Make a poem by altering a book
More altered book stuff.
At this Altered Books collaborative blog you can see pages altered into poetry. I tried it myself - you can see a snippet of mine at left. But do yourself a favor and research the concept further by following the link above.
Altered Book Artists
In the gallery at the AlteredBookArtists.com website you can see some great spreads by Jeanne Minnix. Just click on the Feature Gallery Link on the left side of the page when you get there. If you really like this kind of thing and want to explore further, check out the Members Galleries. Wow! There is great inspiration here for mixed media and collage artists.
Card Generator
Check this out. Blyberg has made a program that generates an image that looks like an old library catalogue card. You add the text. In my sample I used an Albert Einstein quote.
After you make the image you can right click on it and save it to your hard drive as a .png file. These are rather large files, so I took mine into Photoshop and converted it to a smaller jpeg.
It is kindof addictive: http://www.blyberg.net/card-generator/
Our dispositions
I have learned from experience
that the greater part of
our happiness or misery
depends on our dispositions
and not on our circumstances.
-Martha Washington
Right on, Martha!
Moving towards or away from?
When you become a self-help book junkie, you eventually start experimenting with NLP. That stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It is a scientific approach to the study of human thought processes and behavior.
One of the premises behind NLP is that everyone has a “motivation direction”. Some people are moving towards pleasure; towards achieving goals. Other people are moving AWAY FROM pain. NLP experts suggest that most people live their lives in that latter category.
What is your motivation direction? Do you have goals? Do you invest energy in moving forward towards new possibilities?
Do you have a life purpose or direction? It doesn’t have to be about the work you do. Your job and your life purpose may be quite separate.
Develop a clear idea of your life purpose and write it down. Be clear about what you want. Keep it at the front of your mind.
Otherwise you may always live life walking backwards, looking at the pain you want to escape from.
When a negative thought crosses your mind; when you start playing-back old conversations or persistent, reoccurring complaints in your head, gently change your focus. Follow negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Think about what you DO want in your life.
Change your thinking, change your life. It works.
My kind of zine
Okay, I know that Go-Make-Art pays the rent here at Happiness-Studio (!) but even if they didn’t, I would be raving about their zine. The theme of the latest issue of Astarte’s Mega-Zine is Law of Attraction. Woo-hoo! My favorite subject! And obviously a concept that fits in very nicely with being arty-crafty.
When you get this issue (Issue #2, $9.95 and you download it on the spot - but actually, I suggest you subscribe to 4 issues starting with issue 2 because it is even better value), be sure to visit the Goodies web page listed on the Table of Contents page. There’s a secret bonus article there on making these cute little charms. In all the issue gives you 21 articles (I can’t wait to read them) plus an art papers bonus and an affirmations card set you can decorate and display. (Oh - and guess what - I served as a “consultant” on developing the affirmations for this set. So you KNOW they’re brilliant!)
