I’ve been working with ASCII Art again this year. It’s been awhile since I was active in the old ASCII art groups or wrote about it for WZ.com as a newsletter. I can’t even find a mention of my ASCII art section with the Wayback for WZ.com. Anyway, too long ago to keep track of I guess. ASCII art itself is considered pretty old fashioned in the evolving world of online art/ digital illustration. I miss it. Those days before HTML email and Flash on websites. ASCII art gave the Internet images without clogging up the loading speed for email or web pages. It was nice. The irony is that we have so much faster speeds now but it really doesn’t load much faster than I remember from 10 years ago with a 14K modem. The bloated files slow it down.

ASCII art is basically keyboard art, text art, created with the characters on the standard computer keyboard. The letters, numbers and range of punctuation available at the touch of your fingertips. Some people use more characters and create ANSI art. I’ve always felt that was a bit of a cheat, adding more characters takes away the challenge of sticking to the limits set by the keyboard.

Back when IRC (Internet Relay Chat) was popular people used the ASCII Art to add images to their lines of chat. Using some Java and some HTML they created ASCII pictures in colour. The downside was that they used ASCII art, coloured it and then claimed it as their own work. This caused friction between the original artists and the colourists. The artists didn’t want their work reclaimed, with the artist initials removed (forgotten). The colourists said they just wanted to make pretty pictures. Of course, I’m a bit biased.

ASCII art began with typewriters, before the computer age. If you search online you can find some examples for typewriter art.

I’ve been using my own ASCII Art (old and new) as well as the art of others on my blog, Word Grrls.

Did anyone ever make you a cake with a doll in it? I never did get one, so far. I was at a birthday party where someone else had one. Her Mother had made it for her. My Mom and I made cakes, pies, preserves, puddings, cheesecakes, muffins, pizzas, cabbage rolls, strudel, we even took a crack at old fashioned pirogies. But, we did not make a doll cake.

As a kid I wondered if they made a hole in the cake first or just used the doll’s pointy toes to stuff her inside the cake. It’s not like she could complain. Now I know they must have cut the hole first. Otherwise the cake would need to be fixed smooth again before they could begin to add the first layer of icing.

Maybe, I will get inspired to make one for my nieces. Their birthdays are in the same month, kind of convenient for someone like myself who is not a great, or very patient, cake decorating type.

I found a pretty dolly cake recipe on the Philadelphia Cream Cheese site. This one is made with gelatin and cream cheese, not the typical cake.

Cake Fun’s Cake Magic has directions with photos that show how the dolly cake is constructed.

Cakeadelic has made her cakes with Barbie dolls in princess dresses. The bride is my favourite of these. Seen Fully Sedap also uses Barbie dolls.

The Kitchy Kitchen has the simplest design, not all the bows and flowers of the others and yet her cake is the prettiest, in my opinion. Not overly decorated, just pretty. She makes couture dolly cakes based on fashion looks.

Reader submitted photos of dolly cakes at Coolest Birthday Cakes. Doll in a cupcake on Easy Cupcakes.

Not so long ago I made a note for myself to write about those dolls they put inside the toilet paper rolls and then fancy up with a crocheted skirt. Have you seen any of those lately? I can remember seeing one at a Christmas bazaar a few years ago. I think they have lost something in popularity. The question is… what took their place? I don’t know. Maybe all those rolls are just left naked now. Seems a shame.

I know my Grandmother had one. Not the Grandmother I usually enjoyed visiting, except she did play Scrabble. It wasn’t easy to find Scrabble players when I was the oldest of my brother and sisters. I do remember she had a fancy crocheted doll with the legs stuck through the roll and the skirt pulled over the thick roll of paper around her legs. I thought it was clever. I didn’t know there were more of them out there. I’m quite sure it was white and yellow, a brunette doll.

Now, such a long time later, it would be kind of nice to see one of those dolls again. I might even crochet the pattern myself. I can easily pick up a dozen dolls cheap, recycled from the bin at the local thrift shop. It would be nice to give those poor dolls something to do, a job – rather than leaving them homeless.

Crochet N More – A pattern free for personal use.

Craft Bits – A pattern contributed in memory of Irene.

Crochet Pattern Central – A variety of patterns linked to. Covers for various items.

The lovely angel toilet roll cover doll comes from an Etsy shop, JacBerKitcsh.

SturmDM has an doll with an Irish dress, quite fancy.

Lankfords2designs has a doll with a very lovely full skirt.

Lately I keep finding these photos of characters people have drawn on their fingers. They are cute, some are even very clever.

I posted  two on my personal blog, Finger People and Finger Dancers.

I’m going to take this idea with me next time I visit my nieces. They will have a lot of fun, glad to have an excuse to draw on themselves. We will get out all the coloured markers, the construction paper too. I can make hats for them to cover the tip of each finger they draw a face on.

Here are some more. Mainly links to groups on Flickr where people have posted their own creations.

• Digit Face and on Flickr and Facebook.
• Flickr: Finger Folks
• Flickr: Finger People
• Flickr: The Finger Family

If my life had gone differently in my earlier years I think I would have become an architect. I love buildings and all the trimmings. I’m still trying to teach myself all the right names for the parts of buildings. I go out and take photos of old buildings, mainly derelict farm houses here in Ontario. I also like going to the main street of a small town or city and looking up. That’s where you see the fancy parts of old stores, homes and banks. Most of the old parts below have been renovated away.

Maybe I never would have been a great architect. I like the old stuff too much to make the modern looking type of building with more right angles than curves and more sensible and practical elements than elegant columns, gargoyles and gingerbread trim. It would be hard to design something just to stand there rather than to pose there.

I am still very attracted to anything building/ house related. Art with houses draws my eye. Even fiction about a house stops me long enough to at least skim it. The old woman living in a shoe caught my imagination from a young age. How did she live in that shoe? Did she use the laces to cool the house off in winter and then tie them up tight again to keep warm in winter? How did she put a roof on the shoe, was the sock still around to be stuffed over head? Did she make the eyelets for the laces into windows? Did she put the door back at the heel where it would have been strong but had that higher step down or somewhere else? So many questions. Living in a shoe didn’t seem that appealing all things considered.

I’d rather live in a castle, except I’d like a much smaller and cosier version of a castle than a real castle. A castle like Dr. Who’s Tardis, bigger on the inside than the outside could work well. Like the Tardis, no one ever seems to need to clean it either.

I have drawn my perfect house. It was harder to pick the location than the decide on what I wanted inside the house. But the harder part still was to limit myself to less rather than more when it comes to how the outside of the house will look. There are so many great old things that could be added. Small like old iron doorknobs to huge like a dragon sculpture taking up a large part of the garden.

I enjoy drawing unusual houses. I’ve drawn the shoe house. I’ve drawn a house made in a teacup. I’ve drawn a plan for how very small people would live in the standard sized world. I’ve drawn magical houses for elves, fairies and of course dragons too.

There is something special about a house, any building really. People make them, plan them, live and work in them. Keep them. Repair them. It’s saddest of all when a place is abandoned and left to the elements. There is a mystery to the abandoned places. Something time and people forgot. I never feel they are creepy or haunted. just sad and yet still dignified and majestic in some way. We give a house a power by it’s creation and everything we put into it beyond that point. You can’t just lose that when the house is empty. It’s there, right in the very design.

I think I would have been an amazing architect.

I have a strange relationship to jewelry. I really like it but I don’t actually wear it. I collect some, but I don’t have it displayed. My jewelry box is located on the top shelf of my messy closet. Right now I would have to move other things out of the way to be able to reach it and bring it down to see.

It’s ironic that I really do like jewelry. No one would guess of anyone who knows me. Maybe it has something to do with my self image, my weight and the way I feel about that. I don’t enjoy dressing up the way I used to. My idea of jewels I would actually wear are limited to things I can pin on my clothes rather than things I can wrap around my neck or wrists or have close to my face in any way.

I like to look at jewelry online. I look and window shop until I find something I love and then I keep the image of it and store it away on my computer hard drive. I have even begun a blog which lets me look at jewelry and post it for others who might actually have the money and self image to buy it (and then wear it!). I call the blog Divorce Darling. The name came from thinking of those glamorous ladies like the Gabor sisters, Mae West and the others who were known to go through men and divorces with flair, elegance and a good laugh at it all. So darling, that’s my story.

I’ve been finding a few jewelry designers as I look at jewelry online. There is some really nice work and some really average stuff. I noticed that a lot of the jewelry made for Etsy stores is all very much alike each other. They must all get the same kind of supplies and then are limited in what they can create different from each other. I’ve learned that you need to go farther than Etsy to find something really unique, glamorous and gorgeous. I don’t know which is the best I have found so far. Besides, everyone has their own taste and style so my favourite might leave someone else wondering what I liked about it so much. That’s how it goes.

Have you tried making jewelry? There are so many ways you can make a necklace: macrame, beading, just stringing something from a strip of leather turns it into a necklace. Necklaces are simple in that way. Chances are every woman has made a necklace at some point in her life. If I ever pull out my jewelry box I have several necklaces I have made over the years. I should give them to my nieces, someday, not quite yet… I’m hanging onto them for myself awhile still.

I started reading about using pop cans to make pretty tin boxes at Mag Ruffman’s Tool Girl site. I wonder if someone has used this technique to make a tin ceiling. That would be pretty thrifty, crafty and pretty smart recycling too.

I wanted to see other ideas for working with beer and pop/ soda cans. Some were pretty basic, just using them as a can to store things in. Decorating them with things like scraps of fabric, wallpaper, and so on. Squishing them up, adding stuffed animal parts and making them look like road kill, that seemed a little drastic in some way. I was looking for more interesting and unique ideas. Things people really can use and want to have.

I found some links to ideas for re-purposing tin cans in a post on Squidoo. eHow had a post about using recycled soda cans too. Of course, Flickr was where I found the art made with tin cans of all sorts: Altered Tin Can Altered Art in a Tin JimShoresArt has Can-do Fan Tab ulous Aluminum and Tin Can Art

Helen Harle has a book showing how to create jewelry with upcycling pop cans. Create Colorful Aluminum Jewelry: Upcycle cans into vibrant necklaces, rings, earrings, pins, & bracelets.

My Mother taught me how to pop off the head of a dandelion and use the stem to make a chain link. One summer we made endless dandelion chain necklaces, bracelets too, all while weeding the lawn. I think she found a win-win situation to keep the kids busy and get her dandelions dug out of the grass. But, we did stick at it for a long time and (of course) my ultra competitive sister turned it into a contest to see who could have the longest chain that would not snap or slip apart when we stood up to parade around with them. It was fun as those little outdoor things are, especially when you are a kid.

At some point I learned how to make the daisy and dandelion chains which kept the flowerhead on. I did attempt to make them when I got home but by that time I had forgotten some of the steps so I never did get very successful in making flower jewelry.

Is this a lost art now? Do people still sit in a park or out on the front lawn and teach their kids how to make flower chains, crowns and necklaces? I thought it would be interesting to find the directions again. I think it would be part of wildcrafting sites and blogs online.

Our Big Earth: Nature Crafts – Flower Chains

Examiner.com: How to make a dandelion chain for Weed Appreciation Day

Active Kids Club: Dandelion Secrets

The Crafty Crow: Dandelion Daisy Chain Tutorial

WikiHow: How to Tie a Clover Flower Chain

Flickr: Dandelion Divine

Flickr: Obsessive Dandelion Photographers

Flickr: The Dandelions

Flickr: Dandelion

Horses are not as easy to draw as you may think. There is a slim line between a horse and a donkey or a mule. Add a few stripes and it can look like a zebra. Extend the neck and you’ve got a giraffe. Here are two horses I have tried to draw.

I’ve caught some kind of a bug. Here is a drawing of the little beastie. Let’s see your own version of nasty little viral bugs.

This week for Doodle Week try to draw a car. Any style, any price range, any colour.

For inspiration have a look at the Flickr groups for Car Cartoons and Cars that never made it.

Doodle Week is open all week. Drive right on up!

This week it’s cityscapes. You can do some extra work, a little research and draw your own cityscape. Or make one up. Kind of nice to think of a unique way to present it. I drew this one on a big blue marble, representing the planet. Not quite to scale.

Want to know what Doodle Week is about? Read all about it.

What is it about lighthouses that draws people? People collect lighthouses figurines. People paint and draw lighthouses. People will stop to photograph a lighthouse even when there could be something else more interesting which they did not even notice in the shadow of that mystical, lonely, stark looking building poking the sky.

I think it is the romance, mystery, history and the feeling of adventure – surviving storms at sea and pounding waves. The idea of steadfast lighthouse keepers, daring rescues and pirates hiding their treasure exposed in the roving splash of a beam of light.

They are kind of fun to draw. Even more fun to be down at the water, hearing it, smelling it.

Photo Galleries of Lighthouses:

• Lighthouse Trek
• Lighthouse Lovers
• Scenic Lighthouses
• Lighthouse Gallery
• Lighthouses of the World
• Lighthouses of the World- Second group with the same name.
• Lighthouses Worldwide
• Universal Lighthouses
• Rock (Really Remote) Lighthouses of the World
• Lighthouses and Beacons in Europe
• Canadian Lighthouses
• Great Lakes Lighthouses
• Irish Lighthouses
• British Lighthouses
• South African Lighthouses
• Australia Lighthouses
• Icelandic Lighthouses
• Lighthouse in Japan

Lighthouses as Art:

• Lighthouses in Artwork
• Lighthouses on Postcards
• Lighthouse Postcards
• Panoramic Lighthouses

Lighthouses Visited/ Documented:

• World Lighthouse Society
• Lighthouse Friends: Documenting lighthouses in the US and some in Canada too.
• Lighthouse Baggers: Lighthouse enthusiasts/ explorers on Flickr.
• Lighthouse News
• American Lighthouse Foundation
• United States Lighthouse Society
• Lighthouse Enthusiasts Headquarters
• Haunted Lighthouses Page
• Haunted Lighthouses, Legends and Lore
• About.com: Haunted Lighthouses
• The Lighthouse Guides
• Lighthousing.net: Forums
• Association of Lighthouse Keepers
• Lighthouses of Australia
• The Lighthouse Directory
• Sea the Lights.com
• Lighthouse Central

Welcome to Doodle Week. You have a week to try the doodle challenge. This week it’s a toadstool, a fairy mushroom. Highly suggest you draw them and do not ever snack on them. Add a fairy, a gnome or just some every garden insects to your toadstool. Colour them, the traditional look is red with white spots. Just remember, bad things tend to happen to those who nibble on toadstools and just because those fairies are all magical and sparkly does not mean they are sweet, little angels.

From Wikipedia: The term “toadstool” was often, but not exclusively, applied to poisonous mushrooms or to those that have the classic umbrella-like cap-and-stem form.

This week it’s gargoyles. I’m about to catch the bus so I can attend a neighbourhood strategy session about saving some of the old buildings in my town. Will see how it goes. I love the old places and would like to see some of them refurbished if they can be saved from demolition. Anyway, that is why the doodle for this week is gargoyles.

You can find a simple gargoyle to draw, just search online for inspiration. No drawing has to be complicated, unless you want to be that way.

Happy drawing!

If you need to read about Doodle Week go back to the post all about it.

This time around the doodle theme is cats. I like cats, their independence, mysteriousness and that feeling that you never quite know which of you is the pet, the cat or yourself.

If you need to read about Doodle Week go back to the post all about it.

If you are in Canada and have the long weekend, take this as a time to extend your doodling till Monday, which is Family Day, here. Get everyone to doodle and post them all. If you live in a rural town or city (as I do) there will be no bus service on a holiday so you will have all that time to doodle. How about doodling the adventures of Mad Manx, the really cool (but tail-less) cat?

Happy Drawing!

When birdhouses started coming out as a yard ornament of style I was glad. Until I realized many of them were not meant to actually be used by birds. The fancier houses with pretty colours and accessories will keep the birds away. Birds don’t trust birdhouses with a lot of extra trimmings and odd smells.

Wooden houses are best as the wood is able to breathe. However the wood inside the birdhouse should not be chemically treated as this could harm the birds. Make sure any birdhouse you use has ventilation to let in air and light and yet not so many access holes that predators can get in. Also, a birdhouse needs enough space inside for the growing family along with their nest. Different types of birds have different requirements for space and colours which attract them. Building (or even buying) a practical birdhouse is an art.

The North American native people are credited with starting birdhouses in North America. They created birdhouses out of gourds for martins to protect their drying meat and corn crops. They attracted the birds to be scarecrows.

This Flickr group for Old Birdhouses is my favourite link of those I found for birdhouses. I already love seeing and exploring old buildings, I never thought to look for a group about old birdhouses. I’ve seen a few during my explorations. Although, a farm or other property can be a abandoned, the birdhouses are more likely to be in use by birds when there are seldom any people around. So I can’t really think of birdhouses as abandoned, just aged and weathered.

For the bird lovers:

• Flickr: Birdhouses and Birdfeeders
• About: Birding and Wild Birds
• Audubon Christmas Bird Count
• Wild Bird Watching
• Google Groups: alt.birdwatching
• Chatterbirds – Birdwatching Community

For the arts and crafts lovers:

• Flickr: Ornamental Birdhouses and Feeders
• Flickr: Altered Birdhouses
• Flickr: Birdhouse Artists
• Etsy: Birdhouse Blessings
• Etsy: ArtyBeccaStash
• Etsy: Creations by KarenH
• Etsy: A Country Way
• Etsy: Julieanna’s Creations
• ArtFire: Joysmoon
• ArtFire: Brunswick Birdhouse Creations
• ArtFire: Pals Creations

Wild Birds Forever has a pretty cool bird feeder. It’s not a birdhouse but I love the idea of leaving fruit out for the birds in this way. Much simpler than a lot of feeders I have seen and very easy to keep it clean and restocked.

Share your doodles. Post your link here in the comments. If you need inspiration look for birdhouses online. There were a lot of them. Some very ellaborate. Mine is kind of simple but I like how this one turned out.

Read about Doodle Week, the rules, regulations and standardizations (whatever that turns out to be). Mainly, just doodle something birdhouse related and join in.

Spring seems too far away as we get more snow each day.  Think of a flower or draw a whole bouquet!

Sometimes I feel full of ideas and can just begin to write. From one idea others build and flow and soon it becomes a might river. But, other times… I may be having a bad day, I may have too many things on my mind, I may just not know where to start, lots of things can make it hard to begin. Writing exercies are a good way to bring yourself back to focus on your writing. With some work, the words can soon be flowing again.

Here are writing exercises which challenge you to tell a story in limited words, letters or paragraphs. Or, provide you with specific topics to write about.

• 200 Characters
• 200 Sacred Words
• 50 Word Story
• 500 Words a Day Challenge
• Ficly
• I Want… Wednesday
• IComWeLeave
• Letters That I’ll Never Send
• Manic Monday
• Meme Express
• National Blog Posting Month
• National Novel Writing Month
• One Minute Writer
• One Question Interviews
• One Sentence
• Paragraph Planet – 75 words.
• Poetry Play Thursday
• Post It Note Tuesday
• Seven Days Seven Answers
• Six Sentences
• Six Word Saturdays
• Snackie Sunday

This week it’s stick figure girls (or women if you prefer).  There are lots of variations in drawing a stick figure, have a look online and see which sort you like.

This week the inspiration to doodle comes from the tiny world in a teacup pincushions from Mimi K. She has the pattern for sale if you would like to make one. Your doodle can be your start at creating your own little world.

Before you start to draw think about what kind of world you want to create. A rural or urban landscape, maybe a city skyline? What season will it be? What kind of pattern will be on your teacup? I went with flowery for mine but it could have gone with a winter snowflake pattern to suit the snow and snowman on my little world.

Try one, it’s fun to create your own tiny world in a teacup.

This weekend will be the first Doodle Week at U3. January 9th and 10th are the days for you to create your drawing and post it to your blog. Then link back here in the comments to show off your work.

The theme will be dollies, more properly known as dolls. For inspiration have a look at the Flickr group called Dolly Doodles. There are a lot of ways to draw dolls, simple, cute, pretty, complicated or just sweet and simple. What kind of doll will you draw?

Word Grrls has a post with 101 + Links for Doodling and Drawing by Hand.

This photo comes from GreenMarie on Flickr.

Taken literally, an art doll could be a pile of rocks with some kind of face created on it. Art dolls can be far more unique and extraordinary than the traditional dolls we (most of us) grew up with. Some of them are just as cute, sweet and adorable as our wonderful cuddly Raggedy Ann dolls. (My Mother made my Raggedy Ann and others, but I still have Ann).  Some of them take pride in being ugly and yet in some odd way they are still lovable, if you give them a chance.  Then, there are some gruesome dolls, the kind of doll that may give a child nightmares. Just imagine waking up with one of those on the pillow next to you.

Art dolls can be made out of anything: fabric, paper, clay, etc. There are standards for being human in basic structure. They may be missing an eye or have a misshapen face, but there is still a face of some kind.

I admit to having a soft spot for the cloth dolls, like my old Raggedy Ann with the grey hair my Mother gave her. Now and then when I’m shopping at a thrift store I pick out a new outfit for old Ann. I find something in great shape still and yet not something anyone is likely to buy for a child to wear. After all, Ann is still just a doll. But, lucky for her, her clothes always fit and last forever since she never gets them stained and they only seem to need a little brushing off now and then.

If you were making an art doll what kind would you create?

Art Doll Groups:

• The Professional Doll Makers Art Guild
• International Association of Doll Artists
• United Federation of Doll Clubs
• National Institute of American Doll Artists
• Original Doll Artist Council of America
• Canadian Doll Artists Association
• Cloth Doll Connection
• The Original Paper Doll Artists Guild

Does anyone know of more international or regional groups outside of North America? I tried to find them but no luck.

Photos, galleries and ideas for making some art dolls of your own:

• Flickr: Art Dolls
• Flickr: Art Dollz
• Flickr: Art Dolls Only
• Flickr: Handmade Original Dolls
• Flickr: Fabric Dolls
• Flickr: Scary Dolls
• Flickr: Creepy Dolls
• Flickr: Ugly Art Dolls
• Flickr: Strange Dolls
• Etsy: Snippet Fairy
• Etsy: Deviant Dollies
• Etsy: Doll Project
• Etsy: Stuff Made by Sweet Pea
• Etsy: Gingermelon
• Etsy: Twig’s Faerie Land
• Etsy: Finger Stuck Felts
• Etsy: I Heart Dolly
• Etsy: Megan’s Flower Dolls
• Etsy: Danner’s Place
• Judi’s Art Dolls
• Diane Keeler’s Fine Art Dolls
• Kobe Dolls
• Cafe Press: Karla Ruiz
• Anna Zueva
• Elizabeth Cooper
• Facebook: Art Dolls Only
• Beaded Art Dolls

The image used with this post comes from Green Marie.