Swaps Galore

I love swaps. They give me a great excuse to make things when I probably should be doing other things, like work for example, or cleaning the fridge. Why? Because I have a deadline. "Nope, sorry, can't do the laundry. I've got to get these ATC's in the mail pronto! I have a deadline. " You know it's serious. It has the word "dead" in it.

So...I tend to do a fair number of swaps. Fiskateers, to no one's surprise who has read this blog previously, is the board that keeps me most regularly endebted, swap-wise. ATC's and product swaps are by far the most common ones I sign up for. I love the tiny canvas an ATC provides and it's always very cool to see the results of others' creativity, especially when we've all had a theme to think on. And product swaps are basically a nifty excuse to feel good about buying a big bunch of new embellishments because they're not for you. You're so very nice, you're buying them for other people, not spending the money on yourself. And how lovely! A few weeks later all these people send you something nice. Who would have guessed? All the goodies, none of the guilt. Ta-da!

Then there's Club Scrap, with ATC swaps, inchie swaps, birthday swaps, etc. They're fun and they give me lots of ideas for using my monthly kit. And as if that wasn't enough, you can see one of my ATC's in their print newsletter this month. I feel like a rock star! Sure, no one but me noticed, but who cares. I know I'm queen.

The rest of the swaps would fall into the miscellaneous category. There are ones I do with other Stampin' Up demos, mostly for cards and an excuse to pick up a new stamp set. Alpha Stamps has an amazing group of artists on their email list, so I do theirs when I'm feeling up for a challenge and think I might be able to run with the big dogs (even if I'm well aware that I'm just a little yip yip dog at best.) It's worth the huge amount of work and nervousness that everyone will hate what I made when that box comes in the mail with an assortment of incredible treasures by people who make my crafts look like mincemeat.

(Side and front view of the magnet I made for the Alpha Stamps swap. I used alchol ink on a dauber to color the tin green. Incidentally, the alcohol ink ate the glue that held the pad to the dauber, but I felt like it went far enough before expiring.) I glued the black dresden (LOVE dresden. Go to Alphastamps.com to get yours. So beautiful, so many uses.) with Stampin' Up Crystal Effects which held nicely and I didn't have to worry about any showing.)

(Then I stamped the glass using Stazon, punched a circle from some shiny green dotted paper from the Stamproom kit of the month, used colored wire to attach a shrink plastic eiffel tower (which I made by stamping an image onto shrink plastic w/ Stazon. That stuff is handy!) to a postcard charm I picked up somewhere. Then I poured in some green microbeads, chunky green glitter (both from Stampin' Up), and tiny watch parts into the tin to add movement. All done!)

There are also a few other message boards I check in on now and then that I pick up swaps on from time to time and once in a while, when I'm feeling really brave, I even host a swap. It's harder than it looks. There's a lot of sorting, a lot of reporting back to the other people swapping, and inevitably there will be some bumps along the way. Some people won't like the rules, some may not like being contacted too often while others want up-to-the-minute-late-breaking-news reports, like a manilla alert (vs. amber for kids or grey for seniors). And then there are people like me who for some reason can't hang onto the address to mail everything to, so we always end up asking to have it sent again at least once (sorry to all the hosts I've done this to and will probably do this to again. I really do try to hang onto the info. It's just that digital elves sneak into my email and they delete anything that will cause me particular embarassment to lose. Sigh.)

Back to work...it's midnight and I've got 2 more ATC's do finish before I sleep.

Fiskateer Mystery Chat

Check out my Fiskadogateer!

Okay, so he wasn't too fond of the ponytail holders around the ears, but he was willing to humor me for a blueberry dog biscuit.

Last night was the Fiskateer chat with the author of Paper, Scissors, Death, a fun little mystery about a paper crafter with a lot of problems and some really cute dogs, including a Great Dane and a fashionable longhaired chihuahua (I think...I have a distinct picture in my head of this little dog, and though I'm going with chihuahua, it's possible she was a pomeranian.)

Lots of questions were tossed around, and she mentioned that some Archivers stores were having release parties for her new book, Cut Crop and Die with activities (I'd love me some bloody scrappin' make-n-takes.) and costumes. I'd totally want to be the Great Dane. Floppy ears suit me.

I suggested that her next book feature a murder with a pair of orange handled scissors as the weapon. Fiskars could come out with a special commemorative edition pair with red splotches all over the blades. Marketing? Are you listening?

Well, the visiting short people are getting bouncy, so it's probably time to leave the house for a while. So far, we've only had a tube of glass eyeballs dumped on the floor, a sneeze directly in my face, and slimy bare feet shown off, then rubbed on a stack of stamp sets I will be lysol-ing once no one is looking. All in all, that's pretty good. And some of that gets excused by the cuteness of a 2 year old, running around the house yelling "Cheese" while repeatedly flashing himself directly in the eye with the camera turned the wrong way. Aww.

P.S. Don't forget to check out the RAK in the previous post if you haven't already. I've got goodies for someone!

Back from Savannah, chaos ensues.

(pic: My first me-made flower arrangement ever ever ever!)

It's one of those things that inevitably happens, no matter what kind of mental and physical acrobatics I try to prevent it, the very second the vacation ends, real life comes crushing down, squishing every molecule of oxygen out of my wee little body.

The airport: Due to the world's crappiest handicapped assistance, I missed my flight. 45 minutes between flights should have been plenty, but not for U.S. Air. Instead of the typical routine (guy meets you at the plane, pushes you in wheelchair to gate, gets a nice tip, everyone is happy, takes all of 10 minutes to complete the transaction) they had those glorified golfcarts ("no tips accepted" printed over and over on the sides, dammit! How am I supposed to bribe people under these circumstances?) that are always squealing their way through the corridors. Sure, they *look* like they'd get you there faster than walking, but not after they make everyone switch cars 3-5 times (keep in mind that we're all handicapped and consequently we're slow as molasses getting from car a to car b and for some reason they have to take detailed notes on every passenger after they're settled, apparently doing some sort of detailed algebra judging by how long it took.) I tried to very politely (I've worked in service and retail. I go to great lengths not to be a bitch to people trying to do their jobs.) point out that I only had 2o, then 10, then 5 minutes till my flight left without me when...my flight left without me. Arrgh. At least it gave me time to get a vegan latte on the house, but still. I'm tired, I'm in pain, and I want to go home. Not a good start.

When I did get home, I got a few hours of sleep before Fuz started bleeding. My poor little girl, one of the rat family I adopted a year or two ago, was having a uterine prolapse. I've been up all night for two nights now, first taking her to the emergency vet at midnight, then to her regular vet in the morning (thank you Scott!) then back home (I was up almost all night worried that if I didn't check on her throughout the night, she might prolapse again and suffer for hours before anyone woke up) then back to the vet again this morning. She went into surgery this afternoon, with plans to remove the mass that was pushing everything out. We agreed that if it couldn't be removed, she would not be woken up after surgery. They just called a couple of hours ago and said we can pick her up this evening. Whew! Little Fuz has been through quite the ordeal. She's coming home with pain meds and we're setting up a sick bay cage. I'm sure Kitty and Spider (her aunt and sister, respectively) aren't happy that she's disappeared, especially since Glitter never returned and Twinkle only came back long enough to die. They seem to be hiding in their igloo nearly all the time. It has to be nervewracking to have to wait and wonder. They saw her as she was prolapsing, so they had to know something was up. Still, I always think how they must feel, watching us take her away.

This weekend, my sister in law is coming along with my nephews, 2 and 6, so frantic cleaning has ensued. Kate, my princess of housecleaning and pet sitting generously squeezed me into her incredibly busy schedule, knowing my OCD is on fire. The combination of kids and an imperfect house could send me into a fit of lunacy of the very unfun kind. Mind you, this is also my late father's birthday, falling on Fathers' Day this year for a double whammy, so this weekend is all wrapped up into one big stress burrito. I really want to be a good aunt to my little nephews. It's just so hard to stay calm when they speak in shouts and touch everything in my contamination-free-zone. OCD is not fun, folks. I'm doing my best, but sometimes it's embarassing and makes me feel like a total jerk. I hate hiding from the people I love because they scare me. My nephews are adorable, clever, funny little kids. I know there's nothing to be frightened of, and yet, I'm scared to death.

Let's not end on a mopey note. I got an offer on my 4th book of poetry, Vault from Foothills press and I just got my contributors' copies of the current issue of Open Minds Quarterly, including my poem, "A Bucket of Divinity". Want a copy? Comment below and I'll pick a name one week from today. I'll throw in a little something special for your crafting stash too, just because I'm so darn nice. :)

Fact: Far-Flung Fiskateers Fantatics' Festivities F-ing Fabulous

A few weeks ago I was surprised to hear from Ellen, a woman I had met at Certified Fiskars Demonstrator training who had attended a few of my Stampin' Up classes a while ago. It had been a while since I'd seen her so I was totally psyched when I got an email asking me if I wanted to go to the Fiskateer Meet-n-Greet at Brains on Fire in Greenville, SC. I had been reading about the event on the Fiskateer message board but had completely dismissed any hope of going because

a) It was scheduled on a Tuesday night.

b) I don't drive and Scott both had to work and likely had no desire to chauffer me to SC.

I jumped at the opportunity to go as well as getting the chance to get to know a fellow Fiskateer better. Roadtrips are really unparalleled for that. I met Scott that way, actually (long story. Perhaps another entry.) I wasn't disappointed. It's the lag time between events--riding on the interstate, meandering around the hotel grounds, girltalk over a glass of wine before sleep--the conversation and commentary traded leisurely that helps you understand how another person lives and functions.

One of the things I enjoyed most was getting a closer look at the fountains and other things we could see in micro-scale from our 5th story window. We discovered that our hotel was directly beside a beautiful river and park full of ducks, gosslings, and dogs! I had to stop and take a million photos of the friendly (and perhaps a little chubby) birds swimming right up to everyone (even the little girl yelling "NO! Go away!"...your voice says 'no, no', but your breadcrumbs say 'yes yes!')

Check out this dad who doesn't want the other geese getting anywhere near his progeny.

I was freaking out at how crazy yellow the goslings were! I don't know how well my camera caught it, but honestly, they looked like a black and white photo that someone had run over with a highlighter pen!

As we continued walking we ran into a gaggle of lead Fiskateers (the head bloggers and hostesses of the site). They were as orange as the gosslings were yellow and thus very easy to spot. (Most everyone has been exposed to Fiskars via their orange-handled scissors, hence orange is the color to wear to these things. Oddly enough, my Fiskateer shirt is pale blue. I'm not sure how that happened.) As they passed, I shouted "Hey! 1135!" (my Fiskateer number) at them and they reacted just as you, the reader, probably would if someone shouted numbers at you. They rapidly turned and walked away as quickly as possible. Apparently they don't get this greeting often. We also passed a dog parade (or what I assume was a group of professional dog walkers on the job). Always a welcome sight, especially for Ellen and I who were missing our little yappers at home. It's really a shame that our hotel didn't allow dogs. I would have totally dragged Scott and the dogs back for a weekend of exploring the town and the park. C'mon people. Dogs make excellent guests!

Back at the hotel, we ran into some of our favorite leads and legends. I'm framing this one! :)

Food was in the plans, but time slipped by so quickly, I only had time to grab a quick blueberry bubble tea (mmm...) and it was off to Brains on Fire. The theme of the evening was cupcakes. Checkout this mondo one this lucky Fiskateer got to take home. I have to wonder though. Is it still a cupcake when it's bigger than a regular cake?

And while I thought, the night before, oh yeah I should make something for the other fiskateers. Debby actually thought ahead and made it happen. Maybe that's why she's the Fiskateer of the Year and I'm not. ;)

Back to cupcakes. Each placesetting included a fresh, albeit bald, cupcake amongst all sorts of goodies I won't tell you about for fear of making you terribly jealous. Once the leads got the rest of us to sit down and shut up, the baker took the stage and showed us how to do all sorts of fancypants cake decorating. Roses, leaves, beautiful swirls of icing, before handing the frosting over to us.


Lest you be concerned that the Fiskateers will put her out of business with our newly aquired skills, scroll down.

It says "Lauren" on it, since she was the person who volunteered to eat mine (since I'm vegan and all.) And here she is, just prior to consuming.


Now onto my favorite part...make-n-takes! The entire evening was devoted to making elaborate scissor charms (like an earring for your scissors. Just wait till it comes back with its nipple pierced.) beginning with beads, then adding shrinky things:

and these ubercool sparkly cupcakes made of beads:

The night closed with more sweets (I went for the Twizzlers and Oreos, myself.) and a ton of giveaways...generous goodiebags, page kits that were more like album kits, and templates galore. And people still ask what the big deal is about being a Fiskateer. Go figure.

Projects All Over the Place!

I felt really remorseful about quitting the Club Scrap kit club, so I caved and rejoined. I just love their totally unique papers and the people in the Club Scrap Community. I all the swaps and other ways of sharing our work and ideas. Not that I *have* to be in the club to participate, but it helps. I had let my kits stack up, being rather depressed, having lost interest in just about everything for about 6 mo. to a year there. I didn't realize that my depression had jumped from being down about my pain, losing my dad, the tough nature of rescue work, to a clinical form.

I don't know why, but somewhere in that nasty bout of bronchitis, etc. the depression broke like my fever. Don't fret, I am still getting help, but suddenly things were in color again, Wizard of Oz style.

Jumping into the last kit I received before quitting, which I had just set aside without touching, here are some projects made with the Milestones kit. Honestly, this one's a little hard to connect to its name, but on the other hand, that's probably a good thing. "Milestones" sounds like something painfully...er...stodgey, which is far from this hip, vibrant, eggplant and chartruese combination. Warning: One kit makes a LOT of stuff!

ATC's. Most have been given away by now via my ATC/Altered Art meetup. It's fun. Come with us sometime.

I love these regal lions. You may recognize them from the Cricut which I used profusely the last time I was visiting Cary Table Scraps Meetup. I'd never really used a Cricut before, so I cut a slew of stuff to bring home, as you'll see in the following pics.

Longstem rose stamp courtesy of Big Lots. Last time I was there they had a small assortment of Hampton Arts stamps--really excellent quality stamps--for $1-$2. Hoopla! I colored these in using some really cool AtyouSpica twinkling pens. Kind of like Twinkling H2O's but in a pen. Love them!

Check it out. Little embossed doggies! Are they not painfully cute? Of course they are! You can hardly stand it, I know! Thank you Jen K! These were a birthday present she gave me. The balloon one s my favorite. I could just see Revco having that same expression if I was nasty enough to tie him to a balloon and let it go. Aww!

This is my favorite project. It's a Tombo adhesive box I was carrying my ATC's around in after I noticed they fit perfectly inside. The problem was, who wants to be seen lugging around a Tombo adhesive box like some kind of security blanket. Not me, pal! So, I covered it, added some wire and charms (hard to see, but on the side, there's a little silver bird and some neat brightly colored wire from the old-school Stampin' Up Wire Works kit. Why-oh-why-oh did they ever discontinue this item?

Oh my lord, am I sure I want this on the internet? Yeah, that's me on the right, my long-time pal-for-life, Jeni O on the left, both of us defining the term "awkward phase" for the camera.

Meeeeeyooow!

Teresa let me play with her Stampin' Up rose embossing folder. The neat corner thingies came with the kit, so did the cool gold paint marker that I used to trace the embossed design in the middle.

Sorry this layout is split into two pictures, but I couldn't get a clear pic close enough that everything wasn't just a mess of tiny little purple and chartreuse blips. Every Club Scrap kit comes with a page map (actually they come with lots, but only one that's a extra complicated one, which I like to do each time, just for kicks. These are pics I took when Iwas in San Francisco in Feb. There's such a cool bond between Darcy and Tara, I couldn't miss a chance to snap some pics I think capture that love. Working rescue all these years, I see so much sadness, so many unwanted, unloved animals completely alone in the world, when I see a bond like this one, I have to grab that moment on "film". This is why I adore pet photography.

Whew! That's quite a bit from one kit. Stay tuned for more, coming soon!

Something Different: Buddhist Holidays

In the west, it's easy to miss out on the festivals and holidays that highlight various events in the Buddha's life. Growing up in a Catholic household, I still hold onto the Judeo-Christian holidays I grew up with, and I don't think that's a bad thing. The Buddha taught us to respect other religions and beliefs that are intended to promote compassion and love, though I sometimes find it hard to understand when religious leaders seem to be preaching the very opposite--condemning the expression of love in homosexual marriage, glorifying war, fighting or tormenting animals via sacrifice (ceremonial killings in Voodoo or Santaria), ceremonial consumption (eating or using parts for specific celebrations and whatnot like Greek Easter's lamb meal or the deer meat at Yule), or as a matter of biblical law (Kosher slaughter is a very frightening way to be killed.) But...those are just the things I muddle over, and not any kind of reason to be nasty or exclusive, certainly. We're talking about intent. So, all in all, I don't think that anyone means to hurt others, we just have varying concepts about what constitutes love and compassion in some cases.

Anyway, I've been celebrating most of the standard Christian holidays my whole life, and even added a few more as friends have taught me about their own religious traditions--Hannukah, Yule, Summer Solstice, and the like, as well as the fun secular holidays like Thanksgiving (carefully sidestepping the Turkey issue via Tofurkey and sponsoring a Farm Sanctuary one via their painfully cute Thanksgiving campaign.) After all, I don't want to be left out on visiting my family and friends, giving gifts, sending cards, and decorating. I don't want to sit around and mope instead of joining in, and I like to think that the people I celebrate with feel the same way.

When it comes to celebrating the holidays of my religion, however, it can be a little lonely. It's not like I wake up to a mailbox full of Losar cards on the Lunar New Year or drive around the neighborhood admiring the beautiful Wasak decorations. Part of it is my own fault. I could make more of an effort to get out to the ol' Zendo, but honestly, it's not the easiest thing to find in Raleigh, NC (if there's one around here that I've somehow missed, please let me know!) It's a lot of work to find other Buddhists in the South, let alone Zen ones. It can be a little lonely.

On the other hand, why should I sit around and mope on the holidays of my own religion when I'm fully festive on the western ones? My solution thus far has been to celebrate mostly on my own, or to drag in a friend or two (with varying degrees of success--eating yummy food is a lot more popular than meditating our bad karma into imaginary scorpions) adding a little more to the holiday each year. A few more decorations. A "new" tradition to add on (new to me, anyway). Invite somebody else over to run around the house waving incense with me, maybe.

What all this rambling is leading to is a brief list of Buddhist holidays, just so my friends and readers can see what it is I'm celebrating next time you see me making tiny boats or having dinner with my dead grandparents.

Losar: Lunar New Year (usually celebrated in January/February.) Often called "Chinese New Year" though they don't have a corner on the market. The lunar calendar runs a bit different than the Roman one. For example, 2009 is actually 4706.

Avalokitesvara's Birthday: She's the Boddhisattva of compassion. This holiday is celebrated on the first full moon of March.

Wesak: Shakyamuni Buddha's Birthday. He's the one commonly called The Buddha (and no, he's not the overweight "rub the Buddha's belly guy". That's a totally different guy who was named Hotei who, as far as I can tell, has little to do with Buddhism)This year, Wesak it's May 2.

Ullambana: Celebrating our ancestors, we make offerings of food to the dead. (Make those dead a bit more lively and it's almost like Thanksgiving .) Aug. 15

Sejiki: Remembering our dead and pacifying agitated spirits. Oct. 30...a bit like a lot of other holidays around that time. :)

Loy Krathong: Festival of Floating Bowls. Little rafts carry our troubles away. Nov. 24

Bodhi Day: Celebrating the Enlightenment of the Buddha. Dec. 8

So, there you go. A few more reasons to celebrate. Who can't use more of those?

Hangin' out

I've been popping in on a couple of new (to me) forums so I thought I'd share them with you, the viewing audience.

As you already know, I'm an avid (possibly rabid) Fiskateer, so you can pretty much count on finding me there.

And of course, for those of you Stampin' Up folk, I try to check in on the demonstrator forum from time to time to make sure I haven't missed out on something I should not be clueless about.

But the other day I got an email about a chat with one of the 7 Gypsies designers, and since I love their blend of old-timey and sassy junk, I hopped on over and ended up checking out the host site, Scrapbook Dreamer.

Lo and behold, they were hosting two really cool contests--a 7 Gypsies ATC competition, and one by Bo-Bunny * (one of my top 10 favorite scrapbooking companies. Whoo hoo!) I had hopes of joining in on the ATC challenge, but sadly could not find any suitable 7 Gypsies papers or embellishments on my trip to Archivers, darn it. They did have some stamp sets, but I was not of the wealthiness to pick up a new set of stamps just to complete a challenge this week so, dejected, I moved on.

I did, however, feel inspired to join in on the Bo Bunny layout contest. You can see my layout here. There's a lot of good competition (this and this for example!) so wish me luck.

Next, I noticed for the first time that A.C. Moore has a forum. It's sparse, but the people are extremely kind and outgoing, so let's flesh it out a little. It's worth poking around, in my opinion, especially in the stamping area. There are some really cool, knowledgeable people there. Ask them questions. :)

So, that's where I've been. Say hi if you get there.

*I promise that Bo-Bunny's products aren't *all* frilly foo foo like the layout on their opening page would seem to indicate. No offense to the designer, or those who are into frilly foo foo, but I personally have an aversion to Dunkin' Donuts' pink and orange color combo.