Kel's Space

Felted snowballs

I've got a new post up, over at It's A Creative World.

Please remember to set your bloggy bookmarks for my new blog address at http://everydayjoy.squarespace.com/kels-space/.

Kel's Space: they seek it here, they seek it there

It's a big day for me in Blogland. I've been with Typepad for 4 and a half years now and I've loved it. The time has come though, for a move. Now that the artist books are starting to sell, I want a website that pulls everything together. 

Please join me, over at http://everydayjoy.squarespace.com/kels-space/ and adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

Blogging for Scrapbookers classmates: I will be doing some of the prompts from the past weeks over there, and following up with our year of blogging prompts too.

I feel sad leaving here...

Putting the internet in charge of your feelings.

Two stories to share with you after a week of sniffles and umbrellas and working when I wasn't planning to:

1. Sometimes Twitter takes good care of your feelings

Earlier this week I was on the bus. I was in a foul mood. I was soaking wet and crowded and sick to boot. And I tweeted something like this, "I wouldn't normally believe in saying that I'm miserable. But today I am. Sick and cold and tired and miserable." I texted Twitter several times from that bus, but that was the only tweet that didn't get through. I like to think that it was the internet protecting me from my worst self.

2. Sometimes it doesn't and you knew better anyway, didn't you?

Swaps, circle journals and sketchbook exchanges all sound like a great idea, until I'm nearly finished. Then the second guessing starts. "Is this good enough? Will they like it? Will I be drummed out of Creative Types Limited? Do I fail?" That happened tonight, as I get my ornaments ready to mail into an ornament swap. So I took my doubt to Twitter. I was looking for reassurance, let's face it, although I had myself fooled. And what I got was a very kind person, who thought I was complaining about what I had received and was preparing to be supportive. And how I ended up feeling was that there was room for doubt, that these could be the short end in an exchange. 

I am thankful for this reminder. 

All we can do in any situation is our best, but we also have to stand behind it.

So no, I will not put the internet in charge of my feelings!

These are what I am sending in. They are made from pure merino wool, cotton embroidery floss and frosted Indian lampwork beads. They have taken hours to wet felt and stitch together, including some extra time for trial and error in the design. I was thinking snowballs, and added the snowflakes to underline that. If I saw these in a shop, I would buy at least one. I am making myself a spare, so I can keep it. I've done my best and I like them.

The Interconnected Intermawebs

I have other blog posts in the works, but at the moment I am on a quest to 'join up' my internet experience, as well as my online personae (for lack of a better word!). In a surprisingly short time, Twitter has changed the way I interact with several of my favourite bloggers and their blogs. I see blog reading as a relatively passive activity, although hopefully we are reading attentively, learning and connecting. The conversations flowing on Twitter is a different dynamic, and allows a more active exchange of ideas. I'm not saying that either is better, I see a place for both, myself. I do find it interesting that there is a whole group of people that I communicate with in both ways. To this end, after a tweet from the wonderful @unmarketing (who blogs here), I am adding a re-tweet button to my posts (and checking with this post that it works).

5 Cameras I Love

   

I am a camera geek and proud of it! Part of planning any outing is deciding which camera I will take with me. Some days are analogue and some days are digital. I guess it's odd that I not only have more than five cameras, but that I have five favourite cameras! I am planning to sell or give-away the others, I promise, but it has taken awhile to figure out which way my photography was going.

The Quality Camera	The Nikon D50 is a digital SLR. It isn't the newest model, or the highest spec, but it meets and exceeds my needs. I use it when I travel to new places, when taking portraits, and taking images that I know I will crop in photo-editing software.
The Old School Analogue Friend	The LCA+ is a film camera from Lomography. It is based on a Russian camera that was out of production and was revived by a group of Austrian students, crazy for analogue. It takes sharp, saturated photos with a degree of vignetting at the corners.
The Throw-It-In-Your-Bag-and-Take-it-to-the-Gig Camera	The Canon SX200 isn't the smallest point and shoot, but in my view it is the perfect gig camera. It's small enough not to alarm the security guys  but it has a 12x zoom and works well in low light. It's new, but I have been delighted with the gig photos I've taken with it so far.

The Arty Hard-to-Explain Camera of Retro Goodness	Based on cheap toy cameras from the 1960s, the Diana F+ shoots medium format film, but can be adapted to take 35mm or instax mini. It gives you unpredictable dreamy, vintage looking photos, some with vignetting. It has changeable lenses for different situations and shoots square, standard and panoramic prints, with or without sprockets showing. I tend to talk it out when I am doing photography for the sake of it.
I Fell in Love and I Can't Explain It	It's called Blackbird, Fly. It shoots 35mm film and you can show your sprockets. It's really hard to shoot with, as you have to look through the top viewfinder and work back-to-front. It's another one for art walks.

Well, now you know something that I don't tend to share with everyone! It is a true passion though, so I felt it was worth putting out there.

Blogging for Scrapbookers

 
This is the first day of my second November class Shimelle's Blogging for Scrapbookers. I hesitated about taking the class, because I'm been blogging for a while now, and sometimes I find it difficult to keep up with the social side of online classes. Once I drop out of that loop, it is easy to step away from the class altogether. In the end, I figured we could all use a little blogspiration from time to time, right? And even if I can't keep up with the boards, I'll discover some great new blogs that I stick with after the course ends. 

I have been in a phase of self-exploration, a kind of autumnal feeling and feeling a little shut down and self contained. I've been trying to take it to my journals, but even there have felt wordless, playing in colour and collage and putting off the writing. I bought an inspiring book from Jen Lee, called 'Take Me With You - a journal for the journey' and I feel that it may tip me over, may break the dam and let the words flow forth. I'm greeting this course with the same attitude, challenging myself to dig a little deeper, to share more openly.

The layout above was in Scrapbook Inspirations a while back. It features a rare photo of me, with my old laptop and my old blog layout. I loved that layout, but the white text on blue was hard on the eyes for some of my favourite readers. The 'download here' tab attaches to some hidden journalling:

 In July 2005, I started my blog at kelspace.typepad.com. I wasn't too sure what I would write about, but I wanted some gallery space for my layouts and photography. Over the last 3 years, I have found my voice. I mostly write about my creative journey and my views on life and I continue to share my photography and artwork. My blog allows me to keep up with far-flung friends and family more easily. I have made several new friends as well, some of whom I have even gone on to meet in real life. I also read the blogs of friends, people I've met at art classes and events, and artists I admire. These offer me inspiration, laughter, comfort, advice and new techniques. Blogging brings more art into my life and allows me to share and reflect on my own creative work. I love it.