the town I grew up in, unfortunately not at the same time! My parents divorced when I was 7 (back in 1960 when divorce was frowned upon). My father had custody of us four kids, which included a sister with autism, although at the time, we didn't know what exactly was wrong with her. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a DANCER more than anything. In 4th grade, I took ballet and when the kids teased me about it, calling me a "fairy," I couldn't take it and decided to quit after just a few lessons. I always regretted that no one pushed me to keep at it. Since then, I've wanted to be a movie star, a singer or a great writer. I was a hippie in the 70s. I went to college for only one semester and then after a year of goofing off, I broke down and went to secretarial school. I became a legal secretary.
      In the late 70s, I took a trip to San Diego to do the "est training" for anyone who's heard of that. Afterwards, I rented a car and drove up the coast of California by myself. When I got to L.A., I was on The Price is Right and believe it or not, I won the showcase! My first bid was on a giant trampoline of all things! I also won a Hobart Food Processor, a color TV (which is still our main TV), a China Cabinet, and a camper/trailer. I was determined to get on the show partly for my autistic sister. If any of you saw the movie "Rainman", you may remember how he had to watch certain TV shows. Well, like him, my sister Laura only watched one show and it was The Price is Right.
      I met my husband one night after my return from a one month trip to Europe by myself. I married late - at age 32, had my 1st child, a girl, at age 36 and my 2nd, a boy, at 39. We have 2 cats and 2 gerbils. My favorite word in the whole world is Mom. Prior to having children, I was a legal secretary for 15 years. I did have my own small restaurant for a while specializing in homemade soups. It was called Zupas, polish for soups. We didn't make it but it was an interesting experience. In 1997, I committed myself to what I believe is an extremely worthwhile cause and created a major website on a highly controversial human rights issue. The site continues to get a great deal of traffic, but the demands of family life no longer permit me to devote more time to the cause.
      This getting-to-know-you form has hit me at a particularly difficult time in my life.   I haven't been very happy lately in my marriage. Also my husband has been out of a job for over a year now and prospects either don't fit him or haven't been presenting themselves. I'm not optimistic that he'll find what he's looking for any time soon. So it looks like I'm going to have to re-enter the work force. I keep resisting the job hunt because I feel like the idea of working again would be sort of like a culture shock after 11 years of being home. I don't know if I can handle that kind of environment again. I LOVE being home, I'm very selfish with my time and I can't imagine giving all that up! It's difficult enough NOW to find time to stamp. I suspect if I had a full time job, there would be no time at all for stamping. I absolutely love my house. It is a dream home, the kind of house I never thought I'd be fortunate enough to live in. Ideally, I'd like to find a well paying job/career that allows me to be artistic in a variety of ways.
      Was I supposed to tell you "a little bit" about me? I don't know why I got so carried away telling you ALL about myself past and present. I thought I was all done and then all of a sudden all this other stuff came gushing out. Geesh, nothing like going overboard!
2. How did you first get involved in stamping?
I had gotten into scrap booking and I sought out stamping with the belief that I wanted to incorporate it into my scrap booking. I managed to locate a Stampin Up demonstrator in my area by looking online. She said, well, I don't do any scrap booking. I do cards. I'm thinking CARDS????!!!! Okay. So I went to her home and she showed me all these cards she'd made and traded. I remember thinking sure enough they were nice and all, but why in the heck would anyone want to make all those cards and put so much work into it? For what? I couldn't understand it. Wouldn't you know, my scrap booking stopped dead in its tracks and I find that I'm making cards, cards and more cards!!!!! Is there some sort of magic spell out there that befalls anyone who touches a stamp? I want to learn more about bookmaking and I'd like to try carving my own stamps.
3. What is your favorite technique?
Even though I've been stamping now for going on two years, I can't say I have a favorite technique yet. I've tried many things, and seem to enjoy most any technique. I keep thinking some day a very specific one is gonna click with me so hard that I will have found my own special niche in stamping. In the end, I guess we all go through phases. For a while we love one thing and then all of a sudden, it transforms.   Right now I seem to enjoy coloring what I've stamped with stipple brushes and ink pads. One of my definite favorites is chalk resist.
4. What is your favorite card you have ever made: one you are the proudest of?
Oh, now that's a hard one. I have these little love affairs with many of my cards. I'll make one and admire it by repeatedly going to look at it for about two days. No matter what I do, I can't seem to keep my eyes off the thing. Some take me a very long time to part with (even when I know I could probably make it again). Several of my favorites are those that I've made on black cardstock with metallic rub ons. I am proud to say that two of my other creations have been featured in The Rubber Stamper, Cards by Readers - Sept/Oct 2000 and Post Script - Jan/Feb 2001.
5. What are your favorite stamp companies and why?
Right now, anyway, I keep gravitating toward the Stamping Ground, Stampers Anonymous, Hero Arts and Planet Rubber. Of course I have no stamps at all from the first three (and only two from Planet Rubber) but when I look at the catalogs, I have these strong urges. ;-) My all time favorite stamp is one from Stamp Camp. Of course SOME day I'll have a new favorite. I guess one of the reasons I like these companies is because their images are non-cute.
6. What are your favorite type images you use in stamping?
There are still so many different categories of images I've not yet experienced, so I don't feel I can answer this question. Currently, I seem to be going through the must-haves of collage and Asian images. Whether I'll do well enough with them to make them my favorite is another question entirely!
7. What are your favorite colors?
My favorite color cardstock seems to be black. I like deep reds, burgundy, navy, teal, coffee.
8. What is one dream you have that you wish could come true?
I guess the thing that would be most satisfying would be to have complete confidence in myself in every way, so that no matter who I was with, no matter what I was doing, I would always be completely comfortable to totally self express. No lack of self esteem, no self doubting, no judging or beating myself up. I would like to be free to enjoy each and every moment of my life to the fullest. To live in the moment. I feel that would be a dream come true not only for me but also for the people I love.
9. What is your biggest pet peeve?
I don't like that our society is so intolerant of the aging process among women.
10. Anything else you would like to share? Like things you collect, things that make you happy, and so on?
I am so happy to have found stamping. All my life, I wanted to be creative (as do most people), but I could never seem to find anything that worked for me. (I did go through a photography phase in my 20s, and enjoyed it immensely, but some how, I fell away from it.) I also LOVE computing. I have a scanner, a digital camera, I chat, sell on eBay, you name it. If you haven't been to my Rubber Stamping Pages, you must make a visit: http://www.knology.net/~maryray/   I am constantly battling with attempts to tear myself away from the computer so that I can stamp instead, but more often than not, the computer wins out. ;-( I think sometimes I'm just not sure WHAT I feel like doing in stamping, so I keep finding more and more things to do on the computer and I can't let go.