for the travel postcard swap

the first two postcards were originally store bought postcards with a travel theme. i altered them with airplane safety guides and maps. the third one is a bit more subtle, with shades of pale yellow.

join my homemade postcard swap

click here to join
by the way, you'll need to sign up at swap-bot first before joining the swap

recent work

my scanner doesn't seem to scan the red very well. i can promise you it looks better in real life.

rediscovering artist trading cards

i was introduced to artist trading cards in 2004 through postcardx.net. i was not collaging as much as i do now and was a bit intimidated by the small size but also excited about trading with other people around the world. after awhile i felt limited by the small size and stopped making and trading atcs. recently, i saw a set of atcs on flickr and i loved it so much, it inspired me to try making atcs again.


set of atcs i've made recently

so i've been cutting cards down to 2.5 x 3 and rifling through my folders for small pieces for atcs. i've also joined swaps and one on one trades at the atcards forums (i am tealights at the forums, and if you join, you can upload your atcs to your personal gallery). sometimes when i focus on making certain things like atcs, i neglect other things like writing and collaging in my journal, which i'm trying not to do! it's hard not to though, because atcs are very addictive. before i found atcs frustrating, now i find working with a small space fun & challenging. i am also being ambtious and making a set of 26 atcs - one for each letter of the alphabet.

SCRAP

i've gotten a few questions online about where i get stuff for my collages. most of the things i use are either free or inexpensive. one place that i go to in san francisco is called SCRAP- which stands for scrounger's center for resusable art parts.

SCRAP gets all kinds of donations, such as paper, fabric, tiles, cards, books, beads and more. What's great about it is that the place is well organized into aisles and it's so much fun to browse because you never know what you're going to find. i always enjoy sifting through the boxes of photos and stocking up on envelopes and ephemera. it's a great way to get a variety of things for art, in a inexpensive way.

one tip if you have a chance to go:
don't bring large bills, they may not have enough change.

if you're ever in san francisco, definitely check it out!
scrap also has a links page, with links to other reuse centers.
scrap-sf.org

my flickr favorites

to get a closer look:
my flickr favorites

accordion books

lately i've been making small accordion books from paper i bought from flax. i love how easy and simple accordion books are, but also when you expand them, you can see all the pages.

a few pages

1001 journals

when i first 'discovered' traveling journals, i was very excited. i signed up for traveling journals through postcardx.net, browsed through the 1000 journals site looking at scans of pages by people all over the world. i couldn't wait to see a traveling journal in person.

after awhile, i gave up. none of the projects i signed up came and due to the overwhelming popularity of 1000 journals, i never got my hands on a journal. recently, i came across 1001 journals - a spin off of sorts by the creator of 1000 journals and quickly signed up. you can register, set up traveling journals of your own so others can sign up, upload scans of your personal journals.

recent journal pages:

qoop

i ordered prints from qoop by using my flickr account and they came yesterday. i am pretty satisfied with how they came out. the prints stayed true to color with the exception of two of my red collages. unfortunately, the red colors in my collages are different shades, but the prints made the varying shades look the same. i'm thinking about what i'm going to do with the prints. i might include one or two prints with each copy of the next issue of nonsensical. or pretend they're postcards to send to people at postcardx.

foreign currency

last night my mom brought home an envelope full of foreign currency. my mom cleans houses and one of the ladies she works for told her to throw the money away. of course, my mom knows that i love ephemera + she was curious to know what countries the money came from.
the money is from italy, brazil, norway, portugal, france & peru. my personal favorite is the five franc note because of the gold coloring.

a new journal

i've started a new journal, it's a coptic bound journal from somavenus and the pages are wonderfully random: yearbooks and illustrations and vintage fashion magazines. the journal is nice & compact at 4 x 5 - i don't like carrying heavy journals with me all the time.

recieved mail

i recieved a flier from the ladies of podpost about the book arts jam and i really liked the huge postmarks the post office made on the stamps, which is why i used the flier to start the collage.

first post

this blog is going to be about the treasures i find through websites, collages i make, fashion, books and other miscellany.