Tales from Studio Mailbox

Been There Done That

Michelle Ward's February Crusade is #48 Been There Done That.  This one is the second in her "Evidence" series where she encourages us to use our journals as a place for documentation.

I decided to create a spread about a play I attended recently; Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Ernest" which was organized by the local English Drama Group. 

Here is the break-down of my evidence and thoughts for anybody who wants to forensically study this:

Historical/Practical Evidence

• The parking ticket proves I managed to park the hub's car in town although I did hit a metal gate with the bumper.  But just once.
• I bought an entrance card from a scalper and for a moment while assembling this spread I thought it had the wrong date on it!  Turns out it was a ticket for the night I actually attended, but this made me realize I should quit worrying about speaking bad German and instead be a little more observant in my transactions. 
• The use of images from the flier incriminates me.  This is direct evidence that I did not return it as promised, and am instead a thieving scoundrel.

Observational Evidence

• My friend Cat, the director, can host an amazingly well run and entertaining event.
• Some Germans can speak better English than myself, and I'm a native speaker! Dang, that's impressive!
• Performance artists are fun, and a man playing a very convincing woman's role always steals the show.

Creative Evidence

• I decided I really like speech bubbles as a compositional element.
• Although I like the yellow dots around the bubbles, I regret the long skinny quote in yellow. 
• I like peach and black together.

It was sort of cool to compare this artwork with my previous outcome from C45.  I'm now aware of my speech bubble attraction and want to explore that a little further...

For now *insert exclamation point in bubble* THANK YOU Michelle for another fun creative adventure!!

Wondering about the Crusades?  Read more here.

1000th Comment

It was a big moment for me the other day when I was pretending to know how to run the backside of this blog and I realized we've hit the big 1-0-0-0!

That's 1000 wonderful comments left by the world's great readers!!

So who left #1000? 

It was my new friend Katharina. (check out her site and her recent wedding pics...I'd like to nominate her Germany's most beautiful bride)!

She was commenting on my old post about the Cherry Fairy.  She left a link to a book she recommends  here.

And for her trouble, she'll be receiving a little custom ATC in the post...

Thanks to all of you who've taken the time to leave their love and support over the years.  So far, I don't think there's ever been a negative one.  (Although some would say that's the sign of a boring crappy blog).  I like to think of it as a big merry group of wonderful people.

Here's looking forward to the next 1000 and getting to know more and more wonderful peeps in the blog-o-sphere...

 

TJ's first Guest Post!

Ok peeps, it's a big day!

Check out my very first guest post over on Beth's Do What You Love blog... and check out my gi-normo sized head shot!  (I literally sat back in my chair and gasped!  Note to self: provide images no larger than you're willing to actually view next time...)

There's a 3 minutes video on my love for pretzels there as well as a never-before-been seen Edelweiss image!

It would mean so much if you could take a minute to check it out and leave a comment.  Here's a tip: the video is somehow being finicky and doesn't want to play in her post.  Click on the second one and it re-directs you to You-Tube so you can see it!!

 

Elephant Poo and a Subscription Do-Over!

It's funny how just when I've written my very first guest post and am hoping to greet some new readers this week, I find out that those viewing this in Internet Explorer see a very badly formatted site.

Just like in real life, when you're expecting company you sort of tidy up and sweep crumbs under the carpet.  And right about now I'm feeling like a circus elephant busted in and crapped on the floor and I'm trying to act all cool about it.  ("You know those darned elephants and how these things happen," I laugh nervously).

Consider the Feedburner email-subscription offer for fabulous prizes extended through the end of this month Feb. 28.  Frankly, I'm not sure if it's working and I'm worried it's the culprit behind my broken site.  In any case, three lucky subscribers will win some German themed mail art, sent to you via Air Pretzel! 

For those confused about the subscription process, it means that every time I post to this site, you'd get an email alerting you to the update.  If you're reading this post in a feeder, you actually have to click into my site to find the field in my upper right-hand sidebar.

Subscribing means I would have your email addresses which is helpful to me on many fronts.  First, I can send out information to Studio Mailbox subscribers if some kind of pretzel world record was achieved or if something amazingly spectacular happened in German breaking news.  Or I could let y'all be the first to know if and when I come out with some magnificent artwork for sale or am lucky enough to be published again.  In any case, rest assured that despite my lack of technical knowledge I would never stoop so low to sell or share you email addresses. 

Speaking about the end of the month, those who've been hanging with me for awhile know we're creeping up on yet another blogeburtstag!  This isn't coming to pass without some celebrating.  For those who don't win mail art by subscribing you'll win with the freebies that are headed your way.  So stay tuned, keep on twisting.

Cracker Jack!

I think it works?  Check it out... do you see a spot to subscribe?  Could y'all please sign in so I see how this thing works?  Dang I feel fancy pants!!

Anybody who signs up by the end of the weekend (Monday morning here in Germany)...I will randomly give out 3 fabulous prizes of some sort that will be sure to German up your lives!

So help me out, spread the word and the love...   xxx tj 

 

Here was my very first Wacom Board pretzel.  Ahh.

TJ Trivia

Here's a little TJ trivia for y'all:

Did you know that I'm married to a German who happens to be born on Valentine's Day???

Now that's some serious German LOVE!!!!

Awwwwwww....

Happy Birthday babes.

Fasching 2010.  A good hair day.

German Totem

Our friend Lena turned 30 this last week and her wish was some Studio Mailbox artwork.  (Gulp).  Now this is super flattering, but also a little bit hard because you just never know what people really truly want to hang up on their walls.

Lena loves flea market finds and has a super quirky sense of decor.  A big hit in her house is a donkey figure with a movable saddle that when tipped, excretes a cigarette out of it's butt! 

So I felt like I had a lot of leeway with this one.

I decided to craft her the world's first German totem using two photos sized to fit each other.  Both are architectural elements, one a water down pipe and the other is a set of three wooden doors from the side of a building.

totem |ˈtōtəm|
noun
a natural object or animal believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and adopted by it as an emblem.

May this totem watch over Lena.  May this totem bring Lena a magnificent sense of empowerment and joy throughout her 30s and beyond.  May this totem keep her safe and healthy and her life filled with love.

And may this totem be a constant source of inquiry, speculation, admiration and/or dislike from her guests so that it acts as a never ending source of laughter.

Pretzel Sighting #42

I'm pretty sure that this is by far the biggest one I've ever spotted. 

This puffy pretzel has clearly been hanging out at the gym every spare minute he's not attached to that building with reinforced steel. 

Or maybe the baker put way too much baking soda in the dough. 

Check how far away you can be down the street and still find him...!  Is that nuts or what?  Go look for yourself on Kneippstrasse in Aschaffenburg.

Can you see it?  Down left from the big red T??? That's like 2 blocks away...!  This is clearly the pretzel of most visibility...

Appliance Outcome

Ummm, in case anybody was dying to know the outcome of my broken dishwasher...

...the repairman was here for 25 minutes. For some reason he pulled the front panel off the machine.  He also managed to find a lot of dust under the kitchen cupboards.  And he made a disastrous mess of the hoarded cleaners and potions beneath the kitchen sink.

He presented me a bill for 63 euros.  He pushed the two buttons simultaneously on the control panel that are clearly marked "reset."  The dishwasher magically worked.

Wow.  I guess 'reset' is the same word in German.  Oopsie.

Pretzel Pipeline

There's a bad case of pretzel build-up here at Studio Mailbox! 

Seriously. I've got some great sightings coming down the pipeline but just need some time to sort them out and post them up.  If I can just stay pretzistent enough (that's my new term for pretzel persistence), all will be well.

On the homefront our dishwasher is broken.  The problem is three-fold.  The hubby is gone.  I have to wash dishes by hand. AND I get to interact with a German plumber today.  I'm literally on the edge of my seat over this one.  Now that I contemplate the situation, I think I should turn this into a You-Tube opportunity.

I'm currently under a deadline.  I'm busy formulating my first guest post in the background complete with video.  It's going to be great!  So you can look forward to some fun at the end of the month.

For now, I've been enjoying my coffee from this twisted cup.  This ceramic lovliness is from the same company as the little pin accessory in Pretzel 37. It comes complete with a lucky felt coaster.  The hubby kicked down the store door in a very romantic display of German chivalry, making my compulsive twisted dreams come true.