'twas the season!

Well? Did you survive?? Pleased to say I did :) It was a very quiet Christmas this year which gave me time to reflect and catch up on my reading - I got new crafty books as gifts so my nose was buried for the last 2 days coming up only for the turkey and sprout fest lol.  Ok, if you're on my Facebook/Twitter list you'll know that I also had a rant or two about sales adverts on Christmas morning (keep Christmas in December and keep the sales in January!) and the obligatory holiday/diet adverts - but lets not get into that again or I'll be up on my soapbox all day! 

So today is back to 'normality' whatever that may be.  I've got a list of tutorials planned for the next few months to keep both me and you amused plus I'm going to be launching my Adorable Little Extras label (really excited!!) I've also been (still) trying to work out the decor for my living/dining room - the Mr has agreed this needs to start looking more like a home now and I've got my eye on the back wall/window for my new craft space.  I've really GOT to do some crafting today - you know when you wake up at stupid o'clock and try to get back of to sleep and you end up remembering your dream, I was dreaming about soap making!! Go figure!

Anyway, I've got pork to be roasting and Warhammer to be assembling with the kiddies so I shall leave you for now - don't forget my open invite on my last blog post to join my ATC swap, I'd love to have you on board!  

Happy crafting 

xx

Calling all crafters!

I was sat looking through some of the things I've created over the years and remembering how I love to 'potch' with things when I discovered a small box with some of my favourite rubber stamps in that I'd kept back from the cull.  It got me to thinking, maybe its time to start something a bit fun for 2012, so, calling all crafters - would you like to be involved in a 2012 ATC swap?

For those of you not in the know, ATC's are Artists Trading Cards which are miniature works of art or stamping projects, collages, whatever you want them to be. There are only two rules, they must measure 2 ½” x 3 ½” and should not be sold, only exchanged for other cards.

Artists usually make a set of cards on a similar theme, they are called series. The artist records the name of the set on the back of each card, signs and dates it and allocates a number to show how many were made and what number each card is in the sequence, for example 1/6, 2/6 etc. Single unique cards are called originals and sets of identical cards are called editions.

ATC’s can be made from plain cardstock or by altering poker playing cards (standard playing cards are not the right size) or trading cards such as Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh etc. Any media can be used but they need to be sturdy enough to survive the mail and not too thick so that they can be stored easily.  You can see some lovely examples on the internet, unfortunately I was only able to find pictures of 1 I'd previously made (and we are going back years here!)

I am proposing a monthly swap with each month having a theme (maybe bi-monthly if we think that would be better?) so all the crafters involved and up with a lovely set of artwork for 2012 and something to get them creating!

So, what do you think? Interested in taking part? I'd love to hear from you!

Happy crafting!

xx