By the Way...

These were lots of fun! I sorta-kinda followed a tutorial on PSD Tuts, although I obviously changed the theme. (Unless you consider “medieval” really vintage, I suppose….) I had to do a lot of research to learn about layer overlays and some of the other techniques, and how to accomplish similar effects in GIMP, but that’s the whole purpose of these exercises, after all!

I ended up with three versions, two of which have reached their destinations. (Click through the pic above to see them all on flickr.) I only have two cards traveling right now, so I need to get on the ball and come up with my next batch! Maps seem to be a popular request, so I’m thinking maybe I’ll try something along the lines of this map collage that I did a while ago.

Mom came to visit last weekend and we tried some new things. We put together a saltwater etching setup, and it actually worked, somewhat to our surprise ;-)

We called it our “6th Grade Science Project”….

We tried brass and copper, and got good results with both, although we did learn that if you’re using Sharpie markers for the resist, you should use a black one, and use a regular old-fashioned felt-tip type, not one of the new retractable super-fine-point jobbies. See the November 2008 issue of Art Jewelry for all the juicy (ha!) details.

We also played with pliers and made some great chain jewelry. I started with an article from the March 2009 issue of BeadStyle and very quickly had an awesome necklace. It’s an easy project, although I didn’t like their version of the earrings once I had put them together. I just eliminated the bottom two sets of rings and was much happier with my results.

I get all my brass and niobium jump rings from SpiderChain, and I recently discovered her other site, Silver Weaver. What a feast for the eyes and imagination! Having previously realized that the tiny niobium rings are great with larger sterling rings in Japanese 6-in-1, I was inspired to try a variation that I saw on Spider’s site. I’ve worn this bracelet almost every day since :-)

Now that Spider has more sizes of niobium, we’ve ordered some of each size. I can’t wait to see how Byzantium or some of the other patterns work up with them! (And yes, obviously I talked myself into trying a different color mix! This batch is “fire,” and we ordered some “water” and “peacock” in the larger sizes and I honestly cannot decide which I like the best.)

Hooray! My first postcrossing postcard was marked received yesterday, all the way from Germany :-)

I’m using postcrossing as an excuse to learn how to use GIMP. My plan is to work in batches, making a series of similar layouts so that I get to repeat the techniques I learn several times. Plus I like groups of things, and it sounds so capital-A Artsy to have a series.

Thus, the Colored Zentangle Series (plummy BBC accent, please!)

A while ago I scanned one of my conference call doodlings and have been thinking since then that it would be really cool to color it in.

• If I didn’t have a pen and paper around during conference calls I’d go nuts….

This turned out to be a bit more complicated than I had expected. I started just using the Fill tool, but that left little white artifacts along the boundaries between the color and the black lines. So I did some research and learned about the Color to Alpha tool. That got rid of the white, but using Fill on the result still was not satisfactory. Then it occurred to me to make the alpha-ized image its own layer, on top of the background, and color on the layer beneath. That way the color could come right up to the black lines, or even extend into them a little, and since the lines were on top, it would look nice and neat.

For most areas I could use the Fuzzy Select (magic wand) tool, grow the selection by a couple of pixels, switch to the background layer and fill with color. For areas that had open boundaries or where the scan was not as clean, I experimented with the Free Select tool, which I really liked once I got the hang of it. For very small areas it was easier to just color freehand on the background layer. I got a lot of practice with my pen and tablet!

Here is my first result:

(Note: The postcrossing links won’t show the postcard’s journey until it is marked received at the other end.)

• US-417767

I also made a simpler color-blocked version:

• US-417769 (first one received!)

From here it was just a matter of playing with the sliders in the Hue and Saturation dialog to come up with some other color combinations that I liked.

• US-417743

• US-417756

• US-417762

I love them! They look really nice printed on photo paper, and I’m using 4x6 adhesive labels for the address side. I hope they stand up to mailing well. (I suppose I could mail one to myself to find out….) Now that one has been received, I can get a new address to send to, so I’m off and running on my next batch, the Medieval Collage Series.

Lorax has decided that her favorite new spot is one of my dresser drawers. If I leave this drawer open too long in the morning, presto, it sprouts a cat.

Here’s a tail….

And with a bit of trick photography, we find the rest of the beast!

We have done so much “invisible” work on the house, it’s nice to finally have something to show off! We used the Behr online color tool and despite a miscommunication with the contractor (our fault) we love the result. The scariest part was wondering if the main house color (we chose “Spanish Galleon,” partly because of the name ;-) would be anything close to what we saw on the computer screen. Happily, it is just the color we wanted.

The Behr tool is really neat—you can upload a picture of your house (or room, if you’re painting an interior) and then apply the colors to various areas. We had this awesome Don Springer watercolor of our happy abode so I scanned it in to see if it would work. Here’s the original:

And here’s what we came up with after some online fiddling:

This really gave us a great idea of what to expect! We tried lots of different colors and settled on these (except for the red—we ended up with something darker, but this is close).

The miscommunication was that we intended all the major trim to be the lightest color, but the printout that we gave the contractor was … unclear. So they did the columns in Vanilla Custard, as intended, and the rest of the trim in River Bank. Oops! After we got over the initial shock, we decided that the mistake might have been for the best. The columns really pop, and the lower contrast between the two greens on the rest of the house is sort of calming. They also did a fantastic job of picking out some extra details—the red around the attic windows and the tips of the chimneys, matching the window sashes and the trim on the columns, was a nice finishing touch.

We’re not quite decided what will be next, but we have plenty of time as we have to rebuild the war chest before we embark on the next Renovation Adventure.

Now I may buy two copies, just because.

I got a form email from Amazon explaining that Patrick Rothfuss’ second book would not be shipping when predicted. Ensaddened, (I stole that word from the link I’m about to post—what a great word!) I did a quick google on “patrick rothfuss book 2” and very quickly came across his explanation.

I’ll be adding a new blog into my RSS feed, obv. And whenever the book does appear, I’ll finish it all too quickly, as usual, but I think I’ll actually appreciate it even more….

If you’re lucky, there are some people in your life who simply are. They’re people that you love and you know they love you, without question.

I am immeasurably lucky to have had my dad’s best friend, Curtis, to care about me for my whole life thus far. I believe that he still does.

I got email from Wil Wheaton!!

I mean, yeah, it’s because I bought a book of his from lulu.com, but still! It’s pretty cool :-)

So I finally signed up for facebook, and I have to admit that it is uniquely addictive. My high school wasn’t very big, and it seems like just about everybody is already there. I let it get my email contacts and it found a whopping 55 matches! (I am really quite sure I don’t know that many people.)

I’ve been reading about facebook from a technical and business standpoint for years, so it was kind of weird to actually be in it. There are some things I can’t figure out, things I have to be overthinking (if facebook turns out to be as difficult for me as my short-lived affair with a mac was, I think I’ll cry), but the friend-finding stuff is pretty wild, and I especially like that you can have a conversation around any object—a status update, a photo, a new friend. The umpty-eleven views of it all are still kind of confusing, but it sure has been fun catching up with so many folks.

moosaic, originally uploaded by serhio.

Guess where my pic is....