Purple Pony Art by Christine Bennett

Serious Cat is Serious

2013-05-20T08:11:00.001-07:00

Serious Cat is Serious, a photo by Calzephyr on Flickr.

It's such a treat to sit down and edit photos again, never mind being able to take some! I bought a new Canon camera and I'm over the moon with the zoom lens that I bought with it. Princess was a good twenty feet or so away :-)

My First 3D Print Ever!

2013-05-07T20:22:00.002-07:00

So, just a quick post before I hit the hay (I came down with a cold, boo!), here is how my 3D print project turned out. We weren't expecting to actually have anything 3D printed in the class, because ACAD just has two MakerBots. But the teacher, Cam, worked out a deal with the polytechnic across the street, SAIT, and they printed some pieces for us. Everyone was so thrilled when the TA, Stephanie, brought in the box of pieces.

The best project was a ball bearing sort of bracelet that had free moving parts and something that looked like a Kinder Egg toy with gears. All the pieces were fragile, however. SAIT provided the invoice and my pin cost $1.77 to make. My piece was the flattest and it still had a slightly tiered look. The scaling went awry on one person's project and her bracelet ended up being teeny tiny instead of wearable. The pin back didn't fit on mine - I think there was a slight scaling problem too, so breaking my New Year's Resolution was all for naught! Still quite pleased with it though. Now I can send the file away to a place like Shapeways and have them make it in plastic or metal.

School's Out!

2013-05-02T20:11:00.001-07:00

Ahhhh...I was sitting in my favourite part of house, Muffin fighting his own reflection on his stand, and I could slowly exhale. What is this strange feeling? Tomorrow is Friday, and I have no homework. No homework? Is it really true that school is out?

Last Saturday was my final rapid prototyping class. We had to pick a movie and create a prop for it - a weapon, vehicle or jewellery. I chose to design a set for Kim Basinger character in L.A. Confidential :

It was pretty straightforward - I made a ring, necklace and earrings based on mashing two Elizabeth Taylor designs. They turned out awesome in rendering. Everyone had to make a seven minute presentation and I was ready to puke butterflies all day! I thought we would get out by noon, but it took all day to critique everyone's designs and ask questions. It was great to see how everyone had progressed since January - Cam was able to bring out the talent in us all. Most of the props were jewellery, but one guy made a suit of futuristic armor and another made a spaceship that looked like a bird. I have so much more to tell you about this class - but for now I'm just going to enjoy doing other things for a bit first!

Once I had the heart shape, I could apply it to all the pieces. The ring was the easiest. The heart is upside down because it symbolizes the character of Lynn Bracken as being a damsel in distress.

I Confess!

2013-04-14T19:37:00.001-07:00

I have to confess - after just over four months, I broke my new year's resolution. But, dear reader, I did so unwillingly and joylessly. I swear!

My rapid prototyping teacher, Cam, wrangled a deal with the local polytechnic, SAIT, to 3D print objects on their big fancy Fortus machine. I decided to make a pin, as rendered below, in copper finish.

Cam suggested that adding the pin hardware on the back would be a great use of real world application, so I researched double stem pinbacks and designed one. Then the TA, Stephanie, had an easier idea - add some pegs onto the back that would fit a pinback. I could attach the pinback by using a heat gun to melt the pegs. Just one problem...I could not find a pinback around the house. I looked through every inch of stash and had to face the awful truth. There really isn't any other place to buy craft supplies except maybe a dollar store or a Wal-Mart. It's been at least ten years since both Lewiscraft and Crafts Canada closed down; I miss both.

I made peace with the decision and bravely walked through those automtic double doors, inhaling the store's strange and long forgotten perfume (seriously, all the stores smell the same). I made a beeline for jewellery supplies, found the gold pinbacks, breezed through the scrapbooking supplies (just to see what was new) and headed for the checkout with just the pinbacks. I was gripped by anxiety; it seemed like everything was on sale! But I held firm and let out a sigh of relief when I stepped outside.

We should get our pieces back next Saturday - I can't wait!

A Different Kind of March Madness

2013-04-01T18:32:00.002-07:00

It seems appropriate that my dad had a minor stroke during Heart and Stroke Month. The crazy thing is that he didn't know he even had one until about a week later. The five signs of stroke, as illustrated below are: Guess which one my dad had? Dizziness, which proved to be the least useful symptom for someone that often feels dizzy. He even drove himself to the walk in doctor a couple of days after and it went undetected then. A couple of days after that, he went to the emergency room and a CAT scan showed the stroke. Dad was up and chatting and acting very normal except for feeling a little tired. It took just about a whole month, but dad came home last week. It was so exhausting to go from devastated to optimistic in the span of five days, and it was a long trip to see him in the hospital. He needed a couple of weeks of therapy and the excellent staff at the Foothills hospital did a great job of looking after a grumpy old man :-) A side benefit is that dad couldn't smoke in the hospital, so fingers crossed that he can give up smoking for good!

How I Spend My Saturdays

2013-03-20T05:30:00.001-07:00

By the time I get around writing about my Saturday class, I will have run out of Saturdays, and I'm looking forward to it. I wasn't expecting my rapid prototyping class to be so intense. It practically takes up all my time and mental space. Invariably I always do something that causes the teacher to say "How did you do that?!" in a generally bad way :D I always seem to come up with the wrong solution. We're using a software package called Rhinoceros.

Here are some of the projects from the beginning. The first thing we learned was how to revolve a line into an object. Basically a line made from the object's profile can be revolved 360 degrees to make a whole object. Vases, glasses, bottles...all very easy to make! All you need to make the martini glass on the left is the profile line on the right. It's true! Stay tuned for more stuff :-)

My Memories Review and Giveaway

2013-02-18T18:45:00.001-08:00

The nice people at My Memories gave me a review copy of their software and a free copy to give away! How cool is that? I have been pecking away at using the software in-between learning Rhino and it's powerful simplicity is refreshing. Contest details are below the image.

One category that has frequently fallen flat is card making and scrapbooking software, so I was delighted to give My Memories Suite a go. I have been there and done that so many times, with a pile of CDs from the past 15 years, which have all disappointed in some way. Either it's too complicated to get something done quickly, or too simple to be creative enough. Or they come with bargain bin clip art and a mix of different features and I end up fixing things in CorelDraw later. MS Publisher and Avery's DesignPro software are pretty much only good for label making :D Why can't there be one program that does it all?

My Memories Suite seems to do that and more. I was able to quickly make some 12x12" pages and get my photos in there fast with the pre-designed templates. Of course, you can create your own designs or go with a "digital kit" that contains all the co-ordinating materials to create a cohesive theme. One thing that really gets me hung up with real scrapbooking is not having colours that co-ordinate or missing some little element. Or I get too hung up on the layout and never get anything done. This way I can quickly change things up without getting precious about using the good materials. I like the digital work area that lets me see everything at a glance, as you can see below (click for a larger image). Trim guides are pretty handy and warnings pop up when it looks like the pages may be trimmed when bound in a book. There are options for multimedia scrapbooks as well, and you can add music and video. Whew! I could really go on all day about all the features they packed into this program. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can definitely use this program right away without reading the manual (although it helps :-))

Give away time!

I like to keep give aways simple, so everyone who leaves a comment will have a chance to win. I'll write everyone's name on a piece of paper and Muffin will randomly pick one :-) Contest will close at 9pm MTN on February 25. One entry per individual person.

Be Mine?

2013-02-16T08:15:00.000-08:00

It is so nice to be able to do normal people things today - thanks to the long weekend here in Alberta, I don't have class, which means I have time to catch up on things (it doesn't mean no homework though, woe!)

A couple of weeks ago I had a great idea - send Valentine's to my friends! But like most of my great ideas, the turnaround time was a little short, so I didn't send as many as I would have liked. It was just so nice to be able to make something. I was in a hurry to get them out the door, so I only had time to take cell phone photos. I made two of each of the following from the crafty stash:

A budgiegram, with a little note :-)

"You're the purr-fect friend!"

My favourite - "It's so tweet...that you like me!" with a Facebook thumbs up on the inside :-)

2013 New Year's Cards

2013-01-31T20:43:00.001-08:00

I just have to get this up with a January date stamp on it :-) For the second time, I have sent out New Year's cards instead of Christmas cards...mostly because I fail miserably at doing Christmas cards. I figure it's always nice to get something in the new year anyway. Now that I'm checking the blog archive, I realized I didn't post pictures of the 2012 cards. Gee! That's what I get for putting Muffin in charge of things. Here's what they looked like:

I have a Pazzles craft cutter, and after fiddling around with the text for about an hour, I found a font that I liked. The tricky part was cutting them out of the glitter cardstock. It took a while to find the right pressure - the cardstock was actually heavyweight cardboard and the chipboard setting was too light. But once that was done, it was just a little bit of glue before they were off to friends and family. If you have a Pazzles, I have posted the cutting file for sale on Artfire. Just $2 gets you cutting right away.

The pink one is the only one that was glittered on plain paper. Glittering took a surprising long time, so I quickly abandoned that. Not that the glitter cardstock was much better - glitter still got everywhere :-D

How I Spend My Tuesday Nights

2013-01-17T20:33:00.000-08:00

Certainly not league bowling :). This English class is all about graphic novels and we're looking at a bunch of them - it helps that I own most of them too. I'm just missing Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan:

The first one we're looking at is Alan Moore's Watchmen, which is one of the most influential graphic novels of all time. It's an extremely well planned book and it would be possible to vastly under read it. There are a lot of repeating themes and motifs, and even though I have read it a few times now, there was still a lot of things I missed, including some atrocious puns. It is a violent book, but the themes of nostalgia, comics history and pastiche are very interesting. It's funny to be able to put something usually considered "low culture" into such elevated terms as "post-modern narrative of multiple voices". I better stop before I sound more like an essay instead of a blog post :-) Stay tuned for some notes on my other class!

2013...

2013-01-06T18:08:00.001-08:00

So...how has that first week of 2013 gone? Still mulling some new years resolutions. Of course, some people don't believe in them, but I found myself thinking "less is more" mostly. Perhaps it was because I finally had a chance to chuck a lot of stuff during Christmas break. But, when you think about it, most resolutions centre around doing more.

I quickly found so many ways to get on this mantra. This is the time of year where everyone is emailing special offers. Unsubscribe from a lot of those puppies! Less email, less temptation, w00t!

It's also a good time to look at other things you may subscribe too, but these things actually cost money. I cancelled a few website subscriptions, because like those gym memberships, you find they're not being used. However, the gym membership is not something I'm giving up on. There's a World Health near ACAD and I plan on hitting the treadmill after class on Saturdays.

This might be a little difficult, but I'm going to try and stay out of Michaels too! I spend a lot there :) My husband is skeptical and so are my guy friends. It's an expensive love affair. But I have so much stash, and I'm with Craftymoose in finding more ways to use it up.

Lastly, there are those small fees that divert nickels and dimes from your savings. The bonus of this time of year is having the peace to sit down and examine a new budget. I was shocked to discover that we were paying way too much in banking fees the other night. Not just a little shock, but a big shock. We were on the wrong plan where every extra transaction over the limit was costing $1. Sometimes when thinking up the big goals, we forget about the little goals. Ah well! Back on track now. Wishing all the best for 2013...

Temple Run Review - Fun!

2013-01-01T18:43:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year! It was a great sunny day here in Calgary to kick off 2013.

Last night though we wound down the year with friends. Each year I like to buy them a new board game, and this year it was Temple Run. If it sounds familiar, it's because it's just one of the many smartphone games that have made the jump offline.

I couldn't find many reviews for it online, so I hemmed and hawed about purchasing it, especially since it was $25. The good news is that it is a fun speed based game for four people. It's essentially a dice game. Players roll six dice and can re-roll before the tiki timer runs out. The player not only moves his pawn, but the demon monkey as well.

The game board is made of five square panels that get flipped and moved to create a continuous path - very clever!

We played it on easy mode and found it a little tough at first. The trouble is, it's too easy to die. If the monkey doesn't catch up to you, chances are you'll run into an obstacle. Each game we played lasted less than 10 minutes. I think a longer play time would be far more satisfying - there's lots of room for house rules here!

Oh, December!

2012-12-30T21:55:00.001-08:00

December has really been a weird and wacky month. It's like 2012 saved up the best (and worst) for last.

Calgary finally got a chinook yesterday - a warm wind that changes the temperature drastically. It went from -23C to -1 in the course of a day. Snowy streets turned to slush *like that*.

It has been plain cold here for most of the month. I really wanted to check out the opening celebrations of the West LRT leg, but it was very cold that day! A ten minute walk to the bus stop froze my legs and I just couldn't go on. It was a real bummer, as that day was also $1.43 admission to the zoo! Brrr!

And speaking of brrr, the flame sensor wasn't working right in our furnace. The repairmen from Fagnan's Furnace noticed that the igniter had also bubbled and was on its way out. Thank goodness we got this fixed! I had to throw comforters over the bird cages while the furnace was off. I really like Fagnan's - we get them to clean our furnace and they're always great.

Then it looked like we weren't going to have a white Christmas - but Old Man Winter didn't forget. The trouble was that the temperature dropped again to a bone chilling -25-27C. With the extra wind, it felt even colder - just running to the super mailbox seemed like an ordeal.

I had lots of good times visiting with old co-workers, friends and family too. I would show you some of these good times, but my smartphone died on December 24th! I was so bummed - I suspect the battery died - and the solutions I found online just didn't work. Poor little smartphone! I had some serious anxiety without it.

"What's the temperature?" my husband asked as we waited for the car to warm up.

"I don't know, I don't have a smartphone!" I wailed.

"What time is it?" he asked another time.

"I don't know, I don't have a smartphone!" I wailed.

And so forth. It's hard to believe how much one can depend on these little devices. Fortunately the Bell store was open on Boxing Day and now I have a sweet Samsung Galaxy 3. It's so big and fast! And everything is at my fingertips again :-)

The ACEO Challenge

2012-12-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

This is my first time entering the ACEO Challenge! Usually I always miss these deadlines, but I squeaked in with a wintry caribou. Voting starts December 10th; please check out all the lovely ACEOs and vote for your favourite! The caribou is snipped from semi-gloss heavyweight paper and glued to a card that has been painted with watercolours and acrylic.

Lucky loot!

2012-12-05T20:45:00.001-08:00

"Pick up tonight?" my husband texted me.

"Nope! No class tonight."

We celebrated the end of classes by going out to a fashionable Indian restaurant called Tamarind in the northwest. The dishes are really unique and delicious.

Time for another "That's a wrap!" post. Six more credits in the bucket for my BFA. And thank goodness! My house is such a mess. The cleanest place to be is the birdcage :D I thought without studio classes that the house would be neater, but nope. Since every place seemed equally messy, I started with the coffee table where loot from British scrapbook magazines that I get from Billy's News downtown. Let's take a look...

That's a lot of loot from the past four months! Sometimes I buy two or three magazines at a time, depending on how good they are.

These glitter tubes look fun! I think last year there was even glitter watercolours.

This is pretty cool - although it's hard to see - a snowflake embossing folder for a machine like a Cuttlebug or Big Shot!

Hands down, clear rubber stamps are the most popular kind of loot. I was surprised to get some Holly Hobbie stamps in my latest haul. I had a Holly Hobbie doll as a girl.

The best for last...how super cool is this? A mini scoring board? Just the thing to tuck in my kit instead of my big ScorPal!

Spotted at ACAD...

2012-12-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

Birds? Butterflies? Paper airplanes? Whatever they are, I spotted them on Monday at ACAD. You never know what will turn up sometimes. Sculpture can be simple to be cool!

Prairie Rim Images: This shoot was for the birds

2012-11-13T20:16:00.001-08:00

I just happened to come across this on Google + and had to share it with all the other bird lovers out there! It's rare for "common" parrots like budgies and cockatiels to get the star treatment :-)

Prairie Rim Images: This shoot was for the birds

Creative Stitches and Crafts Show Calgary

2012-10-21T15:25:00.000-07:00

The Creative Stitches and Crafts Show was held just in time for winter! Yesterday it started softly snowing and it continues today. Nothing says crafts like winter :-) Mom and I enjoyed bobbling about, even though the show is mostly aimed at quilters. There was so much fabric, and I managed to resist buying any despite often deep discounts. There were some lovely art quilts on display, including a "Crow Tea Party" that I know Magic Love Crow would like! Fortunately there's a picture on Flickr, as picture taking was not allowed. All the new sewing machines there were amazing, especially the Brother Dreamweaver XE. It lets you trace a drawing right into the machine and get stitching right away. You can design your own stitches too! There was something fascinating about watching it work away - one could easily fire it up and do something else. The cost is prohibitive though - it costs the same as a decent used car. There was a scrapbooking section and a crop corral. Again, I didn't buy anything here as nothing caught my eye. I was really surprised at that. Usually I go a little crazy when it comes to paper. But I did cave and bought two beautiful balls of yarn called "Marble" dyed in blue, purple and green. I want to make something special with it, like a shawl or maybe a hat and scarf set. We'll see!

Nice Needle Tools

2012-10-17T16:14:00.002-07:00

Here's a post that I saved as a draft back in July!

One thing that has always interested me are nice needle tools. It seems a shame to have to make do with cheap plastic bits and bobs. When my great aunt passed away ten years ago, I thought I would find something fun in her old sewing basket. It would seem plastic bits and bobs existed in the 50s too.

Searching online was fruitless. When I did find nice needle tools, they tended to be made from sterling silver and really $$$!

Quite by chance, I found a cool little store called The Stitcher's Muse in Nanaimo. I couldn’t have missed it - because it was conveniently connected to our hotel. It was everything any crafter would want in a store - cozy and packed to the gills with everything for lace tatting to hardanger.

Had I been employed at the time, I would have bought more than the three things below - a magnetic needle holder, a needle case and a mother of pearl embroidery winder. Perhaps it's just as well to have a reason to go again.

Bird Humour

2012-10-16T16:30:00.001-07:00

Just testing out the new official Blogger apply - the unofficial one I used to use had ads. Anyhow, I am alive and hope to reconnect with my online friends!

If there's one thing Muffin loves, it's bread. He'll slice through a bread bag in seconds!

Back to School!

2012-09-07T20:43:00.001-07:00

I popped into Staples on Labour Day for a couple of things and instantly regretted it. It was like being in a toy store at Christmas! I felt sorry for the staff. This year I'm taking two classes a semester - all evenings except one on Saturdays. And then, unfortunately, I will have to give it a rest because I have literally run out of money to attend ACAD. It's not the cost of classes or supplies, but the cost of living while going to school, and I'm hesitant to get a student loan. In this regard I can really sympathize with the younger folk, especially after finding out how much it costs to live in residence. My one class is on science and technology, which I'm pretty jazzed about. The other is on Canadian art history. After looking at the class outlines, I think I overdid it. I'll have several essays and a group presentation to work on. I'm going to have to cut down on craft sales this year as a result as well.

What Else I Did This Summer...

2012-08-19T07:26:00.001-07:00

Not much actually :-D I think I forgot to mention that I have been working six days a week this summer. My contract ended at the end of May. I was bummed! Summer is the worst time to find a job. I was offered a one day a week paid summer position at the resource centre for an artist run centre, which I gladly jumped on. Then my old workplace asked me to come back! I hated to let the resource centre down, so I stuck to my agreement. There really isn't a cooler place to work than the John Snow House. It's actually a century home, as it was built in 1912.

Calgary artist John Snow lived there until he died in 2004. Now The New Gallery uses it as a home for their archives, artist in residence program and Artist Trading Card night. I have been working on inventorying and cataloguing the archive along with the summer student. It's been a lot of hard work, but worth it to discover all the cool stuff and artsy ephemera. Merely shuffling through the items has been a great historical lesson - I honestly would not have thought that so much artsy stuff happened here in Calgary. It's a perception that a lot of people are working hard to change!

Handwoven Tapestry with the Martha Stewart Loom Kit

2012-07-29T19:21:00.001-07:00

So a year or so ago I bought myself the Martha Stewart Knitting and Weaving Loom set while I was in Las Vegas. It came with a bunch of different pieces to make your own sized looms. Simply put, what a great idea! Nothing is more frustrating than something that is too long or too small. This is the project that Muffin found so fascinating earlier in the week!

The Longest Scarf

2012-07-26T18:58:00.001-07:00

The longest Scarf is the shortest one I have ever made. It's just not working out with me and the Knifty Knitter. The yarn us called Sashay and I bought it on a whim. I thought, with its plaited edges, it would be easy to knit with.

Unfortunately it proved super slow to knit with as I tried to loop it around the pegs. Then I ran into some really tight tension.

Realizing I would grow old with this thing, I alternated one row of Sashay with two rows of regular burgundy yarn. This only mildly improved things. After a foot and a half, defeat was at hand!

Some projects are not meant to be :)

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Unintentional Fibre Week!

2012-07-23T21:17:00.003-07:00

Hi friends, It has finally cooled down enough to feel like I can do things again. Our house is an oven and the other week it was regularly hitting +30 C (86-89 F) and it was extremely oppressive. It was hard to keep the birds cool and despite being tropical birds, they were suffering as much as the people. My husband came down with a dreaded summer cold as well!

It was so hot I couldn't even bear to read to keep my mind off of it. Sleepless nights abounded. The craftiest thing I could get up to was warping a loom for a new tapestry. It required very little thought and the only decisions to be made was selecting colours.

By good fortune, I also had an eye appointment which was very close to one of Calgary's premier wool shops, Gina Brown's. Thank goodness tapestry wool is inexpensive :-)

Muffin loves fibre arts as much as I do...and I have had trouble keeping him out of the tapestry wool :-)