My ARTistic Life

Special Map Digi Freebie + Cool Cats and Crowns

Hi there! Look what I have for you today...

How 'bout some cuteness and color to brighten up your day? At ARTchix Stuido, we now have Cute Kitty Wood Cuts, Handmade Crowns, Trees and Cats by yours truly, hot pink Water Lilies and even super cool Map Charms!

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Great news! Order today (and spend over $25) and get one of these awesome Cat and Crown Gift Bags. While supplies last.

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I must tell you that I've fallen in love with all of our new kitties...can't you tell? Here are some ATCs and jewelry that I made with our new Cute Kitty Wood Cuts, Handmade Cats, Ceramic Cat Beads and Glass Black Cat Beads.

You'll also see a sprinkling of some of our other super cool new items in these pieces: Handmade Crown, Little Love Letters, Wood Crowns and Marvelous Maps (this new sheet makes the best backgrounds ever - more on that next week!)

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Oh, I am so obsessed with maps lately. You'll find them appearing in our Inchie Map Charms (that I turned into cute earrings here) and our new Map Charms Mix. I just had to turn the house map charm with "Barcelona" into a charm necklace by adding one of our Pink Water Lilies and a Little Love Letter.

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Dear sweet Inca and Bruno kept me company in my studio while I designed, created and photographed our new collection of art goodies.

They also picked the winner of Lenna Andrews' little assortment of gorgeous art bits from last week: #25 Paula!!! Hooray! : )

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Like I said, I'm map crazy right now...so thought I'd make this special digi freebie for you that includes wonderful little details from a vintage map of England that I have. Hope you enjoy it! : )

Get your free, high resolution digital download by simply emailing blogfreebie@artchixstudio.com.

You're welcome to use this sheet in your personal artwork, jewelry, journals, etc. Or hold onto it for a future project. This item is not for resell though.

See you next week - I'll be sharing some quick tips for playing with our new art goodies! : )

 

 

Get Inspired by...Lenna Andrews

Happy Wednesday creative, caring, crafty chicks! : )

You all delighted and amazed me with your comments naming your favorite things that start with the letter "C." Wow, what fun reading all of them! A big round of applause, you are all so creative and clever! : )

Bruno picked the winner of the awesome ARTchix Studio Collection - Things that Start with "C" that includes clocks, clouds, crowns, chicks, circles, cats, cherry blossoms, and calligraphy. Drum roll please....#41 SUE!

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This week, I'd love to introduce you to my dear friend, Lenna Andrews. She lives in beautiful, sunny Florida. She and her hubby took these photos of her studio to share with us....

And here's Lenna in her beautiful studio. Guess what? It's the largest room in her house - her husband, Steven, insisted she have it for her art. What a guy! : )

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Cuteness alert! Lenna's adorable doggies, Asia and Chloe, love hanging out with her when she's arting away.

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Her work table is filled with beautiful inspiration: collected beach treasures, bronze sculptures by her husband's father, wood curls from her husband's woodworking projects, recently received art gifts and more. Oooh, I spy feathers, more on that later! : )

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Great storage idea! Lenna stores her ribbons and trims in a shoe holder. Fantastic! I spy pink ARTchix ribbon. : )

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Ahh, there's a place for everything! Her rubber stamps are in shallow plastic drawers making them easy to find and grab. This is inspiring me to tackle my bin of rubber stamps which is out of control.

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Art fills her walls and every table surface. Sooo wonderful to see! This wall is specifically for mail art..how cool is that?

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I asked Lenna to make some fun backgrounds so that we could make some special ARTchix art bits. She started by gathering papers and tearing them into little pieces. Great idea!

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Then she worked her collage magic and made this beautiful background.

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She made these gorgeous backgrounds too.

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And voila, presto change-o! My hubby and I have transformed her lovely backgrounds into special, one-of-a-kind art bits: coral branches, green houses and feathers with vintage text. Wow! Get them on etsy now, while you can!

Win this special collection of Lenna's art bits by posting a comment telling me your favorite item in my etsy shop right now.
One of my kitties will pick a winner next week.

C U next week with oh, perhaps a few new ARTchix goodies that may or may not start with the letter "C." Tee hee. : )

Fun Ideas for Painting Clouds

Happy Wednesday! Your forecast for today: cloudy with lots of sunshine. : )

I'm loving our new Puffy Wood Clouds. They're so cute! And they look even cuter with a bit of paint. Let me show you what I've been doing with them...

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First, paint on a coat of gesso (or white acrylic paint would work great too). It just primes the wood and turns it into the perfect base for adding additional layers.

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When I was at Michaels, I picked up this Martha Stewart paint called "Cloud." Well, here it is..."Cloud" painted on a "cloud." lol. It's hard to see in this photo but it's a light grey-blue. It doesn't really excite me but...how 'bout I show you what does? : )

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Check this out! Okay, so, this Puffy Wood Cloud has a layer of white gesso. When it was dry, I selected a few blue shades of watercolor crayon and scribbled them on (darkest shade on the bottom and lightest shade on the top)....leaving a patch of white.

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Then, I blended them with a damp watercolor brush.

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Then, while the watercolor crayon was still wet, I dabbed at it with my paper towel to remove some of it. Just to give it this nice, soft effect. Keep in mind that you can keep wetting the watercolor crayon to move the color around and keep wiping some of it away with a paper towel until you get your desired look. 

Also, watercolor paints and Twinkling H2Os are excellent for this technique too. : )

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How 'bout a cloud with a silver lining? Goldfinger in silver works great - just rub on a bit with your finger, easy peasy.

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And once your clouds are ready, you can add them to your ATCs, cards and just about anything that needs a little puffy goodness. I made this ATC and perched one of our new Lovely Fairies on a cloud.

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Painted Puffy Wood Clouds amidst some of my Handmade Clouds (I've arted them up for you!) on top of a vintage French magazine (we only have a few copies left!)...oh, so pretty!

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Bruno waits patiently while I get everything ready for him to pick the winner of my special Charm Giveaway from last week. First, I add the numbers to the clouds and next I add the treats.

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And Bruno picks #59....Gini Cooper! Congrats Gini, you win my collection of 6 charms. Please email me with your mailing address.

Btw, thank you soooo much for all of your wonderful comments from last week. Your kind words and compliments put me on cloud 9! : )

See you next week with a new, inspiring digi freebie! : )

 

 

Hooray, New Art Goodies + Win Lovely Charms!

Oh happy day! I've got some awesome new art goodies to share with you today! : )

New cute fairies, puffy clouds that I've arted up or DIY clouds, elegant hands (even an ornament to frame your inchies!), colorful butterflies, picket fences, flying bird charms, London doors and more!

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And great news! If you place an order over $25, we'll tuck in an assortment of 3 of my handmade charms. Woohoo! Only while supplies last.

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And just lookie what I have for you today....this lovely background sheet. It's one of the backgrounds I collaged up when I was making backgrounds for my new handmade clouds. It features bits of a London map, old almanac page, Japanese polka dot paper and assorted ephemera. Hope you enjoy playing with it!

Get your free, high resolution digital download by simply emailing blogfreebie@artchixstudio.com.

You're welcome to use this sheet in your personal artwork, jewelry, journals, etc. Or hold onto it for a future project. This item is not for resell though.

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Look at the adorable clouds that were made from this background!

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So cute and puffy, you want to squeeze 'em! lol. : )

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Did you know that you can turn any of our wood items into charms simply by poking a hole in them with an awl?

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And voila! Charms! I made these pretty charms with our fabulous new items. And guess what? In honor of International Charm Day (which is April 28th), I'm giving them away.

You can win this lovely collection of 6 charms by simply leaving a comment here on my blog. One of my kitties will pick a lucky winner next Wednesday.

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Last week, I introduced all of you to my dear friend, Alwen Rambo, and hosted a special giveaway of some of her new art bits in my etsy shop. And the winner is....as selected by kitty Inca...#17 Sandy Alsfasser! Congrats, you win this wonderful collection!

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And last but not least....your Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Inca models her cute kitty "hands" along with our new Wood Hands and Heart Patchwork collage sheet.

Hope you have an awesome week! See you next Wednesday with a quick & easy technique for painting clouds! : )

Isn't that charming?

Happy Wednesday!

My Mom recently sent me this photo...it's a gorgeous necklace that she made for my aunt using some of my handmade charms on etsy. Isn't it amazing?! I totally LOVE it!

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Bruno was quick to point out that I really need to make some more charms for my etsy shop. Okay, I'll get right on that, Bruno! lol. : )

Speaking of charms...did you know that it's International Charm Day on April 28th? I'm planning on putting together a charm tutorial this month to celebrate. And Amber, the wonderful host of International Charm Day, is throwing an online party. Check out her site for details.

Hope you have a wonderful Easter! See you next Wednesday with a special digi freebie! : )

Cute Speckled Egg Ornament

Happy Wednesday! Hope you're having a great week.

Want to know how to make this cute ornament? Check out my new Speckled Egg Ornament Class. I enjoyed making it so much, I can't wait to make more!

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While making this ornament, I had some leftover paint on my palette that I couldn't just wash down the sink. Instead I decided to paint some of envelopes for my etsy shop. Wish I could make these for my ARTchix orders too but I'd need an extra gallon of paint leftover on my palette, lol.

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Inca liked these envelopes too! Here she is sitting on them and doing her impression of Yoda. lol.

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She also really liked these little wood house charms covered in authentic vintage ephemera that I'm listing on etsy today (along with some more new handmade art bits and charms). She put her paw down as if to say, "These are mine!" Such a funny kitty.

See you next week with more fun, creativity and a new digi download freebie! : )

 

it's etsy time! + win handmade eggs

Happy Wednesday! Guess what time it is! It's etsy time!

Lately, I've been completely focused on etsy. I decided to open an etsy shop so that I could have a special place to sell my special handmade art bits and charms. I purchased this book: How to Make Money using Etsy by Timothy Adam. I found this book to be quite helpful...there are some really good tips in there.
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But before I could do anything, I had to make some room. So, I donated several boxes of supplies to a local school. Did you know that many of our schools don't have any budget for art supplies? If you've got an overflowing stash, please consider donating some to a local school. I must tell you that it felt so good to give some of my neglected supplies a good home. And I've already received reports that the students are gobbling up and enjoying all of the supplies that I donated. Yay! : )

See those empty shelves in the background? Now, they're clear and ready for etsy!
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Once the shelves were empty and I had studied up on etsy, it was time to make some items to sell. Etsyians say to build a shop around doing what you love. So, I started painting and collaging backgrounds onto wood. I LOVE making backgrounds...they're so fun and playful and there's nothing like getting my fingers covered in paint.

These little eggs came first. Want to know how I made them? Check out my fun Faux Speckled Egg Background tutorial on Gingersnap Creations. You can also see how I set up my art space for this tutorial.
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I collaged and painted wood panels for days while watching Downton Abbey AGAIN! lol.
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My dear hubby has been cutting up my wood panels into these adorable art bits and charms for my etsy shop. Aren't they soooo cool?! I'm working on taking photos and posting them over the next few days. Everything takes a lot longer than I expected...but that's okay, I'm learning tons along the way.

Lots more to come along with a few surprises. : )

At the moment, I have some of my lovely, one-of-a-kind eggs for sale. Snap 'em up while you can. 

Do you have an etsy shop? Or is there an etsy shop that you adore? Post a comment with your etsy shop name or a favorite etsy shop. One of my kitties will randomly pick a winner that will win a DOZEN of my hand painted and hand collaged eggs! Woohoo!

See you next week with more fun and creativity! : )

List of Inspiration + How to Set an Eyelet

Happy Wednesday! Need a list of visual inspiration?

Last week, I asked you to post a comment with an inspiring movie or mini series that you've seen. (Preferably something historical with beautiful costumes and scenery.) I loved reading all of your recommendations and thought it would be so nice to put them into a list so that we could all enjoy them. Next time you're wondering about what to see, you can consult this handy dandy list. I went ahead and collaged a frame around it with some scraps of epehemera...you know I had to make it pretty! lol.

Get your free, high resolution digital download by simply emailing blogfreebie@artchixstudio.com.

Enjoy the inspiration! And a big "thank you" to all that contributed to this wonderful list.
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Do you remember this cute ornament? I'm embarassed to show you the back but (blushing), do you see how horrible my eyelets look on the back side (pic on the right)?

So, I begged Linda Larsen, dear friend and owner of Objects and Elements, to show us how to set an eyelet properly.
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She happily agreed to show us how to set an eyelet into one of our Wood Tags.

Here's what she said...
You can set an eyelet with very simple tools.  A ball peen hammer and a center punch (aka eyelet setter) is all you need.  Choose an eyelet that fits your hole and extends beyond.  It doesn’t have to be a huge extension especially with wood. If your eyelet is too long you can make it work too. 

Put the eyelet into the hole and lay it face down on a very hard surface.  A bench block is ideal but a smooth concrete floor would work as well. 
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Place the center punch in the hole and lightly tap it with the hammer until you see it start to flare.  
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Ah, I see it's starting to flare!

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Then remove the center punch and use the ball peen (rounded) end of the hammer to very gently tap your way around so it rolls back under.  This is done with taps as you need to move the metal slowly to keep it from splitting.  If the eyelet is especially long you will have to very patiently tap around and around to get it to roll enough to look good in the hole. 
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I like to flip it over and flatten the roundness on the other side to make it look a bit more industrial.

Wow, thank you so much, Linda! This is so helpful. Okay, now I realize that I need to have more patience and slowly hammer the eyelet with the round part of the hammer. Fantastic...now perhaps my eyelets will look good on both sides.
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Kitty Inca was supposed to pick 10 winners for our special Owl Paper Dolls and Owl Collage Sheet
giveaway. BUT she wanted to stay all curled up in a ball. How could I wake her when she looked so cute?

So, instead, I'm going to give a $5 gift certificate to ARTchix  to everyone that shared an inspiring movie or series from last week. Woohoo!!!

By the way, our much coveted Blue Face Owl Beads are back in stock!

See you next week with a sneak peek at my etsy shop that's coming soon! : )

Birds and Eggs Freebie and Somerset Studio Inspiration

Happy Wednesday! : )

I recently received the new issue of Somerset Studio and last night I read it cover to cover. I went to bed with my thoughts racing and realized that I just had to share some of the cool things that caught my eye.

And great news! I've got an extra copy for you! You can win this issue by simply posting a comment here on my blog - tell me what your favorite item is in our delightful Birds shopping section. Bruno, who is shown here bowing to Somerset Studio, will pick one lucky winner next Wednesday.

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The Jan/Feb 2012 issue of Somerset Studio was filled with lots of projects, techniques and ideas surrounding birds, eggs and nests. This intriguing article by Cat Kerr was about playing with gauze and incorporating it into your art. I found myself drawn to the egg in the center of this necklace. Could I make something like that with ARTchix supplies?
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You betcha! I grabbed our new Mini Oval Bezels, Mini Oval Acrylic Bubbles and our E is for Egg collage sheet.

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To get the egg the right size of the bezel, I placed the egg image on top of the bezel and then ran my finger around the inside of the bezel. Then I cut it out.

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Next, I added a bit of Crafter's Pick Ultimate Glue, smeared it around with a skewer for somewhat even coverage, and then I added the egg image. You can see that the egg isn't cut out perfectly but once you add the bubble, it doesn't matter. It hides the edges, phew! By the way, I used the same glue to adhere the acrylic bubble.

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Ta da! these cute eggs are ready to add to collages, ATCs, cards or I might even turn them into decorative pushpins. Fun stuff! I might even have to make something Easter-y with them. : )

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More Somerset Studio inspiration...look at this lovely collage on the left by Connie Freedman. Do you see the patch of blue toile fabric in it? I found myself digging through my fabrics to pull out some of my toiles (the green and red ones on the right). I love toile!!! I bet you'll see them popping up in my art soon. : )

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I am absolutely in love with this collage by Tamara Laporte! She explains how she collages her backgrounds...you know I'm going to have to try that! She also teaches online classes...will definitley have to look into that. I believe several of you recommended her online classes...fantastic!

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I simply must give a shout out to Tascha Parkinson! Love this Frida piece that was published in this issue. I have 2 original paintings by Tascha...I love her art and style!

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The gallery of the Jan/Feb 2012 issue was filled with chartreuse colored artwork. So cool! And seeing as the bird and egg theme was predominant throughout, I decided to whip up a digi freebie for you filled with chartreuse birds and eggs. Hope you enjoy!

Get your free, high resolution digital download by simply emailing blogfreebie@artchixstudio.com.

Enjoy! : ) You're welcome to use them in your personal artwork, jewelry, journals, etc. Or hold onto them for a future project. This item is not for resell though.

See you next week with more fun and inspiration! Don't forget to post a comment telling me what your favorite ARTchix bird item is....you might just win a copy of this incredibly inspiring issue of Somerset Studio!

Hearts Galore & New Digi Freebie: Handmade Backgrounds

Hello dear art friends! Oh, I have some exciting things to share with you this week. : )

Here is a new digi freebie for you! A selection of handmade backgrounds that I made recently.Woohoo!

Get your free, high resolution digital download by simply emailing blogfreebie@artchixstudio.com.

Enjoy! : ) You're welcome to use them in your personal artwork, jewelry, journals, etc. Or hold onto them for a future project. This item is not for resell though.

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Wanna see how I made one of my backgrounds?

I started by getting all of my supplies ready: acrylic paints in red, pink and orange, paintbrush, water and wood as my canvas.

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I loaded up my paintbrush with red paint and dipped it in water just a bit and started painting...leaving lots of empty areas.

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Next, I painted pink paint on in the same manner.

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Then, orange paint with some more strokes of red and pink wherever I saw fit.

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And now the real fun, splattering on lime green paint with my old toothbrush. Oh, how I Iove doing this!

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When the paint was all dry, I sprayed my background with a non-toxic varnish. And with the magic of my dear hubby and his precision cutting tool....these lovely hearts were born! I can't tell you how over the moon I was when I first laid eyes on these hearts! I just knew that I had to share them with you!

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I started thinking about how to package these lovely hearts. I wanted everyone to know that I handpainted them but I couldn't sign every single one, lol. So, another lightbulb moment! I had my dear hubby make me these adorable, tiny wood tags (my hubby will now make them for you too if you'd like)!

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And voila, beautifully packaged handpainted hearts by me!

Guess what?! I've whipped up a basket full of these little gifts and I'm tucking them into every order that's over $25 right now. So, pop on over to ARTchix and see our inspiring new goodies and our Annual Blowout Sale and stock up! : ) Spend over $100 and get free shipping for this week only.

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Last week, I asked you to leave a comment on my blog for a chance to win this beautiful heart rock. Thank you soooo much for all of your sweet comments and great advice for online classes! I had hoped to reply to each of you individually but time totally got away from me. So please know that I read and was tickled by all of your nice notes, thank you! : )

As you can see, I just had to artfully giftwrap this special heart rock. I found this elegant box that used to hold a deck of cards. I couldn't resist adding one of my handpainted hearts to the front of it. The perfect touch. : )

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I tied it up with waxed linen thread and I felt like it needed something else. So, what do ya know...I had my hubby make me these tiny wood tags that say "treasure." Ahhh, now I'll be able to label special gifts properly. : )

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Oh yeah, you probably want to know who the lucky winner is, don't you?! Tee hee! Bruno picked....#14!! Theresa Grdina! Theresa, please email me with your mailing address.

Stop by next week for another fun, creative giveaway! Warning: it may or may not contain hearts, lol. Subscribe to my blog through FeedBlitz and it'll show up in your email box once a week. Easy peasy! : )

 

My New Years Resolutions + Win a Heart Rock

Happy New Year!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! It was nice to spend time with family and friends and dream about the new year. Wishing all of us great things for 2012!

I'm making 3 New Years Resolutions this year. I'm going to share them with you to help keep me on track...

1. Submit! I must submit an article, letter, something/ anything to a magazine, book or online site once a week. I started off with a bang by writing a quick how-to article for Crafts Beautiful UK. I was inspired by a product they featured in their magazine called the Epiphany Crafts Shape Studio Tool. It looked so cool that I snapped one up and it is *awesome*! You can punch out images and give them a clear protective bubble all in one punch.

2. Learn! I must take at least one class online and locally. After teaching an altered book class recently, I've rediscovered my love for teaching. And in order to be the best teacher I can be, I want to take more classes. Have you taken a class online that you would recommend?

3. Photo! I must take a photo every day. Even if it's just Bruno lounging around..lol. Practice is the best way for all of us to improve our skills.

Phew, wish me luck! : )

A big Happy Birthday to my beautiful Mom and best friend! Here we are with the beautiful Bahamas waters behind us. My Mom is a real Martha Stewart, she continually amazes me with her talent and creativity. She knits, makes jewelry, cooks, bakes, collages....and she does it all with incredible style. Love you! : )

In honor of my Mom's birthday, I thought I'd host this special giveaway: this beautiful heart-shaped piece of coral that I found on the beach shown in the photo above. Simply post a comment to this post and my kitty Bruno will pick a winner next week.

Sneak Peek!!! Ooooh, look at these fun goodies that will be available for purchase at ARTchix Studio next week! Crowns, wee little birdhouse charms, vintage goodies (including some documents from the late 1800s!) and more!

Adding Handmade Touches to the Holidays

I'm back from my vacation and wow, Christmas popped up while I was away. The homes in my neighborhood are now all decked out with colorful lights...it's so pretty. It's got me a little freaked out though because now I've gotta get crackin'! Especially because many of my loved ones live far away. So, I've got to make and get their gifts in the mail asap.

I have a very tiny budget for gifts this year so my goal is to make as much as possible. Adding a handmade touch always shows extra love...don't you think?

So, first up is my dear aunt DeeDee. I covered the top of a shoe box with a Christmas Backgrounds sheet and some scrap paper... and attached a shipping tag with some cool black and white stripe tape. Quick, easy and pretty too. : ) Now, let's take a peek at the gifts I'm putting inside...

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My motto is to make it look pretty! Even if it's just something from the dollar store...elevate it to new heights with a pretty wrapping job. : ) Since all of these gifts were going to my aunt, I pulled out some coordinating papers and ribbons from my stash. And then I only let myself wrap gifts with the items on my table. This helped to give them all a cohesive, colorful look.

Do you see the cute pom pom fringe...it's from Martha Stewart and you find it in the knitting aisle at Michaels. You can get big balls of it for cheap. And I just love how it looks!

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A package topper always brightens up a gift. I made this pretty wood ornament in no time at all. Simply cover XL Wood House Tag with favorite white glue (I used Inkssentials Glue n' Seal). Adhere deer image. Then cover with a varnish...I used Glue n' Seal again. Paint XL Wood House frame red and then attach 2 wood pieces together with eyelet. String on ribbon and it's ready! : )

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Okay, I must admit that I have a jar obsession. I hold onto food jars to store beads and baubles in my studio. And I also love using them for creative giftwrap. This was a small spice jar that I covered with decorative tapes. And added a "handmade" wood tag. What's inside? A small collection of decorative pushpins. (quick and easy to make).

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Stencils anyone? I traced a Large Eco Embellishment Cat stencil onto these simple boxes using a black Sharpie marker. Then I colored them in with a black watercolor crayon and blended them with my finger. Then I stenciled on letters too. So quick and easy and cute. : ) Turn a crappy box into happy art in seconds. : )

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Bruno's all wrapped up too! : )

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Just another quick idea: I wrapped this gift with tissue paper. Then cut out this image from our Handmade with Love sheet and taped it down with decorative tape. Pretty and super fast. : )

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Another quick idea...using the same Handmade with Love sheet...I cut out the image and stapled it to a plain shipping tag. It sure brightens up this gift.

I've put most of the products that I mentioned On Sale for you...hope it helps to make your holidays bright. : )

See you next week with more fun holiday creativity, a new free digi download and fun surprise!

What would you like to see on the next free digi download sheet? Would love your input. : )

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American friends and family! Sending you lots of love. Here is a heart shaped piece of coral that I found while hunting for beach treasures (one of my favorite things to do). : )

Holiday Ornament Ideas

Look at this lovely ornament by the talented Lelainia Lloyd! She rubbed a bit of white gesso onto our XL Wood House Pendant to create a shabby chic look. And then added a collection of her incredible photos in the windows. Love it!

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And isn't this ornament by Gena Boone-Curtis super cool? She cut up an aluminum tray from the dollar store, whipped up a collage and adorned it with our Eco Antlers.

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And look at these gothic shrine ornaments by Gena Boone-Curtis. She made the shrines out of recycled thin cardboard pieces. And then added images from our Angels and Madonnas collage sheet. Wow!

Thanks for the glorious ornament inspiration, Lelainia and Gena! : )

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And for your Weekly Dose of Cuteness...just look at my little fuzzy love, Bruno. He likes to squeeze himself into the space between my keyboard and computer screen so that I can give him lots of love while I'm working. : )

Just a note, I'm packing up and going to visit my parents tomorrow. Plus, I'll also be teaching an altered book class while I'm away. So excited! I'm sure I'll have lots of pics to share with you. Not sure when my next blog post will be...I'll pop in and surprise you in the next week or two. : ) Until then, happy arting! : )

Celebrating 10 Years, Mad for Flags and More

ARTchix Studio is 10 Years old, hooray!!!! So happy, proud and extremely grateful. To celebrate, we've got some awesome new goodies for you...everything you need to make your holidays beautiful, unique, and handmade at prices that everyone can afford.

A few of my faves are shown above: Eco Flags (see lots more about them below), Eco Peace Letters, Wood Keyholes (make cool peek-a-boo pendants), Penny Holders (send some money luck to your loved ones this year), Eco Antlers (add them to your holiday photos!) and Long Wood Tags (perfect for adding messages).

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I'm mad for flags lately! We're now offering our Eco Flags in this cute mini size. Doesn't this little garland make this gift sing? To make this little garland, I painted our new Peace, Joy, Wish Letters with white crackle paint. And I covered the Mini Eco Flags with our new Christmas Backgrounds sheet. I strung the flags onto festive trim with our new Large Jump Rings (so easy to use...no tools needed).

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I really enjoyed making this flag. It's a Christmas ornament and gift package topper in one. : ) I covered an Eco Flag with our new Christmas Backgrounds sheet. Then glued on one of our new Wood Branches (LOVE!). Added some vintage sequins and "Merry Christmas" from our Tell Me a Christmas Story sheet. Topped it off with some ribbon and trim and one of our new Wood Shipping Tags that says "handmade".

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Many of my loved ones live far away so I'm always thinking about how to send a card that's a gift too. These flags are perfect for this! They can be a card and ornament in one. I made this flag with scraps from the Christmas Backgrounds sheet, Vintage Dictionary Scraps and a Penny Holder to represent wishes for money luck this year.

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I've made some special flags for you too! We're tucking in all kinds of fun gifts with our orders right now. Get surprised with one of these flags, a Scratch and Win ticket, muse goodie bag and/or treats. It'll be a surprise to see what you get! : )

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For your Weekly Dose of Cuteness, check out little Inca. See how she blocks my way when she wants love while I'm arting. lol. She's blocking an ornament that I made...will be posting a fun, easy class on how to make it on our website as soon as I can.

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I'm absolutely loving all of the art that everyone's been making with my masterboard from last week. Let's continue with it for another week! I'll be posting all of the entries we've received so far on Facebook later today.

Want to make something with my collage? Download a copy and make something with any part of it.  Post your creation to your blog or website (and leave a comment with a link to it) or email it to me at helga@artchixstudio.com by next Tues, Nov. 8. Participants will get a $10 gift certificate to ARTchix. Woohoo!

Get your free, high resolution digital download by simply emailing blogfreebie@artchixstudio.com.

See you next week with a new, awesome digi download! Hint...it may have diamonds (as Pam McKenzie recently mentioned that 10 years = our Diamond Year).

An Altered Book Collage for You

Look what I have for you this week! I'm going to be teaching an altered book class next month so I've been playing in books lately. Sooo much fun! This page spread is devoted to wishing ARTchix Studio a happy 10th birthday next month.

I recently read the new copy of Stampington's Take Ten. They have a feature called Masterboard. Have you seen it? An artist makes a collage, copies it and then adds pieces of it to cards, tags and other projects. Such a great idea!

Want to make something with my collage? Download a copy and make something with any part of it.  Post your creation to your blog or website (and leave a comment with a link to it) or email it to me by next Tues, Nov. 1. Participants will get a $10 gift certificate to ARTchix. Woohoo!

Get your free, high resolution digital download by simply emailing blogfreebie@artchixstudio.com.

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Here's how I made my altered book collages:

First, I rubber stamped the number 10 onto 2 pages in my altered book. I highlighted 2 words that stood out to me with a yellow watercolor crayon: elevate vision.

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Next, I started digging through my drawer of scrap papers. I pulled out some random paper bits that spoke to me...and started cutting them up and placing them on my altered book pages.

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Next, I moved the paper images to the side and painted a layer of white gesso in vertical and horizontal stokes. I was sure to leave some areas without any gesso.

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I pulled out some watercolor crayons in colors that matched my images.

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Then I scribbled the watercolor crayons onto the page, blended them with a damp watercolor brush and then wiped some of the color away with a paper towel.

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When the background was dry, I glued my images into place using a UHU gluestick. Bruno watched as I added the paper "Bruno" into my collage. So cute.

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And here's just a close up of the ARTchix muse with her compass and Eco Chunky Heart. Once the images were all glued into place, I added some final touches with watercolor crayons and Sharpie marker.

Can't wait to see what you make with my collage! : )

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Wishing you a very Happy Halloween!!! This  collage was made by Dianna Rapp (my aunt). Isn't it adorable?

See you next Thursday with a delightful collection of new goodies! : )

 

Sweet & Stylish 10 Minute Handmade Gift

Hey chixies, hope you're having a great week! : ) I must confess that I have been the queen of last minute gifts lately. I had just 10 minutes to pull together a special gift for my friend, Krista, this weekend. So, I made her these stylish earrings using our new Dark Cherry Wood Tags, 1 Hole and Feather Charms.
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I had to find a nice way to display them. Luckily, I had this pretty Watercolor Shrine on hand that I had rubberstamped and painted with Golden's Fluid Acrylics.

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I sewed the earrings onto the shrine and wrote a nice note with a white gel pen.

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Inca acted all coy while Bruno leaned in for a kiss. Aww, how my kitties keep me entertained while I'm arting. : )

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Only a few minutes before we need to head out the door. I add a Mini Eco Chunky Heart that I had painted with lime green to jazz it up. No time for giftwrap so I wrap it up in tissue paper and into a brown bag it goes.

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I add a big "K" for Krista and staple it up and it's ready to go. Phew!

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And here is lovely Krista wearing her new earrings, so cute!!

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I must say that I'm loving our Dark Cherry Wood Labels. They're so chic and elegant and made from sustainable birch. I used the 1 hole to make the earrings for Krista. And then here I used the 2 Hole Labels to dangle Green Leaves...these are aching to be a new pretty pair of earrings. And for the 3 Hole Labels, they'd be awesome as necklace pendants. Learn how easy it is to make these in my new Owl Charms Class.

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Speaking of charms, I whipped up a fresh batch of dazzling charms for you! Order today and spend at least $30 and receive one of these gorgeous charms. I'm including 1 for every $50 that you spend with us. How cool is that?

Hope you have a wonderful, charming week! See you next week with more creative fun and a new digi freebie.

What would you like to see for our next Free Digital Download?

Leave a comment with your idea and if I pick your idea, I'll give you a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

10 Minutes to Make a Birthday Card...Just Breathe

It was my friend's birthday this past weekend and I only had 10 minutes to quickly make her a card. Luckily, I remembered that awhile ago she was looking for a sign that says "breathe." Don't we all need a good reminder to breathe now and then? So, I cut out "breathe" from My Art Challenges collage sheet.

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Okay, now I need a card for my "breathe" label. Luckily, I have some watercolored papers on hand. (Usually when I'm working on a project and I've got leftover paint, instead of tossing it, I'll paint a few pieces of paper.)

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I think this watercolored paper looks nice so I fold it in half and use a bone folder to get the crease all nice and neat.

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Bruno says "Breathe"....only 5 minutes left to do the inside of the card. By the way, I added some watercolor crayon to the edges and highlighted a few areas on the label to give a more cohesive look.

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Nice note on the inside with a Sharpie marker. Check.

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I got my friend a Michaels gift card so I wanted to attach it to the card in a fun way. I stuck it inside a vellum envelope, cut the edge so the card could easily slide in and out...and adhered it to the card with Glue Dots.

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I decide to write "happy birthday" all around the gift card. And I get the bright idea to write her name in red: "Keltie." But OH NO, only 2 minutes left and I messed up! It looks horrible! What's a girl to do???

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Thank goodness for My Art Challenges collage sheet! lol! There's a perfect little scrap on the sheet that I cut out and fits perfectly to cover my mistake. Phew! Then I add her name in glitter sticker letters. Note to self: when in a hurry, use sticker letters for goodness sakes! lol.

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I must say that making this quick card using My Art Challenges collage sheet was so much fun..despite my little mess up. I loved it so much that I want you to enjoy a copy too! So, our Special Gift this Week is a handy dandy sticker sheet of My Art Challenges. Get your copy if your order is over $25 and while supplies last.

What word would you like to see made into a special label?

What word speaks to you, uplifts you and helps you get through the day?

Leave a comment here on my blog with your word. I'll pick some of your words that I enjoy too and will put together some delightful little surprises for you. : )

I heart Crackle Paint

This week, I was inspired by my art friend, the wonderful and talented Kathy Cameron. She recently played with some ARTchix goodies and brought them over for Show & Tell. Here she is with the Eco Classic ATC Accordian Book that she made all ocean-y with a series of ATCs. Isn't it gorgeous?

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Look at the detail of this amazing Eco Seahorse! Love her painting style!

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And look at the beautiful crackle paint finish! Bruno admired it too. Don't you love the way she paired the round window with a Medium Acrylic Bubble and vintage text. So cool!

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She also made these ATCs. Love how she used our Eco Windows as shadowboxes on the ATCs. And you know I love them mini kitties!

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Bruno points out the incredible crackle paint finish.

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Kathy is a crackle paint master! You can purchase some of her gorgeous art in her etsy shop.

Kathy's Handy Dandy Crackle Paint Tips:
1.  When trying to achieve a distressed vintage look, apply crackle paint in random places and corners sparingly.....remember less is more.

2.  To bring out the cracks rub over the dry crackle paint with a medium or dark charcoal pencil.  My favourite colours of crackle paint are Antique Linen and Peeled Paint but who can resist trying them all!!

3.  To create more texture, glob on the crackle paint and let it drip....it looks fabulous!

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After seeing Kathy's beautiful pieces, I couldn't wait to play with crackle paint. So, I painted up a whole bunch of our Eco Windows just for you! See how I made them in my new class: Antiqued Windows.

Special Gift of the Week: Authentic Vintage Sheet Music + 2 of My Antiqued Eco Windows. Place an order for over $25 to receive this special gift tucked inside your order. While supplies last. I've put together 15 of these special gifts...get 'em while you can.

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A cool discovery! Want creepy tombstones for your Halloween ATCs this year? Add crackle paint and charcoal following the easy instructions for my new class: Antiqued Windows.

See you next week with more fun and creativity! : )

Super Cute Butterfly Earrings

I recently came across this photo of my dear Bruno posing with these cute Daisy Charms that I made earlier this year. I simply painted our Wood Daisy Charms (now on sale) with red acrylic paint. Then, I glued black and white images from our Mini Art Bubbles collage sheet to our Mini Acrylic Bubbles...and then I glued them onto the Wood Daisies. For a nice display, I tied them onto our Mini Eco Shape Houses. Seeing these charms inspired these cute earrings...

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These are the supplies that I used to make these fun earrings (x2):
Mini Art Bubbles collage sheet, Mini Acrylic Bubbles, 1/2" Round Photo Charms with 2 Loops, Tiny Crown Charms, Earring hooks, jump ring, beads, head pins and brass wire.

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And here they are! I simply punched out the butterfly image and glued it to the Clear Acrylic Bubble...and then glued it to the Photo Charm. Then I added the earring hooks, wire wrapped the beads and added them and added the Tiny Crown with a jump ring.

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Here I am wearing them so that you can get an idea of their size on a person. Super cute, eh?

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Last week, I announced this great digi freebie for you! My favorite vintage alphabet! Get your free, high resolution digital download by simply emailing blogfreebie@artchixstudio.com. Offer ends next Wednesday morning (July 20).

See you next week with a new digi freebie and more inspiration! : )
 

Awesome Summer New Goodies!

 
Hooray, we've got awesome new art goodies for you! Red Coral, Seahorses, Elephants, Triptychs and Accordion Books (perfect for displaying your ATCs) and more!

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With your order over $30, get this limited edition collage sheet featuring my Summer 2011 Inspiration. (Digital orders will receive this special sheet as a digital download.)

 

My New Obsession: Resin! (Thanks Bead & Button!)

While I was at the amazing Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee, I took a wonderful class on Resin Jewelry from the fabulous Linda Larsen of Objects and Elements. She taught us how to mix Ice Resin and fill photo charms, bezels, frames and molds to make beautiful jewelry. Ice Resin is the perfect way to seal and protect your favorite images and it's so easy to use.

If you're interested in learning how to work with resin, I highly recommend this book: Explore, Create, Resinate by the incredibly talented Jen Cushman. The jewelry pieces in this book are out of this world and the step-by-step photos and instructions are sooo well done and super easy to follow. I LOVE this book!

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While in the class, I made this cool resin piece. Linda Larsen taught us to put packing tape on the back of a frame (this cool little Stage Frame is coming soon to ARTchix), and then add resin, glitter and images (I couldn't resist adding this butterfly). When the resin was dry (approx. 6-10 hours), I applied a touch of Gilders Paste in a lovely color called "Patina" with my just the tip of my finger. I love this look and now I'm dying to carry Gilders Paste in our online shop because it's soo awesome! It's basically like shoe polish in a variety of great colors. For now, you can get it at Objects and Elements.

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Bruno apparently likes Gilders Paste too. lol.

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While at the Bead and Button show, I was so happy to meet the wonderful Diane Hyde of Desinger's Findings in person. She is such a sweetheart! Recently, I designed some beautiful collage sheets (coming soon to her website) to fit her extensive line of metal blanks. She is making the most amazing jewelry with them! Do check her sites out when you can and tell her I said "hi." Be prepared to be blown away by her incredible jewelry!

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On our Facebook Fan Page, I mentioned that I have some wonderful new goodies that I'm dying to show you! BUT due to a postal strike, I'm waiting to post them until I'll actually be able to ship them to you. : )

Gena and Eugenia asked for a sneak peek so here's a little something to tease you with. This is a collection of ATCs that I made with our new seahorses and coral. I am LOVING these new items and can't wait to share them with you! Fingers crossed that I'll be able to share them with you next week. : )

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Not only is Sunday, June 19th, Father's Day....it's also Butterfly Day! So, we're pleased to offer a fantastic selection of our digital Butterfly Sheets at half off! Sale ends June 20th so get 'em while you can! Also, we're including this awesome digital Butterfly collage sheet free with your digital order too! Woohoo!

See you next Thursday with more fun and creativity..and hopefully some beautiful red coral and seahorses too! : )

Feelin' Blue?

Greetings!

The current art challenge is BLUE...which has got me seeing blue everywhere I look. Yesterday, I went around my house and pulled together a few of my treasured blue items...

From my grandmother's blue and white cachepot to the pretty glass heart I purchased years ago in Spain....I just love my blue treasures. Do you have some lovingly displayed blue treasures in your house? Why not take a photo and share it with us on your blog or Facebook?

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With all of this focus on blue, for today's Weekly Dose of Cuteness, I couldn't resist sharing this pic of my adorable kitty Bruno with his spectacular BLUE eyes.

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I must admit that I'm feeling blue today. It's possible that our postal system may go on strike tomorrow which would not be good for ARTchix. I recently stumbled across this vintage sheet music..."Who wouldn't be blue?" My sentiments exactly.

I will see you next Tuesday, June 7, for a bit of fun and creativity before I take off to the Bead and Button show! : )

Special Prezzies from Alaska + Winners + New BLUE Art Challenge

I'm back! I had an amazing cruise to Alaska (see my slide show at the bottom of this page) and while I was there, I couldn't resist picking up a little something for you!

I bought some of this beautiful fiber from Knitting with Class in Sitka, Alaska. And then I put together these fun, little souvenir bags. They include a yard of this beautiful thread wrapped around one of my photos...plus, a sweet Polar Bear Smooch (which is an Alaskan peppermint patty...yum!). I'll be tucking them in the next 10 ARTchix orders that are over $30. Woohoo! So, get yours today while supplies last.

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Announcing Fabulous Winners!

Have you seen the amazing entries for our Postage Stamp Art Challenge? They are awesome! It was tough...but here are my 4 faves: Gena Boone Curtis (cool house on the left), Chris Little (postage stamp lampshade, awesome!), Miss Iowa (collage with cute doggie), and Eugenia Strange (In her mind...collage). Fantastic! All 4 winners will receive $20 gift certificates to ARTchix. Yay!

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We recently hosted a Mini Bird Shrine art swap. And here are the lovely winners...Pamela McKenzie (blue shrine) and Gerri Herbst (pink shrine). Aren't they gorgeous?! Winners will receive fabulous bird-themed goodie bags.

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Fuel Your Creativity!

Here are our current fun, inspiring activities:

Special Art Challenge: Eco Houses. Last month, we included a special art challenge with 100 of our orders. In each art challenge goodie bag, we included an Eco House, Eco Door and Fortune. Now I'm dying to see what everyone makes with them! Post your entry to Facebook or email it to gillian@artchixstudio.com.

This lovely house collage is by Lesley Dupont. She added a Mini Kitty and Gold Renaissance Borders. So pretty!

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Art Swap: Mermaid and Kitty ATCs. Make 6 Artist Trading Cards (2.5" x 3.5" collages) with Mermaids and/or Kitties. Use at least one ARTchix product of your choice (we've got some awesome new mermaids and kitties to choose from). Snail mail to us in ARTchix-land by June 6th.

I made this ATC with our Eco Chunky Mermaids and our Tell Me More collage sheet.

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New Art Challenge: BLUE. I was so inspired by the incredible shades of blue in Glacier Bay, Alaska. Share your art and photos that celebrate the beauty of blue.

How to enter: Post photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, June 6, 2011

Prizes: My kitties will pick winners that will receive exquisite blue-themed goodie bags.

See you next week with more fun and creativity! : )

Happy 40th Birthday to Me = Happy New Art Goodies, Prezzies & Charms!

Happy 40th Birthday to Me!

Oh my gosh, it's my 40th Birthday! Wow, time flies! To celebrate, I've designed some awesome art supplies celebrating some of my favorite things in life: 40 new art supplies to choose from!

Plus, I've picked some of my favorite collage sheets and we're offering them to you at 40% off for a limited time. Yay!

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AND since we're celebrating, we're tucking in 3 gifts with every order over $30. WOW! Yes, 3 gifts, that's right! 1 - chocolate. 2 - super cool art supplies. 3 - surprise art challenge!

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A few lucky peeps will receive my absolute favorite chocolate of the moment - Rogers Salted Caramels. This is how I recommend enjoying them....cut into tiny pieces and savor them. YUMMMMM!

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Fun ARTchix Activities to Fuel Your Muse!

Here's my adorable Bruno posing with my mermaid collection. Seeing this photo inspired our new art swap.....

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Kitties and Mermaids ATCs!

What to make: 6 Artist Trading Cards (2.5" x 3.5" collages) with Mermaids and/or Kitties. Use at least one ARTchix product of your choice (we've got some awesome new mermaids and kitties to choose from). Snail mail to us in ARTchix-land by June 6th.

Jackie McColl made this cool mermaid ATC with our new Eco Chunky Mermaids, Cool Post collage sheet and Turquoise Shell Borders.

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Jump into our current Art Challenge: Recycled Art. Check out these awesome bobby pins using upcycled game pieces by Wendy Wells Waldorf.

Post photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Deadline is Mon, May 2. My kitties will pick winners that will receive awesome goodie bags of our Eco-Friendly Shrines, Doors and Windows.

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Happy International Charm Day! Win Charms!

Today is International Charm Day! Hooray, you can win handmade charms here and on participating blogs!

I made some cute charms by painting our Wood Daisy Charms with red acrylic paint. Then, I glued black and white images from our Mini Art Bubbles collage sheet to our Mini Acrylic Bubbles...and then I glued them onto the Wood Daisies.

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Voila, here they are! Leave a comment on my blog by this Sat, April 30th. My kitty will pick 3 lucky winners that will each receive one of these charms along with a few extra little goodies.

I'm also adding 9 of these charms to our ARTchix orders over the weekend so you can win one that way too! Yay!

Hope you have a great weekend! See you next Wednesday with winners and lots more fun and creativity! : )

 

Happy Green!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hope you're enjoying this wonderful, festive, green time of year! Right now, I'm hosting a green art challenge. Go through your photos and artwork and see if you can share something green with us. We'd love to see!

This awesome photo was submitted by Alice Marie Hertel.

Art Challenge: The beautiful color GREEN. Share your photographs, collages, drawings...anything creative that showcases the color green.

How to enter: Post photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, March 21, 2011

Prizes: My kitties will pick winners that will receive ARTchix green-themed goodie bags.

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Okay, so, it's not a bird shrine...but it sure is an awesome green shrine! By Gena Boone Curtis. : )

Art Swap: Mini Bird Shrines. Make 3 or 6 Mini Gothic Shrines with a Bird theme.

Required ARTchix products: Mini Gothic Shrines (eco or watercolor paper).

For additional art supply ideas, see our Birds Shop By Theme and Eco Embellishments - Mini Birds (sized to fit our Mini Gothic Shrines -  just like the cute mini shrine above).

How to enter: Make and snail mail your mini bird shrines to us by the deadline.

 Deadline: Postmark April 11, 2011 - See our website for mailing info!

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Cute kitty in a little green basket! (Weekly Dose of Cuteness)

Be sure to celebrate the first day of Spring on this coming Sunday! Woohoo! See you next week with more fun and creativity! : )

 

 

Steampunk Winners & Silhouettes

Greetings!

I'm pleased to announce our Steampunk ATC Art Swap Winners! We asked you to vote for the winners and here they are...

1st Place: Gerri Herbst!!! Congrats Gerri, you win a $50 ARTchix shopping spree!

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Honorable Mention: Jill Noblitt!!! Congrats Jill, we will be sending you a goodie bag with some of our new Eco Embellishments.

Well done artists! So happy that we can all continue to enjoy this fun Steampunk art on our Chixies Steampunk collage sheet. : )

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Join the fun! 2 Great Actitivites to Fuel Your Creativity!

This gorgeous painting is by Debbie Bianchi.

Art Challenge: Nature Silhouettes. Share your photographs, collages, drawings...anything creative that shows nature silhouettes.

How to enter: Post photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, March 7, 2011

Prizes: My kitties will pick winners that will receive a surprise gift.

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This fun mini shrine is by Jackie McColl.

Art Swap: Mini Bird Shrines. Make 3 or 6 Mini Gothic Shrines with a Bird theme.

Required ARTchix products: Mini Gothic Shrines (eco or watercolor paper).

For additional art supply ideas, see our Birds Shop By Theme and Eco Embellishments - Mini Birds (sized to fit our Mini Gothic Shrines -  just like the cute mini shrine above).

How to enter: Make and snail mail your mini bird shrines to us by the deadline.

Deadline: Postmark April 11, 2011 - See our website for mailing info!

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Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Bruno With Extra Fluff

I walked into the room and there was Bruno just waking up from his cat nap...little did he know that he had this giant fluff ball on his face! lol

See you next week with more fun and creativity! : )

Happy New Art Goodies & More!

Oh Happy Day! New Art Supplies!

See what's new! Prepare to be totally inspired!!! We've got Gothic Shrines (eco and drool-worthy watercolor paper), Gothic Windows, Gears, Birds, Mona Lisa Paper Dolls, Flip Top Frames with Mini Book Inserts and more!
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Special Free Gift!

Get a brilliant gothic-themed goodie bag with your order! While supplies last....get 'em while you can!

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Art Challenge Inspires New Art Swap!

Our Current Art Challenge is Bird in a Tree (post submissions to your blog or on Facebook by Mon, Feb 21). I've been so inspired by all of the gorgeous photos and artwork that's been posted in Facebook, that I just had to host a new swap that features birds.

Did you know that the sound of birds singing is supposed to be the most comforting sound to a human? So wonderful! Let's make mini shrines for eachother honoring the beauty and greatness of birds.
 
How to Enter: Make 3 or 6 Mini Gothic Shrines with a Bird theme.

Required ARTchix products: Mini Gothic Shrines (eco or watercolor paper). See our Birds Shop By Theme and Eco Embellishments - Mini Birds (sized to fit our Mini Gothic Shrines -  just like the cute mini shrine above).
 
Deadline: Postmark April 11, 2011 - See our website for mailing info!

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Eco Shape Contest Winner + Vote for Steampunk!

We had 333 people vote in our Eco Shape Contest and Claire Selby and her pretty pink valentine is the winner!

We just opened the polls for our Steampunk ATC Swap. Please vote for the winner and enjoy all of the awesome steampunk inspiration! Voting ends Feb. 21 midnight.

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Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Inca

Inca asks, "May I please have a treat...now already?" lol

See you next week with more fun and creativity! : )

 

Hearts Galore!

Heart-y Greetings!

How about a little heart-y inspiration?

This beautiful piece was made by Paula Guhin.

Come play in our current art challenge that celebrates hearts. Share your Valentines with us, take photos of heart shaped objects...anything inspiring and has hearts.

How to enter: Post photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, February 7, 2011

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Heart-y Swap!

After making your valentines this year, how about holding onto your scraps and leftovers and playing in our new swap: Sweetheart ATCs. Or get our awesome Sweetheart Goodie Bag and you'll have everything you need to play in this fun swap. I made this pretty ATC using our Sweetheart Goodie Bag.

ART SWAP: Sweetheart ATCs

How to enter: Make 6 Artist Trading Cards (2.5" x 3.5" collages) with a Sweetheart theme and at least one ARTchix product per collage. Don't miss our Sweetheart Goodie Bag!

Deadline: Postmark Tuesday, March 1, 2011

More details will be posted on our website later today.

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Heart-y Cuteness!

I heart MoMo!

See you next week with more fun, creativity and our Eco Shape Contest Finalists!

 

Snowy Goodness & Cuteness

Greetings! It's Time to Toot My Horn!

You'll find an interview with me in the new issue of Smart Zine published by the talented Kimberly Moore. Woohoo!

Copies are for sale on her blog: www.mosart1.blogspot.com. I can't wait to see this issue! I'm sure it will be totally inspiring!

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Snowy Goodness

There's still time to play in our current Art Challenge: SNOW. Take a photo, make a collage, draw...anything you'd like that celebrates the beauty of snow. For oodles of inspiration, check out all of the awesome snow-iness on Facebook.

Don't ya just love this photo by Jodi Ohl? Wow!

How to enter: Post photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, January 24, 2011

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Play with Eco Shapes

Our Eco Shapes are so much fun to art up. Check out our lovely first submission to this exciting contest....

A beautiful Valentine-y flag by Linda Kunsman!

What to Make: Art up our Eco Shapes until your heart's desire. Collage, draw, paint on them...the possibilites are endless.

How to Enter: Email photos of your altered Eco Shapes to Helga. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: February 1, 2011

Prizes: Helga will pick her favorite 10 entries and ask everyone to vote for the winner. The lucky winner will receive an incredible ARTchix prize package valued at over $100!

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Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Puzzled Kitties

We've been in the process of closing our warehouse and moving all of our operations back into our house. So, that's meant quite a bit of activity in our house. The kitties keep asking me, "Are you done moving stuff around yet?" lol.

See you next week for more fun and creativity! : )

 

Huge Moving Sale, Poppies & More!

HUGE MOVING SALE!!!

We are having a Huge Moving Sale this week! We've got over 100 fabulous products on sale at 40% off for you! You'll find beautiful collage sheets, German Scrap, charms, ribbons and more! Get them while you can! Sale ends Jan. 12th.

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ARTchix in Somerset Studio, woohoo!

Have you seen the new issue of Somerset Studio?! The 4 clip art pages in the middle were designed by yours truly. Hooray! In celebration of the beautiful poppy theme, I have 2 new poppy sheets for you...

Colorful Poppies and Poppy Bubbles!

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Current Art Challenge: Make Something with Your Old Calendar!

A new year means a new calendar...but what will you do with your old calendar? How about making something with it? : )

Cindy McMath made this gogeous collage using her old calendar. LOVE it!!!

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I tried to make something with my old calendar too but it's just not workin' for me yet. Even Bruno turned his little fuzzy kitty britches at it. lol.

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MoMo even stepped on it and asked me what I was doing. lol. Okay, the cats have spoken...back to the drawing board!

ART CHALLENGE: Kick off the year with a fun, creative project. Make something with your old calendar.

How to enter: Post photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, January 10, 2011

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Get Your Steampunk On!

Kick off the new year with a fun art swap!

Steampunk ATCs by Jill Noblitt

ART SWAP: Steampunk ATCs

How to enter: Make 6 Artist Trading Cards (2.5" x 3.5" collages) with a Steampunk theme and at least one ARTchix product per collage. See our Steampunk shopping section for a great selection to choose from.

Deadline: Postmark January 17, 2011

Prizes: Everyone will vote for the winner of a $50 gift certificate to ARTchix.

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New Special Contest!

I'm totally in love with our Eco Shapes! Once you start playing with them, you will be too! Show me what you can do with them, I'd love to see!

What to Make: Art up our Eco Shapes until your heart's desire. Collage, draw, paint on them...the possibilites are endless.

How to Enter: Email photos of your altered Eco Shapes to Helga. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: February 1, 2011

Prizes: Helga will pick her favorite 10 entries and ask everyone to vote for the winner. The lucky winner will receive an incredible ARTchix prize package valued at over $100!
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Happy Birthday Mom!

It's my Mom's birthday so I couldn't resist sharing this cute photo of my Mom and I. Wishing my beautiful, talented, inspiring Mom a very happy birthday!

See you next week with more fun and creativity! : )

 

 

Happy New Year & Winners Woohoo!!

Happy New Year!!!

Hope you had a wonderful holiday and are ready for 2011! A new year always fills me with so much hope and excitement. A new year also means a new calendar. So, what are you going to do with your old 2010 calendar? How about making something with it?

NEW ART CHALLENGE: Kick off the year with a fun, creative project. Make something with your 2010 calendar.

I'm thinking about cutting out some images and quotes from my 2010 calendars and collaging the cover of an art journal for 2011. I'll show you what I end of making next week.

How to enter: Post photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, January 10, 2011

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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6 HOLIDAY WINNERS, WOW!!!

Over the holidays, we hosted 3 fun holiday contests: Cute Holiday Pets, Favorite Holiday Traditions and Artful Giftwrapping. For each contest, I picked a winner and my kitty Inca picked a winner so we have 6 lucky winners to announce. Each winner gets a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix, woohoo!

Cute Holiday Pets Contest Winner (chosen by Helga): Alice Marie Hertel's adorable Dieter

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Cute Holiday Pets Contest Winner (chosen by kitty Inca): Robbye Lossing's cute kitty

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Artful Giftwrapping Contest Winner (chosen by Helga): Louise Zuzu Crosbie's altered brown bag and matching tag (wow!)

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Artful Giftwrapping Contest Winner (chosen by kitty Inca): Rachel Fox's giftwrap with children's handprints on tags (sweet!)

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Favorite Holiday Traditions Winner (chosen by Helga): Gerri Herbst with her awesome Rudolph display

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Favorite Holiday Traditions Winner (chosen by kitty Inca): Diane Gozur Stanley and her beautiful Christmas table setting

Congrats everyone! Please email me with your email address. : )

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Get Your Steampunk On!

Steampunk ATCs by Angie Miller

Kick off the new year with a fun art swap!

ART SWAP: Steampunk ATCs

How to enter: Make 6 Artist Trading Cards (2.5" x 3.5" collages) with a Steampunk theme and at least one ARTchix product per collage. See our Steampunk shopping section for a great selection to choose from.

Deadline: Postmark January 17, 2011

Prizes: Everyone will vote for the winner of a $50 gift certificate to ARTchix.

See you next week with more fun and creativity! : )

 

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!!!

Need some lovely holiday images for your last minute gifts and tags? Digital downloads of all of our holiday images are now available.

Looking for unique, arty stocking stuffers? Enjoy our great selection at 40% off!

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Special Blog Giveaway - WINNER!

Last week, I asked everyone to leave a comment on my blog with what they're making for the holidays. I really enjoyed reading what you're all up to. So many great handmade gifts! I had my kitty Inca pick a winner and she chose....

Kelly Burton! Kelly wins these cute kitty earrings, hooray! : )

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Share your Holiday Spirit! Enjoy our Holiday Contests!

We have 3 fun contests for the holiday season:

SPECIAL PHOTO CONTEST: Cute Holiday Pets

Show off your adorable pets in santa hats, nestled amongst your holiday decor, popping out of holiday stockings, etc. This adorable kitty is from Robbye Lossing.

How to enter: Post your cute holiday pet photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, December 27, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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NEW PHOTO CONTEST: Favorite Holiday Traditions

This cool gingerbread house is from Diane Gozur Stanley. Every year, she participates in a gingerbread house-making holiday party. What a great idea!

How to enter: Post your photos of some of your favorite holiday traditions online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, December 27, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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NEW BLOG ART CHALLENGE: Artful Giftwrapping

One of my favorite things about the holidays is wrapping gifts. I received this delightful stack of presents from Jackie. I love how she put my inital on each one and included a cute pink kitty ornament on top.

How to enter: Post photos of your creative giftwrapping online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, December 27, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Happy Holidays!!!

This awesome collage is by the uber-talented Belinda Schneider.

Wishing you a wonderful, art-filled, love-filled, laughter-filled holiday season! See you on Wed, Dec. 29th when I will announce the winners to our fun holiday contests. Woohoo!

Holiday Gift #6: Paper Dolls and More

Holiday Gift Idea #6: Paper Dolls

Each week, I'm going to be featuring a little gift idea to get us inspired and excited about the holidays. My focus will be on gifts that are arty, meaningful and inexpensive.

I love paper dolls!! These fun paper dolls are on my bulletin board and I was lucky enough to receive them all in a past ARTchix swap. Can you see the one in the lower left... she's holding my kitty Bruno. When you make paper dolls, you can add special embellishments and photos to personalize them.

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Paper dolls are super easy to mail (just put them in an envelope) and you can add a loop at the top to turn them into a cute holiday ornament. Jackie McColl made this awesome one with our Holiday Paper Dolls sheet and paper drink umbrellas.

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When mailing your paper dolls, how about arting up your envelopes with our fun paper doll sticker sheets: Lovely Labels, Glamorous Labels, Alphabet and Numbers.

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Great Gift Wrap Idea!

Here's a great idea for turning gift cards into special gifts:

Recently, Jackie wanted to give her daughter a gift card to Old Navy. So, she arted up one of our cardboard houses and stuck the card inside. Great idea! There's no wrapping to throw away, instead the gift wrap is a piece of art to keep and display. How cool is that?!

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ARTchix Art Swap Update: Charms!

We hosted a wonderful charm swap and I wanted to let you know that the swap returns are being mailed to all participants this Friday, October 29. Hooray! I'll be posting my 10 favorites on our website next week and will ask you to vote for the winner at that time.

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Fun Contests, Woohoo!

We have 2 contests that will be ending on Monday, November 1. So, in between all of your Halloween festivities, stretch your creative wings with these fun contests:

Blog Art Challenge: Halloween Art. Are you making cards, gifts, decor items and/or costumes for Halloween? Share your fun Halloween art with us.

Heather Evans Holbrook made these awesome Halloween soldered pendants. Love 'em!

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, November 1, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Photo Contest: ORANGE! The leaves are turning orange, pumpkins are sprouting up...orange is all around us. Take photos of anything inspiring that celebrates the color orange.

Barb Glasier submitted this beautiful photo of orange Fall leaves. Gorgeous!

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, November 1, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Inca Gets Nosey

Inca loves to get all nosey whenever I'm at my art desk. What a cutie pie!

She also picked the winner of our last question: What are your ideas for our desktop shrines? She picked Gerri Herbst who said, "I would make my desktop shrine look like an icon...with lots of gold, german scrap borders and one simple colorful image then add words to live by." Love this idea, Gerri! You win a $10 gift certificate, yay.

See you next week for more fun and inspiration! : )

Holiday Gift #5: Easy to Mail Shrines and More

Holiday Gift Idea #5: Easy To Mail Shrines

Each week, I'm going to be featuring a little gift idea to get us inspired and excited about the holidays. My focus will be on gifts that are arty, meaningful and inexpensive.

I'm just in love with our new Desktop Shrines made out of masonite (so they're nice and sturdy). They're so fun to decorate and they look so cute displayed around the house.

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And they're perfect for mailing as a special, little gift to loved ones this year. You can attach one to the front of a card, tuck it into an envelope and pop it in the mail. Easy peasy!

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Check out this beautiful desktop shrine made by Pamela McKenzie!

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Another beautiful one by Pam! The lovely background papers are from our Dreamy Shrines collage sheet (perfectly sized to fit our Desktop Shrines). The lovely Asian woman is from our Asian Delight collage sheet.

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And another gorgeous one by Pam! Love the Mini House Frame!

What are your ideas for our Desktop Shrines?
Post your answer to our Facebook page or post a comment here on my blog with your idea and you could win a $10 gift certificate to ARTchix Studio.

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DreamBoxes - More!

Last week, Eco Shapes were featured as our holiday gift idea. I made these pretty flags with charms attached for our recent charm swap:

I simply painted the backgrounds on the Eco Shape Flags, glued on our Butterfly Muse, punched holes and added Rayon Ribbon. Then, I made the charms by adding Diamond Glaze on top of our Colorful Vintage Buttons sheet and Butterfly Muse. And finished them off with cute, colorful Mini Dice Beads.

By the way, last week, we asked for your ideas for our Eco Shapes. So many great ideas! My kitty Bruno picked Amber Mann McLean as the winner. Amber said, "I see mini books, wall hangings, ornaments...***sigh*** LOTS of good things, lol!" Great ideas, Amber! You win a $10 gift certificate to ARTchix. Please contact me with your email address.

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Fun Contests, Woohoo!

We have 2 contests going on right now to stretch your creative wings....

Blog Art Challenge: Halloween Art. Are you making cards, gifts, decor items and/or costumes for Halloween? Share your fun Halloween art with us.

Gena Boone-Curtis made this awesome pumpkin and then decided to paint it's portrait! How cool is that?!

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, November 1, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Photo Contest: ORANGE! The leaves are turning orange, pumpkins are sprouting up...orange is all around us. Take photos of anything inspiring that celebrates the color orange.

I'm just in love with this orange Parisian brasserie photo! Well done Kathy Kalange McElroy!

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, November 1, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Weekly Dose of Cutenss: Fuzzy Bills

Bruno decides to nest on our bills and get them all fuzzy. lol.

See you next week for Holiday Gift Idea #6 and more delightful inspiration! : )

 

Holiday Gift #4: Eco Shapes and More

Holiday Gift Idea #4: Eco Shapes

Each week, I'm going to be featuring a little gift idea to get us inspired and excited about the holidays. My focus will be on gifts that are arty, meaningful and inexpensive.

Our Eco Shapes are made out of recycled chipboard. Art them up and turn them into great little gifts like ornaments, tags and more. Currently, we have these 6 shapes available: Tents, Gothic Arches, Houses, Mini Houses, Flags and Mermaid Tails.

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How about wrapping a gift and including a collaged eco shape mini house as the pretty gift tag on top?

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How about collaging an Eco Shape House as a holder for a beautiful necklace (Now back in stock, yay!)?

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Or how about making a holiday card and attaching an Eco Shape Flag to the front? The lucky recipient can take it off the card and hang it on their tree as a special ornament.

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Or how about making a little festive garland of Eco Shape Mini Houses and tucking them inside a card as a special gift?

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Or how about making a special book of quotes using our Eco Shape Kit? Such a wonderful gift! Don't miss our Beautiful Garland Kit too!

For our Holiday Gift Swap, making little ornaments or banners with our Eco Shapes would be excellent. Please note that our Holiday Gift Swap is due in the mail on Mon, Oct. 18. You won't want to miss this fun swap! We're going to open the gifts all together in December. Will be so much fun! : )

What are your ideas for our Eco Shapes?
Post your answer to our Facebook page or post a comment here on my blog with your idea and you could win a $10 gift certificate to ARTchix Studio.

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DreamBoxes - More!

Last week, DreamBoxes were featured as our holiday gift idea. Donna Parker made this incredible Frida Kahlo DreamBox that I just had to share....

Isn't it incredible?!

By the way, last week, we asked for your ideas for our DreamBoxes. So many good ideas! My kitty Bruno picked Lita Hegemier as the winner. Lita's great idea was to make "little shrines to places I've been to keep them close to my heart, with a photo and small momentos (teeny bottle of sand from Tahiti, etc.). Then my trips would never have to end!" Fantastic idea, Lita! You win a $10 gift certificate to ARTchix. Please contact me with your email address.

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Fun Contests, Woohoo!

We have 2 contests going on right now to stretch your creative wings....

Blog Art Challenge: Halloween Art. Are you making cards, gifts, decor items and/or costumes for Halloween? Share your fun Halloween art with us.

Kathy Anderson made this awesome, haunted house collage.

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, November 1, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Photo Contest: ORANGE! The leaves are turning orange, pumpkins are sprouting up...orange is all around us. Take photos of anything inspiring that celebrates the color orange.

These delightful gourds were photographed by Barbara Asselin-Lang at the grocery store. Cool!

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, November 1, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Inca

Inca is hoping that if she stares at me long enough, I'll stop working and feed her. lol.

See you next week for Holiday Gift Idea #5 and more delightful inspiration! : )

 

Holiday Gift #3: DreamBoxes and Lots More

Holiday Gift Idea #3: DreamBoxes

Each week, I'm going to be featuring a little gift idea to get us inspired and excited about the holidays. My focus will be on gifts that are arty, meaningful and inexpensive.

Making a special shrine for a loved one is a wonderful gift.

I am lucky to have this beautiful wall of DreamBox shrines. Some of them I've made myself while others have been special gifts from friends. Some of them are meaningful and celebrate important thoughts and ideas...others are just really pretty.

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These little DreamBox shrines are perfect for making a little shrine that can sit by your computer (they have a stand and a loop attached to the back). Or you can hang them as a little ornament. Don't miss our helpful and inspiring classes: Frame Your Inchies and Beautiful DreamBoxes.

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This gorgeous DreamBox with Doors was made by Mary Wilkins. This would look perfect in my ocean-themed bathroom. : ) She painted the tin with alcohol inks...isn't it gorgeous?!

I'm excited to announce that our new shipment of DreamBoxes with Doors have stands on the back for easy table top display, yay! : )

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Rosie Radcliffe made this beautiful Heart DreamBox. I love how she painted the tin with bright acrylic paints. And our Art Fairy attached to the glass on the door looks so cool!

All of our DreamBoxes are handmade by a family in Mexico. They're perfect for painting up and making a special, handmade gift for a loved one. Add a special note, quote or message to brighten their day everytime they look at it.

For our Holiday Gift Swap, making some Mini DreamBox ornaments sure would be awesome!

What would you like to make with our handmade DreamBoxes?
Post your answer to our Facebook page or post a comment here on my blog with your idea and you could win a $10 gift certificate to ARTchix Studio.

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Altered Clothespins - More!

Last week, altered clothespins were featured as our holiday gift idea. I made a birthday gift for a friend....

I collaged an Eco Shape Flag for the card and attached it to the gift bag with an altered clothespin that has her inital on it. So fun!

Speaking of fun...last week, we asked for your ideas for altered clothespins. So many good ideas! My kitty Bruno picked Kristin Wetstine Chadwick as the winner. Kristin's great idea was to make them mini people with little paper &/or fabric outfits. Maybe even crochet some things to accessorize them. Fantastic idea, Kristin! You win a $10 gift certificate to ARTchix.

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More WINNERS!!!

I have 4 more lucky winners to announce.....

For the Blog Art Challenge of making something with our current free gift, I picked Marion Bockelmann as the winner (left) and kitty Bruno picked Sandra McKenzie's house above his head. Hooray! Marion and Sandra each win $20 gift certificates!

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For our Photo Contest of Shrines, I picked Lene Kjeldsen's beautiful shrine from Bali on the left. And kitty Bruno picked Mary Jane Chadbourne's amazing shrine that she made on the right. It even includes one of our Mini DreamBoxes inset near the top. Incredible! Congrats to Lene and Mary Jane, you both win $20 gift certificates!

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New Contests to Jump In To, Woohoo!

We have 2 new contests to stretch your creative wings....

Blog Art Challenge: Halloween Art. Are you making cards, gifts, decor items and/or costumes for Halloween? Share your fun Halloween art with us.

Sanna Burgess made this awesome Halloween Gothic Arch featuring images from Where the Witch Is collage sheet.

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, November 1, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Photo Contest: ORANGE! The leaves are turning orange, pumpkins are sprouting up...orange is all around us. Take photos of anything inspiring that celebrates the color orange. I took a photo of these peppers in the grocery store because I fell in love with their bright colors.

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, November 1, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Orange Doggies

My wonderful, sweet dog Stella is on the left. She weighs about 60 pounds. Recently, we ran into this tiny little puff ball on the right and I think she weighs close to 15 pounds. They looked soooo cute together! Stella and her little Mini Me. Hmmm...now I want one. lol. : )

See you next week for Holiday Gift Idea #4 and more delightful inspiration! : )

 

Holiday Gift Idea #2: Clothespins & More

Holiday Gift Idea #2: Altered Clothespins

Each week, I'm going to be featuring a little gift idea to get us inspired and excited about the holidays. My focus will be on gifts that are arty, meaningful and inexpensive.

Altered clothespins are a wonderful gift to give!

You can find clothespins in a variety of sizes from Michaels craft stores or even your local dollar store. And what can you use them for? Well, hanging up artwork and papers of any kind. They're also great for closing a chip bag. They can be cute ornament holders on your holiday tree this year. Or how about adding a magnet to the back and putting one on your fridge to display your grocery shopping list?

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How about Halloween clothespins? Jackie made these spooky clothespins following our Altered Clothespins class and using Nature Silhouettes transparency, Enchanted Bones transparency, Wicked Mix collage sheet, Black Glass Birds, Handmade Hand Charms, Irridescent skull beads, Purple Metal Roses and Orange Mini Donuts.

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Jackie even decorated the back side too! Wow! The skeleton transparency looks extra cool!

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I think one of my favorite ways to use altered clothespins is to put them on the top of gifts to hold the card. I made these pretty clothespins as a gift for a friend....they feature some of the memorable places we enjoyed in San Francisco together.

Making a set of 3 or 5 clothespins in a theme is a really nice, thoughtful, inexpensive gift. : ) How about making some for our Holiday Gift Swap? : )

What are some good ideas for Altered Clothespins?
Post your answer to our Facebook page or post a comment here on my blog with your idea and you could win a $10 gift certificate to ARTchix Studio.

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 Little Wood Houses- MORE!

With all of the talk about our Little Wood Houses, Jackie got inspired to make these adorable houses for her sister's nursery. She's having twins named Peyton and Piper and her nursery is apricot and black. So, Jackie made these as a special gift for her. Aren't they wonderful?!

ARTchix supplies: Little Wood Houses, Handmade Mini Alphabet, Mini Plastic Flags, Mini Party Flags, Glass Heart Charms, Brass Butterfly Charms and Mini Dice Beads.

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Have a Creative Weekend - Play in our Contests!

We've got 2 fun contests that are ending this coming Monday:

Have you seen inspiring shrines in your travels? Or have you made a cool shrine recently? Let's inspire eachother with our shrine photos. Alyssa Hernandez made these incredible shrines, love them!!!

Photo Contest: Inspiring shrines that you've seen or made

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, October 4, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Make a piece of art with our current free gift and enter to win a $20 gift certificate! Simply make something creative with it by October 4th and post it online, to our Facebook Fan Page OR email it to Gillian.

Our current gift with purchase is on the left and Jackie made the cool house with it on the right. Love it!

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Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Bruno Picks a Winner

Bruno loves to sit in front of my keyboard and shine his big blue eyes on me until I pet him. With him sitting so sweetly, how can I resist giving him lots of love?

Bruno picked the winner for our question: What would you like to make with our Little Wood Houses? He chose Paula Akers with her desire to make little wood houses decorated like her dream studio and placed on or near a piggy bank to keep her goal in mind. Great idea Paula! Your prize package will be sent to you ASAP.

See you next week for Holiday Gift Idea #3 and more delightful inspiration! : )

 

Holiday Gift Idea #1: Little Wood Houses & More

Holiday Gift Idea #1: Little Wood Houses

Each week, I'm going to be featuring a little gift idea to get us inspired and excited about the holidays. My focus will be on gifts that are arty, meaningful and inexpensive.

MoMo has jumped in to introduce gift idea #1...

Roar! It's Godzilla MoMo! lol. And what is at her feet...why a village of little wood houses!

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So, where did the idea for the little wood houses come from? When I read the May/June 2010 Issue of Cloth Paper Scissors, there was this great article by Lisa Kesler. In it, she mentions how to cut wood shapes into houses and print on them. It's fantastic!

I'm not really tool-friendly, so I asked a woodworking friend of mine if he could make me some wood houses. He mentioned that there's tons of scrap pieces of wood at his job that they normally throw away. Lightbulb! And that's how our Little Wood Houses were born.

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Our Little Wood Houses are made using wood scraps so they're all unique. They are also sanded for you so that you can jump straight into painting them.

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You can paint directly on them with acrylic paints. Or you can paint gesso first. It's really only a matter of preference. Here, I painted on gesso and then tried one of these Acrylic Dabbers from Michaels Craft Stores. Fun!

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Then I glued on an image from our Good Girls Gone Bad collage sheet. And added dots of glitter using Martha Stewart's glitter glue (which is excellent!) and the word "hope." I decided to turn this little wood house into an ornament by wrapping trim around it and gluing it down. Any ribbon or trim could work for this.

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To gift wrap my house ornament, I put it in a cello bag with some pretty butterfly confetti. And tied it with a tag that I made using the same image from Good Girls Gone Bad. What a nice, thoughtful, arty, inexpensive gift. : )

It would be great to make some of these for our Holiday Gift Swap. : )

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Or how about making Haunted Houses for Halloween?! They look so cute grouped together as a little village. Jackie arted them up with our new Windows and Doors, Tiny Frames, Halloween Backgrounds, Halloween Inchies, Enchanted Bones, Witch Style, Witching Hour and Heart and Home collage sheets.

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Jackie even decorated the backs! Soo cool! Look at my sweet Bruno in the center from our Party Flags collage sheet, so cute, I'm keeping this one! : )

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And check this out, Jackie made a Steampunk-inspired Cuckoo clock! How cool is that?!

ARTchix supplies: Totally turquoise, Dreamy Shrines, Mini Frames and Steampunk Goodie bag and Little Wood Houses.

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Cindy McMath made some beautiful houses too! She painted her houses with acrylic paints and then rubber stamped them with black Staz-on ink. Love this idea! 

ARTchix supplies:Windows and Doors, Mini Ancestors, Halloween faux post, and Dreamy Shrines

What would you like to make with our Little Wood Houses?
Post your answer to our Facebook page or post a comment here on my blog and you could win a prize package of Little Wood Houses and 2 coordinating collage sheets: Dreamy Shrines and Heart and Home.

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Stretch your Creative Wings - Play in our Contests!

We've got 2 fun contests going on right now:

Make a piece of art with our current free gift and enter to win a $20 gift certificate! Simply make something creative with it by October 4th and post it online, to our Facebook Fan Page OR email it to Gillian.

Our current gift with purchase is on the left and Jackie made the cool house with it on the right. Love it!

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Have you seen inspiring shrines in your travels? Or have you made a cool shrine recently? Let's inspire eachother with our shrine photos. Louise Zuzu Crosbie shared this incredible shrine with us and it's in her home town of Roslin, Scotland. So cool!!!

Photo Contest: Inspiring shrines that you've seen or made

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, October 4, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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WINNERS!!!

We asked you to vote for the winner of our Butterfly ATC Art Swap and you picked....Drum roll please...

PAMELA MCKENZIE!!! Woohoo, congrats Pam! You win a $50 shopping spree to ARTchix Studio!

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And for this swap, I want to give away a prize to second place:

MARION BOCKELMANN! Congrats Marion! You win a $20 shopping spree to ARTchix!

What a wonderful art swap! The swap return packages will be in the mail by the end of this week. Enjoy! : )

See you next Wednesday for inspiring Holiday Gift Idea #2 and lots more inspiration! : )

Current Fun Activities to Jump In To + Sneak Peek

Oh Happy Day!

Jump into ARTchix Studio's Fun Activities to fuel your muse!

Cathie Salvo made this pretty collage using popsicle sticks as the frame. Great idea, Cathie! What can you make with popsicle sticks?

Blog Art Challenge: Make something creative using a popsicle stick. A cute stick puppet, an artistic plant marker, an ATC on a stick...so many ideas. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

How to enter: Post your popsicle stick art online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post it to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email it to Gillian and she will post it for you.

Deadline: Monday, September 13, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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One of Paula Boyd-Farrington's favorite Summer activities is picking and enjoying avocados from her backyard in the lovely Bahamas. Can you say YUM??!!!

Photo Contest: What are some of your favorite Summer activities?

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, September 13, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Gerri Herbst made these awesome domino pendants for our upcoming Charms and Pendants swap. Love 'em! Come play in our fun and fabulous art swap! Make 6 charms or pendants using any ARTchix item of your choice and mail them to us by September 20th. 

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Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Sleeping & Shedding Inca

Fall is fast approaching which is good news in our house..there will be lots less shedding by my adorable kitties. Phew!

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Sneak Peek into Next Wednesday

See you next Wednesday, September 15th, for gorgeous new products and inspiration and oodles of prize winners! Woohoo!

Charms, Summer Activities and Cuteness!

ART LOTTERY WINNER, woohoo!!

We recently hosted an Art Lottery and asked everyone to make turquoise, red and/or silver charms. My kitty, Inca, picked the lucky winner....

Narah Arrington Minardi! Narah wins the all of the charms that were made for this art lottery, hooray! Check out Facebook later today....we made a cute video showing Inca picking the winner.

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CHARM FEVER!

I've got charm fever! Ever since making Shrinky Dinks, I've been hooked and want to make charms and put them on everything! Including, these birthday gifts that I just wrapped up for my sister-in-law:

I attached charms to the top of her birthday gifts...and even a Shrinky Dink with our Pretty Flower Post to her card. What a nice idea to give charms to your loved ones that adore jewelry. I'm thinking I might make this a tradition and this can be the start of her charm collection.

By the way, I wanted to mention that the original birthday card was a little boring so I collaged it up to make it match her gifts. This was a good reminder to not be afraid to art up and alter existing greeting cards.

Are you itching to make some charms too? Come play in our Charms and Pendants Swap. Make 6 charms and/or pendants with any ARTchix item of your choice. Deadline to get them in the mail to me is September 20th.

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TURQUOISE INCHIES, OH YEAH!

Our current Blog Art Challenge is to make inchies (1" square collages) with the color turquoise. Check out this beautiful card that Cindy McMath made. It features our Under the Sea collage sheet.

Blog Art Challenge: Make one or more inchies (1" square collages) with turquoise. Have fun with this...feel free to add your inchies to an ATC or anything you like if desired. Or simply submit one single inchie. It's all good...just play and have fun....see where your muse takes you.

How to enter: Post your inchies online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you.

Deadline: Monday, August 30, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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NEW PHOTO CONTEST: FAVORITE SUMMER ACTIVITIES

One of my favorite Summer activities is going to the farmer's market, getting yummy berries and Summer fruits and baking them up into delicious crisps and crumbles. Here I made a tastey plum skillet cake.

Photo Contest: What are some of your favorite Summer activities?

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, September 13, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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WEEKLY DOSE OF CUTENESS

Awww, my fuzzy angel! Doesn't he look like he should have a little halo over his head? Tee hee. If you look in the background, you can see my gorgeous garland that holds flags from our recent flag art swap. I'm totally in love with it! Thank you chixies! : )

New Goodies, Crazy for Shrinky Dinks, Charms & More!

Great news! New Goodies and Free Gifts!!! Woohoo!!

I'm excited to announce that we have some new gorgeous art supplies to brighten your creative playtime! You can find a few of my favorites in this photo: Halloween Backgrounds, Allison Strine's Handmade Inchie Alphabet, Vintage Optometrist Lenses, Glass Birds and a colorful array of my flower photos in Pretty Flower Post. Enjoy! : )

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New Special Gift! Guess what Jackie and I have made for you?!! Shrinky Dink charms!!! Yes, that's right, for every $50* you spend with us, we'll include a fantastic goodie bag of 5 assorted Shrinky Dink charms for you. You're going to love them!!! I am totally hooked and can't stop dreaming about Shrinky Dinks! lol.

Check out our new free Class: Shrinky Dink Photo Charms for great step by step photos on how you can make some too. Also see our Shrinky Dink Before and Afters. So much fun!!!

*Minimum order = $25 before shipping to quality for this special gift. Quantities are limited so order today! 

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Vote for the Winner!

We recently hosted a Flag Swap here in ARTchix-land. Each artist made flags using our Beautiful Garland Kit. Wowza, did we ever receive some gorgeous flags! 

It was tough but I narrowed it down to my 10 favorites. And now, I'd love your help to Pick the Winner. The winner will receive a $50 shopping spree to our website. Hooray! Voting ends Monday, August 16th. 

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New Art Swap: Charms and Pendants

Our art swaps are so much fun! Not only do you receive inspiring, beautiful artwork from other artists, you'll also get a special surprise gift from us. : ) 

Our new art swap is to make 6 Charms and/or Pendants. I was so inspired by the current article in Cloth Paper Scissors about their Pendant Swap. I just knew we had to host one too! Deadline is September 20th so you have plenty of time. We also have some of our Charm and Pendant supplies ON SALE for you too. Print the swap details and come join the fun!

By the way, I made the cute charms above with our new Halloween Inchies sheet, Inchie Photo Charms, Round Photo Charms, Mini Dice Beads and oooh, that little charm that says "I heart ARTchix" is a Shrinky Dink. (Yes, I'm totally addicted! lol)

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New Art Lottery: Turquoise, Silver and/or Red Charms

Yes, yes, I'm crazy for Shrinky Dinks and charms these days. Hence, our new Art Lottery, woohoo!

How to enter: Make and post 1 - 3 Turquoise, Silver and/or Red charms online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, August 23, 2010

Prizes: One of my cute kitties will pick one winner and that lucky winner gets all of the charms submitted for this art lottery. Along with an extra prize: a silver charm bracelet to put all of the charms on! Ooooh, someone is going to be able to wear one heck of a gorgeous bracelet! Note: all participants are responsible for mailing their charm submissions to the winner.

By the way, I made the cute charms above with our new Glass Birds, Royal Bird Inchies collage sheet, Mini Dice Beads, Lucky Cat Animal Bead, Turquoise Metal Rose, Round Photo Charms, Summer Inchies Collage Sheet, Fashionista Purse with Cool Butterfly Shrinky Dink and at the bottom right...that's a Create Happiness shrinky dink. : )

The winner will get to pick her favorite 3 charms from the ones I've made above.

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HAVE A SUPER CREATIVE WEEKEND!

We have 3 fantastic activities that are all due this coming Monday, August 16.

Blog Art Challenge: Get Creative with Drink Umbrellas! (I added Shrinky Dink charms from our Classic Vintage Buttons and Cool Butterflies sheets to my Drink Umbrella Flags above...yes, I'm crazy for Shrinky Dinks!)

How to enter: Post your art that includes a drink umbrella (or portion of one) online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post it to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email it to Gillian and she will post it for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, August 16, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Photo Contest: Turquoise! (Anything that's turquoise: nature, art, art supply, something inspiring)

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: Monday, August 16, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

This gorgeous turquoise peacock photo was submitted by Assja Baumgärtner.

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Art Swap: Butterfly Artist Trading Cards

How to enter: Make 6 ATCs using our Hot or Cool Butterflies collage sheets and mail them to ARTchix Studio with $5 for return postage.

Deadline: Must be in the mail by Monday, August 16, 2010

Prizes: Winner receives a $50 shopping spree to our online shop.

This dreamy ATC is by Cathie Salvo using our Cool Butterflies collage sheet.

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Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Kitties in the Studio!

MoMo and Bruno, my cute little art helpers! See you next week for more art fun and inspiration! : )

Winners, Vacation Inspiration & New Contests

Vacation Inspiration!

I've been away on vacation in the beautiful Bahamas. What a wonderful trip I had! Lots of relaxation, fun and oodles of art play time! Ahhh, it was good for my soul.

 

In my suitcase, I packed a few of my favorite art supplies (watercolor crayons, scissors, glue stick, Tacky Glue, Sharpie marker and a variety of ARTchix images)...along with the new issue of Somerset Studio and Journal Spilling by Diana Trout (recommended to me by Linda Kunsman). Both publications were a great source of inspiration for me.

Diana Trout's approach to art is so refreshing. She provides lots of fun and easy techniques to help you let go, silence your inner art critic and play with your art supplies. I love this book and highly recommend it! It was great reading it after devouring the newest issue of Somerset Studio. Their upcoming theme is fearless and Diana Trout's style is indeed fearless.

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With all of that reading, I had to duck out for a fruity drink: Bahamian gullywash (yummy coconuty gin). It came with a cute drink umbrella that you know I just had to incorporate into my art....

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Okay, so maybe I ended up having a few gullywashes, lol. I had to collect drink umbrellas for my art, ya know. : ) I pulled out my art journal (a 9x12 pad of watercolor paper), embraced my inner fearless artist and jumped in and played with my drink umbrellas. What fun this was! I didn't stress about what I was making...I just played and had a blast. I ripped up the umbrellas and added bits and pieces to the ARTchix Butterfly Muse and a Mermaid Tail too. It says "Fearless Artist. Be Brave. Art Takes Courage."

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During my vacation, I also made my Art Flags for our ARTchix Art Swap. Guess what I decided to add to our Beautiful Flag Kit - yep, you guessed it - drink umbrellas! It sure was handy and helpful processing an idea in my art journal first and then creating these flags.

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Great news! Since I'm all about drink umbrellas right now....I'm going to add one as a bonus gift to each of our orders this week (August 4 - 11). Hooray, who doesn't love a fun lil' party umbrella?!

Also, I'm hosting a new Blog Art Challenge: Get Creative with Drink Umbrellas!

How to enter: Post your art that includes a drink umbrella (or portion of one) online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post it to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email it to Gillian and she will post it for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: August 16, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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WINNERS, HOORAY!!!

I'm pleased to announce the winners for our Beautiful Summer Photo Contest and Mermaids Blog Art Challenge. Drum roll please.....

Congrats Kathy and Mary! Thank you for inspiring us with your Beautiful Summer photos! You've each won a $20 gift certificate to our online shop! Wanna see some cuteness?! Visit Facebook and check out our very first ARTchix video where kitty Bruno picks the winner for this contest.

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Congrats Heather and Daphne! Thank you for sharing your fantastic mermaids with us! You've each won a $20 gift certificate to our online shop. Happy shopping! : )

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I couldn't resist sharing some of my Beautiful Summer photos and a mermaid. I made an artist mermaid using our Cute Hannah collage sheet and Mermaid Tail Eco Shape. And my photos include a beautiful beach path, hibiscus flower, yummy rum cake that I made and a cool birdie saying "hi."

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NEW Photo Contest: TURQUOISE!

Okay, so I'm already missing these gorgeous turquoise waters that I got to enjoy every day while I was on vacation. Sooo beautiful! It's really given me a new love and joy for the color turquoise. So, come share your turquoise photos with us. A favorite pair of earrings or necklace in this radiant color, a neat home decor item, something in nature, a piece of artwork, a pretty old book cover, a collection of turquoise fabrics, a favorite art supply...you get the idea...anything turquoise that makes ya feel good. 

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: August 16, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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Current Art Swap: Butterfly Artist Trading Cards

You don't want to miss this fantastic swap! Make 6 ATCs with our new Hot and Cool Butterflies collage sheets and send them to us. In return, you'll receive 6 different ATCs from our talented artists and a special surprise! Deadline to get them in the mail is August 16, 2010.

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WEEKLY DOSE OF CUTENESS: Bruno!

Just before I went on vacation, I went around the house and took photos of my 4 beloved pets. I kept them on my camera so that whenever I needed to see them, I could look at my camera. It helped lots! Here's my dear fluffy Bruno.

Bruno says, "See you next week for lots more fun and inspiration!" : )

NEW Summer Art Supplies & Fun Activities for you!

Happy Summer!

Hope all is wonderful with you! Are you getting inspired by the colors of Summer? We have some fabulous new products to help you express and celebrate the beauty of Summer. Hooray! : )

Enjoy Hot Butterflies, Mermaid Tails, Blue Sea backgrounds, Dancers, Garden Images, Fashionista Purses and Shoes and MORE!

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VERY SPECIAL GIFT for you:

Get a colorful, uplifting flag to hang in your art space! Place an order for over $25, and we'll include one of these flags made by Helga that says "Oh may I paint each day with the colors of peace." - Mary Ann Radmacher. Each flag is packaged with a heavenly assortment of special treats: pearls, sequins, beads or shells.

Enjoy a delightful flag with unique goodies for every $50 that you spend. That means that if you spend $100, you'll receive these 2 different flags shown here. Woohoo!

Offer for orders over $25 (before shipping) and while supplies last. Get 'em while you can! Sorry, this offer not available for digital download orders.

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Need a quick blast of inspiration? Check out my new class using our new Garden Book of Quotes Kit. Make one up as a special gift for a friend. Inca likes it too! : )

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NEW Fun Activities For You

Stretch your creative wings and play in our fun contests and challenges!

NEW Blog Art Challenge: Mermaids * Merpeople * Meranimals

I LOVE mermaids! (Will have to show you my collection sometime.) So, I thought for this month, let's play and make mermaids, mermen, mercreatures, meranimals. Soo much fun! Especially if you use our new Mermaid Tails like Jackie did when she made these awesome mermaids and merman. Love 'em!

How to enter: Post your mer-creatures online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: August 2, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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NEW Photo Contest: Beautiful Summer

When I've been out on my morning walks, I've just been blown away by the gorgeous flowers (like the peonies shown here) and pretty singing birds that are out at this time of year. I thought it would be so nice if we could inspire eachother with photos of the Summer beauty that surrounds each of us. Flowers, trips to the beach, farmers market, etc.

How to enter: Post your photos online (to your blog, website, etc with a comment and link to this post) or post them to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page OR email them to Gillian and she will post them for you. Maximum 3 entries per person.

Deadline: August 2, 2010

Prizes: I will pick a winner and so will one of my cute kitties. Both winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix. : )

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NEW Art Swap: Butterfly Artist Trading Cards

I'm totally in love with our new Hot and Cool Butterflies collage sheets. I couldn't resist hosting a swap to celebrate them. So, join me in making 6 ATCs with these colorful sheets.

Deadline Postmark August 16, 2010. Here are the details. : )

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WINNERS for June's Recycling Contests

It has been such a pleasure seeing all of the art and home decor everyone made using recycled items. My goodness, it was soo hard to pick winners for these contests as the entries were all so creative and unique!

Congrats Linda and Gena!! Love your collages! Enjoy your $20 shopping sprees! : )

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Congrats Mary and Becky! Enjoy your $20 shopping sprees! : )

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Vacay for Me, Woohoo!

I'm house swapping with my parents this month so that means it's back to the Bahamas for James and I. Woohoo! Will be sure to have a pina colada or two for you! : ) My next blog post will be August 4th. See you then! : )

Will be sure to post some pics to our Facebook Fan Page while I'm away. : )

Tag Swap Winner & Fun Recycled Inspiration

Happy Summer!

Hope you're having a great, sunny week! Great news! 228 fabulous people voted for the winner of our Tag Swap...and here she is....

Gerri Herbst! Hooray! Congrats Gerri, you've won a $50 shopping spree to our online shop! Woohoo!

Attn Tag Swap Artists: the tag swap packages are in the mail and they should be showing up in your mailbox this week or next week. Enjoy! : )

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Our Theme for June: Recycle * Refresh * Renew

All this month, we've been playing and transforming common household items into ART. It's been a blast! I have one big question for you:

Where do you put it all?! How do you store all of the recycled boxes, tins, jars, etc. that you want to save for future art projects? Would love some ideas! Please post your ideas as comments to this post if possible. Help me! lol.

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A Few Random, Fun Recycling Ideas:

Just had to share! Here are a few random recycling ideas for your inspiration.

How about cutting up your cereal and food boxes and using them to wrap your ribbons and trims around so that they don't end up in a tangled mess?

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Don't throw away your toilet paper rolls! Instead turn them into cute little purses! These were made by Becky Shander and featured in Somerset Life - Spring 2010. Amazing, so pretty!

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I recently came across this idea in a book called The Crafter's Devotional by Barbara R. Call. It's fantastic and has many ideas for using recycled items. Here's just one of them that I'm dying to try! I've got an ample supply of wine corks...now soon to be stamps, cool!

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MoMo makes her appearance as your Weekly Dose of Cuteness this week. In the background, you can see my heart painting which is actually loaded with recycled bits of paper, tickets, newspaper clippings, etc....all from my wedding and honeymoon. I glued them all down to a giant canvas and then painted the heart on top of them with acrylic paint.

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Fun ARTchix Activities - Come Out and Play With Us!

Stretch your creative wings! Jump into our fun ARTchix activites that we're hosting right now. You could win a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix!

Blog Art Challenge: Make a piece of art using TEA PACKAGING, CANDY WRAPPERS, FRUIT & VEGGIE LABELS, PAMPHLETS AND RECYCLED PAPERS AND ITEMS OF ANY KIND (TINS, BOTTLES, ANYTHING). Post it to our Facebook fan page or email it to Gillian and she will post it for you. My kitties and I will pick winners that will receive $20 gift certificates to ARTchix Studio . Deadline is Monday, June 28.

This fantastic collage was made by Linda Kunsman. Yummmm...I spy a chocolate candy wrapper tucked in amongst a vibrant painted background, The Eyes Have It collage sheet, Her Words collage sheet and Inchie Love collage sheet.

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Photo Contest: Share the great, unique, exciting ways you've used recycled items in your home decor. Post your photos to the wall of our Facebook fan page or email them to Gillian and she will post it for you. (maximum 3 entries per person).  Deadline is Monday, June 28.

This incredible steampunk clock was made by Bonnie Ashurst. So cool! What a great way to upcycle a clock that doesn't work anymore.

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Art Swap: Make 7 art flags using our new Beautiful Garland Kit. Deadline is July 19. You can purchase our complete kit that includes the flags and everything you need OR you can get it digitally and whip up your flags using tea boxes and recycled cardboard of your choice. Yay! : )

These awesome flags were made by Marnie Blum using our new Beautiful Garland Kit and Gold Symbols (on sale).

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Inspired by Jackie McColl

Jackie made these awesome dreamboxes using our products for sale. Sale ends June 28th so get yours at 40% off while you can! This is a great Summer Art Project for the whole family.

A cool butterfly dreambox using recycled papers for the background along with Party Girls artchix cards, Pink Symbols and Lots of Her Words.

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Another neat butterfly dreambox using recycled tissue paper for the background along with Color 101 collage sheet, Handmade Paper Lilies and Gold Symbols.

See you next week with lots more fun and inspiration!

Vote for the Tag Swap Winner + Pretty Recycled Card & More

Greetings!

Hope you're having a great week! I'm pleased to announce that I've picked my 10 favorites for our recent Tag Swap. And now, I'd like to ask for your help in picking the winner of a $50 gift certificate to our online shop. 

Place your vote today! They're all so lovely and inspiring!

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Our Theme for June: Recycle * Refresh * Renew

All this month, let's play and turn common household items into ART. So far, I've had fun playing with tea boxes and candy wrappers. Today, you'll see that I jumped into fruit and veggie labels, pamphlets, gum wrappers and assorted papers of all kinds that normally would've gone in the trash.

I put a tray in my kitchen and collected papers for a week. Wow, look at the fun stuff I collected that I normally would've thrown away. I even put some of our Eco Shapes in my tray and added veggie and fruit labels directly to them. It was fun and addicting! You know it was bad when I went to the grocery store and found myself buying fruits and veggies based on the colors on the labels, lol!

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I decided that I wanted to make a little book of some sort. So, I started by collaging a variety of recycled papers onto our Gothic Arches (which are also made from recycled materials). I used a glue stick for the thin papers and Tacky Glue for the thick papers.

These sat like this on my art desk for a couple of days because I just wasn't sure what to do with them.

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And then hooray, a light bulb went off! My friend's birthday is coming up so I decided to make a special card for her. She loves to garden so I thought our Hot Roses and Classic Roses would be perfect. So, I cut them out with regular and fancy scissors. And I found some great rose quotes online (Google rose quotes and a whole bunch will come up).

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Next, I painted white gesso, then scribbled watercolor crayon which I blended with a wet paper towel. This toned down the recycled papers and gave all of the backgrounds a uniform look.

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Now the fun part! I added our Butterfly Muse along with Hot Roses and Classic Roses and nice rose quotes. Here are a few of my faves:

The world is a rose; smell it and pass it on to your friends. - Persian Proverb

I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck. - Emma Goldman

I don't know whether nice people tend to grow roses or growing roses makes people nice. - Roland A Browne

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Next, I used a pencil to mark where I wanted holes and then started punching.

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Ta da! I tied all 3 Gothic Arches together with our Rayon Ribbon. I added "Happy Birthday to the most beautiful rose...Melanie." Isn't that sweet? I had so much fun making this!

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Super Speedy Gift Wrap

Lots of birthdays this week! I had minutes to wrap up these 2 gifts that Bruno is posing with.

I pulled out wrapping paper scraps and just did a quick wrapping paper band around the boxes. There was no time for a card so I just spelled out their names with sticker letters. And finished them off with one of my Blog Stickers that says "enjoy." Super fast and they still thought they were too pretty to open. lol.

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Fun ARTchix Activities - Come Out and Play With Us!

Stretch your creative wings! Jump into our fun ARTchix activites that we're hosting right now. You could win a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix!

Blog Art Challenge: Make a piece of art using TEA PACKAGING, CANDY WRAPPERS, FRUIT & VEGGIE LABELS, PAMPHLETS AND RECYCLED PAPERS OF ANY KIND. Post it to our Facebook fan page or email it to Gillian and she will post it for you. My kitties and I will pick winners that will receive $20 gift certificates to ARTchix Studio . Deadline is June 28.

This lovely collage was made by Kath Hobson. If you look closely at the background, you'll find Starburst candy wrappers! Cool!

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Photo Contest: Share the great, unique, exciting ways you've used recycled items in your home decor. Post your photos to the wall of our Facebook fan page or email them to Gillian and she will post it for you. (maximum 3 entries per person). Deadline is June 28.

This incredible Day of the Dead shrine was made by Tristan Robin Blakeman. If you look closely, you'll see that the shrine shape is actually a ham can! How cool is that?!

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Much Love for Our Beautiful Garland Kit!

We've been getting lots of great feedback on our new Beautiful Garland Kit! Get one and play in our upcoming Art Flag Swap (make 7 flags using our kit by mid July). Or get two and make special gifts for your loved ones.

Jackie made this gorgeous garland for her daughter that just graduated from high school. She used our Beautiful Garland Kit, glue stick, scissors and some rhinestones. Wow, so pretty!

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Gillian's daughter, Iona (in purple) had a sleepover for her 10th birthday. And the girls made flags using our Beautiful Garland Kit. They loved it and wow, looks like we've got some budding artists in ARTchix-land. So pretty!

Hope you have a wonderful, art-filled week!

Color Review, Nature & What's Next

Welcome!

This month we had a blast taking a quick trip around the color wheel and exploring the beauty of color. What fun! Hosting these color challenges has been so uplifting and inspiring! I am now officially obsessed with color! Here's just a quick review on what we touched on:

First, we looked at monochromatic (1 color) color. Then complementary colors (2 colors opposite each other on the color wheel - use these color combos when you want your art to pop). In addition, we explored analogous colors (3 colors next to each other on the color wheel - they nicely blend to give your art a calm feel - see my 4 analogous collages at the bottom of my art journal page above).

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Last week, we looked at hot and cool colors. Stella picked the winner of last week's blog art challenge: Gena Boone Curtis with her super cool collage shown here! Congrats Gena! You've won a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix! : )

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This week, let's put aside our color wheels and look at....

NATURE! While it's great to be familiar with the color wheel, you can find all of the color information and ideas you need just by walking out your front door. I decided to make a special page in my art journal dedicated to colors in nature.

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I went ahead and printed some of my favorite photos that I've taken this year. So many bright, happy colors!

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Inca loved them so much that she tried to curl up with them. : )

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After I glued my photos into a grid that I drew with pencil, I grabbed my watercolor crayons and started scribbling below each photo ...trying to translate the colors in each photograph.

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I finished my page by blending all of my watercolor crayons with a damp watercolor brush. This will be great to refer to whenever I'm looking for inspiration on different color combos to try.

I encourage you to keep looking at color all around you. Soak it up. See how different colors make you feel. Take notes and continue to play, play, play with color in your art.

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Have a Creative Weekend!

We've got 2 fun activities due next Tuesday (June 1) morning:

We're hosting an "Art in Bloom" Art Exhibit in Facebook. Post any piece of your art that includes a flower or flowers to the wall of our Facebook page or email Gillian and she will post it for you. You could win a $20 gift certificate to ARTchix Studio (one of my kitties will pick the lucky winner).

And we've also got our fun Art Lottery. Make an ATC (2.5" x 3.5" collage) with a hanger of some sort, post it to the wall of our Facebook page or email Gillian and she will post it for you. You could win all of the ATCs made by our talented artists.

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What's Coming Up

Please stop by and see me next week! Next Wednesday (June 2), I'll be hosting a very special giveaway, here's just a tiny sneak peek:

 

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And next Thursday (June 3):

We're going to jump into a new theme for June! I recently discovered that I have been hoarding tea boxes. Do you have a pile of little boxes too? During the month of June, let's explore ways to Recycle * Refresh * Renew.

New Art Lottery, Winners and more!

New Fun Art Lottery!

I've got a super fun, new activity for you to play in this week. I'd like to introduce the new ARTchix Art Lottery! Whip up a cool altered clothespin and enter it into our art lottery and you could win all of the altered clothespins made by our talented artists.

Here's how I made some easy peasy, pretty altered clothespins!

First, pull out your collage images. I picked lovely, pink cherry blossoms from our Pretty Pink Flowers sheet and brilliant green grass from our Gorgeous Green Nature sheet. I simply laid the paper images onto the wooden clothespin (I got 50 clothespins for $1 at the dollar store!) and pressed the edges down with my finger to get the right shape. Then I cut them out and adhered them with Tacky Glue.

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Next, I added a little bird transparency from our new Nature Silhouettes transparency. I like how it divided the green and pink papers. I cut it to size and adhered it with a dab of Diamond Glaze (Rangers Glossy Accents also works well for adhering transparencies).

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Next, I painted on white gesso in random strokes just to give it a shabby chic look.

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I added some words from our Inchies in Paradise sheet. In addition, I whipped up another clothespin on the left using our Pretty Pink Flowers sheet and Royal ATC Backgrounds. I couldn't resist adding Pink Dice and a Pink Owl to the one on the right. Check out our Altered Clothespins Class for more ideas and inspiration.

Your art challenge for this week is to join me in making altered clothespins for our new art lottery! Make 1-3 clothespins using any ARTchix products of your choice. Your name will be entered into the lottery the same number of clothespins you make. For example, I made these 2 clothespins so my name will be entered 2 times. (And yes, you could win these clothespins pictured here!) One of my kitties will pick the big winner. Deadline is Monday, May 3. Post your entries to the wall of our Facebook Fan Page or email them to gillian@artchixstudio.com. Please note that all participants will need to snail mail their clothespins to the lucky winner.

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New Inspiring Sheets!

I'm excited to introduce these 2 new gorgeous sheets this week:

Heavenly Lily of the Valley collage sheet and Nature Silhouettes transparency. Woohoo! You can get them as a digital download if you want them right now. And you're welcome to use them in our current tag art swap. We also have tons of our cute Animal Beads back in stock!

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Enjoy our Turquoise, Green and Brown Decorative Papers at 30% off this week!

Don't ya just love the way Jutta Koenig used our lovely Turquoise Papers? I think she traced the pattern with a colored pencil, looks fantastic! She also used our Cute Kitty sheet and More Party Hats.

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Order this week and get Gena Boone-Curtis' awesome stickers!

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Inchie Winners!!!

We had 10 talented artists make incredible inchies for our recent Blog Art Challenge. First, I had Bruno pick 3 winners that each win $10 gift certificates. Here they are:

Bruno licks his chops after feasting on kitty treats. Congratulations to Norma Skoglund, Barbara Malty and Gaye Miller!!!

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I needed to pick the grand prize winner of a $25 gift certificate but I just couldn't decide. They were all so lovely! So, in the end, I asked MoMo to pick the grand prize winner and she was happy to oblige. She picked Christine Hensley Laudig. Congrats Christine!

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More Fun Activities for You to Play In:

Art Swap: Tags! Make 6 tags using any of our new sheets this month: Paper Moon, Cat Love, Inchies in Paradise, Tea Princess, Dancing Poppies, Chixies Cute Cat Post, Chixies Cute Dog Post, Pretty Pink Flowers, Gorgeous Green Nature, Cool Silhouettes, Lily Of the Valley, Nature Silhouettes. Deadline is May 15.

Jackie McColl made this gorgeous tag with our Pretty Pink Flowers sheet and Gorgeous Green Nature sheet.

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PHOTO CONTEST: Cuteness in the Studio. Submit up to 3 photos of your furry pal in your studio. Deadline to post to our Facebook fan page or email Gillian is Mon, April 26.

This adorable kitty was submitted by Carnie Gonzalez. I will be announcing my 10 favorites next Wednesday and will ask you to vote for the big winner.

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Art Swap Update: Create Art Share Happiness Postcards. Deadline has passed so now we are waiting for all of the artwork to come in. Gillian emails each participant when their art is received. I will get back to you with another status update next month.

This awesome postcard is by Marnie Blum using our Create Art, Green World and Passion for Pink sheets. Isn't it amazing??! The art for this swap is out of this world! Check out our Photo Album on Facebook...endless inspiration!

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YahooGroup Activities Update: Our "I Love ARTchix" Contest will be ending today. Winners will be announced here next Wednesday. Lisa Mallette made the lovely ATC on the left with our Loveliness and Create Art sheets along with our Turquoise Decorative Papers.

The last YahooGroup ATC Lottery ended last Sunday. Margaret Mainland was the lucky winner! Love her ATC on the right with our Feather Crowns and the Eyes Have It collage sheet. We will continue to host a Biweekly Art Lottery here on my blog (it will not be limited to ATCs though...I want to switch it up and try some different things). If you'd like to stick to just ATC Lotteries, check out wonderful Mixie Pixies' ARTchix Play Biweekly ATC Lottery on Flickr.

See you next week for lots more fun and excitement!

What's Happenin' This Week

Lots of Beauty in ARTchix-land This Week!

Here is your weekly news....

We've got gorgeous new art supplies for you! Hooray! Note that you can get all of these image sheets as digital downloads if you want them right now. : )

* Chixies Cute Cat Post (featuring art by our talented chixies. Note: the "I Love Animals" art swap will be mailed to all participants by the end of this week.)

* Chixies Cute Dog Post (featuring adorable dog art by our talented chixes.)

* Super Mini Dice Beads in Pink (sooo cute! Perfect for dreamboxes, jewelry and more!)

* Pretty Pink Flowers image sheet (gorgeous!)

* Gorgeous Green Nature image sheet (soooo uplifting!)

* Cool Silhouettes image sheet (cool branches and bird silhouettes!)

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Order today and get cute doggie stickers featuring art by Gena Boone Curtis!

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Hooray for ARTchix Specials! Get our Brown, Turquoise and Green Decorative Papers for 30% off! They make awesome collage backgrounds! I whipped up these tags for our current Tag Swap. I simply tore the papers into strips and glued them to shipping tags with Tacky Glue.

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Inca insisted that I take a break and give her lots of cuddles.

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Okay, back to the tags. I had a blast altering the papers by adding polka dots, tracing the patterns and more. I used a variety of pens, watercolor crayons and watercolor pencils. Fun!

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To finish them, I added pretty inchies from our new Gorgeous Green Nature, Cool Silhouettes and Pretty Pink Flowers sheets. This was fun and easy! Come play in our Tag Swap! : )

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Want to know a quick, easy way to make a transfer? Check out our new class: Transfers with Packing Tape.

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Fun Events and Activities for You to Play In:

Great news! I'm extending the deadline for our Postcard Art Swap to a mailing date of next Monday, April 19th. There's still time for you to get your 3 sheets as digital downloads (Create Art, Green World and Passion for Pink) and play! Make up some postcards this weekend and join the fun! Check out our website in a day or two...I'll be posting a new class on how to make this collage postcard. : )

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BLOG ART CHALLENGE: "Celebrate your Day" Inchies. Make 20 or more inchies (1" square collages) with 2-3 ARTchix image sheets of your choice. Deadline to post to your website, our Facebook fan page or email to me is next Tuesday, April 20. 

These gorgeous inchies were made by Sara Udstuen with our Dot Borders, Chixies Flourishes and Spoil Me sheets.

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ONLINE CONTEST: Cuteness in the Studio. Submit up to 3 photos of your furry pal in your studio. Deadline to post to our Facebook fan page or email Gillian is April 26.

This incredible cuteness in the studio was submitted by Rachel Weisenberger. Adorable!!

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YAHOOGROUP ACTIVITIES:

There's still time to play in the last 2 activities in our YahooGroup!

The "I Love ARTchix" ATC Contest - make an ATC with 3 ARTchix products. Deadline is tomorrow, April 15. This stunning entry (left) was made by Cindy McMath. YahooGroup Members will be voting for the winners over the weekend.

Sabine Busch made the lovely ATC on the right for the current ATC lottery theme: Pick Your 3 Favorite Colors! Make an ATC with your 3 favorite colors and you could win the whole set of incredible ATCs made by our members. Deadline is this Sunday, April 18.

ARTchix supplies: Spoil Me, Baroque Borders, Flower Borders, Pink Symbols, When Dreams Take Flight, ATC Inspirations, Pretty Bird, Large Renaissance Borders

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Twinchie Art Swap Update: All of the artwork for this swap has now been received. I'm just working on scanning the artwork, picking my favorites, designing the game, etc. I should be ready to post everything by the end of this month. So, stay tuned. : )

This gorgeous twinchie is by Angie Miller using our Fun Gift Tickets, French Borders, Party Hats and Glamour Post.

New art swap, happenings in ARTchix-land & more!

Hooray, A New Art Swap: Tags!

I'm excited to announce a new ARTchix Art Swap. Dive into your stash and make 6 tags with our new April image sheets. To get us all in the mood, I went ahead and whipped up one, here's what I did:

First, I made myself a big cup of tea. Then I pulled out an assortment of tags and a variety of sprays to play with: Moon Shadow Mist in a several colors, Tsukineko Walnut Ink and LuminArte Shimmering Mist. 

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Oh, what a fine mess! I sprayed the various mists and I dabbed a wet teabag on several of the tags to give them an aged look. Fun stuff! My favorite tags ended up being the ones sprayed with the Moon Shadow Mists.

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Now, it's collage time! MoMo jumps in to help!

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I love our new Dancing Poppies image sheet! I picked a few images from this sheet, tore them into strips and adhered them to the tag with a UHU gluestick.

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Next, I added some bits of color with a green paint pen and green watercolor crayon. And I added "enjoy this beautiful day" from our Tell Me Another Story sheet.

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On the back of the tag, I glued on a piece of our Red Decorative Papers with Tacky Glue. And I added a little green tag with my name and email address too.

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Ta da! Here it is! : ) (I included a little gift with my tag inside a Glassine Envelope and tied it on with lovely Rayon Ribbon. You don't need to but I can't help it...I love to include little gifts). : )

Join me in making 6 tags using at least one of our new April image sheets. So far, you can choose from: Paper Moon, Cat Love, Inchies in Paradise, Tea Princess, Dancing Poppies.... More sheets to choose from coming every Wednesday this month. Deadline is postmark May 17. No contracts are needed for this swap. We want everyone to play and have lots of fun! You can find more details on our website or Facebook fan page under Events.

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What's Happenin' in ARTchix-land This Week

More cheer and happiness this week! Here's your weekly news...

We've got fantastic new art supplies!! Hooray!

* Dancing Poppies image sheet (featuring vibrant red poppies - an upcoming theme for Somerset Studio! Make art with this sheet, get published with ARTchix as a source and get a $15 gift certificate to our online shop, woohoo!)

* Tea Princess image sheet (charming cuties with teacups)

* Tea Pot Charms (perfect for our new Tea Tags Art Swap!)

* Gray Cat Porcelain Beads (many of our Animal Beads from last week sold out so quickly. Luckily, we just got lots of these awesome cheshire cats now in stock!)

* Rayon Ribbons in 3 new colors: Turquoise, Green and Brown (perfect for brightening up your tags and more!)

Order today and get cute kitty stickers featuring MoMo! Spend $100 or more and get awesome kitty earrings too! : )

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Great news! Over the weekend, we posted 6 new classes on our website. Check 'em out! : )

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Announcing the WINNERS of our "I Love Animals" Art Swap!!!

We had over 40 artists submit gorgeous Artist Trading Cards for this art swap. I picked my favorite 10 and then asked everyone to vote for the winner. 432 people voted and boy was it ever close! The Grand Prize winner of a $100 shopping spree to ARTchixStudio.com is.....

GENA BOONE-CURTIS!!!!!
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Second place ($20 gift certificate to ARTchixStudio.com) is....

SHARRON SWAYNE!!!
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Third place ($20 gift certificate to ARTchixStudio.com) is....

PAM MCKENZIE!!!

A big round of applause for the winners and all of the wonderful artists that participated in this fun art swap. I will be introducing some beautiful new sticker sheets featuring a selection of artwork from this swap next week. All swap art will be mailed out at the end of next week.

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Fun Events and Activities for You to Play In:

Art Swap: "Create Art Share Happiness" Postcards! Deadline is postmark April 15th so there's still time for you to get your 3 sheets as digital downloads (Create Art, Green World and Passion for Pink) and play! 

This gorgeous postcard is by Peg Englishman. LOVE it! It features the 3 required sheets and City Delight.

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BLOG ART CHALLENGE: "Celebrate your Day" Inchies. Make 20 or more inchies (1" square collages) with 2-3 ARTchix image sheets of your choice. Deadline to post to your website, our Facebook fan page or email to me is April 20.

These gorgeous inchies were made by Jo Urbani with our Mini Delights and Tell Me Another Story sheets.

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ONLINE CONTEST: Cuteness in the Studio. Submit up to 3 photos of your furry pal in your studio. Deadline to post to our Facebook fan page or email Gillian is April 26.

This incredible cuteness in the studio was submitted by Patty Jachim Moore. Soooo cute!!!!

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YAHOOGROUP ACTIVITIES:

There's still time to play in the last 2 activities in our YahooGroup!

The "I Love ARTchix" ATC Contest - make an ATC with 3 ARTchix products. Deadline April 15. This stunning entry (left) was made by Marion Bockelmann. Incredible!

Linda Kunsman won the Spring/Easter Hats ATC Lottery. Congrats Linda! So, she came up with the new ATC lottery theme: Pick Your 3 Favorite Colors! Make an ATC with your 3 favorite colors and you could win the whole set of incredible ATCs made by our members. Deadline is April 18.

ARTchix supplies: Create Art, Green World, Baroque Borders, Renaissance Borders

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One Last Bit o' Inspiration!

I just couldn't resist sharing this with you! Last week, I showed you the cute gift idea on the left (beach treasures in a clear glass vase with floating camelias and our Oh La La Ribbon). Linda Kunsman said that she read my blog and quickly made up the lovely floating tea chandles on the right. Fantastic!!! She edged her vase with our Turquoise Shell Borders. So pretty!