My Niece's Creativity Fair Project

I love being Aunt Vickie to my twin sister's kids. These two little girls are wonderful. One is seven and the other four - their birthdays are coming up in a few months. (How did they get so grown up so fast?!) They are the two funniest people I've ever met! 

The seven year old has a Creativity Fair coming up for second grade. She couldn't wait to ask me to help her with it. She says she "wants to be an artist like Aunt Vickie" all the time. 

I melt.

I show her my work a lot to inspire her. She is fascinated that I make so much out of recycled materials like cardboard and junk mail. She wanted to use recycled materials for her project - "just like Aunt Vickie!"

I set up the dining room table for us to work since there's not enough room in my messy studio. 

When she arrived to work on this she had an egg carton with her. I asked if the shapes of the egg carton looked like anything to her. When she turned it over she saw mountains. I thought a row of it looked like a bug. She said "caterpillar" right away! So creative! 

I let her do all of the art part and I only handled the hot glue part and painted a few toilet paper rolls to move things along a bit faster. She cut the egg carton into rows lengthwise. I showed her how to decoupage with torn tissue paper. I have some printed with music. She ripped up and crumpled the pieces. We sat together and I made a caterpillar, too, to show her some techniques. We painted over our decoupage with craft paints. She got creative with the stripes and dots. 

I poked the holes so she could thread pipe cleaners through the egg carton for legs. Then I showed her how to wrap a pipe cleaner around a pencil to get a tight coil. 

Since I had recently been working on some toilet paper tube crafts she wanted to do something with those, too. She thought they would make good buildings. She painted six tubes different colors. 

I also have been working with coffee cup sleeves as art and that kind of blew her mind. So I gave her a couple to see if she could come up with an application. She pulled one open in the middle and saw that the part that is folded over would look like a roof if she cut the sleeve in half. She's a genius, right? Am I biased?

There was a roll of punchinella (sequin waste) on the table. She asked what it was. I gave her a piece to experiment with. She said it would make good roof "tile". Again, genius!

I hot glued the roofs onto the toilet paper rolls and then glued on the punchinella she had cut to fit the roof shapes. 

When the caterpillar was near the houses the idea of scale came to my mind. I said it looked like a GIANT caterpillar was walking through town. She laughed and then excitedly said we should make a lawn and a road for the scene. I love that she gets funny things like this now that she's old enough. 

I hot glued three pieces of poster board together to make a sturdy base. She decoupaged more tissue paper to that and painted the grass - making sure to mix three shades of green for more depth. She also added a road and sky on the base.

Another coffee cup sleeve looked like a car to her. I showed her how to cut one to look like a car. She cut her own and painted it yellow. I had some really thick black craft foam sheets I was mounting my homemade foam stamps on, and I thought that could make good wheels. They would be thick enough to hold the car upright. She liked that idea. She cut out "circles" and painted hubcap spokes with silver paint. (I think we need to work on the scissors skills a bit more!)

She also made paper windows and doors for the houses. If you look closely you can see she drew people screaming and being frightened by the GIANT caterpillar outside their homes. There is also a cat and mouse peeping out a few windows.

She designed and made 99% of what you see in the photograph up top. I only painted a bit and glued it all together. And soon I will teach her how to use the hot glue gun so she can do that by herself. 

I can't wait for the Creativity Fair at her school now! I am going to be so proud to watch her show off her hard work! 

- Vickie     

Borrow My Pen?

A few weeks ago Erik and I were running errands and shopping down around our old haunt neighborhood of Monroe Avenue and Oxford Square. One of my all time favorite shops has been there for ages. It's called Archimage. They sell all sorts of silly things, fun things, Asian pottery, drums, incense, jewelry, wood knickknacks, little Buddhas, stationery, and clothing. Much of my money could happily be spent here and has been over the last 20 years.

Erik found these hilarious pens. The package says “Borrow My Pen?”. The pens are designed to be handed out to those annoying coworkers, bosses, friends, and parole officers who are always asking to borrow your pen. Now you can shame them into shape. These pens have hilarious sayings for fake businesses on them. For example, one says:

Springfield Sexual Addiction Center
From PERV to PERFECT in as little as 10 days
Curbing your enthusiasm since 1998
www.cold-shower.com

Another reads:

Stuffed With Love Taxidermy
No Pet Too Small – Give Us A Call
(ask about our goldfish and turtle discount)
www.fluffy4ever.com

So feel free to lend these pens out and watch your friends faces when they read them! No one will be asking to borrow your pen anymore!

Lilac Festival 2010

I spent a lovely Sunday at Rochester’s Lilac Festival at Highland Park. The weather was perfect – not too hot, not too cold. Due to the nice weather every single person living in the Rochester metro area was also in attendance at the Lilac Fest on Sunday, too. It was the most crowded I’ve ever seen Highland Park! This giant 10-day festival kicks off the local summer season of outdoor festivals and art and craft shows.

The aisles down the craft show rows were shoulder to shoulder with people. It was kind of hard to see all the great arts and crafts! Plus I dislike crowds so I was having a mini-panic attack. We attempted to make our way to the food tent. The path was just a river of moving bodies inching forward ever so slowly. When we got to the food tent there simply was not room to get inside. So we got out of there (much to my relief!) and went elsewhere for some garbage plates.

I was surprised to see how few local artists I recognized from doing shows here for the past two seasons. My friends Amanda Preske from Beadwork By Amanda, Jennifer Born from PS Enjoy Your Life, and Stefani Tadio from Pine Tree Designs were there with their arts and crafts. And that was it. Most of the business cards I picked up are artists from Pennsylvania, Arizona, or Buffalo. Very few locals. And I picked up a lot of business cards!

Stefani and I have formed a really cool friendship, email a lot, and sometimes do projects together. This was her first big outdoor show with the whole tent-setting-up business and leaving things out overnight. Her tent and set up looked great! And she did really well, too! I’m so happy for her! Plus now I get to pick her brain for when I finally get up the nerve to buy a tent and do outdoor shows.

Here are some pictures of her awesome booth:

Small notecards and adorable hand stitched paper pins

Hand stitched greeting cards and paper magnets

I love Stefani's Sticky Notes Holders!!

My plan for 2011 includes doing outdoor shows like this one. I have no idea how much inventory I would need. Maybe I better shut off the computer and Twitter and get crafting!

Chippy the Hamster

Meet Chippy the Hamster whom I took care of the week before Christmas before she was gifted to my nieces. Isn't she cute? How could I not miss her? I come downstairs in the morning now and I think, "Oooh, man! Chippy isn't here and I'm lonely." Insert sad face.

I think I might have to get my own hamster now! But I know Erik won't really go for that at all. He kept calling Chippy a "rodent" in a disgusted voice. Scrooge.

It sort of did me good that week to have something tiny and cute to take care of and love. I know I can always pop in to my sister's and visit Chippy since she's only seven blocks away. Maybe it's time to revisit the pet ideas with Erik. He wants a dog really bad and so do I, but it's snowy now. Will a puppy go potty out in the snow to housetrain it? I'm doubting the ease of those training sessions. Plus there's a ton of stuff in the studio that a puppy would rip to shreds in a heartbeat. It would be nice to have some company in the studio though. I am torn on this topic. Lately my brain has refused to be decisive so this may be on hold for a while longer.

Halloween Parade!

Each year the school near our house sends all the kids out on a Halloween Parade in their costumes! This was my dose of cute for the day! The whole street was filled with laughter and vampires, witches, Storm Troopers, and cats. Adorable!

Here is my niece:

(Don't fall out of your chair because I managed to blog twice in one day!)

Picture the Impossible

Let me just say that I love scavenger hunts of any kind. Sign me up! So while perusing Twitter I found out about Picture the Impossible. There was a link to the Facebook group and I signed on immediately without really knowing what I was getting into. But they said “scavenger hunt” so I was in!

Picture the Impossible is a city-wide game hosted by many of the big names in town like Rochester Institute of Technology, Kodak, and our local newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle. There are going to be all sorts of games in the newspaper and local events to attend and get codes and clues. Wheeee!

I cannot wait for this to start this weekend!! The newspaper said today I will have to go to the Clothesline Art Festival at the Memorial Art Gallery and get codes. We were planning on going anyway so now it’s going to be even more interesting.

Picture the Impossible is also raising money for local charities. When you sign up, you join a faction. I joined The Tree faction and the money raised from the points I earn will go to the Golisano Children's Hospital at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The game culminates in a gala party held on Oct. 31st at RIT's new Student Innovation Center. Only 300 people get to go and invites will be based on how well you do in the game standings. I really hope to go!!

So the next month and a half will be fun with me running around the city trying to figure this stuff out. My twin sister also signed up and we joined the same faction. I’m really looking forward to doing this with her. She is lots of fun! She loves scavenger hunts, too!

I’ll keep you posted about this event!

Rainbow Popcorn Party

Monday, at my niece’s house she made us play “Rainbow Popcorn Party”. What you ask is a “Rainbow Popcorn Party”? She just made it up. She’s 4 ½ going on 9. It involves rainbow balloons, streamers and party hats.

We drew balloons and made a sign, and I drew streamers and she taped them to the walls. Then she said we needed party hats. So I cut out circles from construction paper and made cone-shaped hats. They didn’t turn out too well and some were either too big or too small. But they ended up fitting all the stuffed animals, from Pinky the Dog to a big frog. I even made hats for my sister, my niece and myself. Any excuse to play with paper and you can count me in!

We served our guests play food and real popcorn. My sister is a popcorn nut. I gave her an old fashioned popper you crank on the stove and she uses it all the time. She makes the best popcorn ever.

I love how creative my niece is. She always singing or making up funny stories. She spends hours in front of the mirror making faces and doing dance steps. She’s a performer. I love her so much! She says she wants to be an artist “like Aunt Vickie!” when she grows up. I would have to say she is already on her way. She can write all her letters and does the most wonderful drawings. She’s getting good at using scissors now too. We have so much fun together. And, of course, I indulge her every whim. So who am I to say no to a Rainbow Popcorn Party?!

Midtown, Where Nothing is Waiting for You

(Click on the slideshow for a bigger version!)

The excursion to Midtown Plaza on Friday was a fantastic experience. I appreciated the chance to say goodbye to a Rochester landmark. Plus it was darn fun rooting around in the stores and buildings for things I wanted to keep. I came home with a carload of neat odds and ends.

Only people who had bought something at the auction on Thursday were allowed in. I was there to help my mom and her boyfriend, Dave, clear out the items they had won bids on. Dave bought the contents of two stores. One was a Hallmark store. You would not believe what people leave behind when they close down businesses. I scored about 300 envelopes I plan to sell on eBay or Etsy. The owners left nice desks, chairs, shelving, boxes, greeting cards, cabinets, display stands, and coffee pots behind. We loaded up as much as we could fit on rolling carts and filled up Mom’s van. Then Dave got his roll-off flatbed truck for the rest.

The other shop Dave bought out was an upscale shoe store. It was full of acrylic display stands that I know will sell well on eBay and Etsy. We took out a lot of shoe stretchers and fitters, toe and heel pads, light fixtures, sign stands, and those slanted stools that are used when a salesman actually helps you put on shoes you are trying on. (Do you remember those days?) A safe big enough for me to get in comfortably was in the back room. I really wanted just the door to hang in my living room, but it was too much trouble to get off.

Dave also purchased the contents of a few maintenance rooms in the basement. There were several cases of Xerox promotional mugs, fancy magnifying glasses, little office supply kits, office chairs, more desks, a garbage can full of coiled cords that he can sell as scrap, and a few of the regionally “famous” horse strollers that parents could rent to take their kids around in the shopping plaza. Lots of nostalgia value there. One of those sold for $150 at the auction. Dave has three of them now. The auctioneers didn’t know they were down there so Dave got a great deal again. All of the things in the basement were covered in what appeared to be 20 years worth of dust.

He took about 100 fluorescent light bulbs that he plans to sell at flea markets for $1.00 each. He has an eye for this kind of thing. I never would have thought to pick up those items for resale.

We only had from 9 am until 2 pm to get all this stuff out. We left a lot of great stuff behind because we ran out of time. The back of the shoe store was filled with gorgeous wood shelving that I would have loved to put in my basement. I really wanted a big old metal and wood desk for Mr. M’s office. They were too heavy to move.

Exploring the building was so interesting. We could go almost anywhere… basements, loading bays, the backs of the banks, stores, utility rooms, layaway cages, and freight elevators. I find abandoned buildings fascinating. I like to see how they degrade over a period of time when no one is there. I had been to Midtown Plaza to shop many times, but it looked so foreign when empty. A building in this state oddly looks like it has a lot of potential to be great, and it once was. I would love to see it remodeled into an urban community setting. New loft apartments are going up in the neighborhood and those people are going to need shopping close by. Now there is none with the plaza closing down. It seems like such a waste to me.

More about Midtown and our lucky finds this week. Stay tuned!

Toodeloo, Midtown Plaza

Midtown Plaza, a Rochester, New York landmark closed this year. It was the first indoor shopping mall in America. It opened in 1962 and reigned supreme among shopping centers here for decades. Large department stores such as Sibley’s and McCurdy’s were located there. My grandparents and parents shopped there. I went to see Santa there as a child and shopped at the Wegmans grocery store and other shops there as an adult. But as malls do in urban areas, it began to die out as crime rose in the city. The building is slated for demolition to make way for a corporate headquarter.

Today they held an auction at Midtown Plaza to clear out all the leftover things, some of them treasured pieces of Rochester history. I really wanted to go nose around but had an appointment that cut my day in half. My mother and her boyfriend did attend.

My mother’s boyfriend, Dave, is into all kinds of things. He buys and sells stuff for a living. When I say “stuff” I mean cars, scrap metal, the entire contents of houses for estate sales, cabinets, and the list goes on. You name it, he has sold one. He loves going to auctions. He makes a decent living doing this, too!

He got some great deals today. He bought the entire contents of a Hallmark store for $20.00. Not much merchandise was included, but he got all the displays, shelves, counter tops, desks, some office supplies, and their notable Hallmark purple aprons, one of which still had a name tag pinned to it. He also purchased the contents of a back room of a shoe store, a big neon sign, a Christmas tree and wreath, and some other odds and ends.

My mother came home with a really cool piece of art. She bought a ceramic relief sculpture of the topography and buildings of the Rochester region including the Genesee River, Lake Ontario, and the Erie Canal. Most of the well known downtown buildings are there. It’s beautiful. Mom remembers it being on display on a big table and under a glass cover. I know she’s going to find the right art collector and make some money off her find. It weighs a ton though.

I am going tomorrow to help them clear out their auction purchases. Don’t ask me where Dave is going to store the contents of two stores. I’m really looking forward to photographing the building as it makes its way to oblivion.

Pranking

My best friend Joolie always leaves me notes all over my house when she comes to visit. I mean everywhere. Inside books, behind pictures, in my knitting bag… sometimes I don’t find them for years. It makes my day to find one, too, as it reminds me of why I love her so much.

I was never able to get her back because I was never alone at her house when I visit her. But I had the chance in March when she got married. I innocently begged out on a trip to the local bar. I brought my own Post-It note pad too. And I went to town on her new house. She is still finding notes!

My sister recently asked us to baby-sit so they could go see “Batman: The Dark Knight”. My hunny and I took the opportunity to leave her notes all over. We left them in food boxes, under things, in bowls, on stamps, in books, in nooks, and in boxes they won’t open until Christmas. My favorite was the note in a plastic baggie we hid halfway down the big oatmeal container. She makes oatmeal for her kids everyday. We had to dump out half the oatmeal to do it, and we spilled it all over her floor. We had to do a bit of cleaning to hide the evidence. I also put one right out in the open that read, “I wonder how long it will take you to find this.” It didn’t take her long. Now she calls me when she finds more notes. And we both laugh! So much fun over a few Post-It notes!

My sister and her family are currently away camping and I once again have full run of her house as I am checking her mail for her. I’m desperate for another prank, but cannot think of a good one. Do you have one?

And We’re Off!

This is an old photo of my twin sister and me in our playroom taken when we lived in Plano, Texas. She is the one with the adorable smile in front. I have the goofy face in back. We spent countless hours making things and playing school or office in there. Our mom always made sure we had enough paper, markers, glue, pencils, and projects to work on. She is awesome that way. She still buys me art supplies! And my sister and I still do craft projects together some 30 odd years layer.

She tells me she still has the black tape dispenser in her house. And the Smurf on the top shelf holding a cake. She also has the shelf but it is painted red now. I have not found anything in the picture that I still have except for the giraffe note holder my grandfather made.

I’m also not sure when this picture was taken. It’s sometime between 1982 and maybe 1986. I’m not good at telling how old I am in old pictures. It’s sometimes miraculous if anyone in my family can even figure out which twin is which in most baby photos! Some we will never know who is who. I often wonder if maybe we got switched at some point and I am really named “Valerie”.

Happy Campers

(Ok, yes, I did it. I went with the easy title for this.)


Our camping trip was a blast! We went to our usual KOA in Lewiston/Niagara Falls North. A major fire occurred there last summer. The office and camp store burned down. So we like to give them the repeat business as they rebuild. Plus these folks are super friendly and keep one of the cleanest public restrooms I have ever had the pleasure of using. We rough it, no water or electricity hook-ups for us, just clean bathrooms. We use the back tent area, as it’s a bit more private. Who wants to get away from suburban life just to be camping right next to 15 other people?


There’s just something about being in the woods that refreshes and recharges me. I’m like a different person out there. More relaxed, more spontaneous, more me. We ought to camp at least once a month! We only went for two nights. I wish we had booked an extra night… or week. Maybe next time. I want to bring some watercolors and sit in the woods and paint.

It rained Saturday morning so we had to go out to eat because the fire would not light. This is kind of cheating to me, but I cannot go hungry and camp, so we went out to a cute little diner. They had this sign posted:


It was fun to be rained-in in the tent. It rounded out the weather experience for me. I read Cloth, Paper, Scissors while we listened to the rain hit the tent fly. We need to seal the seams as some water came in and soaked my shoes and pillow.

Me sleeping in the tent while it rained.

Although I have lived in Rochester, NY for a long time and have been to Niagara Falls plenty of times, I had never ridden the Maid of the Mist. So we did that. It was an amazing sight! We were on a boat right at the bottom of the falls!! And we got soaking wet from the spray. I put my camera away just in time for the biggest soaking. My blue poncho kept blowing up over my hands. It was windy! I highly recommend you do this if you are there. Huge adrenaline rush!


Now I have 40+ mosquito bites on my ankles. It’s driving me mad. If anyone has a itchiness cure to tell me, I’m all ears.

Origami Night!

My sister stopped by yesterday to ask if I had an origami book. Apparently, the origami boats piqued her interest in more paper folding. I had to dig one up from the boxes still filling my studio. My guess was lucky as I got the right box on the first try. We then headed over to her house to see her kids, eat pizza, and fold paper.

We made lazy susan’s, a paper ball shooter and goal hoop, bangle bracelets, a Frisbee, and pop open boxes.

(Click the pictures to see more in my Flickr photostream.)











Her four-year-old daughter got a big kick out of the paper ball shooter. We played with it for about 30 minutes. I wish she were a bit older so we could have taught her some origami. Frustration would have been the only outcome tonight. But she watched and drew pictures for us. She stayed up an hour past her bedtime! I am sure she is going to show it to her dad and they are going to play with it a lot today.