And The WINNER is ...........

Congratulations Cindy Jo!

Now you can add 3 more stamps to your collection! Just pick any 3 stamps from the Giveaway post , there are 7 total, and email me with your selection and your shipping address. Your stamps will go out in the mail on Monday!

This drawing was done the old fashioned way. Each name was written on a slip of paper, folded up, and placed into a bowl. The paper pieces were mixed up, and my 9 yr old niece happily drew a slip of paper out of the bowl and read the name to me.

Thanks to everyone for participating and making this a successful Giveaway! I hope to have many more in the future so be sure to stop by once and while and see what's going on :)

Rubber Stamp Giveaway! 4th of July!

Comment on this post until 11:59pm today , July 1st, and you will be entered into a Random Drawing to be held tomorrow, July 2nd,  at noon. If enough people comment, I will giveaway 2 sets of stamps. There are a total of 7 stamps with a 4th of July theme, so I will break them into 2 sets.

Here is the first stamp. It is a large stamp to be used for a background stamp or embellishment on colored or decorative paper for card making, scrapbooking or any other paper art.

The stamp shown here has a slight error, I missed the cross of the "T" in  the word "equality", so I will be carving a new stamp to giveaway.

here are 3 more stamps in this series. The last 3 will be uploaded later this evening so STAY TUNED!

Here are the final 3 stamps in this series!

The winner will receive their pick of 3 stamps from the entire set!

Good Luck! and Happy Stamping :)

RUBBER STAMP BOGO 50% off SALE

Here is just a sampling of some of the Hand Carved Rubber Stamps ON SALE NOW at The Star Box on Etsy. Buy One Get One of equal or lesser value 50% off.  If you love cardmaking,  rubber stamping, collage or making altered art, this sale is a must see! Check it out - and Happy Stamping :)

Snail Mail Stamp

5pc Art Doll Stamp Set

Marie Antoinette Art Doll Accessories Stamp Set

Chandelier Stamp

PostCard Stamp Set

Skeleton Keys Stamp Set

Rubber Stamp Sale and Bonus Giveaway!

Offer Good thru May 15th - Receive 25% off your purchase of the Art Doll Stamp Set when you mention this blog post in the message to seller portion at check-out! Include your PayPal email address in the message and I will send you a revised invoice with the discounted price. You can also go directly to My Etsy to make your purchase.

Giveaway Bonus - comment on this post now thru May 15th and enter to win a handcarved Monarch Butterfly Stamp!

In addition to my love of all things fiber, I am also very active in ATCs and Mail Art trading. My interest in ATCs is what led me to creating my own hand carved art stamps. Recently I joined a Mail Art Swap on ATCsforAll to create five 4x4 chunky pages featuring people themed art dolls.

I created these stamps specifically with this swap in mind.

Here are the 6 Art Doll Chunky Pages I created for the swap.

I used a vintage digital collage sheet of children and a 1 inch circle punch to cut out the faces and glued them inside a bottle cap which I then filled with Diamond Glaze.

I decorated the backgrounds with randomly selected papers, scraps, Sharpie markers, and Bic Mark-it pens.
I hope you have as much fun creating your own unique ART DOLLS as I did creating mine :)

Happy Stamping!

Rubber Stamp Giveaway

Hooray! It is finally here! The beginning of the celebration of my blog's upcoming 1st Birthday!

This is the first of 4 weeks of Giveaways - Ending with a big Birthday Celebration!

As some of you may know, I have become addicted to carving stamps within the last year, so addicted that I started selling them on my Etsy and use them to create my altered art. So it is only fitting that my very first giveaway should be a mix of hand carved stamps and altered art. So what do win you ask, well here it is............

The Grand Prize!

Set of 4 spring themed Hand Carved Stamps!

A Packet of Collage Papers and Ephemera!
(The same items I used to create the cards shown)

And my most favorite of all 4 cards entitled - SPRING!

I will also randomly select 3 Runners up who will each receive one of the following Altered Playing Cards:
.......................and a Celestial Coupon to Receive 10% off on any purchase at my Etsy Shoppe The Star Box!

Since March is the month in which the seasons change I thought Spring would be a wonderful theme for this week's giveaway.

ENTER TO WIN!

To be entered in the drawing please make an ATC, Altered Playing Card, NoteCard, Postcard etc with a Spring Theme and use at least 1 Rubber Stamp. Post the image of your completed Art Piece to your blog or flickr or etc and mention this giveaway in your description or blog post, and post a link to your submission in the comment section of this post.

All entries must be posted by Friday February 27th to be considered. I will select the Winner and Runners Up randomly and will post their names on Monday March 2nd when I give the details for the next giveaway.

Thank you so much for participating and I can't wait to see what everyone creates.

Happy Stamping:)
Debi

Hand Carved Stamps and Upcoming Blogoversary!

Well, it has been a very busy couple of weeks. As much as I need the extra money, my job away from home is keeping me so busy that I am having to stay up late and get up at the crack of dawn, or the middle of the night, to complete stamp orders for my Etsy. Finally I was able to get all the stamps mounted on wood blocks this morning and this afternoon I will package them for shipping.

I dream of the day when I can work solely on my Etsy without the need for any other source of income. I still have several custom orders that need to be completed, but the major stress has lessened with the completion of the majority of my stamp orders.
Pretty soon I will be adding some fiber themed stamps to my listings, keep an eye out for that.

As you can see from my little countdown calendar, my blogoversary is coming up in 38 days.....YEAH! It is hard for me to beleive that I have been blogging for a year already, boy does the time fly. In celebration for my blogs 1st birthday I will be hosting a giveaway every week for the last 4 weeks counting down to my blog's birthday. The first giveaway will be posted on Monday February 23rd. I can tell you that the giveaways will include some of my hand carved rubber stamps, among other things.Recently I was made aware that my comments feature was not working, I beleive that i have fixed that issue, but please give it a try and let me know as this feature will need to work for you to enter to win in the giveaways.

Hand Painted Pottery!

My sister and I went to the Fire House Pottery Studio here in downtown Marshall and picked out some ready made pottery to paint. We both had been looking at 2 Tea for One sets , each a different style, and finally decided to paint them.

While I painted for about an hour, my sister sat and stared directly at her tea set. She had no idea what to paint on such a large project. Eventually she gave up and decided to trade it in for 3 smaller pieces, an angel ornament, a ladybug trinket box and a small cup for her 3 year old daughter to paint. (Sadly, this little cup was broken during the painting process....but the owner was kind enough to offer a replacement cup the next time we come in to paint). Hopefully we can return on Saturday because I am just about finished with my piece and can't wait to see it once it is fired and all the colors come to life.On a final note, I just had to share the rubber stamp I carved for my Dad yesterday. He had asked me to make a stamp for one of the companies he works with (my dad writes tv and radio spots for advertising). Here is the finished stamp.

Saturday Art-a-Thon!

I have devoted the entire day to the creation of ART! I have many trades going on at AFA and I haven't really been able to free up any time for art lately. So Today is the Day! I am not answering the phone, I am keeping a pot of coffee at the ready, I have pencil, paper, and scissors at hand.....so I am off to create:)

Here are just a couple examples of what I have accomplished so far today.

The front of my 4x4 Halloween Chunky Page

The back of my 4x4 Halloween Chunky

A Cat themed Matchbox Shrine for PIF (Pay It Forward) trade.

Butterflies, Slugs and Dragonfly Wings......

I feel like I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off lately:-) I am trying to make new items for my Etsy Shoppe each day in addition to getting the house organized as my sister moves out and my daughter moves in. On top of this I am also cleaning the remnants of my dad's last garage sale out of his garage and into my house so that I can sell everything that is left either on Ebay or by hosting a yard sale of my own. whew!

Well, I have managed to finish a few new hand carved stamps for My Etsy Shoppe. I spend a lot of time browsing the stamp aisle at my local Michaels and Hobby Lobby and I rarely buy any stamps. I always think, I can do that, and then most of the time I never do. Now that I have finally tried my hand at carving my own stamps I just can't get enough of it. I cut my teeth on some small and simple designs, and now I am trying things a little more intricate or involved.

I had the idea to carve a Monarch Butterfly Stamp first as a special gift for someone I trade often with on AFA.Then I thought I would carve a special Slug Art Signature Stamp for another person I trade with on AFA.Once I got those 2 stamps under my belt I thought...okay....now let's try a dragonfly. I was really nervous about those wings, but they turned out pretty good......

So I went one step further and carved a set of Dragonfly Wings so now I can add wings to anything I want.I am going to try and set aside some time each night for me to spend on my altered and mixed media art only. I really do miss it right now...but it will have to wait a little longer.

The final thing I am working on right now is 20 sample items to submit to The Spotted Box on Etsy to be included in their October Box Sale. I am going to try to keep all the items themed for Halloween since that holiday will be right around the corner by then. I will have to post an update once I get all the items completed and ready to mail.

Trick or Treat!

It is hard to believe that it is already almost time for Halloween! We are just one month away from decking the house with all manner of creepy crawly and spooky things. In anticipation of this ghoulish holiday I was recently inspired to hand carve some Halloween themed rubber stamps and use them to make some SPOOKtacular (I love that word) mini note cards.

So far I have made a set of 6 BAT note cards


and I have made a set of 6 Spider and Web Note cards


I am still working on a Ghost themed Card, A Jack-o-lantern themed Card, and a Witch and Black Cat themed Card.
I will be sure to post the finished results when I am done.
Finished card sets and Hand Carved Halloween Stamps are available at My Etsy Store.

Rubber Stamp Madness

First I should begin by telling you that I am crazy about ATCs (Artist Trading Cards), and so I am a member of a couple of different sites where I trade cards in both one on one trades and themed group swaps. Well.... as a result of joining the Printmaking ATC Swap at www.atcsforall.com, I worked until the wee hours of the morning drawing and hand carving my own stamps. The only thing I can say is that I am in LOVE with stamp carving. It is so much easier than I thought it would be and it is very satisfying to have an idea and be able to make it into a reusable stamp. I have always hesitated to buy rubber stamps because I felt guilty spending money on something I knew that I could probably draw myself (even though I never attempted to make my own stamps until now).


Since I have been infected with the stamp carving bug, I will be making many, many more stamps and most likely adding them to my Etsy store, as well as using my own stamps in my original art. It is all very exciting.

Since I had only purchased one carving block at Hobby Lobby, I had to go back today and buy another. In the future I will have to buy them online since Hobby Lobby seems to only keep one of each size in stock. While I was out buying my new carving block, I also stopped off at Wal Mart and grabbed a pack of pink erasers so I could try my hand at carving them too.


Well, I must get back to the craft table ( or I should say my dining room table which is currently invisible under all my stuff).