iHanna's Postcard Swap

Has it really been a month?! Grad school, a new job, and a new man have been distracting me.

iHanna has opened up her inbox for submissions to enter the 2011 International Postcard Swap! www.ihanna.nu/blog/?p=1277 I already sent in my message; last year I did a series of red and gold cards featuring birds but I'm not sure what direction I'll go in this year. I've been using a lot of spray inks recently, perhaps I'll go in the stencil direction with that...

I'm currently taking a class called "The Theory of Creativity" and every week we need to try something creative and new. I recently chose to experiment with free-form embroidery, which is likely doodling without thread since you do not really preplan what you are doing and you don't use a pattern.

My kitties:

A blossoming heart for my new relationship:

Yep, more hearts. I'm very happy with my life right now.

Detail shot of the heart flower.

By the time I realized the petals were wandering away from the flower I just decided to go with it. It reminds me of falling petals and spirals.

Lately

I don't know what it is lately, but I've been using less wet media and more collaged backgrounds.

Tie dye cupcakes

My sister and I have a list of things we want to do together called "The Sister Lister." Last week we decided to make mulit-color cupcakes. It's very simple; you just need some white cake mix, food coloring, and whatever other ingredients your recipe calls for. After following the mix directions you divide the batter into separate bowls and dye them different colors. Then the fun begins! You pour different color combinations into your tins, resulting in fabulous cupcakes!

Mine on the left, Amy's on the right.



Mine on the left, Amy's on the right.


We didn't have enough cupcake liners so we made bite size cupcakes!

When you bite into your tie dye cupcake it explodes with color, so pretty!

2010/2011 Grid

Diana Trout has been posting nudges on her blog to get people inspired to work in their journals and a recent nudge was to incorporate a grid. I chose to do a sum up of 2010/looking forward to 2011.

Be Fearless

This year I wanted to start off with a mantra so I chose "Be fearless." I've already taken some large steps in the first few weeks of 2011:

1) I have started dating again (and I am having so much fun).

2) I am accepting a big promotion at work; I will be directing my own center and receiving a considerable raise.

3) I am starting grad school Monday!

So to encompass this mantra I decided to play around on canvas, which is something I have avoided because that is for "real painters." Whatever, I like it and I had fun.



One Stamp in two ways; when you lay down a layer of metallic paint and press an uninked stamp to it you will get a two tone image of the stamp.

Layering practice

A couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted to work with layers so that my pages would have more depth. I have a hard time covering snippets and papers since I chose them for their colors and designs. It's silly! For some reason both of these turned out very monochromatic.

Mail art and pages

I finally got off my butt and uploaded everything off of my cameras =)

The contact info. page in case I lose my journal- it should be noted this has not happened yet. *Knock on wood.*


It's one of those scented perfume ads (it smells pretty!) but mostly I fell in love with the Marie Antoinette vibe.

While working on said page I walked away for a minute and returned to sit down, only to be greeted by a high pitched squeak. This little bugger squeezed onto my chair when I wasn't looking.

Finally, a piece of mail art I made for my pen pal/former swap partner, Alison. I just took an image of a crow, traced it onto chipboard and made fold out wings from scrapbook paper and I wrote my letter on them.

Photography Lessons and New Craft Space

Christmas morning

Sorry I haven't been posting! Our Internet has been down and then snow/federal holidays/life got in the way. But now things are back up and running! Grad school is breathing down my neck so I may only be posting once a week (I *really* want to make it a regular habit!)

Christmas afternoon

Over the winter holidays I've been playing with my camera more, trying to figure out which setting work with which environments. My ultimate goal is to create a 6ft x 4ft anatomical heart out of chicken wire and papermache to use in a series of photographs during the summer.

Recently I've been playing with self portraits, such as in the Christmas ball above. I learned that by redirecting the flash (by not placing the subject in the center of the photo) allows reflective surfaces to not become "whited out." (That is such a weird looking word- whited, huh.) Apparently you can also diffuse the flash by taping a piece of white tissue paper or vellum over it- I really want to try that out.

Here is a peek at my current craft space- I got rid of the old desk and replaced it with my sister's drafting table. She is switching her major from interior design to graphic design; she was sick of seeing my craft junk on the dining room table so she gave me the table so I could spread out, out of sight. It's so nice to have my own space where I can leave out my projects and come back to them when I feel like it. Now that everything is up there it's so much easier to get started.

My best friend, Chrissy gave me a Cricut for Christmas and my sister gave me an ihome, now I have no excuse to leave my room. Ever. So much playing, dreaming, and creating! Painting and journal pics to come!

Swap pages

I joined craftster's "Journal for a Month" swap and this is one of my pages from the one I sent. I used Golden liquid acrylics as a wash for the background and used some scraps of paper from craft time at work for the clouds.

I also took part in Craftster's "One Tiny Historical Thing" swap and my partner wanted something WWII related so I made her a tiny art quilt of Rosie the Riveter. This the the sketch and swatches from the project. I used the colors from the image for the actual quilt, printed the image black and white, and then tinted certain parts of the image to give it the look of old hand tinted photos.

Fall journal pages

Old journal pages from my early fall journal:

The background is an unfolded envelope glued down on the page to display the blue geometric pattern, then washed with watercolor. I layered the bird stencil over with plastic canvas and applied red acrylic for some texture. The boarder is a stamp I made with some left over rubber- it reminds me of branches/nests.

Counting down to my 23rd birthday (it's just like 21 and 22 but with more gray hair.)

Etsy shop up!

I have spent the day writing up shop policies, taking photos of items, posting them, and wading through pages of legal mumbo-jumbo. But the shop is up: http://www.etsy.com/shop/RougeRavenDesigns?ref=pr_shop_more I never thought that selling crafts online required so much paperwork!

Today I learned:

1) Etsy sellers pay taxes not once, but four freakin' times a year! (Since taxes aren't deducted from their paychecks like at a "real" company.)

2) I need an employer identification number

3) I need a license. (I think?)

4) I should open a separate business account to make paying those crazy taxes easier.

Least to say, I'm kind of scared. This is all very new and somewhat overwhelming, but it's a bright new year and I'm looking forward to it.

And though I made this spread for a totally different thing I was dealing with this is pretty much how I have felt today: