ArtyBeth3

I take swapping seriously and will not flake. I almost always send my swaps out as soon as I receive my partner(s). If I do encounter a problem, I will contact you. I pledge to rate you promptly. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

I'm in my 40s and happily married for 8 years now. We don't have any children or pets, but someday a cat may just warm its way into our hearts/home. We're both Christians. We took square dance lessons a year ago and love to dance! I was introduced to rubberstamping over 10 years ago and have been creating art ever since using stamping and many other techniques too. [See more about this in "Favorite Crafts."] I absolutely love to share and trade art goodies, and consider myself to be a generous swapper, going the extra mile to make my packages extra special. I've hosted lots of swaps over the years and hope to start hosting some here. A good friend told me about this group and I'm looking forward to my time here.

Paper Art! Over the years I've dabbled in making cards, journals, altered items (books, CDs, slide mounts to name a few), and artist trading cards (ATCs) using all the various techniques I've learned over the years (from all those paper collage, mixed media, rubberstamping, art journaling books I seem to be collecting). My 2009 resolution was to start getting back into making more cards and stop buying them. Isn't it silly to pay money to buy a card when I (and you?) probably have more than enough supplies to make a few cards (a few? hmmm…maybe that should read "many, many…many cards!) I also want to get back into making and actually using art journals, where I “art” a little and write a little.

My favorite themes at the moment are: Nature (especially birds, and flowers) and Vintage (using my own ancestors as well as borrowed ones too).

My favorite colors are: browns, olive to sage greens, "bird's egg blue," and creams, and combinations thereof. I also like the rich colors of autumn.

I love to decorate plain envelopes using paper collage, ink directly rubbed on the envelope, rubber stamps, etc. I also recycle calendar pages into envelopes.

ART THINGS

• Art; made by you in a handmade or decorated envelope (I receive so much junk mail these days; it makes me happy when I see an arty envelope filled with arty mail.)

• Decorative tape (clear with swirls, patterns, flowers in black or colors)

• Waterproof pens and markers in all colors (for addressing mail art & adding pizzazz to otherwise plain, boring envelopes (smile)

• Other pens (Gelly roll metallics, Inkssentials, Gel X-treme 0.7, Pigma Micron 01, 03, or 05) - in all colors.

• Collage images – ancestors, birds, and flowers (not cutesy)

• Bird rubber stamps (artsy or solid)

• "Flourish" rubber stamp

• Cardstock (see my favorite colors above)

• Embellishments – rub-ons (flourishes), small round self-stick rhinestones/gems, and other smallish things to give “pizzazz” to my cards & ATCs

• Christmas themed rubber stamps (Christian, trees, snowmen, words (joy, peace, love, hope), greetings...nothing too cutesy please, with the exception of snowmen - they could be cutesy)

OTHER

• Tea: herbal (anything but chamomile or orange spice); vanilla, vanilla caramel or vanilla hazelnut; or seasonal favorites (pumpkin spice; holiday mint; pomegranate…); green tea

• Hot chocolate (low fat or gourmet)

• Decorative scarves: As for colors - I prefer bright rather than dull (i.e. no plain earth tones); black, white, or off-white mixed with pink, fushia, red, mauve, maroon, red, autumn colors, turquoise, blue, sage green, yellow, gold, copper in any combinations of one, two or more colors. Sparkly threads woven in are fun too.

Socks: USA size 9-11/European size 39; please no toe-socks, anything too cutesy (however, I'm ok with cutesy penguins or snowmen), or wool. Other than that, all colors + color combinations are fine. I'll wear some with pants and some with sweatpants for keeping warm in our house, so thin or thick would do :)

• Address labels

• Handmade soap: lavender, oatmeal, herbal, cinnamon, fruity

Paper colors I don’t use - navy blue, “regular” green, silver, orange, pastels, or neons. Themes/embellishments I don’t care for - cutesy, Disney, horoscopes, tarot cards or anything that's dark or evil, St. Patrick's Day, Halloween nor the Asian theme, yarn. I don’t care to receive mail from smokers. I'm sorry to have to single you out because I'm sure you create nice art too; it's just that the smoke smell really bothers me.