One World, One Heart Give away

I have been seeing blog give aways all over blog land in the past few weeks and have been itching to participate.I have been leaving comments all over the blog world but would really like to have something to give back to at least one person. It has been a great carpet ride so far and I have found some wonderful artists in many media in the process.

The whole movement was started in 2007 by Lisa Swifka and has grown like topsy ever since.

Here is what Lisa Says on her blog

WHAT IS ONE WORLD ONE HEART?

I created this event in 2007. The original idea behind this giveaway event was to bring bloggers together from around the world who may never ordinarily meet. It closes the gap of the blog community and enables us to interact, discover new and wonderful people, and in the process possibly win a prize or many prizes along the way. 2007 had roughly 85-90 participants and many connections were made because of it......friendships that are still going strong.
We had a strong showing the first year for sure, and then in 2008 we had just about tripled that number. In 2009 there were 911 participants, to say I was amazed is an understatement. 28 countries were represented in the 2009 event as well.
This is more than wanting to win something.......that is only the means.......in the end it's about finding kindred spirits. Someone who may be fairly new to blogging, not sure how to navigate, find others and have others find them....Some are long time bloggers and in some cases well known in the blogging community. Whatever the case it brings all of them together. This is an INTERNATIONAL event that has and had participants from the US, Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Malaysia, Brazil, The Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, England,Wales, Slovenia and more. It transcends geographical location, socio economics, political affiliation, religious beliefs......it's a coming together like the giant community we are on this planet. If only it took a simple giveaway to create PEACE everywhere, in the mean time here we give from our hearts. We are not solving the worlds problems nor are we curing anything nor are we changing the world. We are merely generating a closer community between humans through blogging. What more could I ask for, my little idea has surpassed my wildest dreams of what it could become.

So here are the rules:
1. You need to have a blog to participate
2. Leave me a comment on THIS post to enter my give away
3. Make sure there is a way I can link back to you or your email address in your comment.

On the 15th of February 2010 I will announce the winner and contect you for your snail mail address so I can forward your prize to you. 
If there are lots of comments I might even select a few more random winners for  a surprise gift.

Want to know the give away?

 


This is a soldered charm I made of a collage today. I have been learning more with each practice of soldering  and love this little girl. I often need to be reminded to play so the saying on the back is apt. I have some other charms ready for another post but this one is the give away so hope you like it.

Now leave a comment and join the fun. I hope you enjoy the many other blogs in this year's event as well.

Edit:

I am in Australia and the 15th February starts early here compared to the rest of the world. I will do my draw at 10:00 Australian eastern standard time on the 16th February to maximise the number of entries. This is 18:00 pm EST ( New York Time)
Sorry if that means some people miss out

16/02/2010
Comments are now closed at 256 comments. Thanks to everyone who entered. 

Adventures in book binding

Call me strange but I don't really like hinged rings for binding books. I have participated in a number of collaborative book swaps in the past 2 years and half of them lie unbound in my work room because of the rings isue.
So, I have been platyng with a different idea. It's not original but I was inspired by Joy Bathie and her binding technique for a REALLY Fat book with over 100 pages. An accordion type binding with a sewn spine seemed to be asked for. After some playing and some help from club scrap videos, here is what I came up with.

This is the inside cover showing my page in Azza's 2009 collaborative book. The theme was texture and I used tar gel over alfoil with layers and layers of paint rubbed back with alcohol.

The binding. It stands well but almost closes flat which is an achievement with such a chunky book. I love Azza's covers.

The front. It had been intended for ring binding. Hence the punched holes.

From above. See how they all nestle into the binding?
Now I have a lot of catching up to do.

cracked glass

Over at Boomerang we have been having some technique challenges for cards. I really liked this week's challenge of cracked glass. A good excuse to break out the new Tim Holtz stamps and masks and combine two techniques in one. I love this optimist stamp.

It's so nice to have some time to create this weekend.

Comments?

Soldered charms

I just realised this is my 51st post so happy anniversary I guess.
After I made the soldered microscope slide necklace I was inspired. I had to try again.
So, at stamp camp I borrowed a glass cutter and cut some slides into inchies. Now this was my first play with inchies as well.
It's not too easy to cut inchies and there was a lot of wasted glass but I managed to get a few done and promptly gave them away. I can see there is more to be learned with this soldering caper but it is a lot of fun and worth the effort.

It's about time

Sorry it's been so long. I have been crafting just not blogging. Hope you enjoy the catch up.

Over at Paperarts we had an unusual challenge last month. It was to make a board book page on the theme of My Spooky Ancestors using images from the very talented Itkupilli.My Aunt Felicity was one of the original supermodels but she had a nasty side. I am looking forward to seeing the other pages in the flesh so to speak.

slide pendant

I entered a microscope slide pendant swap on paper arts. Only problem was, I didn't know how to solder. I could have used the ranger slide frames but I really wnated to solder.
You tube is a wonderful thing. I searched and watched some basic videoas and then had a demo from a friend's husband and son. It's probably the most expensive slide pendant if you count the cost of the soldering iron and the table clamp and the flux etc. I will just have to make some more to justify the cost. Still, I have decided I love soldering. Looking forward to doing more.
Hope you like it Glenda.

polished pigments

Remember this? I've been meaning to post a tutorial about it since I posted the teaser but needed to make a second lot of samples to photograph as I went. Finally, my friend Chris came for a play day and the natural light was good so here we go.
I learned the principals of this from Bernie Berlin in Melbourne this year. Polished pigments are beautiful pigments with mica particles that are made by Luminarte. They are in the same colours as twinkling H2Os but the difference is that you can mix them with different mediums for different effects. So you can layer them on top of each other which I have not been able to do with the watercolour H2Os. Luminarte have three mediums to use with the powders and I am using medium number 2 for paper.
You only need a little powder because the pigments are concentrated.

Add about the same ammount of medium or a bit more

I used a scrunched up piece of baking parchment to apply the paint randomly to watercolor paper. Leave a fair ammount of white space. This first layer is copper penny.

Second layer is sunflower gold

Third layer is poppy red. My favourite red. Very strong. Notice there is still a lot of white space.

The next step involves spritzing the paper and rubbing or sponging distress inks all over the paper. It can look disastrous but keep working the ink in then spritz again and remove the excess with kitchen towel.

In this example I used Mustard seed on the left, vintage photo in the middle and fired brick on the right to give you an idea of the different effects this step can have. Click on the image for more detail. Look at my gorgeous paper towel on the left. It is going to have to be used in a background later on.