It has been a long time since I’ve shared any of my ATC projects (last time was here).  ATCs stand for artist trading cards, and I meet with an ATC exchange group on the second Saturday of the month.  Tomorrow, as I write this.  We alternate between having a theme and not having a theme, and we do have a theme for tomorrow’s trade:

“Travel”.

Now, while I’ve been to quite a few of the United States, the only foreign countries I’ve ever touched so far has been Canada and England.  My husband, on the other hand, has traveled to so many countries because of work.  It makes me a bit envious, but he tries to console me by saying that work travel isn’t the same as pleasure travel.  I’m not totally convinced, especially when he shares with me that he is having an excellent dinner in a Swiss town near the Italian border (the company he works for has their world headquarters in Switzerland). Ironically, the custom of trading ATCs originated in Zurich, Switzerland.

So, I suppose, I’m an armchair traveler instead, reading about various countries and cultures.

Anyway, I used to be a stamp collector when I was a child, and still have my old stamp collecting album – these include stamps from countries that no longer exist, such as German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany).  A couple months back while shopping at Hobby Lobby, this memory must have compelled me to buy a bag of stamps from around the world.  I had an idea that maybe I could use them in a future collage project.  Instead, I used a few for this month’s ATC cards. 

I made a total of twelve, but took a picture of six of them for ease of viewing:

The paisley-shaped paper is actually from some envelopes made from maps, and I used an paisley shaped die-cutter.  And, as you can see, each card has three stamps on it — from different countries.  Then, I attached chipboard tags stamped with “GO” on each one, along with a mini-fake postmark stamp (which came with a set of alphabet letter stamps I already had –serendipity).  On the other side of the tag, I attached an USA stamp — a few found their way in the bag of ”world-wide” stamps.  So, the above picture shows either side of the tags.

Below, you can see one card.  This one is one of my favorites — it has a round stamp from Nippon (Japan).  In fact, this country has produced so many lovely stamps, and almost every one of the cards I made includes a stamp from Japan.

Sorting through the stamps in preparation of making the cards, this is one I came across (below):

Ceskoslovensko.  Aka Czechoslovakia.  Now split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  My husband and I were talking about it, and at one point got confused about how actually Slovakia might have been one of the countries fragmented from the former Yugoslavia.  Actually, Slovenia is one of those countries that was formed from the break-up of Yugoslavia.  It got me to thinking that I actually haven’t ever done much reading about Eastern Europe, especially post-Communist Eastern Europe.

So, any recommendations?  Any books — fiction or non fiction — about Eastern Europe that you think I’d like? 

Please share with me anything you think I’d enjoy.  No “Cold-War” espionage stuff, though.  I prefer books on the actual people and cultures (and perhaps the politics — if it’s not too dry), whether it’s fiction or non-fiction.  Thank you!

It seems like I’m currently on a roll, blogging-wise, right now!  I attribute it to a couple things — my husband is out of town (therefore, I stay up late reading; and the more books I finish, the more I have to blog about); and this week is a bit quieter than usual — my daughter is in a M-Th dance class from 9:30 AM to 12:30 AM all month (another mom is carpooling her this week), but also this week my younger son has been in a cub scout day camp that runs from 9-4, so there is quite a few hours that it is just my older son around; and he tends to sleeps in anyway.  I’m getting a taste of what it’ll be like when they all return to school in four weeks.  Yes, four weeks from now.   I won’t remind them of that fact, though!

Speaking of being on a roll, here are pictures of a pencil roll I recently made.  I wanted to do this project because of Danny Gregory’s books (see my review here of them) about drawing, and I needed a way to store a small sketchbook and pencils.   My pencil roll is based on directions from the book

“Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts”, by Joelle Hoverson, but I modified it.  The ties are some decorative yarn that I braided.  Sorry about the quality of the pictures; I took them with my iPhone.

Here is the pencil roll, all rolled up:

The unrolled back of the pencil roll:

And, the inside of the pencil roll:

The pattern could be modified for crochet hooks or knitting needles, as well.  I was inspired to show my pencil roll here, partly because it’s been such a long time since I’ve shown anything coming out of my studio (I hope to remedy that after the kids go back to school…in four weeks!) but also because Marie at The Boston Bibliophile  is taking a book-making class, and a couple of her recent projects have the same fabric way as my pencil roll.  Take a look  at her projects (with better photos) — pretty neat, and it’s a reminder how much I’d like to learn how to do bookmaking.

Are you on twitter?  If so, you might be interested in a couple (new to me) hashtags you’d like to follow: there’s #translationthurs in which Winstondad’s blog is asking us tweeps to recommend translated works every Thursday on twitter.  Tomorrow, among other translated works, I will probably mention “Girls of Riyadh” by Rajaa Alsanea; while the translation doesn’t feel flawless, it’s the most recent translated book I’ve read (working on a review of that now).

Also, on twitter, is the hashtag #followreader — see  Follow The Reader for more information.  They have a weekly twitter discussion on various bookish topics, and last week, it was about book bloggers and independent booksellers collaborating together in various ways.  Indirectly, as a result of this discussion, I discovered that  Tattered Cover  in Denver has an affiliate program.  I’m all for supporting indie booksellers, so I’ve signed up for this affiliate program — as a result, you will now see on my blog sidebar a widget that will take you to Tattered Cover’s website.  After I figure out more how this works (such as linking  book titles), I will be sure to disclose affiliation in blog posts, and any financial benefits I get from this (not much; but that isn’t the point of why I’m doing this).  I don’t get out into Denver often enough — it being an hour’s drive from home — but when I do, I love going into Tattered Cover. Be sure to check out Tattered Cover’s blog also, called Between the Covers.

I’m not sure how I found out about Sepia Mutiny, a cultural interest blog for and about the people of the South Asian diaspora (including those known as Desis) – perhaps I stumbled across it when looking for background info on one of the South Asian novels I’ve read — but at any rate, I’ve subscribed to the blog feed ever since. They have a recent post about a poetry book I now covet: “Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry”, edited by Neelanjana Banerjee, Summi Kaipa and Pireeni Sundaralingam – and what’s more, this post shares links going to almost all the poets featured in this book. 

 Read about “Indivisible” here at Sepia Mutiny.  Then go back there later for a Part II post they are planning based on this collection.

One last thing, again about poetry.  I subscribe to Poets.org‘s Poem-A-Day daily e-mails, and I especially like today’s poem, “The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart”, by Deborah Digges.  Here are the beginning lines, and go to this link to read the poem in its’ entirety.  What do you think of this poem?

The wind blows

through the doors of my heart.

It scatters my sheet music

that climbs like waves from the piano, free of the keys.

********

I hope that the rest of this week goes well for all of you!  Any interesting news or books that you would like to share?