New stamp set - Artistic Borders

I have been eyeing the wonderful creations on the Hero Arts flickr group using the Hero Arts Artistic Borders large flower - such eye-catching creations. I am not going to list the selections here because I don't want to miss anyone's beautiful submissions, I'll just tell you how to check on flickr for the wonderful views. The search will show you all cards/projects that were tagged with the SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) number for this stamp set. The projects will include any of the large number of stamps in this set. Once logged into flickr, click on the arrow beside the "Search" button on the upper right side of your screen, a list will display, then click "Everyone's Uploads." You will now have a new "Search" window. Key CL322 into the "Search" window, click "Search" and you will see everyone's projects that posted CL322 as a tag. I just finished doing this and was again amazed at how many different and totally awesome projects were made with stamps from this set.

Here are my two entries on Sunday - yes a last minute entry.

and side view


I'll be using these stamps for quite some time... the borders and flowers are wonderful... and I loved twisting the stem in this set to follow the curve of the background stamped image. Have a great week.

52 Questions - a year of mini art journaling

I found an intriguing ATC on llaurenb's photostream and saw something about 62 Q... what was that? llaurenb is so sweet and took the time to explain what 52 Questions was all about and that she is recording her mini art journaling on ATCs. I'd not seen anything displayed on the back of ATCs other than information about the card itself. The back was much more personal... You can see I was falling into the "Well, I'll just see what it's about...." trap She sent me two links, one to Ember's and the other to a flickr group at 52 Q - a year of mini art journaling. I liked what I saw...

Some I'm having trouble deciding what I want to do.... How do you create an ATC on the movie Schindler's list.... well, I haven't done this one yet.

I definitly like the book ATC and the Hopes for 2009 ATC I did for this challenge. I don't like handwriting on these so I type them out - all except one... Here are two of my favorites that I've done... Enjoy the weekend.



and

The Renee Award
Hello! Today I'd like to share an award that was generously given to me by my friend Anne Gaal called the Renee Award. It is such an honor to receive blog awards and I am so very grateful!
The Renee Award




The Renee Award was created by Bella and Ces in honor of their friend Renee.
In Bella's own words: "this is a brand new award and I have the pleasure and honor of spreading the seed, watching it grow. I hope it finds it's way to those who are like Renee: the acorn, a small package becoming a tall and sturdy oak, giving more acorns, becoming tall and sturdy oaks, giving acorns..."
There are no "rules" for claiming this award, but I would suggest the following:
Thank the person who nominated you for the Renee Award.
Click on the picture above to see it larger, then download it and post it on your blog.
Mention the person who nominated you and link back to their blog.
Nominate others to receive the award.
Comment on their blogs to let them know you nominated them.
Visit Bella, Ces, and Renee and let them know you received the award and passed it on. Consider linking your blog post to them, too.
Now I am supposed to share in the fun by nominating others. This is hard for me, because I know, like many of us, we are always trying to obtain that extra minute to accomplish something, from repairing that vacuum with the army man stuck just beyond your fingertips to building a coat rack. I have met so many wonderful artists, bloggers, and friends and I love being part of this blogging community. But, I also understand the value of awards in exposing us to a few blogs that might be new to us.
Out of oh so many wonderful blogs and friends, I think I will nominate a few of the newest ones I know about... doesn't mean it's brand new... just new to me. I'd like to nominate the following bloggers, (in no particular order):



Susanne Andersen

Pia Overgaard

Hannah Nicole F



I hope you'll take a moment or two to stop by these blogs (including Anne!) and leave a nice comment or two. It takes just a moment, but it is sooooo nice to receive those comments! :-)

Generous give-away by Siri

I was visiting Joshua Jiraffe Designs today and followed her lead to a fantastic give-away from Siri. You won't believe the gorgeous papers and wonderful handmade papers. As I scrolled down the beautiful papers and peeked at the flowers, my first thought was, "I want these" and the second thought was "How do I get these?" and a posting will do it... it's all up to us... she will have her granny pick a name at the 3500th hit on her blog. Hurry on over and check this out.

Paint Chips & ATCs

I've really enjoyed the Hero Arts blog and flickr group for over a year now... and we were challenged to use something other than just ol' paper just last week. Some of the gals in the flickr group are just amazing!!! All kinds of suggestions emerged... no - erupted! One of the suggestions was to use paint chips. Since I had to go to the hardware store anyway, I also dropped by the paint display area.... so many wonderful colors to choose from.



I never thought of "erasing" the printed colors on those little rascals... no... I cut them off... which was ok... here's the card I finished... not too shabby, but do I have a great site to direct you to .... after this demonstration of a simple paint chip card... ta da!







I was checking for different swaps on swap-bot, then checking some of the profiles, then some of the swaps they were in and found one that is too late to enter (waaaa!!), but which had a great link to Go Make Something on... what?... paint chips. Cutting on the diagonal, creating unusual cards, tags, ATCs are just some of the amazing ideas for paint chips - so you have got to check it out if you're a paper crafter. Go Make Something also has some great information on the most efficient way to get the most ATCs out of a regular 8 1/2" X 11" piece of paper too.



The back of your cards should contain your name, any contact information you wish to provide, e.g. Title of the ATC, Date the ATC was made, your name/email address or whatever method you might wish for the person to have to contact you later , and the number or series of the card. Some artists start numbering their cards with number 1, and just keep going. Others will do series numbering, such as 1 of 7 or 1/7. How you number is totally up to you. I haven't been numbering mine except when I made a series of tree sets of a particular style/method of crafting, then 1of 3, etc. I'm kind of wishing I had started off numbering them right away.

Oh well... do I start now by counting my flickr group... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... we'll see.

Cat Nap Fantasy - a Caardvark's Challenge entry

Cat Nap Fantasy,
originally uploaded by Clarian's Hawk * Arlene.

I have been coloring on this little quilt and the cat for awhile now. colored blue, then a week later, I colored pink, and so on. Sooo you see it's taken awhile... But then all of a sudden, the colors seemed to magically appear in my hands as I set to filling in the blanks... I guess filling in the squares is more applicable.

This is a glossy paper and I didn't know what I wanted to do with the area behind the cat at all... I'm happy it just kind of flowed.... upwards from the shadows. I always thought this image was so sweet, but I only ever colored this image twice and I was not real happy with it either time.

I have no idea what stamp company made this, all I know is I've had the stamped images for years! If anyone knows, please knock, but not too hard, because you might wake the sleeping kitty.

What can I say? Stamping Mathilda...

I joined Swap-bot about a month ago and have had a pleasant trading experience. My name is Clarian on swap-bot. I was certainly leery at first, but decided I'd get my feet wet by participating in some easy swaps. They have a rating system of 1 to 5, 5 being the highest rating and a bonus heart if the item you sent/made was above the expected. Here's some of the first few I've done:

• Email your partner your flickr photo address and for a heart, a few additional favorite flickr person's photos address.
• Send a naked postcard to 3 partners (naked - as not in an envelope... yes written on)
• Sender's Choice (ATC)to 2 partners
• Tree ATC
• Send 2 notecards with envelopes to 2 partners

You have to get your feet wet, so to speak. People don't want other people flaking on their trades, so that's why they have a rating system... Yes, all this to get to Stamping Mathilda...

I have joined 3 groups and on ATC Addicts Club I found a wonderful post on a folded container for ATCs. And guess where it took me? No guessing required when it concerns Stamping Mathilda and her most delightful, interesting and instructional blog.

If you'd like to try ATCs, there are many flickr groups that are fun and you might do some one-on-one trading at first. You send a message or write a note on the comment for the particular ATC you're interested in and ask to trade. I usually send an email. I'm picky about what I like and don't want something with just stickers on it... sorry to those I might offend, but that's just my likes and dislikes... I'm also not a fan of putting wings on a little girl and such...

Have fun visiting Stamping Mathilda and maybe make an ATC or few...