m.o.M - mother of Michael

Do Sharks Have Ears?

I really wanted to give him a hat, but he turned out to be a she and she wanted a flower behind her ear.

This handmade post card is for a swap called Bookpage + Clipping. Just like it sounds, it had to include a page from a book and some form of illustration. My mojo is still in the toilet, so the "totally useless fact" I included drove the content for this card.

Totally useless fact: A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

Work that into conversation at your next cocktail party!

 

Not Really

This isn't creative at all. A postcard for a swap made from the front of a regular card.

The Definition of Insanity

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result.

Except that Einstein probably didn't say that. Who cares. I hope when I'm dead and gone, I am misquoted in such fabulous ways!

Every time I take a trip, I grab the same zip-lock bag containing the same yellow moleskine journal and the same mini-sharpie set in the same pencil bag that's contained the same colored pencils for approximately four years. Based solely on "as the crow flies" mileage between Titusville, Fl. and Guyaquil, Ecuador, not including driving within Ecuador (which we have done a tremendous amount of over the years) and assuming that no additional trips were taken with this bag (which I doubt), this bag has traveled over 17,000 miles.

The pencils have never needed sharpening and less than one quarter of the journal is filled.

Yep. The definition of insanity.

This time I'm doing something different. I made a book based on the travel journal I saw here. A combination travel journal, smash book and art journal. The only item that is a hold over from the old zip-lock bag is the pencil bag. That now has my zentangle pens in it.

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Inside are pocket pages, kraft paper, and scrapbook papers. I fully anticipate that by the time the trip is done, the cover won't look like what it really is - a cereal box.

I'm really looking forward to adding to this as we go and coming home with a keepsake full of those papery bits of goodness that I love to accumulate on trips. Not just another bag of ephemera that gets thrown in the box in the corner!

Here's to breaking the cycle of insanity!

At least in one area of my life!

My Mojo is Missing

I cruised along for 100 days of sheer crap-hting joy and then? Nothing. What the hell?

This ATC has taken me a week to make and I'm just not happy with it. The worst of it is that this particular swap was supposed to have been two Night Vale ATCs sent and I only sent one. Just didn't read the fine print. The devil is in the details.

While the angels may have revealed themselves to Old Josie near the car lot, they sure haven't revealed any answers to me.

Ah well, I'll pick myself up and begin again...

Celebrating 100 Days of Creativity

100 days! 100 bits of creativity! Wow!

I think this is a holdover from yesterday's caged birds. This looks to me like squid caught in a net of hollibaugh surrounded by printemp jellyfish.

 

 

The Caged Bird Sings

The prompt for a recent swap-bot challenge was Birdcage. I wasn't really sure what direction I was going to take with this, but the more I thought about it the more I remembered how much I just don't care for birds in cages. There's something so sad about it.

As a kid, we had birds. My mom had strawberry finches that she brought back from the Philippines. Those little birds lived in California, Maryland and finally, by the time we reached Panama three years later, only one remained. We called him "Little Left Behind".

Later, we had a green parakeet who's name was Blinky because he was blind in one eye. Blinky would bark like a big dog whenever the garbage man came down the drive and that poor man was always afraid of being bitten by that "dog". (Another time I'll tell you the story for the coral snake head in the trashcan. I think that finally pushed him completely over the edge.)

I re-read Maya Angelou's poem I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I'm certain I read it in college, but it has been a very long time. I forget about the power of poetry. I don't read enough of it and I'm going to rectify that by reading more. If you haven't read it or, like me, it's been a while, here it is:

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

 

I know! Wow! Right? This poem just breaks my heart.

This ATC is on it's way to Lithuania. I enclosed a copy of the poem in the envelope along with a Google translation of the poem to Lithuanian. I'm not sure how accurate those are, but it was worth a shot.

Days Have Letters. Weeks Have Words.

And the word of this week is CRAP.

I am now officially a member of the Sisters of Holy Crap over on Swap-bot and my first challenge is to take a toilet paper roll, staple one end closed, fill it with bits and baubs of crafty goodness and mail it to my swap buddy.
So here's to the crap of crapht and those of us who revere it!

I'm Grateful When Half the Plan Comes Together

A new month, a new lesson in my Year of Altered Books Class. This one was a stinker!

I couldn't figure out what topic I was going to do this technique with, but thank goodness for 3 am epiphanies!

The right hand pages came together almost immediately! I guess I chose the right magazines to go through for that one. The left hand pages were hard won, but I didn't give up.

There's some more fluffing that should probably be done with these pages, but I'll have to get back to them - the lesson was in the technique and the lesson is done! Woo Hoo!

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

 

Brought to You by the Letter O

This goes along with the Letter N ATC swap. I do like some of the Letter O patterns. And there seem to be more of them. That being said, I only used two on this ATC: Oeillet and Olb.

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Oh Crap Carrot Cake

When I was in Kindergarten (one year before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon), we had a next door neighbor named Pete Johnson. I don't know what her real first name was, but everyone called her Pete. Except me. I called her Mrs. Johnson.

Mrs. Johnson gave her "famous" Surprise Carrot Cake recipe to my mom and that became THE family carrot cake recipe. This cake is seriously great!.

In 1982 (one year before Sally Ride became the first woman in space), I used the Surprise Carrot Cake recipe in my Fundamentals of Speech class.

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In 1997 (one year before 77-year-old John Glen returned to orbit in the space shuttle Discovery), I made the Surprise Carrot Cake for my daughter's 6th birthday. And every year after that for the Surprise Carrot Cake became her birthday cake.

Coincidentally, it also became the only cake that I bake during the year.

This year, for my daughter's 24th birthday I made the Surprise Carrot Cake and that's when I realized that this cake is absolutely misnamed. I am hereby renaming the Surprise Carrot Cake to the Oh Crap Carrot Cake and here's why:

2008 - Daughter's 18th birthday - "Oh Crap! I forgot the carrots!" (though in my defense, my mom had passed away the day before and it was a crappy day in general)

2011 - Daughter's 20th birthday - "Oh Crap! I forgot the raisins!" Wait! There aren't any raisins in the recipe, but for some reason I always think there are.

2013 - Daughter's 22nd birthday - "Oh Crap! I forgot the pineapple!" Fortunately, the cakes had just gone in the oven so I stirred the crushed pineapple into them.

2015 - Daughter's 24th birthday - "Oh Crap! I forgot the cream cheese!" Fortunately, I had only iced the center section so the icing could be scraped off and the cream cheese added. (I was wondering why the icing was such a funny color and there wasn't much of it!)

But every year I get through it and every year it's delicious! And every year, my family asks why we only have it once a year.

Oh Crap!