When I first started blogging, I didn't really "get it." I would go visit these amazing sites and see challenges or creative prompts and hadn't realized that people are using those projects as a means to learn, experiment and connect with one another throughout cyber-space.
I didn't really even know what "linking" meant or if it was OK to talk about other blogs and what they were doing. And usually I'm so busy just trying to keep up with my own little corner of the universe, that there's no chance for me to join in the fun.
But being that it's Michelle Ward's 40th Crusade I thought it was time for me to try becoming a "crusader" myself! Whoop Whoop...
It started by cleaning the house, and my resistance to throwing out the newspaper that was sent to me snuggled in a care package from my g'friend back home. This was not just any newspaper, this was the Mesabi Daily News! In English people!! Laugh if you will but when friends heard I was reading the crumpled up newsprint they used in their boxes as packing, they started throwing in People magazines and whole papers too. God bless friends.
(Please understand it takes me 20 minutes to read a blurb in a German newspaper that says, "Wednesday Main Street will be blocked from 10:00-12:00 for maintenance." It's very much like that scene in Rocky II where Adrian and Rocky are lying in bed and he's reading a novel to her pregnant belly. He's determined to learn how to read after his illiteracy has been exposed while trying to shoot a commercial dressed as a caveman. I am in no way making fun of illiteracy here, I'm simply saying that my level of literacy in German equals that of Rocky's in his 2nd film).
So long story short, it's hard for me to recycle a newspaper that's in my native language. It's like when the Letter R was haunting me. But then I noticed something even better... the Mesabi supplement is on a different heavier-textured paper! The supplement is what the Comics are printed on, (we always called them the "Funnies" on the Range. There they were, all my old friends: The Lockhorns, Blondie and Dagwood, Beetle Bailey, Garfield, not to mention the Peanuts. It was a sentimental reunion to say the least!
Then I spread these old friends out and took my acrylic paints, an old Ikea squeegie, some stamps and other plastic textured items to make marks with (a plastic berry basket for the checkers and an old pudding cup for the big circle) as well as some new stencils I recently cut. I had so much fun slapping it all down without a sense of worry because I was putting it on something that could be thrown away if I wasn't happy with the result.
Once the sheets were dry, I cut them down into some tags and postcards. "Cutting down" is not one of my best skills, but then I remembered that one of my earlier mistakes ended up inventing the ninchie and decided to trust the process. I made a slew of stuff because I never have enough "extras" to send along with my mail art envelopes and prizes. So things pile up around here until I make ATCs or little surprise enclosures. Now I finally feel a bit ahead of the game! Check the postcard I made for Grandma using the "negative" part of the heart paper from her recent ATC.
This whole experience has me really itching to attend a class of Michelle's someday. Right now there are two on offer at Valley Ridge Studio near Madison Wisconsin. One's called "Roll With It" where you paint on 25 feet of paper. I guess when Michelle talks about changing up the scale of things she isn't kidding...! But for now, here from Germany, I've had fun taking this lesson in scaling. Thank you Michelle! And for those of you who are blocked, bored or just want to try something new, go do a crusade!
