Category Archive for ‘Fun’ at Inspiration Junkie robayre.com

Archive for the 'Fun' Category Page 2 of 6

Antique Shopping and Penny Rug

Published

on April 19, 2011

in Cool Links, Fun, General Update, Projects, fiber and life

. 6 Comments

My sister-in-law Dacia and I love garage sale, estate sale and thrift store shopping. A couple weeks ago we visited a local-ish antique shop called Josie’s. A coworker had tipped me off about this antique shop located on an old farm off of historic route 38 (the lincoln hwy.), about 10 minutes away from where we live. Although my coworker told me about all the various farm buildings full of antiques, we were still blown away by room after room in building after building full of antiques. We were there for 3 hours roughly and could have easily spent more time, but Dacia had to get to an appointment.

Immediately upon arriving I had to take out my iphone and take pictures of some of the amazing goodies that were there and others that would have to come home with me.

You can see it really was a working farm with chickens and miniature horses, sheep and even peacocks.

This Polaroid Landcamera in it’s lovely leather case, as well as one of these wooden bowls came home with me.

When I saw this little piece that was marked “penny rug” I was immediately drawn in. I had never heard of it before, but right away it reminded me of my yoyos and I knew that I’d have to take a crack at this craft myself.

I found these tutorials online

a storybook life

penny rugs and more

As simple as it looks, it was a lot more time consuming than one of my yoyo sets. I wanted my circles to be irregular and organic. I handcut each circle free hand, no templates. I basically spent ALL DAY Sunday making this below:

and here is the same thing with a white background

I still need to attach it to the background and was trying to decide, white or black. Unlike the dark more earthy colors that I’ve seen of penny rugs online, my initial inspiration was this photograph by Sandra Juto of granny squares on a white floor. I liked the white background of the floor, white edges of the squares and bursts of color in the center. But, according to comments on flickr, people like the darker background because it makes the pieces pop out, which is completely understandable.

I love how this came out, and can see myself working on these just as often as making yoyos. Busy work, perfect for doing while watching netflix with my honey. I plan on framing the one above, similar to my yoyo pieces. Once it is complete, I’ll return with another picture.

And the winner is…

Published

robayre

on April 18, 2011

in Fun and life

. 4 Comments

But wait, before I announce who won the mixtape bag, let’s talk a bit about music and what I did this weekend. Some of you might have heard that Saturday was Record Store Day. Sadly the closest music store is about 25 miles away. It’s sad because I live in a university town where culture and the support of our local economy should be thriving. We used to have a whole handful of record stores, but then Borders and Barnes and Noble moved into town and not only did we lose our local bookstores, but we lost all of our music stores too.

On Saturday Matt, Tom and I drove to downtown Geneva, and went to Kiss the Sky in support of Record Store day. Around the corner from the shop there was a trash bin covered in CD labels. When I still lived with my parents I had a dresser that had one side completely covered in CD labels, but they were more organized than this. Still, I liked it.

The store was hopping. It was quite crowded and hard to maneuver your way through the narrow isles with so many other customers.

Despite going with two music enthusiasts I was saddened by their lack of support. Tom said “When was the last time you actually bought a CD, I can’t even remember myself.” I responded “last month” and he was shocked. I have only once ever PURCHASED and downloaded an entire album online and that was because I thought the artist was only doing digital and later I found out they had CDs and I was fairly disappointed that I had done that. This does not account for a rare download ahem, of music online, ahem, without financial transactions. More frequently, I’ll buy a track here and a track there online for guilty pleasure songs, when I know I won’t ever buy the rest of the album. But for an album I love, I want to hold it in my hands and open it up and smell the printing of the booklet and the ogle the design, artwork and notes.

After our trip I have come to the sad conclusion that I think I’m in the minority of people who still buy CDs. It makes me so sad that someday there will no such thing as album artwork and liner notes. Truthfully, I don’t buy CDs as frequently as I did when I was in high school and college. This reminds me of something my friend Margaret told me when I was just a young thing. She said there will come a time when you look at your music collection and the majority of it will be from a certain era, specifically, a time when you were young and had tons of money to burn frivolously. I thought that was the worst thing imaginable. So here I am 10-15 years later, still listening and buying music so that I never become that person. Coming home on Saturday I was inspired to create the above image. Do you still buy CDs? Feel free to gank the image and use it anywhere you like. Wave your CD-buying-flag HIGH!

The mixed tape is an obsolete art, replaced by mixed CDs, only to be replaced now by playlists.

Okay, drumrolllllllllll. The winner of the mix tape bag is Mindy Heindl. Congratulations Mindy, I sent you a facebook message. Send me your address and the bag will be on its way to you soon. If Mindy decides to opt out for any reason, I will draw another name and post it here. I liked this giveaway and think I’ll do more over at the facebook page.

Giveaway Post - Mix Tape Bag

Published

robayre

on April 11, 2011

in Fun

. 5 Comments

As promised, it is Monday and I am back with the giveaway post. Using my handcarved cassette tape stamp, I covered this canvas bag with mini mixtapes. I liked it so much, I want to give one away for free. It is prewashed and the stamps have an almost silk screened feel to them and I like that about it. The bag is 13 inches wide by 11 inches tall, has 6 inch tall handles, and is big enough to hold various necessities as seen above, or maybe you’d rather use it as a recyclable grocery bag, the choice is yours. I’ll also throw in two fabric covered, striped buttons like pictured above.

To Enter, all you need to do is like my facebook page, located here. Next Monday evening I will pick one random follower to the page. Thanks goes out to Hanna for pointing out that my settings on the facebook page were wonky, not allowing people outside of the US to follow. The problem is fixed and entries from across the world will be accepted :)

I hope you like the bag, and good luck!

Postcards and a giveaway announcement

Published

robayre

on April 8, 2011

in Cool Links, Fun, General Update, My Artwork and Projects

. 2 Comments

I only have 4 postcards done as of today. I’ll probably pop in later this weekend with the other three.

postcard #34 - The list on the back reads Halloween costumes

postcard #35 - Things I can cook or prepare

postcard #36 - Things that inspire my artwork.

postcard #37 - Most important people in my life

Now onto the giveaway. Last night when I went into my studio to try and finish this weeks postcards I got distracted by another impromptu project. I really liked how it came out and have decided to offer it as a giveaway. I will publish the official giveaway post on Monday, April 11th 2011, but the idea is going to be that I will be giving the item away to one random follower on my facebook fan page. So, if you’re already there, then you have already entered. If you’d like a jump on entering the giveaway, “like” my facebook page. I’ll give you a couple of hints as to what the item is - 1. It has to do with music, and 2. You can put stuff inside of it.

a new stamp - cassette tape

Published

robayre

on March 20, 2011

in Artists, Cool Links, Fun, General Update, My Artwork and Projects

. 4 Comments

On the hunt to find an ideal cutting block material for making stamps, I found this speedball brand (pictured above in pink) a few weeks ago. If you recall, I had bought a sheet from Dick Blick (Staedtler) and it was super soft. So soft, that I could cut it or nick it with my finger nails easily. Then I bought a sheet of linocut for printmaking from Hobby Lobby that was VERY hard and dense and didn’t take to ink pads very well. I wanted to find the middle ground and I think this is it. I’m not crazy about the color, but beggars can’t be choosers. “It’s not too hard, and it’s not too soft, it’s juuuuuust right” like goldilocks would say.

I carved this little audio cassette tape, and it came out so adorably. I was just kind of getting used to the new material, so I made a couple small mistakes, but they weren’t detrimental. Also, I used an Xacto carving set I found in my tool drawer. They worked perfectly.

I’m not sure yet what I should do with this stamp. I like how I was able to use the polaroid stamp for mailart a while back, so I might try something similar here. I’d also like to try something bigger, and testing the stamps out with fabric paint on fabric.

If you’ve never tried making handcarved stamps before, I’d love to encourage you to try it out. You can get going for under $20, which would include the tools, small cutting block material, and ink pad. You could start out by making a stamp of a little sketch you’ve done, or your initials, to mark on envelopes. It’s so much fun and so rewarding.

Before signing off, I wanted to share a few more stamp carving links that might inspire you.

Artist Geninne Zlatki makes wonderful stamps, you can see them here in her flickr set. Here’s a video she posted of how she carves a stamp. And if that wasn’t awesome enough, she is going to be publishing a book (released in 2012) about carving stamps. I am so excited for this to come out!

Here is a post on TalkCraftyToMe with introductions to material, and step by step instructions on making your stamp. Near the bottom of the post, there are more links with other handcarved stamp references.

Here are two flickr groups I’ve been admiring, Carve Your Stamps and Hand Carved Stamps.

And then lastly, check out this awesome tag made with multiple stamps, by Miss Thumdercat

The Craft Begins

Published

robayre

on December 21, 2010

in Artists, Cool Links, Fun, General Update, Projects and life

. 1 Comment

A bit ago Bri (The Craft Begins) offered a great opportunity on her blog: an open call to designers. She is working for a silk screening company and they are looking for original designs that they will print and produce for you. Read more about it here. How great is this? While I have several handmade silk screens at home, what’s better than letting someone else take care of producing, marketing and selling my designs on shirts. I’ve actually sent in some designs already, and although there are no guarantees, I’m still excited to get feedback and follow her company and see where they go and what things they produce.

I met Bri back in 2007 when we were both part of a group blog called Create A Day. She has always been a great friend and inspiration. Her birthday was on Sunday, so stop over at her blog and wish her a happy-happy birthday and then send her some t-shirt designs at bri@ragdeli.com.

And lastly, but still on a Bri theme, she recently posted a music video for Liftoff by Sigur Ros, and while I have that album, I have never seen the video for it before. We’ve both decided that we will dress like these kids from now on. The video inspired me to make the above mosaic and below mosaics using flickr photos by other artists.

Candy dots / buttons

Published

robayre

on December 19, 2010

in Fun, General Update, Projects and life

. 2 Comments

I’ve been so excited to share this project, but it was part of the advent calendar box Matt and I are doing, so I had to wait till it was revealed.

Matt’s not really a candy person, but I LOVE candy, so when I find something that he likes I usually go overboard buying it for him. When I was thinking of things to put in the advent box the idea of candy dots (or as some people call them, candy buttons) came to mind. These are such a little kid kind of candy, but Matt likes them, as do I because, well, they are fun. Real sheets would be too big to put in a tiny advent box and I just thought “I wonder if there are recipes online for making my own”. Immediately after doing a quick google search I find that it is simply royal frosting with food dye, and I definitely know how to make that, after hosting my annual gingerbread house making parties.

I made a batch of royal frosting, referencing recipes online using powdered sugar, egg whites (the boxed pasteurized type in the refrigerated section at the grocery store), and cream of tarter. I divided the finished frosting in 6 ziplock bags and then began adding drops of food coloring until I got the colors I wanted. Red turned pink, yellow, blue, and then mixed the primary colors to make the secondary colors, orange, green and purple. With all the colors mixed, I nipped off a corner tip on each bag of frosting and then was able to push the frosting out of the bag, like real frosting bags.

To fit into the tiny advent boxes, I made a couple miniature candy dot sheets and they were perfect. Plus, we all know that anything in miniature is always way cuter.

After that I had tons of frosting left and I had a plan to go the other direction and make mega rolls of candy dots. Think Willy Wonka, endless rolls of candy. While I was working on my looong strips, I realized I had a rainbow of colors. And just like that, I started making DOUBLE RAINBOW THEMED MEGA CANDY DOTS! Matt thought that was hilarious.

If you’ve ever had candy dots you know each dot is solid and hard sugar. I know from working with royal frosting it starts getting hard pretty quickly, but I wasn’t sure how long it would take for each dot to become entirely solid. The next day I attempted to smoosh one to see if it was solid and the very inside was still a bit soft. It probably took a couple days for them to get thoroughly hard, but once they were done, they really did taste and feel exactly like how candy dots feel and taste. I forgot to mention, I had also added lime juice to the secondary colors, but it must not have been enough because we couldn’t discern a difference between the primary and secondary colors with the completed candies. Perhaps if I used the “True Lemon” or “True Lime” products, which are crystallized, I could have added enough to make them flavored. It would be interesting to try a variety of different extracts and flavors to the icing. I just didn’t want to add more liquid to the recipe because I was afraid it wouldn’t harden properly.

When I was telling friends about this they asked if I had used waxed paper instead of regular paper, to avoid the bits of paper you get in your mouth from eating the original candy. I wanted my dots to be authentic looking and even though no one wants to eat paper, it’s part of the experience, so I didn’t, but it is an option. And to tell the truth, my candy dots that I made released easily from the paper. I don’t know if it was the type of the paper I used or the recipe. They’ve been fun and delicious as we’ve been munching on them for days.

There you go! If you are looking for a fun candy project, try making some candy dots.

Advent and garland tutorial

Published

robayre

on December 5, 2010

in Fun, General Update, Projects and life

. 4 Comments

For a couple of years I’ve been wanting to buy a large wooden Advent boxes with 25 doors. This year I picked one up at Target and told Matt that we were going to each do 14 doors. This will be 11 days back and forth with one item behind each door, and the final three days will have 2 items inside, one from each of us. We’ll get to alternate who opens the doors, and since we doing every other day, it will be a surprise for each person what the item will be. The doors are very tiny, probably about 1.5″ squared, so to avoid the stress of shopping for items that would fit through a 1.5″ hole, we composed a creative list of items to be put in each of our doors randomly. Our list is as follows:

1. a little sketch
2. a handwritten note
3. something made of paper
4. something from a gumball machine
5. something from your purse/wallet/pocket
6. something store bought for around $5
7. something to eat
8. something from the basement
9. a hand-made ornament
10. something to wear
11. treasure map/list of clues with a present at the end
12. something Christmas themed
13. something store bought for $20
14. a promise

My first day was something made of paper, so I made a garland to put on our Christmas tree and Matt hung it up already. I liked it so much I decided to make a quick little tutorial.

All you need is:
-a paper punch (I used circular, but you could definitely be creative and use other shapes)
-a sewing machine
-some paper.

I had the idea that I wanted my garland to be metallic gold and silver because I thought it would look pretty with white lights on the tree. At first I was going to go to the craft store and just buy some scrapbooking paper, but then I saw these rolls of a 60 lb. wrapping paper at Target, so I used them instead.

I layered the paper, one on top of the other, so that I could make multiple punches at once.

I used a quick dab of gluestick to adhere them, back to back. One side is silver and the other is gold. This just helped feed them through the machine, rather than if they were two loose pieces.

I pulled about 8-10 inches of thread out before beginning, as a leading for the garland. This will allow you to wrap it around a branch before the actual garland begins. Don’t forget to set your stiches further apart, so that you don’t perforate your paper into two pieces. Then just start feeding the circles under the needle. I alternated silver side up, then gold side up, but it doesn’t really matter because they turn all around when you hang it anyway.

Continue feeding one after another until you get the desired length.

linky goodness

Published

robayre

on November 16, 2010

in Cool Links and Fun

. 1 Comment

I finally caught up on some big projects. I’m such a procrastinator and then I stress myself out because it always comes down to “crunch time”. My email inbox has been growing and growing and a good portion of those emails are ones I’ve sent to myself. I started a list a week or two ago, of all the things I wanted to do once I was all caught up. And so, in an attempt to catch up and finally enjoy some of my free time, I am going to go through a bunch of those emails and share links of some cool things I’ve come across recently.

I think I found this link through Apartment Therapy. It’s a tea towel calendar round up at thekitchn. It prompted me to question the history of tea towel calendars. It’s a kitchen towel, it’s a calendar, it’s a towel calendar! I’m pretty sure my grandma used to have them, if not my own mother, but who had this idea first? and why? At any rate, I love the one above. It’s beautiful and I would love to have it hanging in my kitchen in 2011.

I always enjoy reading Modishblog and she has this fabulous series “Blogstars” where she interviews bloggers that she admires. I’m really digging it, especially the final question where she asks each blogger to name 3 blogstars of their own. I’ve been finding out about some really amazing blogs this way, including Miss Moss.

Miss Moss has a great assortment of art, fashion, decor, and vintage inspiration. I clicked on the link and immediately got sucked in. Next thing I new I had gone through 7 pages of archives. I highly recommend checking out this blog as well as all the other sites you will find through the Blogstars series.

CreatureComforts has put out this absolutely beautiful online magazine, Gifted, check it out. It will make you warm and fuzzy with its beautiful design and creative contents. I wish I had the ambition to create a polished magazine like that.

Check out this Paper Frames Tutorial via Design Sponge. Ahem, chalkboard paint, cough. ’nuff said.

and last but not least

I love the idea of this project “Dead Drops” that was shared by Swiss Miss. It’s a file sharing project by artist Aram Bartholl. He has installed USB drives in public places and invites people to plug in and download or share files of their own. I love the idea and makes me think of it as. It’s like a digital geocache, all the while commenting on file sharing. While file sharing sites are continually shut down, sites like this could remain up and in use forever. The big question is, what keeps someone from sharing their viruses? I will keep an eye on this project.

Robyn’s PSA

Published

robayre

on November 10, 2010

in Fun, General Update and life

. 2 Comments

I’ve mentioned my dear friend Nikki here before. She’s been fighting a rare form of cancer since 2007 and doing it with awesomosity. She’s such a strong, and beautiful person and I love her heaps. Along with all the treatments over these years, she’s been left with mounting medical bills. I’m so excited to share that another friend of ours, Kim, has arranged for a benefit to help raise some financial relief for Nikki.

Here is a picture of Nikki and I from this summer, at Millennium Park in Chicago.

If you live in the Chicagoland area, please visit the Haagen-Dazs/Popcorn Palace in Naperville, Sunday, November 21st between 4 and 8 p.m. Nikki will be helping scoop out ice cream and 15% of all the sales on ice cream, popcorn and coffee will go towards Nikki’s medical bills. This is a HUGE relief to her and I’d personally be grateful for your support. Even if you can’t attend, it would mean a lot to me if you could spread the word about this event to any and all that would listen.

Read more about Nikki, here, at her Caring Bridges page.

Inspiration Junkie robayre.com

Archive for the 'Fun' Category Page 2 of 6

Antique Shopping and Penny Rug

And the winner is…

Giveaway Post - Mix Tape Bag

Postcards and a giveaway announcement

a new stamp - cassette tape

The Craft Begins

Candy dots / buttons

Advent and garland tutorial

linky goodness

Robyn’s PSA

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Archive for the 'Fun' Category Page 2 of 6

About Robayre

Links

current crush

Links

My Inspirational Links

Project Inspiration

Category List

Search

Monthly Archive

Meta Information