Back with more great mail!

This post is the second part to my mailbox goodies!

 

I was delighted to have the chance to swap with JennieBellie:)

Her "The Cheats" zine is genius and full of useful drawing

instructions. Jennie had even tucked papers into the zine to draw

 on as well!Then she also sent along some fun cutouts for me

to use too:) I loved her 'Just Magic Door' as well. Its

at the top left of the photo and I plan to use it for journalling.

Oh yeah! Jennie has a fantastic YouTube channel , if you didn't

know already. It full of great tutorials!

This next Zine is a such a fun one as well. Elizabeth

[ Sketchbook Buttons ] was so kind to trade thoughts

with me about zines and swap hers with me too.

Look at these pages, aren't they wonderful? I also love the postcard

she wrote to me on. Its this great drawing of Thanksgiving dinner!

 

From Sketchbook Buttons


About a week later I received a big envelope from Laura,
her blog is one of my favorites.  I had sent her my zine and
small piece of art. Then I saw her flickr stream andI fell in love
with these paintings of hers and she was so kind to
have sent one that was almost the same!

I have this displayed on the shelf in my office. Love it!

Last but not least, here is a three-ring binder that I have with some

 amazing ATCs I have been lucky enough to swap. I may have posted

a few of them before. I know one of these days I'll have them out of the

sleeves and framed. There is not enough hours in the day! LOL!!

Thanks for letting me show off what I have received.

All this work is fantastic and I am just so delighted to meet

such generous artists through my blog and flickr stream.

It's really amazing!

Have a great day:)) XO

Do-Over! and LOTS of mail:))

oh boy... I did something today that I was thinking of doing
for the past few days...which was re-make new Daffodil
ATCs for the swap I was sending out this week!

off to Florida

off to Texas

I really fell hard for the two daffs that I painted so much so that

I couldn't bear to give them up!

I just couldn't get myself to put them in the envelope.

I like the new ones I created but it was easier to pack them up with

a card and send them off! LOL! I do get attached to my art.

And I 'm sure I'm not the first person this has happened to (?).

Now for zines from the ZINE SWAP -

I am so delighted. I have been getting so much mail these days

and wanted to share some images of things I have received!

how great are these stamps?

I make 5 and sent to five people. Five people

mailed me their zines.

 Here are first four of the five zines I received and everyone was so nice

and sent some little notes and goodies along with their zine. 

 Miss Lemon who created the one on the lower right corner

sells her zines on Etsy

The last zine came a few days later and I love how she decorated

the envelope with all the bar codes and "MAIL"s. She also send through

a little pouch of stamps, which I really enjoy!

THEN

...more mail came!

I'll write about it in my next blog entry.

I've got more photos to take:)

I'm so grateful for all the wonderful people who have

written and mailed to me.

My heart and my mailbox are happy!

Good night xo TGIF

Fran

Card #2 for Daffodil ATC swap

I used the photo I posted yesterday at Easter as my inspiration for my second ATC

 I am sending out.

Here it is.

 I'll send them in the mail tomorrow.

I made sure to scan them as I think I might put them on Etsy

and sell as prints.

Notice the "might" in that sentence, haha!! ( I know me)

I dread uploading to Etsy, the process should be easier, man! LOL!

Have a great day! Gotta run and pick up the boy from his basketball clinic:)

Daffodil ATC swap



ATC - Daffodil 2.5" x 3.5"

pre-watercolors

Here's ATC #1 for this swap. I have to create another and did get it started..I had it framed with a seed packet design but I'm pretty sure Daffodils are grown from bulbs :) This one has a seed packet flavor but its not specific...I caught myself.LOL!:)  I have to come up with a new idea for ATC #2.

I am so glad it is Thursday! I am so beat. Staying up too late these past few date (ahem, it 12:02am now) I've got to start focusing on breaking this bad habit of being a nigh owl. Its to ingrained in me. Any suggestions, I wonder?  Ok so I'm getting sleep now. I'll post when I have the other ATC done. I got my last and fifth zine from the zine swap today. I'll take a photo to show everyone all the different types I recieved. What fun that was!

Enjoy the holiday weekend everyone! I'm off now for five days, yippee!

Yellow, it is.

 Yellow is the color for an upcoming ATC swap I'm involved in. I started these larger pieces with the intent to cut but I like them both too much to cut. These larger pieces are 5"x 7".

So next time around I used pre-cut 3.5"x2.5" card:))

I made two but keeping this one for now and will hold for a non-swapbot swap:)

I haven't yet found out the color for the month of March's color challenge. Lets hope its yellow and I call it a day :)  LOL

Happy Tuesday friends!

Put Bird On It

I finished the ATCs I made for the Put A Bird On It swap, on Sunday. Birds are really lovely but hard to draw, their little heads always give me trouble.. Well, for the most part they are pleasant, although I had a bird as a pet once and he drove me nuts with his squawk. Oh man, that was not wonderful.  I love the mourning doves that we have here, they coo-coo so beautifully!

 I also received an ATC for this swap already. I was so pleased with how beautifully made it was. Here are some shots of the ATCs I made:

ATC 1, mailed Monday

ATC 2, mailed Monday

I made cards to tuck the ATCs into

Here's the other card:)

This is the first of two that I receive. What a nice ATC and she sent some wonderful additional goodies!

Spring is almost here, I can just feel it. I am so looking forward to it this year. The winter was so mild that it will be nice when the fair weather is here once and for all, to stay for good. Have a fantastic day!

Happy Valentine's Day

Back to the blog... I've been out of the loop. My uncle passed away last week and I have been with family, helping to celebrate my uncle's life. Art and internet have taken a backseat as can be expected. My aunt will sorely miss her sweetheart of 50+ years and I'll be thinking of her today with love.

Today I'm posting more images of the valentine I sent through last week for the swap I participated in. The person's profile indicated that they liked vintage pin-ups. It also said that she liked buntings. So I made a card set with bunting to hang.

The full image of the card

  

The bunting is shown in this shot :) The images of the girls are so cute. The pocket was made with a paper lunch bag! The bag folds up from the bottom to create front pocket. The edged top also opened up as that is the actual top of the lunch bag. I got the tutorial here, a link was posted by April Cole on her blog. Great timing!

I put the card in the front pocket and the back pocket held the folded bunting.

 Later I'll be searching swap-bot for another swap to join! I encourage anyone interested to try it out!

Speaking of swaps, I've received some terrific from April too!

We did a nice swap which she posted about too! Below are the wonderful ATCs she sent.

 April was so sweet to have sent TWO cards for the one I sent to her! Lucky me! :) 

 My sweetheart had a gorgeous bouquet delivered, and now I have fantastic subject matter to draw and paint. Lucky again :)

I hope everyone has a lovely Valentine's day.

If you can't be with the one you love, love the one your with.



Take Care II

I was a day late last week with my Take Care thought and glad to be on track today and linking up with Lynn's blog! I felt like there were so many moments for me this week but I would have to say that a little note I received today was my 'aha!'  for the week. I have just started trading some ATCs (little 2.5" x 3.5" works of art) with some terrific artists and I received a card today from April Cole. She sent me a wonderful little package of goodies along with the card. Most importantly she gave me a wonderful message and that is to always remember that "Art Heals". You have no idea how much I needed to be reminded of that.  I saw this just last night with my husband. He has been working so hard and gets so stressed out with work. When he got home last night I could tell he'd had it, work, long commute, you name it, was bugging him... Oh, he was so grumpy. However, he had to practice Christmas songs as he is in a group that is performing at their Christmas party next week. Well,  after singing and playing piano for five or six songs, a wonderfully happy man emerged. His art truly healed him that evening. It was just amazing how he transformed! My art does the same thing for me. It calms, me, takes me away from my troubles and lets me  s t e p  a w a y.

Thank you, April.

And I love my card!

 Two gifts.

Happy Friday!
Frannie