Weekend Busy-ness: Due vs Do, Deux Jours, Not Enough, Mon Dieu!

Here are a few of the artist trading cards (ATCs) or some call them ACEOs: Art Cards, Editions and Originals that I made for two swaps in the Marie Antoinette Mail Art group. I am just loving this new group I was recently lucky enough to be juried into. I made a dozen all original, all handmade (no digital skills for me) cards Saturday. These are off in the mail Monday, and then I need to get to work painting 17 4" square book pages for the group's fat book page swap. I sketched some ideas last night. Not sure if I want to go with hand-drawn, hand-painted pages or my usual collage with embellishment.

I really feel like I've been busy all weekend, yet I've accomplished little else except to make a list of all the art and writing projects I have due or want to do.

I saw the absolute most darling paper mache ever here on Pam Garrison's blog, so I've been dying to try to make something like these. I also have the doll heads and fat canvasses, so I want to make a dolly canvas like Lisa Kaus here or Beth Quinn here. I have a great sprinkler head just waiting for me to make a robot like this. And I have a new blank watercolor journal so I can journal like Pam does here. I also want to draw girls like Suzi Blu so I joined her Ning group to take a class.

I packed up some Earthenwood beads like these for a trade with Lorelei for this bracelet from her Etsy. She is so talented! I have several things from her shop. I also upended my own Etsy shop. Take a peek. And I am drooling over my recent Etsy purchases of this darling birdie from Michigan, swimmer-person from the U.K. and Steampunk canvas from the oh-so-talented DeBriNa in Cali.

Today I squeezed in a little time to properly dress and coif my new, unnamed Blythe, which I blogged about here. One of my Blythe dolls is going to Aunt Maggie for a face-up.

And over the weekend I tried to work a bit on the first five pages of a manuscript that is due by July 3 for a writing workshop, where I can not only have it evaluated by an author or editor, but I can pitch it to an agent, and I can enter it in a contest. That would be the Midwest Writers Workshop; can't wait! If only weekends were made of five days, and work, deux.

Swaps bring out the best in friends and art

Random swaps sometimes bring the nicest surprises. Recently I was assigned to swap a spring artist trading card (ATC) with Rachel Christy in our Flickr group that I help moderate, The Faerie Zine. I was not familiar with Rachel or her work or our other partner for that matter, Patty Porter.

When I checked out Rachel's work on her Etsy site, I noticed she embellishes trinket boxes. Like me, she covers them with paper, tissue, glitter, baubles and other goodies. So we agreed to swap a paper box as well. Ironically, our box swap resulted in nearly similar boxes. I sent the pink box above shown with the Cabbage Queen ATC I made for her; she sent turquoise, and we both used a face image from Sandra Evertson.

But lucky me! Rachel was generous enough to send not one but two! boxes. Today was a great sunny day in the Midwest to photograph these. In the heart-shaped, mermaid-embellished box she tucked a bunch of ephemera/art supplies to keep me creating. Visit her Etsy shop for more goodies like these.

Spring-y Art Adventures

The darling chick and pussywillow ATC above arrived from eclecticarchivist on Flickr as part of The Faerie Zine Spring Bunny & Chick ATC swap. Patty not only made the darling ATC, she made the accompany greeting card on which it arrived. That, along with the earlier posted ATC from rachelchristydesigns, were my receipts.

I made The Lettuce Queen ATC pictured above, and also The Cabbage Queen, who is all haughty now because I forgot to photograph here. Supplies for my ATCs were almost entirely from Paula Montgomery of Paula's Kit Club, which I highly recommend. Be sure to read Enzo's report card on her site, and check out the bracelet kit offerings from Kaari Meng of French General.

The crown -shaped paper trinket is just that, a crown- a little cheer-up surprise I received in the mail from the queen herself, Ms. Lisa Kettell. Whether I will wear it remains to be seen, but it's more fun to admire her amazing papercraft skills anyway.

And last but not least the charm bracelet is the product of the Arte du Blythe group on Yahoo! Miss Vicky hosted this swap which had such well-known players as Ms. Lisa as well as Maija Lepore, Angela Hoffman, Sandy Camarda and Kim Tedrow. Another "not sure I will wear it" thingy, but always fun to look at.

A breath of spring arrives!

Just when I thought another snow flurry in Indiana in March would leave me stark raving mad, this lovely little breath of spring arrived in the mail from Rachel for The Faerie Zine Bunny/Spring ATC swap.

Rachel makes the loveliest boxes and sells them in her Etsy store. We are also doing a 1:1 box swap- can't wait! Gotta get my cards and boxes done this weekend and will post pics. My other ATC parner is Patty, Eclecticarchivist.

And I really can't complain. Although it is gloomy today, it was sunny and 60+F degrees yesterday. Just a little tease.

Also another bright spot received are the two blog awards (top right) that I received last night from Lisa Kettell, who is one to always share in her bountiful art tidings.

On the ZNE Convenzione Countdown

Since I need to wake up before 4 a.m. Thursday to drive myself to the airport for the ZNE Convenzione http://www.znecon.com/, my internal clock must have been practicing this morning when I woke up at 2 a.m. After 90 minutes of tossing and turning and feeding the cat and getting a drink and all the usual stuff, I finally gave up at 3:30 and started making artist trading cards to take to California.

As is tradition at art workshops and conventions, attendees bring small pieces of art, such as ATCs or charms, or little packets of goodies and supplies to trade. I had been procrastinating, thinking I just wouldn't mess with it. But, I woke up thinking how much I love to get other people's stuff, so I figured I'd better do my part. New stuff is always inspiration for new art.

Since I will be meeting Kris Hubick of Retro Cafe Art http://krishubick.blogspot.com/ for the first time and since she bought my very first ever ATC "Free Bird," I was inspired to go all retro (by a year) on myself and make some cards with my own bird and cat doodles on Bingo card backgrounds. Even though Kris is in my state, it has taken us more than a year and 2,000 miles to actually meet! She is one of the ZNE http://www.zneart.com/ original moderators. I guess that makes me a ZNE un-original moderator!

Kris was one of the first people tabbed, and rightly so, by ZNE creator and founder Chelise Stroud-Hery http://www.chelise.typepad.com/, the smiling face above with the famous ZNE tattoo. It couldn't be more perfect that this HUGE first-ever ZNE Convenzione falls on Chel's birthday week. She has worked tirelessly to grow ZNE for more than three years, and now she is not only bringing the convention to culmination with artists and instructors from around the country, but is also working on the 2009 convention!

Now that my trades are done, all I have to do is pack and get myself there. Chel, meanwhile, will probably have to have several small cows between now and Friday. Hopefully, she will be flying high from Tuesday's birthday celebration. I'll be flying high, for real, on Thursday to get picked up by Miss Vicky http://www.cut-it-up.com/ and become a Cali girl for a few days. I'm taking a class by the talented California artist Gina Gabriell http://elevenmorning.com/. Gina is opening a studio called Tangerine in Pleasanton, and we will have our class in her studio space and lunch outside at her home. We are making darling paper clay music boxes. I hope mine looks half as cute as hers (shown at top) when I'm done. Glue gun is packed.

Sunday, Storms, Sweets, Siblings and Swaps

You might wonder about this hodge podge of photos. You might ask how I will possibly tie them together. Loosely, is the answer. The terrible weather pretty much all weekend did not dampen my creativity. In fact, I was already in the basement working on pages for the ZNE http://zneart.com/ Zaftig fat book for the annual convention http://znecon.com/, so I didn't even have to stop what I was doing to take shelter, as advised by radio and television. The sky looked quite creepy, as evidenced above, both Saturday and Sunday. But no matter, as I was still smiling from the clear blue skies and fresh air of northern Michigan, having arrived back home Friday night after 600 miles, 18 holes of golf and several hours of meetings, all at the Grand Lodge at Boyne Mountain, near Petosky, MI, at the far end of the lower peninsula.

My very first sight, walking into the house, was Larry (and his twin sibling, Lester), apparently quite happy to see me. I think he is saying, "hi, mom!" Or, he is yawning, which would indicate boredom (surely not) or sleepiness (well, okay, probably).

Art had to wait until Sunday as there was a wedding to attend on Saturday. However, I still managed to get 30 pages done, all originals, using my "sweet treats" kit that had just arrived from http://www.paulaskitclub.com/. The pages are 4" x 4". I'll get a completed book back with 25 different pages when I go to the convention in August.

I also made a few artist trading cards for a swap with a fellow Flickr-ite. 'ATheeC' has the cutest babushka or Russian nesting doll cards on flickr. Here's a link to one that is coming my way http://www.flickr.com/photos/atheec-martine/2587084422/. Posted here are some that I am sending to her.

ATC Mini Marathon Ends at 25

It all started with the water softener. So, when it went off at 3:30 a.m. a couple days ago and with Larry the cat bugging me to get up and do something-feed me! play! turn on lights! get up, mommy! anything!- I decided not to fight them (Larry & the w.s.) and started making Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) to take to Art and Soul, Hampton, for swaps.

I already made 39 charms to swap, but after reading everyone's blogs, I realized I'd probably need about 100 items. First I thought I would punch inchies and make bags of those. I went and bought a one-inch punch. Any idea how many inchies it takes to fill a teeny tiny baggy? Gazillions. I tried to enlist family members to punch. No dice.

So when I woke up early, the ATC light bulb went off and I set about systematically making cards. I say systematically because I usually make one at a time. This time, however, I began by gathering the collage images and background papers I wanted to use. Some of the places I got my images: http://www.hannahgrey.com for Paper Relics and other sheets, http://www.artchixstudio.com, http://www.geminiangelart.com, Lisa's Altered Art on ebay, http://www.teeshamoore.com, http://shabbycottagestudio.com and http://thealtereddiva.com. First I sorted, then I did backgrounds, then I cut and pasted, then I embellished with gel pens, then I did all my glittering at once, applied all my labels at one time and bagged them all. I hope they are well received for swaps. I'm pretty happy with how colorful they are-even if the did cause me three nights in a row of little or no sleep!