Special Guest Designer Eva Andren

{Long post, get a drink and a comfortable place to sit}

Remember back when you were a kid how exciting it was when you saw your name on stuff?  I loved getting personalized presents.  My name on some cool stickers, a license plate for my bike, a personalized key chain, a pack of "Tracey's" pencils.  I felt special.  Well a few weeks ago I asked one of our regular contributers Eva Andren to be a special guest designer for us.   It's no secret how we feel about our Swedish friends.  We love them!  Nina, Eva, and Petraso are all well known around here and their involvement with us has definitely begun rubbing off on us.  If  you haven't gotten a chance to see their cards visit the label "Swedish Collage" at the right.  You don't know what you are missing!  

I could write paragraph after paragraph about why I love their fun and colorful swedish style cards, and I have (see past posts).   But today I want to point out yet another reason to love them.  Personalization!  At the bottom of this post you will find all the incredibly amazing cards Eva designed for us (and if you come see us at one of the stamp shows I can show you her brilliant cards in person).  However the first several cards in this post were cards I pulled from her blog. Notice how several of them incorporated the name of the recipient? I have noticed it in the past but its a whole different ballgame when Eva sent in her designer cards I got my own:

My very own "Tracey" card. And she even spelled my name correctly!  Thanks Eva!!  I can't tell you how special I felt opening my personalized card!   I am definitely going to do that in the future and I think you all should try it. Humm, maybe this will be a challenge sometime?  So check out Eva's latest cards, both personalized and not. And then keep going for her guest designer cards and interview!

Idea to note: 

check out how cleverly she embellished her designer paper by integrating  

a button centered flower.  How perfectly did that work out! 

(Now I know just how Irene felt seeing her name "up in lights")

So now that you have seen what Eva makes for her friends and family check out what she designed for us and what she has to say about herself and stamping in our interview:

An interview with Swedish stamp artist Eva Andren

Tell us some something about yourself. I live on the countryside about 50 kilometres outside Sweden's second biggest city Gothenburg. I'm 42 years old, have been married for 13 years and we have two beautiful girls who are now 12 and 10 years old (how did that happen?!). I think I'm a generally crafty person, before stamping and card making I have been into e.g. calligraphy and quilts. Apart from crafty things I love reading books, watching movies, cooking, baking, listening to music, exercising/jogging and, of course, my family and friends.

Idea to note: check out how Eva used asst. papers to create the 

variations of shadows cast by the campfire. Brilliant!

Tell us why you love to stamp. Oh, I think someone must have invented this hobby just for me, I love everything about it! It's the best therapy in the world, I get some time for myself and I can be creative. Every part of making a card is so much fun; choosing and stamping the motif, the coloring and combining colors, materials, papers and decorations. The best hobby in the world!

Tell us what your favorite stamping supplies are. What are the 3 stamping supplies you can not live without (except for a paper cutter and cardstock and stamps). The first two are easy; patterned papers in bright colors and the Distress Ink that I use for coloring, those two are absolute must-haves. On third place I'd have to say my alphabet dies (Quickutz and BossKut), buttons, ribbons, strings and rhinestones - you really can't make me say only three, Tracey. It's impossible! :)

If you could dream up one stamp collection that was custom made just for you, what would it be? Ha ha, that has already been done! I don't think I could ever love another stamp collection as much as Doodle Factory Creatures. All of them are adorable, with Frozey, Mimo and Yapples being a few of my absolute favorites. Again, they must have been made just for me! :) There is something about them, so cute and funny and yet so cool and funky - outstanding. I was just telling Irene the other day that I'm sure she still has a lot of creatures in her, and I'm really hoping for a Creatures II some day. I have totally fallen for DF and those of you who are familiar with my blog know that I rarely use any other stamps any more.

I hope you all enjoyed Eva's projects and getting to know a fellow stamper as much as we did.  She will be back again doing another spot for us in the near future so stay tuned!

Thank you Eva for all your hard work and incredible talent!  We love you!