crafty mcgee

Happy Halloween!

Here are the only two creatures I finished of the big monster mash-up I had planned. Even more than usual, I am suffering from too many ideas and not enough time. I think there's a bit of cache overload happening in the ol' brain. The shrinky dink skeleton took three times as long as I planned, even though I knew going in I was shrink plastic challenged. I envisioned a whole chorus line of these guys. The mummy is good - I got to use up more cheesecloth. But I will leave it to all of your wonderful imaginations to add in all of his monster pals. With that thought in mind, have a great holiday, and don't eat too much candy!

Hurrah! Or, more crafting on the way

I haven't fallen off the planet yet! I'm working on a couple of Halloween-type projects (I know, it's only a week away), doing lots of knitting (more about that later), gardening (great weather), and to top it all off, works been really busy, so I've been needing more veg time in the evening. Good thing I thrive under pressure! But first of all, look what arrived in the mail today:

This stunning selection of bird ATCs from Kristen's swap. The artists from the top left are Michelle, non blogger Jaci (the rest of the set can be seen here), Mimi, Theresa, Dorie , and one from Kristen herself!  I couldn't be happier with them, they are all so beautiful! Thank you Kristen!

Knitting? Well I spent most of the weekend on a design project that I may be able to show in the future.  It was the first pattern I ever made myself. Yay for learning new things - it came out really well. Also, I am trying to knit a couple of sweaters and a hooded scarf in time from my Thanksgiving trip to New York City, so I can be both fashionable and warm. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, my brother's show, will have a float in the Macy's parade this year! So we are all going back to see it in person, and I'm hoping to hook up with some friends from school. Then we are going to PA to visit family (like my cousin Diane). I am so looking forward to this trip!

I also gocco'd up my Halloween cards. They didn't shrink for the blog so well, but they are my first registration prints ever! I cut a few them down into ATC-size pieces for Amy's swap. I am especially fond of the squirrel of doom in the second card. So you see why I haven't had time to post!

more cards, more experimentation

Kristin is hosting a bird-themed ATC swap. I decided that I really wanted my cards to look like old trading cards, so anything 3-D was out. I found some cute bird drawings I had saved from an old Martha Stewart magazine, copied some of them, printed them on watercolor paper and "painted" them with watercolor pencils. I scanned fabric for the background and pasted the birds on top in Photoshop. I then printed it out on 50% hemp/50% straw paper that has a heavy newsprint-like texture. It did some smooshy things to the colors, and they actually do look old! I hope the folks who receive them like them.

dia de los experimentos

I joined a Dia de los Muertos postcard swap, and wanted to do something a little (OK, a lot, I guess) different. I had this idea to print on some kind of open weave fabric to get a rough, see through effect. I nixed burlap (too heavy), and came up with the idea of using natural color cheesecloth. Here's a picture of it on top of muslin, which I used as a backing surface, and also printed some straight on in case I had to come up with a Plan B.

Of course, I used my gocco, but I had no idea if it would actually work. Then, I needed to print a slightly strange, but bright and Mexican-y picture for the cards. It was time for the printer to get into the experiment act. I printed on pink construction paper (too bright), card stock (too dark), and finally

 
yellow construction paper, which was just right. I stitched all the pieces together with some brightly colored koigu, and this is what I came up with. Roll your mouse over the picture to see how the detail pops out on the skeletons in lower light:

Kinda otherworldly....muy bueno!

It was a dark and spooky night.

Two zombie trees, an apprehensive polar bear and a mysterious robot found themselves on a lonely road in the forest. I'll let you guys take it from here.

This my entry for the Craftster Zombies & Robots & Bears...Oh My! challenge. This is the first time I've entered, I couldn't resist. I got the idea for the knitted trees from the book Knit a Fantasy Story that I blogged about way back in my first post, but I didn't follow the pattern, I just made it up as I went along. The bear is a new figure, he's so bright compared to the rest of the scene that he's a bit washed out. The robot is visiting from another vignette. This is also my official kickoff of the Halloween season, so check out the links to the right. I'm sorry they haven't been updated from last year. I have a few more to add (and other links to update) but Typepad is having "an ongoing problem with Typelists". They say I can recreate all of them from scratch, but I don't have time right now. I've got things to make!

secret identity

I got all of the printing done that I wanted to do this week. The piece on the bottom is some fabric I hand stamped for Moki's swap. I'm happy with the design, but the thin vinyl that I used had drastically unpredictable ink retention properties. As you can tell, some of it came out fine, and other spots faded away to nothing, all with the same ink application to the stamp itself. I like this technique, but I'll try to find something a bit more porous to use in the future.

The other items are some labels for my knitted items, and my fall calling cards that I use for swaps and such, both done with my trusty gocco. (This is the standby ribbon. The ribbon I bought special never showed up.) I thought this would be an appropriate post to talk about my "logo". It's been on my banner the last few times, it was on my spring/summer cards, and I use it for my Flickr badge. It's part of this image:

It comes from an old children's book compilation that I bought in England many years ago. Unfortunately, even though the artist's initials are on the drawing, their name is not listed anywhere that I can find. Too bad, because I'd love to give them credit. I use this picture because it reminds me of me when I was a kid.