If you’re photographing your work, try not to use a flash. Unless you have a great photo setup, flash will usually create hot spots and hard shadows. Try shooting in natural light instead. Take your project outside on an overcast day, or after the sun goes down, before it gets dark. I’ve also had good success taking photos in the shade on a sunny day.

Here’s a big, fat gallery of artist trading cards, postcards, skinny trading cards, and assorted other mixed-media and collage pieces from the very talented Constance Taylor:

When working with gel pens, remember that gel ink takes slightly longer to dry than other types of ink. Make absolutely sure your ink is dry before handling your work. On the plus side, once gel ink is dry, it’s generally permanent.

Make your own silly movies with the tools at Xtra Normal.

These dolls have a creepy factor of 10! They’re truly wonderful in their dark details…

Are your paper punches getting dull? Try punching through a couple of layers of aluminum foil to sharpen them. Punch through the foil a few times, and then try your paper again.

For more on paper punches, try Paper Punch Tips.

I love these little robots and characters made from recycled materials.

Always use as little liquid glue as possible to get the job done. Too much glue will always cause you some sort of problem like oozing or paper buckling. When it comes to liquid glues, remember that less is more.

For more glue advice, check out Which Glue Should I Use?.

I haven’t been blogging here at GMS, because I really haven’t had much to say beyond “UGH!” whenever anyone mentions it. I already blog daily eye candy at Ten Two Studios, and My Weekly Thing at LisaVollrath.com. Spring is fast approaching, which means I’ll start writing about Lisa’s Garden soon. Add Twitter and Facebook, and I’m pretty sure I’ve exceeded my daily allotment of online blather…

However, I do have a few arty things in my stash that could populate some blog posts over here. I found a ridiculous spreadsheet of tips I put together many moons ago for the altered books group on Yahoo. I also have way more cool artist eye candy links to share than I can ever use in my weekly newsletter. I might as well post them here at GMS.

So, for a while, I’ll do a little blog thing here. Don’t get too used to it, though, because as soon as the weather gets warm, I’ll be adjourning to the garden…