Winter: an altered book

I finally finished my first altered book. I made it as a tribute to a very beautiful Tori Amos song Winter, which you should listen to while you read this post. I started with a children's board book. These are very easy for beginner altered artists. I picked some of my favorite song lyrics and created a page for each line. I tried to pick lyrics that gave a flavor of the song.


Winter: a tribute to Tori Amos
The snowflakes, flowers, and "winter" text are all embossed stamps. The spine is covered with a metal screen ribbon.


"i get a little warm in my heart"
This is a simple tear collage. I collaged on light card stock.


"when i think of winter"
The background picture of the bird is a picture I took and altered in Photoshop. The blue leaves are from a magazine, which is where most of my collage images come from.


"boys get discovered as winter melts"
Image of boys behind the peeling image and an embossed stamp to try to cover the Cliniqe logo.


"flowers competing for the sun"
The background image is again one I took and then manipulated in Photoshop. I printed it on grey cardstock. The "film" is just cut from a magazine, not actual film.


"skating around the truth of who i am"
The background image is a picture I took of Brian and altered in Photoshop. I printed that on grey cardstock and added the image. This was my first page. I got the inspiration for it while driving home from work, listening to Winter, which I did a lot of while making this project.


"but i know dad the ice is getting thin"
The background image is of long icecicles, which I found on the internet and altered in Photoshop. That was printed on grey cardstock, and then I stapled parchment paper on top to give it a frosty look. It didn't photograph well.


"hair is grey and the fires are burning"
This point of the song gets a little intense, so I wanted the imagery to relfect that. Both of these images came from old National Geographics, which are wonderful for collaging (by the way).


"so many dreams on the shelf"
I painted the page black with acrylic paint and then glued this image onto it. I really feel like I ripped off this neat image. It was and ad for some kind of alcohol, but the image is so pretty. If I were trying to sell this book, it might be a problem.


"he says, when you gonna make up your mind"
Nothing special here. Just paper glued together.


"when you gonna love you as much as i do"
Again, very simple. Paper and glue.


"'cause things are gonna change so fast"
I made this when I was drunk as a skunk. The line connecting the butterfly stages are star sequins, which are constantly falling out. I sort of like the change metaphor (I'm not very good with metaphors).


"all the white horses have gone ahead"
Not my height of creativity, but at some point I just wanted to finish the dang thing. The glue wrinkling was unfortunate. I'm not sure what was going on here, but the glue stick worked much better than the white glue. Ah well.


"i tell you that i'll always want you near"
These two pages are shamelessly stolen from diamond jewelry ads. I used silver sharpy to trace over the white lines (which is hard to tell from the pictures). Then obviously I covered the jewelry with the earth picture. These pages were also tragically wrinkled.


"you say that things change"
So sad.


"my dear"
The last words of the song are "my dear," so it seemed appropriate to stamp that on the back, which is hard to see from the picture. The snowflake stamp is embossed. The paper is just crinkled and glued on.

So this was pretty fun. I don't feel like I've found my craft niche, but I have more projects up my sleeve. :)

Thanks for reading!!

See my big girl shoes

As a general rule, I hate to presume that my personal life would be interesting to other people. I do not have great wisdom to impart. I wish. However, I enjoy reading about other people’s experiences in this crazy, mixed up world, so maybe you do too. So with insecurities on the table, I’ll get on with my blog already.

Have you ever been downtown in a major city in the morning while everyone is going to work? And you see all the young professionals, probably just graduated, walking to work, looking all cute? When I see these guys, I always think, “That’s what I want.” They could be going to jobs that they hate and be coming from crappy apartments that they share with people they don’t like because they can’t afford to live alone, but none of that matters because I can only see the glory of it all. I only see them waking up and making breakfast in the morning with a significant other, maybe reading the news; walking to a respectable little job, not a career, but a good starting point; doing something all day that sounds much more interesting when explained to friends than it really is to do all day; and then walking back home and making dinner and talking about our days or maybe catching a happy hour with friends.

And maybe this type of life is novel and exciting to me only because I haven’t done it yet. I have been a student since I was 5 years old (the last 21 years of my life for those of you wondering). This has been continuous except for summer breaks. And I am so grateful for my education, which I have single-handedly taken my time getting through. My boyfriend jokes sometimes that plenty of people take 9 years to graduate – they’re called doctors. Haha.

But here I am, in my final year of my master’s program, the end in sight. Part of me is thrilled to be finished with lectures and papers and ridiculous schedules, and part of me is terrified to face the real world without having my “student excuse.” It’s a good reason to have accomplished so little by age 26.

Luckily for me, I have a nice little transition year. I am taking classes, but I also have a field placement (internship) 3 days a week. I also work (for money) 2 days a week. But this field placement is the perfect thing to get me sort of ready for the real world with the security of still being in school.

And yesterday was my very first day. I had to drive instead of walk, which took away from that romantic image I have, but my parking garage is about 10 blocks away, so I could still pretend I was walking there. I was wearing a new outfit and feeling pretty good until I hit some serious traffic.

So by the time I parked, I had to practically run to get there on time, which would have been fine except that I was wearing new shoes (real cute ones). They were hurting my heels pretty bad, but I anticipated this and packed 2 bandaids. Then I noticed that the bottom of my pant leg felt wet, and when I looked to see what I stepped in, I saw that my heels were a bloody mess. No time now! I hobbled into the old, stately building and tried to find my way through the sea of identical cubicles.

I eventually found the right one, and everything was OK after that. I ducked into the bathroom and cleaned up my feet and legs. Of course, by the end of the day, I had to actually tape the bandaids to my heels and my feet were still messed up pretty bad.

But I learned about all the very important-sounding things I would be doing this year with the UMB Office of Community and Government Affairs – see how official that sounds? And I will have my own desk and email and everything!

I can barely believe that in a year from now, I will have my own little job, and maybe I can get up and eat breakfast, and walk to work, and then come home and have dinner, just like a real girl. I can’t wait!

And just a note to anyone who noticed that I haven’t blogged for about 2 months (thank you for noticing). Despite my best efforts to have a nice relaxing summer, I got so crazy busy with this job I took with the Fund for the Public Interest. And during the height of the craziness, I moved to a new apartment, which is pretty cool. You should come visit sometime. So I still need to finish 4 pages in my altered book, which I hope to do before school gets crazy busy, so I can post pictures of that on here too.

And then I don’t know what’s after that. Maybe I’ll lay off the crafts and just write blogs, which take less time. Anyway, thanks for reading!

Stamp Embossing

So I recently learned about embossing stamps. I've never been real into stamps because they seem too... unoriginal, but I've learned that stamps can be used in really creative ways, particularly in card-making and decorative crafts.

To experiment with embossing stamps, I created this picture.


I started with three cards I got in the mail. The Red Cross sent me three identical cards reminding me that it was time for me to give blood, one from each of the donor centers I have visited. All this waste needed to be reconciled somehow, so I decided to use it as art. I painted the cards black with acrylic paint and then stamped them with some stamps I liked.

To emboss the stamps you need pigment ink, embossing powder, and heat. You basically dump the embossing powder on the wet stamp so that it sticks. Pigment ink dries slower, which means more powder sticks. Then when you add heat, the powder sort of melts, leaving a nice embossed image. I read that a hair dryer would generate enough heat, but this was not the case for me. You can buy special tools designed for stamp embossing, but that isn't really my style. I was able to get the same effect by holding the powdered image over the stove. Just be careful with the paper.

And that's it! I bought a frame already matted for three images because I was feeling lazy and found one for a really good price at Joann's.

Now I'm working on my first altered book, which pays homage to one of my all-time favorite Tori Amos songs. This will be a longer-term project, so a post may not materialize for several days... maybe weeks. It's pretty fun, though.

Quicky Love Picture

It's true, I'm in love



So for a quicky craft, I made this little visual ode. My boyfriend won this shadow box for me at bingo. There's actually a little clip glued on the inside of the glass under the terrible glare from my flash. That's what's holding the little picture in place.

I started with a picture of me and my boyfriend from a while ago. This was after coming home from a bingo night, which seemed appropriate. I messed around with it in photoshop to give it a more artistic touch, but you can't really tell from the photo.

I printed this image on card stock. Then I added the blue heart image, which I just cut out of a magazine. I framed our heads with microglitter (which is extra sparkly) and glue.

The little metal love thinger is something I had hanging out in my craft clutter. I added that last to go over the glitter frame.

Flowery Shadowbox

This was a fun craft I did on a lazy weekend afternoon.

First, I found a cardboard box that would work as a shadowbox and then spray painted it.

Then I cut out flowers and leaves from origami paper I had. The flowers are very simple, four-petal flowers with a dot of glitter glue for the centers.

Then I found a background I liked. I used a page from a biology text book with tree leaves, but anything would have worked. You can actually see that it says Unit Four, which I thought added a little character. I used a regular spray adhesive to affix the background into the box.

Then I gathered some sticks. I just picked some off of a forsythia bush on a walk around my neighborhood. I got a general idea for a layout and then I hot-glued the sticks into the box. Then I just hot-glued the flowers and leaves where they fit best.

The biggest problem I have with the finished product is that I don't have a way to hang it, but it would be simple enough to add something to the back so that it could be hung on a small nail. The good thing is that because it's so three-dimensional, it actually just stands on its own, as you can see in the photo (which is not a great picture).

I hope you all are staying cool and enjoying your summer! I know I am!

Googly eyed Jesus

Much like the word 'monkey,' googly eyes have the ability to make anything funny.

Menacing picture of Jesus? Instantly hilarious.

Trash to Treasure: Old Window

I have a really fun craft for anyone who happens to find an old window in their possession (it happens to the best of us). I got my old window from a freecycle list. If you still haven't checked out freecycling, I would seriously suggest it. Even if you don't want weird junk like old windows, there are very useful and practical things on there too.

Here is my window:



I left my window as is in terms of the chipping paint because I like the way it looks. I just washed it really well. You could repaint, spray paint, sand down to wood, whatever.

There are about a million and a half interesting things to do with an old window, but I decided I wanted use it like a picture frame for one big picture... kinda like you were looking out of a window. To get a picture large enough to put the whole thing behind the window pane, I found an image on the internet (any size is fine) and then I used the Rasterbator to make it the size I wanted.


The Rasterbator rasterizes your images and turns it into dots. You can decide what sized dots you want. This is a really fun tool that you can use to make large wall posters out of any image without loosing quality. It's very easy to use, but you should follow the printing directions closely so that your image prints seamlessly. I also suggest printing these at work or school so that you don't have to use your ink.

You're going to want to measure your window, so you know how many pages you need to print. Careful planning and measuring will save you a lot of work later.




So you can see that I have a straight ruler and a tape measurer because I wanted to be as precise as possible. The image prints onto several sheets of paper and then I taped them together and cut out the right sizes for the panes.

And then I hung it up.

Walk... you know, outside

I found this interesting thing on the internet that I wanted to share with you. It's a tool that allows you to map walks and view other people's walking routes. Well, I say walking because that's what I'm doing, but there are all kinds of routes: running, hiking, uh... other things. Anyway, to give you a preview of what these things look like, I mapped a route I actually walk in my neighborhood. It's an especially good dog walking route, which is what I labeled it.



Unnecessary internet tools are actually one of my guilty pleasures. I know that more often than not, they waste more time than the minuscule benefit you receive by using them, but somehow I feel more productive if I've used a computer in the process. It's dumb, I know, but I'm a product of my generation. What can I say? I am not above the influence of media.

I also wanted to say that I am not advertising for mapmywalk.com. I sort of think it's neat even though I'll probably never go back to the site. I have this tendency to sound like an advertiser when I blog, but I swear that's just my natural enthusiasm.

This is a pretty lame post, but I've been averaging about 1 blog a month, and April is slipping away faster than I can bring myself to blog, and with finals around the corner, I was afraid I would miss the opportunity entirely. I plan to do lots of fun stuff this summer, so just hold on to your hats.

So get off the internet and take a walk, run, or hike already! It's beautiful out there (unless you're reading this in the winter, in which case you're too late. You missed the nice weather!).
If at any point while reading this you asked yourself if I had some less-fun task I should be doing (like, I don't know, writing a paper), the answer is yes.

Take care!
Shanna

Trash-to-Art Project

What could be more beautiful than turning trash into art?

Today I made some coasters out of CDs. It probably took about 1.5 hours, not including drying time.

I used CDs that were otherwise trash. I primed and spray painted them.

Then I found some tiny pictures in a magazine to put in the center holes. Since these will be used as coasters and will probably get wet, I laminated the pictures with some laminating sheets I had. You could probably just use packaging tape, though. You could also skip the pictures all together. I find them entertaining.

I covered the backs of the CDs with duct tape. This added a little more structure to the pictures, and it gave the backs a little traction, so they won't slide all over the place.

Here's an action shot:


And here are close-ups of the centers:


These were all t-shirt designs in a catalog we got in the mail. The top, middle one is two frogs drinking beer, and the top, right is a woman standing on top of a mountain.

I'd love to see what kind of projects you guys are up to. Feel free to post a link or description as a comment. Thanks for reading!

Public bathrooms are sexist.

I generally don't align myself too strongly with feminism - not because gender inequalities don't exist. They do. And they are devastating. However, I find that the scope of feminism tends to be too narrow, leaving out huge numbers of people faced with equally distressing circumstances. I'm not denying that women face a unique sort of discrimination, but I think that it's important to recognize all inequality - particularly the types that hit all demographics (especially minorities) such as economic inequality, which is hugely debilitating and rarely seriously confronted.

That being said, public bathrooms are sexist. This may seem like a petty issue (and it is), but I think that it's so fundamental of a concept it really upsets me. I have two main issues with women's bathrooms.

The first is that people always comment about how messy women's bathrooms are, deducing that women are inherently more messy or careless than men. I won't argue that women's bathrooms aren't messy - I've been in them. Of course, I don't spend a whole lot of time in the men's bathrooms for comparison, but I'm willing to believe ours really are the funkier of the two. The problem I have with this is that people seem to forget that women take children into the bathroom with them much more often than men do. For those of you who have never taken a small child in there with you, not only do children need to be closely attended to (making you less concerned about whether your paper towel landed in the trashcan) but also kids are very messy. The combination between poor coordination and natural (constant) exuberance can be explosive. So cut it out with the messy bathroom bit.

But that issue really pales in comparison to my concerns about the actual structures of women's bathrooms. Have you ever noticed that the lines to women's bathrooms are so long that women will actually jump ship and use the men's bathroom, which is often completely empty? I know I've done this on more than one occasion. Did you ever think that maybe they should make our bathrooms bigger? I have. I read a study once that found that women take three times longer just to go to the bathroom than men. This does not include the time we take to fix our hair or complain about our boyfriends. This is pure bathroom essentials. Doesn't it follow that our bathrooms should be about three times bigger? And let's not even get started with what throwing kids into the mix does to these figures.

I'm serious about these complaints. Logically, women's bathrooms should be larger. But getting back to my spiel about feminism being too exclusive, the issue of public bathrooms goes deeper when you're talking about discrepancies between other populations. Think about the difference between "rich" and "poor" bathrooms. How about the problems transgendered folks have just trying to find a safe place to pee? If I weren't being a hypocrite, I would be writing about these things, too.

I realize that this is a silly thing to blog about when so many other terrible things are going on, but sometimes it's the little things that strike you.

(Less Than Perfect) How To

How to personalize an old, busted filing cabinet (or whatever).

Materials
filing cabinet
spray paint (2 colors)
primer (for spray paint)
stencils (which you can make if you want)
sandpaper
gloves (rubber or plastic kind)
face mask (to save your brain cells)
newspaper (to protect surfaces from paint)

Process

1. Get a filing cabinet. You do not need to buy a new one. I got mine for free on a freecycle list (freecycle.org), but you can also get them at a Goodwill for under $10. Ask family and friends, too. It seems like lots of people are getting rid of these things because they're old and ugly. That's OK because we can fix that.


2. Get stencils. You can easily make stencils by printing whatever you like onto card stock and cutting out the image. I used a free dingbat font for my images. You can also buy stencils if you want. It helps to have the filing cabinet before you make/buy the stencils, so you can plan their placement. I did this the other way around and ended up having kind of awkwardly placed stencils.


3. Sand surfaces. Sanding rust off is the most important part to this step, but sanding the old paint helps the new paint adhere, so just basically sand the crap out of the thing.
   
   
4. Wash surfaces. After you sand it, wash it with a little soap and water. Dirt and stuff stuck on the sides will prevent a good coat of primer/paint to adhere well.


5. Remove/cover any hardware you don't want painted. You may want the handles to remain the color they are now, or you may want to paint them the second color (like I did). You can either just cover them with masking tape, or you can remove them entirely. I primed and painted my handles separately. I let the lock be painted the main color.
   
   
6. Put on gloves and mask. I did not wear these for the primer or base coat, and I really regretted it. The primer and paint are meant to be permanent, so they're really hard to wash off (duh). I also did not wear a mask when I sprayed the base color (even though I bought them), and I had a headache all day afterward. Keep those brain cells. You'll need them to file later.


7. Spray with primer. Primer is not entirely necessary, but it helps smooth out the surface and helps the colored paint stick a little better. This is usually white or black. Follow the instructions on the can.
   
   
   
8. Spray with base color paint. According to my can, the primer does not have to entirely dry before spraying with colored paint. I would let it dry some, but you don't have to let it sit over night (like I did). **Read this: wait for a relatively warm, not-windy day to do this. It will make your life so much easier. I did not do this. It was very cold (below freezing) and windy (all my paint blew away). If you have a garage, even better. Let this dry completely.


9. Prep stencils. Because the force of the paint coming out of the can will blow any edges of a flimsy stencil around, you're going to want to apply rolled masking tape to all of the edges. This way you get a nice clean line instead of a diffused edge - unless that's what you want. Tape the stencils to the surface and tape additional paper around the stencil to cover the entire surface to prevent extra paint from floating around, landing all over the place. This step is pretty important. Look at my final project to see why it's important.
   
   
   
10. Spray stencils with second color. It will be important to follow the instructions on the can, but here are some guidelines: Do not spray too close for too long or you will get drips or overly thick paint.
    
    
    
11. Remove stencils, tape, etc. Once everything is dry, remove your stencils. Replace the hardware. Add files. You're finished!

The beauty of this project is that if you totally f* it up, you can just redo it later. Also, the possibilities are endless. You could just do a single bright, glossy color to snazz it up. You could do a super shiny, metallic color. You can stencil images, letters, shapes, etc. You could use one color to spray spots, add tape and then spray your main color over that to reveal the color under the tape. My little tutorial is really meant to help give you inspiration to create your own interesting cabinet (or refrigerator, desk, laptop, etc).

Also, don't be too hard on yourself if your final project doesn't turn out exactly the way you planned it. Mine certainly didn't, but I did learn a lot. If I grow to hate my imperfect creation, I can just do it again later (like in the spring when it's warmer). Don't be afraid to just go for it, even if you aren't really sure what you're doing. Do a little internet/library research if you feel really deficient in a particular skill, and then just move forward with reckless abandon. That's also my advice for life in general, by the way.

If you end up doing this tutorial (or something similar), post a picture of your project as a comment (if you can do that). Anyway, post a link to a picture. I'd love to see what kinds of creative mischief you all are up to.

Thanks for reading! Have fun!

10 things even I can do to save the environment - Retro blog

I originally posted this on my myspace blog on December 13, 2007. Ah, remember 2007? What a year.

It's great that "going green" has become so fashionable, but I have a problem with the movement's lack of good suggestions for regular people to green up their lives. The suggestions are usually buy a hybrid car and new windows (which I can't afford) or obvious things like recycling (which is still important). So I came up with my own list. Enjoy.

1. Conserve energy - Ok, this might fall into the obvious category, but little things do add up, plus it can save you money. Here are some suggestions: replace your light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, turn off all appliances and electronics when you leave/ sleep, hang clothes to dry, keep the thermostat low in the winter and high in the summer.
2. Reduce paper waste – I get an ass load of junk mail, so I recently added my name to the "do not send me so much freaking mail list," and you can too! Go here: https://www.directmail.com/directory/mail_preference/. You can also pay bills online and opt out of paper billing, reuse paper as scrap paper, use cloth instead of paper products like napkins. This year I'm using paper bags and newspaper to wrap all my gifts, and I'm decorating them with pictures cut out of catalogs.
3. Generate less trash – Trash is a huge problem, and we Americans love to make lots of it! The first step in generating less trash is to buy less trash. Pay attention to packaging. Don't put fruits and veggies in a bag unless you really need to. Get a reusable, cloth shopping bag. Find creative ways to reuse what might otherwise be trash. Buy in bulk. Compost and make your own nutrient rich dirt! Here's an article on how you can do it even in a third story apartment: http://www.yougrowgirl.com/garden/urbancomposting.php
4. Buy local and/or organic – Farmer's markets are actually really awesome, and they are all over the place. You can find one in your area here: http://www.localharvest.org/. Buying local means your food has to travel less. Buying organic means fewer pesticides entering the food web and polluting waterways – not to mention less cancer for you!
5. Join the Green Party – If the democrats were so great, Baltimore (and Maryland for that matter) would be a utopia. The GP is the fastest growing third party in the US and is the only party serious about cleaning up the environment (among other important issues). And you can really make a difference in this party because it's structured to empower people on a local level. Learn more about the GP in Maryland at http://mdgreens.org// or the national GP at http://gp.org/.
6. Buy used and freecycle – Ok, seriously. There is so much junk floating around it's just irresponsible to buy everything new. And buying used is great for a lot of reasons. First, you're not contributing to more waste. Second, you pay way less. Third, you can find interesting and unique items not mass produced in some dirty sweatshop. And freecycling is giving and getting stuff for free! Go to freecycle.org and sign up for a list in your area. You'll probably be surprised at how awesome this is. I was!
7. Eat less (or no) meat – What finally convinced me to become a vegetarian is the environmental impact it has. Research shows that being a vegetarian has greater impact than driving a Prius (which is good because I can't afford to drive a Prius anyway). But seriously, being a vegetarian is actually very easy. You can get protein from all kinds of food. There are substitutes for basically everything – that actually taste good. The only time it's kind of inconvenient is when I eat out and have limited options, but that's relatively rare. Here's an article to try to convince you: http://www.alternet.org/environment/47668.
8. Use public transportation – This can be difficult depending on where you live, but research your options. You may find out that you can take a commuter bus when you travel to a nearby city. You might be closer to a metro/light rail/train than you thought. Some people think they don't like public transportation because it's inconvenient, but I think it's WAY more convenient than driving. You don't have to worry about parking or crazy, aggressive drivers or how drunk you get. Plus you can sleep, read, crochet, or whatever you'd rather be doing besides driving.
9. Use natural cleaners – I am guilty of buying those caustic, toxic chemicals to clean my apartment. But it's important to remember that when you rinse those things down the drain, they enter the ecosystem and watershed. But don't worry, you don't have to have nasty mildew growing in your shower. There are great alternatives, including a whole slew of products like Seventh Generation that claim to be eco-friendly. You can also make a lot of cleaners out of safe stuff you probably have around your house anyway like vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda. Here's a great resource: http://www.naturodoc.com/library/lifestyle/cleaner.htm
10. Get inspired – This might seem obvious too, but our society does not make these suggestions convenient and it takes some motivation to stick to it. I stumbled on this great little movie recently, and it helped inspire me, so I thought I'd share it with all of you: http://www.storyofstuff.com/.

I would love to hear what you guys do in your everyday lives to try to protect the environment or save precious resources. Post them as a comment if that's your thing.

Have a great (green) holiday everyone!
Shanna