There's always money in the Banana Stand

So I was thinking of starting a Kickstarter campaign. Actually I am leaning more to Indiegogo, but that is just splitting hairs I think. Anyway I have this project that has been burning inside of me since my senior year of college. I don't want to go into too much detail (for obvious reasons), but it is design related and mostly typographic. After doing a little research and listening to some professionals I find myself more than a little discouraged.

Do you know what every pro told me was the key to their success on Kickstarter, having a large "fan" base before launching a Kickstarter. I find this discouraging because if you already have the followers why do you need Kickstarter, just pre-sale your product or service to your already established following.

And if that wasn't a big enough blow, then I came to this realization: Kickstarter is just another product driven shopping site. The word crowdfunding is deceptive. It leads you to believe that this is a place to find funding for your project, when really it is a place for people to buy things, knowing that they are not available for immediate consumption because money is needed to produce the product. This actually came out of one of the professionals mouths, "Your project should be 90% done before you even think of starting a Kickstarter campaign."

Wait..what?
I thought I was looking for funding to make my project happen. Not just money to get it fabricated.

Maybe I am so discouraged because what I want to produce isn't a single item to be purchased or perhaps not something to be purchased at all (which maybe doesn't make sense without more information about my project).

Anyway...I just wanted to rant... 

On The Hunt 365 - Photo Challenge

At the first of the year I gave myself a challenge. That challenge was to post 365 photos in 365 days (a picture a day). In an attempt to make this easier for me, I turned it into a scavenger hunt and created a list of 365 "things" to photograph. In the beginning this was really helpful, and yet challenging. It meant I always had something to photograph, but it also meant I had to really think about who, what and how I was photographing it.

I am now just over a quarter of the way done, I am on day 95. There have been a couple of days I had to double up cause I missed but still there are 94 images in the Instagram account and today I will post 95.

I am finding though, that my list is becoming troublesome. Okay not troublesome, just not as fun as I anticipated. After a 95 days I think I have found my niche...or at least the things I have the most fun photographing. So I am debating, do I throw the list out the window and just take photographs? Or is that considered quitting? Do I need to keep up the list for the integrity of the project? Does it matter if I am just doing it of me?

I don't know what to do, but I sure do like photographing the little ones :)

Time And Relative Dimension In Space

So for Christmas last year I was super excited to get the River Song Tardis Journal. I wanted to start keeping a paper journal again, and it is always fun to get new paper. When it got here though, I have to say, I was a little disappointed. Instead of actually being textured it was just printed. And then to boot, the spine was broken.

Those were both good enough excuses for me to not start keeping a paper journal. But last week I decided to get off my butt and do something about it. So I made myself and Tardis Journal.

I will admit, it is far from a replica. But I am so thrilled with how it turned out. It has all the great distressing and the texture (raised instead of lowered). And of course it is my favorite color, but I am thinking it would look cool in red too. I am wondering about doing a whole "door" series of these in different colors (and maybe sell them if I get off my butt and build an Etsy Store). We'll have to see.

#29 Bleached T-shirts

I will admit, I am a little disappointed with my end. It didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. This is my second attempt bleaching t-shirts, I guess I still have a lot to learn. Just because February is ending doesn’t mean I have to stop, so I will have try a 3rd time. All and all my mom and I have had a lot of fun this year. Everyone has been wonderful (as usual) and I am happy that Thing-A-Day moved back to WordPress. I have seen an amazing amount of creative things and it is inspiring. Hope to see you all again next year :) Stay creative! -Amber

#26 Button Letter

I should have thought about this one a little harder. By the last 2 dozen buttons I was ready to quit. But as with many of my projects this was a pinterest inspiration. I printed off a large “Times” letter A and traced it onto a 12 x 12 canvas (that I previously dry brushed a with a little gold paint) and then filled it in with green buttons. I didn’t have quite enough so I used some white buttons too(which was a mistake against a white canvas). And then after I was satisfied with the locations of the buttons I pulled out the hot glue gun and started gluing…

#25 Shiny

This was a fun quick project. More fun glass from the craft store, some Pledge floor wax and a bit of glitter. Fill your glass with a bit of floor wax, swish it around a bit to coat the entire inside of the glass then pour the excess out. I would let it set for just a minute to let the foam settle and make sure that all the excess is poured out. Then take your glitter and pour a bunch into the glass container. Swish the glitter around so it coats the entire inside of the glass and dump out the excess. And voila, pretty, shiny, glittery glass.

#24 Just Not Feelin' It Video

I wanted to do an art video as one of my projects. This is far from what I planning on doing. But with my lack of motivation I think it turned out okay. If you can’t see the video let me know. My youtube setting are a little funny :)

#21 Coloring with Crayons

Oh my gosh! I had seen this more than once on Pinterest and tonight I decided I was going to try it and can I say this is the most fun I have had doing a TAD project this year. 16″ x 20″ canvas, cheap crayons, some hot glue, and a blow dryer. I should have stopped the melting about 1o minutes earlier than I did, but I was just having so much fun :)

#14 My Valentine For You

This year I decided I wasn’t going to send my holiday cards via Blue Mountain or Hallmark this year. So I signed up for a email marketing service called Mail Chimp so I could send my own custom created email cards. Above is the graphic I created for my Valentine’s Day card. If you want to see the whole email (with the a TAD plug in there too) you can view it here http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=cc127218a9bce97cd54da2f09&id=852b7b22be&e. You could even sign up to get them if you wanted the occasional email from me.

#06 Canvas Block Art

The prep on this one actually took a day or two. I Modge Podge’d a piece of scrapbook paper to a 12×12 canvas block. Then I cut my phrase out of vinyl and applied it to the canvas block. After that I spray painted the whole thing and after it dried I picked out the letters to reveal the paper underneath. I am a little disappointed that the paint bled under the vinyl in places. But overall I think it turned out pretty good.

#05 Timepieces Pendant

Today I made this necklace pendant. This is a rectangular bezel with a piece of pretty red paper in the bottom. Then I put a thin layer of resin down and set it. Then I laid down some watch internals and set another layer of resin. It turned out pretty nice, better than the pictures show I think. I do have one pretty noticeable air bubble, but I think it’s pretty good for a first attempt.

#03 My Red Solo Cup

This is a Toby Keith twist a pretty cute idea. Have you heard of a redneck wine glass? What you do is glue a mason jar to the top of a candle stick. Well I took a little inspiration from Toby Keith’s new song Red Solo Cup and glued one of those to the top of my candlestick instead. Then further taking my queue from the song I wrote my name on it in black sharpie and added the little reminder, “proceed to party”

#01 Frosted Glass

My first project for TAD is this frosted glass. It started out as just a plain ole Dollar Tree glass. I put about a dozen or so elastic bands around it and then sprayed it with Rustoleum’s Frosted Glass spray paint. I let it dry overnight and then took the rubber bands off. and Volia! This is what I got.

Idea List for Thing A Day

Guess what! It's time for Thing A Day again. All February I will be posting my TAD projects. That means 29 posts in 29 days. As I have done in the past I am also doing an idea list so I don't find myself scrambling for things to do. If you have any ideas for please let me know. I am usually up for trying something once.

1. Button Letter Art
2. Button Flower Art
3. Resin Jewelry Pendant
4. Square Cake Plate
5. Candle Stick Glass
6. Canvas Block Art
7. Frosted Decorative Glass
8. Silk Screen Poster
9. Build Battleshots Game
10. Orange Creamcicle Cookies
11. Recipe Book Cover
12. Recipe Book Layout
13. Scrabble Word Art
14. Frame Monogram Letters
15. Vinyl Wall Art
16. Square Wall Clock
17. Colorize a Black and White Photo
18. Drawer Pull Wall Hanger
19. Create an Art Video
20. Cookie Bowls
21. Bleached T-Shirts or Silk Screen Design
22. Desktop Background
23. Blog Banner
24. Candy Cane Vodka
25. Birthday Card
26. Valentine's Day Card
27. Wedding Invitation
28. Scratch Card
29. Custom Cover for a Moleskin
30. Cake Balls
31. Pie Pops
32. Cupcakes
33. Bottle Chandelier
34. Snowglobe
35. Art Blocks
36. Puff Paint Canvas Art
37. Watercolor Book Design
38. Rolo Turtles
39. Weekly Wall Calendar
40. Something with Cheese

NO! Not More Trees!

It literally took me hours to write my "floating tree" post and after I posted it I realized something. I never posted about my Festival tree either. So I have one more Christmas post to put up and then I will move on to the new year. This one wont be as long as the other either.

Every year Primary Children's Medical Center does a fundraiser called the Festival of Trees in which they auction off Christmas Trees, Wreaths, Center Pieces, Gingerbread Houses, and so on. My mom has donated centerpieces for years, but this year I talked her into doing a small tree with me. So we each donated a 3.5 foot tree. It was nerve racking to say the least. Since this was our first year doing this we didn't know what to expect. But I think they turned out pretty well. So well in fact I think I might do one next year.

Anyway here is what my mom and I did for the Festival this year.

Rusty Christmas Wishes by Amber Meier

All Things Santa by Helen Meier

Santa and Company by Helen Meier

Floating Christmas Tree

I posted a few pics of this tree on Facebook with promise of posting more, but I never did, and now the tree has been taken down and put away. Regardless I wanted to post them here as well and make a few comments so I don't forget the things I want to change for next year.

I would like to say this was an easy project, but it wasn't. There wasn't anything overly difficult to it, but it was very time consuming. Next year I will start it the last week of November instead of the first week of December.

I started with 2 baker's cooling racks. I overlapped them to make a true square (as close as I could) and wired them together. It made a 20"x20" square. Then I spray painted them white, to match the ceiling. On the rack I found the center point and tied a string to it so I could visualize the circumference of my rings. Due to the size of the grid in the racks I used I had to stagger my rings. I am not sure I can explain it properly so let me illustrate.

There are seven rings and center point. The rings stagger at being 1.25 and 1.75 inches apart. At this point I need to give you couple of sets of numbers.
(Rings numbered small to large)
First the ornaments:
Approximately 130 Total.
Center: 1
1st Ring: 7
2nd Ring: 11
3rd Ring: 15
4th Ring: 19
5th Ring: 23
6th Ring: 27
7th Ring: 31

Second the clear lines:
Center: one @ 18"
1st Ring: one @ 20" | one @ 22" |  two @ 24" | three @ 26"
2nd Ring: two @ 28" | two @ 30" |  three @ 32" | four @ 34"
3rd Ring: three @ 36" | three @ 38" |  four @ 40" | five @ 42"
4th Ring: four @ 44" | four @ 46" |  five @ 48" | six @ 50"
5th Ring: five @ 52" | five @ 54" |  six @ 56" | seven @ 58"
6th Ring: six @ 60" | six @ 62" |  seven @ 64" | eight @ 66"
7th Ring: seven @ 68" | seven @ 70" |  eight @ 72" | nine @ 74"

From this point on I need to give a little warning. You'll notice as you go through this that my numbers don't quite add up. If you are one of those people who like exact instructions you are talking to the wrong girl. This was a total trial and error experiment, and what came out was not exactly what I planned. My best advice is to just go with it. It'll be okay :)

Your probably wondering where I got those numbers from. The ornament tiering is based off some instructions I found online that I will link to at the end of this post. As for my line lengths that took a little simple math. I needed to decide how tall I wanted my tree to be and how far off the floor I wanted the tree to be. I have 8 foot ceilings, and I wanted the tree to be about 2 feet off the ground. That gave me 6 feet to work with, but I didn't want the top of the tree to touch the ceiling either. So I subtracted another foot making the tree itself roughly 5 feet tall and it will start about a foot below the ceiling.

So my longest lines needed to be roughly 72" long (6 feet), but I needed to add a couple of extra inches  for fastening. So I made my longest lines 74" and worked backwards in 2" increments (roughly the average height of my ornaments ). As for how many of each length, I again took my cue from the online instructions I found.

Now I started to attach the lines to rack. I fastened them with jewelry crimper tubes. This was so that the fasteners wouldn't detract from the "floating" feel. So I divided my circles into eight equal parts and attached my lines at those points, then filled in from there. Not Martha described it well. She said, "Think of it like a tiered cake." Here's a map to show you roughly where I attached my lines.

After the lines are attached to the rack I attached the rack to ceiling with screws and cable brackets. Now the fun begins. I started hanging ornaments on the lines. Do this just like you would any other Christmas tree: make sure stagger your variety and colors evenly. I attached these with crimper tubes as well, but if you can get enough of a crease in lines to hold without crimping I would suggest it, that way you can change and move your ornaments as needed. Then once you know they are set, go back and crimp down the tubes.

And Vwola! You have a floating Christmas Tree. This all started after I saw a miniature version of this on a Home Depot commercial (which for the life of me is the only thing I can't find online). This sent me looking for a tutorial online which I found at www.notmartha.org Specifically in the archives. I realize my instructions are really scattered. I would recommend highly going through her instructions if you plan to do this project.  As you go through them you will noticed that I made some changes and took some liberties.

There are few things I would differently the next time around.

1. I wouldn't use the racks. I would spend a little more money and come up with something a little more decorative. I am thinking I would use a picture frame and peg board to attach to the ceiling. 
2. I would straighten my strings before I attached them to the rack or the ornaments. Hang them with clips and weights from a curtain rod or something. It will make it much easier to judge length.
3. I would use ornament hooks instead of crimp tubes for the ornaments. This will add to the length a little and take away from the "floating" feel slightly, but it will make the so much easier to hang adjust.

I think I just broke the code.

People have been telling me for quite some time now that I need to read the Hunger Games Trilogy. I would say the better part of a year anyway. Every time I am asked I always say, "It's on my list." or "I plan to." And when I said it I genuinely meant it. But I really had no intention of even considering starting the trilogy until after the new year. My plan was to have them done before the movie came out.

Last week though I had five, yes five, people ask me about the series. Two of them even offered to lend me the books when I said I hadn't read them yet. I took this as a sign. I needed to read this series, whether there is something I am suppose to glean from it, or the fates realized I needed a little imagination and inspiration I do not know, but I devoured the first book in two days. And it has taken everything in my power to not stay up extra late this week and power through the other two books. I was going to put it off until the weekend, but I just can't help myself. I am about a third the way through Catching Fire. I haven't been this excited about a book series since I started reading Lord of the Rings.

I find my mind running wild with what the possibilities will hold for these characters and this place. I have to keep reminding myself that the audience for these books are young adults. So I find myself  worrying that I am over thinking it, and I worry that I will disappointed if it doesn't pan out the way I am thinking. I can't believe how excited I am to find out though.

This brings me to my over arcing point. I don't know why it has taken me this long to figure out, but I think this series has helped me figure out the code for a successful story. You need two guys that are both beloved, one girl that can be tolerated and a situation that threatens the standard way of life (to some degree). It sounds so simple when I lay it out here, but it has evaded me to this point. So I think I might take this new found info and maybe pick the novel up again. I still have time to get is started before the end of year, which I think means I can put a check in the plus column for my yearly goals.

Christmas Already?

 This year I am doing a mini tree for the Festival of Trees. I still haven't decided on a theme for the tree. I know, you're probably thinking, as I was, "It's September, I have plenty of time." But that is kind of wrong. I have to register by the end of the month, and they want to know specifics about what I'm planning to do.

I have been rolling a couple of ideas around in my head. One is a Twilight inspired tree. The newest film comes out a week before the Festival opens so the timing is great and it might fetch a slightly higher price.  On the other hand I saw these rusty decoupaged stars last year that were adorable, and they are pretty easy to re-create (see pictures). Then there is always my classic stand by, my favorite thing to do for Christmas, a Let it Snow themed tree in the classic blue and white.

I really think the stars are adorable and love that it gives it a slightly more homemade feel. It was actually the stars that made me think this would be the year I do a tree for FOT. But the timing for the Twilight tree couldn't be better and would be great for the cause if the bidding kind of went off the hook.

Anyway I have a poll going on my facebook page or you can comment here on which tree theme you think would be the best to do.