Mosaic Monday

Fondue!

1. thrifty finds..., 2. Chocolate Fondue, 3. Fondue à Tokyo, 4. Have a "cheesy" weekend!

We had toffee fondue last night & I'm planning on making a cheese fondue later this week. I want to try out a few recipes before Christmas!

Post your mosaic & add your link here:

Science Tarot

My sister-in-law, Terri-Anne, first introduced me to tarot cards. She's really into it, has a few decks & gives me a reading about every 6 months, whenever I'm home. My readings are usually pretty accurate with the situation I'm in at the time, helping to clarify some issues & suggests some directions to take.

So when one of my MSOE team members declared that they were putting together a Science Tarot deck, I just knew I had to get myself one. It came in a few weeks ago. First, I must say, the quality is superb. The box, booklet & deck are all top quality.

The artwork on each card is gorgeous too.

The minor arcana (the suits: wands, pentacles, swords & cups) & the major arcana are each illustrated by different artists:

Now that alone would be pretty awesome, but there's way more to this deck than that. There's a whole story behind the deck that makes it pretty amazing. Each of the 4 suits tells an individual tale but when you put them together, you get the big picture.

Let me try to explain...

For each suit, there are 10 cards (Ace to 10) plus the 4 face cards (page, knight, queen & king). The 10 cards tell a story using a typical plot found in the myths & fables of most cultures: "the hero's journey." Step 1 is a call to adventure, step 4 is the threshold marking the beginning of the adventure, step 8 is using knowledge gained to defeat the dragon, & so on. In this way, the 10 steps or cards brings us along a journey of scientific discovery.

The face cards are leading scientists in the field (each suit deals with different fields of science): the page is an explorer, the knight an innovator, the queen a storyteller & the king is a visionary. Each of these face cards is associated with a symbolic neurotransmitter that chemically represents its personality (the page is dopamine, the knight is serotonin, the queen is oxytocin & the king is testosterone) - the chemical structure of these transmitters are incorporated into the artwork on the cards!

We start with the suit of wands:

This suit is the story of creation: it tells of the formation of stars, using concepts in astronomy & cosmology.

The next suit is the suit of pentacles:

Pentacles are about exchange: they tell the story of the formation of planets through molecules. This suit incorporates ideas from chemistry & geology.

We then move on to swords:

This is a suit of observation - from matter emerges consciousness. This incorporates physics, mathematics & the scientific methods: ways we observe & try to explain our world.

This suit has some of my favourite artwork:

Finally we end with the cups:

This suit is one of integration. This suit deals with biology & ecology, exploring how we interact with the world.

So as you can see, each suit tells its own story, but together, they tell us how the world was formed: from the big bang to evolution. Each topic was picked carefully & thoughtfully. Definitely a huge undertaking for these scientists / artists!

Now let's take a look at the major arcana. In the typical tarot deck, these are people / concepts, such as the lovers, the hermit, the sun, the star, etc. Each one has been carefully associated with a powerful & significant scientific moment or story in this science deck:

So for example, the wheel of fortune becomes Schrödinger's cat (a thought experiment on quantum theory) & judgement is natural selection (the ultimate judge). The fool? He's the student.

As you can see, there's a lot more to this deck than just a few pretty pictures of scientists! Each concept was carefully chosen to reflect the original deck & tell us science's story. This deck is definitely an heirloom work of art & so much more. I know I'll be turning to it again & again over the years, discovering something new each time.

Moo Cards

I've been using mini MOO cards as business cards - I like their small size & the quality of MOO printing is exceptional. I'm almost out though - so when I found out that there's a 30% off sale at MOO this weekend, I ordered some. Last time I went with product photos on the backs & they didn't turn out as awesome as I'd hoped. So this time, I wanted something brighter & a little more recognizable / branded. Since I use my Klimt goddesses as avatars on Etsy, I figured these would be perfect.

Luckily, I had some nice scans of these original collages - not all of them, but I think I got a good diversity of faces.

I just cropped the images to MOO card size - I think they look great in both orientations:

While browsing for more good photos that I could use, I found these of another goddess (Skadi) & my art doll, Jemima. I think they work well as MOO cards too:

I can't wait to get these! When I do, I might copy a genius idea by the lovely Kate of scientific_culture & make them into little bookmarks, depending on how they look with a hole & ribbon on one end. They'd be perfect to give away at my craft show - if I get them in time! I'll make sure to show them off when they come in the mail!

Friday Five

This is what I woke up to this morning:

Makes me want to stay in, craft all day. Unfortunately, I do need to go into work for a bit & set up some experiments... I should be able to spend the afternoon at my desk though. My craft show is rapidly approaching; I've been trying hard to get my butt in gear. Here's what I was up to this week:

1. Monday I was good about writing for NaNoWriMo... but the last 3 days I haven't written more than a dozen words. I've fallen way behind. Damn. I'm going to try to devote some time today to writing. Although not as important as preparing for my craft show, I would still like to be able to say I won NaNo.
2. So what have I done to prepare for my craft show? I've stitched together some mini notebook sets & cut out lots of holiday tags: Yesterday I stitched together some tissue cozies: I also cut out some more wine & tissue cozies: I want these sewn goods to be well stocked for my show.
3. I also worked on finishing up these custom notebooks (that have taken me too long already). I bound one: I also cut into the fabric & covered the book board for this one (I'm always reluctant / nervous when gluing down such pretty fabric - but then always so pleased with how it turned out): Now I just need to get to sewing up the other small one & making a trip to Michael's to purchase some eyelets to be able to complete the larger two.
4. Right after finishing up TAing lab on Wednesday, my cell phone rang, which is rare. I answered, wary. "Hello?" "Finally!" I didn't recognize the voice that was exasperated with me. I think I said something eloquent, like "Huh?" trying to figure out what was going on. Was it a wrong number or was something really wrong? "Jaden has been trying to call you all night!" Oooooooooh! Realization dawns. It's my brother, Matt - his daughter's birthday was Wednesday. She was calling to thank me for the gift I sent. I had a sweet conversation with her in the hall outside the lab room. Made this Auntie smile.
5. I listed some more holiday mini notebook sets:

My Creative Space

I've been really busy these last couple weeks with my Master's work but I've been trying to spend as much time in my creative space as possible. I need to finish up a couple of custom orders that have been dragging & get ready for my holiday craft show that's rapidly approaching. So here's what's on my desk this week:

The covers for 3 of the notebooks I'm working on. Of course I didn't calculate properly (& messed one up) so I ran out of eyelets. I'll need to make a run to Micheal's before I can finish these up.

But the 2 smaller ones are ready to be stitched up.

Speaking of stitching, I also spent a couple hours with my sewing machine this week. Earlier in the month, I cut out some fabric for wine cozies, but never got around to sewing them up. So I cut some ribbons & got my machine going.

I have 11 finished cozies now. A good start for my craft show I think.

Now I need to get cracking on some tissue cozies & holiday paper globe ornaments!

Check out some fabulous creative spaces over at kootoyoo.

Wordless Wednesday

My Holiday Cookie Challenge (Progress)

Last week I decided to challenge myself to try all the cookie recipes in a magazine I picked up - Sunday, I crossed 2 more of those off the list. Here's how they turned out:

First I started off making the shortbread dough for the cappuccino slices - vanilla & espresso-flavoured, rolling them into flattened logs & stacking them together.

The dough had to chill so that it could be sliced nicely.

In the meantime, I made lassy mogs.

As the caption says, these cookies are flavoured with molasses, as well as cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg & allspice. They're full of oats, pecans, dates & raisins.

They baked up beautiful (the oven at a lower temperature than called for) - but were perhaps a bit crisper than I expected & would have liked.

Still they were delicious (& the dates were easily hidden as raisins, hehehe).

Next, I baked up the cappuccino slices. These also turned out perfectly.

Crisp like a shortbread & nicely flavoured with the espresso - they'd be great dipped in milk or hot chocolate.

Both Pat & I loved these as well. Success!

Mosaic Monday

NaNoWriMo!

1. NaNoWriMo '09, 2. NaNoWriMo begins, 3. NaNoWriMo: the home front, 4. Word Count on Day 4. | NaNoWriMo

Want to join in the fun?

Make a mosaic (I use this mosaic maker), blog it & then add a link to your blog post (not just to your blog) below: