Day One

Originally, our Day One person was Victoria, but she dropped out, so Amy from Crafting by Candlelight added a few things. She said the bag is handmade And here's what was in the bag:

A set of spring-y clothespins, and an egg. I'm thinking of covering the egg in book pages.

Tomorrow is me, so I'm not that excited about it. I'm trying so hard not to open these packages, I did hide them in a paper bag, so I don't have to see them all piled up on the floor, but it's so hard.

9 Days of Easter Swap

I signed up for a 9 Days of Easter Swap, hosted by Amy of Crafting by Candlelight. It was originally a 12 Days of Easter Swap (like a 12 days of Christmas), but only 9 people signed up. We were supposed to make 9 of the same or similar items to send to Amy and then she would put gifts 1-9 from different people in a box and send them to us. Unfortunately, #1 dropped out and #7 got sick, so Amy added something for #1, and #7 seven might still send us something. I bought myself something at Walmart yesterday and decided to wrap it with the extra tissue paper Amy sent us and add it for #7. Here is what the pile of gifts looks like: I'm going to open one gift a day starting on Saturday and TRY to post it each day. I will take pictures of the item wrapped, and unwrapped and then tell you who it was from with a link to their blog if they have one. I will also tell you how I made my gift when it comes up. I'm having such a hard time not opening them now, I know one person couldn't wait, and they said we have some awesome gifts to open, that doesn't help me. I haven't decided if I'm waiting until Easter to open them or not. I do have an Easter basket that I gathered for myself, plus this swap, plus I might be getting together with my mom's side of the family on Easter, that's a lot to do on Easter, so I might just open them when I get them. What do you think?

Bugs

I know, it's been awhile, I have such a hard time getting myself motivated to do art lately. I did finish some things for a swap on Friday, but it's a surprise swap, so I'll post those later. Here are my cards for the March swap in my CollageATCs yahoo! group The theme was bugs. The tulip picture is from the back of an Our Iowa magazine. The green background is from some memory makers packaging. The bird is from a piece of scrapbook paper. The layers on the last background as well as the blue piece are all scraps from my floor.

I should have those swap items up next week or so, the swap was for a 9 days of Easter swap. So, I'll get 9 packages back from the hostess and will open them up the 9 days before Easter, I'll do a post each day, so stay tuned.

January Snow ATCs

WOW! I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted on here.
Anyways, here are the ATCs I did for my collage group for January, the theme was snow:
Starting in the top left hand corner: All the paper on the backgrounds are from a winter set of cardstock I got for Christmas in 2009. In the top photo I used the snowman and the giant snowflake at the top. I used some new blue staples to fasten the snowman onto the card, and a white spiral paperclip from my supply swap. On the right hand photo I used all the snowflakes. The reason the picture is so blurry is because of the brad I added to the middle of the silver snowflake.
In the left hand photo on the bottom I used all the images.
In the right hand photo on the bottom I used the snowman and the snowflake images. The crown is a metal piece.

All the cards are backed with chipboard that I received in my supply swap.


I'm doing horribly on being creative lately. I joined the One Heart One World blog event with my other blog, and I decided to give away garage sale finds. Since this year we were to send our prize out within 3 days of the end of the event, I didn't sign up with this blog because I prefer to make my prize. And I didn't even think about the event until it started.

Some art

Here's what I've done in artwork lately:
My collageatcs group did Vintage for December, and I had to use some of my new items laying around.
Starting at the top and going left to right: I used some 'packing tape' I bought at Micheal's for the background and then layered a piece of book on it and then the boy on the turkey from our package.
Next I took some patterned blue paper, colored the lady with chalk, glued her down. I also colored in a black strip on the edge and added the string of pearls. The pearl clusters in her hair are also something I bought at Micheal's. The string of pearls, and the lady were in the package.

On the next card, I layered a vintage dictionary page for a background, and then added the poufy wallpaper, which was in our package, I thought it looked a little dull, so I colored in some areas with black gel pen. The lady was also from the package and she's colored with chalks.

Starting on the bottom and going left to right: I used an old Bingo card for the background, rubbed some red distress ink from my supply swap on it, the beige card and the fish were in the package. The crown is also from my supply swap.

Lastly, the background wallpaper was in the package, I added a light blue paper and layered the Remember quote, which was also in the package.

I decopaged some tiny wooden bowls for a friend for Christmas, I've been reading on other blogs of people doing this and I decided to try it. I learned to use a thinner paper and use my hands a lot. They turned out pretty cute, and my friend loved them.

I'm still waiting on my stocking swap. I contacted the swap hostess and she was infuriated, and said she'd send me something, that was over 2 weeks ago.

I did sign up for a Valentine's Day swap, where you send things to each other. The hostess said she had the perfect person in mind for me and they would not flake out.

Swaps and thoughts

I joined two swaps this holiday season, one was a supply swap, the other a stocking swap.
I received my supply swap on December 11th, I was overjoyed it came so early.
In our packages we were to include:
1. 20 6" x 6" sheets of patterned paper
2. 5 charms or metal embellishments
3. an alphabet
4. 10 diecuts or punched shapes
5. 10 stamped images in black ink on white cardstock
6. a bling
7. 10 fibers/trims/ribbons
8. 5 small (1" or smaller) or 3 medium (1'" - 2") or a large (over 2") flower(s)
9. 3 journaling spots
10. a pocket or small envelope
11. A surprise.
I thought it was a great swap to join, it always seems other people's stuff is better than your own.
So, here's what I got from my partner:
You can see the pile or metal charms, and the flowers (way more than 5), there's a distress ink pad there, and a cupcake stamp, also 4 journaling spots, a rub-on alphabet, and the bling (self-adhesive crystals in the shape of a bird in a tree.

Here's a close-up of the metal embellishments (way more than 5), there's a key, some metal charms with words, the black things are roses, a butterfly, some photo corners, wings, a heart, a crown, and a blingy thing.

Here's a close-up of the flowers.

In this picture you can see some bottlecaps, the envelope (or more than one), some manila tags, the fibers, the diecuts, some chipboard (in, I believe, ATC size). I'm extremely giddy about using the chipboard, awhile ago, I ordered ATC sized chipboard through Etsy and decided it's great to use as a backing for my ATCs.

Here you can see a bunch of lunch bags, a chipboard book in the shape of a crown, a set of patterned paper (way more than 20), and the stamped images.

Here is some more chipboard, the card she gave me and a Christmas tag she made (also one of the requirements.

We were supposed to make a Christmas tag with a rubon on it, I love her tag, especially the jingle bell at the top, and whatever set of rub-on's she used.

And the last thing in my package was a set of white things. Each of these groups were in their own little container.

Also, if you noticed there's pink tissue paper as the background in each of these photos, that was included as well, and I'm also very tickled about it.

My other swap, the stocking swap, we were supposed to read each other's blogs and spend $10-$15 before shipping with a stocking on stuff our partner would like. These were supposed to be mailed by December 11th. I haven't seen mine yet. I waited a week before contacting the hostess about it. I tried emailing my partner during the swap with a question and never got an email back. I'm starting to believe I'm never getting a package back.

That annoys me and makes me wonder if I should bother getting in to swaps where we send directly to our partner. I'm also out the money I spent on her, her gifts and the over $10.00 in shipping. I'm not naming names, but I did just read one of her blogs that she posted yesterday, so she's still somewhere in the world.

On a positive note today, I got a mini Stampin' Up catalog in my mail, sent to me by Alicia, who is a Stampin' Up demonstrator in CA. I follow her blog and I'm sure I'm now in her Stampin' Up website database, but that meant a ton to me. Thank you Alicia.

Hope everyone's having a good holiday and Merry Christmas

Christmas swaps

I know it's been awhile, but here are a few things I made for some swaps I joined. The first was a card to go with a stocking swap. We were supposed to fill a stocking up with $15-$20 in gifts and send it out to our partner. Here's the card I made for my partner:
It's a red cardstock background. I layered a green patterned paper on top of it, and then added some glitzy buttons. The reindeer were from a pair of earrings I bought at a garage sale this summer. The snowflake stickers are from a set I bought at a garage sale as well. The "Happy", "Holidays" and snowflake buttons were purchased at Hobby Lobby.
This next one is a card I included with a supply swap.

Once again, it's a red cardstock background with a piece of green patterned paper layered on it. The snowglobe is actually a bubble and came in a sticker set with the "Let it Snow" sticker on top, I bought them at a garage sale this summer. The snowflake buttons I bought at Hobby Lobby.
This tag was one of the requirements in the supply swap. We were supposed to make a Christmas tag with a rub-on.

I started with a white cardstock background and then rubbed green and red inkpads over it. I took an old book page and rubbed red and green inkpads on that as well. The tree and "Merry Christmas" stamps are from a set of clear stamps that I bought at Jo Ann Fabrics, the jewels came with them. The red bow was in my stash.

I have also signed up to do a snowman swap that's due on Decemeber 19th.

I'm trying to not get too messy with my creations lately as I sliced my finger open washing a glass on Tuesday and had to get 7 stitches. If you want to see a picture (it's just the stitches, nothing gory), and read a little more about it head on over to my other blog here.