The Next Craft Cafe - Personalized Glass Rings - Friday, July 22nd

Glass enthusiasts. We want you!
Come one, come all to make chunky glass rings.

These rings make amazing gifts with personalized images. We will have many funky images to choose from, but bring any small (1" square) photos you may want to use. Photo paper and colour copies work best, printer images on regular paper may bleed. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions...

The Wild Flour will be open for delicious snacks, and drinks.

Cost: 30$
Participants will have the option to make additional rings and/or pendants for 10$.

Payment is considered registration. Please sign up at the Wild Flour to confirm your spot. Or leave a comment below if you want to come. Space is limited.

Spread the word and bring artisan crafty women along...

Ring by Tiffany Teske, using vintage bird illustration

Welcome to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada!! Photo Essay, Part One

This trip has been in the making for about three and a half years. Back in January of 2008, I hosted a digital travel photography workshop in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. A friend of mine from Ottawa, Izabel Barsive, spread the word and I ended up with an amazing woman, Tawna Brown, and her friend Rachel, from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, in my workshop. Since then, Tawna has been inviting me to come to Yellowknife. She is so passionate about the city she grew up in, that I had to come. She doesn't work for the tourism board, but she is the first person I have ever met who carries around travel DVDs about her city. She also gave me a luggage tag, that when she picked us up at the airport today she recognized. She should be paid for all the efforts she makes to bring people to her city.

This summer, the stars aligned, and we were finally able to take her up on her offer to visit Yellowknife. We usually spend over a month visiting family in Ottawa and Minneapolis, but this year, we did that in May. So, we were able to take advantage of the fact that Yellowknife is in our region when it comes to frequent flyer miles, and we were able to book this trip. Also, due to the generosity of Tawna, who has opened her home to us.

Driving through Banff National Park on the way to Calgary

Our beautiful backyard

In the air...

One of many out the window shots....

Touching down on the runway in YK

To be continued, as we are off to play...

New Work - Maternity Shoot for Polaroid Transfer Originals

Commissioned Polaroid Transfer 2011

This may be one of my final Polaroid transfers. After stocking up on 669 film after Polaroid announced they would cease to produce it, people would ask me what I was going to do when it all ran out. Well, I have had a good long run with Polaroid processes, and I like change. If you do something for too long you run the risk of falling into a rut. I decided that when my 669 was gone, I would either stop and do something else or I would find a new way to make transfers and emulsion lifts. I will write more on what I have decided to do, soon. But for now, I wanted to share that I am down to one box of 669 (!!). And in the past month I have had a very exciting time using up my expired film. It has not been without incident, though, since the chemistry has been acting up. Everything I have made in the past year or so has had sepia toned streaks that no matter how many times I cleaned my rollers, I could not stop. While part of the ArtsPeak Studio Tour this year, I gave demos on transfers and emulsion lifts. I had 6 hours straight two days in a row to work. At this point, I had already shot a maternity session, that I was hired to do because the mom-to-be was enamoured with a transfer (you can see it below) I had given to my midwife, who is also her midwife. She commissioned me to make two transfers. But that weekend I began to wonder if I was going to be able to fulfill her request. But with the time to work I turned panic into a solution with some trial and error. I let the transfers that I had made dry, then I put them back in water and rubbed off the brown staining with the tips of my fingers. It worked remarkably well. And it made me feel really good that after 10 years of working with this process I was able to learn something new, something that would also save the day on this commission. Phew! I am so glad I could make this image...

The inspiration for the above transfer was an image I made if my dear friend, Cristina, when she was pregnant with her son, Francis. I think this was taken in 2004, but my memory is not as good as it used to be...

The Next Craft Cafe - Nature Inspired Bird Nest Pendants and Earrings - July 10th, 2011

I am so excited for the next Craft Cafe! My friend, Sheena Miller & I, started Craft Cafe this spring. I haven't been posting about it here because the intention was to make a blog just for CC. And I will be doing that SOON! But for now, I wanted to get the word out about our latest craft workshop...

Aren't these bird nest pendants adorable?! I LOVE them! I have been making them for a couple of weeks now and they are completely addictive. They are adaptable, so you can make a larger pendant or a smaller pair of earrings. They can be made without the loop at the top, but with a hidden jump ring in the back. I actually want to start sewing them onto my mixed media pieces, too. Many, many possibilities, especially for colours of eggs (beads) and wire colour combinations!

If you are in the Bow Valley and would like to join us for Craft Cafe, here is the info for this workshop...

Calling all crafty and nature inspired women to come make a unique handmade bird-nest pendant or earring set.

Cost is $20. Please sign up and pre pay at Wild Flour by Saturday, July 9th at 6 PM. If you would rather pay online, please contact Tiffany to have a Paypal invoice emailed to you.

These make amazing gifts for the nature enthusiast. Participants will have the option to make additional pieces for $10.

The Wild Flour will be open for delicious snacks and drinks.

Spread the word and bring a jewelry lover!! Space is limited to 20 and people are signing up quickly.

If you are interested in being part of this workshop, in being on the Craft Cafe email list, would like to have Craft Cafe come to your event, or if you have questions please leave a comment below, and I will get back to you quickly. You can also check out our Facebook Group. I hope to see some of you this Sunday!

Wicked Cool Campers!

I live in a place where there are more tourists than locals, especially in the summer. People from all over the world come to Banff, making it one of the most visited National Parks in the world, with 4.5 million visitors a year. I appreciate the tourists, because otherwise I couldn't live here. I love to see these people enjoying my backyard. I also love that everyday is different and I never know what I will see. This weekend, while going to the Community Greenhouse to water our plot, I saw this camper. It is from Wicked Campers, which have offices beyond North America, in places like the UK and Australia. Andre, my husband, & I, lived for 2 months in a VW van, known as a Kombi, in Australia, with a friend of ours. Three's a crowd? Yes, at times... but rather than break up after the trip, Andre decided he loved me, foibles and all, and proposed 6 months later... anyway, back to this fun camper. It made me smile, and grab my camera. I even went to their website and found out that you can rent one of there campers for as low as $31.50 a day, when booking for more than one day. That's a good price!

As for who paints their campers and thinks up the fun sayings, it is all done by volunteers. Well, actually maybe not all of it, but there is a page about how you can volunteer to paint, write sayings for, and even fix the campers. I do get a bit sick of how artists are always asked to volunteer their services but this would be a fun project if someone was able to volunteer their creative talents.

Are any of you going camping this summer? Do you go camper style or back country tent style?