Welcome to my Blog Anniversary! (and a giveaway)

I´m celebrating the 20th anniversary of this blog today, yeah! I know that not many blogs reach this age, so I´m really proud of it, especially as it still has the same name and the same place 20 years later. 

I´m a big fan of blogs: While I don´t post any personal infos on Social Media as Facebook or Instagram, I DO share very personal thoughts and statements on my blog as it´s completely under my own control. So you can view my artwork elsewhere, but if you´re interested in the background infos and the artist behind the colourful pictures, you´ll find it here. (And if you´re an Instagram follower, it might be nice to look on the blog because I post different pics in both media, photos on Insta but scans on my blog, and usually they look quite different.)

There´s one thing that I miss, and that are my blog swaps I´ve organized on my blog for many years with dozens of international artists participating - unfortunately I had to give them up when I started my fulltime job. But I encourage you to have a look at the blog sidebar where you can find all former swaps, and getting back to them is always fun and inspiring. 

For my celebration, I can´t offer you cake and cocktails, but what I can offer is a giveaway: 
So here are three of my original cards that I´ll send to three of you who comment under this post and celebrate with me. Of course you can tell me which of the three would be your favourite gift.

I´ve tried to pick three very different cards so there should be one for every taste. Good luck, and I hope you´ll continue to read my blog!

Crow

It´s time for Tamara Laporte´s taster sessions again, this time the course is called "A Year of Wild Nature". Of course I couldn´t resist painting with her during her crow video. It has been fun, but as the mistakes I´ve made are obvious, I can´t wait to try it again and make it better.

Dark Fairy

 
When I first saw this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge theme "Scary Fairy", I thought that I should skip this week because I´m not a fairy person ... but then I thought - oh, DARK! and I was in again. 

Recently, I just couldn´t resist a fairy stamp because of its shear beauty, so here it is, combined with some other stamps from the dark side. So my fairy isn´t really scary but at least on the dark side. (Stamps are from IndigoBlu and Dark Scrap.)

Nick Bantock Style ATCs

 
For a swap in a German ATC group I´ve made this set of Nick Bantock Style ATCs. Most stamps are designed by Nick Bantock, but the colour scheme isn´t typical for him, and I tried to go with collage in common and with a bit of storytelling.

Knitting

 
My card for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed Knit/Crochet was made with stamps from Simply Graphic and Visible Image. The background is a scarf I´m knitting right now ...

Scribbles

 
For this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Scribbles" I´ve made a card using Dina Wakley stamps, watercolour and a few additional scribbles.

Bookmarks

 
I´ve made these bookmarks as a gift using stamps from Creative Depot, Visible Image and Stempelbar.

Ocean

 
My card for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art themed "Ocean" doesn´t show the ocean but two women enjoying the ocean view and a day at the beach. (Stamps are from Jane Davenport, Impression Obsession and Stampington.)

For me, holidays aren´t made of ocean memories but city scenes - this week I´ve already been to beautiful Leipzig and Essen with its great Courbet exhibition (this is why my card is a bit late) and will be in Dortmund and Berlin soon. Museums and cityscapes give me intellectual input, and big cities let me breathe more freely. I know that this isn´t a recipe for everyone, but it works for me.