For my sister’s 25th birthday last week I wanted to do something epic.
Originally I had the idea to make her a cake like this:
Tooooo Old!
But then I decided to go with making her the traditional German Chocolate cake and instead have the fabulous Megan Mc make her a Gif Bday Card.
Laura thought it was hilarious! Best. E-Card. Ever. 😀
Thank again Megan! (I now know the pain your suffered for making this) :p
Day 43’s assignment was: “Learn something new. Ask a friend to help you do something using a technique or skill they’re good at.”
Time to make my first gif! I turned to the #DS106 tutorial and downloaded a few programs (like Gimp) to make it work. I also asked Megan Mc to help since she is “The Emeril of Gif-making.”
She had a few suggestions for me about making this and while I am happy it wasn’t as hard as I thought ( definitely time consuming tho) I don’t understand why the quality is so terrible. All the images were fine pre-giffing and now it’s so blurry… >.<
Megan and I messed with the gif and tried to see if we could solve the problem, but no dice. Anyone out there have a suggestion on how to fix the quality?
Day 35’s assignment: “Create instructions that others can use to make something and then have someone try it out.” I
This was tricky in terms of I could think of nothing that I can do that requires instructions for other people to do it. So I turned to a visualization game/ 5 minute personality test that I remember doing at camp one time.
I’m sure most of you have heard of it:
Close your eyes. Imagine you are walking alone in a desert. All of a sudden a cube appears before you.
How big is the cube?
What color is the cube?
How does that color make you feel?
Can you see inside the cube?
How big is the cube compared to the desert?
You see a ladder.
Is the ladder leaning on the cube?
What color is the ladder?
What is the distance between the cube and the ladder?
You see a horse.
What is the distance between the cube and the horse?
What color is the horse?
Is the horse tied up or roaming freely?
Is the horse wearing a saddle?
There is a storm.
What is the distance between the storm and the cube?
Is the size of the storm big or small?
Is the storm passing by or staying in place?
Is the storm violent, thunder, and lightning or calm and light rain?
You see a flower.
Is there only one flower or many?
Where is the flower, what is it next to?
What color is the flower?
Your answers to these questions are supposed to reveal a lot about your psychological makeup…. So using my siblings plus Elena as guinea pigs I put it to the test by having them draw what they were thinking. The results:
Sibling 1 aka Laura
The results:
“Apparently I don’t think highly of myself, am not too close with my friends, I’m looking for a stable guy, I’m anxious about some foreseeable problems ahead and I want nothing to do with kids… This is a stupid test! I was thinking of literal things. Most horses are brown, the southwest has spectacular (violent) storms, and I was thinking of a desert flower! Go figure.”
Elena:
I had my friend Elena do the test, but I did it via skype so I don’t actually have the results to post online. What I remember from doing this is that Elena also thought the test was silly and that she thinks her results were more literal than psychological.
Me:
Even though I already had Laura and Elena do the test and I read them their answers, I decided to see what I would come up with if I were to draw my answers. Obviously this is completely biased but it is what it is.
The Cube: Since my cube isn’t transparent this means that people can’t see through me. I put up a tough front, think somewhat highly of myself and have a shiny personality. I value compassion and prosperity.
The Ladder: I am not too close with my friends (big distance between the ladder and the cube). Apparently my friendships with people are strained (since it’s a rope ladder twisting in the rain.)
The Horse: My ideal boyfriend is adventurous and not that close with my friends.
The Storm: I have a big obstacle in my life that is passing through (I guess it’s HUGE since it can pick up a house).
The flower: I don’t care about kids since this flower is lying on the ground abandoned.
–> While some of this might be slightly accurate, a lot of the other things are not. So this game does seem a little silly, although it is entertaining.
Sibling 2 aka Charlotte.
Charlotte was the last person to do the test and she by far had the most interesting response:
“A cube? Well, I’m thinking of an ice cube because I’m thirsty. And since I’m in a desert, it’s a large ice cube that melts in the sun forming a lake. The ladder is on the ground going over a pit of quicksand on the way to the lake. So you have to crawl across the wood ladder in order to reach the lake. The horse is brown and grazing at the edge of the lake. The storm is 2.25 miles away, a thunder storm, and coming towards me. There are a bunch of yellow flowers which are all around the edge of the water.”
I don’t even know how to interpret this. I’m sure the makers of the test wasn’t expecting someone to answer like this. I love how the rest of us came up with responses that were fairly generic and Charlotte came up with the most visually interesting one. It speaks a lot to her creativity ^_^
Day 39’s assignment: Write a haiku about something that happens to you today or is in the news today. Bonus: Illustrate it!
So I didn’t do the assignment the day I was supposed to (-_-) which means that I decided to make my haiku about one of the more memorable days of my life: the day I went skydiving when I was 19.
I plan on writing an blog post about it one of these days, but in the meantime here’s my illustrated haiku:
When I went skydiving I went tandem, so no this is not a picture of me. I did take this picture the day I went skydiving, however.
Pics or it didn’t happen?
Will save it for my blog post 😉
Day 36’s assignment was “Take something old and make it look new.”
This was yet another assignment I was late on doing. :/
I decided that I wanted to take an old photo and spruce it up a bit.
This is a picture of my Great-Grandpa Wilson (born circa 1875*) I just love his curls in this picture and the attitude he is giving off.
But, the sepia tone makes it so drab looking. I decided to add some color to it using Pixlr express.
I was in Urban Outfitters the other day and stumbled across a postcard pack labeled “Unbridled Passion” by Franco Accornero.
It’s a collection of 30 different postcards from an artist who has painted more than 5,000 romance novel covers (as well as westerns, thrillers and sci-fi books). The postcards are really ridiculous on their own, but I thought for this Valentine’s day I would make them even funnier but adding my own captions.
That’s where the 2012 Valentine’s Day Caption Challenge for #ds106 comes into play: I challenge you to make your own captions for these postcards! Not only will you help make V-Day funny, but you will also be completing DesignAssignment61.
All of these postcards can be found un-altered on my flickr account (download them and get to work!)
Captioned by Megan Mc
captioned by Megan MC
captioned by Megan MC
Day 34’s assignment: “Work with wire. Thin-gauge wire can easily be bent by hand, so no special tools are required. You don’t even have to buy wire if you have some paper clips handy.”
What I learned today was that bending paperclips is a little bit harder than I remembered/expected it to be. I had no idea what I was making today and so turned to google to solve my problems. Saw this really cute paperclip dragonfly on flickr and wondered if I could make it.
from Flickr by Annadriel
Definitely not. I think I would need a bigger paperclip for this, although the paper clip I was using was a lot bigger than average.
I ended up shaping the paperclip into a form of a man; totally random luck this worked out the way it did.
Shadows!
All because of the Dragonfly! Took this photo with my paperclip lying across my laptop screen.
Part 2 of project:
The next day I decided since Valentine’s day was fast approaching and I still needed to mail off cards to friends, that I should make a Paper Clip Girl and have her kiss my Paper clip man….Subsequent attempts to repeat my earlier stroke of genius did not pan out. :/
Instead, I mailed off my Valentine’s postcards all by themselves. I will attempt to make part two of this project work at a later date if I have time!
Day 33’s assignment: “Use pen your materials/inspiration today. Draw with them, use them as construction material… or? ”
I was at a friend’s apartment recently and saw this amazing tapestry they had hanging on their wall:
Colors are much more vivid in real life.
I found out you can get it at Amazon which means I am totally going to buy it one day.
I decided that I wanted to use this as my inspiration for today’s challenge. I started drawing with a black pen on a white sheet of paper and ended up with this.
I like the extreme contrast between the black and the white, but I am also tempted to color the skull in with crazy colors. If I did that I would probably also fill in the white space outside of the skull with crazy lines and colors too. We shall see…
Day 31’s assignment was “Make a path for people to follow and invite people to try it out”.
This to me translated into make a scavenger hunt! I decided to make it for my dad to cheer him up since he was sick with a cold.
I left the first clue on the kitchen table and let him go from there.
Clue #1: The most famous escape artist of his time. Can you find him in the collection Wikipedia has replaced?
The answer is Houdini and my dad needed to look for him in one of the books in our encyclopedia collection
Clue # 2: Laast uns trinken! Prost!
When translated from German: “Let’s us drink! Cheers!” This references an antique German beer stein we have on display in the living room.
Clue #3 Mama Sophia is everywhere in the house but there is only one photo of her in a short/hippie dress.
My Dad had to go downstairs to his office and look behind the photo of my mom during her hippie years.
Clue #4– Not quite a rubber ducky, but close enough.
Reference to an Orca Whale toy I have decorating my bathroom. (It was part of a Barbie set I got as a kid where Barbie was a Trainer at Sea World)
Clue #5: Lost Dog- 3 legged, blind in one eye, missing left ear, broken tail. Answers to Lucky. Find the swag you have for this!
In New Hampshire there is a bar/restaurant called the Lucky Dog Grill which my Dad has a hat from. He had to find the hat which had the clue was tucked inside.
Clue #6: The house is on fire and we are trapped inside! Or are we?
Reference to the second floor where we have an emergency escape ladder in the hallway just in case.
Clue #7: This fairy gives 25 cents for each one you lose. Where would Mama Sophia put hers?
Dad had to look under a pillow my Mom uses, which in this case would be under the pillows on the daybed in my mom’s office.
Clue #8: Not the same one I broke juggling it home from the store but very similar! Oink, Oink!
Reference to a piggy bank in my room. The clue was taped to the bottom of it. (The first piggy bank I ever had my Dad bought it for me. I broke its ears off carrying it home because I swinging the bag around. We had to go back to the store and have it replaced the same day.)
Clue #9: What mom likes to play at a deafening volume. “Lou, Lou ____ to my Lou”
My mom likes to play her player piano in the living room at extremely loud volumes. My dad had to look in the piano bench and find the music book that had the song “Skip to my Lou.”
Clue #10: “Bless her beautiful hide, wherever she may be!”
Reference to an old family favorite movie, “7 Brides for 7 brothers.” He had to find the movie located among many movies in a giant bookshelf.
Clue #11: It’s the youngest but the oldest out of 6. Look up high.
Reference to my mom’s “new” used car which makes car #6 for our family of five. He had to look in the visor for the next clue.
ghetto fabulous
Clue #12: The end of the game! Leading you to the most important treasure of all. What I was going to throw out in NH before you rescued it.
Reference to a little chalkboard I was going to throw out while cleaning the kid’s game room at my grandma’s house. My Dad decided he could use it and saved it. It was currently sitting in the living room, leading him back to the same room where the hunt began.
I love you padre! ps. I owe you a reeses.
Day 30: “Play time. Work with toys: If you don’t have any, borrow some from a friend with kids, and maybe even work with the kids!”
For this assignment I was inspired by Colleen and her Visualassignment97: Using a Barbie, take a picture of a scene with 1 or more Barbies demonstrating one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Lust, Greed, Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony, Pride, and Envy.
I have no idea where my barbies are, but I do have some trolls that I bought for some projects last year.
Troll Invasion
I decided that for this project I wanted to focus on Greed.