vintagepix

In Memoriam: Nuts and Outdoor Cat

2012-01-15T06:56:00.001-06:00

This winter we lost Nuts on December 20, 2011 and Outdoor Cat on January 9, 2012. Both were older with serious health issues so we knew it would happen eventually, but it was still heart-breaking. Nuts was my husband's cat, and she adopted him some thirteen years ago when a friend of his found her as a stray. When she was little she would run around like a crazy cat, and his young son said "This cat is nuts!" and the name stuck. She was the reason we kept a "Beware of the Cat" sign by the front door because she hissed at everyone except my husband and once chased our former landlord's dog out of HER yard.

Outdoor Cat was much shyer, and when we bought our house, we did not even know that she was living under our deck until our neighbor told us she had been there for some years. No one seemed to remember how long, but the previous owners used to leave food out for her, and everyone told us she was "not very friendly." I have described in previous blog posts how Outdoor Cat went through the Wisconsin Humane Society's Trap Neuter Return program and ended up coming indoors.

She adopted me and slept on my side of the bed at night, while Nuts slept on my husband's side. Often the humans would end up squished together in the middle third of the bed acting as a buffer zone between the two cats, who would hiss at each other on sight. Fortunately since they were older female cats, they mostly pretended the other cat was not there.

Our remaining cat Ruby would like you to know that we do not need another cat. Ruby is enjoying having full command of the humans' attention and having access to rooms that had previously been the other cats' territories. She distributes her fuzziness equally between our laps.

Milwaukee ARTibles Holiday Bazaar - extra hours!

2011-12-17T21:07:00.000-06:00

Still looking for unique holiday gifts? The Milwaukee Artist Resource Network's ARTibles Holiday Bazaar will be open extra hours Dec. 19-24, 2011:
Mon-Wed 12 to 7
Thur-Fri 11 to 7
Sat. 10 to 5
(for those of you who like waiting to the last minute)
You can find all sorts of cool stuff made by local artists including clothing, jewelry, purses, ornaments, art magnets, bird houses, quilts, soaps, greeting cards, and more!

Free Vintage Holiday Printables!

2011-12-03T05:06:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's time again for the Ten Two Studios Holiday Printables Countdown, now through Christmas. Check http://countdown.tentwostudios.com/ everyday for a new download from Lisa Vollrath. She just asks that you spread the word by sharing the link on your blog, Twitter, etc. And while you're there check out all the cool Christmas products and Ten Two Studios design team projects posted on the main page!

ARTibles Holiday Bazaar at MARN

2011-11-24T12:29:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Tomorrow is traditionally "Black Friday" when we're supposed to all go out and do our Christmas shopping (even though many businesses have started holding their Black Friday sales early). If you're in the Milwaukee area, be sure to check out the ARTibles Holiday Bazaar at the Milwaukee Artists Resource Network (MARN), 5407 W. Vliet Street in Milwaukee (conveniently next door to Four Corners of the World). ARTibles features handmade artsy gifts, ornaments, and accessories by local artists (including me). A percentage of the sales also benefits MARN, a non-profit organization serving the Milwaukee arts community. After Thanksgiving, regular ARTibles hours will be Thursday & Friday from 11-7 and Saturday 10-5 through December 24, 2011. Go shop!

Warped Milwaukee Fiber Art Show

2011-11-15T19:25:00.000-06:00

I'm in a fiber arts show! If you're in the Milwaukee area, check out the Warped Milwaukee show at the Jazz Gallery, 926 E. Center Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, presented by the ABK Weaving Center and Riverwest Artists Association. The other participants are Harmonie Baker, Ellie Brooks-Derzay, Pame Bueno, Susan Buss, Taylor Easton, Jan Falk, Kari Garon, Betsy Hoover, Kathleen Hughes, Mel Kolstad, Shannon Molter, Jane Moore, and Stephanie Ponto. The show is up through December 4, 2011, and the gallery is open Saturdays 12-5 p.m. with other dates to be announced.

There are some stunning pieces on display, including this giant wing by Stephanie Ponto:

and these printed pouches by Susan Buss, entitled "Not Just a Bunch of Old Bags."

My friend Mel has a cool mixed media piece combining embroidery with vintage anatomy illustrations:

I have one of my mini Dia de los Muertos art quilts "Amigos" on display:
.
You can see some more photos on Flickr.

September & October workshops & artsy stuff

2011-11-08T11:21:00.000-06:00

Life has been busy this fall so it's time to catch up on the bloggin'! Since my last post in mid-September, I took two workshops organized for the Milwaukee Artist Trading Card group by group member Gary). MKE ATC member Lynne taught an ATC background workshop before our September meeting. We had a lot of fun making colorful serendipity collage backgrounds, and as a result I got a lot of ATCs made for our future trades!

These use images from the Ten Two Studios "Tinted Twenties Cuties" image CD. You can see pix from the workshop and complete set of ATCs in my Flickr photostream

In October we met at RedLine Milwaukee, a wonderful non-profit community art studio that includes a print shop and paper making space. Artist Dara Larson showed us how to make ATC-sized papers and carve printing blocks to decorate them. Here's Mel pulling her first set of handmade paper ATCs:

And my paper "wet off the press"!

(I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with them.)
Since Halloween was fast approaching I made a Day of the Dead stamp design, of course, inspired by the figure they had on display in the print shop.

More photos are here. If you live in the Milwaukee area be sure to check out RedLine's upcoming workshops.

Wisconsin Regional Art Program

2011-09-18T08:53:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my friend Gary's encouragement, I submitted two pieces to one of the Wisconsin Regional Art Program's regional exhibits in Greendale, Wisconsin, this summer. WRAP was started in 1940 to "encourage the creative growth of Wisconsin non-professional artists from rural areas." ("Non-professional" in this case defined as not making the majority of my income from art, which is definitely the case.) Last weekend was our workshop day, featuring a lecture and demo by jewelry artist Brenda Schweder and a critique of our art by Chad Lindemann.

I was very happy to learn that my collage "Once Upon a Time" (above) was one of seven pieces chosen for the State Exhibit Award, which allows me to participate in the statewide show in 2012! If you are a Wisconsin artist, check out the information about upcoming exhibits/workshops to see if they have a program in your area.

Art Trader, Pinterest & other Distractions

2011-09-05T12:27:00.001-05:00

I realized that I never posted back in July that I was interviewed for the Summer 2011 issue of Art Trader Magazine, the FREE on-line 'zine for all things mail art. You can download the PDF file here. Be sure to check out their site because they also have contests and offer on-line workshops. (I took the Fantastic Faces workshop in the spring.)

Also this summer, I am attempting to reorganize my office/work area, though no one can tell when looking at the space, because it looks as messy as ever. I keep getting distracted by looking at other people's beautiful work spaces on-line and browsing for storage ideas. My friend Mel got me hooked on Pinterest, a site which allows you to "pin" links and images to your own themed boards. So perhaps I spent more time pinning inspiration to my Art Studio Ideas board than I should have....

And two of my Pinterest boards on cats and Edgar Allan Poe translated into my first Etsy treasuries. (And I was not in anyway procrastinating the cleaning and organizing when I made these.) And one of my minor accomplishments this summer was getting a few more of my quilted ornaments listed on Etsy. Now back to work...

Art Journal: What I Did This Summer

2011-08-27T16:46:00.001-05:00

Somehow the summer has flown by and next weekend is already Labor Day!! I have been a negligent blogger and will try to catch everything up in one post via my art journal entries:

At the end of July I worked on a spread incorporating all the 12 plants/flowers associated with the months/suits in the Japanese card game Hanafuda. (If you've ever wondered how Nintendo got its start, the company originally manufactured hanafuda cards.) I drew these while attending the Inspire Your Life art retreat organized by Kim Geiser.
I took workshops in Interactive Art Journal techniques taught by Kim Rae Nugent (see sample at left) and Renewing/Redoing Your Wardrobe taught by Geri Justinger, and I taught a class on making Faux Tintype ATCs. We were in Kim Geiser's store/studio in downtown Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and you can see photos from the weekend on Flickr.

The August Sketchbook Challenge theme is "Every Day Objects" so I started this next spread with a staple gun, chicken wire, popcorn and Kleenex:

But summer is the fair & festival season in Milwaukee, and we hit the Wisconsin State Fair in early August, and the farm animals took over!

I'd been meaning to make sketches from all the photos I take of my sister's horses and chickens, and I finally did! In addition to State Fair, we also hit Summerfest and Irish Fest to see Gaelic Storm, which is probably the most festivating we've done in one year. (Sure, that's a real word.) So I leave you with my favorite Gaelic Storm song:

I'm Guest Blogging at Art Journal Every Day

2011-07-22T07:01:00.001-05:00

I'm the guest blogger today at Art Journal Every Day! I'm blogging about using tangles in my art journal. Thank you to Julie Balzer for the opportunity! Also, if you remember my sunprinting post last year, where I used Crafters Workshop stencils to sunprint designs on painted fabric, I was very excited to learn that Julie has designed new stencils for them. Go check them out!

Art Journal: Totally (Zen)Tangled

2011-07-21T20:57:00.000-05:00

I spent a good chunk of May and June drawing and then coloring Zentangle patterns from Sandy Bartholomew's great book Totally Tangled.

I had a very busy spring so it was great to just work on a couple of tangles each day in May, and then I went back and colored them a little at a time in June, using a combination of Letraset markers, Twinkling H20s and Prismacolor pencils.

I also did a Spring Tangle spread that was a bit more organic:

Little by little, I'm filling the pages! You can see other tangles & resources in my previous blog posts here and here and in my Flickr photostream.

Dr. Evermor's Forevertron & HH Bennett's Studio

2011-07-02T10:53:00.002-05:00

I had a very busy spring, and now that it's summer (how'd that happen?), I'll try to take advantage of the holiday weekend to catch up on some blogging. In June we had a family gathering in the Wisconsin Dells with the obligatory boat rides on the Upper and Lower Dells and a lumberjack breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty.

But the two things I had always wanted to see in the Dells? Dr. Evermor's Forevertron and H.H. Bennett's Photographic Studio!

The Forevertron is an amazing outdoor sculptural environment created by Tom Every a.k.a. Dr. Evermor from salvaged items.

He was doing steampunk before steampunk was cool. I won't even try to describe this in words. You can see my full Flickr set here. We were fortunate to meet him on the day, and the official Dr. Evermor website is up, but still under construction. Besides the Wikipedia article linked above, you can read more at Roadside America and PBS.org.

On a slightly different tack, the H.H. Bennett Studio is small museum run by the Wisconsin Historical Society, which preserves a 19th-century photographic studio. (If you've ever wondered, my on-line name is "vintagepix" because I have a collection of vintage photos.)

So this site might not be for everyone's tastes but I am entertained by giant cameras and stereocard viewers (modeled here by my big brother)

and taking a family photo through the lens of an antique camera.

(For those of you who know your optics, we are upside down in the original photo.) So if you're in central Wisconsin this summer, consider a road trip!

Art Journal: What I did in April (and May)

2011-05-10T07:42:00.003-05:00

Spring has been busy with work and catching up on long overdue art projects. I have been working in my art journal every day but tend to do a little bit at a time so it takes me a week or more to finish a spread. I've been playing with Carla Sonheim's book Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists, which has fun exercises.

This spread started with splotches of watercolor in which you try to find animal shapes:

One of her exercises involved doodling cats, and since the April Sketchbook Challenge theme was "Branching Out/Out On A Limb," this evolved:

"One Liners" required drawing with one single line (which I had to color, of course):

In between doodling faces, I did a bit of scribble drawing (on the upper right page):

I started May off with some "Cheater Blind Countour" drawing. (You get to peek while doing blind contour drawing from photographs, so you can make sure the lines meet up!)

Hope you're having a creative spring!
UPDATE: Here are the blind cheater contours painted with Twinkling H20 watercolors.

"Inspire My Life" Art Retreat - July 2011!

2011-03-15T14:23:00.001-05:00

Looking for some mixed media fun this summer? Kim Geiser is organizing Inspire My Life, an art retreat in Manitowoc, Wisconsin from July 28-30, 2011. She hopes to have the full schedule up by early April, but instructors include Kim Rae Nugent, author of Interactive Art Workshop, and my fellow Milwaukee ATC buddies, Mel Kolstad and Kathi Pecor, among others.
UPDATE: Workshop Schedule is now up! (Scroll down that page for registration info.)

I'll be teaching "Colorful Faux Tintype Artist Trading Cards" on Saturday, July 30, 2011. Hope you can make it!

Art Journal: deMengian Mumbo Jumbo

2011-03-05T17:26:00.002-06:00

This past week, I've been working on a journal spread inspired by Michael deMeng but since the March Sketchbook Challenge theme is Spilling Over, I perhaps used some of his techniques to excess!

I was fortunate to take two workshops from Michael at the Raevn's Nest Art Retreat in 2008, and I learned a lot from his techniques creating the effect of age and patina using acrylic paints. All these images started out as black & white photocopies of Dover vintage clip art (and one 19th century portrait from my personal collection) and were colored with paint. My friend Gary used Michael's "ghostly glow" technique on his ATCs last month, so I had a go at that with mixed results. The interpretation of this collage is up to you!

March 1-5, 2011

Art Journal: Fantastic Faces Workshop

2011-03-03T08:03:00.000-06:00

I'm taking the Fantastic Faces on-line workshop at ArtTrader Magazine taught by Annie Melione, aka Eraser Queen. So this past week, I worked on a journal spread where I sketched a few faces each day and then inked and colored. Here are some starting pencil sketches, fiddling with proportions and seeing where each face might end up.

Here is the finished spread the folding flap on the right side closed and opened. You can click on the images to see a larger version on Flickr.

February 21-23 & 26-28, 2011

Art Journal: Zentangle A Day

2011-02-25T20:59:00.002-06:00

The past two weeks have been very busy so I started a Zentangle journal spread where I could just add a little bit of ink every day and then color the black and white designs with Letraset markers & colored pencils. Does a Zentangle a day keep the doctor away?

Journal spread completed February 16-20 & 24-25, 2011

If you're looking for tangle inspiration, check out these links:
The official Zentangle blog
Molossus's blog - Life Imitates Doodles
Sandy Bartholomew's blog - BEEZ in the Belfry
Zentangle Flickr group

Art Journal: Opposites Distract

2011-02-19T16:46:00.002-06:00

Inspired the Sketchbook Challenge theme for February "Opposites" - I decided to do a spread where I went in the opposite direction of what I usually do. So I used colors I don't particularly like to work with like bright red, yellow and green. I'm more of a purple & blue gal! I pulled out some handcarved stamps that I had made in a workshop but didn't like how they turned out because they were so "blocky" (Yes, I know that's how handcarved tends to look.)

As my blog title implies, I like to work with vintage images, so the opposite direction, painful though it would be, demanded a contemporary photo, and since I hate using pictures of myself...bleh - there I am. And printing it on yellow paper made it even worse! Oddly enough, the hardest part was picking a font that I would not normally use. I had narrowed it down to Mistral (horribly '80s and hard to read) or Stencil, and opted for Stencil just to be legible. And instead of writing the dates of this endeavor in small print in the margins, I then stenciled them in the center of the spread. And for a finishing touch, I scribbled all over with a greenish SpiderWriter pen. Here is the end result:

Art Journal: Suvetar, Goddess of Spring

2011-02-12T08:02:00.004-06:00

Inspired by Pam Carriker's workshop at Strathmore, I originally did this journal spread in January but was unhappy with the result and knew I would redo it.

So in February, I wiped away the oil pencil handwriting and gessoed over the messy areas and redid the text with a curly font and added more flowers and paint.

The images are all from the Ten Two Studios. The right side is a folding flap. Here's the spread with the flap closed.

The spread was inspired by the song Suvetar, Goddess of Spring by Gjallarhorn. (The liner notes say it's their arrangement of traditional verse.)

Is it spring yet?

Art Journal: Opposites

2011-02-08T17:20:00.003-06:00

The February theme for the Sketchbook Challenge is Opposites, and this journal spread started with two halves of the same face glued on opposite sides of the page, with a vague idea of doing something like "Good & Evil" or "Night & Day" or an evil twin.

If you watch a lot of BritLit TV, you may recognize Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock in the 2005 version of Bleak House. Inspired by Pam Carriker's Recycled Journal Pages workshop on the Strathmore website, the background is torn rice paper left over from my book arts' group's 2008 gelatin printing play date. Then I went over the whole thing with a thin layer of gesso, oil pastels & oil color pencils, Permapaque marker, and acrylic paint stenciled through punchinella or sequin waste.

Finally, I decided that declaring things to be opposite created false dichotomies, as these two women were actually the same person, so my spread about opposites ended up with the text "Two sides of the same coin."

Art Journal for Feb. 3, 4 & 7, 2011

Art Journal: Tudor Girls

2011-02-02T18:48:00.009-06:00

This past weekend, I finally took photos to show work-in-progress on a journal spread (and you'll see that my progress each day is pretty minimal). I started out on January 28 realizing that it was nearly time for bed and I needed to do something in my art journal. (This happens a lot.) I had a large image of Queen Elizabeth I from an old magazine that I couldn't bring myself to throw it out. So I slapped on a background wash in acrylic and glued her Majesty in place. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but I've been watching the first season of The Tudors, now that it's airing on BBC America. So the next day, I found portraits of the six wives of Henry VIII and printed them out on my black & white laser printer. (Poor Kathryn Howard's portrait may not even be her.) I added a bit of gesso around them to soften the edges a bit.

Despite having studied British history, taken a class in Tudor history in college and seen numerous costume dramas, the only way I keep track them is by the mnemonic "Divorced, Beheaded, Dead, Divorced, Beheaded, Lived." After I added color with Letraset & Permapaque markers and a bit of acrylic paint, I wrote these words down to remind me who's who.

The next day, I added their names and the page title. (Sorry, I couldn't think of anything suitably punny.) Thanks to the Strathmore Visual Journal workshop, I had rediscovered my oil pastels, so I used those to add more color, framing each portrait in red.

On what may or may not be the last day, I stamped and embossed some designs in gold to give it a bit of royal flair.

Is it done? Well, for now it is! And I'd better figure out what the heck I'm doing in my journal TODAY!

UPDATE: This spread has a folding flap so I finally did something with that, adding Henry VIII to the side:

Zombie Valentine ATCs

2011-02-01T11:16:00.000-06:00

I've been making Valentine ATCs for the Milwaukee ATC group's February meeting. The theme is "Word Play" and I'm interpreting it VERY loosely with my Zombie-themed cards! I used images from the Ten Two Studios Zombie collection and text printed out in a lovely font called Zombified designed by Chad Savage.

And before you ask, yes, I have read Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, but was disappointed with it. (The prequel, Dawn of the Dreadfuls was actually better, as was Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters.) My favorite Zombie movie is still Shaun of the Dead.

You can see the whole set here. Let them eat BRAINS!

Art Journal: Eadweard Muybridge

2011-01-22T18:29:00.001-06:00

Julie Balzer did an interesting post for Art Journal Every Day this week showing how one of her art journal layouts evolved over the course of several days. My journal spread above started on the right page with the black & white sketches I did on three different days, using Eadweard Muybridge's book The Human Figure in Motion for reference. Then after staring at the blank left page one night, I printed out and glued in the sequence of the horse Daisy jumping a hurdle, from Muybridge's Animal Locomotion. The next day I added color using Letraset markers, and today I filled in empty space with text.

Muybridge was a 19th-century photographer who pioneered the field of stop-motion photography and thus became the father of the motion picture. You may know him best for the sequence of photos showing how a race horse gallops:

When he first showed these photos to the public, many people did not believe they were real! Now we take this imagery for granted, because Muybridge changed the way we see the world. If you're interested in learning more about him, check out Stephen Herbert's website The Compleat Muybridge or read Rebecca Solnit's fascinating book River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West.

Sketchbook Challenge: Highly Prized

2011-01-15T10:41:00.001-06:00

The Sketchbook Challenge theme for January is "Highly Prized," chosen by Jill K. Berry (whom I was fortunate to take a workshop from in 2009). As part of my quest for inspiration, I'm also signed up for Strathmore's free on-line workshop "Recycled Journal Pages" taught by Pam Carriker, which explores among other things, using art you already have on hand in your journaling. In my on-going struggle to clean my office, I rediscovered a colored pencil sketch I made of my husband several years ago, and I collaged it into my art journal so it wouldn't get lost again!

At the time, I was on a serious colored pencil kick and working with Ann Kullberg's book Colored Pencil Portraits, but I learned I really don't have the patience for the medium. The problem with portraiture is that the facial recognition software in our brains is so precise that one slip of the pencil can turn a family member's face into a stranger's! That's why I tend to fall back on photography and vintage clip art for human imagery in my art. But I'm trying to get some more practice in this year. On those days when I realize around 9 p.m. that I haven't done my art journal entry, I pull out Mark Simon's Facial Expressions and sketch a few faces.

Lyric Kinard posted a tutorial video on drawing faces on the Sketchbook Challenge blog. She's doing 365 Faces this year. Now that's a challenge!

Art Journal: Marcel Proust had an haddock!

2011-01-08T20:11:00.003-06:00

(Click on image to see larger size on Flickr)
Yes, three posts in one week! (I don't guarantee I can keep this up.) There's a great post on Art Journal Every Day this week about organizing your creative space. I mention this because when working on the above spread, a certain amount of time was spent trying to find a pair of scissors. (Honestly, they were here a minute ago - there are kazillion pairs in the house! How come I can't find one?)

This spread started with the photos of two women printed from the Ten Two Studios Edwardian Beauties image CD and some vintage French text from Marcel Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (usually translated as Remembrance of Things Past in English or more literally, In Search of Lost Time).

So that sounds very literary and serious, doesn't it? But all my knowledge of Proust comes from two Monty Python skits, The All-England Summarize Proust Competition (warning - uncensored version ;o) and the Fish License sketch, which featured the line: "And Marcel Proust had an haddock!" So after laying down some layers of dots and fleur-du-lis-ish patterns, I used a hand-carved fish stamp with some bright red acrylic paint. There are also some lines I recalled from my high school French class. Mais oui! and the inexplicably oft-repeated C'est la vie, c'est la guerre, c'est la francaise! (That's life, that's war, that's French!). Allez-y! (Go on!)

Let the Art Journaling Commence!

2011-01-06T20:07:00.002-06:00

I figured I'd start the year off with a bang by doing a full-page spread on January 1 with a sketch of a willow tree I had photographed several years ago, done in marker, acrylic paints, colored pencil and a bit of Souffle pen (basically whatever was in reach). I've been thinking about making some ATCs for a tree swap at Illustrated ATCs but hadn't gotten my act together, and I'd also thought about doing some bare trees for the Milwaukee ATC group's January theme "Winter" so this page is titled "Thinking About Trees."

I don't plan to do a full spread everyday. Having done several 365 projects now, I've learned to keep my expectations low, and I'll be happy if some days all I do is doodle a bit. I'm also not planning to do the pages in order, so the past few days I've been jumping back and forth between two spreads. "Snow" is mostly complete now, though it looks unfinished in the scan because the shiny embossed snowflakes don't show up very well.

Also there's a little foldout tab on the left side that didn't fit on the scanner bed where I noted the progress of this spread: writing out excerpts from Archibald Lampman's poem Snow in white acrylic ink with a dip pen on January 2, and then stamping & embossing the snowflakes and adding tree shapes with a thin brush and acrylic wash on January 4. This was inspired by Loreena McKennitt's song based on this poem, which was going through my head despite the fact that we've had very little snow this winter.

I've also been filling a spread with little sketches of faces from Mark Simon's Facial Expressions: A Visual Reference for Artists in ink and colored pencil.

As you can see by the right side of the page, my lack of bookbinding practice means my current stitching might not last the year. We'll see!

Finishing 365 for 2010 and Starting 2011

2011-01-02T11:12:00.003-06:00

On December 31, 2010, I completed my 365 Milwaukee 2010 project, taking a photo a day for a year. You can see the slide show below or browse the set on Flickr (in reverse chronological order):

If you see less than 365 photos, that's because a few photos are only visible to friends and family. My family's like me - we don't like having our photos taken, much less posted on the internet. So you'll see very few self-portraits in this set! And I suspect a large percentage of the photos are still-life set ups taken after 9 p.m., when I realized I needed to take a photo before I went to bed. This project served more as a documentation of my creative life (after two previous failed attempts to do Crafting 365), so there are a lot of photos of art projects and supplies. OK, there are quite a few photos of food as well. And cats.

So what's next? In 2011, I've decided to fill this book that I made in 2010:

I'm not sure how the binding & wooden cover will hold up, but there's only one way to find out. Fortunately (and not due to any foresight on my part), I chose paper that was meant for printmaking, so it's fairly thick and sturdy and will hold up to paint & markers and who knows what else!

I don't expect to do something fabulous every day. My goal is to at least make some marking once a day, even if it's only laying down a wash of color, collaging an image, or doodling in a corner. So let the New Year begin!

Outdoor Cat After One Year Indoors

2010-12-12T09:59:00.001-06:00

This time last year we brought Outdoor Cat indoors for the winter in advance of a snow storm. (She had spent who knows how many previous winters living outside, which in Wisconsin is pretty cold going. You can see all the related posts here.)

Once she figured out that she could stay inside, she pretty much became an indoor cat (though we still call her "Outdoor Cat"). Occasionally she will ask to go out, and we'll open the front door for her. She sit on the porch and look around, nibble some grass, and maybe explore the bushes, but about 5-10 minutes later she's at the door waiting to be let back in. Like all cats, she is trying to train us humans. As this video shows, her hardest task is getting us to follow her to her empty food dish (and she will put up with annoying baby talk to get what she wants).

Now that cold weather has set in, I sometimes wake up in the wee hours to find I'm wedged in between my husband on one side, Outdoor Cat on the other, and Nuts the 16-lb. cat crushing my feet. Sometimes all three of them are snoring. (The third cat Ruby prefers the living room couch.)

As I type this, we're under a winter storm warning. Outside, the wind is howling, the snow is gusting, and the windchill is 6°F (-15°C). Outdoor Cat is sleeping in front of the heat grate on my office floor (amidst the piles of papers seen in the video - I'm still cleaning!) And when I get up from my chair, she will probably run straight to her food dish in the next room and look at me expectantly!

Easy Pumpkin Bar Recipe

2010-11-25T08:35:00.005-06:00

Here's an easy recipe if you have an extra can of pumpkin sitting around. I posted recipes last Thanksgiving, so maybe this will become an annual tradition. This recipe actually came in a flyer from a local bank, so not all junk mail is bad!

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar (I used slightly less, I admit)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice*
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup apple juice (I didn't have any, so I substituted apricot nectar - hey, it was in my pantry!)
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin (not the pre-seasoned pumpkin pie mix)
2 eggs

*NOTE: If you don't have 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice, you can substitute 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. ginger, 1/4 tsp. nutmeg, 1/4 tsp. cloves.

Directions:
Heat oven to 350°F. Grease & flour a 15x10x1-inch pan. (As you can see from the photo below, I didn't have that size pan, so I improvised.)

In a large bowl, beat all the ingredients together with an electric mixer until combined. (The original recipe said "on low speed until moistened. Beat 2 minutes on medium speed," but who has the patience for that?) Spread batter in pan.

Bake 20-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely (about 1 hour). I admit that I didn't wait that long before tasting.

Finishing touches - The original recipe suggested using a 16-oz. container of ready-made cream cheese frosting to be applied after the pumpkin bar has cooled for an hour. Then it said you should refrigerate the whole thing for another 30 minutes "until set." Honestly, who can wait for that!? Assuming you have leftovers, you should store them in the fridge.

I'm not a big frosting fan, and I found it fine without topping. I did briefly consider spreading pecan pumpkin butter on it, but decided that was overkill! Happy Thanksgiving!

Help support arts education in Fond du Lac

2010-11-07T16:59:00.000-06:00

Even if you don't live in Fond du Lac or even Wisconsin, please take a moment to vote for the proposal my friend Mel's group Fond du Lac Visual Arts has submitted to the Pepsi Refresh contest. They are in the running for $25,000 but they need to get into the top 10 entries to win. You can vote every day through November 30, 2010. When you click on the "vote" button, you will be asked to register with your e-mail address and create a password.

You can read Mel's blog post about it here.
Please vote daily!

Books Unbound - Milwaukee book arts show opens Halloween

2010-10-28T08:33:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Binders Guild is having its first show, "Books Unbound." The opening reception is this Sunday, October 31, 2010, from 2-4 p.m. at the Marian Gallery, Caroline Hall, Mount Mary College. The show is up through November 27, 2010 and gallery hours are Monday -Friday, 9 a.m.-7 p.m. and weekends 1-4 p.m.

The best thing about a book arts show? You're allowed to handle some of the books! Given the opening date, there are a few Halloween-themed pieces, of course, but we have a wide range of book art from ten artists. You can see the Flickr set of my submissions here. (I don't know that they will all make it in to the show because of space limitations.)

Two Book Arts Exhibits in Milwaukee!

2010-10-12T20:01:00.000-05:00

The Binders Guild, of which I am a member, is presenting its first show "Books Unbound" from October 31-November 27, 2010 at the Marian Gallery, Caroline Hall, Mount Mary College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The opening reception is on Sunday, October 31, 2010 from 1-4 p.m. and the gallery's regular hours are Monday-Friday 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday 1-4 p.m. There will be an interesting mix of book arts and more from 10 artists. Please stop by and check it out if you're in the area.

And up now through December 17, 2010 in the Fourth Floor Exhibition Gallery of the UW-Milwaukee Library is 2x2: Small Book Works, featuring 2-inch square books by members of the Milwaukee Book Arts Salon and the Bone Folders Guild of Madison (some of whom are also members of the Binders Guild or friends of mine through other local art groups).

Photowalking with Cream City Flickrites

2010-09-19T18:48:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went on a photowalk with the Cream City::Milwaukee Flickr group, my first one since March 2009. They meet on the 3rd Saturday of the month, which is often the same day as the Milwaukee ATC group's monthly meeting, so schedule conflicts and inclement weather usually keep me from attending. I usually feel self-conscious walking around taking photos of things, but on a photowalk is I'm part of a big group of people all taking photos of everything. Safety in numbers!

Photowalks also force me to take a closer look at my environment and notice details. The fun part is seeing what everyone else took photos of, and I find that drives me to become a better photographer as well, even with my rinky dink digital camera. Plus, I see parts of Milwaukee I usually only drive past. This walk started at the Milwaukee Ale House and ended at the Wicked Hop, so my husband was happy to come along, too! He asked me to take photos of textures he could use in computer graphics, and I also took reference photos for my own art.

We came across the sculpture Stratiformis by Jin Soo Kim, which I had read about but never seen. She incorporated 19th century knitting machines once used in a factory in the neighborhood.

At one point, we walked past an alley and saw a pack of photographers clustered at one end, cameras all pointed at something behind the building. My husband said, jokingly, "They must have found a dead body." Well, dead auto bodies!

So if you have the opportunity to do a group photowalk, I highly recommend it! You can see my photowalk set here along with photos from previous walks.

Fabric Paper Collage ATCs

2010-09-14T18:04:00.001-05:00

Yes, I gave into the craze for making fabric paper! I first read about it back in 2004 in Beryl Taylor's article "Making Fabric from Paper" in the premiere issue of Cloth Paper Scissors and in her luscious book Mixed Media Explorations. There's a basic how-to on the Quilting Arts website. You start with a layer of muslin fabric and glue paper to that base and then paint, stencil, spritz & stamp layers of color on top of that, and then cut it up to use in collage that can be stitched! (The photos above right top to bottom show some of my layers of paper & color being added.)

I had experimented with the technique a little, making this mini art quilt in 2007, but never really embraced it. Then my friend Darlene did a demo for our local ATC group this past April and encouraged everyone else to try it. And my friend Sue gave me a copy of Kelli Perkins' book Stitch Alchemy, which featured colorful Day of the Dead fabric paper greeting cards.

So I decided to try the technique for my ATCs for the Day of the Dead swap at Illustrated ATCs. I made two pieces of fabric cloth about 11x18" each (or half a fat quarter) - one in red/pink/orange shades (see above) and one blue/green/yellow.

Then I cut out my shapes and tacked them down with a bit of glue to hold everything in place until I could stitch it.

For the borders, I used some colorful fibers handspun by my friend Kathi. Here are the four that I'm sending in for the swap:

Now I have to finish some fruit ATCs for the Milwaukee ATC group's September theme "Eat, Drink & Make Art." (You can see some of them under construction in the first photo above.)

Got Tomatoes? - A Summer Recipe

2010-09-04T19:59:00.001-05:00

This summer I actually have ripe tomatoes! In the past (when I've bothered to plant anything), I tend to start too late in the growing season, which in Wisconsin is pretty short anyway, and I end up salvaging green tomatoes off the vine when the first freeze comes. This year I actually had to worry about using up my tomatoes before they got TOO ripe!

So I tried the recipe for Bread and Tomato Salad from the Sundays At Moosewood cookbook.

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups dried bread cubes (about 1/2" cubes)
2 garlic cloves minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt & pepper to taste

In a large skillet, saute bread cubes and garlic in olive oil until garlic starts to color and bread has absorbed most of the olive oil. Put the bread in a large dish and add remaining ingredients and mix. The bread does get pretty soggy, and toasting helped somewhat before sauteing. (I admit to eating this with my fingers ;o)

Be sure to check the comments on this post for more tomato recipes! :D

ATC Fun with Puffy Paint

2010-08-15T10:43:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure where August went, but it's been some two months since my last post! Life has been busy, and if you're ever wondering what I'm up to you can always check out my Flickr account, which gets an update at least once a week. Last month I was experimenting with Tulip brand Puffy fabric paint.

Here are some ATCs I've made for the Milwaukee Artist Trading Card group's July theme Life's A Beach:

You can see the full set here. The foamy wave texture was made with white Puffy paint swirled with my finger over the collaged images (Bathing Beauties faux postage from Ten Two Studios). I let the puffy paint dry over night and then hit it with an heat gun so the swirls puffed up to make the cool texture. Then I painted the swirls with several washes of blue & green acrylic paints. (The puffed paint acts like a sponge sucking up the color.) The embellishments are hand-spun yarn from my friend Kathi and vintage shell buttons.

Using the same technique for a completely different look, I made another set of ATCs inspired by the opening credits of the HBO series Treme, which includes vintage photos of New Orleans and family photos damaged by water and mold.

You can see the full set here. This time I created the organic root-like texture by pressing two surfaces wet with white puffy paint together and pulling them apart again. I used the heat gun while the puffy paint was still wet, and it bubbled up more, making weird mold-like growth. And I used darker colors - purple, brown & green. The images are from Ten Two Studios' Octavia and Storyville collage sheets.

Pretty funky!

What My Friends Are Blogging

2010-06-13T07:38:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed that sidebar to the right with a list of other sites to visit when you get bored with my blog. I'd like to highlight two friends who've made the blogosphere plunge in the past year:

I've known Wendy Shang since we lived in neighboring dorm suites our first year of college. (I won't say how long ago ;o) Her first novel The Great Wall Of Lucy Wu is being published next year by Scholastic! She's blogging about the writing life at Skytale and is also a contributor to From the Mixed-Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors, a new blog that's starting off with a blast this month by giving away nine books!

I first met Mel Kolstad on-line through the old ATCards site (now ATCs For All), but I now count her as a "real life" friend :D since we also get to meet every month in person to trade ATCs with the Milwaukee Artist Trading Card group. Mel recently made the big plunge of becoming a full-time artist! Her first blog Much Ado About Stuff now has its own spin-off blog Ephemeraology focusing on her love of vintage stuff.

So go check 'em out!

Joseph Cornell Is For The Birds!

2010-06-08T21:57:00.001-05:00

The Milwaukee ATC group's June theme is "For the Birds," which solidly trounced "Favorite Artists," the theme I voted for, so I combined the two and made these Artist Trading Cards inspired by Joseph Cornell's Aviary series. The parrots in the first ATC above are the same ones Cornell used in The Caliph of Bagdad and Untitled (Parrot and Butterfly Habitat). You can see these and other Cornell parrot boxes grouped together in this great post at the Kiwi's Angels parrot blog.

For my ATCs I started out with Patti's Parrots Faux Postage from Ten Two Studios and some vintage text glued to some serendipity collage backgrounds. Then I gessoed around the parrots to blend everything together and create the weathered white painted surface that Cornell had in his Aviary boxes. Then I added punchinella (sequin waste) to suggest bits of cage wire. The round things are the plastic labels removed from tabulating machines (a craft supply shared with our ATC group by one of our many generous members), and I also had some old air mail stickers.

To suggest a three-dimensional shadow box, I painted 19th-century newspaper text to look like wood and cut it into strips to outline the card. Then I added shadows around the corners of the box and behind the "props" with a wash of acrylic paints. Definitely need to make some more of these! :D

Outdoor Cat Update

2010-05-23T09:42:00.000-05:00

This past week was the one-year anniversary of Outdoor Cat going through the Wisconsin Humane Society's Trap-Neuter-Return program. I last reported in December that she had moved inside for the winter, and now that spring is here, she still prefers to stay inside. She'll still ask us to open the front door, but then she'll usually only stay around the front porch for awhile, eating some grass and watching the world. As soon as the neighbors come out, she runs back inside.

It's interesting how many typical indoor cat habits she now has, such as scratching at the bathroom door if it's closed and sleeping next to my chair in my office. Occasionally if I don't get up at 6 a.m., I'll find her sitting on the bed beside me, staring very earnestly at me. We no longer close her in a separate room when we go out, and for the most part the three cats tolerate each other, though there's always the occasional hissing match when they cross paths. At 6:10 this morning I had both Nuts & Outdoor Cat walking over me, within a foot of each other without hissing because they were both intent on getting me out of bed to feed them. And BOTH had food in their dish but wanted me to pet them and move the food around for them before they would eat. (Naturally my husband slept through this ;o)

Next step will be moving OC's litter box down into the basement with the others so I can reclaim the guest/sewing room!

Do You Zentangle?

2010-05-13T19:17:00.002-05:00

I admit, I tried to avoid the Zentangle craze, but then I saw Sandy Bartholomew's article in Cloth Paper Scissors, and then checked out the Tangle of the Week on her blog. Next thing I know, I'm making Zentangle ATCs, though I wasn't able to keep to just black & white!

Another great source for design ideas is Molossus' blog Life Imitates Doodles, which provided inspiration for the Gem card below left:

The one on the right above was embossed metal, and I'll definitely have to try some on the sewing machine since there's a strong doodling link between the tangle patterns and the free-motion stitching I learned from Diane Gaudynski. In the meantime, it's ink pens & Twinkling H20 watercolors for me!

A Picture A Day

2010-05-06T22:36:00.002-05:00

While I haven't had much time for blogging, I'm still doing my 365 photo project, taking a photo a day (some days are better than others - there are a lot of photos taken at night with bad lighting)

I also submitted a photo for the New York Times "Moment in Time" event, where they asked people to take one photo at the same time around the world on May 2, 2010. They apparently only expected to get a few thousand but ended up with over 13,000 submissions (and counting). I photographed some Artist Trading Cards in progress on the dining room table.

You can see other photos on the NYT Lens blog and in this spontaneous unofficial Flickr group. Eventually the NYT plans to have a gallery up and running where you can see all the photos submitted! Just give them a bit more time.
UPDATE: You can see all the photos they received here. Alas, because I had trouble with their submission form on the day, mine was one of the ones lost in the e-mail submissions.

Simple Sweet Scones

2010-04-27T12:05:00.001-05:00

Long ago in the days before the internet (the 1980s), I was struggling with a scone recipe from British Heritage magazine (I think the measurements were by weight rather than volume), and my college housemates took pity on me and bought me Biscuits and Scones by Elizabeth Alston.

Twenty years later, the spine of the book has cracked so that it will usually just flop open to the recipe for Simple Sweet Scones.

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut up
1/4 cup granulated sugar (or 1/3 cup for sweeter scones)
2/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 425F. Mix flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Add the butter and cut in with a pastry blender or rub it in with your fingers until the mixture looks like fine granules. (I prefer the finger method.) Add sugar; toss to mix (with your hands - not tossing it up into the air ;o).

Add milk and stir with a fork until a soft dough forms. Form the dough into a ball, and knead gently on a lightly floured board (about 10-12 kneads). Pat or roll the dough out into a circle about 1" thick and cut out scones with a biscuit cutter or round drinking glass dipped in flour.

Place scones on an ungreased cookie sheet, and bake for about 12 minutes or until medium brown on top. Put a linen or cotton dish towel on a wire rack and lay scones out to cool, covering them loosely with the cloth. Serve with butter & jam (or whipped cream or clotted cream if you're feeling decadent), and a nice cuppa tea.

Paint Fabric While the Sun Shines

2010-04-11T20:20:00.004-05:00

We had a sunny 62°F day here, so I ignored the housekeeping and yard work and pulled out the fabric paints for the first time this year. I used some cotton pieces that I had previously painted but didn't really like plus two 12x12 plastic stencils from Crafters Workshop that I bought at Legacy Scrapbooks in Cedarburg last year. First I experimented with some Tulip fabric spray paint. It's a pump spray rather than an aerosol so the effect can be splotchy, but it turned out pretty groovy with the "Flower Frenzy" stencil (shown above).

I had originally bought the stencils to use for sunprinting, so I tried that as well. I painted a layer of contrasting color (Pebeo Setacolor) over the previously painted fabric, and then placed the two plastic stencils, using thumbtacks to keep everything in place on this very windy afternoon. In the photo below, the Flower Frenzy and Cosmic Swirl stencils are visible at the top, and a piece I sunprinted earlier with Cosmic Swirl is at the bottom.

So here's what I made today - the top two are sunprinted, and the bottom pieces were spray-painted.

The Edible Book Show

2010-03-30T21:00:00.001-05:00

I have to get one last post in before the end of the month (and I won't have time tomorrow) so two posts in one day! This past Sunday, I attended the Edible Book Show at Woodland Pattern Book Center for the first time. I have several artsy friends who participate so I had heard about it for several years now but had been missing out on the fun!

All the books were made to be tasted and judged by the people attending the show. How often can you say you arrived at an art event to find the guests had already started eating the exhibits?

Fortunately there were photographs of each book displayed so late arrivals could see what each piece looked like to start. We judged the entries on creativity, difficulty and delectability. My friend Jessica Poor won a special prize for most votes over all since her Mexicali Medusa (chips embellished with food coloring, guacamole and salsa) got lots of votes spread across all three categories. Sharon Van Ruiswyk demonstrated different techniques for making your own edible book forms using everything from bologna and Wonder Bread to Pringles and spray cheese.

On the right above is Petra Press's book made with rice krispie treats and edible ink printed on rice paper. This fairy tale book below had a dangerous combination of chocolate & crispy wafers:

You can see photos of past shows here:
2008
2009
Enjoy!

Jewelry-Making Fun at Eclectica

2010-03-30T07:13:00.006-05:00

Yes, I'm trying to catch up on all my posts for March at the end of the month! Last Tuesday, my friend Kathi and I took the Riveted Textured Pendant workshop at Eclectica Beads. We learned how to punch holes in metal, use crimp tubes as rivets, stamp patterns and letters, and add a patina with liver of sulfur.

Tuesday also happened to be a free Make & Take day at Eclectica, so we also made a beaded necklace using vintage glass leaves and flowers, and I learned how to use crimp beads for actual crimping. A very productive evening over all!

Transparent ATCs

2010-03-29T19:57:00.001-05:00

Lisa Vollrath's always giving the Ten Two Studios design team interesting challenges. This time I used clear ATC blanks with vintage silhouette images from the Shadow Life collage sheet and text from Spirit Words. I made contact paper transparencies with the images and text and colored the clear ATC blanks with alcohol ink.

I had originally planned to glue the contact paper image transfer to the colored back using Aleene's paper glaze (because I couldn't find my Diamond Glaze), but I learned that when you stick something wet between two non-porous plastic surfaces, it stays wet for a loooooong time. So I ended up sealing the edges with aluminum foil tape cut with decorative scissors and colored with more alcohol ink!

I made six cards for trade at the Milwaukee Artist Trading Card group's March meeting last weekend. You can see the whole set here

Intuitive Watercolor Faces

2010-03-23T07:02:00.006-05:00

It's been over a month since my last post! I've been busy with work and had the bug that's going around (as has everyone in my office). SO ANYWAY, I did have time to make ATCs for the 10-Minute Intuitive Watercolor Faces Swap at Illustrated ATCs. This swap is hosted by Sal Scheibe, aka Amerasu, who wrote an article on this technique for the Winter 2010 issue of Art Trader Magazine. (Don't know about Art Trader? Check it out! It's a FREE digital 'zine about mail art!)

In theory, we spend ten minutes on each card, so three cards plus a host thank you card should take 40 minutes. In practice, I ended up making ten cards because this is an addictive technique! I got out the timer and the Twinkling H20s and sketched out five blobby faces in 30 minutes. So that's 6 minutes spent on each card, 4 minutes to go. After the watercolor dried, I added details with Pitt artist pens, some in black and some in sepia, and a bit of Souffle pen.

Then I had to do another set of five! (Did I mention this was addictive?) It was fun not knowing where the sketch would go. Some I really liked, and some were bleh. I do have a tendency to draw everyone with the same expression! Here are the 4 cards I'm sending in for the swap:

You can see all the cards I did here.

Easily Distracted By Shiny Things

2010-02-07T18:44:00.002-06:00

The Milwaukee ATC group's February theme (by a landslide vote) is "Easily Distracted by Shiny Things," which is both a joke and VERY true. We laugh about it, but how many of us are compelled to collect sparkly things like magpies, even if we never use them in our art?

I've been photographing some of my art supplies for my 365 Milwaukee 2010 daily photo project and keep pulling out lovely twinkly bits and bobs that I've collected but can't yet bring myself to use because I just enjoy looking at them. I guess I don't want to get them dirty or use them for some art piece that I'll regret later! Who knows! My brother got me a bag of silver milagros when I visited him in Phoenix in 2007, and I've still only used one or two of them, but I love to take them out and fondle them.

So far my shiny ATCs have used gold embossing powder, as with these spring-themed cards using Ten Two Studios' Spring Beauties, Flower Cigarette Cards and Garden Words:

And I found three ATC blanks that I had made last year when I took Kimberly's Metal Manipulation workshop at Art For All, so I'm making a few embossed ATCs as well.

And now my shiny things are calling me....

Song Lyric ATCs

2010-01-31T08:17:00.002-06:00

I'm not sure how January zipped by so quickly! Here are some Artist Trading Cards that I made for the Milwaukee ATC group's January theme "Song Lyrics."

For some, the backgrounds were "serendipity collage" made with torn vintage song sheets, colorful origami and scrapbook paper glued randomly to a background card and stenciled & stamped with chalk inks. Others used the ATC-sized "Grungy Bingo Cards" from Ten Two Studios. The vintage photos are from the new Homespun Hearts collage sheet. They all have such solemn expressions, don't they? :D

You can see all the Song Lyric ATCs that I made here.

Starting a 365 Project (AGAIN)

2010-01-07T06:46:00.003-06:00

Back in 2006-2007 I made an ATC a day for 365 days, and that was a very satisfying exercise. But when I tried to follow it up with Crafting 365 on Flickr, I got bogged down not with trying to do a little bit of craft everyday, but with documenting it! I wasn't taking a photo of every little thing I did (5 minutes of sewing, etc), and while I tried writing down my daily accomplishment, I found this tedious (and tended to misplace my notebook). So after failing to follow through on Crafting 365 not once but twice, I let the whole thing lapse.

Flash forward to January 2010, when Rachel.::.K announced a Milwaukee 365 Flickr group. So I thought, what the heck, I can probably manage a photo a day. Some days will be crafty, some days may peek at everyday life. Some days may produce a blurry picture of a cat. We'll see how long I can keep this one up! Here is my 365 Milwaukee 2010 photoset on Flickr.

January 6, 2010 - Contrasting my ATC with the inspiration photo from Mark Simon's Facial Expressions: A Visual Reference for Artists

Share your New Year's Resolutions & maybe win something!

2010-01-02T12:48:00.004-06:00

Lisa Vollrath's doing her New Year's Resolution giveaway at Ten Two Studios. Share your creative resolutions there, and you'll be entered in a drawing for a 6-month subscription to her e-zine, The Monthly Muse. I get this for free as a member of the Ten Two Studios design team, but even if I didn't, I would subscribe since it's such a good value, and I learn something new in every issue. (And you can't always say that about the more expensive print magazines!)

Though I'm exempt from the drawing, I did have to leave a comment about my lack of New Year's Resolutions (as noted in my previous blog post). I spent New Year's Day in my PJs experimenting with the techniques I had learned in Laurie Mika's workshop, making New Year's ornaments to go out with my friends' winter holiday packages (They would die of shock if they got something from me before Christmas).

I experimented with image transfers using Translucent Liquid Sculpey and images from the Ten Two Studios Little collage sheets, which took me a few tries to determine the correct baking time for my toaster oven. Here are the experiments peeled at different times & thicknesses of clay, showing how NOT to do it.

Two more days to goof off, and then back to work on Monday!

New Year's Resolutions, or lack thereof

2010-01-01T07:45:00.001-06:00

My mom asked me what my New Year's resolutions were for 2010, and I surprised myself by echoing my husband's sentiments: "I'm not making any resolutions." Every year I have some vague idea that THIS is the year when I will organize my office & art space and make art to sell and so forth and so on. Well (as my hubby will tell ya), my work areas are still a mess, and while I did sell some art and teach workshops this year, it wasn't through any concerted effort on my part. So this year, I figure I'll try to do my best, and we'll see what comes of it!

My book arts group is doing a monthly mail art swap where we each send someone else in the group a piece of mail art each month. Above is the postcard I made for my friend Darlene, who is also a cat lover.

So Happy New Year, and let's all just try to do the best that we can in 2010!

Outdoor Cat's Adventures Indoors

2009-12-30T20:29:00.000-06:00

When last I blogged about Outdoor Cat in May, she had just survived the Wisconsin Humane Society's Trap-Neuter-Return program. Over the summer, we worked on socializing with her and getting the two indoor cats Nuts & Ruby used to her presence. (That's Nuts on the left above, and OC on the right, each pretending the other cat doesn't exist.) OC started coming inside briefly after one day following me in the front door when I took her dish inside to change the water and refill the food. Pretty soon she figured out that the indoor cats ALSO had food and water! She would come inside to look around but would quickly run out again if she was startled.

We still weren't sure whether we would try to bring her inside for the winter or not, but we figured we'd try to get her litter box trained in a kennel for the really cold nights, just in case. I borrowed a dog kennel from my sister and kept OC in it overnight in the spare bedroom for the first time on Halloween, when 200 neighborhood kids invaded her territory on our front porch.

She handled the litter box OK but was not keen on the kennel, trying to tunnel out of it. When we were sure she would use the box, we experimented with leaving the kennel door open. She still preferred to be outside, so when our first big snow was predicted, I invested in a SnuggleSafe Microwave Heat Pad for her shelter. However, after we brought her in out of the storm, she settled in to her new space in front of the heat vent.

So she's been living indoors since mid-December, occasionally looking outside but thinking better of it after a minute or so in the cold. She's even trained us to leave her bedroom door open for her (after repeatedly waking us up at ungodly hours by scratching at it) and now she guards the upstairs hallway at night. Since Nuts sleeps on our bed, there are occasional rumbles in the wee hours when they cross paths in the hall. (Ruby sleeps all night in the living room and generally ignores OC.) We have been closing OC's bedroom door during the day when we're at work, so when we come home and let her out, she will sometimes run downstairs and ask to go outside, look out the front door at the snow and ice, and run back upstairs to her food dish. We are not ruled by cats, at all. Honestly!

Christmas is NEXT WEEK?!?

2009-12-17T06:56:00.001-06:00

Not that I'm panicking or anything! I have been working on little art projects here and there, but can't post photos until after the holidays. This coming weekend is our local ATC group's end of year party, so I made a few Christmas-ish ATCs such as this Zentangle tree & wreath inspired by Sandy Steen Bartholomew's article in Cloth Paper Scissors and the Tangles of the Week on her blog.

I did a bunch of holiday crafting in November because Lisa Vollrath gave the Ten Two Studios Design Team a challenge to come up with projects for the December front page eye candy, so check out what we've all been working on! And don't forget, the holiday printables countdown is still going on through Dec. 25!

If I don't manage to get another post written before 2010, have a safe & creative holiday season and a Happy New Year!

Charm auction benefiting A Place To Bark

2009-12-05T06:35:00.002-06:00

I've mentioned before that I participated in a charm swap for the Raevn's Nest Art Retreat back in October. One of the participants did not show up, so Kim Rae Nugent is auctioning off the extra charms on eBay to benefit A Place To Bark, the animal rescue organization run by fellow artist Bernie Berlin.

This lot includes charms made by Laurie Mika, Jill K. Berry and Kim, of course. Mine's not in the auction photo, but I just mailed Kim one of my extra charms to include. (I wasn't there the night of the swap and had traded with the participants individually the next day.)

Ten Two Studios Christmas Countdown

2009-11-30T19:54:00.004-06:00

Can you believe the year's gone by so fast? Starting tomorrow, Lisa Vollrath's doing her annual Countdown to Christmas. That's a new printable sheet you can download every day through Dec. 25. All she asks is that you put a link to the countdown on your blog or website.

Also check out the Ten Two Studios front page for daily eye candy from members of the design team! Here's one of the things I've been experimenting with - Tunnel ATCs using the Festive Elements sheet.

What I'm Baking

2009-11-26T05:35:00.004-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving! So where did November go? Beats the heck out of me! I thought I'd share the recipes for the two desserts I made this week:

Wisconsin Whoppers
These are giant oatmeal-peanut butter-chocolate chip-cranberry cookies.

2/3 cup (1-1/3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1-1/4 cups packed light brown sugar (I usually reduce this to 1 cup)
3/4 cup white (granulated) sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups peanut butter
6 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 cups dried cranberries (6 oz. package of Craisins)
about 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I don't really measure this!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

With mixer, cream butter in a large bowl until light-colored, about 1 minute. Gradually beat in sugars then scrape down sides of bowl. Cream until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. (OK, I really don't beat it quite as long as the recipe says because I'm impatient.)

Beat in eggs, one at a time; beat 1 minute more after final addition. Add vanilla extract and peanut butter and beat until blended, 1 minute. Add oats and baking soda, beating only until blended, about 30 seconds. If you don't have a heavy duty Kitchen Aid and are just using a wimpy handmixer like I do, switch to a sturdy spoon after adding the oats and stir until the oats have all been coated with peanut butter.

Stir cranberries and chocolate chips into creamed mixture until evenly distributed.

For "whopper" size cookies, use 1/4 cup measure to spoon out dough onto cookie sheets. Flatten cookies to 3-inches in diameter with bottom of a glass tumbler that is dipped frequently in water. (Or just use your hands!) Or just spoon out whatever size cookies you usually make. Space cookies about 2 inches apart.

Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool about five minutes on baking sheet before moving to wire rack. (They are very crumbly when they first come out of the oven.)

Makes 2 to 4 dozen depending on size.

Original source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (A copy of their version, which is slightly different, can be found here) Did you know that Wisconsin is the top cranberry-producing state?
----------------------------------------------------
Zesty Orange Pumpkin Tart
Easy peasy pumpkin pie! (Another recipe from the Journal-Sentinel)

You'll need a ready-made unbaked pie crust for a one-crust pie in a 9 or 10" pie pan (unless you're one of those masochists who likes to make your own pastry ;o)
Pie Filling:
1 can (16 oz.) solid-pack pumpkin (not the already seasoned pie filling)
1 can (12 oz.) evaporated milk
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup orange marmalade
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (see note below)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl combine all the filling ingredients and blend until smooth. (Orange peel in the marmalade will cling to your mixer blades! :o) Pour into your pie-crust lined pan. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center of the filling comes out clean. Let cool before serving. Serve with REAL whipped cream. None of that non-dairy whipped topping stuff!

Notes: If you don't have 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice on hand, you can substitute 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. ground ginger, 1/4 tsp. ground allspice, 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg.

I recommend using a pie crust shield to protect the edges of your crust from burning. I usually put it on about 15 minutes into baking. Otherwise you can use strips of aluminum foil, which are a BIG pain!

Have a great holiday weekend!

Hinged Copper Locket Workshop

2009-10-31T21:23:00.007-05:00

Happy Halloween! We just survived our first Halloween in our new neighborhood where we had about 200 trick-or-treaters come to our door (compared to less than 20 at our old place). We ran out of candy, and the last two kids got granola bars! (Peanut butter chocolate chip granola bars, so they're almost candy ;o)

So here's the final installment from Raevn's Nest Art Retreat. Last Saturday, I took an all-day workshop with Richard Salley, learning how to make this copper locket. (If you click on the tutorial sidebar on his website, you'll find a very similar project.)

I don't have a lot of experience in working with metal and wire beyond making a few charms, reading a bunch of books and watching Jewelry Making on the DIY network, so I was excited to learn some basic things, like using a jewelry saw (broke 3 blades cutting that heart shape out of the rusty washer that forms the image frame), making rivets and staples, and shaping copper and then aging it in liver of sulphur. My wire work still needs a lot of practice (those S- and C- scrolls are supposed to be symmetrical), but I learned a lot from the class and went home excited to make more! Now I just need to find the time....

You can click on my images to see a larger view on Flickr. And check out what other folks made:
Kathi took Richard's two workshops on Friday. Fabulous!
Carmi was in the same class as me - I love her take on this project!
Jill sat in front of me, and I was in awe of her skill. She also reassured me that it was normal to break saw blades. (Scroll down to see her work from the Friday & Saturday Salley workshops)

Making a (Watchmaker Tin) Scene

2009-10-29T22:33:00.005-05:00

Here's the second installment of my Raevn's Nest Art Retreat experience. On Friday night I took the "Make A Scene" workshop with Jill K. Berry, where we spent two crafty hours constructing mini-dioramas in watchmaker tins. Jill provided all the materials including images sized to fit the little metal tins. The garden scene above is about 2-3/4" while the haunted mansion below is 2" in diameter.

We staggered the layers with hidden beads, head pins trimmed to size, and the power of a high-heat glue gun! It was a little tricky getting everything into place before the glue cooled, but the results are so much fun! The tins do have clear glass lids, but they didn't photograph well with the lids on.

You can see some of Jill's samples on her blog. My friend Mel also took this workshop and made a great George of the Jungle tin, which I hope she'll post a photo of! :D

Making 3-D ATCs

2009-10-27T15:37:00.006-05:00

I'll be blogging my Raevn's Nest Art Retreat experience in installments. Last Friday, I took the "3-D ATC" workshop taught by Laurie Mika. I've never used polymer clay before (having vowed I was not going to take up any more crafts that involved buying even more supplies), and I was surprised how simple Laurie's technique is.

We rolled out Sculpey III or Premo by hand, stamped it with rubber stamps to create texture and then embellished with acrylic paints, mica powders and doodads, cutting and stacking shapes to make these three-dimensional ATC-sized works of art. My layers were only about 1/8" thick with my thickest ATC being about 3/4" but some of folks in my class made pieces over an inch thick! These were all baked at 275F for about 20-25 minutes or thereabouts. The temperature is low enough that we could include paper images in our pieces, so I used a Rossetti faux postage stamp and some tiny Victorian faces from Ten Two Studios. Laurie provided all these fabulous rubber stamps with words and textures for us to use. And no, these are not available for trade! :D

Here are some other folks who took the class and posted pix of what they made:
Carmi Cimicata
Gary Warren Niebuhr

Halloween & Day of the Dead projects

2009-10-17T06:24:00.005-05:00

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth! My non-art job has been incredibly busy, and then I got the cold that's going around, so I'm moving in slow-motion. But here's what I've been working on. Above is Dearly Departed completed for the Ten Two Studios design team challenge, which I had mentioned last month. I used a paper bag book and colorful Day of the Dead designs from Ten Two Studios. You can see all the pages in my Dearly Departed Flickr set. The book will also be on display at the Bay View Book Arts Gallery later this month for the 2nd Annual "Darkness Falls" show.

If you haven't been over to Ten Two Studios lately, Lisa's been posting daily Halloween eye candy from the design team and others. Kooky & creepy - Be sure to scroll down to see everything!

Next weekend, I'm attending Raevn's Nest Art Retreat in Cedarburg, WI. I registered for this back in March, and I can't believe it's almost time! I'm still running around trying to get my class supplies. I signed up for three workshops: 3-D ATCs with Laurie Mika, Make A Scene with Jill K. Berry, and Hinged Copper Locket with Richard Salley. (There are photos of the class projects at the bottom of each workshop page.) I'm also participating in a Halloween-themed charm swap at the retreat, and so I've been working on those (using dominoes and images from Ten Two Studios, of course). This is the reverse side of the charms above:

I'm also working on ATCs for the Milwaukee ATC group's next meeting, which happens to be on October 31, so not surprisingly the Halloween & Day of the Dead theme won the vote. I've been doing a series of Witchy Women, with these fun collage sheets

You can see the rest of the set on Flickr. So that's what's going on here!

Holy Hill Arts & Crafts Fair

2009-09-23T04:58:00.008-05:00

I had planned to post this report last Sunday but our internet was out for a chunk of the day (horrors!). Last Saturday I attended the big Arts & Crafts Fair at Holy Hill for the first time. Fellow Ten Two Studios design team member Patti had a booth in the show, so I had to go check it out!

I met up with artsy friends Kathi and Ellie to brave the crowds. There were over 200 exhibitors, and we managed to walk BY every booth at least (we think). It was wonderful to meet Patti in person. I met her and her husband Mark for dinner on Friday night, and we had fun gabbing about art & life. On Sat. we stopped by her booth several times in our travels and happened to arrive just as she received a ribbon from the show organizers!

Patti does amazing things with repurposed materials. I bought this shadow box "Sentry" made with weathered wood from her kids' old playhouse and an encaustic collage featuring one of her photographs.

My other purchases were this pendant made from a silver fork by Dianne Pecor (who coincidentally is a relative of Kathi's) and this fun paper mache Halloween cat bobble head by Monnie & Patrick Wilson of Manitowoc, WI.

I also bought something from Dianne that I can't yet reveal since it's a birthday/Christmas present for my brother and his wife, but it involves silverware, a cat & fishes and makes noise. Ellie bought a bat-shaped garden ornament from Shari Grenzow Mauer.

We also took scenic photos :D This was my first time visiting Holy Hill, but after all that arts & crafts walking I didn't have any energy left to climb the 178 steps to the tower for the full panoramic view. We took the elevator up to the basilica and then walked back down the hill afterwards. More photos in my Flickr set.

I'm in a Day of the Dead Etsy Treasury!

2009-09-21T05:52:00.002-05:00

Flores & Calaveras Treasury

Big thank you to MonkeyTree Creations for choosing my little art quilt Gossip for her treasury Flores and Calaveras. Check out all the cool stuff she found! And be sure to visit her store and blog. Adorable stuffies!

Exuberant color or just really garish?

2009-09-16T21:25:00.005-05:00

I've been so busy with non-artsy work lately that it's all I can do to write a blog post once a week! But I have been trying to get a little bit of art done every day. Right now I'm working on another Ten Two Studios design team challenge. This time I have a waterfall paper bag book and some of the new eye-wateringly colorful Day of the Dead sheets.

I LOVE 'EM! The bright color combinations inspired my backgrounds. I gessoed the paper bags pages & inserts so the lighter acrylic paints would show up more vividly and then added designs in contrasting colors with foam stamps. I don't think I've ever used orange, turquoise and lime green together before this! So far I've got the main imagery and the text laid down. Now it will probably sit for awhile until I decide what to do next!

How did you make that?

2009-09-09T19:09:00.009-05:00

Annie, aka EraserQueen in the ATC & mail art world, posted a YouTube video showing her working on a collage (accompanied by fun music!) and challenged viewers to do similar demos. Alas, I'm unable to do that because my process isn't so straight forward. Take these ATCs I made for the Milwaukee ATC group's September live trade, which has the theme "Storytelling":

My creative process went something like this:
1) Start cutting out interesting images from Smithsonian and National Geographic Traveler magazines. I knew I wanted fairy-tale setting backgrounds and people in costumes, but other things caught my eye too.
2) Glue backgrounds to poker cards (because they're ATC size :o) with a glue stick and start arranging my "characters"
3) Make a bunch of these magazine collages and then let them sit gathering cat hair for several days while I figure out what's missing.
4) Decide to brush a thin layer of gesso over the images, leaving the faces exposed and the rest of the image still visible.
5) After the gesso dries overnight, recolor the images with Permapaque markers (because they have a slightly slower drying time, allowing me to rub and blend color with my fingers).
6) Leave these sitting on the dining room table for a day or two while I figure out what's missing.
7) Stamp white curlicues and text "Once Upon a Time" on the cards.
8) Realize that the magazine paper is still just glossy enough that the pigment ink won't set properly so I experiment with a heat gun, which makes the magazine paper that was only attached by glue stick warp a bit in places (or maybe it was the plastic coating on the playing cards melting :o).
9) Decide embossing powder will do the trick! (Experiment to see whether silver embossing powder will work - decide it overpowers the card and switch to clear powder)
10) Flatten all the cards by sticking them under heavy books protected by wax paper.

Honestly if I'd been trying to film all that at the same time, the cards would never have been finished! :D But I hope you will take up Annie's video challenge!

Victorian Characters in Search of a Novel

2009-09-03T21:14:00.005-05:00

This week, Lisa posted my book "Characters in Search of a Novel" at Ten Two Studios. This was made for a design team challenge to use manila envelopes and tabbed pages, and I wanted to incorporate the Color Me Victorians collage set.

Each manila envelope is attached to a tabbed page and contains a character bookmark. I had fun assigning themes and archetypes. Some text was from the collage set; some I printed from my computer or wrote on the tabs: Romance & Revolution, Hero & Villain - all those archetypes.

The best part, of course, was coloring all the Victorian sketches! Literary child's play?

The background text on the bookmark tags was from an old copy of Silas Marner.

All the fun of English literature without having to write a meaningful essay about it!

Post-fabric painting housekeeping

2009-08-30T08:30:00.005-05:00

I love fabric painting, but alas the day comes when I have to do the boring "housekeeping" stuff. If it hadn't been raining on Thursday, I would have probably said "To heck with this" and painted some more fabric instead! But instead I was a good girl and hand-washed all the fabric I painted this month to remove any salt and leaf bits and excess paint. Then I ironed everything on the pretense that this will heat set it. (I say "pretense" because I don't think I actually hold the iron long enough in place to really do the job, but in the long run, time sets these Setacolor paints, so at least I have less wrinkly fabric.)

Some tips on ironing painted fabric:
Don't use your good iron, because you will probably get paint on it. I have an iron reserved for craft use (fusible webbing, image transfers, etc). I also covered my ironing pad with blank newsprint so I didn't fuse paint to that either.
Here's how my iron looked after taking on some red fabrics. You can buy a tube of iron-cleaning goop in the sewing notions section of the store, but I recently learned a tip from Sharon in my book arts group. Save all your used dryer sheets, and after all the fabric softener stuff has been shaken out in the dryer, you can iron them to scour gunk off your iron. You may still need to do a heavy duty cleaning later on, but this is a fast and easy way to clean and keep ironing. (And then you can save those freshly flattened & paint-stained dryer sheets for art projects!)

I'm not a very enthusiastic ironer (is that a word?), so my fabric was still slightly damp when I decided I was finished, and I hung it on a drying rack. So that's all done, phew! And now I have some new fabric to play with!

Belatedly blogged for Fiber Arts Fridays

Sunprinting on Fabric

2009-08-21T05:51:00.005-05:00

After last week's blog post about fabric painting, I managed to do a little sunprinting on Saturday. "Sun printing" is a bit of a misnomer because apparently it's not the light but the heat that causes the effect. The faster the paint dries, the brighter or darker the color sets. The paint underneath the objects (leaves, washers, doilies, etc) dries slower so the color is faded.

I took the fabric I had salt-printed (if that's a term) on Friday, which was still stretched on a frame, and painted over the whole thing in purple. Then I laid out leaves that I had pressed in a phone book and put the whole thing outside to dry.

Impatient? Who, me? The fabric was nearly dry when I lifted this leaf to see how things were going. And here's the final result:

Here's a Setacolor Soleil sun-printing tutorial at the Michaels website, though as I mentioned last week, the Michaels stores near us put all their Pebeo Setacolor fabric paints on clearance earlier this summer and don't carry it anymore. I mix my fabric paint 1:1 with distilled water.

Here's a tutorial from Simply Quilts about the salt technique. This was from an episode featuring Indiana quilt artist Phil Beaver who does some amazing applique with his hand-painted fabric.

Blogged for Fiber Arts Fridays

Fun with fabric paint

2009-08-14T05:32:00.006-05:00

I've been wanting to get some fabric painting done this summer, but weather and time never seemed to coincide. On Wednesday afternoon, I looked at the bright sun shining on our back deck, and decided I would put off all the other stuff I had to do. Of course by the time I dragged out all my supplies and mixed my paint a huge cloud covered the sun! Sigh....
I like to use the Pebeo Setacolor (transparent color) fabric paints, which work well for sun-printing. (Our Michaels store used to carry them, but it all went on clearance earlier this summer, which at least let me restock my supplies.) You can see some examples of sun-prints in my Fabric Painting set on Flickr. On Wednesday, it became too cloudy and humid to get a good sun-print effect, so I focused instead on jazzing up some boring fabric. The unpainted fabric visible next to the paints above was a white-printed beige cotton fat quarter. The white design somehow acts as resist, and when you paint over it in a bright color like red, the pattern just pops!

I also experimented with some fabric scraps from a friend who makes vintage-style clothing. This pale green fabric needed some stronger color, and it was fun to discover that the floral pattern on it also stood out when painted a brighter green.

I also salted one fat quarter on a stretcher frame. Add rock salt while the paint's still wet (left) and then as it dries the salt sucks the color into flame-like organic swirly patterns (right). Here are a bunch of experiments laid out to dry in the back yard:

Now when's my next free sunny day???

Blogged for Fiber Arts Friday

A Glimpse at My Fiber & Fabric Storage

2009-08-07T06:00:00.005-05:00

I haven't been very good at keeping up with Fiber Arts Fridays this summer, but a couple of weeks ago, Alpaca Farmgirl suggested sharing pictures of our fiber stashes. Above is my yarn storage, and if you click on the link to my Flickr, there are notes on the photo explaining what's what. I don't have any fancy handspun to show off, because most of my variegated wool yarn was bought on store-closing clearance. And I mainly use it for ATC borders and my rare bouts of needle-felting so one skein will last me for years!

My storage arrangement isn't pretty - lots of plastic bins because I used to work in a basement room that had damp carpets in heavy rain. Now I'm above ground-hooray! These are some of my fabric storage drawers:

If I'm actually working on a project, they don't look this neat. I have larger pieces folded or on bolts in the hall closet, but that's a photo op for another day!

Someday, my sewing area will be neat enough that I can photograph it with pride. Someday.....

I'm in an Etsy Treasury!

2009-08-01T06:52:00.003-05:00

Thanks to fellow birthday girl Meg at ME2Designs, I'm in my first Etsy treasury where I'm not an invisible alternate! What a fun birthday gift (and from a complete stranger)! My featured item is my La Sirena mini-art quilt.

I'm celebrating my birthday today by doing several loads of laundry and cleaning in the morning and then taking a workshop on making "Interlocked Double Accordion Books" in the afternoon at the Bay View Book Arts Gallery. My husband took me out to dinner at La Estacion last night (a great Mexican restaurant in an old train depot) so tonight we'll have leftovers and lounge around watching all our DVR'd TV shows from the week. Such excitement!

In Search Of Broken Glass and Rusty Things

2009-07-23T17:10:00.005-05:00

This past Saturday (July 18, 2009) we had our monthly Milwaukee ATC live trade, and our theme was "Found Objects" which normally I would be right on top of, but due to lack of time, I only finished one card in the theme. This was made with broken window glass from my sister's farm, attached to the collage with Diamond Glaze so the images below would show through clearly. I tried to cover up any sharp edges with Scribbles dimensional fabric paint (which isn't the easiest line to control, hence the big green splort). The vintage fellow at the center is from the Ten Two Studios Little Brown Things collage sheet.

On Sunday, I got together with fellow mixed media artists, Gary, Kathi & Don, to walk my sister's pastures picking up trash and rusty things. It's nice to have comrades-in-art who think that poking around in manure-strewn countryside for rusty nails and broken glass is a fun way to spend a Sunday! My sister only asked that she have first dibs on broken china, horseshoe nails, and buried treasure. Since we were carrying what looked like feed buckets, the horses kept following us to see what we were doing and whether we had anything edible. If you don't like fiddling with slideshows, here's the static Flickr set.

Where I've been lately

2009-07-11T18:56:00.007-05:00

Life has been busy, and I haven't had as much time on-line as I have in the past. (Right now I'm choosing between blogging and washing dishes/doing laundry/updating the handout for the "Easy Pop-Up Cards" workshop I'm teaching next week. Guess which choice won! But the other tasks will be waiting for me, alas.)

My parents just visited this past week, so I spent time with them up on my sister's farm, which is about 50 miles north of me. Beyond the photo of my dad's quilt from my last post, my family generally refused to pose for me, and what photos I did take, they don't want posted in public, so you're stuck with these portraits of some of my sister's animals. I am now Farm Paparazzi! Shown above is Ginger in mid-yawn. Here she is being pretty and windswept.

The chickens are always a hoot, and by accident I made my first on-line movie since the button on my camera had slipped to video mode while it was in my pocket. It's only 24 seconds, and you can hear me saying "chick, chick, chick" in a vain attempt to get them to come towards the camera.

The little rooster was more intent on jumping up to eat the red flowers growing on the old smokehouse, but I could hear a chicken marching up behind me and turned the camera to find Henrietta, who is the head honcho among the chickens (and has the dogs and cats in awe of her as well). She was quite peeved that I had called her but had no food! So I leave you under her watchful eye.

Dad's Quilt FINALLY Done!

2009-07-09T21:16:00.005-05:00

Blogged for Fiber Arts Fridays
I did actually finish this earlier this year, but didn't officially sew the label on and give my dad his very belated multi-year birthday/Christmas present until this week. Thanks goodness my parents are patient (because my mom is still waiting on hers)!

This is a throw quilt, approximately 65x70", pieced & quilted on my Bernina. The pattern is a hexagonal block design from Maxine Rosenthal's book One Block Wonders. I had previously been doing Bethany Reynolds' hexagonal Stack'n'Whack quilts, but those required choosing an accent fabric to coordinate with the main fabric, which was often the most difficult step in the whole process! One Block Wonders can be made with just one main fabric (though I did choose to put an accent stripe around the border because I happened to have some matching solid green cotton). When I started this quilt several years ago, I did write down the name of the fabric line, but don't ask me where that information is now! I think it was from a Tracy Porter line for Joann Fabrics...

The backing is some vaguely Art Nouveau pattern that I bought on clearance some years ago and have been meaning to use for ages. I'm hoping to get Mom's quilt finished a lot faster. Really!

Art For All 2009 Recap

2009-07-01T20:17:00.004-05:00

Here's a brief visual summary of the creative excitement that was A4A 2009, the first (North American) meeting of members of the on-line ATC site ATCs For All. Above is the bulk of what I got in trade from other attendees, mostly ATCs and a few charms. There was a 24-hour art room where everyone could chat and play with art supplies around the clock if they wanted (I tended to get to bed before midnight however!)

I also took workshops in Hand-carved Stamps,

Embossed Metal ATCs,

Calligraphy,

Mixed Media Paper Beads,

and Drawing Fun Faces Without Fear (not the official title :D)

I taught a Faux Tintype ATC workshop - here are my students hard at work:

I do wonder what the other hotel guests thought of these crazy people wandering around in tiaras....

Finally we all owe a huge thank you to our fearless organizer Cathy, aka Crazy Cat (above), who volunteered who knows how many hours putting this event together! A whole lot of pix are on my Flickr.

Ten Two Studios 4th Anniversary Giveaway

2009-07-01T07:28:00.003-05:00

Lisa's celebrating with a daily giveaway July 1-5, 2009. Leave a lovely comment on her daily eye candy post and be entered for a chance to win a huge package of collage goodies! Plus each day she's giving out one free six-month subscription to the Monthly Muse. Good Luck!

Bad Girls, or things I couldn't show you before :D

2009-06-27T17:31:00.010-05:00

So remember a while back I gave a hint of a project I was working on for the Ten Two Studios design team? You can see the whole thing now here (Just don't tell my mom! ;o)

Lisa also named a kit after me "Carolyn's Artsy Medals" and they are already sold out!

Some other things I couldn't show you. You can see the pile of bottle caps I made for the Art For All Goody Bag here.

I can now also reveal the photos I submitted to the "Are You Your Artspace?" contest at Art For All where people were supposed to identify whose work area was whose. Yes, my work areas are very messy....

I think only 2 or 3 people guessed mine correctly (OK only about 10-11 people were hardy enough to submit their guesses - it was a tough contest) and a couple of people thought my space was Muppin's because of the fabric stuff. Nutty Nanner guessed mine correctly because I had lent her my hand-drill not realizing it was visible in the bottom corner of the right hand photo!

I'm a little afraid of what sort of traffic this post's title will attract....

Back Home from Art For All

2009-06-22T13:11:00.004-05:00

Whew! I'm exhausted! (And still have one more load of laundry to wash and a whole lot of boxes to unpack) Art For All was exciting and exhausting! That's me above with Nancy (Nutty Nanner) and Kimberly (kbutts). Here's my roommate Cheryl (Muppin) hard at work in the 24-hour art room.

When I finally unpack everything, I will take some photos of the art I made in workshops. I took a calligraphy class from Bonnie (Balletbon), Metal Manipulation from Kimberly, Hand-carved Stamps from Shelly (Shoreart) and Mixed Media Paper Beads from Amy (amyfaerie). In the meantime, there's a whole Flickr set of mostly unlabeled photos from the event here.

On the road in Indiana

2009-06-17T12:48:00.001-05:00

Hoosier Floral Fantasy 46-51
Originally uploaded by vintagepix

Just a quick post while my friend Bill is letting me borrow his computer. I'm in Indiana with very limited internet access visiting friends from grad school. Friday and Saturday, I'll be at the Art For All meeting of folks from ATCs For All Above are some of the Artist Trading Cards made to trade at the event. You can see more of them on my Flickr site.

More excitement as time allows!

Injured in the Line of Crafting?

2009-06-13T06:12:00.004-05:00

Have you ever been injured in the line of crafting? Then you deserve a medal! This was another Ten Two Studios design team challenge: use bottle caps and bamboo dominoes together. I am prone to all sorts of crafty boo-boos myself, having sewn through the side of my finger with my sewing machine or burned myself with my various irons. (We won't even talk about all the paper cuts!) For those of you less accident prone, here are some general Medals of Artsy Crafty Honor. Keep an eye out at Ten Two Studios for limited edition artsy medal kits!

Adventures in Soldering

2009-06-12T05:59:00.004-05:00

Spring means I can get out the soldering iron at last. This is probably because our old house didn't have a kitchen vent fan, so I could only solder when it was warm enough to open the windows for ventilation. Now we have a fan over the stove, I could in theory solder all year round, but this was the first time I actually had the time and the inclination to set up.

I am semi-self taught having read Lisa Vollrath's Metal Mania and her Metal & Glass Jewelry how-to CD and received an impromptu lesson from my big sister who does stained glass. The microscope slide pendants above use images from the CD. I also wanted to experiment with the flat glass bubbles you find in the floral department of the craft store.

These were tricky because they tend to spin right round, baby, right round (got that song stuck in your head yet?) until I could get the pendant holder soldered firmly so I had something to grip with the pliers. I used the Ten Two Studios Black & White Rounds for these two.

Lisa had also challenged the Ten Two Studios design team to do something with microscope slide mailers, and I had a very literal interpretation, turning it into a holder for a soldered microslide pendant. I cut out the back so both sides of the pendant would show. The ladies are from the Fashionable Jewels microslide set with a French text background. And I didn't even burn the house down!

My First Sale on Etsy!

2009-06-09T21:12:00.002-05:00

Catching up on my blogging a little at a time.... I made my first sale on Etsy - these house ornaments went off to Maryland to become end-of-year gifts for the teachers of my friend Jen's daughters - Thanks, Jen!

Of course I promptly turned that money around into the purchase of these metal-working tools from BeadDestash that I've been saving up for since last Christmas! Gotta stimulate the economy!

Stuff I can't show you

2009-06-06T08:10:00.006-05:00

Well, it's been two weeks since my last blog post (I sound like a recovering blog-aholic) so I figured I'd best say something. I've been busy working (non-art, but it pays) and making stuff that I can't post images of yet. As you may know from my sidebar, I'm on the Ten Two Studios design team, and Lisa Vollrath sets us challenges to use a variety of her products in interesting ways. I'm currently working on the projects due July 1. I don't like to post them before they've gone up on the Ten Two Studios site, but above is a tiny sneak peek at something I sent Lisa yesterday.

I'm also getting ready for a trip to Indianapolis the week after next to visit friends and attend the first ATCs For All gathering "Art For All" (June 19-21) where I'll get to meet a bunch of folks whom I've only known on-line, plus a few I've met in person before. The last count I heard was 47 of us attending! I'm working on my donation for the participant goody bags, but I can't tell you what it is until after they've been distributed!

Oh, and I have to clean the house before I go out of town because some in-laws may stop by to visit and most of the mess in the dining room and living room is my art sprawl. *sigh* And now I have to go make some breakfast and wash some dishes! I'll try to write a post of "Stuff I Can Show You" later this weekend, but don't hold your breath! I have a LOT of house cleaning to do!

Fiber Arts Friday - Eye Candy

2009-05-22T07:26:00.004-05:00

Since I haven't done much fiberish work this week to share for Fiber Arts Friday, I thought I'd share some other folks' fiber art that I've seen on Flickr.

Karna Erickson (eanie meany on Flickr and Cocoon Designs on Etsy) makes these fantastic recycled fabric houses, plus stuffie creatures and other fun things.

Chandra LaMorte (aliastriona on Flickr) has a very distinctive color palette. Whether she's posting photos of her knitting or dessert, I can usually recognize which thumbnail image is hers in my list of recent uploads from my Flickr contacts.

I think I had originally come across Joyful Lova's photostream because of her Studio inspirations photoset where she had collected clippings & ideas for organizing sewing studio space. But I was quickly distracted by all her colorful sewing projects (totes, organizers, purses, oh my!) and interesting collections of fabrics (see her photosets). Her blog lists her on-line shops as well.

Hmmm... maybe I'd better stop here in case I have to do this again next week with! Share and enjoy!

Outdoor Cat's Big Adventure

2009-05-19T19:09:00.009-05:00

I'd been deluding myself into thinking that maybe, just maybe, Outdoor Cat (above) had been spayed, but on the morning of May 8, our neighbor reported that Outdoor Cat had been performing naughty acts on our front porch with Other Outdoor Cat (right). On the advice of Julie (kisluvkis), I attended the Wisconsin Humane Society's orientation for Community Cat Caregivers last Saturday, since their Trap-Neuter-Return program is now available for feral cats outside of Milwaukee County as well.

Then this week, since I'm working at home all week, I began the process of Outwitting Outdoor Cat. I bought a wildlife trap on Saturday (my first visit to Tractor Supply Co.) and left it on the front porch draped in a sheet, with the door locked open so she could get used to its presence. My initial plan was to trap her on Sunday night and take her in for spaying Monday morning, but apparently she overhead me saying this and did not show up for dinner on Sunday. She reappeared on Monday morning just late enough that I wouldn't have been able to take her in for surgery (since she had to be dropped off between 8-9 a.m.). I gave her a little bit of breakfast but at Julie's suggestion I withheld food for the rest of the day. In the evening, I put warm sardines in the trap, but she pointedly sat by the front door (next to the open trap) waiting for me to bring her food in her dish.

We did our best to ignore her pathetic gaze, and around 10 p.m., my husband reported that the trap door was shut. But it turned out to be Other Outdoor Cat, the male who apparently wasn't as cautious where sardines are concerned. (Should have taken a picture of him.) I'm still convinced OOC lives somewhere else because he looks well-fed (could be more wishful thinking on my part) so I let him go and re-set the trap. (His time will come for the snip, I'm sure.) When we went to bed a little before 11 p.m., Outdoor Cat had returned to stare in the front door waiting for dinner. At one point she sniffed at the trap, but didn't go in. I woke up at 1 a.m. and the trap was still open, and O.C. was nowhere to be seen. Indoor cat Nuts woke me up at 3 a.m., and lo and behold! The trap was shut! I half expected to find Other O.C. in there again, but instead there was Outdoor Cat looking very annoyed.

I bundled her into the garage and went back to bed. The next morning, I dropped her off at the Humane Society knowing there was a possibility she might not be coming back, if she was deemed adoptable and they could find a good home for her (the outcome I was hoping for), or if she tested positive for a communicable disease like feline leukemia, in which case they would have to euthanize her. So I spent the day waiting for a phone call good or bad, but no phone call meant I could pick her up after 4:30 p.m.

So now she's resting in our garage, under observation for 48 hours before I can let her go. Our neighbor lent us his dog kennel so she didn't have to spend two days in the wildlife trap. I can offer her food tomorrow morning, and in theory I'm supposed to check her stitches, but I don't think that's going to be very easy. The black blob in the white plastic carrier is her, still looking peeved.

As part of the program, she had her ear notched, so observers can tell she's been spayed, and she now has a microchip identifying me as her owner should she ever get picked up as a stray, though after this adventure, she may never want to see me again!

Make It Mondays - Vintage Photos

2009-05-17T09:45:00.006-05:00

I'd fallen off the MIM bandwagon this last month or so, but this past week's Make It Mondays theme is Vintage Photos! Hmmm.... wonder where I'll find some of those.... So here are two digital ATCs that I've been working on since I took the "Intro to Photoshop for Non-Professionals" class at Mount Mary College. This month's theme for the Milwaukee ATC group's live trade is "May Day! May Day!" so the Queen of the May above started out as a vintage lady from the Ten Two Studios Tinted Twenties Cuties image CD. She quickly became smothered in flowers from a Dover "Old-time Floral Vignettes" clip art CD and then run through some of the Photoshop standardized filters just to see what happens. Poor girl doesn't know what hit her (hence the dazed smile)!

And I say "quickly," but actually the process took me hours of cussing and redoing and so forth as I learned my way around the commands. I'm planning to do a limited edition series of prints of these, but even then one print will probably represent an hour of grumbling - I mean "work" :D

Below is "The Merry Month of May," which uses a scanned black & white image from my personal vintage photo collection.

The right edge of this one is cut off by my blog format, but you can click on the image to see the full version on Flickr. The original photo is tiny, only about 1.5" x 2.25," but scanning on a higher resolution picked up more detail of a group of women outside taking photos of each other in artsy poses. I thought it looked a little like they were doing a May dance. This scan below shows the original at actual size (or close enough depending on your computer!)

Altered Overall Art Apron

2009-05-14T21:55:00.006-05:00

I'm just getting a head start for Fiber Arts Friday, since I'll be off-line most of the day. My big artsy accomplishment this week (and this isn't saying much) was finally sewing together this work apron recycled from a pair of overalls.

I saw this project by Laura Ryan in the Jan/Feb 2008 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors and thought "Hey, I could do that! I've got a pair of overalls I don't wear anymore" (Think mid-1980s fashion - yes, they're that old :o)

It looks complicated but really, you just cut the front from the back along the side seams, trim off the legs and sew the back face up on top of the front to create a whole lot of pockets! I actually had chopped my old overalls last year, and then they sat forlorn waiting to be sewn together. I did have to add some strips of fabric on the sides to even out the difference in width between the back and front (I didn't cut my seams very evenly). I made the apron ties with strips cut from the legs.

The hard part now is deciding how to decorate it.... And what's going in all those pockets? (Because if I fill them all with tools, I probably won't be able to stand up straight!)

May Flower Matchboxes

2009-05-14T20:43:00.005-05:00

The Mother's Day countdown may be over at Ten Two Studios but Lisa's still posting new projects every day made by the design team, and you can still leave comments for us! :D Today she posted my take on the Color Me Floral Matchbox Shrine sheet, which I turned into door hangers, inspired by the paper May baskets that you hang on doorknobs. (Remember those school art projects?) I glued an extra matchbox sleeve on the back to hold the faux flowers plus some ribbon on the side to loop over a doorknob and some beaded trim at the bottom because it needed some dangly bling for the cats to play with.

Fiber Arts Fridays - bits & pieces

2009-05-08T18:41:00.011-05:00

It's Fiber Arts Friday! First I want to give a big thank you to my cousin Janet who made a donation to the American Cancer Society this week and acquired my art quilt Spring to Summer through the Fiberart for a Cause Collage Mania 2009 fundraiser, which ended yesterday after raising over $18,000 in three days! I had donated the piece in honor of Janet's mother, my aunt Flo, my mother's sister.

Next I have to answer my friend Michele's question posted in the comments on yesterday's Ten Two Studios Mother's Day Countdown (running through May 10!) She asked what I had used to stamp the pattern on my envelopes. It's a carved Indian printing block designed to do a repeat floral border on fabric (visible in the lower left hand corner of this photo).

In theory, it's an "antique" (or sold that way - it's at least 20 years old since my mom bought it in India in the 1980s!) so I didn't want to apply any ink or paint directly to the wood. Instead I used a "Magic Stamp" moldable foam stamp (the blue block in the photo), which can be zapped with a heat gun and then pressed against the patterned surface to make a reusable stamp! If you heat it again the texture goes away and you can repeat the process with something else. I've made stamps with delicate items like crocheted doilies, vintage buttons, and antique lace, as well as flowers and leaves from the yard. I first read about Magic Stamps in Transforming Fabric: Thirty Creative Ways to Paint, Dye and Pattern Clothby Carolyn A. Dahl, but I have yet to use them on fabric!

Envelope Epergne Altered Book Spread

2009-05-07T19:34:00.009-05:00

A bit late in the day, I know, but I'm on the front page of Ten Two Studios today (May 7) for the Mother's Day countdown. Leave a comment over there about my Envelope Epergne (that's a fancy name for a multi-tubed flower vase) by the end of the day today, and you could win the drawing for a free six-month subscription to the Monthly Muse e-zine.

Tips on navigating Collage Mania 2009

2009-05-05T08:56:00.004-05:00

Collage Mania 2009, the Fiberart for a Cause fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, starts today! Since I've had some friends say they had a hard time finding information and art/artists on that website, here's some advice.

1) Be sure to scroll down each page to see the page-specific content. Many of the pages have some general graphics and links at the top that hide the content below.

2) Use Google's Advanced Search to find a specific artist or keyword. Enter "virginiaspiegel.com" in the box titled "Search within this domain or site" and "Collage Mania 2009 Collages" in the "phrase" box. Or just type it out in the Google search box with appropriate quotes and search syntax. For example,a search for submissions with "cat" in the title would be worded
cat "Collage Mania 2009 Collages" site:virginiaspiegel.com
The list of participating artists is here.

3) Read all the directions carefully because the process is somewhat convoluted. Behind the e-mailing and on-line donation, this is a non-automated system carried out by volunteers. You e-mail Virginia Spiegel telling her what you want to buy, and she e-mails you back to confirm that you were the first person to request that piece (or not). Then you make an on-line donation as directed. When the donation has been confirmed, your e-mail address is given to the artist whose piece you purchased so he or she can ship directly to you. This contact may not occur immediately. I was told I would be informed who (if anyone) purchased my piece after the fundraiser had ended (and presumably the dust had settled).

To quote Virginia Spiegel:

I choose the personal touch for both artists and patrons over computer efficiency. Collage Mania is not automated in any way and all transactions are handled by me personally. While this may not be the height of efficiency, it does ensure that 100% of the proceeds are donated to the American Cancer Society.

And all that artwork will remain on-line for future reference!

PhotoCamp Milwaukee

2009-05-03T07:40:00.008-05:00

Yesterday I had my first *Camp experience attending PhotoCamp Milwaukee at Bucketworks in downtown Milwaukee. This was an Unconference with no pre-set sessions. In the opening ceremonies at 10 a.m. (I wasn't one of the crazy people who turned up for the 5 a.m. photowalk ;o), everyone introduced themselves and said what they wanted to learn and what information they could share.

Based on these comments, participants proposed sessions they might lead, and these were written down on sticky notes. Then impromptu scheduling began on a huge piece of paper stuck on the wall. People put an X by the session they thought they might attend, and meeting spaces were assigned accordingly, but everything could change on the fly.

At one point, another participant Kelly and I were scheduled to lead a session on "Digital and Non-Digital Photo Collage" (she was the digital expert obviously :o) but since no-one put an X by us, we said, "Just cancel it and we'll go to the sessions we want!" (I attended RachelK's presentation on "All Things Flickr" just so I could learn more tips.)

In the first time block, I browsed three sessions before settling in on the last one that I had expected to attend, "Photographing Models" presented by two professional studio photographers (whose names I need to find) with input from others in the audience. I don't do much portrait photography (unless you count the cats) but learned a lot of useful tips on posing and lighting people to look their best, including how to get a better driver's license photo! (Advice courtesy of kisluvkis: Don't look straight on directly into the camera even when they tell you to. Turn ever so slightly away :o)

I had said in the introductions that I wanted to learn more about Photoshop, Strobist (off-camera flash) and High Dynamic Resolution (HDR). I knew with the last two that I will probably never do anything with it, but I was curious to see the technology behind the results. And when those sessions got too technical for me, I wandered off somewhere else. (I never did make it to any of the Photoshop or post-processing sessions!)

My favorite session was Simon McConico showing how to do portrait photography with natural lighting (another one I had not originally planned to attend). He posed his models against nearby walls and in the alley across the street with fabulous results. Here we are waiting for the sun to appear from behind the clouds and backlight the model Ely.

You can see more pix from PhotoCamp in my Flickr set or the Flickr group pool.

Mother's Day Countdown at Ten Two Studios

2009-05-01T07:38:00.004-05:00

Well, I've not been a very good blogger this spring for which I apologize. I've been working outside my office three days a week, which means I don't get to take my usual internet breaks to visit my on-line friends and see what everyone else is doing, much less tell you what I've been up to. (My last post was written from the computer lab at Mount Mary College about five minutes before my Intro to Photoshop class was starting. We're learning what all the buttons do! :D)

So I'll direct you to Ten Two Studios because Lisa Vollrath's doing a countdown to Mother's Day May 1-10, 2009. She's posting a new piece of art by design team members each day, and if you comment on it, you're entered in a daily drawing for a free six-month subscription to her creative e-zine The Monthly Muse.

I just sent her photos of some of my new, as-yet-unseen projects this week, so they may show up on her front page in the next two weeks... (That's meant to be a suspenseful "..." :o)

Fiberart For A Cause Collage Mania preview

2009-04-29T18:28:00.003-05:00

You can now preview the 383 art pieces donated for Collage Mania 2009, the Fiberarts for a Cause fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. These collages will be sold on-line May 5-7, 2009, with all proceeds going to ACS. This year the artists will be shipping directly to the people who bought their art.

Many fiber and mixed media artists are participating in the event including Patricia "Pokey" Bolton, editor of Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors magazines and Lesley Riley, author of Quilted Memories and Fabric Memory Books. Pictured here is my donated art quilt, "Spring to Summer" (blogged here), which is on page 4 of the Collage Mania entries. This is my first year to participate, and I'm glad I got the chance because this is apparently going to be the last year for the event.

Participating in Fiber Arts Friday!

One Out of Three Ain't Bad

2009-04-23T17:57:00.006-05:00

Finally got over to the Uihlein Peters Gallery today to pick up my art and see which one of my three submissions actually made it into the show Good Things...Small Packages. (I missed the opening because I was out of town last weekend.)

Fair Tomorrow (above) was the lucky contestant! I made it in Michael deMeng's Matchbook Reliquary workshop at Raevn's Nest Art Retreat last October. In fact, it's one of my few assemblage projects that actually got finished on the day instead of languishing for months.

The other two pieces I had submitted were Neglected Memories (below, which DID languish for months after I started it in Michael's Morpheus Box class in Oct.) and Internal Affairs already discussed in a previous blog post. In fact, the main reason I pushed myself to submit to this show was because I needed a deadline to force myself to stop fiddling and finish Neglected Memories!

Off to see the Wizard

2009-04-14T17:15:00.002-05:00

Actually, I'm off for a long weekend to take part in my friend's wedding, and so will have limited internet access April 16-19 (plus busy packing, etc for the surrounding dates). Pictured here are my dyed-to-match bridesmaid shoes, which everyone compares to the Ruby Slippers for some reason...

Hope to have some fun wedding pix when I get back (if anyone's interested in that sort of thing :o)

Be good while I'm gone (and if you can't be good, be creative!)

Artwork in search of a title

2009-04-12T13:37:00.004-05:00

Anyone have any suggestions? Sometime before the end of the day today I have to decide on a title for this piece so I can fill in my paperwork to submit it for a show tomorrow. It's an 8x10" canvas with a dollhouse window inserted in the center and a spinner lodged between the canvas and back that rotates the images in the window, all vintage photos from my collection.

I suppose some artists actually know what their artwork is about when they make it, but I'm often left to mull over the meaning after the fact. This was originally going to be a window looking outside with perhaps a birdie in a tree and a person looking in, but it evolved into an exterior window looking in with a tangle of interlocked women and men, which made me think of elicit affairs and secrets glimpsed through the neighbors' window. So I'm weighing something like "Neighborhood Affairs" or "Internal Affairs" but I'm sure there's some other clever phrase that would fit better! If you can think of something more exciting, please let me know :D

(This was sort of a spin-off of an altered book layout I did last year called "The Crazy People Next Door" :o)

Some blog bling

2009-04-09T12:21:00.004-05:00

Cathy was kind enough to give me this creative blogging award, so go check out her artwork! I'm supposed to direct you towards 7 other crafty bloggers and tell you 7 random things about myself, so I'm going to try to do both simultaneously.
1) Michele at A House Called Nut blogs about life in Finland. She just did a great post about craftivism (craft activism). We both grew up in Northern Virginia, and I was a friend of her big sister in high school (though we didn't even go to the same school :o)
2) Kathi recently started her blog fiberdance. I met her because we each sent in ATCs for the Quilting Arts magazine's trading event at the International Quilt Festival in Chicago a few years back, and I got one of her cards, and she only lives the next county over from me! (And because we sent in those ATCs, we're both published in Patricia Bolton's 1000 ATCs book.)
3) Mel doesn't blog but she has a fabulous Flickr photostream, which is just as good. We share a love of retro fonts and goofy ephemera.
4) Jan at Red Rubber Paper & Ink runs her own stamping business, plus teaches at Artist & Display in Milwaukee, which is how I met her. (I think - I have a fuzzy memory for these things sometimes!)
5) Lynne, aka Gypsy Art, drives up from Illinois to trade ATCs with the Milwaukee ATC group, which I nominally organize (because organizing artists is like herding cats).
6) Nina, aka Obsessive Creative, also drives up from Illinois to trade ATCs with us in Milwaukee. I'm obsessed with her vintage button flower bouquet :D
7) I have never met Max of Made By Max, though we both live in the Milwaukee area but I love his daily comics on Flickr, esp. his cat-themed ones because I live in a house ruled by 2.5 cats (the Outdoor Cat only gets half the power of the indoor ones).

Make It Mondays - Hats

2009-04-09T04:27:00.005-05:00

Put on your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it....

Life has been busy, and I'm running a week behind on Make It Mondays - Last week's theme was Hats, and I actually made these ATCs last weekend but haven't had a chance to scan them until now.

The Milwaukee ATC group's April theme is "Altered Photographs," so I used vintage photos from the Ten Two Studios Octavia collage set and embellished with acrylic paint, ink and these colorful flourishes cut from some fancy-schmancy wrapping paper. The two ladies above went the most over the top. The lady and gentleman below are a bit more subdued in their approach to fashion.

Crafting 365, Days 92 & 95 and some others

Fiber Art for a Cause

2009-04-01T11:44:00.007-05:00

April 1 is the deadline for sending in jpg submissions for "Collage Mania 2009" a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. This is my first time participating in Fiberarts For A Cause, but I understand that the donated collages will go into an on-line exhibit and then be available for purchase at specified times at the beginning of May. (Here are the details.) You can see last year's gallery here.

My donation "Spring to Summer" is an 8x10" fantasy floral art quilt. The background is hand-painted cotton layered with parts of faux silk flowers held in place by a layer of tulle and free-motion quilting. I have a photo walkthrough for this technique on Flickr. I used kunin felt as the support/backing. This was donated in memory of my mom's older sister Flo whom we lost to cancer in 1997.

Participating in Fiber Arts Fridays