The Creative Squid

Raffle Ideas for Under $50

2011-06-22T13:46:00.001-07:00

URL: http://www.squidoo.com/rafflefundraisingprizeideasunder50

There are some great ideas here. I especially like the idea of putting out the money for a new electronic device, i.e. an iPOD Nano or a Kindle, and then putting it up for a raffle.

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a15qh8

Tips for Writing Memoirs

2011-06-22T13:43:00.001-07:00

URL: http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-write-memoir

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a15qh2

Maintenance Work is Nice

2011-06-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

When you're a creative person like I am, sometimes it's nice to just sit back and do some repetitive and relatively mindless work. Last week Squidoo announced that it would be making some changes to it's overall look. Some features were added, some mainstays were taken away. At first I was a little perturbed as many of the social networking features within Squidoo itself have been abolished. I also have to resort to using Delicious to bookmark lenses I like now. I'm not very happy about that or the removal of the Squidcast just as I was getting used to using it. I'll have to use this blog for updates to my lenses...or something.

A nice feature that has been added is that we can now list six lenses on the sidebar. It has been a maximum of three for a while (years?) now. This is causing me to go through each of my 111 lenses and update them. Doing that job is surprisingly uplifting. For one thing, I really am excited about my lenses once I take the time to review them. I enjoy the topics I've chosen and I like the way I put them together. Looking at them all this way inspires me to make more.

I have had to resort to making and printing out a list of the lenses by actual domain name rather than the title of the lens. It's a lot faster and more error free. Again, it's almost like looking at a map of my life. Very interesting!

Memorial Day Quest for Squid Angels

2011-05-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

I decided to visit the Birds neighborhood to find lenses to drop blessings on and found some wonderful lenses. These are the lenses I blessed.

Spring Bird Migration in Iowa

Hummingbirds Growing Up in My Garden

Birding by Ear - Bird Song Identification

Decorah Eagles

Bald Eagles in Voyageurs National Park - Eagle CAM

Brown Pelicans

Blue-Footed Booby

The Gosling Who Lives Under the Hawthorne Tree

Birds of Prey Coloring Pages

The Cardinal's Nest

The Mallard Duck

Little Blue Fairy Penguins

Our Nesting Blackbirds

Robin in the Rain!

California Condor

Carolina Wren's Nest

Pink Flamingo Pictures

The Intelligence of Crows

More Common Birds in Our Backyard

Snowy Owls: The Perfect Aerial Predator of the Arctic

The Cuckoo Bird

Baby Sandhill Cranes

Wild Florida: The Song Birds

Hummingbirds and Gardening for Them

Birds of Ohio

Quiz: Name That Bird!

Flower Cake Decorating Ideas

2010-12-07T06:58:00.000-08:00

I've been busy making something like forty Squidoo lenses since the new point system was instituted. Nothing like an instant reward system to get me motivated. I made a series of cake decorating pages that all started with one idea: Flower Cakes. It was definitely one of those times where one thing led to another...and another...and another.

I knew about icing flowers. I'd tried cake decorating when I was a girl, although I never worked up to making roses. Here is my lens about making flowers from different types of icing and frosting: Icing Flowers

Fondant is that edible clay type material that you see on all the fancy cakes and cookies these days. You can get a lot of detail and the flowers you make will stay in place without melting. See this lens for more information about how to make them: Fondant Flowers

And if you really want to go deluxe in cutting your fondant you need the new Cricut electronic die cut machine made specifically for the kitchen. There is even a Martha Stewart edition. I'm trying to gather together as much information as I can about it on that lens, although since it's so new there really isn't all that much out there yet.

You can also make Chocolate Flowers. The interesting thing about putting that page together was that I discovered that there are such things as chocolate flowers that you plant, chocolate indicating color. There are even garden plans for chocolate gardens. So the lens ended up being about both.

I also discovered that cakes are decorated with inedible flowers made from paper and clay. My Paper Flower lens talks about how to make paper flowers for many different purposes. Clay Flowers aren't easy to find. I would want to use real clay made from earth with anything edible. Most of the clay flowers I found were made from synthetic materials. (Although now that I think about it you'd probably want to be careful with the dyes in paper, too.) Some of the orchids that people make from air dry synthetic clay are so lifelike.

Squid Angel Blessings: Repurpose Altoid Tins

2010-06-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in my art studio (or glorified junk room - however you want to look at it) is a collection of altoid tins just waiting to be turned into some sort of altered art.
What is altered art, you ask? It's when you take something intended for one purpose and then alter it by turning into an art piece. This process almost always involves some sort of collage.
Part of my inability to get going with this project is that I don't really know what to make. I think the idea I like the most is to make tiny little pocket shrines. There are many ideas at this lens I blessed today: Altoids Tins.
Meanwhile, I had no idea that there were so many varieties of Altoids these days. Here in my area I usually only see the original flavor and the gum, although I got some sours once. I'd heard about the chocolate dipped mints but haven't actually seen them in the wild. I would like to try the spearmint flavor as the peppermint is really too strong for me, as well as the liquorice, ginger and creme de menthe.
Here are some of the other flavors:

Squid Angel Blessing: Wind Chimes

2010-06-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

I recently went to an art fair where there was an artist who made wind chimes out of old silverware. It was beautiful to look at and beautiful to hear. Since then I have wondered just how hard it would be to make my own. This morning I happened upon this lens about just that topic. Wind Chimes It is simple and to the point. It looks like a good place to start.

Woodstock Percussion is the maker of the wind chimes I have always wanted to buy. They have such great sound and variety. I would love to hear these chimes tuned to Amazing Grace. This is going on my wish list.

Wind Chimes

Deep, doleful tones

Randomly punctuate the evening

Bright crystal tinkles

Fill the morning air

Zen bamboo percussion

Accompanies the storm

Do not print or republish

Squid Angel Blessing: Art Journals

2010-05-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

I really like looking at art journals but, unless some major revelation happens, I don't think I like making them. I went to an altered book workshop last week that left me bored and angry. I want to like making them but I don't get the same thrill from actually doing it as I do from thinking about doing it. I found this art journaling lens by lensmaster theraggededge.

Squid Angel Blessings: Fire Bowls and Fire Pits

2010-05-03T05:37:00.000-07:00

I'm on a mission to "dominate" my yard this summer. It's a big yard with lots of trees and flowerbeds. The last few years parts of it have gotten out of control. I have always loved bonfires, but now we have restrictions on when and how big we can burn. Put that together with seeing my neighbor's pretty fire pit the other night and that led me on a search for a lens about gardens and places to have a fire in them. I found Small Patio Designs and then Fire Bowls and Fire Pits by the same lensmaster. These are beautiful lenses that have me salivating and eager to get back out in the garden.

Squid Angel Blessings: Voodoo Veves

2010-04-29T05:31:00.000-07:00

I'm a psychic medium and I started learning about voodoo from the loas (or spirits) themselves before I met this lensmaster, Voodoomama. One day an old black man came into my consciousness. He was funny and made me laugh. He wanted me to call him Mr. Peanut. It wasn't until several years later when I started spending time with Voodoomama that I ran across something that said that Papa Legba loves peanuts. That's when I knew, without a doubt, who that "old man" was. He is a trickster at times, and he sure "tricked" me with the peanut thing.

He is also the gatekeeper into the Otherworld. If you want to communicate with any of the other voodoo loa, you have to start with him. That seems to be one of my functions in life, too, and I was born on April Fools Day so it's no wonder we are connected, even without my being a voodoo practitioner.

Voodoomama has written a great lens about Legba. You can see it here: Papa Legba. But the lens I've blessed for today is about the veves, or ritual symbols of voodoo. Each symbols represents a different loa. Learn more about them here: Ritual Symbols of the Gods and Goddesses: Voodoo Veves

Squidoo Angel Blessings: Paper Dolls and Tarot Art Dolls

2010-04-20T09:03:00.000-07:00

Paper Dolls

When I was a girl in the 1960's I loved my paper dolls. I still do, I guess, as my favorite part of being in the online virtual world of Second Life is buying and changing the clothes of my little puppet self (or avatar). I also got to play with my mom's paper dolls from the 1930's and 40's. The gowns were so glamorous!
A Paper Doll Childhood, created by KarenTBTEN, has a lot of useful links and resources as well as pretty pictures that inspire me to want to get out my old paper dolls and play with them again.

Tarot Art Dolls

I have long had an interest in tarot cards. These days I access my intuition more directly but there is still something very alluring about these cards that are like illustrations without a written story. I also love the relatively new fiber art form of making "art dolls"...dolls that don't always represent the human form as we know it. So I was happy to find a lens about Tarot Art Dolls by MeltedRachel, one of my favorite artist lensmasters. She writes about her inspiration, shows the initial sketch, the painting, and then the doll. Cool!

Squid Angel Blessings: Watercolor Pencils and Feng Shui Symbols

2010-04-19T07:08:00.000-07:00

Watercolor Pencils

I'm sure you've heard of colored pencils, but did you know there are watercolor pencils? You draw with them but they are also water soluble so you can get watercolor effects. Lensmaster Mona Majorowicz, or WildFacesGallery, has written a comprehensive lens, Learn About Watercolor Pencils, that explains the different types of watercolor pencils she uses. It's great information for either a beginner or someone who already uses them.

Feng Shui Symbols

Every now and then I get the urge to dabble with Feng Shui, the Chinese art of placing objects and furniture - well, everything really - in order to change the energy in your life and clear away any blockages to you living the life you desire. A couple of weeks ago I wanted to find just the symbols that are used for different purposes. Today I found this lens, 10 Symbols Behind The Art of Feng Shui, while looking for something else. (Isn't that always the way?) Lensmaster monarch13 clearly outlines what the different traditional Feng Shui symbols are and where to use them.

Squid Angel Blessings: No Bake Cookie Recipes and Spellcrafting

2010-04-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

I was looking for recipes for no bake cookies because I had committed to making some for a local event and then ended up being in it, leaving no time to bake cookies.

No Bake Cookie Recipes

I found this fantastic first lens by lensmaster CookieFan. In No Bake Cookie Recipes she presents us with some favorite no bake recipes such as rice krispie treats with variations. The photos are fantastic. I assume she took them as there is no attribution otherwise that I saw.

Working Magic and Casting Spells

For the real low down on spells and what they really are I found an equally fantastic lens on that topic: Witch Crafts: Magic and Spells by M_S_Beltran. Although lengthy, this is one of the most readable explanations of what magic really is and how to use it effectively that I have ever found. He takes it out of the realm of Harry Potter or demonology and shows it for what it is...a way to discipline yourself in order to reach your goals. We all use magic all the time. Any time you try to change anyone else, you are using a form of magic. That includes teaching people to fear witches!

If you have ever been curious about what spells do and how to use them, this lens is a great place to start.

Squid Angel Blessings: Peyote Stitch, Canadian Music, Kansas, and a Hawaiian Recipe

2010-04-14T06:58:00.000-07:00

I've just been made a Squid Angel for the next three months which gives me the opportunity to give lenses I find a little extra boost. I'm going to feature the blessed lenses here on my blog as well.

Peyote Stitch

Peyote Bead Work: Turning Glass Into Cloth tells some interesting stories of how lensmaster Margo_Arrowsmith found women who were doing intricate beadwork for very little monetary compensation. It also shows how to do the peyote beading stitch.

Canadian Music

Obama's Canadian Playlist ~~ 49 Songs That Define Canada and Our Music (created by Treasures-by-Brenda) is about how the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation created playlist of songs that they thought represented Canada to give to President Barack Obama.
I was lucky enough to know a Canadian who loved music and he introduced me to so many great bands and musicians I wouldn't have known about otherwise. It's really a shame that people here in the US aren't exposed to more of them. So of course I had to bless this lens.

Kansas

I have a good friend who just moved from near where I live in Iowa to Kansas to be near her daughters and her new grandchild. We used to go on a lot of day trips together, driving all around eastern Iowa, northern Illinois, and even Wisconsin. Now I'll have to get to Kansas so we can have fun discovering what all there is to see there.

I happened across this lens completely by accident on my first day as Squid Angel: Must See Places in Kansas, created by of_different_sorts. As much as I love to read guidebooks and research places to visit on the Web, sometimes it's nice to have the most interesting places listed up front in an easy to find way. This lens does just that by listing the Top 10 Places to See in Kansas.

Hawaiian Food

I have been learning about the culture of Hawaii lately through a group I belong to which practices Hawaiian shamanism, or Huna. I found this quirky Hawaiian recipe lens in the Travel category, Loco Moco, A Traditional Hawaiian Breakfast Food, created by Susan52. The story goes that it was created by hungry surfers getting ready to go out and spend a long day in the water. You'll have to look at the lens to see just what it consists of. :)

Altered Art Vintage Valentines

2010-02-01T13:02:00.000-08:00

When I was first learning how to use Photoshop I had a little art gallery in the virtual world of Second Life. It wasn't until Valentine's Day came around that I got over the biggest hump of the learning curve, making digital collages by blending flower photos I had taken with vintage images of couples.

Since then the gallery has been dismantled but now the the collages are available as cards in my Zazzle store.

Altered Art Vintage Valentines

Midwinter Garden Dreams

2010-01-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

I decided to make a couple of lenses that are like newsstands for gardening magazines. Really fun to find them and categorize them.

Gardening Magazines
Online Gardening Magazines

The Holiday Treats Lensfest

2010-01-14T07:12:00.000-08:00

White Oak's Favorite Christmas Recipes

Christmas Candy Recipes

Milk Chocolate Fudge

Sugar Cookie Recipes

Decorating Cookies

Divinity Recipes

2009-12-09T13:12:00.001-08:00

Today, in the middle of a blizzard, seems like a good day to make divinity. See my lens about divinity to see why it is NOT.

Divinity Recipes

Gratitude and Turkey Recipe Lensfest

2009-12-07T06:35:00.000-08:00

I collected these lenses from members of the Squidoo Club for the latest lens fest.

100 Things I'm Thankful For
Gratituding Your Way to Inspiration
Thanksgiving Songs
My List of Lenses~~Blessed by an Angel
My Squidoo Angels
Our Online Supporters
Rocket Moms Photos Session 4

And then some lenses for what to do with that turkey:

A RocketMoms Thanksgiving Day Feast
Tastiest Post Thanksgiving Treat Ever

Chocolate Fudge Recipe and More

2009-11-23T11:22:00.000-08:00

I don't know where I get the ideas for lenses but sometimes one leads to another. I haven't actually finished the lens that this one came out of.

There are so many sweetened condensed milk fudge recipes out there! I had no idea. I wanted to try them all as I found them and thought I'd have to make fudge 365 days of the year. Out of that came the idea to have a Christmas fudge swap where everybody makes a different batch and we all trade.

I also came up with a way to make chocolate covered fudge.

See it all at Fudge Recipes.

Tomato Madness

2009-10-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

Here in Iowa canning tomatoes is a late summer/early fall ritual. It looks like this year the tomato season has been cut off short by the record low temperature the other night followed by the close-to-record early snowfall.

Just for fun I put together a lens about canning tomatoes including all the equipment, info, and recipes you need to do it.

Have you ever tried green tomato relish? It's not really tomato-y but it's definitely pickly. And delicious! You'll find a recipe on my lens.

Home Canning Tomatoes

Zazzle and Cafepress: All Hype?

2009-09-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

I have a couple of Zazzle stores (heArt-a-Day, Vintage Collage) and I used to have a Cafepress store. I have maybe made $20 in the three years that I've been trying this. I thought that perhaps I had the wrong subject matter. Meanwhile, I have a stash of decent photos of some everyday things which are - to my surprise - viable keywords, so I thought I'd make a new shop using them. Most of the good keywords are already used for shop names, so clearly there are other people doing their keyword homework and hoping to make a buck. But are they really getting any sales?

Because while doing my keyword research, I found something that astounded me. According to my keyword analysis tools the numbers for keywords t-shirt, sweatshirt, greeting card, card, mug, poster and print don't add up. Supply far outweighs demand (what minimal demand there is). So there may be lots of people looking for a picture of a cow jumping over the moon, but they aren't looking for any of those things to put it on. So why would they buy them?

The only way I can see that this would really work is if you already have a fan base for your images and they're looking for something else to put them on.

If you are somebody who is making a nice little income from your Zazzle or Cafepress stores, please let me know. Otherwise I am taking the stance that it's your basic carrot-in-front-of-the-horse marketing scheme that most of us are falling for resulting in no real sales or even traffic.

I really want to believe it will work, though. After all, it is no inventory! print on demand! we'll just send you the profit money! And at least on Zazzle it's completely free.

Copyright Laws Make Me Crazy

2009-08-13T11:49:00.001-07:00

Pardon me while I rant.

I'm an artist. I create images. Sometimes I would like to be able to create images from other images. Despite the internet, it is STILL really hard to find free domain images. Even the Library of Congress says it isn't responsible for the images it posts. Then tell me why again that people can be arrested for uploading music?

When I started on Squidoo there was the Flickr module. You could put in a search term and it would show any images from Flickr that matched. That lasted for about three years. Recently Squidoo has decided that unless the person uploading the image to Flickr has designated an image as Creative Commons - Commercial Use Allowed it won't show up on the Flickr module. And even more recently Flickr or Squidoo (don't have time to go find it) decided there will be no loading up of images to the module by search term anymore.

But wait, there are more levels of inconvenience! This means I can't even use my OWN art because I'm not about to designate it commercial use allowed because that means somebody can take it and sell it to somebody for whatever amount. Why would I want to do that?? (And by the way, yes, I have been paid for my work and quite well. On the other hand, derivations are okay - see below.)

I know there's nothing stopping me from just plugging in the HTML and loading them up that way but that takes so much more time. I don't want to waste that time when for years I didn't have to.

That is, if I can even get the images. There are public domain images listed on Flickr that the uploaders refuse to list as commercial use. WTF??? They don't want them to be made into collage sheets. It's. Not. Their. Copyright. They make a big holier-than-thou point of not claiming copyright, so why do they care? Don't upload anything then.

This kind of b/s has been driving me crazy since I first got interested in artsy rubber stamps ten years ago and found out that some rubber stamp companies didn't want you using their rubber stamped images on work for resale, even hand stamped. What, you're going to pay $10-12 for a stamp that you're just going to use a few times to send cards to your friends? Are you kidding me?? Then don't make rubber stamps!! Again...WTF?

And the whole no derivation clause of the copyright law. Look, if somebody seems my work and wants to make something like it, go right ahead. Every piece of art is a derivation of something. It's pretty hard to make a pure piece of art uninfluenced by something we've seen at some point in our lives. It's called being inspired.

Oh..and...if an artist sells a painting and then person who bought it sells it for a profit, does the artist get any of that money? No! They retain copyrights but they don't get any of the money. So why the hell do magazines get to say you can't use images in them to make collages out of for resale? It should be that once a magazine is sold, that is the end of their rights to any monetary gain. It's ridiculous!

I just want to make art. But I've just about had it with trying to make money from it.

Lensfest #2: Chicken Soup for the Soul

2009-08-11T09:51:00.001-07:00

These are lenses about chicken soup, obviously, and feeling good. I have to admit, the Chicken Dance lens made me laugh. out. loud. And the very first chicken soup recipe lens has a secret ingredient that adds a layer of flavor that has been missing from my own chicken soup (and makes it definitely a cold and flu buster).

Here they are:

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken Soup--Busting the Myth Behind Jewish Penicillin

Chicken: Five Easy Recipes

Making Thai Chicken and Galangal Coconut Cream Soup

The Chicken Dance and More Stuff About Chickens

Desperate Lensmasters

2009-08-10T06:45:00.001-07:00

I've taken Squidoo too seriously at times. When it seemed my ability to bookmark my lenses on Tagfoot would be taken away, I had meltdowns. All 3 or 4 or...however many times it's been now. Squidoo is the only income I can count on coming in every month. I never know if anybody is going to buy my art and massage clients cancel when they feel the money crunch.

I've noticed something from time to time among lensmasters. It's called desperation. I feel it too. Desperate to get that single five star rating to pull the lens out of oblivion. Desperate to get more and more ratings, backlinks, traffic, ad commissions, backlinks, traffic, comments...did I mention backlinks and traffic?

It's a virtual squid race. And you know what, it's not very attractive. It's actually repulsive. I know I am actually driving people away even as I'm shrilly demanding that I get more attention. Why didn't more people rate my lens? Why can't I get that lens in the Top 100? Why is that lens in the 80,000s? When am I going to make that one lens that everybody wants so I can make $1000 a month or more? (Or even, when am I going to bump up another $60 a month?)

It occurs to me that this is the kind of behavior that gets me, and others like me, thrown in with used car salesman and door-to-door vacuum pushers on social bookmarking sites . Nobody OWES me a rating, or even a visit to my lens. Nobody cares that I'm poor. And they don't have to.

From what I understand, really successful people don't push themselves on the populace. They wait for people to come to them, like a lion waiting for the herd to come closer. They also don't try to do everything at once. They take little baby steps and keep quietly practicing their craft, making small adjustments to their course along the way. They don't bite off more than they can chew, expect more than is reasonable. And they don't expect anybody to give them anything.

I think THAT is the way to true success as a lensmaster. In the end the drama only leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and no increase in money in the bank.

Lensfest #1: Worst Ranked Lenses

2009-08-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't know, Squidoo has a mysterious internal ranking system. A lens first created enters the system at around 800,000+. The goal is to get to #1, but even getting to the top 100 or top 50 is quite an accomplishment.

The better ranked you are, the more dividends you are paid. (At least that's what I heard recently. In all honesty it's mostly a mystery to me.)

So I thought for Squidoo Club's first "Lensfest" we would celebrate members worst ranked lenses. It is interesting to see what types of lenses don't rank as well. And remember that one lensmaster's"worst" ranked lens might be a good ranking for another member.

Here they are:

My Secret Garden
Mr Prez
Paso Robles Spring Day
Lyrics: Town Called Malice
Spider Web Efficient
Virtual Music Concerts
Does Shopping and Selling Online Hurt the Virtual Economy?
Chocolate Chip Cookies are My Favorite Comfort Food
Vintage Style Tiaras and Crowns

The Squidoo Club

2009-07-22T06:21:00.000-07:00

Squidoo has been put down one time too many on Tagfoot. Therefore I've created a Ning group called Squidoo Club specifically for people to promote their lenses (and Hubpages, etc. if they have them) as well as share their ideas and experiences as a Squidoo lensmaster. I hope to make a real community out of it.

I'm cooking up weekly contests of some sort with the prize being an interview of the winner posted here on this blog (and maybe some other things as time and resources allow).

If you want to come and just leave a list of your lenses on your blog and never say another thing, that's fine. If you want to list every single one of your lenses, each of which is about a different model of cell phone, go for it. Such things would get you labeled as a spammer on Tagfoot, but not at the Squidoo Club!

If you want to come and be a part of a friendly community, that's much appreciated (but not required).

If you want to join the group and leave a comment on my page to try and entice me to pay for sexual acts with you then I will:

pray to Jesus that you grow a brain
invoke Hecate and do some sort of magical working on you - binding, banishing, etc. -
block you from leaving comments on my page, the last of which is something everyone can do.

So join the group by clicking here, pull up your keyboard and your beverage of choice (because this is thirsty work!), and promote yourself to your heart's content.

Applying for Giant Squid

2009-06-29T12:53:00.001-07:00

I had been putting off trying for becoming a Giant Squid (a person with 50 or more Squidoo lenses) for a year at least. I thought I was going to get there with the last "class" at the end of December but I just couldn't make myself push through it. I think I had about 25 lenses to do. I was down to nine by May and wasn't sure I could get there until I found JustBon's Blue Ribbon Squids team to join. Something about hearing that disco classic "Ain't No Stopping Us Now" every time I stopped by the team lens to add my latest to the list kept me going. And I thought I was all done with disco.

But getting the last 50 lenses wasn't enough as it turned out. (Fifty-one, actually. As usual, I can't count. At the last minute I thought I had 50, no 49, no 50...so I ended up with 51.) I had to "hand in" a lensography as part of my application. I had one but it was just a list of lenses. so with two weeks to go I decided to draw illustrations for it and make it a bit more interesting visually. And then find a way to tie it all together. It was a bit like designing a niche in the flower building at the local county fair. Anyway, it's all done and I think it turned out pretty well: An Intuitive Lensography. Now let's all cross our fingers and hope that I really get to enter the hallowed halls of Giant Squidom.

Steampunk Fashion

2009-05-24T07:54:00.001-07:00

I decided to do a lens to get a better handle on what "Steampunk" was, a term that I kept running across in art, Second Life, and elsewhere. Much to my surprise I found that it is a cultural phenomenon, philosophy and even lifestyle that makes my life make sense. Although I probably won't ever dress in full 'Punk drag, I will look for ways to incorporate elements of it into my wardrobe.

For more see

Steampunk Fashion 101

Decorating Cookies

2009-05-15T05:28:00.000-07:00

Decorating cookies isn't just for Christmas anymore.

Image courtesy of Smitten on Flickr.

Take a look at what you can do with luster dust and fondant:

Image courtesy of sewmuchfun on Flickr

Molded and embossed fondant:

Image courtesy of Toni... on Flickr

Painting cookies with food coloring and brushes:

Image courtesy of neviepiecakes on Flickr.

For more info and the supplies to try it yourself see

Decorating Cookies on Squidoo

Doodling as Art

2009-05-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

Is a doodle art?

Image courtesy of Rob Court on Flickr.

I think so.

Image courtesy of valentinadesign on Flickr.

Doodle Art on Squidoo

Lavender Lemon Sugar Cookies

2009-04-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

I found this photo of beautiful lavender lemon sugar cookies on Flickr,

which in turn led me to the When Harry Met Salad Blog. The entire entry is as lovely and well presented as a magazine article. I am featuring it on my Sugar Cookie Recipes Squidoo lens to celebrate spring.

Drawing a Rose Using Flickr and Photoshop

2009-03-31T07:05:00.000-07:00

How do you go from this

to this

using Flickr and Photoshop?

Go to my How to Draw a Rose
Squidoo lens to find out.

White rose photo by kostas.v on Flickr.
Drawing by me.

Image Transfer - A Cool Art Technique

2009-02-20T06:57:00.000-08:00

I first fell in love with the look of image transfer while reading about it in Somerset Studio magazine. The technique itself, though - despite reading numerous how-to articles in the magazine - escaped me. In the beginning people were using toxic substances such as acetone to dissolve the toner on copies. Or, to get a colored image they were using Polaroid pictures and expensive equipment. So although I admired the look I didn't use it.

A couple of years ago an artist friend of mine asked me just what an image transfer was. Googling to find the right information was so frustrating that I decided to create a lens as a sort of bibliography. Since then the lens has grown quite a bit and includes many different methods for image transfer as well as my own "faux" image transfer technique that I developed.

Check it out for yourself by clicking on this link: Image Transfer on Squidoo.

Image courtesy of "T" Altered Art on Flickr.

Altered Art Vintage Valentines

2009-02-02T09:16:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, with the kind encouragement of a friend, I learned how to use Photoshop. There was a steep learning curve but then one day something just clicked and the other pieces of the Photoshop puzzle pretty much fell into place. Getting a Wacom Graphire Bluetooth 6 x 8-Inch Tablet for my computer helped immensely as well. In fact, that alone was life changing! Suddenly I was free to try all sorts of things artistically that I couldn't before.

About the same time people in the mixed media/paper arts world started using a lot of vintage 1920's era images of people in their work. I found Tallulah's online where I could download them for a reasonable price and use them commercially. Then I started playing around with digitally altering some flower photos I'd taken to turn them into backgrounds. Valentine's Day was coming up so I set a task for myself of creating several valentines from the formula I'd invented. That was the key moment in my learning of Photoshop. From there I created a Zazzle shop for them and now with the handy Zazzle module on Squidoo, a lens that is just the beginning of my altered art Valentine adventures.

Altered Art Vintage Valentines on Squidoo

From Goddess to Groundhog: The Evolution of a Holy Day

2009-01-29T06:46:00.000-08:00

In the United States, Groundhog's Day is sort of a silly made up holiday whereby a large rodent that lives in the ground is said to be able to predict how many weeks of winter are left. Groundhog's Day is really the last remnants of an ancient Celtic feast day dedicated to celebrating their main goddess, Brigid, who was a seer of the future. It became Christianized as Candlemas which represents different things to different denominations. These days pagans have revived it as Imbolc, a day to celebrate Brigid and the first stirrings of spring with the noticeable strengthening of the sun in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to see it as a time to celebrate the fruits of the summer and the light that will soon be waning. After all, Brigid is a goddess of hearth and home as well as enlightenment. In all ways, even Groundhog's Day, it is a festival of light.

I have personally encountered Brigid as a presence. For most of my life I've been interested in deities from different traditions but I was never really sure they existed. Then one night I was at work and suddenly I felt a powerful energy right in front of me. The name Brigid popped into my head. For years prior I'd had an interest in things Celtic because of my northern European ancestors, but I really knew very little about Brigid. I immediately Googled her and what I found spoke directly to my life at that moment, and also my life in general. If you haven't experienced something like that I know it can sound delusional. I even questioned my own sanity for a while after. But that was the beginning of a long initiation process that I'm still in the middle of. Now having the presence of Brigid around isn't so overwhelming. But I will never forget being "called" like that.

One of the first Squidoo lenses I made was about Brigid. With it I have tried to collect the most relevant information about Brigid on the Web and put it in one place for reference. Check it out here: Brigid - Celtic Triple Goddess.

Make a Free Online Vision Board Using Squidoo

2009-01-27T13:45:00.000-08:00

Vision boards, or dream boards as they're sometimes called, are becoming more and more popular as a way to visually map out your goals and dreams. They are often part of a philosophy called the Law of Attraction made popular by The Secret. I have to say I'm getting a bit tired of the overuse of the Law of Attraction, but since I am an artist I still like the idea of creating vision boards. Apparently even Oprah made one to add energy to President Obama's campaign.

Originally to make one you cut pictures out of magazines and glued them onto poster board to make a collage. Now there are online sites where you can create vision boards. I thought why not make one from a Squidoo lens? You have modules to add pictures and modules to add text, and not only that you might make a little bit of money from them if it's a topic lots of people are interested in.

See what I came up with at my lens here: Create a Free Vision Board With Squidoo

And although I am a bit jaded about the "LOA", I've found a new book that puts it in a more down-to-earth perspective. I made my first Squidoo "SquidLit" lens about it. Check it out here: The Law of Attraction in Action .

(Just a note to any other Squidooers reading this who are thinking about trying the SquidLit template. I'm tempted to say don't. It seems to have a lot of bugs. Don't write too much in the introductory template because I lost most of it in transition to the regular workshop.)

Just Desserts: Sugar Cookie Recipes

2008-12-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

I just have to take a moment to toot my own bright orange Squidoo horn. If you are part of the Squidoo community you know that making it into the top 100 Lens ranking is a big, big deal. So I was thrilled when my Sugar Cookie Recipes lens made it there earlier this week. I then set my sights on the Top 50 so I could put another shiny new badge from Lens Candy on my lens (having just proudly "hung" one for Top 100). But I didn't really think it was possible. Lo and behold, much to my wondering eyes did appear a lens ranking of 49 when I checked this morning!

If you think this was an overnight success it isn't. I created this lens in November 2007 based on my grandma's Christmas lemon sugar cookie recipe. It got close to the Top 100 last year but never got over the threshold.

And to those of you who don't have a Squidoo lens this may seem like a lot of hoopla over nothing, but I've spent countless hours crafting my lenses and it feels like, as the title says, just desserts to be rewarded in this way. Oh, and I actually make money from it! So if you're inspired to join in the fun, click on this link to start creating your own.

Make a Paper Christmas Ornament: The Porcupine Ball

2008-12-10T09:12:00.000-08:00

To go straight to the tutorial click here to go to the Make a Paper Christmas Ornament Squidoo lens I created. For the background story, keep reading.

Unwrapping Christmas presents at my maternal grandparents house was a slow and cautious affair. Scotch tape was carefully cut with scissors to keep from tearing the jewel-toned foil wrapping papers. Then the wrapping paper was carefully folded and put away in a special box. This was the collection for making the paper Christmas ornaments we called "porcupine balls".

I'm not sure where the pattern came from, or who found it, but I have memories of watching my uncle very painstakingly rolling the small sections of foil and tissue paper to make the points that would ultimately become a ball ornament. Then there was the problem of glue. We always used good old Elmer's white glue in the 1960's. After you got the point of paper rolled you had to somehow get the glue on the edge without losing the point (sometimes with a toothpick) and then hold it until it set up enough. It was a trick to keep the glue from getting on the foil and keeping it from being shiny. Thank goodness for glue sticks and all the other adhesive options we have these days!

But despite the surgeon-like concentration needed to make them, the end result was spectacular and a great way to keep the beautiful foil wrapping papers we all fell in love with and hated to throw away. In these days of green living awareness I thought it would be a great time to reintroduce the world to these ornaments. It seems somewhere in the last 10 years I've seen an article about them - perhaps in Martha Stewart Living - but I haven't seen them anywhere else.

Again, click here to see the tutorial.