Category Archive for ‘General Update’ at Inspiration Junkie robayre.com

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My Mug Collection

Published

on March 4, 2013

. 5 Comments

This weekend I took Matt to his first (and probably last) flea market. 30 seconds in the door and he says “My complete nightmare”. All that aside, I happened to find 3 things that I had been wanting. Just the day before I had been hunting for a replacement smiley face mug on ebay. Lo and behold, I walked into a booth and there is a whole collection of them, for only $6 a pop. I’m not kidding when my eyes just about teared up, I couldn’t believe it. What luck! About $20 less than what I’d probably end up spending on one (shipping included) if I had bought one online.

We’ve been drinking a lot of tea lately and that got me wanting to do a post on my favorite mugs. Have you ever seen Flight of the Conchords? If you haven’t then than trust me, watch it, you will love it. There are so many endearing things about Bret and Germaine, but one of the things I love about them is their thrift store style. These penniless musicians are always wearing random shirts and drinking from odd mugs. Watching the show made me realize I never wanted a matching set of mugs. Sidenote: my dad collects diner mugs, ya know the kind with businesses advertisements on them.

So, here it goes, my current favorite mugs.

A vintage McCoy smiley face mug. I actually had a smiley face mug, but I think it was just a teleflora mug (came as a planter). I can’t remember if I got this mug from my grandpa’s place after he passed away, or if I found it thrifting and bought it because it reminded me of him. Anyway, I had this mug and I loved it. My grandpa worked for Calumet City which has a smiley face water tower. Eventually the handle cracked off. That’s probably what happens when mugs are really meant to be used as flower pots and not hold hot fluid. I wanted to replace it and that was when I looked on ebay and found that my teleflora mug was a rip off of the vintage McCoy smiley face mugs. They must have been pretty common because you can always find them for sale, but the shipping is what kept me from ever buying one. It was complete serendipity that I went to the flea market and that there was a booth with a whole collection of mugs.

The next mug is one I found thrifting and I just liked the way it looked, plus someone put a bird on it.

Then there is another thrift store mug for the company that I work at, or rather a previous rendition of my current company. I just thought it was hilarious to find a mug for the company I work at so I bought it.

Remember back in the 90s when the internet was all woooooooooooo! Well, as a kid in the 80s I had this book about how to get free stuff and most of the instructions were to write companies and sometimes they’ll send you free samples. I remembered that and thought “wonder if it works the same on the internet” so I did a search for free stuff and somehow how found the coffee company Papa Nicholas. They had a survey and said if I filled it out I’d get a free sample. Little did I know they’d send me a free mug AND a huge bag of coffee grounds! Even after I told them I don’t drink coffee. The 90s were awesome that way.

This is probably my most Flight of the Conchords mug. The hot air balloons are just to remember my trip in a hot air balloon and I got the mug at Salvation Army.

Seagulls and random blue stripey mug are also thrifted. I love the shape and size of the seagulls. The blue one I got just because it reminded me of a handbuilt mug I bought at salvation army, but realized when I got home it somehow didn’t make it into my bags with me. I was so broken hearted I went back for it and it was already gone. oh well.

So, there ya go. My favorite mugs, mostly thrifted, loved a lot, and rarely used for coffee. I have to give props and inspiration for this post to Manda Townsend for her recent mention of a favorite mug she stole back from her parents, and then Carrie Anne at the Little Big Blog for all of her thrifty posts, as well as featuring a mug on Friday that looks very similar to my seagull mug.

If you have some fun mugs and want to do a post, please share!

100 Things About me (part III)

Published

robayre

on February 27, 2013

in General Update

. 2 Comments

This is part III of 100 Things About Me. I’m breaking it down into smaller digestible pieces. Part I can be read here, and part II here.

41. I’m the self professed Yoyo Queen. I first started making yoyos when I was 15 or 16 with a quilt using mostly scraps from my mom’s quilts. Since the beginning I’ve probably made thousands of yoyos and my framed yoyos have been featured on many blogs and the front page of Etsy.

42. I love the girls’ names Jane, Wendy, Allison, and Casey

43. I LOVE popcorn, my favorite being cheese caramel from the Popcorn Palace.

44. The majority of my socks have been black and white striped since about 2001.

45. I have seen the Smoking Popes perform tons of times (in their many variations and incarnations) including once where I saw them 3 times in a 7 day period.

46. I am a contributing artist in cellophane, meaning, I am an artomat artist!

47. I took several anthropology classes in college. One was a forensic anthropology class where I got to work on facial reconstruction on a skull and work on a skeletal remains dig in a yard.

48. I love documentaries, especially crime docs and watch the dramatized Investigation Discovery Channel like it’s my job. Funny though, I would never really watch any of those fictional CSI type shows.

49. We have 2 cats, but I don’t think of myself as a cat or dog person, but an animal lover all around.

50. I love everything paper related, from the huge press rolls of newsprint, padding paper, stationery and notecard sets to little scraps of ephemera and vintage papers

51. I LOVE the snow, much to the annoyance of pretty much EVERY.SINGLE.PERSON.AROUND.ME. Everyone accept for Dacia (high five, girlfriend!)

52. My cat just stepped on the keyboard and somehow caused a long long line of lololololololololololololololololololololololol to appear, which then made me really LOL.

53. I love grass. Lawn grass to be specific. I love cutting it with a lawn mower, I love the smell of it, I love the feel of it under bare feet, and I love the color, and image. To me grass is nature, it is beauty, it is freedom and leisure. A lot of my artwork uses the image of grass blades and I have a whole flickr set devoted to it.

54. My favorite directors are Cameron Crowe, Tim Burton, Jean Pierre Jeunet and Michel Gondry.

55. My favorite color is green, but not any particular shade of green. I even love that “eww, puke green” that people seem to always detest. I especially love when lots of shades of green are next to each other. It makes the color so much more rich.

56. I used to know a good amount of sign language. I haven’t used it in ages, but I bet if I took a quick class or picked up a book I could get back into it fairly easily.

57. I like to make art and leave it out for people to discover and keep. See Found Art Tuesday.

58. White dudes all look the same to me. Honestly, I do have a hard time following movies where the characters are all Caucasian men because unless they have unique characteristics I can’t tell them apart. For example that actor Tom Hardy, I wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a line up if money was on the line. It’s only after reading his names so many times that I looked him up and realized I had seen him in so many movies and never knew he was the same person.

59. I’m kind of obsessed with everything Peter Pan. It started as a child listening to the Disney Peter Pan soundtrack (on record). Then I read the book kind of late in middle school or high school and realized it was such a great and creatively written book and renewed my obsession. Then when I was in college my best friend and I stayed at a hotel in London that by chance was just across the street from Kensington Gardens. The gardens are the place where Peter fell from his pram and lived with the birds before flying away to Neverland. The picture above is one I took of a sculpture in the gardens.

60. I’ve never been to Disneyworld or Disneyland and really don’t care to go either. There was a time when I was a kid when I would have loved to have gone, when all my friends’ families were taking them, but now as an adult I could think of a dozen places I’d rather go than Disney.

leather journals and bookmaking

Published

robayre

on February 26, 2013

in General Update and Projects

. 4 Comments

This weekend I was really excited to make a bunch of little journals. They are similar to my little book that I purchased at an art show in 2009. The pages are even smaller though, at 3″x2.25″

When I was in college I took a bookmaking class and have since made a few books that I’ve sold through my shop. The above image is a hardcover book I made and one of the first items I ever sold in my etsy shop back in 2006. Below is another hardcover book in my shop currently.

and I’ve made many super teensie tiny handbound books like below

I even used to make tiny books on earrings, but I don’t have pierced ears, so I always felt kind of weird about offering an item that I couldn’t even enjoy myself. I love making tiny things so I wouldn’t rule out ever making them again, and well, now that I have even brought them up I’m sure to want to make some more.

I still have my book cradle that I made in college. One end fell off and so I craftily cut up an old book cover to replace the missing end.

Since that first bookmaking class I’ve pretty much only ever made hardcover books on my own. I really do love my little book and so I thought “why not try and make a little softcover handbound journal of my own.” I brought out my old college textbook for a refreshener. Everything went well on the first one, and so I made several more!

Similar to the hardcover books I’ve made, the new ones have a variety of papers inside, including graph, drawing paper, vintage papers and some lined paper that I’ve made myself.

They were fun to make and I hope to make some more in other sizes.

While looking for a link to my college text book I saw this awesome looking book on making mini books, and I think I’ve seen this one at our local Barnes and Noble and have heard good things about it.

Also, I realized while composing this post that as soon as a book has a leather cover (whether hardcover or soft) it automatically becomes a journal in my mind. Even if the pages don’t really lend themselves to journaling. Why is that? The leather that I used to make these little books were bought in a bag of remnant leather scraps, thus the small size of books.

New product – Vintage Photograph Garlands

Published

robayre

on February 21, 2013

in etsy, General Update and shop update

. 2 Comments

It has been way-way too long since I’ve added a brand new product to my online shop. If you follow me on instagram or flickr you may have seen some sneak peeks of this new product, vintage photograph circle-cut garlands.

I’ve had this idea in my head for so long and I’m so thrilled with how they came out. I went into my studio earlier this week with the intentions of working on something else, but next thing I know I’m whipping up these pretty babies. These garlands (color, or black and white) are made from actual, real vintage photographs. I know, gasp! Rosa ;) The pictures in these garlands came from a HUGE bag of pictures I scored at a flea market a couple of years ago. As beautiful as these pieces are though, I do believe future garlands will be made from prints made from the collection, rather than actual vintage pictures.

Reaching into the bag while I worked, I kept pulling out pictures that I just couldn’t bring myself to cut up. Here are a few, and you will see what I am talking about.

That girl in the middle saved this picture with her adorable hat alone!

I couldn’t cut apart this grade school picture, but it did inspire me to make future garlands from vintage year books, which I have a good collection of as well.

That face. Really? Heart melting.

And last but not least, this bathing beauty. A stunner, right? There are actually A LOT of pictures of her in the bag so I wasn’t so protective of each. Good news, that means she’s featured in some of the garlands.

These garlands are now available in my etsy shop. Please stop by to see them and many other pages of my handmade products. Thank you!

Developing Polaroid Video

Published

robayre

on February 19, 2013

in General Update

. 1 Comment

Matt’s mom picked up a couple of Polaroid cameras for me at a Goodwill to add to my collection. One of them had film still left inside. I didn’t really have too much hope for it so I was quite surprised when it actually turned out. Afterward I was kind of kicking myself that I didn’t take more time trying to find a better subject or composition. Oh well, at least I caught this little film. This is something people won’t get to do much longer… developing instant pictures in daylight, as Impossible Film must be developed in the dark.

I made this video in Vine, but it kept giving me a “failed upload” message. I kept it there for days trying over and over before it finally just disappeared on it’s own. I read this post where apparently I’m not the only one to complain about this issue. I hope that can resolve this issue and have been keeping my eyes peeled for an update. At least, like the coloring book/zine upload, it was saved to my photo album and not lost entirely.

sidenote: I need to look into why flickr is adding a black box at the top and bottom of my vine videos, making the video out of scale. My vine videos are square formatted, the videos are uploaded are square, but when they are published to flickr the black boxes appear and the scale is all wonky. I ended up just posting the video to Vimeo and sharing that version instead.

100 Things About Me (Part II)

Published

robayre

on February 16, 2013

in General Update, life and lists

. 2 Comments

This is part II of 100 Things About Me. I’m breaking it down into smaller ingestable pieces. Part I can be read here.

21. I have road tripped around Ireland with my sister, kissed the Blarney stone and climbed to the edge of the Cliffs of Moher to look down and see birds flying below me.

22. I have been on etsy since 2005 and opened up my shop in 2006.

23. I always wanted to open up a wrapped box from under the tree, Christmas morning, to find a little puppy inside.

24. I have set-lists, been backstage in the green room, and have been to after parties with Wilco.

25. I was taken to urgent care after being bitten by a blind and toothless, old dog when I was in middle school.

26. I don’t like bananas, but I don’t mind fake banana flavored candy.

27. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Art, not a Fine Art degree. Before graduating I was an undecided major, then an education major with Art emphasis, then an Art Education Major, then just an Art major.

28. For that I had to take 2 years of Italian language classes.

28. If I had a fine art degree it probably would have been in printmaking, photography, or metalwork/jewelry. I just counted 12 classes I took between those subjects.

29. I have 10,100 songs in my itunes library and if each track played once my library would play continuously for 26.5 days.

30. I would say97% of those songs are from CDs. I don’t believe in buying digital. Why pay almost the same amount of money and not get a hard back up as well as awesome artwork?

31. I’ve had a thing for stripes (particularly black and white stripes) probably since middle school. It makes me kind of sad now how popular B&W stripes are now. It used to be fairly difficult to find b&w striped items and everyone around me knows it was my thing. Now I don’t want people thinking I’m just being obnoxiously trendy.

32. I don’t like pop and rarely drink it. I can’t take the carbonation. It hurts to drink.

33. I have green eyes and I think that makes me special.

34. I have bought my current bicycle 4 times.

35. I collect gnomes.

36. Here are my favorite boots. Click the image above to read more about them.

37. I have sent HUNDREDS of pieces of my original artwork though the mail.

38. I used to play the clarinet (for 4 years, from 5th grade through 8th).

39. The first page of all my sketchbooks start out the same way with the time of my birth printed small and central, and nothing else.

40. I’m worried that these lists of 100 Things sound like I’m bragging or a snob.

Three Exciting Things

Published

robayre

on February 13, 2013

in General Update and life

. 4 Comments

My Aunt Susan shared this image of a quilt she has pieced. She used the images of my circle series art pieces printed on fabric, along with her own hand dyed fabrics. Isn’t this amazing? I can’t wait to see it in person! I love making the pieces, but it makes me feel like a rock star that someone would want to put all of my pieces together for this larger piece.

Finally, finally, finally after years and years I have pulled my old original website and replaced it with a newer, fresher site (above). I may be a graphic designer by trade, but I am NOT a web designer in the least. The old page was done in a program that I can not even mention at work. I would be given dagger eyes, boos and hisses, if people even knew I had a copy of it on my computer, but it was all I had. That old site was what I built when I was first gifted my very own website from my brother for Christmas many years ago. That site was up for decades, well, ya know decades at least in internet years. The first site was so old, and clunky, and unprofessional that I stopped mentioning it, linking to it, and hoped that people wouldn’t know it existed. The new site, while still not professional, was designed in a professional layout program, with no frills. It gets the job done. If you notice any glaring problems, any taboo web design elements, or even pet peeves of yours, please do not hesitate in letting me know. I will be grateful.

Last but not least, please welcome Fionna! On Saturday we stopped by TAILS animal shelter and found this purry, sweet, 7 month old kitten. She’s 7 months old, but about half the size of our cat Bishop. The original plan had always been to have two cats, but we could never agree on one kitten, let alone two. When we found Bishop, we were both so happy that a second cat was put on the back burner. Little did we know that Bishop would have such a large personality (read: attack visitors, bite Matt’s ankles and generally dislike being pet) that we couldn’t even imagine ~~bringing~~ subjecting another animal in Bishop’s lair. Then last spring/summer when he went missing I kept wondering why we had never gotten that second cat we were supposed to have. A second cat would have been such a great comfort in the emotionally draining period while Bishop was missing. I didn’t want to get a second cat then because I didn’t see another cat as a replacement, but we vowed once we brought Bishop home we would actively start checking the shelters for the perfect addition to our family.

Most people (ourselves included) had BIG reservations and didn’t think it could be done, but let me tell you… Only 4 days after we brought Fionna home, she and Bishop are able to be in the house together, roaming freely, for periods of time. From the get go Bishop was more inquisitive, rather than aggressive and that was a great sign. We’ve followed all the recommendations we could find about introducing a new cat. Hopefully some of her sweet manners will rub off onto Bishop, and not vice versa. Her shelter name was Zooey, but neither of us were crazy about that. Matt thought her name should begin with an F and I immediately said Finn! We are huge Adventure Time fans, but Matt said Finn is a boy and this cat is a girl. Then we remembered the fairytale episode where all the characters were swapped sexes and instead of Jake and Finn it was Cake and Fionna. We both liked the name Fionna and so that was settled. We often call Bishop BeeBee, so I guess this would make her a FeeFee now, wouldn’t it?

A Letter to Myself

Published

robayre

on February 11, 2013

in General Update and life

. 5 Comments

Dear Teenage Robyn,

I know you won’t believe it, but as an adult you will have:

Your very own studio, in your very own house

with plenty of art supplies to go in it!

A spinning wheel to make your own yarn,

a button maker,

a spiral book binder,

sewing machine,

plenty of silk screens (that you built! I know you don’t even know that is possible coming from using commercial screens in high school)

a gumball machine filled with your own handmade items

And an online store where you can sell the things you make!

Being an adult is AWESOME!

Winter knits and snow fall

Published

robayre

on February 8, 2013

in fiber, General Update, life and Projects

. 0 Comments

My sister in law mentioned that she would like a slouchy knit hat. For Christmas I bought a yarn in a color she likes and knit her a hat. When I knit I’m not the type of person to follow patterns, I make stuff up as I go. I don’t do swatches and I rarely follow suggestions for needle sizes. I like it that way because the things I make are my own, BUT it also causes some grief and a lot of ripping out and frogging. I knit the hat for my sister in law and I actually decided to buy a pattern beforehand. BUT the yarn was chunky and the needles I had on hand were 3 sizes too big. I shoudn’t have been surprised when the hat turned out to also be about 3 times too big as well!

Take two, I had her pick a worsted weight yarn she liked and borrowed the correct needles from my sister and it turned out great. Who knew? I liked it so much that I decided to make one for myself. The hat I made for myself was a chunkier yarn so it’s a bit big, but it still fits and looks great.

This winter has been a weird one, more rain than snow. I love spring, but I need a good long hard winter before I can fully appreciate and feel all the awesome inspiration and energy from spring. Yesterday in the chicagoland area we finally had a good snow. I went home for lunch and the snow was falling in big clumps. What was supposed to be less than an inch turned out to be at least a couple inches. I went home for lunch and then didn’t want to go back to work, so I called work, told them I was sick (hack, hack) and couldn’t come back. I was joking and my manager knew but said I could have the afternoon off. I have truthfully NEVER called in sick or skipped work or school by pretending I was sick. Anyway I stayed home, and watched the snow fall and made the above little video on Vine. It took me a while to figure out how to embed it here on wordpress but I finally got it. Unfortunately, it’s not showing up in google reader. If you wanna see it, please just visit the original post.

After Matt got off of work we had to run to the grocery store to pick up some ingredients for dinner and the snow was still falling. As we pulled into the parking lot I had a brief moment of worry that the store would be packed with those “BREAD AND MILK SNOW STORM!” people. It wasn’t packed, but I still had to laugh when Matt found and sent me this hilarious video this morning.

Edit: Just thought of one more thing that I wanted to add to this post of wintery things. A few weeks ago my brother, sister and I took my little nephew to Russell Woods for a winter event they were having. We took a winter hike, rode on a horse drawn wagon, and we pulled candles. The candles pictured were some children that were making their own. We had a good time and look forward to going to back to the woods during the spring.

100 Things About Me (Part I)

Published

robayre

on February 4, 2013

in General Update and life

. 2 Comments

Back on a couple of my previous blogs (2001, 2003) I shared 100 things about me posts. Somewhere I actually have that list written out on paper. I’ve often thought how I’d like to share a list like that here on this blog, but I also know 100 items is a lot of things to expect a reader to go through. So, I’ve decided to break it up into bite sized posts, 20 items at a time.

1. My name is Robyn Rachel Wells and my parents got my name from a recently aired episode of Welcome Back Kotter.

2. I started working as a graphic designer professionally when I was 16 years old, as part of a selective internship in high school.

3. My boyfriend Matt and I have been together since 2001.

4. I’ve been friends with my best friend since kindergarten.

5. I’m a published photographer.

6. I’ve had my own art show.

7. I went away to summer camp twice when I was in middle school.

8. The sound, feeling and even sight of styrofoam drives me crazy.

9. I live one block away from the house that I grew up in.

10. I have my own website.

11. When I was a senior in high school I took my spring break in Juneau, Alaska.

12. I have never been on a cruise, and don’t care to ever go on one either.

13. I’ve seen the Tour De France whiz by me.

14. I had a pet hedgehog named Heddie.

15. I have always had a thing for Polaroid cameras and instant films. That’s me with the pigtails, probably spring-ish 1982.

16. I’m allergic to politics.

17. I can knit, crochet, weave and spin yarn.

18. I haven’t had a car for several years now, but before that I’ve had 3 cars, all of them grandma oldsmobiles that I drove until they DIED.

19. I don’t like chocolate.

20. I work in the same office that I worked in as a 16 year old. It’s a different business, but the same building, and there have been other jobs and locations in between. Funny enough, my computer is actually positioned on the same wall as my light table was on back in the day.

Inspiration Junkie robayre.com

Archive for the 'General Update' Category Page 2 of 84

My Mug Collection

100 Things About me (part III)

leather journals and bookmaking

New product – Vintage Photograph Garlands

Developing Polaroid Video

Three Exciting Things

A Letter to Myself

Winter knits and snow fall

100 Things About Me (Part I)

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