design

Artist Trading Card Wall for your Home

 Artist Trading Card. This is simply a 2.5×3.5 inch card (similar to the size of a playing card), decorated anyway you please. Artist Trading Cards are a phenomenon that has swept the world over the past decade, originating in Europe. The only rule connected to them is that they are not meant to be bought or sold, only traded or given away. The charm and widespread interest in ATC’s are due to their diminutive size which is small enough not elicit any anxiety over one’s creative abilities. Artist Trading Cards can be executed using virtually any medium including: pencil, paint, collage, thread, fabric, stencils, words, photos, etc. Please find some card stock weight paper or heavier, cut it down to 2.5 to 3.5 inches and let your creative spirit soar. Feeling creative? Make a few and give one to someone special in your life.

We like them so much, we have turned a wall in our bathroom into a small gallery. We set up a station with a little rolling cart to give guests who are using our facilities an opportunity to be creative. The cart includes: 2.5×3.5 cards, magazine pictures, magazine words, stickers, markers, glue stick, goggly eyes, and scrapbook removable dots to hang them up. This has made our bathroom a gathering place of sorts.

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Spring Cleaning….dealing with perfection

Are you drowning in stuff? This conundrum of the western world seems to have left many people completely incapacitated. As the furniture catalogs of perfect spaces come through the mail, and the topic of organizing is growing, many of us have been left feeling inadequate due to the inability to make all of our “stuff” look the way the media tells us it should be. Some have even identified this new organization craze as a new type of eating disorder, with the ever present images of the perfect living room, the perfect closet, and the perfect orderly kitchen. The solution according to many of these companies is to buy more “stuff” to assist in organizing, thus leading to a larger problem of having more things.

Today’s art project will explore your connection to this problem either motivating you to clean up a corner of your world, or make peace with pervasive imperfection. Find some paper and make a list of the spaces in your home you would like to organize. After you make this list, jot down some feelings these disorganized spaces are causing. It might be stress, anger, shame confusion, resentment or no feelings at all. Carve out some time into your day or night and try to tackle a tiny space, maybe even a drawer or shelf. Can you reorganize it? Please stick to this one spot, so you don’t get overwhelmed. How does is it feel once completed?  Too complicated or overwhelming?

OK. The alternate option is to find some to the mailers, catalogs, magazines and newspapers lying around your home showing the perfect spaces. Rather than being intimidated by them, really take a look at them and jot down on the actual picture the real behind the scene details. Is it a real home or just a set for a photo shoot? Can people really live in these perfect homes? If it is a real home, are these people happier than you because their spaces look perfect? Do these people who live in this space have more free time than you? Spring cleaning has taken on a whole new agenda these days, and these this little exercises are meant to help you explore your feelings connected to it. Happy spring!