Stampbord Contest!!!

You can win Stampbord, ink pads, pens, rubber stamps and other cool craft supplies by entering their contest.
Check it out:
Click here for Stampbord Contest Information!!!
It's a great reason to be creative - they are allowing any medium as long as Stampbord is used in its creation. I'll be doing a rubber stamped project for it and show you all once the contest is complete.

Happy Crafting :)

Potential Delays / Health Update

I'm very sorry for the lack of activity here on the blog this summer. I have also been unable to update my website with new products quite as frequently as I have in the past. Some of you may already know that over the past 5 years I've had some major medical problems (cancer/chemo/radiation.) The type of cancer that I had (Stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma) has not returned. However, I have had a lot of side effects/damage from the disease and treatments. Some of the scar tissue has caused adhesions (bonding muscles and organs together,) ruined my thyroid (lowered metabolism/energy,) and now I have ulcerations in my colon and a large 2" mass (cyst) in my lower left abdomen.

Currently my doctors are Guinea Pigging me with some prescriptions and pain medications to see if anything improves over the next two months before resorting to surgery. It is likely that surgery will include removing the mass, resection of my colon and possibly more if other organs are effected. For now, because of the pain and medications there have been some days where I am not feeling up to working.

I am trying very hard to keep up with orders within my stated 7 - 14 business day delivery time. There may be bad weeks for me where I'm running a few days later. Once my surgery is scheduled I will post a notice on my website about any longer delays during a specific time frame. Once this all gets sorted out I'll try my best to get back into crafting and creating new products :)

Scenic highways and nature destination photographs!

Yay! It's summer travel fun time!



I'm a huge fan of scenic highway drives and nature destinations. I take thousands of photographs every year, especially of the Oregon area. While I have them organized in folders on my computer, I find that I rarely look through them. So I've created a section in my website for the highlights of my travel photography. This is mainly for my personal enjoyment, but I'm hoping some of you might like it too :)



I've posted a map showing all of the places I've driven here. These pages are image intensive and I don't recommend it for dial-up users.



If you don't have much time to browse today, I think the Silver Falls state park and Oregon Garden trip is a beautiful place to start here!



I love the mountains, but they can be dangerous to drive through November through April. Now that most scenic highways (that are usually closed in winter) are opening, it's time for more road trips. In the southern part of OR is Crater Lake and in northern CA I'll be stopping at the Redwood Forest in a couple weeks. I'll also be heading off to Yellowstone National Park, WY soon (thank goodness it's only an 8 hour drive from here.) I'll make another blog post when new images are uploaded. Back to crafting until then!

Have a fun summer everyone :)

Rubber Stamped Stampbord Pencil Holder and Paper Art Dolls

Yay!


One of my tutorials has been posted on the Stampbord website. You can learn how to make this pencil holder here - May 09' (Or check out the archive of tutorials for viewing after May here.)
This project uses my Klimt rubber stamp set.)






Plus, here's a couple more paper dolls I just have to share with you by Karen (see my last blog entry for more.) I'm just so thrilled with what she's creating by incorporating my doll face stamps) into her work. To see if she has any dolls currently available, check out her Ebay sales.)




This last one uses one of my domino size rubber stamps for her face. I'd like to explore the many projects you can do using my 1"x2" size rubber stamps that does not have to do with domino jewelry. So far I've got bottle cap magnets, greeting cards and paper doll projects in the works. Stay tuned for a new tutorial and project gallery page on my site for everything BUT domino stamping using domino size stamps!



Have a creative day!
Kimberly

Paper Doll Artist Spotlight

One thing that never ceases to amaze me about artistic rubber stamping is... With one single image there are so many possibilities! I absolutely love it when my rubber stamp customers email me their creations. It's often something I wouldn't have thought of doing, or is a similar idea but done in a completely different style. Each individual brings such new perspective to art, inspired by how they view beauty.



I just wanted to share with you Karen's paper art dolls. She sells them on ebay under seller ID keerng if you'd like to see what's currently available. She gives me inspiration and motivation to make some more dolls :)



It also makes me feel good to know I can help others start their own craft business/profitable hobby, especially with the economy at this point. I enjoy the idea of sharing, my Angel Policy allows people to sell a wide variety of items using my stamps or molds. I'll also be offering digital downloads/cd collections soon for scrapbooking, collage and die cutting. If any digital artists are following me, stick around because I'll be creating images you can incorporate into your art too (stock photography.)

Hooray! Tax day is OVER! + Stampbord Sneak Peek

Cats are ridiculous :) Last night when making a last minute double-check of all my expenses, I laid out all my receipts on the floor. The cats came in, and even though there's lots of places to lay down, they decided to plop themselves right on my paperwork. I let them sleep there for a while since they seemed so comfy on the paper. They lay down on anything new. I bought a laundry tub yesterday, set it down when i walked in the door... as soon as I turned around both cats were sitting inside of it.



I am so glad that tax day is over with! I had an unusually complicated return this year due to having to file a business loss. There were over a dozen forms I had to fill out :( There's got to be a simpler way to do this stuff... someone please invent it? Even though I'm not sure when the economy will start to recover, I'm hopeful that I can do better this year. I have lots of great new stuff planned and now that this is over I can get back to posting projects.

When I got to the post office there was a HUGE PROTEST going on. Swarms (hundreds) of people gathered and lots of noise as cars went by honking. They were all very upset about the insane amount of government spending. Something about how it equates to us being taxed and we the people have been taxed enough. It was wild, I had no idea I would have to battle my way across the post office parking lot to get in.

Stampbord! I've completed a few projects for the Stampbord website. I have no way of knowing which artwork will be posted or when, but at least one project will have a full tutorial on their site in May. Until then, here's a little sneak peek of a domino size Stampbord project. I won't be sharing any more of what I've done until they have posted them on their website. I'll be sure to post a link to the step by step tutorials once they post it.

Here's my little domino size flower pot paperweight:


I'll be 'craftin it up' some more soon :)
Kimberly