Art of a Different Ilk

For me, scrapbooking has waned a bit. I know its just a phase, I can feel my love for it bubbling under the surface, but for the last few weeks I've struggled getting pages done. I am taking a class by Ashley Wren to help jump start things and I'm calm, knowing my love for this art will override my recent dry spell.

In the meantime, for no apparent reason, a variety of other crafts have caught my attention. Here are a few samples of other art that I've been toying with:

First off, I made a set of ATC cards that I created digitally, and installed them in a gum container. I made these little 2.5 x 3 pages at http://www.scrapblog.com/ saved them to my computer and printed them off.

I backed each page with patterned paper and sent this set of family photos to my friend Christine.

If you haven't played with scrapblog yet I highly recommend it. Its easy to learn and oh so fun when you just aren't in the mood to drag out supplies.

Then there is clay buttons! Using Sculpey III or other Fimo products, I have been playing with buttons and have made 300-400 at this point. I even had to start a swap to help clean out some of my inventory! My favorite thing to do is stamp them after they are flattened and then antique them after they come out. I've also used eyelets on them and pieced them into the shape of flowers. Right now I'm toying with the idea of selling bouquets of them on Etsy...I'm just trying to work out the logistics of mailing them as they are somewhat fragile.

I made a boatload of cards...

its weird how influenced by the seasons I am when it comes to color choices. It was very hard to use these "fall" colors in early August!

Then there is good ole fashioned photography, which had suffered in recent months but is now at the forefront thanks to my brand spanking new 55mm lens, a gift from my dear friend Lisa. I can't stop taking photos with it!

Next up are inchies, which I did mention earlier in July on my blog. Hopefully this is a different set than the ones I featured then! I really enjoyed these for a week or two, I liked the less mess and they seem like a great thing to do "on the road" since you only need to bring a punch or two, some scraps, a pen and a sheet of images.

Next up are ATCs. Artist Trading cards are playing card sized works of art that you trade but don't sell. I have made several using musical artists from the past as my primary topic. Gustav Mahler is someone I have been studying lately so he got a whole series. Turns out the man can handle a word as well as a baton!

Then there is http://www.wordle.net/. A great place to play with words. This is a card I made using the site for my friend Debbie. Debbie, the card is in the mail (with inchies enclosed!)

You can type in a quote or a series of words and it will format them for you, with alot of creative control at your fingertips, or you can type in a blog address and it will create word art from the info it finds on the blog.

Baby havin' class

...cause lawsy I don't want to take any baby makin' class!

This past weekend was spent in the company of my friend Lisa, gettin' ready to birth us a baby. I really enjoyed being "the other half" this time out. I only took a childbirth class with Jason, being too young, scared and stupid with Erin's pregnancy and feeling confident enough to skip it with Andrew.

The program was very informative and Lisa and I got to go over a few issues we haven't talked about yet and practice some labor coping techniques. We were there all day Saturday, so I just spent the night at her place and we had such a pleasant evening. We talked and made polymer clay buttons and had a fabulous dinner out. Sunday we had a relaxing morning at home and then headed back to class. It was really hard to see everyone from the class leaving Sunday afternoon and realizing we'd probably never see these folks again, a really sweet group of future parents!

The lifecycle of a monarch

On July 8, in the late morning, we spent an hour searching the undersides of milkweed leaves to find a little pinhead sized dot which would indicate a monarch egg. We thought we had found five, but only two ended up hatching, about five days later. The two were raised by our friends for a couple of days and then we took over on July 15. At first they were about half an inch long and about three quarters of an inch long. Within a week we were feeding two 3 inch long caterpillars, who had grown so large I was even a little alarmed by them. We moved them in to two separate jars, as they were eating several leaves a day each and July 24 and July 25 they each secured themselves to the tops of their jars and popped into their green, gold dotted cocoons. We handed off one of the cocoons to our friend Ronan, and watched ours carefully for signs of change. On August 1 in the evening, the light, bright green cocoon started to turn a darker forest green and by bedtime it was nearly black. I had to get up bright and early the next morning to get ready for Childbirth Classes and at 6am there was some transparency to the cocoon's outer layer. By the time Lisa picked me up at 8am I could tell things were going to happen very soon. I talked to the cocoon all the way to Burnsville, informing it that what it really wanted to do was come out of the cocoon precisely at 8:45, which would give me time to photograph it without being late for class. As you can see, it was a little later than that!

15 minutes after its emerging, I wanted to set it outside, so it wouldn't damage it's wings in the jar once it was fully extended. As you can see, it wasn't yet fully "pumped up" and its wings were still very floppy. I did successfully transfer it to a lovely flowering plant near the door, and on our next break I came out to find it had flown away.

Both Andrew and I would LOVE to do this again next season, to see if we will see different parts of the process. Very cool experience!

Quick Update

Lots to write about, no time to do it, story of my life.

I haven't told you all about the fun bowling outing with Erin and Lance...and yesterday we had a great time at LumberJack Days in Stillwater, but now I'm prepping to leave for the North Shore in a few hours.

Here is what I do have to update you with before I go.

Andrew has been reading like a son of a gun lately. Yesterday alone he probably hit the books for over 2 hours, and that was squeezed around our day trip to Stillwater. Right now its just Garfield comic books, but he's read three of them, so I'm not gonna complain. Before that he read a book called Tut-Tut and he's been hitting the dangerous book for boys pretty hard too. He set up a little reading fort under my scrapbook table and I'm thrilled. He's close where I can enjoy him while I'm crafting (or staring at the blank page which is lately the case) but he's nice and quiet, except for an occasional giggle.) Heaven!

Here are the process photos of the 2nd Chrysalis being formed. You can see in the second photo that it is still wet. It happened while we were out on a walk yesterday morning. We figure we missed seeing the transformation by a couple of minutes. In the first photo the caterpillar is in the "j" position and you can see its inner juicy greenness ready to burst out. I took this just as we went out the door for our walk, and we were gone about 45 minutes...

Tonight, he seems to be slipping away...

We spent a nice family day together.

We now have two chrysali instead of one.

As I was helping Andrew get ready for bed it hit like an arrow to the heart...time is speeding away from us, he's so tall and independent and moving away from us. My babies are all growing up.

Then my bro sent me the lyrics (and a link) to this song. I of course am a big stinker and like this version better than Joni's. Sorry Joni, I'm a baby music listener and my tastes are more limited than they should be.

Besides, with SCC's child dead this year, the song is even more poignant coming from his lips.



"The Circle Game" -- Joni Mitchell, 1970
Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, when you're older, must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him, Take your time, it won't be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Rebirth

At our house right now we have a monarch caterpillar about to form a chrysalis, and a brand spanking new chrysalis. Andrew's friend Ronan is out of town, so Andrew is babysitting Ronan's caterpillar as well as his own. Last night one of the caterpillars attached himself by a thread that looked like a spiderweb, to the top of the jar. all last night he wiggled and wiggled and this morning when we left the house at 10am he was still wiggling but looked pretty much the same.

When we came home, he was done forming his chrysalis and his skin was laying on the bottom of the jar. Now we wait 7 or 8 days...very exciting!

The other guy is done eating and is starting to weave his tether web. By tomorrow he should be in his chrysalis too.

Here is a link to a great video of what happened today, since we missed it. Unfortunately I can't embed it here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPk1SRk0UOs

Chef Andre

We had a great time yesterday with the extended family. Fun time in the morning with our nephew Danny, and a great time in the afternoon with Erin and Lance.

For dinner we went to Benihana, Lance and Erin's favorite restaurant. Benihana does hibachi style cooking right at your table, and we are hooked! Andrew is so in love with this style of cooking, he came home and began his training to become a Japanese habachi chef. Good times!