Bird People Blog Swap Update No. 12

As you all know, I´ve been waiting for the last two envelopes to arrive - but they didn´t. Who knows if they´re still at the customs or if these two envelopes from the U. S. and Malaysia got lost. However, I won´t let the five participants whose returns haven´t been sent yet wait any longer, so I´ll replace the missing ATCs with my own or with extra ATCs sent to me, and send out the returns for Ann, Sirkkis, Martina, Dagmar and Ulrike on Monday. I´m sorry that you´d have to wait for your returns so long!
With so many envelopes being held up in the customs nowadays, I´m not sure if it´s possible to have international swaps like this in the future. I´ll have to think about it before I decide if I´ll have another blog swap next year.
And I´ll send out another newsletter to the other participants because I haven´t heard from 7 of you, and I think that are too many after two weeks. If you´ve received your returns and haven´t sent me an email yet, please let me know NOW.

More Street Art

I´ve made some more Street Art ATCs tonight using backgrounds from Paula Kesselring and rubber stamps from VivaLasVegaStamps, Stempelbar, Paperbag Studios and Catslife Press.

Posers!

Marsha from Tumble Fish Studio came out with a very versatile kit today called "Posers". I´ve made one digital ATC for you as well as three cut and paste ATCs and two postcards - as you can see the possibilities for using these images are endless!

Under the Boardwalk

I just realized that I forgot to post my ATCs for the June ATC swap at Red Lead themed "Under the Boardwalk" - don´t know why I forgot about them ... but I sure hope they´ll bring you some summer feelings!

Dress Sampler

These are my ATCs for this month´s ATC swap at Red Lead themed "Dress Sampler" - so of course all images, stencils and stamps are from Red Lead.

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo is this week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge, and I´ve used one of her most famous quotes here. You know that her body was damaged by several accidents and that it was one of the reasons why she loved the Mexican dressing with long skirts that she wears on most pictures.
I have used an image from Xquizart at Deviant Scrap, combined with a Frida face stamp, pattern and name from Invoke Arts, plus additional wings and feet stamps from Sunday International.

Men Only

... is the theme for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge. I´ve made a digital postcard this week, using images from Pixel Music, Tangie Baxter, Melissa Renfro and Tumble Fish Studio as well as a cabinet card from my own stash.

Bird People Blog Swap Update No. 11 - swapped!

Yesterday, I took all ATCs to the office to swap them out there (because I don´t have enough space at home) - take a look at the photo below and you´ll get an idea of how long it took me to sort these out, especially as I tried to follow my lists with your comments on your favourites ...

Well, 1 1/2 hours later it was done, and when I returned home, I checked every envelope again and put a note in, then weighed them and put stamps on them. Today 29 envelopes were dropped in the mailbox, and if you´re from Germany, you should watch your own mailbox on Monday!
I´ve had to keep 5 envelopes (those for Dagmar, Ulrike, Martina, Ann, and Sirkkis) because their returns need to be completed with the ATCs from Michele and Lay Hoon that are still on their way ... however, you won´t have to wait forever - if it looks like one of these envelopes got lost in the mail, I´ll fill the gaps with my own ATCs (that´s why I always make so many, and to illustrate my updates of course) and send them out!

I´m asking you all to
- notify me when you received your returns,
- send a short thank you email to the three artists whose ATCs you received.
(And please keep in mind that not everyone likes to see her own artwork on someone else´s blog, so before you post a picture of your returns, you should ask those artists whose work you´d like to show for their permission!)

Please don´t forget about the notification as it´s necessary for me to keep track of the swap!! It´s really a lot of unnecessary work for me to ask everyone if your returns arrived or not, and you know that I need that information because I usually replace envelopes that have been lost ...
If you need an email address of one of the artists to send your thank you note and you can´t find it on the card or it´s illegible, just ask me, and I´ll help you. And if you´d like to know who received your ATCs, I´ll be able to answer that, too.

So - let´s hope that the postal services will work quickly and that your mailboxes will be filled soon!
Thanks to each and everyone of you for making this another great swap with wonderful artwork!

Bird People Blog Swap Update No. 10

Maybe you´ve been wondering what happened to our swap that ended about two weeks ago!? In my last update, I´ve told you that I was waiting for the last four envelopes, and two of them have arrived in the meantime, and I hope that Michele´s and Lay Hoon´s ATCs will show up in my mailbox soon.
However, I´ve decided that I´ll swap out all the card this weekend using place holders for those that are missing, and will only hold back those envelopes that can´t be completed yet.

If you´d like to see some interesting bird people, you should have a look here - thanks to my BIL for the link!

My own ATC for this week was made with images from Itkupilli and Tumble Fish Studio and a stamped text from Magenta - as you see, Bird People rule!

Fairy Whispers

Marsha from Tumble Fish Studio at Deviant Scrap has come out with a wonderful fairies kit today called "Fairy Whispers". As always, the kit has loads of images both in png and jpg format so that they can be used for all your digital as well as physical art.
I´ve made a cut and paste journal page in my Moleskine journal, shown above, and a digital collage, shown below, that also uses the new FREE Tumble Fish Studio font called "Paper Lady".

In the Garden

In the Garden is this week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge blog, and what a great excuse to use one of my favourite stamps again! That quote stamp is from Inkadinkado/Dawn Houser, and I combined it with image from Paper Whimsy and a background paper from BoBunny for my postcard.

Bird People Blog Swap Update No. 9 - Congrats to our coupon winners!

Yesterday has been the due date for our swap, so you can see me sitting here closing my lists and putting all the info together ... (the bird stamp is from Lost Coast, the background stamps are from Red Lead).

In the end we´ve been 35 participants from 9 countries, and 12 of you have taken part in my blog swap for the first time - thanks to all of you!

Here are the last links to finished ATCs from Brigitte 1, 2, 3 - you won´t be able to comment, but at least you can have a look at her lovely ATCs. I couldn´t pin these ATCs to our swap board, so please follow these links directly.

As you all know, this swap has been sponsored by Tracey from Hidden Vintage Studios at Deviant Scrap who generously gives away three coupons for her great shop here. Thank you so much, dear Tracey!
I´ve used Random.org to draw our winners Bevlea, Sherry, and Karla - congrats to you, I´ll email the coupons to you soon!

I´m still waiting for the four swap envelopes from Bevlea, Lay Hoon, Michele, and Dale, but as these have all been sent early and have been in the mail for weeks now, I´m sure that they´re held up in the customs and will arrive soon.
(A little tip for your next international swap: if you can, try to use a regular, unpadded business envelope without a customs declaration because it will not go to the customs.)

So we all have to be patient for a while - I´ll keep you posted!

Shakespeare

I´m hosting this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge, and as we celebrate Shakespeare´s 450. birthday this year, I thought Shakespeare would be a great theme ...
We don´t know much about him, but it seems that he really existed (which wasn´t clear even in the 80s when I learned about him at school!) and that he was baptized on April 26, 1564, so he was probably born in April 1564 (and died in April 1616).
For my card, I used a background with red ink splashes running down like blood, and a real postage stamp and a quote from Shakespeare´s drama "Hamlet", one of my favourites (besides "The Tempest" and "Richard III.") - the red ink stands for all the blood shed in Shakespeare´s dramas.
I have used a popular image of Shakespeare that I´ve found in a newspaper, and drew over it with pencils and charcoal, then added several rubber stamps from Cherry Pie.
Can´t wait to see what you will create for this challenge!