Experimenting

I have two reasons for posting. Well, there are three actually. The first is because I haven't posted in quite a while. The second is because I have some stamping-related stuff to share. The third is that I want to try something--linking my Picasa/Google web album and this blog.

Again, I created this for my online reading group. It's fun. The Ladies of Lallybroch™ have a neat relationship with Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series. Each December the group pitches in and sends her some goodies, and for the last three years now, I've had the privilege of creating the card that accompanies her box of presents. As we were brainstorming, my good friend came up with a verse inspired by The Night Before Christmas. It was rather long for a regular card and I thought that even a longer card wouldn't do it justice. I decided to try my hand at a star book. Mind you, I've seen them, but I've never tried to make one. Isn't it always the way? That I'll be trying something for the first time when I'm working on something important?! Anyway, I found a great set of directions on Split Coast Stampers and I was off to make a go of this.

I used chipboard as the base for the front and back and covered them with the plaid fabric that I'd had left over from my altered nutcracker's kilt. The pages inside were Bazzill cardstock. Naturally, after I had all of the pages cut out, I realized that I didn't have a great way of adding the text, unless I wanted to write them or use layers of computer-generated text. ACK! Neither of those were great options. I decided to print the words on transparency and go from there. It ended up working out nicely. I'll post the link to my album below. I took a lot of pics because this was my first time and it actually went very smoothly!

Okay. Here's where I'm trying something new. I'm going to try using the code that is supposed to embed my album here....

dgcard2006

Hopefully that worked. It looks like it did. Anyway, that was a fun project and I enjoyed that creative stretch.

This takes me to the last reason that I'd wanted to post. I've enjoyed blogging, but it can take time to resize pics and get them ready to blog. I realized that Picasa will upload pics to a free web album, to the tune of 250 MB, and then you can upgrade from there. It was super easy. You can enter the file or photo size, make new albums, make them public or private, edit captions, names, locations--it's slick. Then I noticed in the sidebar that I could embed my album in my blog. Nifty! That's why I'm testing this. I'm curious. This could be a lot of fun, not to mention easy! Hopefully it will work. *crossing fingers*

Altered nutcracker

I've mentioned my online reading group before. We're devotees of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series and we congregate at our cyberspace home, the Ladies of Lallybroch message boards. One of the main characters in the series is a red-headed, oft-kilted, sword-wielding Scot. There's much more to the story than just that, but for this project, that's all that you really need to know.

I've mentioned the card exchanges and the ornament exchanges that go on there with the season. There's also a Secret Santa game, and it's fun because the membership comes from all over the world. I asked my giftee about any possible likes or dislikes. I already had a few things in mind, but could add to them. She said that she wouldn't mind if I included a 6 ft 4 in, red-headed, kilted Scot with a sword in her package. That was a tall order indeed! I pondered. I brainstormed. I have rubber stamps that could work, but that didn't have the right feel. Stumped, I headed out to run errands.

One of my stops was the dollar store. Just inside the door was a shelf filled with nutcrackers about 12" high. Okay, so not quite 6' 4", but I had to be realistic. None were kilted. UGH! All had white hair. Hm, that could be changed. One had a sword! Okay! This had potential. Into the basket it went. At another stop, I found a plaid fabric remnant. The color wasn't perfect, but it was festive!

At home I broke out my Ranger Adirondack markers. I needed reds, cinnamon, roan. One color was not enough. A mix of them actually looked okay. On to the kilt. Okay. Long strip of fabric, pleated and wrapped. Easier said than done, I soon found. I pulled out a needle and thread. Yes, again. I even pulled out the iron. Just the craft iron though, so that was okay. A bit of starch and a few stitches later, and I thought he looked close enough to the description to get a chuckle from my giftee. I put the sword back on him. He was set.

kilted nutcracker

What I found to be fun about this was that a few years ago, I wouldn't have thought of tackling something this way. If I couldn't find just what I wanted, I'd have given up. Crafting opens up whole new worlds! I'm not expecting altered nutcrackers to become the latest craze, but this was fun!

And on a completely different note, though this does have to do with new worlds, I suppose, I'd like to send out kudos to a friend that I've made at the Lallybroch site. In addition to being a wonderful person, she's a talented artist and creates fabulous works of art, from paintings to sketches, Pysanky egg decorating to wood carving. I've had the pleasure of watching the progression as she's worked on some of her portraits and it's amazing. So neat to see those lines and brush strokes come to life. She works on commission and is embarking on a new venture, creating an internet presence for herself and her art. So, congratulations, Sue, and best of luck with the Art of Surprise. :-)

Still along the lines of different

Since I mentioned one tradition at The Ladies of Lallybroch™, I might as well mention another. There is a group of crafters there who do ornament exchanges, the Lallyornamenters. I've joined in the holiday exchanges a few times. As you might guess, the ornaments generally have something to do with the Outlander books that I've mentioned before.

My ornament this year began with an acrylic snowflake (from Sunday International) which I tinted on the back using Ranger alcohol inks. I then stamped over that with a Celtic design by Scottish Borders Stamps, using Palette Noir hybrid ink. To add some sparkle, I used Crystal lacquer over that and applied glitter. Yes, I had a glorious glitter mess on my craft table for a while! I was almost satisfied with that, but decided to add a bit more.

At the end of the most recent book in this series, a large white sow and her piglets make an appearance. This white sow depicts the resilience of the characters in that she digs her way out of ash and rubble and marches off into the snowy woods with her brood to start anew. I love this image! So, I added them. The image is from Stamp Francisco and was stamped in permanent black ink on transparent shrink plastic. I then colored the image with a white Sharpie and applied it to the front of the snowflake with Crystal lacquer. I added the silver ribbon, then made nine more of them, and I was finished with my exchange items.

Here's the ornament...


This photo doesn't quite capture the sparkle that this has in real life, but I think you get the idea. :-)

Something a little different

I'm going to time travel a bit and go back to 1999. Now to really give you an accurate picture, I should mention that my DH had been a computer junkie for quite some time already at that point. He was playing with computers and hanging out on the "internet" when the internet was basically bulletin board posts. Being a fairly new stay-at-home Mom, one day I went for my first excursion on the internet while my two DDs were napping. My DH had been pestering me about trying out the internet and the computer and kept telling me how to do this or that. Well I finally caved in. One of the things that I looked for was sites and info about a favorite author, Diana Gabaldon, who wrote the Outlander series of books. I found several websites dedicated to her and started to keep track of them, checking in occasionally to see what was going on. One of the sites in particular caught my eye because the people posting there were just having so much fun! That site was The Ladies of Lallybroch™. Soon I was lurking on their discussion boards every day and in May of 1999, I got up the nerve to make my first post and was greeted with such enthusiasm that I've been hanging out there ever since.

Over time I've become more involved with the fun goings-on at Lallybroch and one of the things that I've done for the last few years, at the request of the owner of the site, is design a holiday bookmark related to the series of books in some way. These are then printed up and sent to the ever-gracious Diana Gabaldon, who signs them and sends them back. These are then gifted to site members and fans who want one or two--just one of the neat holiday traditions at that site. I mention this here because I'm a fan of reading and I play around with computer graphics, and this annual bookmark is a way that I get to combine both of these interests.

This year's bookmark once again features the lovely painting that is closely associated with The Ladies of Lallybroch™--this painting was created by the mother of the designer of the LOL website and given to Judie, the owner of the site, who, in turn, has given me permission to use the image on these bookmarks. The painting can be seen on the entry page to the LOL website.

The theme this year is taken from the most recent book in the series, A Breath of Snow and Ashes. In it, one of the main characters, Jamie, a Highland Scot of the 18th century living in North Carolina just prior to the American Revolution, dreams of his grandson, Jemmy, who lives in more modern day Scotland in the late 1970s or so--the foibles of time travel! In this dream Jem is reaching for an object and stating that he wants to talk to his Grandda. Jamie can only describe this object, not knowing what to call it and never having seen anything like it before. His modern-day wife, Claire, recognizes it as a telephone.

This bookmark is a depiction of this special telephone-line-through-time connection that Jemmy shares with his Grandda. On one side of the painting are images that are more modern, the warm fireplace of the manse and the Mini Cooper, as well as the base of the telephone. The cord spirals through the painting and stretches back to scenes that would be common during colonial times, the horse and wagon and the inn where Jamie slept and had his dream. Coming through the receiver I placed Jem's "voice", calling out to his Grandda from across time and space. Some subtle snowflakes and a "Season's Greetings from across the miles..." sentiment that stretches across all of the elements complete this year's design.

Here is that bookmark:

Hope you enjoyed hearing about some of the background behind this design.