Time To Get Surreal

**Note:  I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last blogged. No, I did not fall into a hole, nor was I abducted by aliens.  I've just gotten kind of bogged down with life, and I'm working on eliminating some of the things that have been cluttering things up for me, both literally and figuratively.  Now, back to the scheduled program....


"If you see a bus crash into someone’s front porch while a caged dog barks in the side yard, near a man in a business suit who is grilling hamburgers, you might call that a surreal image. Things that are surreal combine unrelated elements to create a bizarre scene."

That's the definition of surreal that I found on Vocabulary.com.  It is also the theme of the current ATC swap at Michele's Little Bird Studio.  What to do, what to do?

I've always loved phrenology head images and find them to be rather surreal, so I decided to start there, and used the Invoke Arts stamp.  And I decided that the head exploding and releasing butterflies would do the trick.

 

 

 

I figured the back should be as surreal as the front, and I always like to refer to my home town and favorite city in the world, so I came up with this:

 

 

 

C'mon, Lady Liberty with my head on a platter, gotta love it.

 

I'm delivering my swaps to Michele today, and I look forward to seeing what I'll be getting in return.





 



Cruisin' the Caribbean With Tim!

My body may be back in NY, but my head sure isn't.  What a wonderful week we had on the beautiful Freedom of the Seas.  But, the journey began before we got onboard.  First of all, a few weeks prior to sailing we received our cruise documents and the name badge holder from ScrapMap:

And inside the zippered compartment was the booklet showing which group we were in and the schedule of classes.  For the first time, we wouldn't have to wait until we were on the ship to get that information.  Whoo Hoo!  I could see right away that I was in the class group with just about all my favorite peeps.

I made some ATCs and pins to trade and just give away.  Here is my ATC, front and back (with apologies to The Beach Boys):



This is the pin I made.  I used an inchie stampboard and the cool Lady Liberty stamp I received from Gloria during last year's cruise.

And here is how I presented them:

I just did a simple ATC and attached the pin right to it.

I also wanted to give a little something to both Tim and Mario.  Knowing how they both are into Starbucks, I thought coffee cup cozies (if that is in fact what they are called; I really don't know) would be nice.  I had some NYC fabric from the City Quilter and actually sewed the suckers.  I am no seamstress and the stitches are wonky, not to mention I sewed Mario's so the writing is all upside down, but I think the graphics are nice enough to compensate for my lack of sewing skills.  Oh, and let me mention that they are reversible.  Here they are, first Tim's, then Mario's:







My friend and cabinmate Pat and I left for Florida a day before the cruise began, and stayed at a Disney resort....Port Orleans.....fun place, one big Mardi Gras, and upon entering we received these, to get into the spirit of things:

I thought I took some photos while there, but apparently I left that task to Pat, so whenever she gets her pictures uploaded I'll share them, but all I have are these two of our room.....and our luggage.  Why I thought the luggage was important to document, I don't know.

Saturday night we met up with Elena and Bernie and had a FABULOUS dinner at Joe's Crab Shack in Orlando.  I've wanted to eat there for the longest time, and really enjoyed it.  Thanks, guys!  Again, no photos taken.  What was I thinking?

Finally, Sunday arrived, and Elena and Bernie picked us up and we drove to the ship.  We were onboard in time for lunch, our cabins were ready right after, and our bags came fairly quickly as well. Pat and I were unpacked and settled in before dinner.  Afterwards we had the welcoming reception where we were introduced to Tim's great team, and had the opportunity to swap and get together with both old and new friends.  Here are some of the swaps I received.  I say some, because I keep finding more, hidden in pocket and luggage compartments, so I'm sure there are more.

I wasn't part of the organized charm swap, nor did I make any charms, but I still managed to receive quite a few from some very generous cruisers.  These are only a few.....the rest made their way into a project several days later.



And then, everyone who is a member of ATT got into this group photo with Tim.  Notice all the official ATT t-shirts?  Being tall, I am somewhere in the back row. 

Check out my friend Val's blog for a good look at the ship.  Clearly  she was better at remembering to take photos than I was.

To be continued......













Hey Mr. Postman....

......bring me some postcards!  Do people on vacation still do that?  Nah, I think not.  We just aim our phones at random monuments and send them to torture our stay at home friends.  Well, to put an end to such modern but less than artistic practices, I recently hosted a postcard swap with some of my buds.

Everyone made cards depicting either real or imagined vacations, personalized the backs, got them to me, and I assembled them into books with my trusty Cinch.  I also made covers for the books, and now that everyone has received theirs (well, almost everyone, so you know who you are and if you want to be surprised, go to another blog) I'll share them with you.  It was a fun project to do this summer, and it reminded me of so many trips when I was younger and the only way to communicate with the folks back home was by mail.

Here is the front cover that I made, using Tim Holtz paper and stamps, tissue tape, a few other odds and ends, and covered with my new favorite supply, Ranger's Glue N Seal.

I'd love to show you the backs of the cards but I doubt my friends would appreciate seeing their names and addresses all over the internet.  Keeping privacy intact, here are the cards:

 love the bathing beauty!

 wish you could see all the shine and dimension under the lighthouse

 fantastic way to represent the sun!

 dreamy and romantic, just like Paris

 she really didn't go round the world a la Phineas Fogg, but sounds like fun!

 gorgeous stamping, and the blue star marks Alaska, the destination of this cruiser

 some people have out of control imaginations, as this card, commemorating a

trip to Idahopia attests.  The happy vacationer had a spud-tacular time.

 greetings from one of my favorite places, England

this one is mine, since I didn't go anywhere this summer (not that I think

being in NYC is any kind of hardship, LOL)

this swapper made cards of every place on her wish list to visit, and I

was lucky enough to receive Paris

The back cover was done similarly to the front, and is a good example of turning lemons into lemonade.  I did everyone else's book without a problem, but when it came to my own (guess I was tired) I punched the holes in the back cover on the wrong side.  Look how I solved that problem:

Sometimes ribbons are your best friend.

Another Storage Solution

I thought I'd share with you another storage solution......how to keep your special ATCs together.  Now, I do have a 7 Gypsies ATC spinner, but it is so crammed full of them I can't even see them any more.  And certainly there is no room for any additional ones.

The ATCs I'm talking about are the ones I received from my cruise mates on last year's Tim cruise. I wanted to put them in a book, but didn't want to use adhesive on their backs.  Gotta be able to flip them over and see who did them.  Let me explain a bit about the book.  Weeks before sailing I decided to make a travel journal.  I altered an existing book for this purpose.....glued some pages together for added strength,  removed some pages,  gessoed all the pages and very lightly decorated them with inks, paints, stains and glazes.  This is the cover, and in case you're wondering why the L in England is off to the side, go ahead and have a good laugh at my expense.  I think it was literally weeks after completing it before I noticed that I had left the L out.  I wasn't about to re-do it, so I just put the L next to the rest of the word. I was so proud that all the letters fit on the cover so nicely.  Hah!  But, I digress.....

And here are a few of the pages after they were decorated, or I should say, prepped for journaling:

Why are they blank, almost a year after the cruise?  Well, the very first project we did with Tim was a travel journal, so I used that for my notes and memorabilia, and decided to use the one I'd made to hold my ATCs.  But I couldn't come up with a satisfactory means of keeping them in the book.  You know I'm a big proponent of using what I have, and what I have is a great big box of 3 1/2 x 5 1/2" coin envelopes.

Just the right size.....first I sealed the flap shut.  Then I cut the envelope down the middle:

I used a 1" circle punch to create a little half circle on the tops....makes putting the ATCs in and removing them so much easier.  

I used a very strong adhesive (with my Scotch ATG) to attach the holders to the pages.  Two fit well on each page in my 5 1/2 x 8 1/2" book.  I did minimal decorating of the envelopes.  I was just anxious to finish this project and get my cruise ATCs in their new home, but naturally you can ink and stamp and emboss as much as you like.   Here are some sample pages:

And you can see that I am still stencil-crazy.  Each and every page and most of the envelopes have some sort of stenciling on them.  Love, love, love those stencils!

If I had more ATCs to store I could have put envelopes on both sides of the pages, but as it is, they all fit well with this layout and any time I want to relive those wonderful memories I have these precious little works of art all in one place.



















Altered Ancestors

No, I realize you can't go back in time and change your forebearers (is that even a word?), the title refers to a page swap going on at ATT. 

We had to use photos from the 1950's or earlier and alter them in some way and remembering the group we're in, making them Tim-like in materials and/or style.  And no, the photos don't have to be of our actual ancestors.  Oh, and the pages are only 4x4!

Well, I came across a photo online of five of the grimmest, most constipated looking women I've ever seen, and I just had to use it.  Because these old girls were the polar opposite of happy go lucky, of course I felt compelled to invite them to a party.  So, I hope everyone in the swap is OK with me going whimsical instead of vintage, romantic or otherwise serious.  I couldn't help myself!

Here's the front:

Do these ladies like to party, or what?  Anyway.....the background is lettuce color wash on watercolor paper, and on the top half, one of Tim's script stamps, embossed with peeled paint distress embossing powder. 

Party girls #1 and 3 are wearing hats made from paper embossed with two of Tim's folders and colored with several different sprays.

Party girls #2 and 4 are wearing headgear made from foliage pieces treated with the chipped enamel technique.

Party girl #5 is wearing goggles made from two brads, and her headdress is a Maya Road rub-on.

The sentiment is courtesy of Cyndi Lauper.

The back of the page just had to be finished and contain our information.  I used the same photo, printing it right over some of Tim's paper.  The letters are Jenni Bowlin.

I had a blast with this; hope it made you smile too.