One World One Heart

This post will remain at the top of my blog until February 15th!! Please scroll down for NEWer posts!! :) Thanky :)

Hello! I am honored to be your next stop as you travel the blog world on your magic carpet! Please come in and have a look around! Although I am a fairly new crafter and blogger, not even reaching my one year blogaversary yet, I do hope you will find some pictures or prose that will inspire you :)

(Note: I swear there is a giveaway, but first, a little about me… :))

My name is Julie Ann and I’m 28. I was born in South Korea, in Seoul, and was adopted when I was 13 months old. I was raised in Rochester, NY but currently live in Buffalo, NY where I am completing my Master’s degree in Behavioral Neuroscience. However, I’m done with my coursework and am working on my Master’s project- exploring cocaine addiction and a possible treatment called Neuropeptide Y (NPY).

But this blog hasn’t had too much to do with my school or personal life… I began this blog to connect with like-minded people who were into papercrafts. I actually began my love affair with crafting back in February of 2009. It was all sparked by getting engaged! My boyfriend, now fiancee, proposed to me in January and in thinking about ways to have a budget friendly wedding, a lot of the sites were recommending making your own invitations and gifts. So, I actually began my journey with card making. However, I quickly found out how hard it was for me to do!! I don’t know why, but there is something so intimidating about a blank card! I never knew where to start or what to do… I looked all over the internet and saw gorgeous cards I’d love to be making, but I always felt guilty for copying someone else’s idea- so I didn’t.

Soon after, I found unfinished wood, in the form of birdhouses and jewelry boxes. I loved to decorate birdhouses with scrapbook paper and transform them from plain wooden houses to something “uptown” birds would love to live in! My jewelry boxes were covered in gorgeous scrapbook paper and then I quickly moved to luxurious flocked vintage wallpaper.

And then I decided I needed a Cricut so I could customize things and cut out whatever shapes I wanted. Soon after I bought the Cricut, I found a Yahoo group called SCAL Hints. I had no idea what SCAL was, so I joined to learn more about it. There, I began to see that people on the list had blogs and I would visit any one who included their blog within their signature.

That is how I found Penny Duncan. :) She was always so friendly and helpful in the group and her work on her blog was amazing! A very short while after I had joined SCAL Hints, Penny posted that she was going to start her own group called ArtHaven Creations Friendships. I never posted on the list- I am very shy in Real Life and didn’t ever really know what to say- but something told me to see if Penny would let me join her group, so I did. And she did! And I am SO GLAD that I did!!! With ArtHaven, Penny has created a family type atmosphere where we are free to talk about anything and everything! This is a group created around art, but the motto is Friendship first! It is so incredible to me that I have met so many wonderful people through this group which is still rapidly expanding.

Upon exploring blogland, I used to lurk all over the place! Even if I thought something was totally mind blowing, I would still never leave a comment because I was afraid I would be saying something dumb. Everyone whose blog I visited seemed so established, so why would they care about little old me over here, crafting on her kitchen floor (hence the name of the blog!)? However, that all changed one day when Jan Thomason mentioned something about her lurkers and told us to comment on her page! So I said hi- and that I was sheepishly admitting to reading her posts daily, but never saying a thing. And then something happened- she wrote back to me! And here I was, this nobody, being written to by someone else I’d never met before! And that’s the story of how I got over my fear of commenting :) Now I usually don’t give it a second thought- even if this person has published in 40 magazines and is considered one of the greats. My problem now is that my blog roll has grown so big that I don’t have time to comment on every single post! :)

For me, this blog is a record of my personal successes in crafting. I don’t consider myself an artist because I don’t feel like I am creating something brand new. I am more of an embellisher, modifying things and trying to pretty them up :) I usually don’t post all the things I start to create and give up or mess up, but there are a lot of those!! I haven’t expanded this blog too far into my personal life, but I may get there some day. But for now, it’s just usually about completed projects, swaps, and goings on in blogland!

I am a huge lover of all things shabby chic. Well, ok, maybe that is a little big much. I find myself more on the chic side of shabby chic. I love whimsy and pink. I very much appreciate vintage, well kept things, but don’t mind a chip here or scratch there. I love pink and light blue and aqua, white and cream, bright and pastel. I am a complete girly girl and loooooove fouf!!! My favorite things to use when I’m embellishing are feathers, rhinestones, pearls, flocking and glitter.

Whew! That’s a lot of text. LOL! There was supposed to be something about a giveaway in here, right? Well, if you’ve managed to read along this far (or scroll past!), I finally have a picture for you :) Oh. And a GIVEAWAY! :)

Hmm, now that I think about it, I’ve never named a piece before. But I am going to name this one!! It’s called Wish- bet you didn’t know how I came up with that! Lol :) One World One Heart means to me a coming together of a group of people who want to share and connect. Each of us is bringing ourselves to the table to try to better ourselves and reach out to others. We all have hopes, dreams, and wishes. My piece reflects this wish of Peace. Fouffy white feathers surround the wooden star trinket box as if supporting the star on a cloud. The star reflects the light from iridescent pink sequins dancing along its’ edges and glitter plays with the light reaching the tips of the crepe paper medallions. A white dove, with pink glitter tipped wings, sits atop a pink pearl in the heart of the medallions, representing Peace. The top is held in place by magnets which opens up to reveal a star shaped cove in which to put a small but prized treasure.

In honor of One World One Heart, I am offering Wish to one of my commenters. If you would like to enter to win this piece, please leave me one comment on THIS post. You don’t have to have your own blog to leave a comment here, but if you do not have a blog, please leave your name and email address so I can contact you if you’re the winner!! This giveaway will end at 6pm EST on February 14th,2010, and I will post a winner on February 15, 2010.

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and visit! I hope you will come by again and often! Have a wonderful week :)