Heidi's robot ATCs

atc_robot_heidi001
Originally uploaded by cottrellbentley.

Imagination Tribe had a swap with a robot theme. I sent in these six.
The robot, ball, boy, brick, cloud, and word balloon are all from one set of storytelling rubber stamps I bought from Chinaberry catalog. I don't think Chinaberry carries them at this time.

The large R is from an alphabet set backed with fun foam but fronted with sponge, for a bubble look.

The word robot on the R card is stamped with Oriental Trading's 12-letter stamp. The ASL fingerspell stamps are from a set bought long ago.

Round Robin Art Journal

Andrea variations
Originally uploaded by Heidicrafts.

2005 Round Robin Art Journal - by me

Andrea made this graphic of herself for her blog. I dropped into MSPaint and made a number of copies, then played paper dolls for a number of stunning variations.

~~~~~

Some participants of the Creative Mom Podcast Circle have tossed around the idea for a round robin art event, but nearly all have said that fall will be better for participation than summer will.

Back in 2005, I was part of an art journal round robin. I knew about them from the few altered book classes I had taken and thought they were so cool. [ Like being a freshman watching the seniors float through school. ]

Andrea had the idea for a journal to be passed around among friends and returned to her. I added the idea that we all start a book, send them around synchronously, and we all get a wonderful keepsake. It was well received, and then Andrea didn't feel guilty for being the only one keeping the art at the end, she said.

The participants were me, Andrea, TwoPeanuts, and Cait and her daughter K. Cait and K bound small booklets from watercolor paper. TwoPeanuts had a large wire-bound sketchbook. Andrea had a smalled, bound book. I was eager to try altered book techniques, so I started some art in an old Earth Science book that was part of a collection of books bought at an estate auction.

Click on the photo to get to my Flickr collection to see the art that I did in the books that came my way.

Confidential to Andrea:

Confidential to Andrea:

This photo is for you.

During a wonderful outing this week, I realized that six out the eleven in our group were wearing their Crocs the whole time, out in public and everything. I gathered them up and took a photo of their feet. When I finished directing the Croc-ers, the other non-Croc-ers were laughing. I had gathered the six in front of an office window and the employees inside were curious about what I was doing. After I showed around the resulting photo ("I wanna see next!") to all of the kids, I had to hold my camera up to the office window for the gentleman closest to see what all the hubbub was about. Quite a good laugh.

Father's Day Countdown from Lisa Vollrath

Lisa Vollrath has great free downloadables for Father's Day. GO now
before they disappear. ATC backgrounds, vintage hot air balloons,
label-maker tags.

<http://countdown.tentwostudios.com/index.html>

Star in the spotlight

Star in the spotlight
Originally uploaded by Heidicrafts.

We went on a short nature hike last weekend. It was nice weather, too nice to stay indoors. Much to the kids chagrin.

CHG knew of a little trail near our house, just off a side road. Only a ten minute drive. The trail goes down to a creek, makes a broad loop at the bank, and returns the same way it entered the woods.

I took photos along the way. This was the best. The five-leafed "star" plant was in a sunbeam.

(I don't even own Photoshop - if I enhance at all, all I have at my disposal is MS Paint, my Olympus camera software and my HP printer software)

Seven Random Things

Jessica tagged me a while ago to cough up seven random things about myself.

Completely spur of the moment, top of my head...

1) My left ear curls over a little. My mom's right ear also curls over. My mom hates the way hers looks, so she was always fixing my hair to cover up mine. But I don't even give it a thought.

2) My husband once told me something that my best friend said about me, long after she had said it to him. I was impressed.

"I've never met anyone so comfortable with who she is than Heidi is."

3) My favorite grandma had a white glass hen that sat in a white glass nest. Whenever my brother and I would visit, "Chickie" would have laid some candy for us in the nest. Chickie always laid an even number of items. Smart Chickie.

4) I have short, squarish thumbs. I'm told that my grandma did, too. I found out that an online friend did palm readings. I sent her a photo of my thumbs and this is what she wrote:

Your thumbs have both Thor's Hammer (a blunt end) and Forseti's Spindle (a wasp waist between the first and second joints). Thor's Hammer indicates a strong will, someone who is very outspoken and tends to do the simmer-and-explode thing where anger is concerned. However, Forseti's Spindle indicates diplomacy, tact, and an ability to sugarcoat. So when the two are together, you have someone who manages to quietly go about doing their own thing despite what others are telling them to do. Or put another way, if they are told not to do something that they really want to do, they'll tend to smile and nod and do it anyway. They're also really good at getting their own way without a big confrontation.

5) A work-friend of my husband's made us an Around the World bed quilt for our wedding/marriage. He stopped by my desk on day and tossed me a copy of the Keepsake Quilting catalog. "Pick the medley you and CHG like best," he said. We chose a cat medley of six bright fabrics. The friend bought three more complementary fabrics locally and mad a great quilt.

6) I love the idea of quilting, I watch quilt shows, I bought a sewing machine, I have quilt books. I haven't put needle to fabric yet. I don't think I would like the actual quilting step. I love the math, geometry, and art of the patchwork. I like how one block can achieve so many looks with various fabric combinations.

7) My favorite number is 52. 5 + 2 = 7 and 5 * 2 = 10 and I was born on 10/7, October 7th. And I have a friend born on July 10th, 7/10.

7.5) Both of my kids have the same math equation for their birthdays. Month times four equals date.

-- Heidi

Trying an e-mail post

Blogger allows remote posts sent by e-mail. Since I have been so remiss in posting these last weeks, I'll try this method. I can always enhance the formatting later.
:
I have been a busy bee for my Summer Band job. I manage the personnel for our 60-member Summer Concerts in the Park. I'm also a musician with the group. My dad just retired from Summer Concerts in the Park after 60 seasons, and my husband has been a sub but this is his first year of nine-week full membership with Summer Concerts in the Park. Hooray for Kid-Watching Grandma.
:

:
But this blog is supposed to be about art. Not a lot of time for art in May. I finished my April bonus card for the CMP ATC swap. I found an ATC magazine: ATC Quarterly. I'll review more soon. Band will move from panic mode to maintenance mode in the next week or two. I need to come up with a card for "At Water's Edge." I have many detailed seashell stamps.... Hmmm. Now I have a crafty idea...

Wings still furled

Wings still furled
Originally uploaded by Heidicrafts.

Our first photo, right after Ganoush's butterfly emerged (pink box).

Gonzo and Ganoush were given chrysalises from their homeschool visiting teacher, part of our association. They made the habitats as a mini-class. We watched them from May 1st and they emerged today, May 10th.

The sponge is for sugar water, but the booklet said we can spritz sugar water onto carnation blooms. The cup has food for the caterpillar. Each made a chrysalis on the lid of the cup and we taped the cup lid to the box top.

Links

Lisa Vollrath has some free downloadables for Mother's Day.

And check out these fancy cakes from Russia.

And check out All Over Coffee for great sketching.

Signature cards

I have been thinking about art signature cards lately.

Artist trading signature cards, as I understand them, are cards that tell about the artist who is trading. I first learned about them in the oft-linked Cedarseed pages. If you look, be sure to scroll far to the right. But at first look, you will see artist Joumana Medlej's signature card.

Okay, the idea mainly came from Joumana, for I am not finding much else on the web about signature cards. I did find more, such as Pigpog, Sashvh, Charlene Pregler, and (aha!) the ladies at Sunflower House.

A card I received from a swap had a pre-made identification sticker on the back, made from a sheet of mailing labels, the 10 x 3 arrangement. Type 8160 in Avery numbers. It had name, website, and a little photo of the artist. I started doing that for the last batch I made.

So, mixing ideas around in My Brain (the creative side that comes up with stuff without my conscious effort is affectionately called My Brain. My Brain comes up with the weird stuff that The Rest of Me chooses to filter.)

Where was I?

Ah, yes.

My Brain mixed around these ideas, and tossed in one more idea to come up with my own signature card.

That last idea? Have you even noticed HOW HARD it is to teach something to others something that comes so naturally to you?

I am 40. I graduated in 1985. I was the first kid in my junior high to get a TRS-80 home computer. Programming and I just clicked. Math, Art, Order, Fun. Possibility! My brain was ripe to suck in all of the ideas in BASIC. I had the good fortune to have an opportunity to teach what I'd earned to five of my junior high teacher and the principal. They were eager students. Hey recognized the PC could be a fascinating tool. We were just switching from dial-up with a paper terminal to a real black and white CRT monitor.

But some things were hard for them to understand. And sometimes I couldn't help them beyond, sputterings of "But you just..."

Much like Pythagoras, whose a2 + b2 = c2 theorem was proved with one drawing and the word "Behold!" To him, everything was obvious from one drawing. To my junior high math class, there was still some 'splainin' to do.

My husband was shocked this weekend when I mentioned one part of the music for Local College graduation where I really had to look at the music, to know what came next. "It's Dixieland. It's easy. You just 1-1-1-1, 4-4-4-1, 6-2-5-1." Easy for him. Like breathing. Not obvious to me. I know what it should sound like, I could sing it, but my fingers just don't fall into place, my brain doesn't immediately provide the note names that the page presents. But he can't teach me because he just knows it. (Okay, this may be the Homeschool Blogger part of the entry)

So when I decided to "teach" an ATC class, I was a bit stymied. "You just... make art that is the right size." I rolled around so many examples of works, and yet, I was also able to reduce the entire class down to one haiku. ATCs in 17 syllables.

And that (for now, it could change later) is my new signature card.

Artist trading cards
Two point five by three point five
Create, trade, enjoy.
-- Heidicrafts

I played with fonts, made a sheet of ten, and ran off some toner photocopies (my inkjet ink runs when wet). I'm having fun decorating the cards.

And the class went well. Most just dove right in and only half-listened to my chatter. Some were friends who have watched me do this since October. All seemed inspired by something from my "Art toys" that they could play with. One went to town with scrap papers and a heart-shaped paper punch. Others drew or enjoyed my rubber stamps and rainbow ink pads. Another liked my idea of using the colorful weather maps from the local newspaper. Winter and summer maps are too solidly blue or red when tracking expected temperature, but there are great swirls on a spring or fall temperature map.

I've sent out a few ATC Haikus last week. I still owe a few cards to a couple of CMP (Creative Mom Podcast) folk. Not from the official swaps, but some trades on the side.

And my wrapping up thought that ties all of this together:
I sent a card to a CMP person who had been shortchanged in the March swap. Her card never arrived. Amy gave me the address, but it didn't click that I had recently "met" her through the CMP yahoogroup. I didn't realize that This Name was also That Artist. If I had, I might have done something different with the card. She wrote and said that she likes it, which is good.

Poppins has had the same feeling. The card she sent for my birthday swap, which I so admire, is not the way she would approach the same project today.

Part of the way My Brain works (right-brained, visual-spatial) is in pictures. I really do have a mental Rolodex(R) in my mind's eye, a set of trading cards for people and places. A set of directions can be a mental Trip-Tik(R), a series of place images. When I joined my first Yahoogroup while expecting Gonzo, I had to make a list of the various members, their towns or regions, their DH names, the names for the new kids and older kids. I had to make mental ATC signature cards to keep them straight.

With blogs, I usually don't meet people all in a bunch, but when I join a Yahoogroup, the information comes at me all at once and I need visual cues to help me sort the data. The Internet can link me to like-interested people, but it isn't like face-to-face interaction.

When I teach a class, as we go through introductions, I ask the others to help me "peg" them in My Brain. Because I'll find a hook with or without their help. Just like the naming of the episodes of Friends, My Brain will remember you as The One Who Likes Sushi or The One Who Likes The Red Green Show.

So the idea of a signature card appeals to me to help me recognize which individual in my circles is the one who like Chucks, or is a quilter, or dyes her own yarns, or homeschools, or used to live in my home state.

A signature card let me see how you chose to define yourself, to help me remember you in a way wish to be remembered.

It's such an honor to be nominated...

As others have posted, I was startled to discovered that I was one of the nominees for the 2006 Homeshool Blog Awards, in the category of Best Crafts, Plans & Projects Blog. Thanks to whomever submitted my name.

I don't know how to make a click on the photo take you to the list of categories and nominees, so here is the main link. The list of nominees makes a great resource to find new ideas on the web, so go forth and find something extra while I gather up new items to photograph.

This should encourage me to post more often.

I'll take a new set of photos from what I've been making and what I've been receiving, what I should be mailing and haven't yet, and what I will be teaching to other families in just a couple of weeks.

Margarine Star

Margarine Star
Originally uploaded by Heidicrafts.

Art is a way of seeing. Art is how you look at something with open eyes.

My kids and I always try to notice and appreciate the star on the top of the tub of margarine, made when the factory machinery fills the tub quickly with a bloop of margarine.

A good friend once spoke of her family phrase, "Breaking the Smooth." It needed to be done with a little reverence. There is something about disrupting the form of a product as presented, altering the star into "just" a tub of margarine. Changing the sacred into the mundane.

My husband thinks we're all weird in this regard, and never shows us the star if he opens a new tub.

Where did you find art unexpectedly today?

Journal and Tags: Sept 2006 to March 2007

Had I realized how much the kitchen remodeling took over this journal, I would have put it on the cover. But I didn't. I started with my beloved Chucks.

I use my journal to encapsulate everything in my life: meeting notes, sketches, Cute Things They Say, and lists of things to get done (all noted with little boxes, waiting for that check mark.
Then add all of the samples of the kitchen old and the kitchen new, next to glued-in photographs and tucked-in event programs... This book will not close.

My life is too big to be fully captured. ;)

Journal and Tags: Sept 2006 to March 2007
Originally uploaded by Heidicrafts.

I have date tags in colors of fall and of my new kitchen. I chose fun fuzzy yarn with the kitchen colors, too.

I attached the Formica(R) laminate sample for easy Show & Tell. When the walls were painted, I took a little paint from the bucket and painted the back of the laminate tag with wall paint. You can see a little on the edges.

When Former President Ford died, I was researched flag etiquette for my Scouts. I learned that for a fixed flag, one on a pole that cannot be set to half staff, it is appropriate to hang a length of black ribbon from the top, folded or tied so two ends hang down. To remember that event with my journal, I added thin black ribbon to the edges.

Six Pink ATCs

Six Pink ATCs
Originally uploaded by Heidicrafts.

Six ATCS for my first swap with Imagination Tribe. Theme: Pink.

They are cut from one greeting card that I started and then it really didn't go anywhere.

Pieces are from my daughter's art: the yellow-pink swirly hearts, the star on construction paper, the fuzzy fabric from her poodle skirt project. She makes more art than I can keep, but it makes great collage fodder.

The lower heart on the upper left card is punched from a glossy ad, showing a sliced tomato.

Six Princess ATCs

Six Princess ATCs

Ganoush made six princess ATCs for a trade.

The Disney images are from a local DIY store. A roll of cellophane tape with images of Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. Some of the paint stamps are also by Disney, bought a few years ago at the same DIY store.

On the lower left card, with C and SW, Ganoush stamped an apple for Snow White on the card's back.

Rose Vase ATCs

Rose Vase ATCs
Originally uploaded by Heidicrafts.

ATCs numbered 3 through 6 My second-ever attempts.

The roses in a vase came from a tissue box. I choose my tissues based on the box art. The base is purple index cards.

The text is from a financial planning catalog that had great colors on the cover. The shapes are all from the catalog as well.

I made these in early 2006, with friend Andrea of Atypical Life in mind, then I set them aside and lost them. And now they are found! I sent two to her and two for me.

Imagination Tribe hosted a trade of Puzzle ATCs. Nine cards that could stand alone or make a 3x3 larger image. I did not participate, but this idea might have worked. Can you see where I cut the rose vase?

Burgundy Gold ATCs

Burgundy Gold ATCs
Originally uploaded by Heidicrafts.

My very first two ATCs, from around last spring. A collage on chipboard of gift wrap, candy foil, glitter glue, and torn tissue paper.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Double writing in Flickr and here

I've been posting a bunch of my recent art on my Flickr account, shown on the sidebar. I leave detailed comments, then I don't want to re-write the text here in the art blog as well. Ah, these modern dilemmas.

So, go look at some ATC photos there.

I'll work out the balance thing.

Easter Countdown

Lisa Vollrath has added an Easter Countdown to her site. It's the same URL for each countdown. If you want to participate, add a link in a blog or forum and head on over.