I made these ghosts to hang in the tree.
*Self-Portrait Tuesday*
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Hello from a very wet and damp New York City. I'm stuck up in my hotel room after a lot of tromping around in the rain. After a few hours of pushing a stroller with one hand and manuevering a disfunctional umbrella with the other, I decided to call it quits.
So, awhile back I had all these posts about some rocks I found on the beach with holes in them. Here is a groovy picture I found from a catalog that uses rocks very similar to the ones I found ~ though these are probably "encouraged" to have holes in them. Though I didn't quite collect enough rocks to be able to assemble anything close to what's shown here...it's a nice idea. AND...West Elm has them on sale! Click HERE for the details (while the sale lasts). 
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Trying to make some decisions about where I want to be putting my time and where I see myself going with crafting endeavors. I want to start making some plans for the new year. Maybe a few craft fairs? Perhaps a consignment? More to offer online to warrant putting some money into advertising? A lot of questions to be answered. I think I am beginning to lean toward focussing entirely on my "Buzzing Bog" designs. I'd like to get the story behind my drawings developed, as well as creating more items that show off these little guys. So I may be doing a major website revamp soon - taking down everything I've got and starting to make room for some new things...like this bag I just made, for example. I'm pretty hapy with it. I like it's shape and the simplicity that sort of acts like a canvas for the little giraffe patch. I've got a lot of tinkering ahead of me. But I was beginning to feel like I had my hands in so many different pots that none of them were getting the attention they deserved. While I LOVE working with wood - I just wasn't dedicating the time it takes to really perfect the craft of woodworking. And as fun as it is to create felt toys - it's not something that really calls out to me with unique ideas and design inspiration. I love drawing these little critters that fly. I love that imaginary world. So I figure I should focus on what appeals to me most. 
I am so giddy over some new tricks I just learned. I made this wonderful little animated banner! Hee hee hee! Some other folks over in livejournal were doing these, so I did a google search and found a great tutorial for making one using Adobe ImageReady. The tutorial is by Layout Galaxy and can be found HERE. I just can't get over myself. I know it's NUTHIN to all you real web designers out there, but to me this is right up there along with sliced bread and TIVO. Oh boy...what can I do next with this new found toy? A little animated cartoon? Maybe I'll just go outside and snap pictures of the clouds passing overhead so I can create an animation of the clouds passing overhead. No, I don't have all this free time for things like that. Shoot, I shouldn't of wasted time creating this one here...but, procrastination is the name of my game. Why actually get all those things on my to-do list done when there are so many other fun things to do? But it's time to face the music. Time to clean this house from the mess little Mr. Munchkin made while I had my nose in the laptop. Time to clean the car, water the grass to clear up that big brown spot in time for Mr. Munchkin's birthday party (TWO in November!) and time to get some real work done (you know, the work that I actually get paid for, the work that brings in some money). So, animated banners will have to wait. Happy Wednesday everyone!
muddling over what i need to do today. enjoying a cup of coffee. woke to a nip in the air prompting me to put on my robe - first time i've worn it in months.
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Already the last week of September. I always see October as the start of Fall. Can't believe it's going to be Fall. (technically, it already is!)
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We're heading out to New York mid-October. Hurray! Some of the things on my to-do list that we didn't quite fit in last year: walk across the Brookly Bridge, take the Staten Island Ferry, go to Little Italy & China Town, top of the Empire State Building, spend some good quality time in the Park, take my bugaboo to FAO Schwartz (it was closed last year) and eat more signature NY Black & White cookies (last year I only discovered how delicious those are on my last day there). Those are all pretty touristy things, I do understand. But last year I pretty much spent 4 days walking the entire (well, not the ENTIRE) city. So this trip I want to try to do some of those cheesy things - like the Empire State Building. We'll be staying right smack dab in Times Square, again, care of my husband's employer - whoopee! When he travels for work, it doesn't make sense for me NOT to go. With hotel accommodations paid for, why not?
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Last year my son was just under a year old. While my husband was working, I'd take the baby out into the city and he'd instantly fall asleep. I like to think that the whirl of the city was like a lullaby to him. He'd sleep and I'd walk. One day we walked all the way from Times Square clear to the tip of Manhattan. And it wasn't a straight line sort of walk. We meandered along the way. We took the subway back though. I think I would have died had we tried to walk back. My husband and I just loved that city. It was the first time for both of us. He's since been back - but this will be only my second time back. I'm just like my son. I could easily find a bus bench somewhere and fall asleep to the sounds of the city. If we didn't have so many connections here (family that we don't want to tear our son away from) I think we could be very very happy in New York. It's everything you could possibly need plus a whole bunch of stuff you wouldn't ever think to ask for. I will always fondly remember us having dinner with a friend, who also happened to be in town, at Chez Josephine - a restaurant run by Josephine Baker's son. I think we were the only group NOT heading out to the theater after - so when the restaurant cleared, Jean-Claude moved us out of the corner to a wonderful center table and proceeded to wine and dine us with such hospitality and warmth. He even took our son over to the piano and let him bang on the keys for a while. Not sure if I even want to go back there for fear of trampling over this already wonderful memory with one that couldn't possibly be as good. I just don't think that meal could be topped! It was the pure essence of New York!
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"If I'd lived in Roman times, I'd have lived in Rome. Where else? Today America is the Roman Empire and New York is Rome itself"
- John Lennon
Just finished up my next batch of artist trading zines for the atz_club. The theme for this month was "Road Trip". This time I was given the fortunate task of picking the theme. And I've seen a few comments here and there that indicate it wasn't an easy topic for everyone to deal with. So, for that I feel bad. At least I won't have to pick the theme for awhile now! I feel so uncool. Anyway - I had fun with the topic. Included are excerpts from On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. There's a list of the top 10 road trip munchies. And then there's the collection of road trip snapshots. Stuff I see from the road. Stuff that doesn't necessarily make any sense but reminds you that you are far from home. For the covers I made what I hope reads as an abstraction of a road in felt. It will be interesting to see what everyone else has done with this topic. I hope people had fun with it even though it didn't exactly cause the stir I had hoped it would.
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Here's a collage of the Experience Music Project [EMP] in Seattle. Frank Gehry's rock-n-roll version of the Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles) and the Guggenheim (Bilbao, Spain). We thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the music memorabilia. I particularly enjoyed things like an essay written in school by Tupac, lyrics jotted down by Amy Ray & Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls and a wall of music where you could hear "Blowing in the Wind" in a number of different languages and music styles. While my husband thoroughly absorbed himself in the Bob Dylan exhibit, I chased our son around the place and studied the curved I-beams and structure responsible for generating this fantastic facade. I'm sure the structure must be disguised at the Disney Concert Hall and Guggenheim, so seeing it all exposed here at the EMP was a real treat.
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I got my new Readymade magazine yesterday. This is really the only magazine I read cover to cover these days. Rolling Stone - I look at the pictures and maybe read a couple album reviews. Sunset - I dog-ear the pages with recipes I might want to try and study the articles relating to garden and/or house design. Dwell - Look at the nifty houses and maybe read an article about an architect whose name sounds familiar to me. But Readymade is always jam packed full of ideas and cool articles and groovy projects. In fact, one regular column called "MacGuyver" calls upon readers to send in their unique designs for projects using common everyday items. One month it was wood pallets. Another month it was cassette tapes. Last month they asked readers to construct something from wine bottle corks. Sound familiar? Ha ha. Anyway, the issue I just got yesterday shows the winning project - a floor mat made of 4,500 corks strung together with wire. This thing is amazing! Now that I've used up nearly all my corks for my last Sampler contribution, I'll need to start saving up again to make a mat of my own. There was also an article about a gal in San Francisco(Yosh Han) who runs her own perfume company, mixing her own perfumes. She created one for hersef which she named after her alter ego, Ginger Ciao. She wears it whenever she needs the vibrant and go-getting Ginger to come out. I like that. Maybe I could use an alter ego. Someone who takes risks and lives like an artist who don't look back. Someone I turn to to break me out of my shell when I'm feeling shy in a room full of interesting people. Hmmmm. Astrid? Leilani? Yoko? Ha ha. I'll have to work on that.
