druideye

NOTE: See very bottom for a quick summary of what I like if you don't wanna read the whole profile! :)

what I pledged

I PLEDGE to rate as soon as I can get online after receiving your item/s so if I didn't rate it means I didn't receive the item so please get in touch with me if you sent it.

I WILL NOT FLAKE so if you don't get my item and it says it's been sent please contact me!

So please contact me before rating me low, I will do whatever possible to make it up if my package does not arrive after I've sent it.

My name is Pamela and I'm a 37 year old stay-at-home mother of two sons (Josiah 11, Hudson 9), and I live in the beautiful state of South Carolina in the southern USA. I have lived here since the early 80's. My husband is a musician - a drummer, and my children are following in his footsteps. Josiah is a drummer in the school band and can play music by ear, and Hudson just loves music of all kinds, especially the Beatles, Aerosmith, and Ozzy Osbourne.

My boys when they were younger.

My boys Josiah (glasses) and Hudson taken this year.

I am very active on deviantart.com, it's where I host all my photography, poetry, and recently my ATC's. I also am administrator for several clubs on deviantart, including one that is for people that use art to escape illness or depression called "artfortheescape", and we have started an ATC project on that club. I also am admin for a poetry club called "versebyverse", and a photography club called "camerawhore". I have been a member of deviantart for over 5 years now.

I feel that I am a survivor, and a stronger person now than I ever have been. I suffer from something called fibromyalgia, as well as a few other illnesses (including depression) that make everyday life hard, so I really feel like art is a great escape for me. I am currently disabled, but I try very hard not to let that get me down. Encouraging quotes and notes are very meaningful to me in that regard.

I enjoy many types of art. I am a photographer, that is my first love! I have been involved in nature photography since around 1994, but have only been doing portrait photography with models for about a year.

Me in 1994 in Egypt. I went into the pyramid behind me. I love Egyptian things especially cartouches.

I have recently gotten interested in jewelry making and ATC's - Artist Trading Cards. I mainly am here to find ATC swaps. I have been doing trades on deviantart.com and posted in craigslist for swaps and someone kindly told me about this web site, so I thank them!

Photo I took on a recent vacation to Georgia.

I love nature, it is where I find God. I especially adore flowers, waterscapes, the mountains, and I also enjoy visiting cemetaries and taking pictures of tombstones. I am a huge fan of celtic art, and my favorite piece of celtic art is the triskele, very important to druids. Knotwork is extremely pretty. I also have a large collection of stamps and enjoy them as well, I'm trying to get my kids interested in it.

I would like to start making steampunk jewelry and ATC's but as of yet I haven't been able to get my hands on the right bits and pieces to do that, so if you have any old clocks, gears, hands- I'd be glad to have them! I love clocks, and am interested in time travel theories.

Photo I took recently with a Native American model.

BOOKS My favorite author is Holly Lisle and my favorites from her are the Secret Texts trilogy. I prefer fantasy and science fiction to anything else. Though I have to say that I love Wuthering Heights, and am a huge Emily Dickinson fan - her poetry is inspiring and I also like Ogden Nash's poetry. I enjoyed reading the C.S. Lewis "Narnia" books as a child. I like mysteries too like Agatha Christie. I have a huge collection of Dragonlance books, but I haven't read them all. Wrinkle in Time series, Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis...I would be open to new fantasy/sci fi books so any lists of authors are appreciated, as are sci fi/fantasy books you want to pass on.

MOVIES My favorite actress is Grace Kelly, and my favorite actors are Pierce Brosnan, Hugh Jackman and Jimmy Stewart. I also like Marilyn Monroe. My favorite movie is The Fountain and I love ANYTHING that has to do with that movie! I also really enjoy the Matrix movies, Star Wars, Blade, Pan's Labyrinth, Constantine, Dogma, Mirrormask, Underworld, Narnia, the Golden Compass, Stardust, Dracula, V for Vendetta, Princess Bride, Fifth Element, Stigmata, Gone with the Wind, Dark City, The Birdcage, Sin City, Aeon Flux, Ultraviolet, X-Men, Mamma Mia, Across the Universe....

TELEVISION I used to watch Doctor Who when I was younger and I loved it, Tom Baker is my favorite Doctor, that shows my age huh!? I've seen some episodes with David Tennant though and he makes a great doctor, my favorite episode is the one with the stone angels - "don't blink".

I love the Food Network, and Giada, Alton Brown and the Barefoot Contessa are my favs. Even my kids love watching this channel, and my oldest son (11) loves to cook too. I also like cop dramas such as CSI, Law and Order, Criminal Minds, Bones and NCIS. I also like Monk, Frasier, Firefly, Alias. I love watching things like "Make me a Supermodel" and "The Fashion Show".

MUSIC I love a lot of different music, but some of my favorites of all favorites are U2 (I adore the new song Magnificent, but Bullet the Blue Sky is my all time fav), Sting, Counting Crows, Tool, Fiction Plane, and Yes.

I also like such things as the Cruxshadows, The Beatles, Dido, James Taylor, Nirvana, Earthsuit, Flogging Molly, Glassjaw, Civil Twilight, Billy Idol, Family Force Five, A Perfect Circle, 2 Skinnee J's, God Lives Underwater, AFI, Crossfade, Death Cab for Cutie, Bella Morte, Modest Mouse, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Baumer, Villanova, Guns n Roses...I like Big Band, bluegrass, folk music, celtic, punk,alt rock, classic rock and lots more!

If I had to pick a FAV singer though I'd say Sting; and Bono is one of the people I definitely consider a hero.

GENERAL FAVS Some of my favorite things are gravestones, trees, nature, silver, flowers, fashion, poetry (writing and reading), italian pottery, chinese coins, butterflies, dragonflies, keys, stone circles, sacred stones...

Photo I took at a botanical garden in spring.

I love traveling, both around the US and overseas. I've been to Germany, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt and always interested in those cultures both current and ancient. Especially the pyramids of Egypt, as I was able to go inside one of them and it's special to me. I also like Native American culture and mythos as I have several Native Americans in my ancestry.

I love stamp collecting (started in the 80's). Dreamcatchers are cool. I'm interested in celtic culture and knotwork. I love the triskele. I'm way into druidic things. I love great quotes. I like runes, and I like tarot themed things (but my husband doesn't like me to have actual tarot cards in the house - ATC's would be fine). My fav tarot card is "Temperance".

I LOVE pin-up style, retro, vintage, rockabilly. I love vintage photos and postcards. I like vintage nudes as well, especially with great poses to recreate with my photography. I also am trying to collect fashion magazines such as Vogue, Glamour, etc, in order to pull out photography ideas (poses, fashion, hair, makeup, ideas for shoots) so I'd love to have your old copies!! Even if you just pulled out a few fashion pages and sent those to me I'd like it, since it would be cheaper than sending the whole magazine and all I want are the photos.

I love watercolors but I can't draw for the life of me. I love hydrangeas, sunflowers, and roses, and daisies. I love things by Marjolein Bastin (Not sure if I spelled her name right). I wear jeans almost every day. I'm into dragons, nymphs, elves, mages, angels, demons, vampires.. Dungeons and Dragons style. My favorite number is "21".

Photo I took end of September in Utica, NY

JEWELRY I love anything made with rose quartz. I prefer medium length necklaces. I don't wear rings at all, my fingers swell badly. I like bracelets, and I have a charm bracelet that I like charms for. I like jewelry that has to do with world religions, or celtic knots. I love trees in my jewelry. Earrings are great, make sure the hook part is allergy sensitive or white gold. I don't wear any gold jewelry.

COLORS I like the colors black, blue, brown and red. Red is my favorite color, though, any shade the darker the better. My kitchen walls are brick red. My bedroom walls are a nice soft brown. My office walls are an orangy/yellow.

GEMSTONES/HEALING CRYSTALS I really like healing stones and crystals of all kinds, but my favorite of all are rose quartz. A few other favs are turquoise (my birthstone), coral (red, my fav color), clear quartz, tiger's eye and snowflake obsidian. I like geodes and mineral slices. I like mother of pearl.

THEMES Themes I enjoy are "peace", "love", "hope", "nature", "music", "quotes", "wine", "gothic", "photography", "vintage", "death"... I love pressed flowers, and I'd love to have some pressed flower stickers. My kitchen is themed "wine" and "Mediterranean/Italian".

ANIMALS Butterflies, big dogs such as labrador retrievers (I have two), pandas (My son loves them), big and little cats, and swans are my favorite. I have a special love for doves, mainly because of how they represent "peace", and I love love love ravens/blackbirds.

FOOD and DRINK I LOVE Chai Tea. It's my all time favorite. Iced, hot, anyway I can get it. I also like other teas, and being a Southerner am a big fan of iced sweet tea. Darjeeling is great, and I like mint teas hot. I LOVE flowering teas - you know the wrapped up ones that open up into a flower in your teapot!

I own a Keurig machine, so K-Cups would be a godsend! I especially like flavored coffees, chai, and hot chocolate.

I love chocolate. I love cheese. I love gluten-free brownies and gluten-free muffins. I like making homemade jerky. I like homemade jam, especially FIG, strawberry too, blackberry yum!

ALLERGIC to pecans. Sensitive to wheat, would prefer gluten-free. I love to receive gluten-free recipes and mixes.

Chicken is my favorite meat dish. I would enjoy pasta sauce recipes, as well as Mediterranean and Greek foods and recipes. My family loves hummus and babaganoush. I love a spice called "za'atar" but it's very hard for me to find in the USA.

We also like chinese. I once made homemade wonton soup for my grandmother's old country church and while I was in service a nice old lady got the "lumps" out of my soup for me HAHA! Never forget that, I was so upset as I'd made the wontons from scratch.

I also like sweettarts and Hot Tamales (candies). My husband and children love Twizzlers, my husband's fav is Jujyfruits. Nutrageous is my fav candy bar but it's hard to find for some reason.

MY KIDS LIKES My youngest son Hudson (9) is a huge retro fan. He should have been born in the 80's. He likes 80's music, 80's video games (Super NES and NES), vintage rock t-shirts, records and cassettes.. Super Mario Brothers. He is really into the Beatles. He loves dried fruit. Also I Spy things and he's crazy for iPod stuff. His fav movies are Ghostbusters, Yellow Submarine, and Cars. He also likes Emperor's New Groove. he likes anything Sonic. For candy it's hot tamales, sweettarts squeeze, mike and ike. His birthday is September 10.

My oldest Josiah (11) also likes rock t-shirts, and he loves Star Wars, and any kind of legos even just bits and pieces as he loves to make things with them. He loves Kiss (the band). He also likes vintage video games like Mario but he likes Sonic as well and Wii games. He is a Boy Scout. He plays drums in the school band. He's crazy about Doctor Who! He loves to cook and likes to watch Food Network. He wants to be a chef. For candy, charleston chews and any kind of gum. His birthday is January 14.

MY HUSBAND's LIKES pending

These are just some of the things I really don't care much for or don't collect:

• cutesy stuff, kawaii stuff
• Hello Kitty and other things similar
• bright schoolbus yellow (saffron/mustard is fine)
• Japanese culture
• contemporary country music
• rap music
• wheat
• pecans
• anime
• "chick flicks"
• satanic/demonic horror
• comedies (husband likes them though)
• gold jewelry
• rings
• spiders (arachnophobic)
• monkeys
• camels (disgusting!)
• churchy "christian" things
• anything scented
• romance novels

I'm not a big fan of shopping - I do it when I have to. I don't collect shoes like most women. I don't like "Sex and the City", and I've never seen "Twilight" nor read any of the books. I'm not a huge fan of Harry Potter (but the movies are fun).

I do believe in God but I am not "religious", I find God in nature, not in church buildings. I really don't want to receive bible verses or christian sayings, it just doesn't appeal to me anymore. I DO love crosses of all types though.

I'M ALLERGIC to most scents, so please no scented cards, letters, perfumes, lotions, soaps, etc. Some scents like rosemary, peppermint, etc I can handle in small doses. So feel free to ask before you send.

I'm also allergic to CIGARETTE SMOKE so nothing that smells like cigs - if you are a smoker in your home, you might not can tell your stuff smells but it probably does. I don't know how much stuff we had to throw in the trash from my grandmother growing up because she smoked in her house for decades and she'd send me packages. :( Sorry. Even food can taste like smoke if it sits around a smoker.

I have collected stamps since I was a child in the 80's, but I haven't actively been collecting lately. I collect teapots and teacups and saucers. I like Italian themed things for my kitchen, or wine themed things.

I tend to collect books as well, mostly fantasy and sci-fi. I collect ATC's, and would love to get into inchies.

I like Martha Stewart magazines, and foodie magazines, I also have a big collection of the now-defunct magazine "Dragon" from Paizo Publishing which is a dungeons and dragon themed mag, if you have any you'd like to send my way i'd be eternally grateful!!

I want to start collecting vintage photographs, including pin-ups and nudies, as I have been working on taking these kind of photos myself. I want to recreate that style so I'm trying to find as many as I can for inspiration.

A portrait I took recently.

I also collect gemstones and crystals, sometimes using them in my jewelry and ATC's. So no matter their size I like them, even tiny chips can be incorporated into my art.

I would not consider myself really religious anymore, but I do collect crosses (mainly silver charms for my charm bracelet) and my favorite are celtic crosses, Jerusalem crosses and ankhs.

NOTE: I don't expect you to buy me anything off my wishpot list, it's just there for ideas of things that I like, same with my Amazon wishlist.

Some things I've made for swaps on swap-bot-- you can find just about all my ATC's at www.pamelaski.deviantart.com

Made for an inchie swap, these are my first inchies!

Made for a Gypsy swap, though I did end up replacing the middle one with another because someone on deviantart wanted it.

My butterfly and dragonfly sets I made for a recent swap.

Made for the Flower ATC swap - it is a photo I took of my son Hudson.

Some ancient egyptian ATC's I recently made

Orange and Pink ATCs

For a vintage hollywood stars ATC swap

Fairy Child ATC swap

A Zetti style ATC I made

----Current Forum Tags-----

I need to send... @mommyof2 - crystals (she hasn't sent address) @tshaver25 - Penpal Letter

If you don't want to read my entire profile, here's a short list of things I'd like to be sent for profile swaps--

• used postage stamps (not USA unless really pretty or quite old)
• any scrapbooking materials even scraps
• cool paper
• vintage ephemera
• modern ephemera is great too, esp in other languages than English
• chai tea
• flowering/blooming tea
• any tea
• K-Cups for my Keurig (coffee, tea or cocoa)
• ATC's
• ATC blanks
• encouraging quotes
• anything nature themed
• anything ancient cultures esp. Greek/Egyptian
• flowers esp hydrangea
• gothic / alt stuff
• colors: red, blue, orange, black, brown, green
• vintage postcards / pictures esp pin-up
• healing crystals
• gluten-free recipes
• chicken recipes
• Mediterranean recipes
• candy and chocolate
• Nutrageous bars
• silver toned jewelry (no rings)
• fashion magazine tearsheets
• The Fountain stuff - fav movie
• cross shaped charms esp. celtic or ankh
• poetry
• sci fi and fantasy themes
• celtic / druidic / pagan themes
• old chinese coins, I like to make jewelry with them. real if possible, fake works too
• postcards (envie or naked)
• time, clocks, gears, clock hands (steampunk)
• cool bookmarks
• DMC floss of any color for my worry dolls
• SCRABBLE tiles and Dominos
• Tarot themed esp. Temperance

Allergies/Sensitive to:

• cigarette smoke
• perfumed items
• pecans
• wheat

Vent About It #2 - Pet Peeves (Aug 14 - email) - @dollface (PM'd, no response) (left unrated)

Butterflies and Dragonflies ATC's (Aug 24 - snail mail) - @tiiamaria (PM'd, no response, not mailed) (rated 1 on 9/7/09)

Children's Wishlist 10 and Under (Sept 15 - snail mail) @bevyjo111 (PM'd, said she'd mail last week (end of Sept), not mailed yet)(rated 1 on 10/6/09)(angelled by @justmeth81

A-Z of Names Email Swap (Oct 7 - email) @vols4lyfefan (PM'd, no response) (left unrated) - she is partially suspended

People that have Flaked on Others in My Swaps

@craftyjackie flaked on ATC Recycle Scraps (I will angel)

@JMTucarella flaked on What Your Kids Think of You

@antynet flaked on Me by Me: 25 Things

@xerxia flaked on One Word Photo: Joy

Here is my box for the Hubbie Swap I am part of so that my partner knows what my husband would like:

• Jujyfruit candy
• any type of rock n roll / musician biography
• 80's metal cd's (like Anthrax, Megadeth, etc)
• fruit flavored gum
• Hershey's chocolate
• World's Finest Chocolate
• He likes things from the thrift store and is looking for the following: tuxedo shirt (XXL), cool vests to wear in his band (XXL), ties (for tall man - he's 6'7") jeans/pants 36/34 as he's lost 100lbs this past year and needs clothes - thrift store is great!
• anything to do with drums
• ATC's made just for him
• protein/ health food bars (like Clif but healthier)
• any back issues of Modern Drummer (magazine)

Some dislikes:

• anything sacreligious or pagan themed, he just doesn't like this type of thing