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back up and running!
Okay, been gone for over 2 years now. I’m hopefully back to undertaking some creative endeavors. Am signed up for an online course with Creative Kismet “Art of Giving” and hopefully, that will get me back in the habit of journaling and making things with my hands again.
Journaling
I’m on Kelly Kilmer’s A Prompt A Day online workshop and while I am behind, I’m trying to catch up! The colors are not what I would choose myself, but I like it! As usual I like to use discarded materials as much as possible and here I have a tea bag tag and perforations from water color paper pad.
Sorting, cleaning, rescuing
I’m finally fed up with the mess of papers in my house! Maybe I’m inspired by my teacher and altered book swap leader (see her blog here) who has been cleaning up her studio but I just spent a couple hours going through some bags of paper.
Background papers, focal images, ephermera, vintage images…even though I now know fancy names for these pieces of paper, they still form clutter when unattended! I’m in a couple swaps of material right now so it’s a good way to sort and send away things I know I will never use. I’m sad that maybe the recipients will think they are trash and throw them in the recycling bin…but each piece was cut out and saved with deliberation by me! Hopefully they will inspire someone else and be put to good use.
Good-bye beautiful papers and good luck in ending up in some creative endeavors!
sharing craftiness
A special 7-year-old is starting to pick up the crafty bug! She made a very creative mixed media collage which I’ll have to post sometime but this is what we picked out together and made during ski week last week. There were five fairies but she gave one to my mom and kept the other four. We had ribbon and more floss left but she thought her fairies were perfect as is and didn’t want any improvements.
The kit included flower petals, pipe cleaner, beads for the head, floss for hair and some simple instructions. so simple and made us all so happy!
class time!
It seems that art classes are starting up again for the new year and so I’ve signed up for an altered book class in Berkeley at Castle in the Air–one of the cutest stores on Fourth Street (among the many including ScrapbookTerritory and PaperSource).
My knitting is suffering from my attention to paper arts but also because it was so warm around here, it didn’t make me feel like knitting! I think the other reason is because after xmas, i won’t have an excuse to knit scarves and crochet hats. Hmmm, gotta find some motivation for it.
Limits provide opportunity!
I’m trying to clean up my piles and piles of scrap paper, old books, glues, paints, ephemera–it’s crazy how much stuff I have!
I’m trying a new thing–using limits and less choice to inspire creativity! It seems unlikely and antagonistic but for my personality, having too many choices just provides excuses for perfectionism and stagnation. I am frozen with too many choices.
I’m doing Kelly Kilmer’s prompt a day online class and one the really great insights I’ve gained is how she works–she uses a small selection of images to work from and when she gets tired of those, she moves onto another batch. That way, you never spend days looking for “the perfect image” and you use what you have. You can rotate materials but you only work from one subset at a time. What great insight! I am going to start trying that as soon as I finish this post. No more procrastinating!
2008 altered book swap
This was the last swap for 2008 in my altered book group. I finally gave it back to the owner yesterday so i can blog it now!
This was the cover I got and the CD was my signin. I used scrapbook paper as the background and simply used my Brother label printer for the text and name.
These spreads were based on songs which have special meaning for me: the Beatles’ “In My Life” and Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive.”
The first is a disco-based page with an art-deco focal image and I have Bette Middler peeking out from a pocket because she is a survivor!
The second is my interpretation of “In My Life” which makes me think of all the homes I’ve lived in. All collaged from magazine scraps. I gessoed a map from a free tourist magazine, added a strip of tissue paper left over from Xmas presents, and cut geometric patterns from a magazine. I love using materials on hand because it makes me feel creative and very green!
Merry Christmas!
Merry Crafting Christmas to all. I tried to partake in a non-crazy shopping season — not for economic reasons, but for ecologic reasons! Trying to maintain control of my footprint and impact on the earth.
Hope you are enjoying the day as well.
what have I been up to?
some recent internet discoveries:
–mint.com
My dad told me about this site and now I’m addicted to seeing what my cash vs. debt levels are and watching my net worth fluctuate every day!
–LinkedIn
Someone invited me to join and while I’m still feeling it out, it’s an interesting idea!
my personality
I took a few online personality tests and came up with the same result each time: the “Champion” type. I am an ENFP for those of you who know the Myers Briggs types–I bordered on the Teacher (ENFJ) but this one fits me perfectly. Always looking for new challenges and learning more about myself (hence taking personality tests!). If you go to metarasa.com, my code was hmhi.
Unlikely Crafter 