To Boldly Go...

All my previous Word Pendants have had a short phrase either indirectly referring to the kaleidoscoped image (or the original photo) or inspired by it in some way. When I found the word "boldly" in one of the books I was recycling, the iconic phrase from Star Trek*, "to boldly go" popped into my head, and I decided to use it, and hunted up the other two words.

It's a good phrase anyway, so even if a Trek fan doesn't snatch it up, surely someone can appreciate the idea.

*The full phrase is (of course): "Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Layered Photos

These are some of the layered photos I did Sunday. Had intended to frame them up today, but health prevented it. :P Some of the ones I did I'm not happy with, and will redo. But for now, here's a little eye candy:

Blackberry Lily

Sun in the Trees

Canvas Rose

Coleus

Monstera Leaf

Rose After the Rain (w/ Diamond Glaze droplets)

Snowy Branches

Tigerlily

Trumpet Vine (w/ Diamond Glaze droplets)

Waterfall

White Rose

Matted & Framed

Paper tole: 3D Zinnia, matted and framed. No idea how to price it, but at least it's done.

Procrastinating Creatively

I do not enjoy assembling the matted prints. It has to be done, but I don't have to like doing it. Because I am me and put things off until they can no longer be avoided, I have come up with many creative ways of avoiding things I don't want to do. This may be my best yet.

You know that foggy waking dreamstate you have before the alarm goes off, when you're not quite asleep, but you couldn't be called awake, either? This morning I had one of those awesome ideas that come in that in-between time. I could take men's handkerchiefs, make iron-on transfers of the kaleidoscoped photos, and make a string of "prayer flags" to hang from the tent/booth for the art festival -- eye-catching advertising that is also inexpensive. I went today and got the hankies and the transfer paper, and got to work. There were 13 hankies in the package but only 12 transfers (of course!), so I got 2 packages -- which also gave me insurance in case of a goof-up.

Here's the first one I did:
The hankies are considerably wider than the 8-inch print size my printer will do. It's good, but it needs something... not sure what exactly. I ruminated on this while I printed out the others.

Later, I realized what was needed was a border. Fortunately for me, the hankies have a design woven into them, making a nice-sized border and guidelines for where to paint. Here's one half-done:
Finished:
And a close-up of one corner. I coordinated the paint to the red in the photo. These may need a second coat of paint; the cotton-poly was pretty thirsty.

As I mentioned, there are 13 of these, 2 of them have my logo for Shattered Photos on them, though one of those is crooked and I don't think I could stand to look at it knowing that it's off. Haven't decided yet how to make a string of them, though I'm considering several things, but when finished, it will be more than 12 feet long, and the tent I'm borrowing is 10 feet square -- making my length of flags just about perfect for hanging across the front of it.

Once I finish painting all these (each one will have a different color-coordinated border), I'll be out of excuses (theoretically) and will have to start assembling the prints. Unless I decide to go shopping for the boxes I need to display the cards... hmm...

Holiday Cards!

Good grief, it's getting to be that time of year already... Because of a really good deal with a film-processing company, I made up some kaleidoscoped holiday cards. 

I don't think I'm going to attempt to get these on the website - too much work. I think I'll probably just make them available where I take my belly dance classes. I'm pretty happy with the results. These (and the other 4 designs) will be affixed to the beautiful Strathmore Photo Mount cards. It's labor-intensive, but the results are really wonderful.

Almost a Commercial Venture

Well, I suppose it's a commercial venture already, because I have sold a few cards already. Now, however, I have the right size bags, and the nicer cards, and the matted prints. I will work on the pendants tomorrow and get them done. I have a website, I have inventory, and I have a primo opportunity this weekend in the form of a good friend who has offered to set up that inventory when she vends at a good-sized event this weekend, up in Wisconsin - the Northern Lights Bellydance Festival (wish I was going...).

So I'm getting Shattered Photos off the ground, and will soon have the things I ordered for the Etsy for Autism and get those listed. The response from friends has been enthusiastically positive. I'm guardedly optimistic. We will see. If things go well this weekend, I'll have a much better idea of the commercial viability of this whole thing.

Transparency Swap

I signed up for a transparency (think overhead projectors) swap ages ago, had an idea to use my kaleidoscoped photos, and just this morning got around to doing it. I like the results:

I used one background for all 4, as you can see. I backed the flowers with metallic silver cardstock, attaching them with brads to the background. Stems and leaves are drawn on with Sharpie marker. I used inkjet transparencies to print everything on. 

I'll feel a little better about life, once I get them in the mail. I have one other outstanding swap I need to do before I think about taking on more. I've been feeling so blah lately that I don't want to overdo my commitments, but I really want to find a Halloween swap...

Busy, in Spite of a Cold

Felt beads are easy to make, and rather entertaining. Here's the first round I've done and finished with the boiling water/ice water baths: 

The three in the foreground are purple, green and yellow - Mardi Gras colors. Those I made for a friend. The ones behind are orange, green and yellow. I need some black roving!

These are the first paper beads. Orange cardstock, two with black Sharpie on the edges, and painted over with Halloween nail polish, with black and orange glitter.

The nail polish worked really well, even if a bit stinky. I rolled them on those rattan sticks from an empty oil diffuser, so maybe the residual scent from the sticks will permeate the beads, too.

And THIS is the first of my kaleidoscope pendants. Made with Memory Glass and the coordinating frame, it's one of my kaleidoscopic photos reduced to 1.5x1.5" - small! But the 2x2" frames seemed big to use as a pendant, so I went with these, and the 1x3" (microscope slide) size. 
All in all, I am quite pleased with the results. If I wasn't feeling so crappy, I'd be running the bottom ones to a friend of mine who is vending this weekend; she said she'd take whatever I had and try to sell it for me. I have 5x7" prints to mat, and and waiting for the next batch of greeting cards to get here. The website's all set up, but still under construction.

To Etsy, or Not to Etsy

According to a friend who sells there, Etsy is under new management, and undergoing some changes. She also added that jewelry is saturated (easy to see). While photographers do have a bit of a market share, it depends wildly on the photographer whether or not they have sales. 

I have some professionally-printed kaleidoscope photos ordered, and mats with backing boards and bags. What I may do is try and sell them locally and see what happens. If those sell, I may then try Etsy and see if I can give them a go there. Christmas is coming!

Now I need to price them....

Kaleidoscopic Pendants

I saw someone else's work on Etsy, and was inspired to try my hand and my kaleidoscoped images. I got a variety of materials to adhere the reduced kaleidoscopes to, and did the first batch last night:

The three large ones were hammered-look cheap metal pendants that cost 49¢ on clearance, the others are wooden beads, flattened ovals, about an inch long. Those were $2 for the strand. I used Inkssenstials Glossy Accents to seal the image on the bead after I glued them down. The images are printed on photo paper, then sealed with matte sealant (both sides) so the ink jet inks wouldn't run.

I am quite pleased with my first attempt. There are a few small air bubbles in the wooden pendants and some designs worked better than others, but they came out beautifully for never having done this before.

Trumpet Vine

Good morning, Sunshine!

The first picture below was taken for my dance teacher by a professional photographer, who's also a friend, Alison Visona. I was telling Magda last night about my kaleidoscope experiments, and she asked if I could take that picture and make it a kaleidoscope.

Here is one of the resultant images: 

People invariably end up looking a little creepy through a kaleidoscope, but this one's not too bad. It's recognizable if you know what you're looking at (especially if you have the original photo as reference), but abstracted enough to be pattern as well.

Kaleidoscopic Spider

Most people have little or no use for spiders, no respect or reverence for the work they do, the abilities they have. I am not one of those people. I don't want to be bitten by them, and I startle as much as the next person if I am leapt upon by one, but I think spiders are cool. The myth of Arachne is a favorite of mine, though it doesn't show Athene/Minerva at Her best.

The photo (above, top) was taken last July. A really magnificent spider had a large web running from the corner of the garage to the fence - good-sized guy, really. Unfortunately, my photo is grainy and dark, so it's not the best capture in the world. I ran it through the kaleidoscope action in Photoshop, a total of 3 iterations. I bumped up the color saturation, too. The cloudy day that the photo was taken didn't do much for the color of the spider, all rusty browns and oranges. (I'm not positive what kind of spider it is, but it may be Araneus diadematus, a European garden spider - if I had a photo of the dorsal surface, I could positively ID it.)

Kaleidoscope Mania

I've been mad to get a kaleidoscope maker for Macs. I found one at Digital Crafts, and have been having much fun experimenting with it. (Once my husband clued me into how Photoshop Actions work, anyway.)

I have a ton of pictures that the focus is off, the focus is on the wrong thing, or the picture just isn't what it was supposed to be. A normal person would probably delete them, but I have discovered that my pack-rattiness also extends to digital photo files. Here's an example of one that didn't turn out as I'd hoped:

The picture is of (IIRC) a macro of a daylily petal that I got too close to, and it's blurry. However, the colors are still great, so I didn't trash it. Enter DCkaleidoscopes06! With this nifty PS gadget, I can take a picture that was otherwise not very useable, and create this:

This image was made using the "Octagonal Kaleidoscope fr Image" Action, three times. The Action also does Hex images, but they produce mandala-like rounds. The one below was made with a photo I took of a rosebud I'd sprayed water on (dry summer, no rain, and I wanted raindrops, darnit): 

So I have discovered (yet again) that it really doesn't pay to throw out anything, because you really might be able to "use that someday"! I will be recycling more otherwise-unusable images soon.