TODAY'S ATC: CAT'S PAW

Still playing with ATC's over at Swap-Bot.com, although right now it's all I can do to keep the obligation balls in the air, so play is WAY down on my list. But not non-existent!

The idea, with this ATC, was to create a collage from junk mail or magazine images. This is what I made:


Pretty simple, really, once I found the cat and orange images. Then it was just a matter of adding in the fish, and a pair of earrings from a catalog. But I was happy with the final effect.

Now, you aren't allowed to sell ATC's. They're for trading, which is why they're called Artist's Trading Cards, but people can and do sell ACEO's, which are pretty much the same thing, except they're called Art Cards, Editions and Originals. I wondered what Etsy would have, and found literally thousands! Here are three I loved with "cat" themes:

Dancing Cats, by 3Crows

Tortie Cat with Fish, by AlisonEKurek

Mr. Darcy, by TaraFly

Clicking on the ACEO images will take you to the shops where they can be purchased. Aren't they wonderful?

SUNDAY RERUN: BROKEN (a poem)

It's time for another Sunday Favorite! Click on the button in my left sidebar to see how you can join the fun--it will take you to Chari's blog and the instructions.

This is from the summer of 2002:


Broken

You used cleaning the kitchen
to show me how angry you were,
chattering the silverware,
clattering the plates,
and toppling the cups
into their positions on the upright prongs
of the dishwasher.

You used the dishes to show me.
It worked.
You broke my favorite glass
and
we both wept.

FRIDAY FENCE POST #64

Oh, I am SO late doing this! I actually found a couple of really great fences yesterday, over in the Hawthorne district, but (have I learned my lesson yet?) did not have my camera.

Then, instead of getting back there today, I took more time than expected to get art over to Trillium, checked in, and displayed in the store, and ended up snapping a couple of fences through my car's window whilst sitting at stoplights. Dusk was coming on, but there was still just enough light. Of course, once I "got the fences home", I had to play with those lovely Photoshop filters, too!





This last fence is from my cousin Darla! It was such a delight that she'd participate, even though she doesn't have a blog. I'd never even thought about that: You can send your fence photos to me if you don't have a blog, and I'll see your Friday Fence Posts get published here, so get your camera, and start clicking that shutter!


And now it's your turn! Create your Friday Fence Post for your blog, and put the permalink in Mr Linky down below. Also, please grab the button from the left sidebar, and put it somewhere on your blog page, so other people can join the fun. I promise to visit every fence and leave a comment!

TUESDAY TUTE: WRIST WARMERS

Time for a Tuesday Tute! I haven't turned this into a meme (yet!), but if you have a tutorial you'd like people to see, feel free to put a link to it in a comment. You'll get at least one visitor: ME!

From me, today:

There’s a chill in the air, but there’s fun on my hands! We’re talking darling fleece wrist warmers here, and a quick-as-a-wink gift to make. Here’s what you’ll need:

• A scrap of fleece, about 12” X 18”
• Buttons, bows, or other low-profile furbelows
• Thread

Begin by cutting two rectangles from the fleece, each 6” X 8”. Before you cut, check for stretch. You want to have stretch across the 8” side, which will wrap around your hand.


Fold each rectangle in half the long way, right sides together, using a ½” seam allowance. You should have two tubes now, each 3” X 6”.


Slip one of the tubes over your hand so that one edge of it just covers your knuckles, and the seam is at the outside edge of your hand. Feel for the bone at the base of your thumb, and for the first knuckle of that thumb, and draw a line between the one and the other.


Slip the wrist warmer off and flatten it so that the line you’ve drawn is right on the edge of the fold. Notice that the seam will NOT be on the other edge, but will be turned to the underside. This is important, because it allows for the thickness of your hand. After you’ve cut the thumbhole and put the warmer on, the seam will have magically moved to the edge of the warmer.

Cut a sliver of fabric out where you’ve drawn the line. Don’t worry about making the cut too narrow. You can always enlarge it if you need to.


Cool! Now you can decorate them! Use buttons, or little appliqués, or a bit of embroidery, near the knuckles, roughly centered.

When you know what you want to use, slip the warmers on, lay the adornments in place, and mark. Doing it that way is important, because I promise you, when you take the wrist warmer off and look at where the mark is, you’re going to think you’ve got it wrong! Centered will not look centered, but that’s an illusion.

Sew your trims on, and you’re done.

SUNDAY RERUN: Library Fine of $1642.25?!

It's time for a Sunday Favorite blog post! Click on the button over in my left sidebar to join the party over at Chari's, and post your own favorite!

A favorite photo of my cousin Angie

This is one of mine, from my other blog, posted on June 15, 2002.

Not long ago my Uncle Darrell was going through some stuff up at Grandma and Grandpa's old place, when what should he run across but a library book his niece, Angie, had checked out, oh, eighteen years ago, and never returned. It seemed like a perfect opportunity for a little fun.

Angie, at about the age she was when she checked out the infamous library book.

Darrell knew someone who worked at the school, and got her to give him some of the school's stationary. Then he wrote Angie a letter to the effect that the school had been going through old records and trying to put some of them to bed. Part of that organization effort was to get people with overdue books to ante up. Their records showed that she had checked out a book in 1984, and not returned it. The fine for that would be $1,642.25. Oh, and she'd need to buy the library a replacement, too, if she didn't still have the book.

In the meantime, Darrell enlisted the help of Angie's mom and sister. He gave them the book, and Angie's mom, my Aunt Charlotte, put it on her bookshelf. When Angie got the letter, she ran with it over to her mom's place (literally--they share a driveway) in a panic. Her sister, Cindy, was there.

Angie was panic-stricken all right, but she maintained that it had to be a mistake--she'd never even checked that book out! Cindy said, "I don't know, Ange. Seems like I saw that book just the other day..." and walked over to the bookcase, and "searched" through the titles. "Yeah! It's right here!"

Angie was totally freaked out. For exactly as long as it took Charlotte and Cindy to call Darrell so he could share in the laughter. At Angie's expense, of course. Thank goodness she's a good sport. Our entire family is still enjoying the joke.

FRIDAY FENCE POST #63

It's Friday! Seen any good fences lately? This is the place to let us see it, and it's easy: Post your fence photo on your own website/blog, and then paste the URL to your post in Mr Linky, down below. And please grab my button, in the left sidebar and post it somewhere on the page so others can join the fun, too! (Highlight the photo, right click, and select Copy as HTML from the dropdown menu that appears. That will give you the code.) I promise to come by and see all your posts, and leave a comment!

The picture above shows only a part of a fence. I took it because I liked the rickrack effect of the curving brick edging the path. Ceili is clearly interested in a visit to that inviting door!

I really liked this aging, interwoven fence, and wish only that the several other photos I took had actually turned out. They're worth clicking on, to see full-size, I think.





And now it's your turn!

TODAY'S ATC: DESIGN A...

I sat down to work on this ATC a couple of days ago, and wondered, What was I thinking?!

The idea of this swap was to take this image of a snail

and create an ATC with it. I hate googly eyes. Pretty much always have. And those look like googly eyes to me. Furthermore, they're out there on the ends of the snail's antennae. I guess that's not altogether unreasonable, since those feelers do act as eyes, but they bother me out there! And then there's the shape of the shell, an oval. Aren't snail shells round?

But I'd signed up for the swap, and that was that. Had to make an ATC.

The first thing that happened was I worked on another swap for awhile, an easy one: Gather up thirty different beads, and send them to your swap partner. I was looking through a tray of beads when I unearthed a card of self-stick yarn. Don't know how it go there, but it started me on my snail project.

A bit of scrapbooking paper, some paint, glue, glitter, buttons, and wire later, and I had this:


My snail is cozily dressed for fall weather in an autumnal sweater and coordinating headwear, and I think she's adorable. Should I say that? Is that being too vain? I can't help it--I didn't even want to send her off when I finished, and that's a pretty big change from wishing I hadn't signed up for the swap!

In other news, I reached a bit of a mile post today: I applied for Social Security. Should start getting benefits early next year. Feels funny writing that here. It's like shouting, "HEY, World! I'm OLD!!"

I am going for the early retirement option, in spite of the fact that if I waited until I'm 66 the monthly payout would be larger. They tell you what your monthly benefit will be at each age, so I subtracted the lower monthly benefit figure from the higher one, to see how much more per month I'd get at 66, and then divided that into the total of what I'd draw in the four years before turning 66. Turns out it would take twelve years to make up for what I'd lose by waiting, and we decided it really wasn't worth the wait.

So, as of about February of next year, I'm officially a retired person. Wow.