One World One Heart Update

Hello, It is still Passover for me so I scheduled this post for you. I thought you might enjoy an update on my OWOH goings on. If you remember I got in on this event the last week (actually 9 days before it ended), so visiting all those blogs was like a Internet marathon and I still have not gotten to all of them, but I will! I decided, (because I always over-do), to have nine winners. I could have just given any of my completed pieces of art work but in the spirit of the event, that of coming together, sharing, learning about and meeting other artists I wanted my offerings to be special.

So I had a mystery giveaway, which turned into a custom giveaway. I decided that I wanted to make a special something for each winner. I had visited their blogs, and some had shops so I visited them, read profiles and website and then wrote to each one and told them that I wanted to make something special for each of them and would they share a bit more about themselves with me that I may not be able to find on their blogs or elsewhere. And they all were very happy to share in the spirit of this event. I was overwhelmed learning about all these fabulous women from around the globe. There were many things we had in common but I was also enthralled by our differences. The drawing gave me winners from here in the US to Canada, Finland, Scotland, Israel and all the way to New Zealand . I was thrilled to be able to connect with these talented ladies that I most probably would never have met otherwise.


But I knew it was going to take some time to make something special for each winner and I didn't want them to think I'd forgotten them so I decided to make a little something for each of them to remember the event by. What I came up with I especially liked because it allowed me to be eco-friendly at the same time. Since the event was called One World One Heart I thought what better way to commemorate this event than to make hearts with the world? Well not really the world but a vintage world map I had. So that is what I did. I cut out the map and then cut it into sections that would fit on some card stock backing. I choose blue, like in the oceans and also gray and white card stock. I used gel medium to join them together and then put under a stack of books overnight to dry and to keep from curling.

The next day I took about 7 of my own heart stencils and went about tracing hearts on the map pieces, making sure to capture the countries my winners were from in at least one of them. I had a bit of trouble with New Zealand since I had two winners from there so one winner had to have a heart of the adjacent country of Australia. The US was a bit tricky too as my Canadian winner was located not far from the border of one of my US winners but at least they got the right country's!

To these country hearts I added others from around the world and many were ocean hearts too, even some of the south pole, Antarctica. Then it was time to take all these and to make a heart string for each one. I laid out the countries first and then had to balance the rest of the string by color and shape and size of the remaining hearts. That took some doing but they finally all fit. Now I needed a way to join them together and make it easy to hang. Good old fashioned cafe curtain rings were my answer and I just happened to have enough. I sewed most of them with heavy cotton thread and then tied the top to the curtain ring. On the bottom I had taped a little paper strip with the country name on it so I could keep them all straight. When I saw them all hanging there like that I knew that I needed a 'flapper' but not one made just of paper. So I thought about it for awhile and decided on making them from metal, aluminum which is lightweight and could catch a breeze easily.

So I set about making these. I got hubby to cut them out for me but I drilled them using my new dremel and bench vise. Then I stamped each one with the country of origin ( from me so the US) and then the country of the recipient winner. Then I textured each one all around with my ball peen hammer and sanded the edges to make them safe. Just making these tags took me two hours, the time was adding up.

Then I wanted to make a special envelope for them, so I made each one a recycled magazine envelope that I cut out and sewed together from six carefully selected pages. Then to make sure that they wouldn't be crushed in their travels I cut out squares of cardboard from cereal boxes and carefully taped each string around the square with the flapper charm on the left. These were then put inside small ziplock bags to protect from any moisture on their travels and then inserted into the envelopes. Each was then hand addressed with little notes to the mail lady (she loves my envelopes and sometimes makes my husband late for work because she has to look at each one and ogle over it!) on where to attach the postage and where on the envelope to attache the customs slip.

All in all when I finally finished them I realized it had taken me 4 days to complete with about 15 hours total to make them all. But I was pleased with the result and thought it would be a meaningful remembrance. Oh, part of that time was in writing to each one individually a fairly long note explaining what it was and that I was working on their special 'something' which would follow as soon as I had it ready. Now these were sent out on March 11th and I've heard back from about half of them that they received them, I hope the others got theirs as well. I have also begun to send out the special gifts and will update you in future posts about what they are as some who entered my drawing were interested in what the mystery may be! so look for those posts in the future. If you've missed any about the OWOH I always try to label them with that tag or you could just look up in the search bar at the top OWOH and you will see all the posts regarding it!

I sure did love this event and am kinda glad it is stretching out a bit, if there's one thing that can be extended and shared in this whole wide world it's love, don't you agree? :)

All nine envelopes Custom Addressed, and ready to mail out. Notice I found a use for all these CD stickers I had laying around, they make cool address labels!

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Feed Your Creativity Friday -OWOH Gifts in the Mail

I participated in the One World One Heart project back in February and wanted to share with you the goodies I got. I didn't quite make half of the blogs but still have a full list I intend to visit all of them. If you are interested you can view them here and see which ones I've been to.


The first one I found out about and received was from A Celtic Angel whose blog can be found here, My Journey into Art. Right now she is advertising a $100 giveaway you might want to check out. You can see my prize here as she holds it up in front of her real life inspiration. And up top is picture I took of it when I received it, it now hangs over my piano. I love it, it reminds me of the industriousness of squirrels that are always preparing, searching for food. storing it even when they aren't hungry, as well as building nests and constantly fixing them up with new leaves. I can't remember how many times I've watched right before sundown a few of the mama squirrels mouths full of leaves running up the trees to 'feather the nest' and make it cozy for the night. We've been feeding them corn on the cob this winter and they eat the corn and then make off with the cob. I think they are using it for re-purposed insulation in their nests. They even made off with the corn cob holder, THAT I can't figure out what they possibly did with it.

I received my gift wrapped in a piece of vintage table cloth that reminded me of my Grandmothers, 1950's vintage for sure, tied with a ribbon. Great way to save a tree! Since you can click on the link above to see the full image at her blog I have shown a close up here. I think this is one of my first multi-media pieces from another artist. Painting, photography, stamping and embellishments of a silver key and the word HOME, pull this all together to show up above up, usually hidden among the leaves reside the homes of other creatures. Now's the time to look up and see if you can spot any before the branches fill out with leaves! Thanks Mary Beth!

My next Arrival was this beautiful card set By Susan Himmel of Susan Himmel Art Impressions in Water color and mixed media. When I discovered Susan on my fast flight around the world on my magic carpet I was captured by her pears. I love pears, there's just something about them and I myself have been working on some in my own art medium and have plans for more.


I was the third place winner and the prize was a floral card set but since I had told Susan how much I loved her pears she so generously sent me this beautiful set of Apples and Pear cards instead! Aren't they great? I think I will be framing these instead of writing notes with them!

And I found another watercolor in her etsy shop that I just love. Many that know me well know I have quite a collection of stones, rocks and have since a child, it is one of the very few things I have not grown tired of collecting. I tried painting rocks even in a water color class years ago but never came close the the beauty and reality that Susan has in her painting. Aren't they beautiful? if you click on the picture it will take you there to River Rocks. Thanks again Susan!


My last win of the OWOH giveaways arrived smelling so wonderful, I couldn't wait to open the box. I opened the Priority box to find it packed with almost 2lbs of hand made soap from Sweet Sally. The box was almost over flowing with a sampler of nine half bars of wonderful looking and fragrant soaps. Each one is labeled with tantalizing names like Lavender Swirl, Jasmine and Shea, Patchouli Vanilla, I Love Coffee, Carrot, Lemon Poppyseed, Green Tea, Patchouli Orange, and Dead Sea Mud. They are in the size she calls half bars defiantly can be handled easily. Now I've tried three times to buy handmade soaps online and each time was disappointed. The one time I bought a sampler and even though I had the names of them from the listing, when they arrived they were not labeled and sniffing them yielded no distinction, and they were practically slivers so hard to really try out properly. They really skimped on the essential oils, but not so with Sally, these are overflowing with wonderful fragrance So as you can imagine I am eager to try these soaps. Sally also offers a Soap of the month Club which if I like these enough I may be joining! She had over 400 entries and one winner and I am thankful that was me! Now I just have to figure out which one I want to try first, very hard to choose, but what fun it will be!

You can choose your favorites to try in this 9 half bar sampler. She also has 12 and 6 sizes too. Check out her etsy shop here, Sweet Sallys Soap.
Thank You Sweet Sarah! :)


And for those of you who won my giveaways, I am busy working on something just for you and you should be getting your packages as soon as I finish!

Enjoy your weekend, here we are promised a Temp of almost 50 degrees!

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Saturday Summary

Happy Sabbath to you all, hope you are having a great rest from all the busyness of the past week. In case you missed any of what's been going on here this past week I've made a summary for you so you won't miss a thing!

Monday - We returned to Mystery Monday after a one week break for the One World One Heart tour I was taking. This weeks photo I've had some great guesses on and even some things I didn't think of but no correct answers yet! So put your artists berets on and get thinking and send me your guess. Click on the link to mystery Monday above to get full details and to view the photo.

On Monday I also announced my nine winners in my OWOH giveaway in a different post, so if you missed that, please check it out here.

Tuesday ~ We returned with Team T International Member feature with Catherine Reese of Village Clayworks who paints her clay pieces like a canvas with pen drawings filled in with brilliant color and her subject are tiny creatures like ladybugs, dragonflies and little sweet birdies. Check out the feature here.

Wednesday ~ Was What's new and there was lots to share, First about my debut as a blogger for ABS Blog Carnival. And to tie in the theme with the ABS challenge of the month I presented my entry of Luna Park. I've also given an insight to my design process of this piece and there is a great aerial photo of Coney Island Merry go Rounds that fit with the theme and the artist is offering a discount for my readers. To read about all this please click here.

Thursday ~ I gave you some specials in the art/craft stores this week including a great deal on polymer clay and jewelry gems and components. I also alerted you to Lark call for submissions on rings, a new giveaway from Elliot Lucca and Harper books and introduced you to Bookswapping, where you can trade your used/read books, CD's and even DVD's for those you haven't read or listened to or read yet. In fact I already joined one on the spur of the moment Thursday night and already have over 9,000 books, dvd's and cd's I can trade my unwanted books for. I purposely put in an eclectic mix just to see if it would work with anything not just popular items and was pleasantly surprised! So go have a read at Thoughtful Thursday's post and see if this isn't for you and your family!

Friday ~ I introduced you to the article on Pablo Picasso's Daughter Paloma as well as Macy's Spring Look Book which also includes the trends to be seen this Spring in clothing and accessories, as well as the color palettes which some are taken from Master Artists like Van Gogh and Picasso. I also introduced you to a 'Take a break' past time that will hopefully give your mind a break in the day and focus your creativeness for later projects with JigZone. And I finished off the week with a photo of perfect relaxation. If you missed this post, you won't want to miss it again, so click here to go check out all these things from Feed Your Creativity Friday.

Well that's it dear readers for this week. I will see you on Monday when I announce the winner of the Mystery Monday photo. If you haven't gotten in your guess yet, do so now!

Have a wonderful weekend, relax, revive, rejuvenate!

Until then.......................... I'm off to do some bookswapping!