Saturday Showcase: November 24, 2012

Hello peeps!  Hope you are all doing well and for my American readers I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with love and laughter--two of my favourite things in life.  For that matter, wherever you are in this world, I hope that your Thursday, your Friday and all your days are filled with the same wonderful qualities.  If they aren't currently, then I wish that they will be someday soon.  Now, let's get on with the showcase.

For those of you new to my little slice of bloggyland, each week I come across a lot of truly unique blogs featuring incredible freebies, remarkable card designs and great tips and techniques.  Consequently, I created a special Saturday post designed to showcase other artists' work (whether it be stamps, cards or otherwise), a blog post offering a great technique, or I might even just pick a whole blog to showcase.  The criteria I use is that it has to move me in some way (it makes me laugh or cry; awes, inspires or astounds me; etc). I believe that it is extremely important to support other artists within our creative community and this is my way of doing so.

My top picks for this week include...

CARD CHOICE

This wonderful card was designed by

  KAREN H.

Her blog is called

 Kaleidoscopic Sparkles

I came across this card a few weeks ago on my first vist to Karen's blog.  It is from her October 1st post aptly entitled, "In Everything...Give Thanks". I waited to post it until now because I wanted it to coincide with the American Thanksgiving weekend--appropriate since Karen is from Michigan.  I love the unique shape of this card.  I haven't tried doing shaped cards yet.  I'm a little nervous as to how it will turn out.  However, Karen makes it look easy.  I love her choice of colours which are very fall oriented.  My eyes are immediately drawn to the cluster of leaves.  Karen embossed the leaves and then added gold Stickles around the edge.  The resulting effect is stunning.  I also really like how she accented the frame of the card with rhinestones and I love her vision behind the choice.  She wanted to give the card "'a golden sunset appearance". She most definitely achieved this effect and what I was really taken with was how she herself, saw the embellishments "as harvest sunbeams from above".  I'll take a little descriptive prose on the side of my card viewing any day.  Of course, the quote says it all and fits in perfectly with my "Thursdays Are For Giving Thanks" post from earlier this week.  You will find all the details for this card in the link mentioned for Karen's post previously in this paragraph. If you are unfamiliar with her work, pay Karen a visit and check out her other unique designs.  For those of you who are also interested in baking, she features a 'Sweet Saturday' post filled with yummy treats and recipes (clicking on the blog name will take you straight to her blog).  

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FREE DIGITAL STAMP CHOICE

 This wonderful image was created by

  GINGER

Her blog is called

Ginger's House

I invite you all to stop by Ginger's House.  Well, not literally.  I'm not sure how she'd feel if 20 or 30 people showed up suddenly at her doorstep this afternoon.  I'm talking about stopping by her blog of the same name.  Although, at times it actually feels like you are sitting in her living room listening to her talk about her day or another adventure going on in her world.  Ginger has a very unique perspective on things and likes to share tidbits of her life with her readers.  Oh, and she has free word art too!  This is not your run of the mill wordart either.  I guarantee nobody has word art quite like Ginger.  She can make you laugh, cry, remember something special, really make you contemplate certain aspects of life and inspire you--and that is all in the same week!  I found the above quote when I was going through her archives and fell in love with it.  It is now on my list of daily mantra's and should be on everyone else's.  I feel a discourse coming on...but that is for another day.  The name of the post where I found this little gem is "I'm Playing Today".  Now unfortunately, the download link for this particular quote is no longer valid.  Ginger is hoping to be able to find it and repost it but there are no promises that she will be able to.  While the download link doesn't work you could still click on the image and then save the smaller png version of it.  Don't be discouraged though, there are so many other free images to choose from.  One of her most recent tidbits that touched me deeply was this one:

It is from the post entitled, "Go Vote By Two Moose Designs".  This is another unique phrase that really sings out to me.  As I mentioned in a recent post, my #1 mantra is 'Never Surrender'.  'Life is tough, but I am tougher' fits right along with this sentiment.  I personally, need to print this one out and post it somewhere I can see it.  If this wordart inspires you like it did me, I encourage you to go and get it for yourself.  If this one isn't relevant to your life, I promise that when you visit Ginger's blog you will find one that is.  I assure you, the time spent looking through her designs will be time well spent (clicking on the blog name will take you straight to her blog).

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Finally, that  brings me to the...

 This is a special category highlighting 

a stamp for sale by another artist.

  This week that honour goes to...

This beautiful image was created by  

LYN NORTON

Her blog is called

Spectacular Printable

  Her Etsy store is located HERE

This kit that includes this stamp is available for sale HERE

I came across this image in the post called "Freebie for the week of October 28th".  Now if you weren't lucky enough to get this as a freebie during that week, I'm afraid it is no longer available for free. But that is okay because this category is all about stamps for sale by someone in our community.  Considering that today is 'Small Business Saturday', it is even more important to go out and support the small online crafting businesses like Spectacular Printable and the other small stores I've highlighted during the last four weeks.

I came across this image at a time when I was looking for ideas for my mom and dad's 50th anniversary card.  Lyn and her husband were celebrating their 40th anniversary that week and so she had opted to move away from the fall images for a more romantic theme before heading into the Christmas images. The actual image is from a clip art set available in the Spectacular Printable Etsy Shop entitled "Fancy Heart Clip Art" (link above). I really like the intricate nature of the design and especially the transparent background which makes it great for printing out on all different colours of paper.
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Well, that is it for this week's edition of the Saturday Showcase.  Thanks to all the wonderful artists listed above for agreeing to allow me to showcase their work on my blog.  Don't be surprised to see their work listed here again in the future.  Though you never know, I may be contacting YOU next to showcase something incredible you've created.

 

Until next time,

Note:  

 *Thanks to Nikki from Limited Runs Stamps for creating my Saturday Showcase badge.