Normal is Boring

Three years ago, I made some christmas cards using my friend's gocco machine. I believe it was that same year that my boyfriend gifted me my own Gocco machine for Christmas.

Shortly after that, Gocco was rumored to be discontinued and I decided I couldn't possibly use such a rare resource, so it sat in my closet perfectly untouched for years. This weekend, I finally decided to get the machine out, hoping to make a few little art prints. Suffice it to say, my results were less than satisfactory and I (literally) blew half the screens and bulbs that were supplied. *sigh*

I don't have my final gocco scans to share, but here are some digitized versions of the images I was trying to play with.



A little back-story on this piece. When the DoodleFactory first moved to Starving Artistamps, and I became aware of stamping communities, I would often see comments on message-boards that the DoodleFactory characters were too weird for stampers. I felt like my odd little creatures (my kids!) were being shunned by society. I made myself feel better by repeating my own mantra "Normal is Boring", and Tracey even promised to make that sentiment into a stamp some day.

Since then, I think I've (mostly) toned down the whack-factor in my drawings, or people have become more accepting, or I've just tuned that stuff out. I was going to put the following little guy into the next stamp release as an abominable snowman, but my boyfriend informed me that he didn't look like BigFoot at all. I'm sure he'll be worked into a future set some day, but I couldn't wait the many months before that would happen to share him. Consider this a SUPER Sneak Peek!

Weekend of Art

This weekend my boyfriend was part of a very interesting project called "1 Day of Art". On Friday night, he and a group of a dozen+ artists met with the creators of (t)here magazine where they learned about the project and were interviewed for the publication and documentary. Each artist randomly selected a word, then spent the next 24 hours creating a work of art centered around that theme.

Mike used every one of those hours and didn't sleep all night. Because his project was so ambitious (with the 4 ft x 8 ft scale, and his time-consuming choice of medium), he didn't quite finish, though he probably needs just a few more hours to fill in the rest. I think by the end of the 20th hour, he was ready to fall over from the lack of sleep, but he pushed through and I passed out well before he did on Saturday night.


That's the piece hanging on his studio wall. His word(s) were "Modern/Power" and the photo doesn't quite do it justice. He did his own documentation of the process using his time-lapse camera, and I'll post the video when he finishes. I've posted this before, but here's another time-lapse video he did of a much smaller "tape painting", so you get an idea of how he works.

The film crew for the documentary dropped in on our apartment mid-day Saturday and I hid in our bedroom while they interviewed my tired boyfriend. I was wrapped up in my own Day of Art, working madly on the next DoodleFactory set, which I'd been putting off for ages. I finished! And while I can't show you the full set, here's a sneak peek and huge hint of what's to come:

Deerie Me

I figured out what I wanted to be for Halloween on Friday night, and put my costume together relatively quickly on Saturday.


I made my own horns out of Ultralight Sculpey, which is feather-light and quite easy to work with. Actually it's almost too easy to mold, so I put a wire in the center to help keep the bend while it was baking in the oven. After it was done, I painted them with watered-down acrylic paint.



Before baking, I also fluted the bottoms and poked holes around the base so I could sew the horns to my headband. This part looked quite "inelegant" as Mike put it, but it was secure and so comfortable I often forgot I was wearing antlers.



It was handy to have an artistic boyfriend around to help with my make-up, which we copied from a photograph I found on this thread.



The final look!

What did you all do, or dress as for Halloween?

**EDIT**For those curious about what Mike dressed as, he went as Twitter. [Here's a photograph].

Tricked Out Treat Bag

My good friend made a sweet trick-or-treat bag for her son using one of the ghoulies from the original DF Halloween set. But this isn't a stamped project; I sent her the high-res digital file and she printed an iron-on transfer that she affixed to a plain canvas bag.*

Is this cute, or what?



*Please note, mechanical reproduction of DoodleFactory images is prohibited without consent.

Final Frontier Winner!

Thanks to the technology of random.org, and the ease of numbered comments, I am happy to announce the winner of our one-day blog giveaway is: Anita Hovey!



Everyone else, thank you so much for playing along on our blog hop. If you want to purchase this set, it is loaded to the shop and ready to go. Use "savetenDF" at checkout and save 10%.

While you're shopping around, a little birdie told me another new DoodleFactory set is up at the shop and ready to go as well! For those of you who want to get a jump on your Christmas cards, check out another brand new set - DoodleFactory: O Holy Night

Final Frontier Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Starving Artistamps New Release Blog Hop! I am actually the last stop on the hop, so if you haven't started at the beginning, you should rewind and take a stroll through these fine blogs to see what the rest of the team has come up with:

START HERE: starvingartistamps.blogspot.com, then visit:
1. Juliana Swanson 2. Tracey Berkey 3. Donna Duquette 4. Sandra MacLean 5. Lori Tecler 6. Lydia Fiedler 7. Andrea Cloutier 8. Dawn Mercedes 9. Jenn McMillan

These are my two contributions using the "Final Frontier" set, which you can win absolutely free by commenting on this very blog post! This is a quickie/one-day giveaway, so you must enter your comment before 11AM PST, Wednesday Oct 21. Please make sure your comment includes an easy way to contact you! THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW OFFICIALLY CLOSED! THANKS FOR PLAYING!





Here's a look at the entire set of deeply etched, red rubber stamps that will go to the lucky winner. Of course, you can always purchase your own set at starvingartistamps.com. Use the code "savetenDF" at checkout and save 10%!