Magazine Delayed

Hey all...

For those of you visiting for the Magazine release celebration blog candy, there has been a delay in publication. I will tweet, facebook and yahoo group everyone when I find out the publication date and then the blog candy will commence.

Thanks for understanding...and stopping by.
Caroline

New Members Wanted

The Circle of Friends is Looking for New Members

and you could be just what we need!

What is The Circle of Friends you might ask...well we are a group of Artist/Crafters that loves to share our work and chat. Sound like fun...that's because it is.

What makes us different from other groups? For starters we are small so we have gotten to know each other quite well, giving the members another place to turn when they need support in life or art. We are also all at different levels of art/crafting and different styles so it is a great place to learn.

Want to see some of our art...here is a sampling of our members (not all of us) work...

NJP Original Designs

Reyn's Nest

Sassy Stampin' Momma

Here is the e-mail we send out to all interested persons...if it sounds good to you please stop by

The Circle of Friends Yahoo Group Link

Are You a Good Fit for the Circle of Friends?

Hello, and thank you so much for taking an interest in our group. A little background as to who we are. We are a group of artists that have come together over the past four years. Originally a magazine advertisement brought us together, since then we have welcomed new members brought in from other connections and watched other members grow and leave us. It is important for you to know that we are a tight nit group but we are open to new members.

So, since we don’t want to create any uncomfortable situations let’s see if we are compatible. If you can answer yes to the following questions this is most likely the group for you.

You love to craft
You communicate well in e-mail.
You respect mail by deadlines

All project participation is up to you. We currently offer a monthly project hosted by various members and a journal rotation (you must successfully complete 3 swaps before taking part in a journal rotation).

Monthly Projects: Host determines the theme, medium and any other details.
Our 2009 Monthly Projects were…
January: Altered Domino's
February: Secrets of the Heart
March: Tag book, theme = Spring
April: Asian
May: Newspaper
June: Food and Drink inchies
July: ATC kit
August: Gothic Arches, Theme = Medieval
September: Advent Calendar ATC’s
October: Advent Calendar ATC’s
November: Mystery Stamp

Currently we make one piece for each member that is participating. So if 7 members sign up for that swap then we make 7 of whatever the monthly item is. The most of each project we have ever had to make is 12. As stated earlier the amount you participate is entirely up to you, all swaps have a sign up period.

So if this sounds up you alley great, we look forward to getting to know you. But if you think our group is not for you that is fine and we thank you for taking the time to check us out.

Sincerely,
The Members of Circle of Friends 2010

Scrapbook News and Review Teaser

The countdown has begun...2 more day's until the Magazine comes out. So I thought I'd give y'all a little taste of one of the pieces I made. Who knows, maybe this piece will be part of my give away this sunday...yep you read that right...a give away (or blog candy...whatever you want to call it) and boy do I have some scrumptious items going to a lucky winner.

Scrapbook News and Review

"The Sweet Far Thing" Not so Sweet....

What an incredibly long book.

What I liked, well, sadly not too much. This story has been going on now for three books and nothing gets resolved until the last 50 pages. So why then are there so many other pages? I think my main problem with this series/book is that the scenes are not long enough. As soon as I felt like I was getting into what was going on the Author moved on. Because of this I had very little attachment to the characters.

I do however think that Bray is a very poetic writer. Her descriptions are new and original and very image provoking. For example “…tasting her name on my tongue like an exotic new curry.”

As for the young adult aspect. Today’s teens are faced with a multitude of things and many of them were addressed in this book: cutting, death, sexual orientation, love, betrayal, discovery etc… To me the author spends the most time on the parts of life that all teens experience loved, betrayal and discovery but she does not ignore the more difficult ones however she does kind of gloss over them.

All in all I am glad I read the books but I did not enjoy them as much as I have others.

Art Deco Mask

This week over at One Powerful Hour the theme is...

Carnival/Mardi Gras

I came up with the idea for this week's theme when Alpha Stamps revealed their newest swap. A mini mask swap. The size of this piece believe it or not is ATC size, well not counting the petals, just the mask part. Super small and tons of fun to work on.

When I was little we lived in Spain and one year my parents took us to Venice. I have always remembered all the fabulous, artistic costumes that they wore and have tried to create my very own here.

I used one of the quilt block stamps from Repeat Impressions over and over to create the pattern on the mask. Colored it with colored pencils. The black petals are from a gigantic silk flower that screamed at me to be used the second I walked into Michael's for just this project. As finishing touches I added Rhinestones and glitter.

Hope you enjoy! Thanks for looking.

Young Love

This week over at One Powerful Hour the theme is

Love

A few weeks ago I got a surprise box of goodies from Alpha Stamps and I have been dying to use them (actually I have already used them but I can't share that creation yet, it is being published!) So I was thrilled with the theme since the goodies are all love/valentine/romantic.

Everything on this card is Alpha Stamps except for the circular transparency around the image which I picked up at Michel's thinking it would work great, which it did. For more details on the supplies I used check out my Alpha Stamp Gallery.

Hope you enjoy and thanks for stopping by.

Birds of Song

This week over at One Powerful Hour the theme is Birds.

We have been getting really fabulous gifts from even more fabulous friends for the birth of our second child. I ran out of thank you cards so I had to come up with a quick design and this is what I made. It works great for this weeks theme.

The colors In the picture are a bit off the pink is really a deep rich raspberry and it looks very nice.

I hope you enjoy my card and take a trip over to One Powerful Hour and join us this week or in the weeks to come.