Chocolate Covered Goodness

Artful Tourist blog posts may be viewed chronologically and in their entirely by visiting www.artfultourist.blogspot.com .


The Christmas season took over my heart and just about everything else for the past two months. I am so grateful for such a joyful and wonderful time of giving and receiving.

Working Backwards
Just as I teach in my workshops, when you get behind in journaling or scrapbooking, start with the most recent and work backwards as desired. Enjoy the moment you’re in right now. The moment of the last 48 hours has been one of gratitude. I created a new series of cards yesterday that I call “Chocolate Covered Recycling.”

The base for these are card blanks and envelopes given to me at least 4 years ago by my precious friend Bridget as a Christmas gift. They were white and sized 5” by 7”. For some reason, the stark white canvas and/or the size just kept me from opening and using these packs.

Adhering to my commitment to use more of what I have laying around—I pulled out these card blanks to start working on some thank you notes. Also sitting on my table in the studio were some mail catalogs that came in over the holidays.

Tip: I keep these mail catalogs around as a surface for “glue waste” on my projects. You can rub glue off the project and onto the surface of the catalog pages—then just turn the page and get a fresh surface for the next little scrap that needs gluing. Once the catalog pages are all glued together you can still pop it into the recycling bin.



The Godiva™ catalog was just too pretty to use as glue scraps and I started tearing and punching images out of the catalog to play with on the pure white background of the cards. All five cards I completed in about an hour are posted in the recycled project gallery that is new to the web site this week. http://www.nachattin.com/Gallerymain.html

Digital Greetings
Finally, in the interest of the environment this year we also prepared a digital Holiday card. I posted it on Facebook and emailed it to many others, but just in case you didn’t get your copy—here’s a reprint just for you. May your 2010 be filled with wonder and abundance,

Regular Features




Surf stops—web sites I’ve visited recently:


http://www.king.com/ to play the Chuzzle game which is really the old version of Bejeweled.






Mind Map with Mind Meister-- http://www.mindmeister.com/content/product






Touch of color—what color(s) influenced me— Silver sparkles






Pleasing sounds- Children laughing






Studio progress: Creating a mind map of my vision for the studio






In the kitchen— Steam fresh asparagus in the microwave with McCormick’s ™ vegetable seasoning and Promise™ spread






Austerity Plan progress ($15.00 per month for art supplies and tools): It’s all a blur for December, I don’t think I went over budget on my studio, but I did pick up a lot of stuff for gifting.






Points of Interest: (random things I’ve paid attention to lately) Snow fell in south Florida all month. We took the neighbor girls to CityPlace on Christmas Eve, Eve and had a blast.

My opinion and where it may lead: I married the right man for the job.