Day Seven – Rest & Rejuvenation

City of Ember

There is creativity in rest and just being. I felt the need to just relax today, on the seventh day. Rejuvenation allows us the time to renew and re-charge so we can start anew. In so doing, I watched a really interesting movie I'd not seen before which inspired me. City of Ember was the movie, cast with Bill Murray, Tim Robbins and Martin Landeau. The real stars were the young tweens Harry Treadaway and  Saoirse Ronan. I didn't recognize young Harry but with additional research was delighted to find out he stars in one of my favorite TV series, as Victor Frankenstein in Penny Dreadful.

What was inspiring to me were the sets and costumes. The design was like a mash-up of Dark City, Children of the Lost City, Mad Max and the Wizard of Oz! You see a lot of hand knit and crochet clothing everywhere as the underground society must use and reuse every resource available for over 200 years. There was yarn and granny squares everywhere which I hate the latter, by the way, unless it's an afghan made by an ancestor. But in this movie background, it was strangely applicable. In general, all the barely operable mechanical machinery as portrayed in the future seemed quite steampunk but I couldn't quite fit it into a sub-genre like diesel or tesla punk. Then I realized it's post-apocalyptic, think Mad Max and Water World, loosely speaking. It may not be a movie for everyone and definitely targeted the emo adolescent crowd but was well worth watching, despite obvious holes in the story and scene goofs. Since when did water fall upwards?

Day Six – Ticket To Ride

It was another game learning experience tonight. I joined my fellow Steampunks of Orange County for a yummy potluck and game night, dressed in appropriate themed attire. A couple had played before but most of us were new to the railway-themed board game called Ticket To Ride – Europe version.

The object of the game was to earn the most points to win. Players did this by building tracks in their color. Each player received different cards at the beginning that were train cards, long route and short route destination cards. With each turn, we drew two more or chose from a face-up stock pile. Players also received small plastic train cars and stations resembling houses and hotels from Monopoly, for placement on the tracks claimed. You continue to connect routes for points or to block other players. We even had prizes at the end. My teammate generously let me take home our prize, a Disney R2D2 collector pin!

Metropolis ATCs

My ATC group's theme for September was Movies. I made 10 cards, each different this month choosing my fav 2 Sci-Fi movies starring robots. Here are my 5 from Metropolis. It was a lot more fun doing each different. What the camera didn't pick up is the added collage gears are very shiny metallic cardstock. For some of the Marias I did a clear tape transfer with metallic foil paper on the back. They ended up looking like foil stickers.

Snowflake Die Cut Ornaments