Merry Christmas

Wishing you all Happy Holidays! :)

These are a bunch of ATCs I did for an Animal Christmas/Yule swap. I find them adorable. :)

Random stuff:

• I had a package waiting for me at customs and they wanted to charge me 25€ (31$) of custom fees because the sender put down a value of 100$ for it. I refused to pay it and tried to convince the customs the value was a mistake. I can proudly say I won the battle. :) I only got charged 4€ in the end because they had to process it.
• Lesson here is people, do not put value on your "personal" parcels going internationally because you only cause custom fees for the receiver. Do not think you get the value back if the parcel goes missing in transit unless you've paid for insurance as well. And even then you have to prove which objects were in the parcel and that they truly were worth the amount you wrote.
• You know the saying that your pets are a reflection of the owner? Well, I need to figure out what the hell that means for me when I have one pet with allergies causing her paw inflammations, one pet with an eye problem and another one with a broken tooth.
• Luckily we managed to fix the allergy one (for now) by throwing away a full 15 kg bag of kibble and replacing it with a more expensive one that is less allergenic.
• The one with the eye problem I'm still waiting to see how it will go because the antibiotic did help but didn't fix the problem.
• The tooth one is now toothless. One of his canine teeth broke off and we're scheduled for operation after New Year's to get the root out so it doesn't cause problems.
• So there you go. Very entertaining holidays for me. :)

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies
 

Merry Christmas

Frogs & Dragonflies & Pregnant Belly

This Round Robin started with a frog from AlornRJ, Linda4atc added the dragonfly and I finished with the background.

To remind you, Round Robins are a set of 3 ATCs (artist trading cards) that 3 different artists work on and then each gets to keep one finished card.

Can you believe New Year's is only  2 weeks away? Well, Christmas is next week. I feel like time just flies. And I only have 6 weeks left until our boy is born. :)

I wanted to make some pregnancy photos by myself because those professional ones are really expensive and I have that family syndrome of trying to do everything myself since I did go to photography school. :)

Well, let's just say it's not so easy to do. Timer on the camera is great but the problem is when there's nothing to focus on so you have to improvise with boxes and then try and get in the frame of the photo. Needless to say I gave up this project 10 photos in. :)

But I did manage to get a few photos that look kind of decent. Here is one. Yes, the belly is huge and no, they're not twins. :)

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies
 

Frogs & Dragonflies & Pregnant Belly

Round Robin with a 7 year old

This Round Robin started with a 7 year old's drawing of a flower. Isn't it cute? :) Kentuckydakota added the squirrel and I finished with the background.

To remind you, Round Robins are a set of 3 ATCs (artist trading cards) that 3 different artists work on and then each gets to keep one finished card.

Linking to Paint Party Friday.
Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies

Round Robin with a 7 year old

Portrait

Just an ATC of a girl portrait made for a trade request.

Randomness:

• It's raining again and rivers are rising. We had so many floods this year it's devastating.
• I'm itching all over in the evening. Looks like magnesium deficiency as it eases up when I drink mineral water with Mg but the doctor had my blood checked out just in case it's something with liver. The results will be known next week.
• I love getting mail. :) I'm in several swaps, trades and round robins and I'm excited to open the mail every day to see what I get.
• I haven't read a book in months.
• Funny how pregnancy makes you research everything healthy. :) We're trying out soap nuts at the moment and they seem to be pretty good.
• What are you up to in this pre-Holiday time?

Linking to Paint Party Friday.
Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies

Portrait

Mother Hen

For the August a-thon there was a challenge to depict your nationality. And I made this ATC. It's called Mat kurja or Mother Hen because my country Slovenia is in a shape of a chicken/hen and she's wearing our national costume. It's a design someone came up with years back when our country first got the internet and this is on our country's official web page.

I'd like to wish Happy Thanksgiving to all my USA peeps. I know it was yesterday. :) Hope you're not spending too much money today on the sales.

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Mother Hen

English Cupcake & Steampunk Owl

These two cards are one of many that I made in the a-thon challenge a few months ago. I had to illustrate a flag of a foreign country, theme birthday and my age in the first one. The challenge for the second one was steampunk and monochromatic.

Random things:

• Have I told you I have a purple wall in my living room? Yes, I do. And it looks fantastic!
• I have one cat that has problems with her eye and I've been giving her drops for over a month and it just won't heal.
• And I have one dog that is obviously allergic to something and keeps getting sore spots on her paws.
• I still haven't received the photo book I ordered 5 weeks ago that was supposed to only take 2 weeks to make. It has 50 pages of photos of my hubby and me through 15 years we've been together. The company said it will take another week. I'm getting impatient. UPDATE: I got it this morning! Yay!
• And I got an early New Year's gift from my family. A new camcorder to film our new family member. :)

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies
 

English Cupcake & Steampunk Owl

Rainbow Little Pony

I must admit I never watched My Little Pony nor did I have any of the toys. But they are cute to draw so here is one. The stitching is real as you can see I need more practice to sew straighter. :)

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies
 

Rainbow Little Pony

post-Halloween ATC showdown

 

There was a Halloween a-thon last week at AFA and here are some cards I made. I know Halloween was last week but I can't save these cards for next year. :) And if I show them to you one by one each week, you'll be sick of Halloween pretty quickly.

The black & white ones were actually on the theme of InkTober. I only found out about it  last week, so I couldn't properly give the theme justice. The point is to only use ink a.k.a. pens and similar stuff. I cheated a bit and used black watercolor pencil as well, so the cards weren't as white and shade-less. :)

Even though we don't celebrate this Holiday in my country, I love doing Halloween themed ATCs. I guess the reason why I have so many to show you today is because I didn't do the Halloween Blog Party this year. I posted every day for a week in previous years leading up to Halloween.

Nevertheless, hope you enjoyed the showdown. :)

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies

post-Halloween ATC showdown

Happy Halloween

This set of cards was one of the challenges of the a-thon I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. We had to make 5 stand alone ATCs that make out a bigger picture. I thought the Halloween theme was perfect for this.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We don't celebrate this Holiday in my country. Hope everyone has a great time trick-or-treating today.  Don't eat too much candy. :)

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies
 

Happy Halloween

Corpse Bride, dog haircut and baby quilt

Halloween is coming and there's no better than Tim Burton style for me. :) She's done with a pen and watercolors.

On other news, my little pooch Kika has a new haircut. :)

 

And my mom made her first baby quilt. :)

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies
 

Corpse Bride, dog haircut and baby quilt

Mixed media a-thon

There was an a-thon at the end of August on AFA. A-thon is an art marathon that is randomly scheduled for a certain number of days where you create art, mostly ATCs or other mail art, showcase them in the a-thon thread and trade like crazy. :)

I thought I'd show you I can do other media besides hand-drawn/hand-painted as well. :) The above two ATCs are made with alcohol inks for the background, stamping and collage.

I love a-thons that give challenges. For this one I had to go out of my comfort zone as I've relied on drawing for too long.

The keys are embossed with embossing powder. I was so glad that I didn't put all my crafting supplies in the attic when I was clearing my art room to make it into baby's room. :)

For the above one I got messy with acrylics again. It's been a long time since I painted. I usually just use watercolors and markers these days. The butterfly is collaged from a napkin.

I love how this one came out. :) It's a drawn dandelion on a white background with collaged butterfly post stamp and words.

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies
 

Mixed media a-thon

Cityscape and Giraffe in a Bottle

Another set of ATCs with random themes. Cityscape and giraffe in a bottle. :)

Random pregnancy stuff:

• this week I started pregnancy workout class, it was more stretching than sweating really
• everyone is telling me I have a big belly and I'm only 6 months
• we're slowly buying baby stuff like baby beds and changing tables (we need two of each)
• my mom is a bit out of control at times and can't go by baby stuff without buying something :)
• I just realized that my kid will have cousins that are 20 years his senior OMG! I was 17 when my niece was born and 18 when my nephew was born
• is it normal that the baby moves so much? I mean, it's all the time with occasional down time and it's a bit annoying :)

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies

Cityscape and Giraffe in a Bottle

Pick-A-Theme

What do these ATCs have in common? Well, certainly not a theme. :)

These were done for a PAT swap which means Pick-A-Theme. You sign up in a group of 5 players and each has its own theme. So, you make a card for each player in the required theme and you get back 4 cards each from a different player with the theme you've chosen. It's a great way to build up your collection of ATCs on a certain theme.

If you're an ATC artist or you're interested in trading ATC, you can join the ATCsforALL forum.

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Self-study classes: Cotton Candy Girls & Crazy Hair Ladies

Pick-A-Theme