Changes with Art Neko

Hi,
As you can see it has been a long time since I have posted to the blog. A lot has gone one including resettling my mother-in-law up here from Albuquerque, a bit of a hobbling foot injury and most significantly the decision with the arrival of my first Social Security benefit check to find a new owner for Art Neko Rubber Art Stamps.

Annette Warkentin of About Art Accents is the new owner of Art Neko and Taylored Stamps. We are in the process of migrating all of Annette's items from About Art Accents onto the Art Neko website and this process will take a bit of time. In the meantime, both About Art Accents and Art Neko websites are fully operational.

During the transition some items may be shipped from Portland and some from California. You may order items from About Art Accents either from the AAA website or you can order their items as they are added to the Art Neko website (which will soon reflect the change in ownership).

As Annette and I go through this process we will be making improvements to the search options on the Art Neko website and there will likely be a few changes to reflect the new ownership. However it will take a bit of time to get everything properly coded. Initially you can find all the About Art Accent images as they are added by clicking here, by entering About Art Accents in the search box on any page or by looking the the stamps by line on the catalog page.

Some items from Art Neko and Taylored Stamps may not be available for a short period in early June, so you might want to put your orders in now for any items you are considering for purchase.

While there is some sadness in letting my baby go, I am quite happy that Art Neko and Taylored Stamps will continue on with About Art Accents and I hope to continue behind the scenes working with the website and creating new designs after the major task of combining the websites is completed. So I hope to still keep in touch!

We hope you all will be happy to find more images in one location and as always we are open to suggestions for new items you would like to see.

Candice

Korea Sheet

View all

Well, hopefully we are back on track--but then one never knows what is waiting around the corner. We still are working on moving up and resettling my husband's mother from Albuquerque to Portland and I have grandkids arriving next week for two weeks -- but barring any unforeseen calamities I should be able to changeout our specials every two weeks or so.

This week we are featuring our Korea Sheet. You can see the individual images as well as some samples in the slide show above. Dee, Heather and Bonnie created samples especially in honor of Father's Day as well as others. Barbie Dopson, Sandra Grimes and Kavi Coulson also have samples in this posting's slide show above. Send us a copies of your work with Art Neko and Taylored Stamps and we will add them into our slide shows.

Garden Friends and Masks

I leave on Monday for Albuquerque and what will probably be the last time we will see my sister-in-law. No orders received after 5/10 will be mailed until 5/18.

Beginning with this post we will be changing out the specials every other Wednesday until further notice.

This week's blog specials include:
Garden Friends Sheet
and
Tribal Masks Sheet
Some stamps available individually or in small sets.

Mothers and Children

This week's featured cards have something to do either with Mothers, children or special celebrations in Japan the week of the fifth day of the fifth month. Hover your mouse pointer over a card as it floats by and it will stop, and show the title and the artist's first name and last initial. Slides shown with an * are posted with details below. Most of these with samples use images that are included on the Helen Hyde sheets and can also be purchased individually. More information on Helen Hyde is included in the last post for today. A few if this weeks featured samples include images that can be found under Children's Day. Remember to mention Art Neko Blog when ordering any of the items featured in the blog this week for a 25% discount. Offer good until the next week's blog post.

Moms and Kids

With Mother's Day coming soon, this week's blog theme is mother's and children. As a mother of four kids I feel truly blessed. I would love to take credit for what great adults they have grown up to be, but I think too often we take too much credit or too much blame depending on the situation. My kids have all worked hard to become who they are and while I did my best to provide encouragement and guidance, their successes are their own.

I picked this photo with David, my youngest, because Art Neko could never had come into existence without his tireless and patient efforts to set up and train me on how to maintain my website. In this photo he is helping me with an exhibit of cross stitch charts I made while in Japan. Yoko, standing at the right is also a very proud and doting mother. The small portrait next to me is of her son in full kimono in his 5th year of age which has a special celebration in Japan. Yoko had me enlarge and digitally chart that portrait and at the time we left Japan she had stitched about a quarter of her project. Talk about a mother's devotion!

This photo is about 14 years old and David here is now married and in his third year of graduate studies in math at MIT. I never could have started Art Neko without his gift to me of designing my website. Now if I could just get him to help with this blog.....Children, the gift that keeps giving (even after they leave home....)!

The week in which the 5th Day of the 5th Month falls (May 5th) includes several special days in Japan. Included in this weeks's post are projects relating to Children's Day (formerly Boy's Day) and Greenery Day, two of these special celebrations. As always, mention Art Neko Blog when you order any of the items featured this week for a 25% discount on those items.

Cute Kids

This little Boy With Daruma is representative of the art of Helen Hyde. Two sheets of Taylored Stamps Helen Hyde are available as sheets or singles. More information about her is listed in the final post for this week. Daruma are used for making wishes for the new year and giving thanks for wishes that have come true.

Creating this card was fun and easy! I don't do a lot of images of children, but this little guy stole my heart. Stamped and embossed with black, the image was colored with Tombow markers for the boy, and red and gold twinkling H2O's for the dolls. I stippled around the edges with rose and yellow colors of ink, highlighted parts of the images with gold metallic marking pen, and layered the small square daruma image over gold metallic floss. The background paper is washi - an unusual design, but just right for this celebratory image.

Apricot Blossom is also designed from a Helen Hyde print. The main image was stamped with black ink on a white cardstock panel. I colored the little girl's dress with twinkling H2O's and other parts of the image with Tombow markers. The little girl image was layered onto a background panel made by stamping the cherry blossom background image from Judikins in deep rose ink onto white mulberry paper. That panel was layered to a deep pink cardstock so the main cherry blossoms stand out against the white and the white looks pink over the cardstock! A piece of the pink carstock was stamped with the blossom border on a Judikins Asian bolio, embossed in gold, and then layered underneath the little girl image.

"Sweetie"

This little Daisy Girl is from the Taylored Stamps sheet, Women and Girls 1. Almost any image on that sheet could be put to use on a Mother's Day card.

The image was stamped with Timber Brown StazOn.
Blended pencil crayons were used to color the image. To make a more vintage type look, I used Ranger Distress Antique Linen direct to paper all over the image on top of the pencil crayon coloring. The image was first mounted on Basic Grey from the Porcelain Line. The other two mounting papers are also Basic Grey. Edging is gold Krylon pen.