I'm a bad blogger

I haven't been posting regularly, and I missed two whole months! Does this make me a bad blogger? I'm a blogger that doesn't blog.

I got a blog because I enjoyed looking at other people's blogs. It started when I read a few blogs by people that I know, then I got a copy of Artful Blogging. I really wanted to have a blog like that -- like the beautiful blogs featured in the magazine where they featured beautiful artwork, like the blogs my friends had where I got to know them better than I did before. So I got a blog. And don't know what to do with it.

It turned out that getting a blog was super easy -- all but the picking your name thing. I wanted something to do with mixed media, since that's what I've been playing with lately, but all the addresses with that were taken. So I got mixing-katie and named the blog Mixed Up, and figured that it was pretty appropriate: I'm messing around in mixed media but don't really know what I'm doing. Also, I'm at a place where I need to decide where my "career" is going, and I'm not sure about that. We're going to move relatively soon and don't know where we'll go. I want to take my "art" more seriously, but don't know if it's worth it. So many decisions, and I'm not sure about any of them. So Mixed Up seems like a good name for me.

Inchies : )

I'm hosting an inchie swap on ATCsforAll.com, and finally got around to making my own inchies for it. I cut out images from an American history textbook, put them on some inchie blanks that I had made when cutting out something else, and then stuck on inked up words and did the edges with a silver marker.

While I was doing them, I spread out the finished ones and noticed that some of the words kinda made interesting phrases. Maybe that will turn into an idea for another swap -- sentence inchies :)

Chunky Madness

Just what I needed -- another addiction! As if ATCs and inchies and rolos weren't enough, now I've got myself hooked on chunky pages, too! They're 4 inches by 4 inches and super fun! Here are a few a made for trades on ATCSforAll with nursery rhyme themes:



And here is a bound book. I got these pages from different trades, then made covers and bound them on metal rings. I love how all the fibers and charms and beads and whatnot look when they stick out all over the place. My kind of madness :)

Fun Link

Here is a link to a site that will spell out your name with photos from flickr: http://metaatem.net/words/. Thanks to Goatgoddess from ATCsforAll.com for the tip!

Altered Rolo

I've been trading altered rolodex cards with friends from ATCsforAll. When I trade with someone that I don't have a rolo for, I cut out the return address portion of their envelope, paste it to a blank rolo card, and file it. I thought my rolo holder looked a little boring, so I added some stripes with white electrical tape.

Make It Mondays - April 14, 2008

Lisa Vollrath is putting up a new challenge every Monday on Go Make Something. This week's challenge was music. I did a 4x4 page based on REM's song "Night Swimming." I glued on some background papers, smeared on acrylic paint, then drew on top and colored with markers and colored pencils. This song always reminds me of a fun time I had with some friends in Saratov on the Volga river, so I drew the bridge that crosses the Volga there, and one of the pretty lampposts that are on the embankment.

Inspirational site

Yesterday I spent a lot of time on Lisa Vollrath's site Go Make Something. Lisa Vollrath is a member of ATCsforAll and I've seen links to some of her pages in the past, but never explored the site much before yesterday. Wow is there a lot of great stuff there!! Fun articles, great templates, lots of how-to's with excellent photographs. I loved the videos she had posted, especially the ones on organization. Very neat to see and hear the person who's been giving you instructions. It makes it so much more personal. Will definitely spend some more time on that site during my vacation (which starts this Friday, woooooooooot!).