Favorite Links

Tim Holtz
The web site of a popular teacher and a very nice SkyBluePink customer! Check out his books, videos, and class schedule. And don't miss Tim's Blog.

Crazy Art Girl
The blog of our Punchinella Ambassadress and friend, Belinda Spiwak. There's always something new going on with her. She specializes in techniques. Lots of cool pictures and inspiration.

Twisted Papers
A very cool site for CDs with collage papers! Russell and Stan have an amazing collection of vintage images, with lots of holiday, travel, and backgrounds. Here's their mission statement:

"Our mission is to provide a marketplace for paper artists that will spark their creativity and enhance their productivity. . . But that's not all . . . Twisted Papers' goal is to create and offer high quality images, ephemera and unique found objects that provide good value to the customer as they continue or embark on their creative journey."

Knitwits
HRH took a class/workshop in dying yarn with Kool-Aid. The nice people at Knitwits did all the messy work of diluting the Kool-Aid and setting everything up for us. I just got to play! This is for real yarn dying, too! I'm going to make mittens or a hat out of this skein.

If you're in the Greater Cincinnati area, you should visit Knitwits! More Kool-Aid yarn dying is promised!!

VistaPrint
I know many of you own a business, just like Queen Xina, and so I thought you would be interested in marketing materials at a reasonable cost. I purchased two sets of business cards and several self-inking rubber stamps from VistaPrint, an online digital printing company, and was Royally satisfied. Our cards and stamps arrived in about a week, and they are very nicely made.

VistaPrint has a wide range of goods available with lots of options for customization, and very reasonable prices. You can get stationery, business card magnets with calendars, folders, brochures, postcards, sticky notes, and more. They seem to have lots of special sales and free samples of their wares. By using the link above for VistaPrint's Special Friends Referral Program, you will receive 25% off your purchases.

ERA Graphics
Roberta Altshuler's beautiful original art is featured on her stamps, many showing strong women figures. She also has lots of petroglyphs, including a marvelous petroglyph-entwined alphabet set, collage designs, wonderful sayings, feathers, and zillions more. Her mold boards for use with polymer clay are great. A Must See Web site!

Spirits Journey Designs
The blog of Lady Carol Stocker, one of our Esteemed Customers.

The Artfull Hand
A store for handmade artwork and stamping supplies in Washington, Missouri. Queen Xina is proud to serve as the WebMistress for the Duchess of Dot's site.

Luann Udell
Luann writes a wonderful, insightful column about being an artist and running a business. Her work is lovely, as well, but if you.can't attend one of her shows, do yourself a favor and read her column!

Nix Creations
Lovely handmade pendants from an artist who is a SkyBluePink customer. Matthew Nix makes some of his creations out of our dominoes and travel majhong tiles. He has a tutorial on DVD, too!

Collage: A New Approach
Subtitled "Collage Without Liquid Adhesives." This book by Jonathan Talbot, noted collage artist, "describes a new technique, developed by the author, which makes it possible to adhere collage elements without liquid adhesives. This technique eliminates wrinkling and drying time from collage-making, offering new opportunities for creative spontaneity." It's probably available everywhere, but I like buying directly from the artist!

World Wide Words
Michael Quinion's "World Wide Words" is both a web site and a weekly newsletter filled with interesting information about words, their meanings and history. If you love the English language, you owe it to yourself to subscribe to the World Wide Words free weekly email newsletter. It's nearly as entertaining as ours and much more informative. The origin of the phrase "sky-blue-pink" is revealed on this site, too!

Heron Dance
"Through our quarterly publication, website, weekly email A Pause for Beauty, and Wild Soul Workshops we strive to provide support and inspiration for those seekers on the path, lovers of life and wild nature, and kindred souls seeking open-hearted community."

Mission Statement:
"Heron Dance is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1995. It is a work of love, an effort to produce something that is thought-provoking and beautiful. Through watercolors, interviews, quotations, book excerpts, essays and poetry Heron Dance celebrates the seeker's journey and the spirit and beauty of all that is wild."

Atwood Lake Resort
A wonderful, beautiful, friendly, restful resort in Ohio where Queen Xina spent Her birthday one year.

How To Make A Fabric Postcard DebR Style
Step-by-step directions for fabric postcards.

Fabric Postcards
A free project by Kathie Briggs. Step-by-step directions for fabric postcards.

Burnt Offerings
Opie and Linda O'Brien have art dolls in mixed media, a line of stamps, and other things you might like to see.

xochico [zo-CHEE'-ko]
A cool site with wonderful vintage Loteria imagery adorning mugs, mousepads, T-shirts, and more. This is the original artwork from the Don Clemente company. [Loteria is a Mexican game played like bingo or lotto.] Quick service and nice people.

Hugobia
Site of British artist Peter Woods, who has beautifully designed card decks for sale, among other things. The "2000 Pips" transformation deck is clever and beautiful.

The Breast Cancer Site
"Your click on the 'Click Here to Give - it's FREE' button helps fund free mammograms for women in need -- low-income, inner-city and minority women whose awareness of breast cancer and opportunity for help is often limited. Your click is paid for by site sponsors, and mammogram funding is provided to clinics throughout the U.S. through the efforts of the National Breast Cancer Foundation."

Ready Stamps
A division of United Cerebral Palsy Association of San Diego

"Ready Stamps is a full service rubber stamp manufacturing shop offering job training, and employment for persons with disabilities. We have been providing quality product, competitive price, and quick turnaround since 1982. Each rubber stamp order is quality checked through a 15 step, production-to-shipment process."

On the Web page of The Polyclay Gallery there is more discussion about and recommendations for Ready Stamps. If you ever wanted rubber stamps of your artwork, this would be an excellent option for you. [N.B. You wouldn't want to start a rubber stamp company based on their stamps, because they apparently don't use the rugged and much more expensive metal plates that are needed for making stamps in large quantities over a long time period.]