Thank goodness I keep my computer security systems up to date. It was AVG that alerted me to the problem. If you don’t have up to date protection on your computer, you can download a free copy of AVG here.

Thank goodness for AVG and thank goodness for my super fantastic son-in-law, Sci-Fi Man. The dear man tracked down all he could about the virus then went to work repairing my site. While he was at it, he did some upgrades to my blog program to help ensure that we don’t have any more hacker attacks. I’d be lost without him and by now it is safe to say this blog would cease to exist without his help in times of emergencies. I’ve decided to thank him with an Amazon gift certificate and if anyone else wants to join me feel free to use the little donation button on the left side of the page. He’s worked really hard to make sure we can still meet here.

We took the site down when we discovered what had happened but if you visited the site between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon I strongly recommend that you make sure you have a virus checker and that it is up to date.  If it isn’t you should install one and run a scan of your computer. As I said in the beginning we weren’t able to find out what this virus does but AVG seemed ready to deal with it.

OK, lets try this new home out for size with some pictures, shall we? I’ve been playing with the next technique from Artist Trading Card Workshop by Bernie Berlin.

The idea is that you find pictures in magazines and build your card with them. Bernie encourages you to use a marker to add some detail. My details are kind of lame and I really wasn’t thinking this was my kind of technique. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to make those two cards. I’m telling you, this was labor intensive. About this time is when my stubborn gene kicked in (thanks Dad) and I dove into the stack of old magazines for another try.

I decided to skip the doodle art this time and just play with the pictures. It was starting to come a little easier to me. Actually finding the pictures was a lot of fun. I thumbed through several magazine gleefully ripping out pages of things I thought might work. Then I would select an image and start thumbing though the magazines again looking for some words or other images that might go with it and give me a theme. That is what happened with the next card.

I really didn’t plan on making a constipation card, really I didn’t. I had this great hog image that I wanted to use and I had no idea what to do with it. I was thumbing through the magazine looking for words and the constipation word just jumped out at me. It’s all the word’s fault. I never would have subjected you to potty humor, honest I wouldn’t. Everybody knows I’m much too refined and classy for something like that. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

There is still time to comment on the new bead post and have a chance at winning some for yourself. I was looking at the beads last night and realized that I didn’t buy any clasps so I’ll have to make some kind of closure for the necklace. I did pick up some crimp beads and a crimping plier. I’ve never used them before and was thinking that it’s time I moved beyond tying knots. I also got beading wire, another first, so knots would be more than a little difficult.

The new ATCs are up in the gallery now. I got a late start on that project so some of you East Coast readers may have thought I forgot about it. I didn’t.

The ATC swap at Mystic Paper last night was lots of fun. Everyone is always in such a good mood at these swaps. I look forward to their swaps all month long and I get really bummed when I have to miss one. Last night’s swap was no exception. It was great seeing all the familiar smiling faces and catching up my friends, Charlotte, Judy, Jennifer, and Kim. (Not so great seeing that Judy had a new video camera and was taking ammunition footage to post on her blog!)

Above are two of the cards I received. The first one is from Charlotte Fern. I forgot to ask her who the happy little schoolgirl is. Maybe she will leave a note and clue us in. Between the smile and the great colors this is really a happy looking card. The second card is from Jennifer and that is a picture from her own childhood gracing the face of the card. She looks like a girl who had to stand in line waiting for the photographer for way too long. She was probably missing something really important like art class and she just wanted this whole picture business to be over and done with. A girl just can’t be kept waiting for so long and still be expected to break out a dazzling smile.  On top of that, I can tell that she was way to cool to put on some girly-girl smile just to make some dumb old photographer happy.  Yeah, she was way too cool for that. I’ll bet she grinned ear to ear after this photo was taken, just to show them what they were missing.

Later today I’ll be posting all of the cards I received in the ATC Gallery but I just had to share these two darlings with you now.

I went to the Bazzill warehouse sale yesterday and came home with a box stuffed full of 12 x 12 card stock. I managed to get 117 pieces in my box but my friend, Arlynne got 134 sheets crammed into hers! That gal must have been jumping up and down on the box to get that lid to close. Way to go, Arlynne! All that suitcase packing you do must be paying off.

I was a bit disappointed that there weren’t any vellums or mulberry papers available this year. Not only was it limited to the regular card stock but the price was $5 higher. It was still a good deal. Even my poorly packed box of 117 worked out to only 17 cents per sheet. The staff was all super friendly. Oh, here is one for the “just my luck file”; when we first got there we saw a fairly long line so we decided to go check out the local Joann’s and come back a little later, thinking the line might be shorter. Wrong, it was longer. We decided we had better get into the line rather than risk it getting any longer. We stood there for about 40 minutes, loving every minutes of the Arizona 100 degree weather. When we came out there were only about 5 people in line. They are open again today from 7am – 3pm.

I got my first look at the 2007 Stampington Inspirations yesterday. (Yes, I know it has been out for a while. Sometimes I am the last to know about new things.) What is so cool is that on page 46 there is a feature showing what six different artists did with my paper doll template. The paper doll is the first template that I drew and shared on my website. Seeing it in a major magazine and put to such good use is quite a thrill for me.

The icing on the cake is the really nice thing the magazine had to say about my templates, “…a bonanza of lively and inspiring templates on Chia’s Rubber Stamp Art site…”

Hmmm… this makes me think it might be time for another contest…soon…

I participated in a small ATC swap with some of my friends. Our theme was “Inspiring Words”. I’ve scanned all the cards (minus one I forgot to scan and hope to get added later) and posted them on Chia’s Rubber Stamp Art in the gallery section. It is a great assortment of art and thoughts. I hope you will enjoy looking at them as much as I have.

If anyone reading this is good with code and wants to offer a little help I’d really appreciate it. I’m trying to replace the header with a png image. The details can be read here: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/127793?replies=1#post-

**Update**

Thanks to Wendy, RBMIDKNIGHT, and omgitztrey for helping me out. Now I’m looking at those blue headings and thinking they might need to change…..

It was great seeing some familiar faces that I haven’t seen in a while and having a few minutes to chat. (Carol and Nancy, did you ever make it out of the store or are you still there shopping? LOL) The weather was lovely tonight so Judy and I took a stroll before the swap started. We saw a new stationery store across the street from Mystic Paper. It is called M&Co. Papery and they had some wonderful things. I loved the 3-D swinging cards and some of the funky note cards!

The swap started promptly at 7:15 pm thanks to Kim and her trusty cell phone timepiece. I traded with 12 people. I have posted all of the cards in my gallery for you to look at.