Blog Candy

Alright kids, I have been perusing a lot of blogs lately and have stumbled onto quite a few blog candy giveaways. I don't have pictures for all of them, but I will let you know what you can win for the ones I don't have pictures for.
This is Robin's Egg Blues huge giveaway. Closes the 28th, that's tomorrow, so better hurry up.

This one is Pink Star Creations, and it will close tomorrow as well.

This one is 2 Bags Full, she's going on vacation and plans to bring fun surprises back, it closes on March 1st.

This one is Jacque's Joie De Vivre, she gets to play with Flower Soft and is giving some away. It ends on February 28th.

This one is Brynwood Needleworks, she is getting to 300 posts and wants to celebrate, it ends on February 28th.

OK, that's all the pictures I have, but there are still more.

Sweeet Designs by Cheryl is celebrating her first Blogiversary and giving away:

1. Sugar Nellies

2. 1 dino stamp set from QKD

3. 2 Magnolias

4. 1 Sugar Plums

5. 2 stamping bella sentiments

6. 1 High Hopes

7. 4 flower clusters

8. pack of brads, gems and flower brads

9. Flowers, buttons, charms, heart brads, ducky eyelets, silver eyelets.

Her giveaway ends on March 1st.

PartiCraft LTD is giving away unmounted stamp sets, shrink plastic, polished pigments from luminarte, mounted stamp collage-able and stained glass stamp, lots of Tim Holtz stuff and sparkly/glittery things, it closes when they hit 600 followers and they already have 553.

Scappin' til the cows come home is giving away stamps, tags, ribbon and a whole lot of bling. This giveaway closes on March 5th.

A Latte Inkin' Fun is giving away stamps, paper lace and paper, her giveaway ends on February 28th.

Prima is giving away 2 prize baskets worth up to $100 they will be drawing 2 winners, one from the US and one international. It closes on February 28th.

The Paper Affair is giving away buttons and lacy things and flowers, it closes on February 28th.

True's Gift's from the Heart has a big giveaway of buttons, paper, chocolate, stamps, flowers, ribbons, and anything else she can squeeze into the box. It closes on February 28th.

Dar's Crafty creations is giving away ribbons, and tape and chipboard and more. This one closes on March 1st.

Go, enjoy, maybe we'll all win something.

It's over.

I want to thank everyone who participated in my One World, One Heart Giveaway. As of 12:00AM this morning, the comments were closed, as I wasn't up at that time, anything posted after that was not included in my drawing. I picked out of the people that had an active blog only (active meaning posted in 2010) and counted them up and then put that number into the random number generator. I came up with #56 which was Micki for the surprise/paper package, #172 which was Jules for the supply package and #115 which was martha brown for the handmade/altered item.
I have posted here on this post and on my One World, One Heart post as well as posted on their blogs that they won. If they do not get back to me by Feb 18th, I will draw someone else for their prizes.
Looks like I will be working on those prizes today and throughout the week, as I haven't even started on them (SHHH!!! Don't tell).

Also want to say thank you to Twinkietinydog, as I won a nice picture book from her and also thank you to Kathy, as I won a cute little bear from her.
Once again, thank you everyone for participating.

January's Black & White

OMG, I'm behind again, seems to be the story of my life sometimes. Anyways, for my collageATCs group, the theme for January was black and white, now a lot of people in the group decided to only use the colors black and white and they turned out gorgeous, but by the time I put my cards together I was plenty sick of white and gray, so I added colors.
The top two cards here, I was given the background on the first one and decided to add a bunch of brightly colored buttons to it. On the right I was given the background and the piano keys, I thought for sure it needed to be a music themed card, so I added the music sheet and the lyre(I'm not really sure what this instrument is), they're both from a box I received a Christmas gift in.
The left card I was given the soccer ball, this little girl was on that same Christmas box and she looked like she was playing soccer, so I made her play soccer, it's just her and markers. On the right I was given the background and the black things in front of the flower pot. I received that flower pot in a gift exchange through my collageATCs group, and you can't tell from the picture but those black things are velvety feeling.
The right card I was given the photocopied money and the currency quote at the bottom of the card. The background (that you can't really see) is a bunch of bright colored circles, I was orgically going to put another piece of paper with circles onto it, but when it didn't look very good on the background, I took it off and it left behind the black, which I thought was pretty cool and did that to the whole card.
The left card I was given the snowman on the top, the tiny snowman in the bottom right corner, and the googly eyes. I collect snowmen, so I have a few snowman stamps, I felt I needed a nice snowman party on this card, after I layed them on it, it needed something more, so I added the snowflake ribbon and the googly eyes.

The left card I was given everything on the card, the presents on the side are a ribbon, and the snowflake is a domed resin sticker.
The card on the right I was given the owl and the beads hanging down from him. The background paper is from a big 12x12 stack of paper I got for Christmas.

The card on the left I was given all the elements, I just felt they needed a little color, which I added with markers.

The card on the right I was given the teacups and the cup quote. I was originally going to color in the cups with pink and green to go with the background, but after I glued them down, I liked the simplicity of them and left them alone.

This month's theme is neon. I usually wait until the end of the month to my cards, because then I have everyone else's cards to get inspiration off of.

Tax question

Here's a question for all the people in the US that sell stuff on Etsy: do I have to worry about the income I make from etsy on my taxes? My dad usually helps me with all my tax questions and has said in the past that I don't have to worry about my profit from Etsy, but I was on Etsy today reading this article and it says I have to file a form for my profits on etsy. I know I've made barely over $100 with both of my stores combined, and I sure don't do it full time, so it's not like I'm really investing a lot in it (I know, I should be doing more).

Any comments would (hopefully) be helpful.

Made my day

Sandy left this comment on my blog today:

"I can handle bright and cheery colours - we've got snow squalls at the moment and it feels like forever since it's been warm.

I'm a Central College Pella Iowa alumni but it's been a couple of decades. Please enter me in your draw and thanks for entering in mine. I love meeting new people and reading their blogs. It's like permissible evesdropping."

I love her last sentence, I thought that was pretty funny today.

UGH! I'm supposed to be making cards for my yahoo! groups latest swap, Black & White, but I'm having the hardest time getting motivated. What gets everyone going when they have to make stuff but can't get motivated?

I find sometimes, if I just open my closet door (yes, my creating space is a closet, very sad), and get everything out for my swap, then it comes to me. Sometimes when I'm creating packets for my yahoo! group, I can see certain cards I'm going to make. Like for this one, theres a piece of white paper with black and white circles all over it, recently I bought myself a bag of mixed buttons (big weakness there) because they had all these bright and happy colors, I think one of the cards will have these buttons in the circles.

One World One Heart

***EDIT*** Comments on this post are now closed as of 12:00AM this morning. Any posted after that will not count. Winner of the surprise/paper package is Micki, Winner of the box of supplies is Jules, and Winner of the handmade/altered item is martha brown. Please contact me ASAP, and I will get those items out to you.

Welcome everyone to white, windy Iowa. I hope you brought your warm clothing, because you'll need it. Take a look around my blog and make yourself at home.


So, as I'm sitting here in very cold Iowa (I was informed not so long ago that we have a Blizzard Warning going on until tomorrow morning), I found I could hope on a magic carpet ride to greener pastures. I follow the blog of one of the ladies in my collageATCs Yahoo! Group, and found out about this event called a One World One Heart Blog event. It's a way to get more people to check out your blog and one of them will win something.

I've been meaning to do a give-away for awhile now, so while reading other people's blogs, I thought I'd hope on the magic carpet.



The rules are that you have to have an active blog and leave a comment on THIS POST ONLY in between now (11:00 PM Jan 25, 2010) and midnight (that's 12:00 AM) February 14th. I will be using a random number generator to pick the winner. Make sure you leave me your email address or your blog address, so I can contact you if you're the winner. The winner will need to reply back to me by February 18th at noon (12:00 PM), if I haven't heard from them by then, I will pick a new winner.

I'm not sure what I'm giving away but it will be something in bright cheery colors. I'm going to at least have a package of handmade paper (I bought some this past week, and they are gorgeous). If I get past 100 comments I will add more.
***EDIT*** I have over 100 comments, so I'm doing a second giveaway. My craft closet is a giant mess, and I'm going to attempt to clean it out. Soooo, I will be giving away a box (probably the $10 flat rate Priority Mail box) full of supplies, like papers, gently used stamps, stickers, fibers, fabric, maybe even some things to alter/create with, beads. Whatever I decide I can live without. Doesn't that sound like some thing fun? But I have to get over 100 comments on this post, I have 59 right now, and I'm in the process of visiting all the blogs on Lisa's list (I'm at 200 of 700 last I checked), so most likely it will happen.
***EDIT AGAIN*** Now I have over 200 comments, so I'm doing a third giveaway (can you see a pattern here, I'm planning on doing an extra giveaway for every 100 comments I get, and I'm pretty close to 300). This one will be a piece that I make/alter. I honestly have no idea what it will be, but as I'm planning on not having a lot to do tomorrow (except shoveling snow), I will be working on art all (or most) of the day.


Now, if you've stuck with me that long, here's a little information about me.
Right now it is very cold and snowy in Iowa, We had a big snowstorm at the beginning of December (over a foot) and that snow is still here. I'm getting very sick of gray and white.
I'm in between school and a full-time job, though I have 3 part-time jobs right now that I'm happy with. And between the 3 of them I still have time to hang out with my boyfriend and create art.
If you look at previous posts on this blog, you will notice I am mainly a paper artist. I own/host a group on Yahoo! that does collage art ATCs. ATCs are Artist Trading Cards, they are the size of business cards and usually created according to a theme.
I am trying to branch myself out into other art, but I seem to be stuck in a rut.
I have quite a few sewing projects that I'm in the middle of. Someday I hope to finish them and maybe sell some embroidery pieces in the future.
I also have another blog, The Life of Me where I talk about pretty much everything except my art. I have three other blogs as well, but I've found more exciting things in my life than posting pictures of good looking guys and good looking cars, though I'm still interested in the good looking cars.

And at this point in time, my guinea pig is sitting on my lap, licking my fingers and "talking" telling me it's time to go to bed.

Mythological Creatures Swap

So, last month for my collageATCs group, we did mythological creatures. It was fun to see everyone's interpretation of the theme, here are my cards:

I like tags, can't you tell. In the left picture I used all the fairies , the card is just paper with layered paper at the bottom using some decorative scissors I got for Christmas last year. The tags are ones I had in my stash, the one on the left is chipboard the other two are just plain paper. They're all attached with jeweled brads.

The card on the right I used the mermaid. I took a manila colored tag and pressed it into Stampin Up Classic Stamp pads of Ballet Blue and Green Galore. The background is when I did a bunch of backgrounds with some spray mists and added random stamps to them.

Lots of times in the swap items, I send out items that have white around the image, seems to happen a lot with stickers, and that white stuff drives me nuts, I always have to trim it off.

The card on the left I used the cupid, you can kinda tell from the picture, that he's stuck on something, he was a window cling on some clear plastic, other people had used the cupid, and he had a hard time being stuck down, so I decided to just leave him on the plastic (as he was pretty well stuck to that), and I added the love tag with a jeweled brad and the rose in the bottom corner.
The card on the right I used the witch and the frame she's in. The frame was around another item that looked like a bunny with wings and antenna, it was a stamp my mom bought in Mexico. The background is from when I was making backgrounds one time and painted it with metallic paints and then added stamps, the gold piece is just a piece of vellum.

The card on the left I used the fairy, it's a stamp I bought through Stampin' Up, and in the stamped image, she had some kind of fairy dust trailing along behind her, so I added blue glitter glue and some ancient gold embossing powder, that you can't really see in the picture. Someone else in the group used a mermaid stamp that had her hands outstretched with a shell in it. I thought the plastic lyre would fit perfectly with the music paper in the background.
The card on the right I used the dragon image, I had the Asian character stamp, and stamped it in the ancient gold embossing powder, then glued the dragon onto a tag and lightly covered it with gold paint.

The card on the left I used the kokopelli, I just added the sun punch and the sun stamp, both from previous swaps.
The card on the right I used the mermaid. She was stamped in black on white paper and had a comb in one hand and a mirror in the other, I didn't like those so I took them out. Her hair is colored with some orange glitter glue, her body is colored with chalk as well as her tail. Her shells are colored with some aqua paint (that took way too long to dry) that I picked up on clearance at Hobby Lobby. I had the water paper in a paper stack, and added the sand (from our back porch waiting for winter) and the tiny shells that I acquired on a vacation.

The card on the left I used the angel image, you can't tell very well from the picture, but I stamped another angel on top of the one I had and embossed the halo and wings with the ancient gold embossing powder. The background is a gold patterned piece of paper with mica flakes glued on top.
The card on the right I used the phoenix and the feathers. A phoenix is a bird that rises from the ashes, so I cut a flame out of a metallic piece of paper I received from one of the members of by group and added the orange glitter glue to it and some extra flames. I really liked this one.