New Artist Trading Cards

I've been working on new Artist Trading Cards, otherwise known as ATCs. They are made from any material (in my case I start with polymer clay, but you can use paper, felt, fabric, whatever floats your boat), and they are always the same size as a standard playing card. Once you have your basic "card", then you get to embellish. It's really fun because there are no rules. I have a large ATC collection from trading with other artists. And than brings me to the one rule about ATCs - they are to be TRADED and never sold!

Here are the two cards I made this week, the blue flower is for the PCAGOE Monthly Challenge for December:


Making these cards is addictive, as they tend to get better and better as you make more of them. Your mind gets going on all the ideas that you "could" do and then it's hard to stop. :)

I hope you'll all get ready for a big Artist Trading Card Swap that I'm planning to host in a couple of months. It will be so much fun!

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Telling a story

My smart blogging friend, Donna of Cottage Days and Journeys says that my photos should tell a story, and I have a good story today! It has to do with snow and screen porches and gazebos over our spa at the back of the house.

Dealing with snow here in the High Sierra Mountains at 7,600 feet elevation is a pain in the you-know-what. And, we're not getting any younger which doesn't help. So, my smart husband and really helpful son have fixed one big problem - the snow that we have to deal with at the back of the house, after we've spent hours dealing with the driveway at the front.

The following photos will explain....

Here's a photo of the back of the house taken from above in May, 2011, showing the lovely new back deck and the spa. The spa has been there for 7 or 8 years but hubby just replaced the old rotting back deck last year.


And here is a photo of that same spa taken December 30, 2010, last winter. The winter of 62 feet of snow. The worst winter since the 1950-51 season. It was awful. This photo was taken at the beginning of the winter, too, you should have seen it in March. There was no place to put the snow, and we gave up and pretty much let the spa get buried. Not good.


But now - TADA - problem solved! This is a completely removable screen porch and gazebo that my husband and son built to remedy the problem. Can you see me smiling? I am over the moon happy! No more snow to shovel back there, yay. It's thrilling. And come Spring, down goes the entire thing and we will be back to normal until the following October. It was quite a project but now that it's done, it's great!


I already spent half the day yesterday in the spa - the gazebo is cozy and bright and just the thing to make the spa less a hassle and a lot more fun than any other winter since we got it. Woo hoo!