Archive for May, 2009

Grass & Stars my first zine

Published
by
robayre
on May 28, 2009
in General Update, My Artwork and etsy
. 5 Comments

I’m so excited. I finished my first zine for the swap I’ve mentioned before. It came out better than I could have ever imagined.

The idea of the title came to and suited me perfectly, I go into a bit in the zine. It’s printed on gloss text, is only 1.875″ x 1.25″, and includes a 5 panel comic, a second in my “how to…” series.

It’s funny that taking on such a small sized zine, I thought it would be very quick and easy. Wrong. I had so many ideas that it was almost impossible to compress it down to a book small enough to fit into a matchbox. Still, it turned out great. I hope that this is just the first issue of many more to come. I am so excited about it, I made a handful more to offer in my shop. Please check out the listing for it here.

Wowzers! My email inbox is about to essplode! The May Giveaway Day post is taking off. I have more than 100 entries to win one of the two Recycled Envelope and Stationery Sets from my etsy shop. I’m so glad so many people are interested, I have to admit I was worried that it was only going to be my friends and family who entered. I’d like to thank everyone stopping by for taking the time to further explore my blog, website, flickr, twiter. As I said yesterday, I like to meet new people and your comments have been so warm. If you are stopping by for the first time, please scroll down to the original May Giveaway Day post and leave a comment there. Entries are open till midnight June 1st (evening of May 31st). Good luck everyone!

Found Art Tuesday

Published
by
robayre
on May 27, 2009
in Found Art, General Update and My Artwork
. 6 Comments

Doh, I thought I was going to actually post a Found Art Tuesday piece on Tuesday. The holiday on Monday threw me off, so here it is on Wednesday :) It’s been ages since I’ve participated in Found Art Tuesday.

I made another miniature painting, based on a collage, on a handbuilt canvas. I made this piece specifically to use in participating in Found Art Tuesday. This weekend my sister, Matt and I went geocaching, 7 in one day. It was all great until there was a tick found on one of the microcahes :( For those who don’t know, I am absolutely terrified of ticks (I have an irrational fear of getting lymes disease), so it kind of killed a bit of the joy. I had this painting I wanted to leave behind for someone, but just about every cache was a microcache (meaning, a film roll can, a magnetic key box, or pill box).


Since we were in the Aurora area, out by my sister, we got the idea of going to the Naperville Riverwalk. It was hard to be stealthy because the place was packed. The walk next to the river, as well as the regular paths were a steady stream of families, couples and friends all out enjoying the lovely weather on the holiday weekend. Finally I found a group of trees that was situated between the two paths, waited for a gap of people and ran up to place it facing oncoming traffic.

I realized that this is actually my fourth mini painting that I’ve left for Found Art and right now I’m batting 1 for 4. The first painting was my very first Found Art piece which I let go of on a group of balloons, never heard back, the second was in a lockbox geocache on campus, no one mentioned taking the painting from the cache log online, and then a month later the river flooded and the box disappeared :( Then the third was last year, when I left a painting on a geographical marker in Door County. I received the nicest email ever, from the man who found that painting. I couldn’t have hoped for a better person, he was an artist as well, and said that it gave him more hope for people, to find my piece. Now I’ve left this piece, in a high traffic location, so fingers crossed that it made it’s way to just the right person who needs it :)

Please check out my flickr set of all the other Found Art Tuesday pieces I’ve done, and here is the flickr group pool for other people’s Found Art as well :)

One last thing, I’m participating in the May Giveaway Day, where I am giving away not one, but TWO of my Recycled Envelope and Stationery Sets. Leave a comment on this post from yesterday and be entered to win, and then please feel free to browse around the rest of my blog, I like to meet new people :)

It’s May Give-Away Day

Published
by
robayre
on May 26, 2009
in Fun and General Update
. 150 Comments

There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but there is a free Recycled Envelope and Stationery Set being given away here!

Hello everyone! It’s Robyn here, and I’m participating in the Sew, Mama, Sew! May Give-Away Day and offering up one of my snappy stationery sets. These items are a favorite in my etsy shop and a favorite of mine to make. It combines all of my favorite things, paper, art, design, and craft.

Paper: Each stationery set is compiled of 10 envelopes made from my personal (and constantly growing collection) of old papers, anything from old calendars, magazines, posters, massive clipart books, maps, etc.
Art: The art part comes in with my eye and personal aesthetics. Each paper and set is hand selected for awesomeosity by yours truly. Not every paper would make a great envelope, ya know?
Design: Each set comes with 20 pieces of stationery designed by myself, on a high quality linen recycled paper, oooh, la la.
Craft: Oh yes, I make each and every envelope, cut down by hand, assemble them with pride, include 10 mailing labels, and sealed up in plastic, (even the plastic is partially recycled product)

Who doesn’t love mail? You show me a person who doesn’t like mail, and I’ll show you a neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie!

So, here’s the scoop: This giveaway offer is open until the end of May 2009. To enter, just leave a comment on this post (just say hi, or tell me who you would write to if you won) and all comments will be entered into a random drawing. There will be two winners. Yes, that means TWO SETS ARE BEING GIVEN AWAY COMPLETELY FREE, to two lucky winners!

Also, please scoot on over to the Sew Mama Sew blog to find out all the other blogs that are participating in the May Giveaway Day.

Weekend Wrap-up

Published
by
robayre
on May 17, 2009
in Cool Links, Coverage, General Update, goals and life
. 0 Comments

clouds & concrete, originally uploaded by robayre.

I hope everyone had a relaxing, yet productive weekend. The weather today was perfect.

I have a few things I wanted to share.

-I’ve been sooo delighted to be featured on Etsy’s front page not once, not twice, but THREE times within the last 4 days. As I said last week, I get stupidly giddy whenever I make it to the front page. I hope this feeling never goes away as I continue to plug away with my Etsy shop. I just love it so much. My only sadness is that Etsy was not around when I was a child/teenager or even college student.

-I’m still going strong on my goal to ride my bike to work everyday for a month. This too is making me beyond happy. I wish I could do it all year round. At this rate I imagine I will probably be riding to work throughout the summer, well past my goal of one month. It only takes a few more minutes to ride to work, than it did to drive, but I feel that instead of getting into a car, putting on the music, being in the zone and just getting to work, now I am much more aware of my surroundings. I get to enjoy the weather, and nature, greet people along the way, and really have experiences traveling back and forth to work, rather than lost time.

-I’ve been working on my mini zine for the swap-bot swap. If I am happy with the results I might add some to my shop as well. I just have so many ideas and I don’t think I’ll be able to add them all to one zine, especially one this small (it has to fit into a small matchbook).

-Before I forget to mention, I’ve updated my banner. If you are like myself, you read your blogs through an rss reader and probably wouldn’t have even noticed had I not said anything. Now my blog and etsy work together.

-I’ve mentioned my twitter here before, but I thought I’d bring it up again, and invite anyone interested, to follow me there as well. I occasionally post fun/inspirational/informative links on twitter as I come across them.

-Speaking of inspiring site links, here is one I found via booooooom. It’s a website devoted to the upcoming movie of Where the Wild Things Are and all of it’s assorted influences. VERY COOL SITE.

-One last link, a new to me blog.  How could I not love a printmaker who has pet rabbits, and a hedgehog? Then on her sidebar she has a list of goals, things like make a stop-motion movie, learn letterpress, and make a zine. This seems like my kind of gal.

resin art ring and grass

Published
by
robayre
on May 13, 2009
in General Update, My Artwork and shop update
. 0 Comments

stars + grass = love
snails=awesome
get it in my etsy shop now

 

Grass has always been a theme in my artwork, even from early college, or late high school days. I’ve made grass sculptures, grass jewelry, grass paintings. One time I made a hammock that had grass growing on it.
I wish I had taken a picture of that.
My first mail art postcard (above) was stars and grass, before I even knew what Mail Art was.
I’ve recently had a great idea for using grass in a new to me medium. More coming soon…

Marble Madness

Published
by
robayre
on May 12, 2009
in Artists, Cool Links, General Update and etsy
. 2 Comments

Today I’m all about Marbles.

A couple weeks ago my sister and I went to an art fair in the burbs and there were lots of booths with glass. The majority of it was fused pendants or lampwork beads, but there was one booth that really caught my attention. I was looking pieces over and decided to pick up one that seemed to be a cone shape and was shocked to find out it was actually a perfect marble shape. (It was similar to the top left marble above). When you look at it from the front at any angle you would swear the back end was deep and far away. I really wanted it, but I’m more strapped for cash since reducing my hours at work last fall. I’ve always wanted to work with hot glass and decided to do some investigation today.

I decided to check out etsy and see if there were any marble makers there and was delighted to find a bunch. Above is a collection I put together of some real beauties.  Click on the image above and it will take you to the glass<marbles category, but be warned you have to sift through a lot of crafty marble magnets :(

I found this cool video that shows a complete demonstration on making one large marble, start to finish. I had no idea it was such a long process. I kind of hoped that there was some magical step after heating where you cut pieces away, dropped them into water and they just became sphere-like on their own because of the cohesive nature of the hot glass. No such luck. After seeing how the marbles are made and seeing the selection available on Etsy I feel like I might want to start collecting marbles. I kind of like the idea. Glass beads and pendants are okay, but unless you plan on playing with one of these large marbles, they would be best put on display as the piece of artwork that they are.

Unrelated to marbles, but just as eye catching ;) I listed this coiled paper pendant in whites. This one was my favorite just because with the more subtle colors I think you can focus more on the lines, textures, materials and realize exactly what the piece is made of. These pendants are also listed at a VERY resonable price, might I add ;)

new to the shop

Published
by
robayre
on May 11, 2009
in General Update, etsy and goals
. 3 Comments

I’m still here and proud to say I’ve ridden my bike to work everyday that I’ve worked this month. One week down towards my goal for a month. I love it. It’s only taking me 11 minutes now, almost as fast as it was to drive, strangely enough. Plus I get to work and feel all invigorated and ready to go.

Months ago I purchased these pendants to make pieces encased in resin, but with the round shape I was really stumped. They just sat in my studio until a couple of weeks ago when it finally came to me.

I saw some of these crafted magazine bowls and got inspired to use the technique, but only in miniature for my pendants.

 

 

I love how they came out, the texture, lines and colors. I ended up making several in different color combinations.


I’ve also added another resin ring that I really love to my shop.

I will be adding new items each day this week, so please check back.

Jenna Woginrich, Made From Scratch

Published
by
robayre
on May 6, 2009
in Cool Links and General Update
. 0 Comments

Last week I was listening to the Craft Sanity Podcast from April.  The episode’s interview was with Jenna Woginrich of Coldantlerfarm.

Jenna was a suburban kid growing up, and when she graduated from design school, she took the plunge that so many of us dream of. She moved out to the country to try live a more self sustainable life off the land, meanwhile still working a regular job as a graphic designer. Jenna has written a book, Made From Scratch, about her adventures.

Her blog is my latest obsession. She raises chickens (ding), gardens (ding) raises rabbits (ding) and sheep (ding) for fiber (ding, ding, ding!). Her blog is one where I go back as far as her archives go and start reading from there to the present.

Another book that I highly recommend on the subject, and that I’ve mentioned before is Back to Basics, that we actually bought for my mom and then I commandeered. The book has recently had a third reprint and can now be found once again back on the shelves. This book was a favorite of mine while fantasizing about moving out to a farm and living more simply. This book contains how-tos on everything from candlemaking, leathering, gardening to furniture making.

One of my fond memories of working at the newspaper during my high school and college years, was that I would get stuck back in the camera room “dungeon” for hours and the whole time I would just day dream about living the life that Jenna is now creating for herself. And while I often daydreamed of living that life and would have jumped at the chance then, I’m not so sure I could handle it now. Recently I purchased a bunch of starter plants to grow in container gardens on the patio, and they are still sitting in their original tiny plastic containers 2 weeks later. I can’t even get moving on a simple container garden.

Now, I can live vicariously through Jenna’s new-to-me blog.

Oh, and she just recently got her first little goat! She’s killing me, soon I’m gonna wanna a goat to follow me around everywhere too.

I found this adorable video (above) of her. Just watch how sweet she is with the animals and how attentive the sheep are to her as she speaks.

another one bites the dust

Published
by
robayre
on May 4, 2009
in General Update
. 0 Comments

Cross another item off the list. I got my bike back this weekend. Today I rode to work. This may be the beginning of item #2 where I ride my bike or walk to work every day for a month.

Now, well, now it’s late and I don’t want to go to bed. I’m thinking of a quote I favorited on twitter: “all i want to do is make things forever…. or at least all night.” by this adorable lady. Instead, I must go to sleep. It will be time for the alarm clock to wake me soon enough.

the season

Published
by
robayre
on May 3, 2009
in Artists, Cool Links, General Update and life
. 1 Comment

Looks like it’s that time of year again, time to mow the lawn. Yesterday I did my parent’s lawn which is about a half acre. Today matt’s doing our yard, which apparently got a lot longer than my parents. Not sure if you can really see from this vantage point, but the lawn right where the sump pump hose empties out has grass that was knee high. I actually love it. It hasn’t gone to seed yet and is just so beautiful, rich, green, and the texture, ahhhh.

Today my sister and I went to the 13th Annual Elmhurst Art Museums Art in the Park. It’s a juried show of fine art, craft and design. I bought the above Mini paintings by John Stillmunks. The one on the left is called Old King and the one on the right is called Old Clown. I love the colors, looseness and texture in both. My sister got one as well. There were lots of booths with glass (fused and lampwork) and LOTS of artwork. It was a perfect day for it too, as the sky is clear and the temperature is Just Right (as goldilocks would say).

I just gotten bitten or partially stung by a bee or wasp or something. No stinger, but a red speck with a big white swollen circle around it. I thought a moth was stuck in my hair so I grabbed it to gently let it free, little did my hand know, it was a bee/wasp/thing that I just scooped up and had immediate pain. I let go and it flew off. Stupid bee/wasp/thing.

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