GIVEAWAY - Spring Cleaning at Olive Bites Week # 2 - Another Scrap Happy Giveaway

CLOSED- WINNER WILL BE POSTED THIS WEEK!

This week's giveaway is more stuff from my crafty closet clean out!

Most of these things are, I'm pretty sure, no longer available so your only chance to get them is probably to win them here!

WHAT YOU WIN:

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The loot includes 8 making memories journaling tags, 2 narratives mini lunch bags, 1 making memories defined sticker sheet, 1 making memories chipboard flower sheet, 1 k&company dimensional stickers, 1 junkitz rubons, 10 making memories flowers, 2 hero arts rubber stamps - always and precious (large size), a 72 letter rubon monogram set, 3 tilez tiles, and 3 meters of 7 different fibers from ek success.

One lucky winner is going to be in scrap heaven with this take!

HOW TO WIN:

It's easy, peasy - just leave a comment below with your contact information!

For additional entries:

(5) Twitter this post
(5) Blog about this contest; linking to this post
(5) Follow my blog
(5) Facebook this post

Let me know if you have done these things so I can give you additional entries. This contest is open to US and Canada only (sorry guys!)

DRAWING:
Enter by midnight, Sunday, March 13th! Good Luck!

Have a Happy 1st Weekend in March Everyone!

I'm a little late seeing this quote since I haven't been reading as many blogs lately - trying to get myself organized around here - but this little gem from Seth Godin seems like a perfect way to get our weekend started right:

"Art is what we call .. the thing an artist does.

It's not the medium or the oil or the price or whether it hangs on a wall or you eat it. What matters, what makes it art, is that the person who made it overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt and made something worth making.

Something risky. Something human.

Art is not in the eye of the beholder. It's in the soul of the artist."

I love that.

The winner of last week's MOOZA DESIGN giveaway is Monapete! YAY for her! Mooza's work is amazing.

Also if you have a waffle iron you need to be making brownies with it (just don't overfill - cook for 3-5 minutes) yummy with ice cream and syrup - it is still officially winter and we are definitely allowed to hibernate and eat stuff like this ...

And thanks to everyone who sent happy thoughts to me after my rambling tweets about my car accident this week - I'm ok - and I'm pretty certain I will be whining about it next Wednesday ... stay tuned ...

xo all =^..^=

* Livewire print from the amazing Jessica Grundy of Solocosmo

Upcycled Tutorial - Acetate Transparencys For Your Matted Photos

This is a cool way to add a layer of words and whatnots to your framed pictures - looks especially amazing with black and white photos and is uber-easy to make.

I used to sell these at craft shows and people ate them up.

(no, I mean, they actually ate them up ... and it wasn't pretty .. in fact I am feeling a little light headed from the memories ... but I have been advised they tasted like chicken)

Anyhoo, the idea here is that you use a transparency (overhead projector paper available at Staples works perfectly) to add a layer of pure awesomeness under the glass of any framed print.

what you need:

a transparency
a computer
a picture to be framed, mat and frame

Using your computer lay out some fun and funky wording, imagery, boxes, etc that you would like to use to create your 'floating layer' - measure the inside of your matting and print it out on regular paper to make sure it will fit with your mat and picture.

To print on the acetate use the 'transfer' style paper setting (as if you were making a t-shirt transfer) and print on the rough side of the acetate on a regular setting (I used to find the 'best' setting would sometimes leave too much ink and smear) - allow a little drying time

Tape the acetate to the backboard of your matting and add your picture underneath the acetate. I like the picture to be slightly off-angled, but do what pleases your eye with it. Frame it- easy peasy.



Here are a couple mini ones I threw together to get you started and your creativity flowing:


Enjoy! xo =^..^=

Look At Me ... if I stand on my head and don't tell anybody that I stood on my head - did I actually stand on my head?

When I was growing up we had self-esteem classes in school where we filled our notebooks with everything anyone would ever need to know about us -

they were like little prehistoric facebooks.

These classes were designed to increase our confidence and self-esteem and basically imprint us with the message that we were OK.

Today, it isn't enough for kids to hear that they are OK- they need to be "special".

(and maybe we are all feeling like this actually)

And parents are encouraged to increase our kids 'self-esteem' by affirming their 'specialness'.

My adorable little niece serenaded me recently with a song she learned in nursery school -

"I am special. I am special. Look at me. Look at me."

(sort of to the tune of the farmer in the dell if you are old enough to remember that one)

I told her that I knew a better song and sang her something like -

"I am nice. I am nice. I promise to stop kicking Aunt Cathy in the face as she tries to put on my shoes because I am nice."

She told me I was mean.

(which I am, so maybe she is special)


Her brother, who is a few years older was insisting I wanted to watch him play video games

(having been advised by him that my own video gaming skills were not quite up to the par of actually being able to play with him)

I tried to drag him away from his controller and do something with me.

He wasn't going for it.

I tried a new tactic.

"I like to make jewelry" - he glanced up at me wondering where this was going.

"Would you like to watch me make jewelry?"

"Oh, I thought you were going to make me something", he said

"No, I like to make jewelry - would you like to watch me make jewelry?", I repeated.

"Why would I want to watch you do that?"

"Well, why would I want to watch you play video games?"

He told me I was weird.

(which I am, so maybe he is especially astute also)

Of course, I remember when we were kids and my sister and I would drag my mother into our bedroom to watch us do 'gymnastics' on the beds - shouting "look at me, look at me", until my mother, bored and achy with tennis-neck would find some excuse to leave

She could have said something about how amazingly special this all was, but more likely she said something like -

"OK, enough girls, I'm tired of sitting here"

since neither of us became Olympic gymnastic champions, maybe she wasn't the best encourager of 'specialness' - on the other hand we did think we actually had to do something to warrant an audience.

Of course, playing a video game is doing something - I sure as hell can't do it very well.

(now we all just go on our Blogs or Facebook or Twitter and announce what we are doing)

Kids today have never known any other world and are certainly not to blame here, but all this 'specialness' is making me a bit uneasy about our future.

(or maybe I have just had too much coffee this morning and am way overthinking this)

* adorable Look at Me print by The Extent of Silence

I should also add that when I redid my blog the other day I went to set up a Facebook fan page and the name Olive Bites was already being used

(I was thinking what has Olive been up to now?)

and then I realized that I had set up a fan page almost a year ago and then I forgot all about it!