Pink Bird Studio

Penny for Your Thoughts - Another Installment of the Penny Experiment

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the Penny Experiment an admirable project that is trying to turn a single found penny into $1 million in food for food banks.  One hundred artists have signed up to make a postcard that will later be sold to benefit food banks.  The next project in this series is one hundred "Penny for Your Thoughts" books that will be circulated for people to write down or illustrate their thoughts.  Once each book is completed it will be returned to the Penny Experiment originator (Jeffrey Strain) and the books in turn will be sold for the same purpose.  How cool is that?  Of course I had to start a book too!

Here is the cover:

This blank book belonged to my dear friend Andrea Marrs who passed away last May.  It was marked with my name on it in her art room for me to take and do something with.  It has sat in my cabinet for over a year waiting for the "right" project, and this is it.  So Book #9 is dedicated to Andrea (I think she'd be pleased).  Here is what the book looked like originally:

I hope you agree I've improved it...or at least made it more interesting.

The instructions appear on the front inside pages:

 

And the mailing instructions for the finished project are inside the back cover:

I also made a two-page spread inside the book.  Here is the left side:

The right side is just my writing - basically saying that I am grateful to be able to help with the project instead of being one of the many who rely on food banks in North America.  An ever-increasing number of children rely on food banks, and many of the adults work, so if you have a pre-conceived notion of the "skid row" soup kitchen I encourage you to research the current state of poverty in North America.

If you're still reading and wondering how to get involved, please take a look at the Penny Experiment blog and consider joining one of the projects, or starting your own book, or purchasing a piece of art when they become available.  Or, if you'd like to take my book to pass around please leave a comment on this post and let me know (don't forget your contact info).  I have toyed around with trying to get this book completed here in Canada, but because the food banks that will be helped are in the US, I think that the book has a better chance of getting completed in the US, so I would love to mail it to someone in the States. 

ARTchix swap - Gothic Arches

Another fun swap from ARTchix Studio - make six chunky (4" square) pages using their Gothic Arches images... Here are my items.  This is a nice way to trade chunky book pages without committing to a whole bookful of pages! 

 

 

Sunday Postcard Art - Open Theme

This week Sunday Postcard Art had an open theme.  I bought these fun stamps from Inkadinkadoo and thought this was a good excuse to try them out!  Wishing you all a happy and prosperous 2010 - maybe even "lucky"!

Journal Pages

This is a spread in Alison Beringer's journal for the collaborative project we started recently.  Alison started the spread by adding some text pages and painting over with a light wash of gesso.  I hope she likes the end result!

In case you can't read my messy writing below the rub-on letters it says "Like bird watching and collecting top hats..."

Final Heart Book Pages

I finished my pages for Belinda and that completes this fun project for me (ahead of schedule for a change!).  Belinda's theme was "artist's choice", and she wanted us to be inspired by the True Colors book for our colour scheme, so I chose a sepia/brown pallette with a dash of gold.  Hope she likes them!

 

More Heart Book Pages

Today I decided to make my own pages for my heart book.  Often I find when I'm in group swaps like this I neglect to make a page for myself, or put it off for way too long.  I was determined to have a complete book, so thought I would make my own pages while I have a few days off.

My theme was "Glamour" - not that I have any illusions (or aspirations) of being glamourous - but I love that old Hollywood glamour - pure attitude!   

Collage images from ARTchix Studio .

 

Helga's Weekly Challenge - week 9

Helga has had a fun series of creativity challenge/classes on her blog for the past couple of months.  This week she's wrapping it up by challenging us to use 3 or more of the ideas she has explored in the previous 8 installments.  I chose to be inspired by pattern (dots of glitter), my scraps (scrap of paper from Helga's heart book pages, and although not a "scrap" I also used the leftover paint from the same pages), things I enjoy (the hearts on see-through fabric were from a Valentine's chocolate package (long since enjoyed, but I still have a few of the scraps around!), and my reading materials (the words were but from a magazine).

Thanks Helga, for all of the fun challenges this year - looking forward to seeing what you come up with for 2010!

New ATC

I bought some beautiful new napkins the other day and thought they would make some nice backgrounds.  I like using napkins but don't like the messy gluing and wrinkling, so I decided to try my Xyron machine.  I cut an ATC from watercolour paper and ran it through the Xyron and then pressed the napkin on the sticky side.  Worked like a charm with no wrinkling and no drying time.

 

More Heart-shaped Book Pages

I just finished my pages for Helga for the heart-shaped book project we've had going with a few other artists over the past several months.  Helga chose the theme "I Love..." and the colours hot pink, lime green and red.  I chose two things Helga and I both love - cats and ARTchix Studio - for her pages.

 

 

I covered the edges with gold foil tape, and for some reason when I added the background colour to the scan it added background over top of part of it.  I notice this happens fairly regularly - if anyone knows how to prevent this let me know!  I'm using PhotoShop Elements.

Helga's Weekly Challenge - Use your Scraps

This week, Helga of ARTchix Studio challenged us to make something using only scraps from other projects.  In her challenge, Helga said we could use whatever "supplies" we wanted (paint, substrate, ink, adhesives etc.) but the papers in the collage should all be scraps.

I decided to up the challenge a bit.  I've been doing lots of holiday projects so I thought I would try to make something with only stuff that was already out on my table since I hadn't cleared it up for a while! 

I used a library card as a base and cut it into a tag shape.  I sponged it with two colours of ink I already had out, and found a cigar band, Mona image from ARTchix Studio, German scrap, and some brass gears.  I also had recently been using my flourish stamp, "100% authentic" stamp and "joy" stamp, so I used those as well (of course having black ink out was a given).

Thanks for another fun challenge Helga!  I could probably make ten things off of what's sitting on my table but it's time to go and finish decorating the tree so I can at least get those boxes put away before Monday!