Breaking News LOL – St. Patrick’s Day ATC Swap is Open over on Milliande

For those adventurous souls, I’m hosting a St. Patrick’s Day ATC swap over on Milliande Art Community for Women.  You have to be a member of this NING group (membership is easy though) to participate and there are all kinds of cool swaps running all the time.

I just decided to take the plunge and host a St. Patrick's Day ATC Swap.  Yes, mine are done (wouldn’t be right if the hostess wigged out on her end) and are ready to head to their new homes.  Once they are well on their way, I’ll post them here (plus, I haven’t taken pictures yet LOL).  You are assigned two partners, and make one ATC card for each partner.

Signups are open through Saturday, February 4th or until I post the swap list on February 5th.  I have something to do the afternoon of the 5th so the swap list will go up late, giving stragglers a few more hours to sign up.

So, show your Irish!  Join up and have a great time.

I See London, I See France Tag Swap

Once again, those of us over on Roses On My Table that participate in the Tag, Your It Tag Art swap, had a wonderful theme to choose from.
Of course, the children’s rhyme, I see London, I see France, I see somebody’s underpants! went screaming through my head, non-stop the entire time.
Well, I didn’t do the obvious,  I did a London Tag, and a Paris tag, but I also did an India tag!  India having been a British colony at one time.  Also, nothing to do with underpants!
So, without further ado, here are my contributions to this month’s swap:

I find Tags just slightly more difficult than ATCs.  All that extra room to work with!  I’ve been a miniaturist (1/12th scale & smaller) for a number of years and the Tags just seem HUGE to me.
Until Later……………

I'm linking up to the Unique Crafters Challenge, March Challenge #1

Cowgirl ATCs

I just finished up participating in an ATC swap over on Roses On My Table.  The theme this time was Cowboy’s Sweetheart.  I decided that I would go the Cowgirl route with my cards (plus, have you ever tried finding images of women from the Old West that were not Cowgirls?).

Since the cards have all been sent in, here are the 6 ATCs I made.

  This one was a gift for the hostess.

These are the best I feel I have ever done.  However, they were not the easiest to come up with.  Trying to find the right combination of papers, findings, and trims was hard, but so far, they’ve been a hit.

I also recently participated in a “I See London I See France” tag swap.  Those will be in another blog post.

Just out of curiosity, are they any suppliers of digital images and/or findings that anyone can recommend?  I’m having a tough time with both, especially all the findings I use to accent my pieces.  The filigree items, charms, etc.  are difficult for me to come by.  Any help would be greatly appreciate.

Well, off to celebrate my MIL getting a part-time job!

New Frills & Fancy Ezine for Miniature Doll Makers

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I’ve been struggling with multiple surgeries since August, but think things are starting to look up.

However, I was so excited about this I just had to share it with everyone.  The new Frills & Fancy Ezine  from Dana Burton is now available for subscription at http://www.frillsandfancyezine.com/.  Cost is $5 per issue or $30 per year (there will be 6 issues). 

The first issue is 23 pages chock full of tutorials, how-to’s, tips, tricks, & doll artist profiles.  Once you pick it up, it’s hard to put down!

Here is the cover page of our first issue.

    

If you like Miniature Dolls, why don’t you also consider becoming a member of  MSATMiniDolls, a Yahoo Group dedicated to the love & creation of 1/12th scale dolls.  We’ve got a wonderful, fun, helpful group of people over there.  Our companion website, MiniDollList contains back issues of previous Frills & Fancies (from before we went to a subscription model), tips, & help.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Black Friday / Cyber Monday

Starting today, Friday November 25th and going through Monday, November 28th, I’m having a sale in all my Etsy stores. 

Just enter CyberMonday when you checkout and save 10%.

The sites are as follows:

www.MSEsoteria.etsy.com

www.GhostlyTreasures.etsy.com

www.BookandAlbumCorner.etsy.com

www.TheCreativeCloset.etsy.com

www.TarnishedRose.etsy.com

A Great Find

A few weeks ago, I attended my first estate auction of the year.  Since very few real estate auctions are held where I live (mostly it’s estate sales where every thing is individually priced), I have to wait until I’m visiting my parents in order to attend any.

The day started cold, but there were a few items of real interest to me.  I’d perused AuctionZip.com a few days before heading to my parents’ in order to see what was up for auction.  However, the best find of the day wasn’t even on the site for the auction.

The find was two boxes of Scrapbooks.  Not just any scrapbooks, but Playbill Scrapbooks.  I had never heard of them, but immediately fell in love at first site.

   There were two boxes of these, for a total of 31 books.  Patiently I waited (well, maybe not so patiently since I went and asked the auctioneer during a break when they were going to be up) and slowly began to lose hope.  Things were going for outrageous prices (especially in the middle of Nowhereville, Arkansas) and I’d already been outbid on one of my “must haves”.  When bidding hits $100 for a stack of old photos, I must admit defeat.

So finally, the time arrived and the bidding started.  As the price climbed, the few bidders began to drop out, leaving me and one other lady (who was obviously a “dealer”-usually I can spot them a mile away).  I began to lose hope as my mother was going to foot the bill for these and I didn’t want to go too high.  Well, at $25 a BOOK, the other bidder dropped out and they were mine.  Now, no way was I going to be be able to grab all 31 books, not at that price.  My mom came to my rescue and said I could get 10.  Okay, a fair number and to be honest, I had no room for all of them.  KNOWING the back-up bidder would take the rest, I slowly made my choices.  I was ecstatic.  I selected my 10 and with hardly a twinge of remorse, I watched the other bidder snap up the 21 that were left. 

Here are a few pictures of the insides. Oh, the years?  They started in the teens and ran to around 1935.  I got a good selection of the years as I was more interested in ones with lots of pictures and clippings than I was in the playbills.

  This particular book dated from 1922.  This is the page where the title of the play was listed along with it’s date shown and newspaper clippings about it.

  The Playbill

  Newspaper pictures of the major players.

  More clippings

  The two major actors.

  Another clipping.

I love these books.  This is just information from one play!  Now that I’m home recovering from my second carpal tunnel surgery (this time the left hand), I can flip through them at leisure.

Well, hard to type one-handed, so until next time……

I Can’t Find a Darn Thing!

First, sorry for the long lapses between posts.  I’ve returned to work and LIFE has gotten in the way of my blogging.  Well, LIFE, Swaps, Family, you name it, it’s parked it’s rear in front of me.

Okay, so here’s my question.  How in the world do you organize your digital images so you can find what you are looking for (or might need)?

I have TONS of images stored on my computer, in some semblance of order.  However, when I’m designing an ATC, Tag, Inchie, whatever, I can NEVER seem to find what I’m looking for.

We aren’t talking looking for specific pictures here, but ones in general.  See, I may need a background, a foreground, words, images of people, images of inanimate objects, etc.  But when I go to my trusty laptop, I draw a blank.  I guess what I’m saying is, “IS THERE ANY WAY TO CATALOG THESE DARN IMAGES”.

I’m begging, pleading, cajoling, down on hands and knees asking if anyone knows a good way to handle this. 

I tried printing thumbnails of the files.  You guessed it!  The MINUTE I get ONE file printed, I add another image.  AAAARRRGGHHH!

 

So HELP!  PLEASE!