Club Project

What do you do with the 12 plus composition books you unearthed while sorting and organizing? You design a project for stamp club so you don't have to find space for said 12 comp books, LOL. With the holidays just around the corner, I designed this Christmas Planner for our club members to make. Everyone had their own ideas for the tabs: recipes, card list, gift list, party list, etc. It would be really easy to make this personalized for any occasion. I know my BF will be helping her girls make them for teacher gifts for the holidays.

Published Again

Here she is. I just found out this card is on the cover of Vamp Stamp News for November, WooHoo! It's been ages since I purposely submitted something for publication. Now if I can just keep up with my blog. I have several art pics to load. I should try for once or twice a week. I need about 4 more hands or to be cloned a couple of times, LOL!

Cards, Contests and Magazines

Here's the first new art post in awhile. On the Brag group I'm on we had a card challenge contest. Lois sent us all out matching kits with the same items and we were to create a card and send it back for voting. Well they all voted me the winner so I got all the cards created and let me tell you there was an amazing variety of designs from the same materials. This is my winning card entry. I painted the stamped image with twinkling H2O's, I was trying to match the color of the ribbon in the kit that you see on the side of the card. Also Nancie from Vamp Stamp News liked my tip of making mini clipboards from gift cards and published my tip in the Sept issue of Vamp Stamp News with a picture of the geisha clipboard shown in an earlier post. My name was also drawn to win 8 back issues of VSN. See I told you things were looking brighter around here. Great artwork does that.

Life Happens

Best Friends Matthew and Bandit
In Loving Memory of Bandit 1997-2007
We miss you lots.


Well it's been an interesting several weeks to say the least. I think we are on our way up again. When you are without power for nearly 14 hours, scratch an eye on the same day the power goes out, find out your 18yo daughter has an ovarian tumor, the dog passes over the rainbow bridge, car troubles, a wee bit of flooding, an irate ex friend threatening the 18 yo, husband's company gets sold, is reorganizing and his job is changing and he's majorly stressed, well the only place you can go is up. The good Lord said He'd never give us more than we can handle, but there are times I wonder. Now to wait and see if DD needs surgery is the big thing looming on the horizon.

On a brighter note, I have some artwork to start uploading. I've been playing catch up all month on my swaps and commitments. Desperately need to start on Christmas gifts and cards. I'm heading off for a mini art retreat with friends next weekend, yippee. It's fun to get away for a breather and some artwork. Actually I won't be home the majority of the upcoming weekends. First the retreat, then off to Dallas with my daughter for National Portfolio Day, a middle ages event and then the Race For the Cure. I'll be designing Christmas cards for a 4 hour workshop on Oct. 11th. I'll probably be running from now until after Christmas.

Mini Clip Boards

These are so much fun, a lot like working on ATCs. I can see using these for refrigerator magnets as gifts for friends. So grab a handful of gift cards from your favorite variety store, usually they are free but asking never hurts, no one has told me no yet.

Deciding on a theme for July was easy. I picked National Parks and picked near my childhood home, Mt. Rainier National Park.

New Class was a Hit!

I have been designing now for a couple of weeks after mulling around ideas in my head. I can thank my muse for some of the inspiration and a couple of fellow artists and the class I took earlier this year and the lovely artist's who share their templates on the web. The flower ATC is my favorite! And a 2am just crawling into bed gift from my muse. You can view the complete class here: http://www.orientalstampart1.com/ TechniqueClasses/atctwist.html And while you're at Oriental Stamp Art, be sure to fix a nice drink and a snack and have fun checking out all the wonderful oriental artwork. It's my home away from home and I enjoy being a member.