Archive for January, 2009

today the sun was out

and it was actually above freezing.

Today is the last day of January and then of NaBloPoMo for the month. I hope to keep posting frequently, but it just may not be daily. What I will be doing is posting daily at Thing-A-Day as well. Is anyone else participating?

Today has been quite an eventful day, so I’m off to sleep.

polaroid and etsy front page

the cheese, originally uploaded by robayre.

Hmmm, I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned my love of polaroid here before. Well, maybe I’ve commented on it once or twice before :)
Earlier today I was looking at my flickr contacts and came across a picture from my flickr contact Minkoff. Besides having one of the coolest websites, Julia also takes beautiful polaroids. It inspired me this morning to take out my prized Polaroid Colorpack II landcamera and load new film in it. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to get it to work, as last time I used it I ruined the rest of a pack of film when I actually tore a print as I was pulling it out. I put in the new film and took the above picture and was delighted with the results. I am constantly thrilled by the pictures that this camera turns out. This picture is of “the cheese” at my elementary school. Everyone that was a lincoln lion will always have a soft place in their heart for “the cheese”.

Speaking of Polaroid, I’d also like to give my internet friend Tiffany Teske a shout out, as Polaroid is her medium of choice. She has a lovely etsy store and shows and publishers her work frequently. She also has a blog devoted to her love of polaroid.

Today I had a real thrill when I got a message from another internet friend, Joon, to let me know my treasury I created a few days ago was being featured on the front page of etsy. It is such a huge thrill to have etsy admin choose a collection I made to represent their whole company.

I had the day off today again and had a long list of things I wanted to get done. The main thing I was excited to do was go out for a long walk, but with the temperature being 7 degrees Fahrenheit , as opposed to the 28 degrees that my mac widget had promised, I didn’t think it would be a good idea.

One of the things I did get done though is to finish cutting down and folding the booklets that will go in each artomat box. I finished the paintings for this series forever ago (last spring?) but just have not sent them in because I didn’t have these books complete. I didn’t even have an idea for how to compose them until last week when I forced myself to sit down and brainstorm ideas.  I made them on the computer but they have a very hands on/handmade quality about them. I really love how they came out.

just some stuff

Today I got my first ever P.O. Box address. Things like this make me very happy. Who knew a p.o. box is only $3.07 a month?

It hasn’t been above freezing temperatures here (in northern illinois) since the first week of january.

A new video about the Beckoning of Lovely has been released today.

If you’d like a laugh watch this video (not work safe, there is language) parody of ShamWow.

Super Secret Decoder Key

Hello to everyone stopping by to crack your super secret code. I hope you are enjoying your new piece of artwork.

I’m in love with this code I made up this week. Matt calls it Robyndings. It’s an alphabetic key to decode a super top secret message. It’s fun, and engages the purchasers of my artwork.

The more handmade…the better

I’m so excited! I came up with the idea for creating a treasury that would focus on the beauty of handmade. And surprisingly I checked and Woot! the treasury was opening in less than a half hour. I was able to easily snag one and it is titled, “The more Handmade…the better.” I understand that etsy is all about handmade, but often, people polish their items till the point that they look like something manufactured by machinery and sold in commercial stores around the world. I wanted to focus on items that just scream that they were made by hand. There is beauty in imperfection. There is value in the time and heart investment of the handmade.

I’d love if you visited my treasury and left me a comment. I was so excited to find several new-to-me etsy sellers and I think you too will enjoy them.

mailart

Above is a postcard I made for my show last month. I made it shortly after my pet rabbit theo had to be put to sleep. I had bought the martha stewart paper punch that is up in the left corner. I love the punch, but hate that I am limited to what direction I can come at the paper to punch it. The rabbits are pointed out and away, and it’s just bad composition to direct the eye away from the rest of the piece. What I love about the piece is the photo. I was inspired by the small format printers (mentioned in the previous post) and took a photo I had taken, printed it out on nice glossy paper to look like a small wallet sized picture. Then I added the photo corners, which I painted with a gold paint to keep the colors cohesive. The other element I really liked was the right corner. I used a coin holder, which has plastic to protect the coin, but instead of displaying a coin, I placed some of Theos rabbit fur behind the plastic.

Thing-a-day and printer obsession

Tomorrow, registration for “Thing-a-day” opens, I’m so excited. I had such a great experience last year, feeling so productive and really energized by the sense of community. I’m also excited by the challenge. If this month was a challenge posting daily here, can’t wait till next month when I try to continue posting daily here AND creating something new everyday to post there as well, oy vey! I’d love to invite all my bloggy friends to participate. I always love reading your posts and participating means new posts daily, ahh heaven.

This weekend after reading more and more about Polaroids possible rejuvenation, I was so driven to buy one of the polaroid pogos. Oh man, I want one so bad. We actually drove to Target and I had it in my hands, I drove with it in my cart to the front counter and at the last minute decided that it is not a neccessity, turned around and put it back on the shelf. I really should wait till a better time when I can afford it, rather than put it on a credit card. Times are tough and I am finally feeling the affects of the economic downturn in the last month or two. I had already made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t make any big purchases, until I feel I have really earned or deserve it. Perhaps when I get my tax refund :) I just know when I do finally get the pogo, it will mean that much more. Another thing is that while we were at Target, they actually had the canon selphy in stock, which is a compact canon printer (not as small as the pogo, but probably about a 1/4 of the size of my regular desktop printer.) It also doesn’t use ink cartridges and has smudge proof, water proof prints that can be printed straight from your camera. It was also $100 and I want it as well.

What on earth does a girl need 3 printers for? For fun, of course.

It all started with this fiber on the right, then I made this yarn, which became this set of pompoms above. I’ve listed them in my etsy shop for someone to love. They are handmade from beginning to end.

Yesterday Matt got a new car, a 2008 Hyundai Sonata. It’s got a moonroof and xm radio, so we’ve been cruising around a lot :)

Here’s a really great article, I found via Lope.

And a couple fun tutorials here and here.

today

Today, on my day off, I decided to walk, rather than drive, to the post office. We are currently having a heat wave in the high 20s and so I decided it might be nice to get some fresh air, sunlight and some inspiration. I remembered to bring my camera along the way. It was nice. I didn’t bring headphones and just let my eyes roam. Here are my favorite shots.

I think the above piece would make a lovely print. I have a thing for tree knots. I always look for good ones which remind me of Boo Radley and that would be perfect sizes for hiding treasures for strangers.

The above shot is perfect for my ongoing photography series of Natural Graffiti. You can see more here.

And maybe these would be nice as a diptych. The color and texture of this old garage’s peeling paint just got me. It was one of several photo opps I had to stealthily maneuver the shot, hoping the property owner wouldn’t come out and yell at me.

Do you twitter?

Do you Twitter? Twitter is a microblogging service. Think short text message length blogging you can post, as well as keep up with your friends and other bloggers up to the minute doings.  I’ve had my twitter for a little over a year, but there have been long periods when I forgot it even existed. Lately I have been using it semi regularly (at least a few times a week). I have it set up so I can send my tweets from my phone, while I’m in action and on the go. I think there is also a way where you can receive your subscribed updates on your phone as text messages as well.

Let’s be Twitter friends.

The funniest thing just happened as I was about to post this blog entry. I got an email from a friend who wanted to ask what I think of twitter, and as I was emailing her back about the serendipity of her message as I was composing a post about twitter, she signed up for her own account and friended me.

I am loving Twitter more and more lately. My next step, I want to find out a way to add my latest tweets to a sidebar on this blog. Anyone know how I might be able to do that?