Optiart

Jo-Ann, Kitchen,

Yesterday, Heidi, Su and I got together for a magnet-making party. I know what you’re thinking, could we get any geekier?It actually turned out to be a lot of fun and I have pictures to prove it.

• My kit only came with 21 marbles. Su had 23 and Heidi had 24. They thought I had used up some of mine practicing for the big night but that is not true. Heidi gave me an extra marble. She can be nice that way.
• We started out by using photographs from magazines. Su really didn’t like the cutting part but at the end she was pretty proficient at cutting the right shapes.
• Su started painting some of her magnets. She seemed to be pretty comfortable with painting vs. cutting and turned into this magnet making machine.
• I decided to try painting too and made a ladybug and a bee (which still need eyes). Su liked them and decided to copy the idea. I didn’t mind it until she asked: “Daniela, can I see your bee? I need to copy it”. In the end, she came up with her own versions of the bugs.
• Heidi made a magnet using the Sharks logo for her friend Becky. The logo was too small and I thought she was making a magnet using leftover scraps of paper. It actually looks ok if you look very closely.
• I had a couple of unsuccessful attempts at making painted magnets and I decided to wash the paint off so I really did make 12 magnets. It’s just that only 9 survived. Considering that I kept on dropping my freshly painted magnets on the carpet, that’s a pretty good number.
• Finally, as we were talking on the phone to Tina (she was teleconferencing into our party from Rochester), we noticed that one of Su’s magnets looked like the Japanese flag. Su denies it but we thought it was a pretty remarkable fact considering that Nathan is in Japan. ;-)