And It Continues

Okay, now my computer is down. I got out the old clunky "homemade" computer from the closet and fired it up. It ran for about 3 hours, and now (sigh) it is down too. I am at the Public Library writing this post. I need batteries for both of these computers and can only find them here. I checked my etsy shop and now I am posting this in case anyone thinks that I dropped off the face of the earth. NO. I am still trying to make all of this work, no matter how difficult it gets. I am sure I am not the only one that this is happening to. If you have any stories to share, go ahead Post them! It would be good to get it off of your chest and I won't feel so picked on. More to come when I have the chance.

Is It the Stars?

This last week has been awful. I won't go into too much detail but Damn! My paintings from my old studio were moved without my permission to a new site which I have been given, in a pile, outdoors! Then someone moved them into the studio like cordwood. Agh. This is going to take a week to straighten out. I need my big table and it is nowhere in sight. Aghhhhhhh.

I was given an eviction notice this weekend, and my car is making a funny noise. WTF????? I am worried if I internalize too much of this I will have a heart attack or something. It has got to be the stars because I have been doing everything I was supposed to to make all of this work properly.

I am a hair's width from getting the new job, so I can hope on that. I should ask my friend, Amarna if the planets are in a bad place for me right now, I am sure she will say yes.

Anyone else having this kind of thing happen, or is it just my sign, Cancer? Let me know.

Selling On The Internet

Hey, have you ever noticed that selling on the internet is a bit like fishing? You pick your water, throw in a line and wait. And wait. When you get a nibble, your heart starts beating faster and you tug on the line, and hope it is really a good bite. Sometimes they get away, sometimes they take a big bite and you reel them in. All of these metaphors fit perfectly with my online shop experiences. I have a few lakes online (etsy,dawanda,artfire) and throw in bait on a regular basis (listing new items) or sometimes just use my flies and repeat casting (renewing on etsy). I get nibbles (hearts, convos, alchemy,forge), but they are not all bites. It's a good thing that our declined Alchemy bids are not made public, believe me. But when I get a notice that I need to leave feedback on etsy, or there is a Paypal notice in my email, Wooo Hoo, I get all excited just like I did when I knew there was an actual fish on the end of my line. I was just musing about this last night and thought I would write about it. Anyone else have any metaphors for online business? Let me know.

Valentines on Etsy

I have created some special cards for Valentines. One is a tri-fold tulips card that you can set on a table top to look like a lush bed of tulips. The others are Heart Collage cards that look like little applique heart quilts. They are completely hand made by me.

http://www.donnalda.etsy.com/

More Clip Art

This is a floral variety sheet I have been using for cards, altered books pages and other stuff. I like the green background, it makes the cutouts stand out a little and it blends well with other background colors. This one includes a few more leaves for filler. You can find the download sheet at my Artfire shop: http://donnalda.artfire.com/

Handpainted Sunflowers Clip Art

These are sunflowers from a couple of my oil paintings, that I tweaked to make a clip art page. There are individual sunflowers, a little header, corners and flipped sunflowers so you can make your own headers, corners and other cool sunflower stuff. All angel, which means there are no restrictions other than reselling my sheet (duh). I want artists to feel free with these designs and play. Enjoy.

They are downloadable so you can print as many as you need. Plus no shipping and 24 hour delivery.

Look for them in my artfire shop>>>>see link at right.

Original Clip Art Roses

I have taken photos of some of my oil and watercolor paintings and played with them to make a sheet of clip art roses. I love using roses in my collage and altered book stuff and I wanted something original, so I played with Print Shop and some of my photos and Viola!

It was fun. First I imported the photo, carefully cut out the image from the background (enlarging the image helps with this) and then tweaked the image to have clarity and variety. I like using slightly greyed versions to make them look faded and old.

Here are some board dividers for an altered Book of Shadows in a Rose/Pink theme, that I actually made these for:

I have made a sheet of these available at my Artfire Shop that you can download:

http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=ViewListing&product_id=50483

just click on the above link to look at them.

My New Supply Shop

I have decided to add an Artfire Shop to my online venues. This will only be for supplies that I make myself. I have included my journal spots, hand painted papers, and tags. Look for new things weekly. I am having a great time inventing things to use for altered books, scrapbooking, and collage.

Store not available

Some photos of Hand Carved Rubber Stamp Stuff

Here are some samples of what I do with my own rubber stamps:

New Lesson on My Website

The free lesson for January on my website is "How To Carve Your Own Rubber Stamps". After reading a thread on etsy asking for help on this, I decided to create a whole lesson. You can go to my website http://www.donnaldasmolensfineart.4t.com and click on the lesson page. You can print the picture for your own files. I love carving rubber stamps from erasers that I get at the dollar store. I use them to decorate tags, make borders on my handmade book pages, and in my collages.
It is very easy to do and it is fun to use them together to make rich borders or all over designs for backgrounds.
I have also posted some of the things I do with my stamps on Flickr.com.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/donnalda/