It's been a busy week but I did manage to get some 3 x 3 art done for a swap I'm in over on Altered Designs. These little guys are challenging but fun. I learnt the hard way that you need to plan your space a little better than you would on a larger piece - 3 inches square is not very big - otherwise you run out of room! I do think, however, that this is a case of where less is definitely more. I think I may have developed another addiction! And what a great way to use up all those little bits and piece of your precious papers and scraps. Bonus!

I am in several swaps over the next few weeks so I wanted to create some art to send off. I don't get to just do random art too often so it was nice to be able to play today. I made a couple of ATCs and 2 cards for a monthly swap so it was a very productive day.

The black shell atc doesn't scan that well but in person it's very pretty. I used some of my acrylic paint watercolour paper - had to use it for something! The rose is direct to rubber with twinkling H2O's. For the 2 greeting cards I used some decorated scrapbook paper scraps.

I recently participated in a Sudoku swap over on CCSwaps. For those of you who are unfamiliar with a Sudoku swap, it is a collaborative swap. Each person makes 4 backgrounds which are then passed on to the next person in line. Essentially, every person in the swap does a different stage on each of the other players cards. At the end of the swp each person received 4 finished ATCs. It's a lot of fun.

Our group was named the yellow group; the participants were Chris Bennett, Jessie Sherf, Sandy Proulx and Adrienne Goodenough . I love the artwork that resulted from this collaboration!

I signed up for a background paper swap over on CC Swaps group. The requirement was to send 12 sheets measuring 4 1/4 inches by 5 1/2 inches. All were to be as close to the same as possible. I opted to do some painted acrylics on watercolour paper - my new favourite technique. Since I was making a mess anyway, I decided to make some extras for myself. I plan to use them for card backbgrounds or ATCs. I'm very pleased with the results and I hope you'll like them too!

I've been away from my blog for too long so I'm doing a quick update.

Last 4 days off were fairly busy but felt very long - does that even make sense? I normally just do a few errands on day 1 off but last block I did errands, did some shopping, got together with a friend for an early dinner, dyed my hair and watched some tv so quite a lot was accomplished. Day 2 I golfed - what a bad day I had! Myscore was in the range it normally is but my game was terrible - I just didn't feel like I had any ooomph and it showed. Days 3 and 4, I worked on cards for the store and was able to make a delivery on Saturday to replenish some of his stock and , of course, take another order for more wedding cards.

I managed to get all my swaps out on time - or close enough to consider being on time - so that was a relief to be able to stroke them off my list. It was also very stress free becauseI had everything listed in my book (instead of hunting high and low for the instructions) so it all came together fairly easily and quickly. Amazing how smoothly things run when one is organized!

This coming block (Thursday through Sunday) I will be fairly busy again. I'll be working on stock for the store. I have one set of cards started already and I'm even working to make some extra cards so hopefully that will shorten my turnaround time. As fast as I'm delivering them, they're being sold. I guess that's a good thing but is sometimes a little frustrating as I can't keep up. Wah, Wahh. I'd like a little cheese with my whine please!

Husband is playing golf on Friday, we're having dinner guests on Saturday and I plan to play a round of golf with husband on Sunday and then we'll be back to work again. Funny - talking about it in those terms makes me realise that we really are fairly busy on days off. And here I thought I didn't have a life!