Stampington & Prima have a great giveaway!

Enter to win 1 of 5 Mixed-Media Art Bundles! Includes a copy of Somerset Studio, 3 Art Alchemy opalescent paints, and an Art Basics Mixed-Media Essentials pack. To enter, follow @stampington & @primamarketinginc, then regram this image and comment below to let us know you've entered. Contest ends 3/18 at 12pm PST. Contest open to U.S. residents only.  For more chances to win, visit Somerset Place: https://stampington.com/blog/2016/03/11/enter-win-mixed-media-art-bundle/ #giveaway #mixedmediaart #primamarketing #finnabair @finnabair #SomersetStudio #freemagazine #contest #artbasics #ArtAlchemy #paints #entertowin #regramtowin

A photo posted by Stampington & Company (@stampington) on Mar 12, 2016 at 8:56am PST

Trees Tip-In pages

I am participating in the Tip-In Journal project over at Paper Traders.  This month, my assignment was to do a spread for Heather's "Trees" journal.  My first attempt was nice but just not quite 'artsy' enough for me:

This is one of my favorite quotes and the page is much prettier in person - metallic gold background with lots of texture and color variation, multi-hued glitter on the tree, etc.  Still, I felt that Heather deserved something better (as she is a very accomplished artist) so I went back to the table and created this:

It's very simple in style but I think the overall effect is gorgeous.  The background was made by reconstructing paper from little torn bits using Aleene's matte decoupage medium.  The colors are so rich - I love it!  I hope Heather will too.  But I'm sending her both sets of pages, just in case she wants the first set also.

My Home is my Castle

Marion is hosting her annual blog ATC swap and I have been wanting to participate for several years but always seem to be too busy to fit it in.  This year, I finally managed to get my cards done but I still need to mail them to Germany so hopefully they will arrive in time!

Her theme is "My Home is my Castle" using part of a building for the person's body or clothing, etc.  You can read all about it on her blog here and be sure to check out all the other terrific entries.

I'm a Trader Treasure!

I know my blog has been a bit neglected lately but I just wanted to pop in to say that my Word Prompt Journal page last month was chosen as the Paper Traders' Trader Treasure!  The prompt was "Choose Love" and the challenge was to use tissue paper or napkins in your art.  This vintage film tissue paper was an RAK from another artist quite some time ago and I was excited to have this project to use it on (I'm also in love with the tiny film strip craft tape I found at Michael's recently!):

There's a new prompt and challenge each month so hop on over to the Paper Traders blog and play along!

Free PhotoBooks Giveway

So my sister turned me on to this awesome giveaway that was just too good not to share...  PhotoBookGirl is giving away a whole year's worth of free photobooks on her blog to one lucky winner.  Go check it out!
http://www.photobookgirl.com/blog/the-mother-of-all-giveaways-a-year-of-photo-books-dream-prize-package-from-mypublisher/

Congratulations to my Blog Hop Winner!

Congratulations to my blog hop winner...  Letha Richardson!

A great big THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to visit and leave such kind comments.  I appreciate each of you so much.  Below are the results of my random drawing (using the List Generator tool from Random.org):

There were 20 items in your list. Here they are in random order:
Letha
Connie
Glenda
Jo
Amanda
Joy
Cathy
Marion
Gill
Pattie
Lisa
JoAnne
Sam
Donna
Gigi
redjanfan
Cathee
Fairyrocks
Michelle
Beverley Baird
Timestamp: 2013-04-22 14:37:02 UTC

It's Blog Hop Time!

*** GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED ***

I am excited to participate the First Paper Traders Blog Hop. I hope it will be a way for you to get to know me and a few of the other group members better, see our art, and get a chance to win some nice prizes that are being offered along the way.  Maybe you'll even be inspired by what you see and want to join the group.

If you're new to my blog then let me introduce myself.  I'm Beckie and I live in San Diego.  I am one of the group moderators for Paper Traders.  I am a mixed media artist who is still learning a lot and interested in trying new techniques.  If you have some time, feel free to browse my blog to see some of the things I've created.  Or you can check out my Flickr as well.  I work full-time as an office manager for an insurance agency and I am definitely a detail-oriented, uber-organized type of person.  That's why art is such a welcome change of pace for me but also such a challenge.  I am trying very hard to get outside of the box and just be messy!  I think art is a great therapy for me.

For this blog hop, I am offering the following handmade folder filled with 8 coordinating ATCs that I created.  I have cherished these for some time now but am finally willing to share them with someone else.  I hope whoever wins them will enjoy them as much as I have.

Just comment below and provide a way for me to contact you and I will pick a randomly drawn name from those who leave a comment.  One entry per person, please.

The Blog Hop will be open the entire weekend of April 19-21, 2013.  Be sure to start at the Paper Traders Art Blog and follow the blog hop list of participating members below:

1. Paper Traders Art Blog
2. Bockel24
3. Art and Soul
4. Sunshine, Lollipops and Butterflies
5. Creative Solace
6. Art Beckons  <== You are here
7. Scrap Panda
8. Creative Musings
9. A Surcee Life
10. Textile Delights
11. Stampgram's Studio
12. Glenda's Art Escapes
13. FairyRocks

Have fun on your journey and I hope you'll come back to visit soon!