Just a short post to thank the Simon Says Stamp and Show team who chose my work to "join the elite club of vintage artists" as they say!

In short words, I made top 3! Thanks a lot girls, I will display the badge proudly.

If you like this cute stamp, pop over Sylvia Zet's blog. She is starting a new venture of digi stamps . They are so cute - I think that you will like them!

One of my favorite passtimes is to search e-bay and etsy for scrapbooking findings: metal charms, yarns, paraphernalia- different kind of embellishments. If you are patient you can find very nice items that stand out from the ones that large scrapbooking companies sell. The only problem is that shipping costs are high and that they are usually sold in large quantities.

As you have already understood , I am a hoarder, so I have gathered a lot of "little treasures" that not only need storage but will also have no chance to be used. So I decided to offer them to other scrapbookers at a low price, before I resell them at ebay or Etsy.

If you want any of the following sets, please email me with the set no and your prefered way of payment ( paypal, postal order or bank deposit)

Μια αγαπημένη ενασχόληση είναι οι βόλτες στο ebay και το etsy, για να ανακαλύψω διακοσμητικά για το scrapbooking: charms, νήματα, παλιά βιβλία ή παρτιτούρες κλπ. Με πολύ υπομονή βρίσκεις πολύ όμορφα πραγματάκια, τελείως διαφορετικά από τα τυποποιημένα των εταιριών scrapbooking. Το μόνο πρόβλημα είναι ότι έχουν ακριβά μεταφορικά και ότι πωλούνται σε μεγάλες ποσότητες.

Όπως θα έχετε καταλάβει, δεν μπορώ να συγκρατηθώ, οπότε έχω μαζέψει πολλά πραγματάκια, πού και πιάνουν χώρο αλλά και δεν θα προλάβω ποτέ να τα χρησιμοποιήσω όλα! Έτσι αποφάσισα να τα διαθέσω σε άλλες scrapbookers σε χαμηλή τιμή, πριν τα μεταπουλήσω στο ebay ή στο etsy.

Αν ενδιαφέρεστε για κάποιο σετ στείλτε μου email στο elfpan@yahoo.com, γράφοντας το αριθμό του σετ, την ποσότητα και τον τρόπο πληρωμής που σας βολεύει (paypal, αντικαταβολή ΕΛΤΑ ή κατάθεση σε τράπεζα)

The project was to create a gift folder that would keep two family pictures. At first I planned to cut cardstock folders, layer them with patterned paper and put the photos inside. But (alas!) after choosing and cutting both cardstock and patterned paper, I changed my mind and decided to play with stamps and inks.

I believe that it was worth it, as the result is more gift-like. So, I made 3-pages booklets, with different page lenghts and decorated white cardstock to serve as photo background. I used transparent photo corners to hold the photos so that if someone wanted to remove the photo would be left with an artistic album.

Most of the stamps are from Tim Holtz, some are from Bo bunny and Crafty Individuals. The inks are of course distress inks and most of the pages are full of UTEE.

I believe that Simon Says Stamp Challenge and Simon Says Stamp and Show read my mind when they posted this week's challenge, so I will play along.

I had bought a plain Artemio wooden tea box , a long time ago, because I wanted to try my luck with altered items. I had gessoed it and left it in the box of "unfinished projects".
Last night, right in the middle of another project, inspiration came in a flash and here is it, ready in my cupboard, full of different teas and herbs.




If you are curious why I decorated a tea box with coffee art, I want to declare here once and for all that I am a coffee lover and never ever drink teas and other herbs. They remind me of the times I was ill as a child and my granny was trying to make me sip some herb infusion. Bliah!



PS. Never spray paint inside the house. I did it last night and then spent some time at the balcony to get rid of the nausea!

Materials used:
- Gesso
- Spray paint, acrylics, paint dabbers, color wash, glimmer mists and distress inks.
- Tim Holtz's ephemera and tissue tape
- 7 Gypsies Vintage Market paper sheet

- Inkssential's memory glass and memory foil tape

I will play in :

- Allsorts Challenge

- SimonSays stamp & Show

One of the most boring things in life is to wait for your child to finish an extracurricular activity, like gysmnastics, ballet or foreign languages. The time is too short to return home and very- very long for waiting in the car, especially when it is dark and you can't read!

So, twice a week when we have gymnastics, I tend to visit the near by supermarkets or general stores. Sometimes I find little treasures but most of the times I shop junk - unfortunately, I am not one of these guys that visit a shop just to "look around". I have to leave with a bag full of something -whatever!

Last week, while strolling around Max stores I discovered a little treasure: a small notebook with chipboard coverings and close to no decoration - perfect for altering! As I had promised my mum to "scrapbook" a gift for one of her friends, it looked that I had hit center.

The notebook is this:

Can you see its potential?

So, I scrapped it to this using a digi kit that I found here:

and also made a matching birthday card.


The sentiment stamp I used here is from the set I received from Elina, as part of my prize for the Scrapbooking in Greece challenge #12. Thanks, Elina.

I have to admit that next day I bought an other one and decorated it for myself, but this is another post......

The inspiration came from Scrapbooking in Greece. The idea was to use acrylics in a layout.

I wanted to use a very dark blurred picture of my husky and could find no designer paper to intrigue me-my hubby says that I have so many that is practically impossible to search the whole stacks to find the right one (and the problem is that he is right). I decided to create a 30x30 backround with an anchor point to the left lower corner. But as I never clean my stencils, the mat medium which I used for the flourish, came out a bit greenish instead of pure white. So, I changed my plans midway and used a picture of my hubby I like a lot (Ha, ha got you!)

For the background I used Claudine Hellmuth's and Windsor acrylics, distress and chalk inks, glimmer mists and mica pigments for the shine (sorry you cannot see it in the picture but mica give a very lustrous shine). The stamps (handwriting and music) are both from Artemio.

The rest is made digitally from various elements that I always hunt around the net. Only the buttons are real staff.

For my second layout (which actually was the first I made), I was inspired by the vintage picture of a woman I found in a fashion magazine.

She is standing beside a lake, surrounded by very haunted trees and looks like she is leaving for a journey of no return.

As you can see, I overdid it with the gesso and I couldn't balance with the left part of the layout, so I covered all the embellies and journaling with tissue paper. I don't know about the result, but from a sad photo, it seems that came out a happy and optimistic layout, so as it is the first of the year - I am still finishing the holiday journal, but it counts in the last year's projects- I named it "hello 2011". By coincidence it is the topic that Irini has chosen for this month's challenge, so I will submit it in Crafty Croppers

I will also play to the following challenges:

- Sir Stampalot

- Die Cut dreams

- Simon Says Stamp - button, flower, glimmer

- The Stamp man