Buoys on the Wall (Photo of the Day)

I loved this wall of buoys on the outside of a fish market right on a pier in Provincetown, Cape Cod.



Photos taken by ChristineMM, Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, August 2007.

Rowboat and Old Pier (Photo of the Day)

I loved the rowboat on the beach with the rotting pier in the background.

This beach is right next to the pier in Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Photo taken in August 2007 by ChristineMM.

Technorati Tags: Provincetown, Cape Cod.

Noticing Beauty in Our Typical Lives

How many of us take lots of photos when we are on vacation?

Most 'regular people' will take photos of major holidays, very special events and while on vacations. Some of those people rarely take photos of their normal days at home or right around the area they live in.

I don't recall when it was that I first realized that people actually take trips to visit this place I live in. I always thought that the people here were trying to leave here to go on a vacation and I never thought that anyone would come HERE. I think it was about the beauty of fall foliage, something I took for granted and used to only associate with the hassle of hand-raking dead leaves off the lawn (as demanded by my father) which made me realize that indeed tourists do come here for vacations.

Yes, people come to my area on vacations for which they pay money to just come and drive around, to view this foliage, here in New England.

Then I began noticing some changes in development of some towns and with my hometown. I don't always like the changes and wax nostalgic for 'the way it used to be'. I then realize, I have no photo of that former building or old business that I used to frequent. When I was a teen I spent a lot of time and money at an arcade. I have no photo of that place. When it turned into a Saturn car dealership, well, there was no point in taking the photo to document that!

I have been taking more and more photos of things all around me in this area and in my hometown, when I go there to visit my relatives. I am starting to see all kinds of things that are photo-worthy.

Additionally I felt a bit sad and angry at a change on Cape Cod when we took our first visit there this last summer. The first thing we used to see after we crossed the bridge over the Cape Cod Canal was a business which was a family owned restaurant and pie shop. In the parking lot right next to the road that we all had to drive by was a tugboat, which loomed large over us (who knew they were that big?). The tugboat had lots of buoys on it and I believe it said something like "Welcome to Cape Cod" on it, but I can't be sure. I took that for granted, that sight. It was something that was always there.

Yet this year when we rounded the corner there was a

GASP

brand new, just like all the others, CVS drugstore with a newly paved parking lot and it was lit up with brand new orange lights from the tall parking lot lights.

YUCK!!

My in-laws told me that Grandma's Pies sold the land to CVS and they moved somewhere else in town.

Well I'm sorry but it is just not the same.

Franchises and national chains are creeping in all over the Cape. Small family-owned businesses are disappearing while the franchises take over. Some towns fight chains such as trying to prevent a Dunkin' Donuts from coming in to one town who had two yummy family owned doughnut shops already. There are numerous individual businesses who sell homemade ice cream yet one town now has a Ben and Jerry's. I'm sorry but it is not the same.

So when I'm at the Cape I have been trying to document the little businesses with their imperfect, fading signs and while at home I'm photographing the little things that I see which catch my eye. For I never know when the things which I appreciate but usually take for granted will disappear.

I do take more photos here at home, but it is true I take a lot while away. Why? The reason is that when I am away I have extra time on my hands and it is very easy to just take the time to go out and take photographs. I also have a bit of pressure, thinking, "I'll only get to this beach once this year, so I'd better go take some photos today". When I'm at home and busy with 'real life' I don't always take the time to go out and take photos. And then sometimes it is too late.

For example it rained for over 24 hours here yesterday. We awoke to sunny skies. As I drove down the road in the early morning, I noticed the fall foliage looked different, better somehow. I realized that all the bark on the trees was very dark brown, almost black, as it was so soaked with rain. The hard frost we had killed off a lot of the lush green plants on the forest floor. So what I saw was bright leaves covering a forest floor with black tree trunks with bright leaves on the trees with sunlight filtering through. It was breathtaking actually. But I was driving to meet my brother and I was under a deadline so I kept driving and didn't snap a photo. On the way home the sun had already dried the bark and the sun was high in the sky and the light was just different. It was not the same thing anymore, it was different. I now wish I'd taken 30 seconds to stop the car and snap a few quick photos. Sigh.

Although I am only 40 years old I am already feeling like an 'old geezer' in some respects as I've started to say, "I remember when that place was a..." and "Things are changing around here and it is just getting so overcrowded" and other stuff like that.

I should mention and make clear though that although negative feelings was the impetus to help me open my eyes, what is happening now is I am seeing more and more beauty in everyday things all around me. Noticing things and finding joy in just seeing something lovely actually lifts my spirits throughout the day. And that is 'a good thing' as Martha Stewart says.

So That Explains the Blogger Problems This Week

For about four days there have been glitches with Blogger with publishing images. Whenever these problems happen there is usually no communication from Blogger staff to us Blogger customers.

Well today I see a new button on my toolbar, a formatting eraser tool. Well that explains it!

I have noticed a pattern in the past when I've had problems publishing or viewing my blog, a few days to a couple of weeks later suddenly there is a new function unveiled. There is still no communication about 'the old problem' as well as no apologies. But the 'old problem' ususally disappears at that point.

Yesterday I could not view all the previously uploaded photos on my blog unless I double clicked on them and then I'd see the very large image (so I knew the image was really there).

Today I am unable to publish photos. Sigh.

Out With One Season, In With the Next (Photo of the Day)

Photo by ChristineMM, taken on my deck, Connecticut, early October 2007.

Sunset Over Cape Cod Beach (Photo of the Day)

Sunset, bay-side beach, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Funny that I took only one photo of this glorious sunset. Maybe my battery died or something, because usually I'd take a bunch of photos of something as glorious as this.

Photo taken by ChristineMM, July 2004. (No camera lens filters used.)

Younger Son Running on the Beach (Photo of the Day)

My younger son, aged four, running at a bay-side beach, on an overcast, chilly day, Mid-Cape, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

What I like about this photo is that it captures the true freedom which I give my children to enjoy their childhood. I am glad the camera captured this scene accurately. This was 'nothing special', it was just a typical day for us, which included running and playing. However, I always try to capture in photographs, our real lives, so that I can remember these simple times, and what my kids were like when they were children, as it is true, that they seem to grow up and get big so quickly.

We usually go to Cape Cod two or three times a year and stay at my in-laws place which is a Mid-Cape town.

Photo taken by ChristineMM in July 2004.

(I'm going through old photos from 2004, can't you tell?)

Enjoying the View (Photo of the Day)

This is my older son sitting on a bench enjoying the view at the Burgess Museum in Sandwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Links
Thornton Burgess Museum official website

Thornton Burgess Wikipedia entry (pretty skimpy)

A better article

Technorati Tags: Thornton W. Burgess, Thornton Burgess, Burgess Museum.

Altered Dominoes Made With My Younger Son

My muse was with me and so after dinner the night before last, I sat down to alter some dominoes the other night. My younger son approached me and asked what I was doing. I explained how I was using alcohol inks to put color onto the back and sides of the dominoes. I told him how I liked that the colors are not completely predictable.

My son asked if he could make some. So with my supervision he began making these dominoes. The coolest thing he did was when I was washing my hands he took it upon himself to start a new set. He combined a blue with a red color and gold and those dominoes came out with a jewel-tone purple with gold. They are beautiful! (Those are the ones in the top row of the first scan on this blog entry.)

We ended up spending two hours on this project and did this instead of me surfing the Internet and watching television. Then the next morning my younger son woke up asking to make more. I let him make some more with my supervision, with him totally in control, until he wanted to stop.

I plan to further embellish these dominoes.

So far I did try to rubber stamp with black Staz On ink on top of these, but the two I made did not come out well. The black is not very dark, not dark enough. I wonder if the issue is that my ink pad is not as 'juicy' as it needs to be? I need to figure this out.

I could also collage some bits on top of these colored backgrounds.

I colored the sides so that I would not have to have Krylon gold leafing pen be the color for the sides. I was not sure that I wanted so much gold on the edges.

I also used silver in some of these. I probably should buy a silver leafing pen by Krylon, if they make one, so that I could put silver on the edges if I wanted.

The trickiest part of doing this was to color the sides and not have my fingers lift off too much of the ink. What I did was do the top surfaces, let it dry a bit, then hold the un-inked sides and color two edge sides. Then I let that dry a bit then hold the inked edges and color the last two uncolored edges. It was tricky and I did end up with ink on my fingers in the end.

If I make these into charms for necklaces I plan to drill holes into them after the rest is completed. I only did it that way as I had not coordinated with my husband ahead of time to have him drill everything ahead of time.

I could also use a bead on the top to act as the thing to put the string through.


The impetus for doing these right now is that I signed up for an altered domino swap on Swap-bot last week. I also see there is an upcoming swap for an altered domino charm which I may or may not choose to participate in.

Products used:
The earth toned color alcohol inks are by Ranger in the Tim Holtz line. I own only three of those inks, my set calls the colors eggplant (purple), lettuce (green), and cranberry (a burgundy red color). I find these at A.C. Moore and Michael's Craft store and buy them with the weekly discount coupon that is published in the newspaper sales flyer and/or online. They are also sold at my local rubber stamp store for full price.

The silver and gold 'alcohol ink mixatives' colors are by Ranger, sold in a set togeher. I find these at A.C. Moore and Michael's Craft store and buy them with the weekly discount coupon that is published in the newspaper sales flyer and/or online. They are also sold at my local rubber stamp store for full price.

I also used bright red (Santa Fe red), bright orange (Calabaza Orange), a yellow (Tangerine), baja blue and sapphire blue alcohol inks by Jacquard. The label also identifies these products as "Susan Pickering Rothamel signature line Pinata Color". I find the Jacquard alcohol inks only at a local rubber stamp store, they are sold individually for $3.50 each, so you can pick and choose how many colors you want, or if you want just a couple of colors that are very different than the inks that you already own. They also sell sets of Pinata alcohol inks but the price was pretty much the same as buying them individually.

I found the Jacquard colors went on thicker and took longer to dry. The Ranger inks seemed to go on thinner and were not as tacky when wet, and dried very quickly.

I did not use blending solution in this project.

Technorati Tags: altered dominoes, domino charm, altered art, swap-bot.

Exploring Tidal Pools (Photo of the Day)

Here are my two boys, they were aged 4 and 6.5 back then, exploring a tidal pool. We had read "Pagoo" by Holling Clancy Holling that prior school year. This was a cold-ish, gray day at a bay-side beach on Cape Cod.

Photo taken by ChristineMM, July 2004.

Collaged Journal Page I Made Last Week

I made this collaged journal page last week.

My original intention was to make a large collage (7x10.5 inches) which would later be cut into artist trading cards. I was open minded at the time to also using paint, ink and rubber stamped images combined with this ephemera.

To begin I opened a box of ephemera which I had been saving. I like to reuse junk mail and random ephemera used in my daily life to make artwork and artist trading cards, when possible.
The stuff at the top of the box had a bunch of papers which I instantly recognized as being from the first two weeks of June. There were papers from a conference I attended, a hotel key folder from that excursion and a parking receipt for an amusement park I went to with my kids and a bunch of friends, for example.

As I began to make the collage I realized I was not using the pieces in creative ways but was just making a collage of the items. When it came time to layer over some of the pieces I didn’t always want to do it as I felt I was covering up things that documented our family life in those two weeks. I then decided to have this collage be a journal page of those first two weeks of June.

If you look over the page you will see places I went and things we did, things we ate and even some of what was on my mind that week. There are pieces of letters I received with mail art, postage from books I received that week from PaperBackSwap book swaps that came in the mail in that time, and even two pieces of the diet food wrappers of a diet that I was on for a total of three weeks in June.

This was fun to create and took just over an hour. I also sorted through the papers I’d saved and threw away those which were not worth keeping for future art projects. So this was a little decluttering and little art making.

I plan to make more pages like this and to bind them into a journal when finished. For now this is being stored in a plastic sheet protector inside of a three ring binder.

Unresolved issue: I need to figure out what product makes a good sealer as parts of this have Golden Acrylic Gel Medium on the exposed surfaces which, depending on the weather/humidity in the air, can be very tacky and stick to other surfaces.

Technorati Tags: art journal, collage, ephemera, collaged journal page.

One of My Children's Classrooms (Photo of the Day)

One day a week my children are at this location. They are outside in nature, literally in the places which are seen in these photos. This nature preserve is the location where a class for homeschooled children is run.

How great is it that on a weekday a bunch of homeschooled children have THIS PLACE as their classroom?

I think it is just FANTASTIC! I think that all of the children enrolled in these programs are very lucky indeed!

Photos taken by ChristineMM, late September, 2007, in Connecticut.

A Road in My Town(Photo of the Day)

This is a typical road in my town. This is usually what I see when I am driving around in this town because there is so much protected watershed land here. While that is one thing that made me move here, I realized that after some time, I was taking these views for granted. After a while it just seems like woods, woods, and more woods. However I snapped out of that mindset, because I realized that compared to many different, other views that could exist, this is wonderful.

Photo taken 10/07/07 in my town, Fairfield County, Connecticut by ChristineMM.

Dominoes for Altering, Cheap at KB Toys

I used to sometimes stumble upon small sets of Dominoes at various dollar stores. I have not found any at dollar stores in quite some time now.

I was at KB Toys last week to buy a birthday gift for a child. I saw in the board game section that they had large sets of white resin dominoes which are perfect for altering. Some were about 100 dominoes for $10. Others were 140 for about $13. That comes to about 9 or 10 cents per domino. Suddenly looking for a dozen dominoes in a dollar store (for $1) is not so important.

KB Toys also had jumbo sized dominoes so they had two different sizes to choose from. Note that 6:6 dominoes are sometimes smaller than the 9:9 and the 12:12.

I noticed that the price tags indicated these were placed on the shelves 15 and 16 months ago so these are not moving quickly at all.

Sometimes KB Toys has a sale on ‘all games’ a certain percent off, so if you find this you will save even more money. (Check on their website to view the current weeks' sales flyer.)

So those of you who like to alter dominoes should check out not only your local dollar stores but also KB Toys.

Here is a former blog post I wrote about my first attempt at altering dominoes.

These are the dominoes which I altered back in June 2006 which I discussed in the above post. All the rubber stamps used to make the below altered dominoes are from Zettiology.



Technorati Tags: altered dominoes, altering dominoes, domino altering.

Favorite Beach of My Teenage Years (Photo of the Day)

This is what locals call "The Little Beach" which was my favorite place to swim, when I was a child growing up in my hometown. This is Long Island Sound. You can't see it in this photo but there is a granite boulder which we used to jump off of, as teenagers, when we'd go to the beach sans parents.

On the evening that I visited the beach last week a father and son were clamming there. The sun was setting.

I always said I could never live inland, that I needed to live on the edge of the land. Well I'm inland now, in the woods, actually, which I like better than living in a crowded suburb even if it gives access to public beaches.

Boats in Harbor (Photo of the Day)

Boats in Harbor, Long Island Sound, My Hometown, Connecticut, late September 2007.

I shot this quickly out of the rolled-down passenger side window, while I stopped for a few seconds, just long enough to take this shot (I was the driver).

I used to live near this area of town. I used to walk there, or ride my bike there, or would take a quick detour down there while driving to take in the nice view. Part of me wishes I still lived in my hometown, as I'm nostalgic about it and also because my relatives still live there.

Fallen Leaf (Photo of the Day)

As I was walking at the beach, I saw that this leaf had fallen onto this old telephone pole which served as a barrier in the parking lot. I noticed it immediately, for both its beautiful color as well as the lovely shadow. I took the photo just as I found it laying there.

Photo taken by ChristineMM on September, 25 2007, at a Connecticut shoreline town.

Chicory by the Roadside (Photo of the Day)

While stopped on the side of the road to take a photo of a tree with lovely fall foliage, I saw this late Chicory blossom. Late September, New Fairfield, Connecticut.

My ATCs: 9 Emboss Resist Method ATCs

I made these 9 ATCs with the "emboss resist" method as taught in the book "Artist Trading Card Workshop" by Bernie Berlin.

This is the book which tells the emboss-resist technique, Bernie Berlin's "Artist Trading Card Workshop".

Flowers in My Garden (Photo of the Day)

Flowers in my garden, September 27, 2007. The roses are Fairy Roses. Technically, the white flowers that look like tiny daisies are weeds (wildflowers), but I thought they were lovely.