Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Butterfly Award!



I received a Butterfly award from Lani Gerity at 14_Secrets ofArtist Happiness blog !
Thanks Lani!








Here are the guidelines for receiving this award:


1. Put the logo on your blog
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you
3. Nominate 10 other blogs for this award
4. Add links to those blogs
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.
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I Nominate--not in any order of preference:

1. Duane Keiser--A Painting a Day
2. Dot--originator of the Dotee Doll--Dot's Life and Art
3.Seth Apter--The Altered Page
4. Lisa Swifka--One World One Heart--The Whimsical Bohemian
5. Michelle Schafer--The Studio at Crow Haven Farm
6. Kim's Art By the Sea
7. Carolee Clark--King of Mice Studio
8. Enzie Shahmiri-- Sur la Table Cuisine
9. Amber Dawn--Amber Dawn's Inventive Soul
10. Fatma's Place

Disintegration

Through another artist, I found and got involved in this Winter project of Seth Apter's on his blog--The Altered Page, so the basic idea is this--to take some pages from a book (mine were torn out to make room for the alterations in a round robin project) and tie them together in a bundle of some sort and expose them to the weather to see and record what happens to them--with "Nature as collaborator". Sounds very interesting! So here is my image of the three little bundles of pages I tied together and hung on the windchime chain outside my house!

We'll see what happens to them over the next few months--it's snowing/raining right now--a good weathery start!

Sunday, January 18, 2009

One World One Heart Giveaway Post

This is the post to comment on, in order to win the giveaway. I'm number 069 on the BIG LIST

My Giveaway for this event will be for two winners, each will get a 8.625" x "5.375" x "1.625" box filled with a variety of papers, stickers, ribbons and fibers, photos, ATC Blanks, Inchies, doo-dads and whatchamacallits useful for collage and assemblage. A "Mystery Box" filled with many things leftover from projects I've already finished, and things I can't stand to throw out because they are still useful, plus a few new things, too. Nothing will be materials that can't be shipped overseas

These boxes will accomplish four things, , participation in this fun event, the winners gets prizes, ,useful things get recycled, and I get a little more room!

So, all you have to do is comment on this post and watch back on February 12 to see if you've won!

One World One Heart Event

I stumbled upon this fascinating blog event yesterday--just in time to get ready to participate.

It's apparently an International mingling of bloggers, by means of a blog giveaway event whereby people will go to your blog after January 19 and comment on the giveaway posting (the posting on that day stating what they can win by just posting) and then, on February 12, a winner is drawn (ior winners, as some will be giving away multiple items) and prizes mailed to the winner(s).

So, I thought, what a cool idea! I want to play, too!

I'm going to post my giveaway on Monday and join in the fun!

Here is more info about the event
and
here is info about the earlier events in 2007 and 2008

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PhotoThis badge says a blogger is participating, so watch for them everywhere you go!

IT STARTS TOMORROW, SO DON'T POST A COMMENT HERE! THERE WILL BE A NEW SPECIAL POSTING FOR THE GIVEAWAY!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Back at the TPL--Thompson Public LIbrary

I was all set up to fill the lobby display case with my Ida Baily Allen cookbook collection for the month or January, but life happens at the best and worst of times, and I couldn't get it all together in time. With only a couple of weeks left in the month, I managed an Altered Books, Etc display instead, using many of the wonderful bits of art I've received in swaps this past year.

There are Altered Books, and tip-ins, Altered CDs, Alteered Matchboxes, big and small, Altered postcards and Mail Art, Art Dolls, mostly dotee dolls, Artist Trading Cards and Inchies.

My friend Alma came to help me organize it all and it took a couple of hours but it looks fine. Very colorful! I'll get pictures soon.

Next on my artistic agenda is registering for a Portfolio Review: a one-credit independent study at QVCC with Annie Joly where I hope I will finally begin building a real and professional art portfolio. She has been enormous help already, as the teacher in Introduction to Computer Graphics for a second time, after about 15+ years of technology had advanced Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop so much that it was all new again. I learned a lot about CS3, enough so that I am really loving it all!

I was organizing my photos, adding keywords to everything using Adobe Bridge--really, really excellent and fast-- and managed to crash my main data drive! Talk about Blazing Fast! Fred, ever my love and My Hero managed to save everything using his technological magic and an icepack!! It was about 5 hours of work that I had thought down the drain--not to mention ALL my photographs and records and documents--everything I've done for the past 6 years!!! He is just the BEST!

One of these days I'll go back and finish the Bridge job, I was only about half done.

I also want to revamp my website(s), perk up my blog, maybe put Wordpress into my website, paint a few paintings, finish up some swaps, and clean up the garage and office/studio. Not in any particular order, but any of it would be nice--especially the garage.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Time Flies...still!

One of these days I'll set up some sort of schedule for adding to this blog. I can't believe the huge amount of things that have happened in the world and in my little life since I last posted in October.

Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New year for starters. None of which were particularly spectacular in and of themselves.

We do have a new President though, happily I voted for Obama and he won! It seems to have broken the family curse--everyone we've voted for in the last umpteen elections has lost. :(

I've done a few new small pieces of art.
Some inchies in an animal theme for the 100Inchies Swap series in Swap-bot. The little animal pictures are cut out of a ratty old Webster's New American Dictionary from 1955.







and some ATCs--here's one for a Quick Turnaround Swap in Swap-bot called "Songbird"







And a set of four Blue and White Colors ATCs for yet another Swap-bot swap.



I haven't picked up a paintbrush again yet, but still have hope!