And the winner is...

The winner of the Swarovski Crystal Bracelet is:

LULULIZ

Congratulations!  Please contact me and let me know your address and I'll get your bracelet out to you as quickly as I can.

Giveaway Winner and - guess what - A NEW GIVEAWAY!

Congratulations to Miss Peach, who has won the bead woven necklace!
The necklace will go out in the mail to you as soon as I get your address. 
Thank you so much to everyone who participated! 

Miss Peach suggested this blog for my consideration: Sketchbook Mail Art Club.  This is another blog that she has.  Check out her gorgeous creations for the Blissfull ATC swap.

100th FOLLOWER GIVEAWAY!

Some time during the last two weeks, my blog acquired its 100th follower!  It's amazing!  Thank you to everyone who became a follower during One World, One Heart and this giveaway.  And thank you, as well, to those dear friends who have followed this blog from the very beginning.  I am thankful to all of you more than you will ever know!  To show my appreciation to the followers of my blog, I have a new giveaway to announce today!  To enter this one, all you have to do is be a follower, or become a follower, and leave a comment on this post - that's all!  This giveaway will not last long - so comment today.

THE WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED NEXT TUESDDAY, MARCH 22!

Here's what I'm giving away:

The bracelet is 7-1/2 inches long and is made from
Swarovski crystals and Austrian firepolish crystals.



A new name - and my first blog giveaway!

In 2005, I started beading.  And when I started, there was no stopping me!  For many months, a day did not go by that I did not spend time beading.  For four years, I attended bead classes, browsed the Internet for bead tutorials, and spent every spare moment creating.  I even taught bead classes in local stores.

Then, in 2009, I started to feel that I needed a change.  I was, frankly, burned out.  My niece introduced me to Artist Trading Cards.  And that was all it took to get me off on new artistic adventures.  I joined online groups, local meetup groups, and traded, traded, traded.  I also started learning as much as I could about backgrounds, paint, and paper.  I have never really had any artistic training.  So many of these things were brand spanking new to me.

When I started working with paper, I stopped posting on my jewelry blog and started this blog, All My Artist Trading Cards.  It’s amazing how many directions this addiction has led to!  In September of 2009 I started taking watercolor lessons.  I had never had any aspirations to paint!  But now, my progress with artist trading cards had given me the confidence to try.

So now I’ve come full circle.  I have heard the muse of beading calling me again.  I want to spend some time making jewelry as a creative outlet.  But I have no intention of giving up paper!  And I don’t have time to start a blog for each of my individual creative endeavors, so I’m renaming my blog:

                  All My Art

As I started posting my watercolor work, I will be posting pictures of the jewelry I create.  All of the jewelry I made the first time around is still available for viewing at my old beading blog, I’m Beading As Fast As I Can.  (See the link on the sidebar).

I hope you will enjoy seeing everything that I create, be it an atc, a painting, a collage, or a necklace.

MY FIRST BLOG GIVEAWAY

To celebrate this change, I want to offer my first ever giveaway on my blog.  (I’m not counting One Heart One Hand).  This giveaway is open to my blog followers ONLY.  So if you are not currently following my blog, it’s simple to just click on the sidebar and become a follower.  I currently have 90 followers; so if everyone takes part in the giveaway, you have no worse than a one in 90 chance of winning!  Of course, new followers will be in the drawing, too.  Here’s what I am giving away:

Here’s what you have to do to enter the giveaway:

1. If you’re not already a follower of my blog, become a follower.
2. Leave a comment to this message.  In your comment, I’d like for you to recommend another artistic blog to me.  It could be a blog that has inspired you, a blog that you visit over and over, or a blog that has just started and needs encouragement.
3. One comment only per person, please.

I will declare a winner using a Random Number Generator on March 15.

I appreciate all of you who follow my blog and leave encouraging comments, and comments that point me in the right direction.  Without you, the blog would exist in a vacuum.  I can never thank you enough.