"Honesty...."

According to Billy Joel, you may as well be blind, because Honesty is so hard to find!

Where is all this coming from, well I made a throwaway statement in my last entry and have apparently hurt someone. I have apologised to the person in question and I can honestly say I never, ever intended to hurt them, what I said was written in jest and I have learnt a very valuable lesson from it.

The person who went tittle-tattling to the person I upset! Well there was no honesty in their intent, all they wanted was to push buttons and cause trouble and while I have not been told who they might be, I do have my own ideas about their identity and if I were 100% certain who they were I would try as hard as I could to ban them from ever reading my blog again. They didn't take anyone's feelings into account, just their own personal gratification and I don't need people like that in or around me at the moment, life is proving hard enough as it is.

A couple of days ago I was talking to my darling wife Jo about honesty in feedback and how honest you can be with people. I really appreciate all my fabulous followers and in certain cases I would have no problem whatsoever with their honesty about my projects; my sister, Star (my dear friend Eileen), Distressed Miss (the ever fragrent Clare), Torrey (a fellow Krew member) and a couple of others, who as friends would give me their honest opinion in a constructive way. I appreciate every comment (with the exception of the odd random intruder!), even the ones where you can just tell that someone is only saying what they think you want to hear. As card-makers, we all know when we have made something that is not up to our usual standard. I imagine you are all similiar to me in that we are usually our own worst critics but even then if we are honest with ourselves, we know sometimes what we are putting up isn't as great as we are being led to believe!!

My sister is forever telling me that while she likes my colouring (and I have to say, I am over the moon that something I taught myself to do is appreciated by so many of you) she doesn't always agree with my choice of papers or my colour schemes. I myself find her cards tend to err on the dark side (I don't mean in a Darth Vader stylee!!), she prefers earthy tones and uses lots of dark colours, greens and browns being the most prominent (this is an observation, not a criticism!) and when we are together we are quite open about what we do or do not like in each others work. Her scrapping is beautiful, she uses so many different colours and her style is quite unique, while her altered art (something I have no interest in at all) is something to behold, she recently altered a bottle that has to be seen to be believed. So I am able to handle criticism, as long as it is constructive I can take it and then it is up to me to decide how much I am willing to take on board.

So please do not be afraid to tell me what you REALLY think of my work, I can handle it. I only ever comment on work I genuinely like, I have learnt that if you have nothing nice to say then say nothing at all and I think that that works well in blogland, we don't all want out comment boxes to end up like the unending diatribes you so often see under video clips on YouTube or in the forums of Amazon.com. I could well be opening the floodgates here for a stream of abuse but I really do not think that that is how our community works but as the title of this blog says, try a little honesty in your commentary, it could set you free.

Apologies for the lateness of putting this up but as mentioned in previous entries, I am not in the best place in the world mentally at the moment and it takes me quite a long time to formulate my thoughts into something legible (this particular entry has so far taken four hours!!!), so really it's a miracle I am even here at all. The latest challenge over at Kenny K's Krafty Krew (#108) is Anything Goes and we have all used the latest releases which have a Halloween theme (and yes, it is nearly THAT time of year again!!). Kenny recently sent the following message;

Hello everyone!
As this summer comes to an end, we gear up for what Autumn and Winter bring . . . the Holiday Season!! So exciting! It's especially exciting for us, since this will be our little Sean's first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and Valentines day!! We take holidays very seriously in this house, so Sean is in for some fun! Our first year here, the kids in our neighborhood told us we were the best house. So, now we aim to live up to that every year! So, let the fun begin!!!!!
New Release:
This Sunday, August 26th we will be releasing 12 new Halloween digis for you to color and craft with! These ghoulish dozen include two new additions to the Gothik Angelz - Princess Pia and Trixxie Treat! We have also bumped up the entire Gothik Angelz collection just beneath the new releases on our shop's homepage, since these wicked ladies love to play dress up and it's that time of year!

My card has used the following images: Devil Girl, Bat, Mad Mummy and Haunted House (all available here) and I covered the front with a sheet of Graphic 45 paper that was from their recent steampunk pack. I put the bat on a strip of acetate to make it look like it could be flying (Jo hates it, says it makes the card look childish!) and it is all coloured with my Copic markers. I know that this entry is quite a long one but as I will no longer be putting cards up for I ♥ ProMarkers or Squigglefly I have to get it all out somewhere. I have left both design teams as I found that I was constantly on the back-foot with both of them and the fun had started to go out of it for me, so rather than wait until it became a chore I decided to leave them. Although I wasn't with Squigglefly for long I found them to be a very supportive team and I would like to take this time to thank Rhonda and the rest of the Rowdy's for making me feel so very welcome, I hope I can hook up with them again in the not too distant future.

So, that's it from me, feel free to let me know what you honestly think of this weeks card and as soon as I get a bit ahead of myself on the Krew I will start working on some other projects for you to see,

Take care, hugs 'n stuff,

Andy

xx

Entered Into: The Emerald Faeries Challenge #30 - Punches/Dies

Everybody-Art-Challenge #202 - Anything Goes

Going Grey with Scrap-Creations Challenge - Off The Edge!

LEJ Designs Challenge #18 - Anything Goes

Part Time Tuesday's Challenge #83 - Anything Goes

Shopping Our Stash Challenge #66 - Use Your Favourite Things (Spellbinder's Nestabilities)

Sweet Stamps Challenge #81 - A Favourite Technique (Colouring)

Through The Craft-Room Door Challenge #33 - Diva or Anything Goes