Today I was so inspired by thing-a-dayer ninadinoff’s project “ring-a-day”. I took a couple years of metalwork classes and love-love-love rings. It’s funny because I’m not much for wearing jewelry, but I do love me a nice art ring. Anyway, seeing her projects and accompanying flickr group I ran to my book shelf and took down my 1000 Rings book, which then led me to taking down my Paper Jewelry book. The result was this sweet simple necklace made from watercolor paper punched holes, watercolors, a basic cotton string and silver findings. It wasn’t a tutorial from the book, but a combination of a few different designs.
A while ago I did a post where I listed a bunch of cool things that I had received recently and I completely forgot to mention this book. Today I finally broke it out and used it for my thing-a-day.
In December my sister and I went to the One-of-a-Kind show in Chicago where I purchased the above book. It’s a beautiful green leather covered, mini handbound/stitched book with an assortment of encyclopedia pages mixed with quality drawing papers. I’m in love with the book from GreenTrikePress. Check out her shop, seriously, her books are gorgeous and amazingly constructed. When my sister saw these books she said to me “here is a seller after your own heart”. I was beyond thrilled because I had actually been working on making more books like this. I just love that the pages are filled with a variety of pages. I’ve decided to fill the pages with collage and mixed media work.
Quick before I get to my thing-a-day, I just wanted to say 2 things. One- Last night I went to the local art league meeting and Natasha from Esther’s Place (a local fiber shop) spoke and demonstrated needle and wet felting. It was really cool to watch her layer on the fibers and I was surprised to see how similar to painting it could be. I was very inspired to explore felting some more. Two- I finally, finally, finally got my replacement check card (after “Lost Wallet Debacle of 2009″) and have decided to celebrate by reactivating my netflix account. If you are looking, you can find me crafting away with eyes peeled to the TV or computer monitor.
Okay, now back to our regular programming. Once again this is cross posted from the Thing-A-Day site, but I encourage you to please visit TAD and check out all the lovely things that other participants are making everyday. There’s lots of inspiration flying around over there.
Riffling through my jewelry the other day I found an old quilted ring I’d made years ago. I remembered how much fun they were to make, so, for today’s thing I worked on making more and decided to offer them in my shop online.
This is my third entry into the Thing-A-Day blog, cross posted here.
I’ve been working on this way longer than I should have, and the result is not quite the image I had envisioned, but I am still pretty proud of myself.
I have been spinning some very fine/thin wool to make a sock yarn which I will knit up to make a pair of socks. I thought it would be pretty cool to make an animated gif of myself spinning yarn. I borrowed Matt’s camera which has a program on it that allows you to set increments of pictures taken for a given duration. I started with a picture every second but that was way too much, so I set it for every 5 seconds. I spun for over 300 pictures and then using photoshop and imageready I put the images together for the result below. I ended up only using the first 75 pictures because it was taking so long and our “TAD”s shouldn’t become a chore. I also made it only 100 pixels wide, but I wish it had been a bit larger.
I have only made a couple basic animated banner ad gifs in the past. I don’t know a ton and have taught myself how to do this, so, no help from the computer geek boyfriend :)
Oh, this also counts for one of my animated gifs for my 2010 to-do list.
So, today is election day in Illinois. Also, it is LOST DAY (season premiere of the last season of LOST). I got the idea today for my thing-a-day when I was thinking about those little oval stickers they give out at the polls that say “I voted”. We were going to a Lost party and so I thought it would be fun to make some “I LOSTed” stickers to give out to everyone in attendance.
I designed them in photoshop, inkjet printed them out on regular copy paper, covered them in packing tape for a glossy finish, ran them through the xyron machine and voila! I LOSTed.
Then for fun when I went to vote I made up this post-it to leave in the voting booth. I chickened out though, so before I left I stuck it in a stack of papers that were left in each booth informing voters about how to vote.
The note says “You’ve voted, Now don’t forget to watch LOST. Take this sticker to let others know you voted then you LOSTed.”
Yeah, I’m a nerd. A nerd for LOST. And by the way, the episode was AWESOME!
This post is cross posted from the Thing-A-Day. I figured I’d post everything here as well this year, so I will have a personal record of all my projects for TAD.
Hello everyone! A little mini intro first. My name is Robyn and I am a graphic designer professionally and an artist crafter for fun during my own time. I have a website robayre.com which needs to be redesigned desperately. There you can see my artwork as well as read my blog, etc. I design, create and sell a variety of things in my Etsy shop robayre.etsy.com. This is my third year participating in Thing-A-Day. I first found out about it while I followed the artist Keri Smith as she participated.
I had a plan for today’s thing and set to work early on. After completion I was very dissapointed with the outcome and decided to postpone that project until I could find better materials. I headed to my studio to see what else might strike my fancy and found some of my bookmaking supplies. The result of the first Thing-A-Day for 2010: mini handbound book earrings. I just love anything and everything miniature.
I have actually made these several times before and I think I even made them for Thing-A-Day in a previous year. These earrings are hard covered with two signatures sewn in, the book is 24 blank pages long including the gray endpapers. They are real books that can be functional as earrings as well. I think it would be so cool to fill the pages with teensie tiny writing or art journaling. I would absolutely do that myself, but…shhhhh, I don’t have my ears pierced.
It’s the last day of January and I think I’ve finally finished my 2010 to-do list. Of course, as soon as I hit publish I’m sure I’ll remember more things I wanted on the list. Here is last year’s list.
1. Buy a marble and start my glass marble collection
2. Make 5 simple animated gifs to post on my blog
3. Buy a vintage globe and a huge map for the bedroom
4. Leave 100% tip at a restaurant
5. Leave change in coin machine 5 times
6. Send a care package to a soldier overseas
7. Build a storytelling shadowbox diorama
8. Upload a youtube video with my face and voice
9. Participate in wardrobe remix photography 4 times
10. Visit a drive in movie theater
11. Visit two photobooths
12. Old timey picture
13. Document a tree changing colors, start sept. 1st
14. Purchase wool and spin yarn and make vest
15. Buy tall boots
16. Eat falaful
17. Visit the museum in sycamore
18. Fit into a size __ or reach __ lbs.
19. Create a paper moon photo set up to take portraits in
20. Publish second zine
21. Go to teddywedgers for pasties
22. Go to the kane county flea market
23. Record “storycorp” style interviews with family/friends
24. Rearrange furniture in twice
25. Work in small scrapbook art/journal
26. Go to lothson’s chicken
27. Pay off debt
28. Have a bonfire at the lagoon
29. Eat at two (new to me) truck stop diners
30. Organize a glue book week
31. Go camping this summer
32. Finish my mom’s challenge book
Leftovers from 2009 list
1. Found Art balloon idea
2. Visit one photobooth
3. Hot air balloon ride (already paid for)
4. Release art themed geocache
5. Complete C25K and run 5K
6. Decorate a mini journal (missed the opportunity from last year)
7. Go to a Wolves game
8. Redesign my website.
February begins in just a few days and that means “Thing-A-Day 2010″. Check out the little blurb I wrote up over at Hello Craft and please join me in posting a new thing everyday on the Thing-A-Day blog.
I originally found out about TAD 4 years ago through artist Keri Smith. I’m excited to say that this February will be my third year participating. In previous years the TAD blog was a wordpress blog, but this year they are switching it up to Posterous. I’ve never used Posterous before so we will see how it goes. I’m going to cross post my Thing-A-Day posts there and here on my personal blog so I will have a personal archive of my “things.” Don’t hesitate to sign up, registration closes January 31st.
Hello, my name is Robyn and I was hatched from a Kinder Surprise egg. I write like I talk, so get comfy and get to know me. More about me on bio page at robayre.com
