Easily Distracted By Shiny Things

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

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)

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!

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

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

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?!?

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!