After seeing the wonderful stamps made by my friend Miss Thundercat, I wanted to give the whole stamp carving thing a try.
After all, I bought a stamp carving kit from Traci Bunker's Etsy shop last year, complete with cutters, carving blocks and tutorial, but never got round to actually use them.

This happy go lucky character is the third stamp I made. The previous two can be found on my flickr but I'm not happy with them. On the other hand, I would have been a natural talent if I has succeeded on first try, which obviously I am not :o)

Carving stamps is really addictive and once I buy some new carving material I see myself making other stamps. I'll keep you posted.

These ATCs were made for swaps on swap-bot over a time span of several months.

I missed the first instalment of the series and therefor didn't make any ATC for Africa, which seems to be the starting point of this programme. Seems to, because as I have never seen the Amazing Race programme, and the "race around the globe" format we have on TV, Peking Express, works in a completely different way.

These ATCs were made for a Country Alpabet ATC series on swap-bot. When the first host couldn't follow through on the series after the first two instalments, I took it over from her. It was my first experience as a host of a public swap and frankly I don't know if I would do it again. Even if we were very few in the swap, I was worried about possible flakers or other things that could go wrong. In the end it all worked out though, without a problem.

Now that all the instalments have been received, rated and archived, I thought it was high time I posted an overview of the ones I sent out (for detailed view check out my flickr ATC folder. From the letter P onwards, I made digital ATCs which I embellished with raised elements and 3D glossy or matte finish for texture. The pictures on this mosaic are the digital files though, because the pictures I took of the finished ATCs all had a nasty glare on them (due to the ATCS being printed on glossy paper).

Anyway, this cloud of hearts was sent to my partner ElsD in New Zealand. And she seemed to like it, because I got a ♥ too :o)

Below are two extra Zentangle ATCs I made but didn't send out. they are therefore still available for trade. If interested, drop me a line in the comments. :o)

I made this ATC for the Cat ATC swap on swapbot. After having done mostly digital ATCs these last few months, it was refreshing to take out all the inkpads again :o)

The background is a mixture of different inks, sprayed afterwards with a pearl glimmer mist. The cat was drawn with a fineliner and coloured in with a sharpie type pen.

Sent to my partner powderpuffmom on March 1, 2010.

As my friends will tell you, I am quite the shopaholic, even better ... I am an Etsy addict. Completely hooked on the good stuff and very proud of it too. Ever since I discovered the joys of buying handmade, I can't get enough of it : I keep buying for myself, for friends, for my parents, Birthdays, Christmas, Easter, National Garlic Day (yes, that is a real holiday) ... you name it. There's always a perfect occasion to spread Etsy love :o) Speaking of which, I should make my Etsy shop work as well. Listing things might be a good beginning for that one. Hmm ... another entry on the "the do" list, which is getting longer every day.

Anyway, this little post is to draw everybody's attention to a giveway that the talented Flora is having on her blog to celebrate spring's long awaited arrival.

Entering the give-away is as simply as spreading the word by way of blog, Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking. So don't hold back, and particpate. Although maybe you shouldn't be too many to participate, because I'd still like a fair chance of getting my hands on that lovely print of hers :o) Just kidding of course. But really, do have a look at Happy Doodle Land, and start spreading the love.

This blog was remained desperately inactive for the past year, although I have been doing creative stuff and have been keeping busy (my flickr can testify to that :o))

I'm going to upload some of the things I have been doing shortly, so stay tuned.