Archive for Paper Art

Reblogging: The Library Phantom of Edinburgh

{ December 1, 2011 @ 3:26 pm } · { Art, Paper Art }
{ Tags: , , , } · { Leave a Comment }

So beautiful! My friend shared this story with me and I had to post about it! As an expression of artistic gratitude, some mysterious person has gone around hiding little beautiful pieces of paper art in special places at Edinburgh (a library, a museum, etc). You have to go look at them. I want to make little cool things and hide them now too! (I’m so glad the staff person who fuond the first ones didnt’just throw them away or something LOL!)

The pictures are accredited to Chris Scott in that blog post.

Stuff that’s now old news.

{ October 22, 2011 @ 7:53 pm } · { Art, Music, Paper Art, Stuff That I Think Is Funny }
{ Tags: , , , , , , , } · { Comments (1) }

I have rendered this simulated Wheel of Smooveness so that you could see how it might look printed and set on my table. My printer is a little buggy, and also I thought it was kinda cool to do a hacky CG illustration of this. I'd say I have too much time on my hands, but the truth is I'm super busy today and just ignoring my real responsibilities.

Well a week or so ago, some PR company sent an email promo to The Bloggess. She didn’t like/want it, and sent them a rather snarky request that they remove her from their list of spammees. It’s pretty funny, and if you’re not yet acquainted with The Bloggess, you should check her out (with the warning that she swears like a sailor).

So anyhow the PR people did not appreciate the joke, and replied with a terse email that she would be removed from the mailing list. The end. Or it should have been. But then apparently some VP in the company (named Jose), through some unknown chain of events, did a reply all to the office about this, in which he referred to Jenny (Bloggess’ real name) as a f***ing b****. And Jenny was included in the reply all. Oops.

Now, you’ve really gotta read this exchange to believe how smoove Jose was. Let me tell you, though, it is the right way to do public relations. This I know, because in the twitter-bloodbath aftermath, someone else from the company astutely pointed out that Jose is actually good at PR. Not being a PR person myself, details like that can escape me, so I was glad to have it clarified.

Instructions for constructing the wheel- click the image if you can't read the text.

Now, in my occupation, I encounter situations that require careful attention to interpersonal communications and I can really use the professional guidance from someone who’s on the inside of the PR business and knows the ropes. I have therefore collected his pearls of wisdom and compiled them into a tidy little document I call the Wheel of Smooveness. You may be in the same boat as me there, and perhaps can benefit as well, so I’ve created a pdf download. You can download your own to print and construct by CLICKING HERE.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other news that is also old and also very smoove, I offer this:

  • The Lady is a Tramp, with Tony Bennet and Gaga. Often, I can’t even watch this woman; her act seems so skanky and bubblegum. Then she does something like this and totally blows me away. If you haven’t heard this yet, play it now. It’s downright classy, folks.

    • Mae West Paper Doll

    { October 18, 2011 @ 4:27 pm } · { Art, Celebrity Crap, Clothing, Crafty Stuff, Paper Art, Paper Dolls, Sketches, Vintage Stuff }
    { Tags: , , , , , } · { Comments (2) }


    I cut out an ad for Tiffany’s Jewelers from a magazine and put the doll on top of the text for the picture :D

    The Mae West paper doll is complete! You can download it by clicking here. I considered making a color version along with the B&W, but it was taking too long and I thought this would be sufficient. After all- I mostly remember her in black and white, so that kind of justifies my leaving it like this. You’ll have to color them yourself if you want them otherwise.

    I haven’t constructed one yet, so I’m not sure how well the doll works, but at least I made one and it’s just fine and there’s an awesome pdf to download if it doesn’t, and that really is the key to happinness in life anyway.

    I think if she were alive today, she would wear Alexander McQueen. And it would be a fabulous combination.

    Famous Movie Wedding Dress Paper Dolls

    { July 26, 2011 @ 5:00 am } · { Art, Clothing, Crafty Stuff, Paper Art, Paper Dolls }
    { Tags: , , , } · { Comments (1) }

    Looookie what I got today! Movie wedding dress paper dolls!

    This is a set from a beloved publisher of mine, Dover Publications. They make sticker books, activity books and other cute things like that. Now you can even sign up for free email samplers. I’m having fun.

    Another Round of Kid Art

    { March 24, 2011 @ 3:59 pm } · { Art, Crafty Stuff, Paper Art }
    { Tags: , } · { Comments (1) }

    I initially started this post with this cute little pencil family in mind, but I saw a few other masterpieces while I was photographing them and decided to expand. These three people were made by a fifth grade class who collaborated on a business venture. One cut up the pencils, one made the furniture… etc. They sold them for a dime apiece.

    a bed

    I think these are pets- a turtle, a bird, and a bunny

    here are some clothes for the people- I got a shot of a few dress shirts, but there was a whole wardrobe for each person

    Here I’ve set some of the up. Carpet, table (with a cheeseburger), baby in bed, mother in the chair…

    I mean really. Isn’t this the coolest thing ever? I remember doing stuff kind of like this as a kid, but the whole class got together for it.

    So here’s the rest, and what a collection this is. These are pieces from my personal gallery of kid gifts from work. Many came at Christmas, and some have just come to me along the way.


    This was made by a four year old. A little girl in my class who likes to draw drew this, colored it, and cut it out by herself. It may be that an older girl helped her do the drawing- it’s hard to tell, the way four year olds talk, but I can at least vouch for the fact that this kid can draw that well. She has amazing motor skills.

    A third grader made this. I think it was intended to be a wall decoration, but it’s hard to say. I don’t know what the big person asking the little person for food (and being denied) is supposed to mean.

    This bird cutout was included along side of the above wall hanger thing.


    This was drawn by a sixth grader. I think he plays too many violent video games…

    More four year old stuff- this was just cute cuz it’s supposed to be my family- me, my husband, mom and dad, and when I asked the kid what the writing said she told me she didn’t know and that I’d have to read it to her. Hee hee.

    Also by a four year old- she likes dinosaurs, her favorite being “rex” (Tyrannosaurus Rex), and she stenciled this one but added the bow and eyelashes to make it a girl dino.

    Vintage Valentine’s Day Cards

    { January 31, 2011 @ 6:54 pm } · { Art, Paper Art, Paper Dolls, Vintage Stuff }
    { Tags: , , , , , , } · { Leave a Comment }

    Now that February is upon us (almost), I am starting to think through Valentine’s Day plans. I love holidays that involve me hanging around with my man or spending money on him. Yep. I dug out this box of Valentine cards in honor of the season. I got them a while back, but not too far back- they look like they’re a bajillion years old, but I think I picked them up at Barnes or somewhere on a clearance table. There’s glitter on them, although it doesn’t show unless you click on the image to see them enlarged.

    I still don’t know who to give them to- maybe I’ll just mail them to random friends or something- they’re so lovely. Yeah, maybe that’s what I’ll do.

    Two more things on the subject of vintage paper art:

    I’ve been updating my blogroll and wanted to point out the addition of Marlendy. This is a blog mostly about paper dolls although some greeting cards and other such paper art gets slipped in here and there. It’s quite a treasure; she has some really cool uploads from out of print magazines.

    Secondly, I found this the other day and fell in love with the artwork. Don’t think about the song or the context- just look at the pictures. Aren’t they cute?

    Secret Message Crafty Thing for Kids

    { January 13, 2011 @ 11:42 pm } · { Art, Crafty Stuff, Paper Art }
    { Tags: , , , , , } · { Comments (5) }

    I found this cool craft idea today and thought my kids would like it. As it is, you can download the templates for the little glasses and the Valentine’s Day cards, and they’re printable and super easy, but I thought it would be cool if you could use them for more than just this one holiday. I made a little hexagonal patterned page of my own that you can download and print by clicking here and also I made some non-heart-shaped glasses, since I have a lotta little boys in my class who would probably consider them less than manly.

    Giuseppi made his name. It took forever.


    Here's Giuseppi holding the red cellophane over his name.

    It’s pretty easy to do- I had to practice coloring in a few grids before I could make it look like anything, but here is Giuseppi with his name. He was a lot more patient than I was. We used Prismacolor colored pencils: first blues, greens, purples and some shades of brown for the letters, and than oranges, pinks, yellows and reds for the camouflage area to be colored around it.

    Some things I picked up from doing this are:

    • Practice with the colors and cellophane first- see what the colors look like with the red over them and which will stand out best or disappear best. This doesn’t take too long.
    • Decide on a simple image first- heart, star, first letter of your child’s name, and map it out by making light blue or green dots on the patterned paper. You might want to make one by yourself first so that you know that it will work.

    • Do the shape first, then color the camouflage part around it. This step takes a while and is a little bit of a pain in the butt, but I found that if the shape is okay, the camo part doesn’t have to be perfect.
    • Use as much of a variety of colors as you can. Having different colors makes it easier for your eyes to get distracted, which enhances the whole “hidden message” idea.

    Griffin and Sabine

    { January 9, 2011 @ 9:41 pm } · { Art, Books, Cool Artists, Paper Art }
    { Tags: , , , } · { Leave a Comment }

    The first book of the series.

    Nick Bantock put together this cool series of strange novels about Griffin and Sabine and their strange connection. Griffin is an English artist, and Sabine is Sicmon Philatelic Designer, which means she makes the pictures for postage stamps for the tropical Sicmon islands where she lives. At least that’s how it starts. The story is told as a series of correspondance going back and forth between the two of them, with Sabine explaining early on that she has somehow had an inexplicable telepathic ability to watch Griffin’s art as he creates it. It gets wierder from there, but I don’t want to give out any further details on the story. It’s pretty convoluted. The further it goes, the more you wonder what is actually real in the characters’ lives and what isn’t and that is half the point of the books.

    The pages have either postcards printed on them or envelopes attached with letters inside them.

    The other half of the point of the books is the artwork. It’s amazing. I own the first book in the set, and these are some of my favorite pictures from the envelopes and postcards. The pictures are a visual feast.

    I love my job.

    { December 15, 2010 @ 10:50 pm } · { Clothing, Crafty Stuff, Paper Art }
    { Tags: , , , , , } · { Comments (1) }

    So, today I’m in a classroom full of third graders, merrily imparting the knowledge of the Spanish language into their eager little minds when a tragedy interrupted me: my penguin bracelet broke! BOO HOO! I loved that thing! I could probably remove a link and fix it or attach a ring to it or… something. My hubby gave it to me a while back, so I’m not ready to give up on it; but after class was finished and I was getting ready to turn things over to the next teacher, one of the students called out to me and gave me the paper bracelet in the bottom picture as a replacement. Awww… My heart just melted with that. I could go all realistic and call it a likely case of brown-nosing, but I think I’d rather say the kid was just being sweet. I love it. This is going to be kept for a long time.

    It has stuff written all around it like “You’re the best teacher ever” and so forth.

    Twitter-Related Things That Are Funny To Me

    { November 29, 2010 @ 11:57 pm } · { Celebrity Crap, Paper Art, Stuff That I Think Is Funny, Vintage Stuff }
    { Leave a Comment }

    I got a collection of Valentines’ Day Someecards thingies a while back and they really make me laugh out loud. Upon a recent occasion of feeding my addiction to Paste Magazine, I discovered this list of the day entry and thought it was funny enough to reblog.

    And on the two subjects of Paste and Twitter, let me say this:
    I am so, so very proud of all the brave celebrities who are refusing to tweet until a bunch of other people give money to a charity. Okay, can someone please explain how this is productive (aside from giving a few famous people a chance to associate themselves with an AIDS-awareness-related charity)?

    « Previous entries
    Follow

    Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

    Join 38 other followers