GYPSY GIVEAWAY

They are giving away a Gypsy at The Gypsy Spot thanks to Custom Crops for donating the brand new Gypsy (retail value US$299.99)..wow. If you have never shopped at their store, you really should give them a visit. Not only will you find everything you need for card making, but also some wonderful articles for fantastic projects. They also have a Youtube channel where you can enjoy some wonderful videos for awesome projects. There is even new video for husbands or loved ones to guide them with holiday shopping... what an awesome idea. Click on the links to visit : Custom Crops and Custom Crops Videos.

Now for the giveaway. Please spread the word. This is a new blog so they are trying to get the word out so that more can participate in the challenges. So head on over there for your chance to win.

A COUPLE OF NEW THINGS

In the last couple of days, I've made a card for my friend Heather's birthday (it's a Joy Fold card which I love) and a page for a collaborative book for another stampers special birthday.
I have a couple more things to work on now so back off to my studio to get started on them.

GIFTS FROM JOY

After recently organising a weekend retreat/workshop for a group of friends with the very talented Joy Bathie as our tutor, I had a wonderful surprise when I received these two pieces of Joy's art as a gift. The weekend of wonderful artistic sharing with friends was all I really needed, but am feeling very blessed to be the recipient of such lovely treasures. The collage is done with a similar technique to one of the techniques that we learned from Joy on the weekend, and the leather pendant has a lovely little concertina book inside with lovely sayings, Joy made a similar one for a international swap recently.

READY STEADY STAMP

Here is a card that I have done for the challenge on Ready Steady Stamp for this fortnight. I have used all of the elements mentioned in the challenge and may use a similar design on some of my Christmas cards, minus the snowflakes as we don't have any snow here and Christmas is the middle of the long hot Summer. You can check out the challenge here.

ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL BOOK OF ART

This book is a collaboration by some of my friends who are all outstanding artists. I am so blessed to be a part of this wonderful group, and this gorgeous little gem of a book is a thankyou gift for the wonderfully generous artist, Joy Bathie, who recently shared so much of herself and her wonderful techniques with us. A great weekend was had by all, we all learned and grew so much as artists and we are planning another weekend together in 2010.

New ATCs I've made

These are two of the latest Artists Trading Cards that I've made, one was for Stamp Camp "In your dreams" and I made 20 of this one to swap at the camp, I made 9 of the next one for a swap with a "Twisted" theme which was so much fun. The writing on mine which is a little hard to read on the scan is "Clones are people two", the ATCs that I got back in this swap were just so funny and twisted.

CHUNKY BOOK ARTISTS-AMAZING TECHNICOLOUR DREAMBOOK

Below is a slide show of all of the gorgeous pages from the recent Collaborative book on Chunky Book Artists. Without doubt, this is the most uplifting and gorgeous book that I have ever been a part of. Hope that you enjoy looking at all of the artwork in this book. If you hold your cursor on the bottom of the pictures as they go through, you will see who created them......and it is a VERY CHUNKY BOOK!!

ART RETREAT AT PORT STEPHENS

ROB

ROB

HEATHER


Last weekend, myself and 11 of my very artistic friends spent the weekend at Lemon Tree Passage, learning lots of wonderful artistic techniques from our very talented tutor Joy Bathie, who creates gorgeous art, mainly in altered books. She was very generous in sharing some of her very unique techniques with us. She also brought along lots of her beautiful books for inspiration. Apart for the art, we had a such a lovely weekend just having fun and spending time together and at the end of the weekend, although feeling quite tired, we really weren't in a hurry for the weekend to end. This week I have finished two of the pieces that I started on the weekend, but still have a couple of textural pieces to finish. The Flamenco dancer probably has 20 coats of paint and collaging etc. I am also sharing a couple of my friend Heather's canvasses as well, we were all so very happy with what we learned, a great weekend all around.

TREASURE BOXES

On the weekend, two of my little grandchildren had their birthdays so I made each of them a "Treasure Box". They were both thrilled with them and managed to find lots of treasures to put in them right away. I also have a collection of beautiful shells, so I let them choose some of my shells to put in their boxes as well. Here are some pics, not great ones as I didn't think to take pics under ideal conditions.

GIVING BACK BY JESSICA WESOLEK

This is a post on Jessica's blog which I found really interesting and worthwhile, so with her permission, I am posting it here. Go and have a look at her really interesting art and everyday life messages here:

"Giving Back . . .
Communication fascinates me and always has. I really think it makes the world go around. So, it has always interested me that only 1 or 2 percent of readers ever leave Comments on a blog post, or have anything to say in a Yahoo Group.

It interested me enough that I have been asking friends why that is. Yes, I have a lot of lurker friends to ask. The answers were really interesting because they went something like this: I’m shy, nothing I say would be interesting to anybody, I’m probably the only one who hasn’t already thought of this, I’m too busy.

Do you pick up a theme there? Pretty one-sided, right? But what if leaving comments wasn’t all about you?

I have an interesting lesson to share. I used to have a very hard time accepting compliments, and like many of us do, I would pretty much throw the compliment back in the complimentor’s face, thinking I was practicing modesty instead of insult. They would say “you’re so good” and I would say “no I’m not”. Those are paraphrases, but you know what I mean. “What a pretty dress!” “Oh, this old thing?”

So one day, my brother asked me if I realized that I was insulting the other person. Whether I realized the complimenting process wasn’t only about me, but rather, a social interaction. What? Something that’s not only about me? How could that be?

But he was right. By arguing with a compliment, I was telling the other person they were wrong, and maybe their opinion didn’t matter much to me.
That was a big lesson, and ever after, I just say “Thank you”

There are lots of things that aren’t just about us, and the amazing plethora of treasure that is internet content is one - a gift that didn’t just get stuck in your computer with the hard drive. It is created and given by hardworking and generous-to-a-fault people just like you (blogs, Yahoo Groups, online zines, tutorials, product reviews, etc. - all free).

If someone brought all this in a box to your door, would you say “Thank you”? Of course you would. If someone at a party told you an amazing thing you never heard of before, or told you about a wonderful new store or book, or restaurant, would you stand there and stare at them silently like you didn’t hear them? Of course you wouldn’t.

Well, the web is not different than the world we live in anymore. It is a social place, and we must all take some social responsibility. I get a kick out of articles that talk about “Netiquette” and Web Etiquette. They mention not flaming somebody into ash, and not TYPING IN ALL CAPS because it means you are yelling.

But they don’t say: speak up and add your voice and your energy to this fantastic exchange so it can keep on rolling and become even better. So the folks who are giving all this don’t run out of gas and stall altogether. They should say that.

And just in case you are thinking this is all about me (LOL), I think we do better here than most with Comments (especially when something free is being given away ;-), and I get so much gratitude in emails that it gives me lots of practice on my compliment Thank You’s! But it breaks my heart to see really good Yahoo Groups fade away because only three people are willing to keep talking, or wonderful blogs go away because the author feels she is hearing the sound of one hand clapping or worse, talking to herself in public.

I know lots of bloggers will say they are doing it “for themselves” and it doesn’t matter if anybody responds with a Comment, but a part of that is just bravado. If they were only doing it for themselves, they would do it in a closet - not on the internet.

So let these wonderful folks know you visited, and if you liked their tutorial, or if their technique gave you a valuable answer you’ve been searching for. Or just say “thanks for all you do,” like many of my wonderful readers do. It’s little but it goes a long way.

Give back - and it will only get better for everyone."

METAL ETCHING WITH JENNY CROSSLEY

Our tutor for the long weekend Art Retreat was the gorgeous Jenny Crossley. Her classes were wonderful and we had such a fun weekend with her at Yarramalong. There was a very creative class on Saturday doing a fabbo book, but unfortunately due to my ongoing sight issues, I wasn't able to take on this project which did take 10+ hours to complete. BUT I did do both of the etching/pendant classes which were just gorgeous and I can definitely see that I will include this type of creativity in my future.....weeeeeelllll perhaps you might say that one could become addicted.

Thanks to Jenny, Ruth Spitzer and Margaret Weiss for all the wonderful organisation and inspiration over the weekend, also to Ruth for a great class on Saturday night and to Martina for the great Polished Pigments demonstration with which we all had fun and great results....I think there may have been a few orders placed for them after the weekend. To all of the girls who attended, what a great weekend full of comaraderie and artistic accomplishment. Above are two of the pendants which we made on the weekend.

MY CANVAS FOR OUR HOSTESS

As a gift for our very generous hostess Margaret at the Art Retreat, we all made canvasses of similar size and colour and presented them too her at the end of the weekend. The idea came from the new Apprentice magazine which there were a series of small canvasses all mounted in a large frame, it is a great idea and looks wonderful, so we will all be looking forward to seeing what Margaret does with them.
Above is the canvas I made.

METALLICA CHUNKY BOOK SWAP

This page (front and back) and the cover were made for a Chunky Books Swap which was organised with the girls who were attending an Art Retreat at Margaret's beautiful property at Yarramalong last weekend. There were 12 of us in the swap and we risisted the temptation of checking out each others pages until the last day of the retreat, when we all sat around Margarets huge dining table and swapped our pages, then we bound them all with a couple of Zutter binders which were brought along for this purpose.
So this was a lovely extra bonus on the weekend, all of the pages are just gorgeous. We also made our own book covers in the Metallica theme. I chose Rusty for my pages which I was very happy with, then I did a colourful metallic cover. Hope you enjoy them.

NATURE JOURNAL

After attending a weekend workshop with Kathleen Green in Auckland, New Zealand, I was totally motivated,inspired and in the creative zone and plunged headlong into creating this Nature Journal. I really enjoyed the whole process and if I get the opportunity, I would love to attend more workshops with Kathleen.

H2O & SALT BACKGROUNDS

I've been playing with some backgrounds with H2Os, rock salt and resist stamping. The scans never do justice to these types of backgrounds, but I have made some cards from them for friends.