More PhotoBooth Love

I was searching through my pictures for something specific (a picture of a friend of mine in her homemade formal dress made out of neckties) and finally came across my other photobooth pictures. Two of them are the classic "strip" format, but the third looks like a polaroid...which reminds me that I have another of the polaroid-looking ones somewhere. The far-right is me and my brother when we were kids. Next to that is me and my old friend Jessica. The last "Polaroid" one is of me, my brother, our friend Alan, and my high school friend Lacey (and for some reason, a small stuffed gorilla).

I am so tempted one of these days to sneak Luna (my dog) into one of the malls with a photobooth and take pictures!

Second Storie

I first heard about second storie from a random little card I found in the bathroom at JoAnne Fabrics. I was intrigued and happy that there is actually a crafty group here in Rochester. I went on the website and signed up for their emails.

I was sent an email today from second storie about how "it's not too late" to apply for a vendor spot at their indie art + craft bonanza event in November. I went to their site to check out the application, and was considering applying, but realized that November 29th & 30th is Thanksgiving weekend, and I'll still be in Cleveland.

Darn. Finally a crafty even in my area I can apply for...and I'm going to be out of town.

New Etsy stuff and some personal meanings

Okay...I have to do a new post because my mom says she "lives for [my] blog" and was disapponted that I hadn't updated since the last entry. So....ummmmm....let's see what's new...

I have more items in my Etsy shop! A few more monsters and an art piece...

You know you want her!

This is my first mixed media art piece. I'm really satisfied with it and almost hate to sell it... but I think it's one of my more sellable art pieces. It's astheticly pleasing without being overly personal...even though I do have a personal meaning behind it.

The phrase "discover a new dream" and the placement of the first box over the figure's lower stomach is linked with an acceptance of the apparant inability of my husband and I to have children...and moving on...and trusting God and waiting for Him to move...because He did this for a reason, no matter how unfair it may seem on the surface sometimes.

With that thought, I'm reminded of that story about the tapestry. The story has many different incarnations. I seem to remember one version involving a little girl sitting underneath her grandmother's needlepoint. Another involves a master tapesry maker in the middle east and his apprentice. I found a site that has a plethora of poems and stories about the picture the weaver, loom, and tapestry relate to God and how we don't always understand because we don't see the finished picture. http://www.tapestrynvelvet.com/view/?pageID=187030 (warning: there is music that comes up with the page. Scoll down to the bottom to turn the music off if it drives you nuts.) I had no idea there were so many different quotes, stories and poems about the same analogy! I wonder who came up with it first?

"A Christian man’s life is lain in the loom of time, to a pattern which he does not see, but God does; and his heart is in the shuttle. On one side of the loom is sorrow,and on the other is joy;and the shuttle, struck alternately by each,flies back and forth carrying the thread,which is white or black as the pattern needs;and in the end, when God shall lift up the finished garment,and all its changing hues shall glance out, it will then appear that the dark and deep colorswere as needful to beauty as the bright and high one.”

--Henry Ward Beecher

And now I've probably made mom cry. Sorry mom!

Jewelry I Dig

I feel like I've been in a creative schlump lately. But I think it's mainly because my workspace is a mess right now. But one thing I have been doing is making necklaces. I found some cool ceramic donut beads at the store (I don't remember if it was Joanne's, AC Moore, or Michaels) and made myself another necklace.

It's so simple to make...the hardest part is putting the clasps on the end of the leather cord (I opt to just tie my own), but I think the charm is in its simplicity. And it has such satisfying results that I have been making more of them as gifts for friends. I've already given away 3 of them this month for friends' birthdays. Now I need more beads (I love these donut beads!). I guess it's off to the craft stores tomorrow! (before my coupons expire!) I may start selling them in my Etsy shop as well.

Speaking of jewelry and Etsy shops...these are some cool jewelry pieces I saw on the Etsy Gift Guide...

A Boy Named Sue bracelet by monaco

Woodgrain Ring by honeybee

Rock On custom necklace by J2Jewelry

Handmade Christmas

I know some people may think it's "too early" to be thinking about Christmas gifts, but when you want to give your in-laws their gifts when you see them at Thanksgiving, AND you want to handmake them...now is a pretty good time.

Last year I saw that "Pledge Handmade" button/badge (see right) on a lot of the craft sites I browse. But I'm not wanting to handmake gifts out of any philosophy or "stick it to the man" feeling towards consumerism/commercialism...I just like how satisfying and meaningful giving a handmade gift can be...and also more economical.

Handmade items for kids and women are usually pretty easy. But what stumps me is what to do for a handmade gift for a man...more specifically, my father-in-law & brother-in-law. I tried looking at the Gift Guide at Etsy...but nothing really struck me. Anything that did, I either didn't have the skills to make (metalcraft/woodcraft/leathercraft...all the manly crafts for the manly gifts), or it was too expensive to buy from the Etsy merchant selling it.

Maybe I'll just forget it and get them gift cards. :P

Maybe I should forget it for now and get knitting and/or painting if I'm going to finish any of the gifts I'm making!

RaNdOm SuRvEy

1.What was your favorite summertime activity as a kid? Playing outside with my brother
2.What was your first pet's name? My first dog's name was Ayuda (Spanish for "help"), my first cat's name was Tony (the tiger)
3.What model car did you learn to drive on? A 1994 Dodge Van & a 1995 Dodge Intrepid
4.What's your proudest moment as an adult? Getting married (many times in my youth I never thought it would happen!)
5.What are your top 3 hobbies? Painting, sewing monsters, scrapbooking
6.where do you call home? My apartment in Rochester, New York
7.where did you call home at age 11 (or any age)? A house in Mulvane, KS/a house in Red Creek, NY.
8.What word do you love to say? Yay!
9.where do you go to relax? My bed or couch
10.Who was your first kiss? My husband
11.Least favorite food? Baked Beans
12.Least favorite subject in school? Math

PhotoBooth Love

So I recently discovered the blog Scrumdillydilly... yet another quirky, crafty blog. One of my favorite things that she does is her Photo Booth Fridays...which reminds me of my own love of old school photobooths. So in honor of my new favorite crafty blog, here are two of my own sadly-oh-too-few photobooth picture strips.

The one on the left is my first one ever (with my parents in June 1983 at Sylvan Beach...according to my mother's handwriting on the back). It's one of my favorite family photos...#1: becasuse I was such a darn cute 1 year old baby!...#2 because I love my dad's crazy smile in the last frame! The second frame I think is the best picture though...because I'm actually smiling at the camera instead of looking confused.

The one on the right is the last one I took (with my husband at Big Fun in Cleveland when we went to visit his family in August). I wish it would have developed better and not had that streak in the middle.

This is a note stuck on the outside of the booth that I thought was too funny not to document.

I know I have two other photobooth pictures somewhere that I can't find right now. One is a color one with me & my brother when we were kids (I look about 8 or 9). The other is with my friend Jessica from a couple years ago (2001? 2002?) . That one is in color as well. I don't know if it was a classic "dip & dunk" one or a digital one, because the picture quality was very good. I'll have to dig those out and post them one of these days.

Check out PhotoBooth.net to find a booth near you! There are 3 listed at Sylvan Beach, so I don't know which one my picture was taken at. There are 3 in Rochester (well, 2 in Rochester...1 in Victor). I may have to start my own photobooth tradition...if even only once a year. Maybe twice...birthday and anniversary.

My Fellow Monstermakers: KittyPinkStars

This week's monstermaker is KittyPinkStars. I've come accross her a couple times on my crafty blog internet travels. She deserves a post.

I love her quirky little characters. It almost seems unfair to call her a "monstermaker" since her creations are so sweet looking. They make me want to consume large amounts of sugary treats...kind of like how I always seem to crave chocolate when watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the new Tim Burton & Johnny Depp one...Gene Wilder creeps me out).

Kitty makes most of her little guys out of socks (a woman after my own heart! GO SOCKS!), and also knits some of them. And of course...she has an Etsy shop if you want one of her sweets-loving critters for your very own.

One day I may attempt to knit a monster...but for now my knitting skills are limited to to simple scarves and fingerless gloves/gauntlets...maybe a hat on the Knifty Knitter loom.

Anyway...her blog is fun. She is "pink,kooky,obsessed by all things japanese,sweet treats,kittens,knitting random things! Oh and making sock creatures!" She seems like a very fun & quirky gal. I think we'd get along well if we ever met. Her most recent posts are about the Wreck This Journal...which I would love to do myself someday. Seeing what she did with hers inspires me. I just have a hard time justifying spending money on a journal to destroy. But I suppose that's the point...to break oneself of OCD-like perfectionism. I have the same habit she does of having a compulsion to buy blank journals, but then not writing in them for fear of "ruining" them.

Yeah...I need that Wreck This Journal. Will someone buy it for me for Christmas?

*Both pictures are from KittyPinkStars' blog & flickr pool*

Playing with Words

I just saw a link to Wordle.net through a blog post at iHanna.com. You can write your own text in, or use a website for Wordle to take the words from. I was intrigued and made the image below using my blog's url for the imported words:

I tried making different versions by playing with the color scheme and font, but none of them so far have come out as satisfying as the first.

I was curious how it chooses which words to be bigger, because the same words were big each time I did it...but then I read "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text." So apparantly I've been talking a lot about Impressionism,Kids, Paint, and Class this Week.

iHanna mentioned in her blog about how she loves how the words randomly fall together and could be sort of poetry starters. This was the first one I noticed in mine..."Plush homeschooler next enables childhood". Hee hee! That just makes me laugh! Who sees any more funny ones in there? (I'd try clicking the thumbnail below so you can see the actual sized image at Wordle) Leave me a comment telling me which ones you see and make me laugh some more!

Click the thumbnail for a larger view on Wordle

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EDIT: I just found this one...check it out!

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Leftover Class Paint & My Sketchbook

Teaching this homeschooler group art class has actually done wonders for my own painting as far as spontaneity (thank you Impressionists!).

After almost every class so far, I have sat down for about 5 minutes and "sketched" with the leftover paint in the kid's pallets before I wash them out. I gave them way too much paint the first time we painted and there was so much left over...and it kills me to wash so much paint down the drain! So, while I don't ever use up all of it, I figure I'd put it to some good use.

Impressionism Week 1:

Finishing it at home...

The original picture: (it's from Windows Vista's sample pictures)

Impressionism Week 2:

Post-Impressionism Week 1:

My version of Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night". I did this one last night to prepare for today's class...because this will be the kids' project today: to recreate "Starry Night".

My Fellow Monstermakers: Happycloud Thunderhead

I just saw this monstermaker on The Needle...Happycloud Thunderhead. He makes hats & puppets as well as regular monster plush. The hats are so cute! Well...it's all cute.

He has an etsy shop too.

~Sigh~...I need to start monstermaking again.

Six Random Facts...

Ack! I've been tagged! Thanks Missie! Now I have to think!

Six random facts huh? I'll give a picture to go with each one just to make it interesting...

1. I'd never seen a real live praying mantis until this past Sunday at the Farm.

2. I have a thing for all things Celtic.

3. I have a visual "obsession" with eyes

4. I own a corset.
5. My screen name "blufuzzymonster" was originally an homage to my favorite childhood Muppet, Grover. But I like Sully from Monsters Inc too!

6. I once dyed the ends of my hair purple (but the first attempt turned out a magenta-pink! Definitely go with Manic Panic if you're dying your hair funky colors!)

So...Do I gotta tag people now?

Um...I'll tag Rachel & Mom (and anyone else who reads my blog!). Am I allowed to tag Missie back? Or is there a no-tag-backs rule?

Art Class Weeks 2 & 3: Impressionism

I know I skipped last week's Art Class update...but anyone close to me knows last week was a little crazy.

Last Monday I taught the kids about the Impressionists, focusing on Claude Monet (How could I do anyone else? "Monet" is almost synonomous with "Impressionist"!). After giving my shpiel, I had the kids pick out landscape pictures and then go to town with the paint. This past week, I had them finish up their pieces. Here are a few of them...

I love this kid's sunset.

I loved this kid's piece too. He nailed the Impressionistic feel of the brushstrokes. He seemed a bit embarassed when I told him how great I thought it was and told the other kids to take a look at it.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."

Next week...Post Impressionism and Vincent Van Gogh.

Monster Story Contest

I just saw this book Woolyhoodwinks vs. the Dark Patch via an article on the Craft: Blog.

Seeing this book reminded me of an idea I had a while ago, that was actually also suggested recently by one of my friends on Facebook...to make a storybook using my monsters as characters.

So, I want to hold a contest. If I am going to make a storybook...I need a story. That's where you, my readers come in (however few of you there may be). Give me an idea for a story. Come up with it yourselves or a fun idea may be to ask your kids. The one I like best I will attempt to make into a storybook...and may give out a prize for the best story as well!

"The best kind of prize is a sur-prize!" (extra points if you can tell me where I got this quote from!)

Bedtime Stories on Tape

I was reading an article on Real Simple magazine's website, and saw this tip that was a blast from the past:

"If you travel a lot on business, record yourself reading your children’s favorite bedtime stories; they can listen to your voice as they flip through the book. Finish each night’s reading with a countdown of the days until you’re back home with them."

I used to have a cassette tape my mother made for me when I was little of her reading my favorite bedtime stories like "No One Knows Where Gobo Goes" and singing "Kumbya" at the end. I wish I knew whatever happened to that tape.

I still have this book though.

Teaching my first art class...

So...my mother commented that she'd been waiting all day to read a blog post about how my class went yesterday (she's my personal online stalker!...but better her than some creepy maniac)...so here it is.

I am teaching a class for a local homeschooling group called LEAH that meets once a week. Most classes are art/craft, music, foreign language, or phys ed/ sports related (if I was a kid, I'd definitely take the archery class!). My class is called "Art Styles and Movements"

"We will be learning about various art movements/styles and some of the artists that were a part of them. For each movement, students will create their own projects inspired by the artists who painted in that particular style. We will be covering Art Movements such as Impressionism, Cubism, and Realism, and artists such as Monet, Picasso, and DaVinci."

This week, my focus was on introductions and DaVinci. I focused mostly on DaVinci's sketches. The classroom assignment was to practice sketching their hand, and their homework every week is to bring in at least one sketch they've done (either from life or from a picture).

I told the kids about how drawing their hand was a good subject to practice sketching, since you always have your hand with you, and I told them about how my art teacher in high school told us that if you want to go to an art school for college, you have to have at least one hand study in your portfolio. I showed them a sketch I did for a painting I did back in high school for that portfolio class, and the finished painting...my "Surreal Hand Study in Blue". The kids said what everyone else says about the painting...that it looks "creepy" or like the dead rising (I also have gotten "people buried by an avalanche" before). I never had an intention for the piece to portray that kind of morbid or creepy feeling when I did it. I just wanted to do a hand study in a surrealistic style.

I have 12 students, ages 8-12. I went around the room and had the kids tell their name, why they took the class, and if they'd done any art before. The two main answers I got to the "why did you take this class?" question was either because "it sounded cool/I like art" or "My mom made me sign up for it." Okay...no pressure to make the class fun and interesting.

Next week we are going to be learning about Monet and Impressionism and working with paint and color...so it should be more interesting.

Emotional Paintings with Bamboo

Okay it's been a lot of "life" and not a lot of "crafty" lately...so here are a couple paintings I've done this week.

These are different from my "typical" style...but I like it. It's actually very steeped in the emotions I was feeling at the time when doing each painting. The first one was frustration, the second was peace. It was very theraputic. The second piece was done on a piece of wood. I purposefully did not prime it in order for the woodgrain to show through. I like how the grain looks like water.

New Puppy!

So...here is the new addition to our family!

Her name is Luna. She's a 9 month old, female, dachshund mix puppy. Our friend/landlord recently gave us the go-ahead to get an apartment-appropriate dog if we wanted. So CJ was searching Petfinder.com and Craigslist the next day looking for dachshunds. I was surprised how soon he started looking, and found a dog...but he told me he's wanted a dog for a long time. Both of us have grown up with dogs, but this is our first dog for both of us that is ours and not our parents'.

So after CJ found Luna online and talked on the phone with the owner, we went last night out to Palmyra to see the dog. The owners were really sweet, and I felt bad for taking their beloved dog away from them...but they were moving and had to get rid of the dog...so I think they were thankful that they knew she was going to a good home. My parents came with us...they are dog lovers and wanted to come along to see their "grand-dog". So I guess that would that make King (Mom & Dad's dog)her...uncle? I can't wait to introduce her to King. I just hope she doesn't get too scared or intimidated. King is a sweetheart, but he's a big boy (that's him at the right).

That little green thing she's tugging on is a "bone" I made out of braided scrap pieces of fleece. She loves it! She's chewing away on it as I type!
She is a hyper little thing though. She loves to play tug of war and to chase the ball. And she is very clingy right now. She follows me around "like a puppy" (HA! Now I know why they say that phase!) and cries and yipes whenever I leave her in a room by herself. CJ was saying he thought she "liked [me] better", but I think she likes us equally. She was whining and wanering around the house when he left for work this morning. I think she was looking for him! She's such a baby...and it's going to be hard for me not to spoil her. She's kind of going to be like our "child" until either God moves miraculously or leads us to adopt (which I want to do someday, but we want to wait until we feel God is leading us to...it's in His timing).

I guess it's very important to be firm and consistant in training them (just like training a child!). CJ found a very good site about dachshunds for reference http://www.dachworld.com/

We're going to PetSmart or Petco tonight to get her some rawhide bones and a harness and some other stuff (like a collar that's not so girly-sparkly puppy-bling like). And we'll probably be taking her to the vet next week (she's not spayed yet) and get all the technical dog liscense stuff done.