Creative Book Exchange: December 2009

Sunday, December 27, 2009

The pairs are picked!!!!

The emails have been sent..... letting you all know who your partner is, but I thought that I would include a list of the pairs here on the blog as well...

Believe me....it is no easy task to match up all of you crafty, inspiring girlies. Really, it seems like we all have had a knitting, crocheting, sewing, paper crafting,or felting iron in the fire at some point in our creative lives!

Any way.... I tried to pair us up as best as I could . Taking into account anything from interests to crafting trends to lifestyle ideals.

Following is the master list of pairings

Stephinie, and Vanessa,

Heather and Mary

Camille and Heather

Lily and Tracee

Adrie and Laura

Martha and Lindsey

Valarie and Heather

Breanna, and Annie

And finally....there was an uneven number of participants (nineteen in all) so....

Imene, and Suzanne ....you are paired with Julia.

And just a reminder of the rules...

*You must exchange at least ONE, but no more than THREE books.

*All books must be intact and clean.....earmarks are acceptable but please make sure that there are no torn or written on pages.

*All photos should also be posted to the Flickr Group Creative Book Exchange.

*You need to have communicated with your partner by New Years Day 2010.

*Packages must be postmarked with a tracking # by January 10th 2010.

Thanks to all of you, for making this Exchange as fun as I anticipate it being.

Hugs, Julia

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Christmas giveaway!!!

First, let me tell all of you how excited i am about this book exchange! i am sort of new to this online crafting community and i feel so blessed to have discovered that so many other people are passionate about similar things as me. I thought it would be a good introduction to invite you all to my Christmas giveaway! The holidays are a time where i feel blessed to have so much, and to be surrounded by such amazing people. In this spirit i decided to have a giveaway, i took pottery classes in the fall and i finally received my pieces! If you like hand made pottery, please visit my blog. You can see the results of my first attempt at pottery and you can leave a comment to tell me what you want to learn in the new year. I will randomly draw a name on December 31rst and send the lucky winner this mini tea cup! Thank you and happy holidays!!!

A reminder....

I know that you are all up to your ears with thing to do, but I just wanted to put a bug in your ear that there are still openings for any friends that you think might be interested in signing up.

The deadline is fast approaching.

Christmas Day is the last day to sign up.

If you think of anyone else, just send them the following link for instructions

Link to the instructions and info

I can't wait to match up everyone and see the goodies that we have all made from the books that we are exchanging. And don't be shy... I'd love to see some of us post some pictures of some of our projects from books that we are exchanging here on the blog or over in the Flickr group.

I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying getting to know all of you gals.

So thank you Imene, Mary, Tracee, Annie, Stephinie, Breanna, Heather, Camille, Heather, Lily, Adrie, Martha, Vanessa, Lindsey, Valarie,and Laura.for joining.

Hugs to you all.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

painting...

So Julia asked us if we paint.

Hi, I'm Vanessa. I usually blog over here at 2ndspring and can also be found over on Flickr . Nice to meet you all!
And I do paint, though I don't do it nearly as often as I would like.
I usually reserve my brushes and color for a very special
week during the summer.

This is when my mom and I load up the car and drive to the middle of nowhere Nevada. After almost 6 hours of driving south from Reno we turn onto a dirt road and bump our way past more sage brush then you can count. With a trail of dust following our car we arrive in Belmont, NV. This is where we will spend the next five days painting, catching up with fellow artist/friends and enjoy shared meals and laughter. I also sneak off to take photos since I am usually full of inspiration when I am there!

above, the church where we gather to paint and learn
below, down town Belmont

Belmont used to be a booming mining town and was once the county seat for Nye County. If you are interested in finding it on a map just look about half way between Reno and Las Vegas. I doubt it is on any map but if you find Tonopah you are close. There is no electricity in this town (unless you have a generator-wind solar or gas will do) and the horses probably out number the humans.

It is a sweet little spot away from everything, completely and wonderfully unplugged. There is a b&b, restaurant and a bar or two (depending on the day of the week different places are open) and a packing service for hunters who come into town. There are a few ranches in the area and great hot springs if you care for a soak. In the evenings, if we are lucky, the clouds and the sun get their turn painting as the sun sets. I have never seen such amazing colors in the sky.

Here are a few of my results from previous years.