Oddball stumbles

Curious Eggs

The Oddment Emporium

Urban Dictionary

Downton Abbey Redesigns

Gaping Void

Oddity Central

Do Nothing for 2 Minutes

Museum of Endangered Sounds

Duct Tape Fashion

Dooce

A Bad Case of the Dates

10 text & typography stumbles

Yesterday's posted graphic was concrete evidence that my typographic skills are weak.

Today, I came across an example of a book cover that made it past the editing stage (note the subtitle). I'm quite sure that publisher had not intended for that to happen. This example gave me pause to think about improving my text skills, too.

I found some stumbles that will help address that lack of expertise. Here's an open invitation to come learn along with me.

TEXT
- proofreading and editing for spelling, grammar, punctuation and capitalization
Dictionary
Grammar

TEXT & FONT USAGE
I Love Typography: contrast, size, hierarchy and space
Pro Blog Design: improve readability

FONTS
- free for personal use
Dafont
Fontspace

ONLINE TOOLS
Typetester: compare fonts for the screen
TypeNavigator: visual font search system

TYPOGRAPHY
- text based, graphic creation
Webdesigner Depot: web typography rules
GraphicMania: Photoshop text effects tutorials

10 illustration stumbles

One of my favourite passtimes is looking at artists' illustrations. They inspire differing viewpoints. Here's hoping you enjoy these artists as much as I do.

Ana Botezatu

Sylvia Park

Geninne's Art Blog

Scott Barry

Marc Johns

ColorBlok Inc.

Brett Manning

Rebecca Saylor Sack

Stephen Daoud

Alice Stephenson

10 free pattern stumbles

Mailee Lor's Pinterest page: Oodles of paper craft, packaging templates.

Martha Stewart: a tutorial with a link to the free template for making cheery, little parasols to embellish beverages.

Papercraft Inspirations: free, downloadable, paper craft projects.

Free Your Soul - the free art project: lots of lovely, free art images for cards, framing, etc.

Moda Bake Shop: free quilt patterns

Sarah Jane Studios: 3 free templates to make framed, gallery prints.

Wee Folk Art: Free, downloadable, craft patterns.

Eat Drink Chic: make some authentic vintage paper labels with this tutorial and link to the free, downloadable herb labels.

Greetings with Patterns: a collection 21 free, paper cutting, greeting card patterns.

The Long Thread: a tutorial and 2 free, downloadable templates to make a felt, Little Red Riding Hood doll.

10 detours to silly stumbles

Some stuff and nonsense to browse through on this rainy, Sunday evening.


Pets That Want to Kill Themselves: Totally self-explanatory.

Life Lesson #132 - Twitter: Status updates put into proper perspective.

Bank Refuses $80K Loan; Annoyed Man Withdraws $190K From Bank!: Quote from the page, "Having decided to withdraw his money, he then decided to make it hard for the bank by requesting payment in $20 bills." Serves that stupid bank right.

The PSB Gallery of Thrift Store Art: Some bizarre pieces in this gallery.

Awful Library Books: Egads & gadzooks! There is no hyperbole involved in the name of this web site.

43 Weird Things Said in Job Interviews: What a bunch of dough heads.

NY Times Designer Lid: Some craft ideas should be left as that: ideas.

Girl Falls into Manhole While Texting: Parents Sue: I guess any other response would include responsibility, which I'm guessing is not a strong point for this child and her parents.

Tattoos: From the Eco-Themed to the Under-Skin Touch Screen: You MUST see the touch screen.

The Grizzly Bear Chair: Presented to Andrew Jackson in 1865.

Puhlease, People: Hello Kitty mansion. OK, OK, I confess...I put it in because I think it's cute. Sue me!

10 vintage film stumbles

The thumbnails are screenshots from the respective animations at YouTube and GUBA. Along with the 10 vintage films, you might want to view the animation timeline compiled by Animazing at the following link: The History of Animation




Felix the Cat in Hollywood (1923)






Little Rascals - School's Out (1930)






Betty Boop - Jack and the Beanstalk (1931)






Mickey's Orphans (1931)





Piano Tooners (1932)





Popeye - I Yam What I Yam(1933)





A Fireman's Life(1933)



The Old Mill Pond (1936) - Cab Calloway, Ethel Waters, Fats Waller, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Mills Brothers, Stepin Fetchit, Louis Armstrong




A Ride for Cinderella(1937)





Mother Goose Goes to Hollywood (1938)

10 photography stumbles

In previous posts, I've mentioned that I'm learning to use my new-to-me camera. There are many web sites that provide helpful tips for improving photography skills. Here are some links to ones I liked enough to bookmark:

78 Photography Rules for Complete Idiots

The 10 Most Common Photographic Mistakes

How to Photograph Fireworks Displays

An Introduction to Advanced Photography Tips

How to Take Better Photographs

Bernie's Better Beginner's Guide to Photography for Computer Geeks Who Want to be Digital Artists

8 Guidelines To Taking Panoramic Photos With Any Camera

10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits

A Rookie Guide to Digital SLR Cameras

Digital Photography Tutorials

10 bizarre stumbles

You never know what you are going to find when stumbling.

There, I Fixed It: User photo submissions that take DIY projects to a whole new level of absurdity. The faucet repair is priceless.

Wiener Designs: A slideshow of some submissions in Minnesota's first annual Hot Dog Dressing Contest. By dressing, they don't mean condiments.

SMS SOS: The text messaging hall of shame.

20 Scary Old School Surgical Tools: Take into consideration that most of these were probably used before general anesthesia was introduced! Can you imagine being awake and watching those instruments at work on you?

Bagelheads: The latest body manipulation trend.

World's Biggest Alarm Clock Shakes You Out of Bed: There have been mornings when this would have come in very handy.

Tweet Bubble Series: Fashions for twits. The first picture looks normal enough.

The 13 Most Unintentionally Disturbing Children's Toys

4 Holy Women Transformed by Cheese: Proof positive that there really is an alternate cheese universe.

This Vending Machine Sells What?!: Sushi anyone?

10 Father's Day DIY projects

There are lots of DIY projects online for the special Dad in your life. Show him that you care by creating a personal, homemade gift.

Altoid Tin Mini Toolboxes for Father's Day: Surprise Dad with the smallest toolbox ever!

Disney's Father's Day coupon book to make for redemption for help with yard work, complete control of the TV remote, etc. There is a link to the free, downloadable template.

Surprise Balls: Make Dad really work at finding his gift with this clever way of wrapping it up.

HP's Creative Studio provides some nice, free, downloadable Father's Day card templates. You have to log on to access the patterns after the jump but it just takes a minute and they are free.

Golf Ball Seeds: A gag gift for Dads that golf. A free template is included.

A Dad, Blue Ribbon Badge Card from Chronicle Books blog.

Tissue Paper Tie: An easy, kids' DIY project.

Father's Day Shirt & Tie project with a free, downloadable template.

Family Key Rack: Another DIY project from Disney that Dad can use to keep track of car and house keys.

Rock Family Plaque: A cute decoration for the kids to make for Dad's office.

Scherenschnitte

One of the activities that is relaxing for me to do is Scherenschnitte, which is a form of paper cutting. I'm not particularly good at it but satisfied with my meagre results. Here are a few scans of ones I have done.







If you want to see really good examples of paper cutting, here are some links that you might enjoy:

Ebon Heath

Peter Callesen

The Heart of Papercuts

Snippety Gibbet

10 DIY project stumbles

Hobbies, crafts and horticulture are powerful ways to make healthy leisure connections in your life. Here are ten stumbles that you might enjoy.



The Bonsai Site: detailed guide to bonzai as an art, hobby and horticultural practice.

Cabinet Embellishment Ideas: with links to the tutorials on the Better Homes & Gardens web site.

Make Your Own Umbrella Caddy

A Fringed Flower Card: Learn the simple technique of making double fringed flowers to dress up a stylish, handcrafted card.

Make Shades Out of Mini Blinds: Do you love the look of fabric shades but don't want to fork over the cash?

How to Paint Moss Designs in Your Garden

A Jam Jar Topper Tutorial: A nice way to decorate homemade jam bottles to give as gifts.

Make Your Own Gallery: Three templates to download, personalize and frame.

Little Metal & Canvas Mixed Media Books: A tutorial on how to make a personalized book and how to insert your artistic projects.

Punched Paint Chip Cards: Make greeting cards from paint chip palettes.

Wordle

The word cloud above was done with the online tool called Wordle. If you aren't a graphic artist, it is an easy way to create typographical art.

I input my blog address and it selected the highest ranking words and assembled them into a editable cloud of words. You can also input your own words.

Wordle provides font, language, layout and color choices. The language menu selection has the capability to eliminate all common words so you don't have a whole bunch of 'thes','ands', etc. The colour menu gives options of colour palette for the fonts and the background, plus the option to create your own.

Have fun playing with it.

10 green decorating stumbles

Living green doesn't have to be ugly.



Iconic Panels: reclaimed and recycled wood veneer

How to Wash the Smell out of Thrift Store Furniture

Top 10 Tips for Decorating on the Cheap

Wall-Mounted Aquarium: Ditch the TV, Install Life

From Junky to Funky: Designing Your Outdoors with the 3R’s In Mind…

My Repurposed Life: Gail is a DIY maven!

26 Ordinary Objects Repurposed Into Extraordinary Furniture

Self Watering Living Wall System

About Tile Materials: the attributes of basalt, ceramic, granite, limestone, marble, porcelain, sandstone, slate and travertine

A Guide to Furniture Woods

10 using colour stumbles

Colour planning is pivotal in graphic, commercial, fashion and exterior or interior design. Here are some very good colour links that provide tools and tips for executing your projects.

I will use home decorating as the example for this post. I'm redoing my deck and want the colour scheme to complement the existing fixed elements such as the bricks and the balcony. I also want to do it on the cheap and incorporate some of the existing furniture. There are many ways I could do it.

I could upload a picture of the deck into the Colour Palette Generator to produce a colour palette before I choose the paints that I will use to refurbish. You can also save the palette to a CSS style sheet or a Photoshop 'aco' file.



I could go to the Colour Scheme Designer and select a dominating colour of the deck in the mono palette and then look at the complementary, triad, tetrad, analogic and accented analogic colour palettes to see which works. There is also the option of adjusting the scheme for saturation & brightness.

COLOURlovers web site is a colour & design community for creative inspiration; a good place to go to see the current colour trends and associated colour palette choices.

To see if your colour palette works in real life settings, you can use the Idée Inc. Multicolr Search Lab. Pick the colours that most closely match your palette choice and it will generate a collection of photos that use those colours.

Colours can create moods, have emotional associations, and make subliminal statements. There is a page on the Color Wheel Pro web site that explores the meanings ascribed to different colours.

Color Wheel Pro also has a page that gives examples and discusses the classic colour schemes such as monochromatic, analogous, complementary, triadic, and tetradic.

Color Blindness Tests provide two online tools: colour arrangement and the RGB Anomaloscope. These can help in determining whether you are hampered by colour blindness.

Once you determine your colour palette, the Benjamin Moore web site provides an online tool called the Personal Color Viewer that allows you to upload a picture of your intended project space. Then, on the second tab, you can select colours by moving the slider so you can see an approximation of the result. It gives the choice of the names or the numbers of their particular paints to order.

If you want to know more about the theory of colour, here are two good links to help you expand your knowledge.

Color Worqux provides a detailed tutorial on color theory.

Color Contrast & Dimension in News Design is an interactive educational project.

10 movie stumbles

Here are my top 10 favourite movies, in descending order. These have have withstood the test of time and multiple viewings. Leave me a comment and let me know your faves, too.

If you get a chance to see the foreign films, I would recommend that you get the subtitled versions instead of the dubbed. That way, you will at least hear the lines the way they are meant to be delivered instead of poor translations read by dubious talent.

Cinema Paradiso

Babette's Feast

Kolya

Zuckerbaby

The World According to Garp

Out of Africa

Life as a House

Dune

Letters from Iwo Jima

Joy Luck Club

10 Easter stumbles

Here are some fun ways to get ready for the upcoming holiday weekend. Enjoy!

Pysanky: How to make Ukrainian Easter eggs

Free, printable vintage Easter cards

Free pattern to make teeny, tiny, knitted bunnies

Free Easter desktop wallpaper

Free pattern to make a bounding bunny pin

How to make face cloth bunnies & chicks

Punched paper Easter egg craft

How to make Peter Rabbit puppets with the kids

The Rabbit's House desktop wallpaper by Vladstudio

Bunny ear treat bags

Updated: March 22, 2013

10 how to stumbles

Got some extra time on your hands and want to learn how to do something that can be mastered in one sitting? Here are some stumbles that might fit the bill:

How to Tie a Tie

DIY Shrinky Dinks

Make Your Own Lip Balm

Candle & Soap Making Techniques

30 Different Ways You Can Tie Your Shoe Laces

DIY Project: Window Films

Things to Make

Scarf Tying Guide

11 Ways to Wrap Gifts without Wrapping Paper

Hand Stitching Guide

10 Irish stumbles

Did you ever hear the Irish song called The Orange and the Green? Well, that's story in our home. I am orange and my hubby is green.

Regardless of the division, we both celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Hubby's sister sent us some lovely flocked, stick-on shamrocks to wear for the day.

Since I was on vacation and didn't make up a Sunday stumble list, I thought I would do one for Saint Patrick's Day instead.

The History Channel: Saint Patrick's Day

Celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day With These 19 Wonderful Recipes

Irish Literature, Mythology, Folklore and Drama

Gaeilge: Irish language,alphabet and pronunciation

The Irish Times

U2

Irish Geneology

Irish Citizenship by Descent

Irish Embassies around the World

Saint Patrick's Day Parades & Events Worldwide

10 random list stumbles

There are so many lists out there on what to do, where to find things, how to do things, etc. Here's my random list of interesting lists. I hope some of them will prove to be interesting and helpful to you, too.

10 Awesome Fantasy Series That Are Not Potter or LoTR

13 Things You Must Balance in Your Life

22 Most Useful Free Applications for Your PC

50 Ways to Help the Planet

16 Prestigious Schools that Offer Free Online Classes

Top 10 Toys You Wish Your Mother Never Threw Away

10 Easy Steps To Advanced Photography Skills

Who Knows What About You? 25 Free Tools to Find Out

100+ Language Learning Websites

8 Ways to Kill Clutter in 5 Minutes

10 vegetarian stumbles

YIKES! My husband and I made the switch. I don't know what you would officially call us but we've decided we won't eat anything with a face.

A few weeks ago, I received the current National Geographic magazine. There was a picture of a turtle being held by someone and it seemed to me that the turtle was screaming. Underneath was a caption about the probable destination as turtle soup. The initial impact of that photograph was startling. It continued to haunt me for weeks while I kept noticing what I was consuming. I talked to my husband about it and he thought it was a good idea for both of us to discontinue eating meat.

We are experimenting with vegetarian products and recipes. Here are some of the internet resources we have come across while bumbling through our new lifestyle:

Mayo Clinic: Vegetarian Diet - how to get the best nutrition

American Heart Association: Vegetarian Diets

American Dietetic Association: A New Food Guide for North American Vegetarians

Better Health Channel: Vegetarian Eating

Foodbuzz: Vegetarian Recipes - submitted by members

Nibbledish: Vegetarian Recipes - submitted by members

Allrecipes: Vegetarian

GoVeg

Vegetarian Times

Fat-Free Vegan Recipes