Let's Roll Some Ink

The victorian house linocut I carved has been whispering my name from the inside of a drawer for the past few weeks.

"Ink me." it said. "I know the suspense is killing you. Don't you care to see if I can print at all? Is orange the color for me, or maybe a pretty light blue? What about a little fun with pen, or watercolor backgrounds? How would I look on a colored paper, or the page of an old book? Come on, just take a moment and check me out. There are so many possibilities, and I know you're just dying to play."

But I had too much going on. You know how it gets. And as a result of a busy life, fun little projects that I barely make time for in the first place get pushed back, back, back, unfinished, but never quite forgotten. It just sits in the back of my mind on this limbo land to-do list taking up space in my brain. Truth be told, if it wasn't for my lunch hour it never would have been carved in the first place, so I knew it would take an effort to make the time to print it. There was a tiny play kitchen to be made and a first birthday party to plan, though, which seemed to spend every spare moment I could make.

Then finally came the day that I decided, the effort must be made. A Wednesday night when the day was less than ideal and I just needed a win. I needed something personal and just for fun. It was 10 before I could get to it, but I had finished all that needed to be done and was finally able to say to that whisper in the drawer, "Ok, ok, you win. It's time. This moment has been made for you, and for me. Let's roll some ink".

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INDIEana Handicraft Exchange Acceptance

I am so excited to announce that Ashley Lee of InkHouse and I (under my shop name of La Grisette) will be sharing a booth at the INDIEana Handicraft Exchange this June! We got our acceptance letter yesterday and are officially on the vendor list! Competition was stiff this year, we are told that they had to turn away over 50% of the applicants so we feel incredibly fortunate to have made the cut. Now that we've got the green light there is LOTS of work to be done. I am in search of a new, quality printer for my digital art prints. I would love to know if anyone has any recommendations!

This summer's event should be a great time. Lots of quality artists, musicians, and delicious local Sun King beer! Here are some specifics:

Date: Saturday, June 11
Time: 12:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Admission: Free!
Location: The Harrison Center for the Arts
1505 North Delaware Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202
Parking: on neighborhood streets around the venue

You can visit this site for additional info about vendors etc.

Even if we weren't participating in the event we had definitely planned to attend. It's a great time! Hope to see you there!

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Guest blogging today over at Beantown Baker

The crazy talented food blogger, Jen, over at Beantown Baker was kind enough to invite me to join in on the Friday Favs portion of her blog this week. I thought long and hard about what I could possibly contribute to her savvy food blogging audience when finally I decided that I could share a few of the things I've learned about food photography over the years. I'm by no means an expert food photographer but there are various things that I've learned through experimentation that have helped refine my photos. Check out the Top Ten things I've learned about food photography here.

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Scanner in action

Here's a video of the scanner in action. This video is nothing fancy, but it does the trick. :) Enjoy!

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Dora and Diego's Animal Rescue Center at the Children's Museum!

For the past month we've been collaborating with the Children's Museum of Indianapolis on some fun stuff and I've been really loving the job. We helped them out with their new Dora & Diego interactive exhibit for toddlers. It was pretty magical to see the hustle of the museum on the final day of construction when everything came together. You can always count on the Children's Museum to put together top notch stuff, but I was giddy to see the tiny little hut where our contribution was going to live. For our part we created a screen animation that sits in the Animal Rescue Center portion of the exhibit. The animation features Scan the Scanner who identifies and diagnoses little stuffed animals that are placed on the scanner. This project was so exciting to me because it combined my love of cutie design and animation with a fun, tangible experience for little ones. Let's just say that I am really excited about any new opportunities where we can do more stuff like this with RFID tags or other interactive trigger systems.

The entire exhibit is full of great interactives for toddlers. I would absolutely recommend stopping by if you get the chance to visit the museum between now and Aug 14th.

Here's the hut. I dont think it could be an cuter. Between the two scanners is a first aid station with bandages, ice packs, stethoscopes, and magnifying glasses then on the table there is a tiny little bathtub with two pedal operated dryers so you can clean the animals.

Here are some cubbies where you set the animals to rest and get food and water.

Scanning... Scanning... Here we go!

Eric, Taha, and I installing our portion into the hut. As we tested, Taha was such a rock star making little tweaks and updates on the fly. Great job to everyone who worked on this interactive! Kevin Marshall at the Children's Museum, Eric, Taha, Kyle, and Dan all did such a great job.

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Custom Beer Tap Handle

Good friends of ours turned 30 this past weekend and my husband and I were searching for something out of the ordinary to give them. They recently started brewing their own beer and installed a tap in their basement wall. We decided that a special handle for their tap was the right gift so we began the search for a good custom shop. We ended up finding a REALLY great shop out of Seattle. Will Bass of Bass Custom was super nice, helpful, and fast! He got our tap engraved, inked, and shipped in under a week. I'm sure that depending on his work load that quick turn around is not always possible, but it was such a nice surprise to get it several days before we were expecting it! The quality of the engraving was fantastic and he managed to capture all of the fine detail that we drew into our illustration. I know this probably sounds like I'm getting paid to say all of this, but I was just that pleased with the process and quality.

So why a garden gnome you ask?

In older posts you may have seen photos from an event we threw with our friends called Lebfest, where the two main team mascots were the Garden Gnomes and the Porch Geese. Our friends were the captains of the Garden Gnome team so we decided to create a gnome brew master character holding a beer, designed in woodcut style. It looks great engraved in the tap. I love the setup that our friends have for their bar! They were so creative with the ski's for shelves and the chalkboard paint for the brew name. It was great to see the tap fit into their awesome setup. Can't wait to try more of their awesome home brew and thanks to Will Bass, there is now a sweet custom tap handle we can pull to fill our glass!

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Sneak Peek

We've been busy at work finishing up something special for a fun client. Here's a big hint:

(Photo taken using the ClassicINSTA app. on my phone)

The project launches tomorrow and will be open to the public until Aug. 11! I'll post more details after the launch.

In other news, my IMPOSSIBLE Project film came in today! I can't wait to do some experiments this weekend! Expect a post about my instant film fun as well. Happy Friday!

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How To: Six Point Paper Snowflake

Below is a how to slide show for making pretty little 6 point paper snowflakes. If you have any trouble at all understanding what's going on, just click on a photo and it should take you to my flickr set where I've added detailed descriptive text to help clear up any confusion. Hope you enjoy!

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Baby Bruiser - Roller Derby Girl

Hot glue was my friend for this costume. At the last minute I added a bit of black fabric to the top of one of her bibs because, lets face it, the girl can drool. I wish I had have thought of it sooner so I could paint a little something on it. As for the rest of the costume, I snipped the helmet out of foam pads and covered them in black fabric, glued together some elbow pads and tied them on with ribbon, glued some spray painted wine corks to her tennies, tied a bunch of toule to a ribbon to make the tutu, and ironed on her derby name. The attitude she provided.

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30 Years

Well this weekend marked 30 years on Earth. This past year has been a whirlwind of huge events in my life and in the lives of the people I love. There were a significant number of awesome items on my 29 for 29 list that I didn't end up getting to this past year. I did end up doing several things I had no clue I would end up doing, though. (Like celebrating the engagement and marriage of my best friend and being a featured artist in a local art show) I also underestimated the time that I would spend preparing for the little one, being a matron of honor in two weddings, throwing a big anniversary party for my parents, and adjusting to my role as a new mom. To be honest, with all that filled my life I barely checked in with the list I had made. Now that things are slowing down and a new decade is beginning, it's time for a new list. Is it bad that I want to roll over a few of those items from the 29 to 29 list? I'll need to think about it. I think number 1 on the list will be to make the first homemade halloween costume for Fiona. That seems like a fine place to start.

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