Sunday, February 03, 2008

Let's talk about the weather

I've been having fun again! What I really love doing is figuring out how to do something. I had the idea to make these Artist's Books, but how?
Well, with a lot of prototypes and fiddling I worked it out. Forecast was created! It's a limited edition 'book' about the weather. I drew all the images, and the words of wisdom about the weather come from the lyrics of Bob Dylan.
Shuffle your fingers, choose a weather type and lift the flap to read the quote about it. You can just enjoy it like this, or you can divine your own fortune forecast from Dylan's words in much the same way those books of quotes invite you to open at any page and you will find your 'answer'.
And it's a pretty nice little object just to have sitting on display while you're not playing with it. Available for purchase at The Little Shop of Horus right now.


I remember making these at school and hoping that my friends would choose "you smell" or "kiss the nearest boy". They were fun weren't they!? But what were they called. I seem to remember calling this kind of paper construction 'salt and pepper'. I know others who called them 'chatterboxes' and 'fortune tellers'. What did you call them? I'd love you to leave a comment and tell me. Thanks!


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think we called the Cootie Catchers, but I'm not sure. Whatever they are called, I'm going to teach my niece how to make them today because I saw this on flickr and loved it!

Jenn
AzureGrackle.com

Rebecca Hickman said...

I think we called them Cootie Catchers, too. Ours didn't look anywhere near this nice, though. Beautiful work!

E-J said...

"I threw the I-Ching yesterday, it said there would be thunder at the well ..." :)

I'm almost certain we called them fortune tellers (I was at school in the UK in the 70s/80s). Cute idea, and I like the use of yellow-gold in the "shine" section.

kelly said...

Found you through the Gocco pool on Flickr -- these are amazing!

Also, when I first saw this, I said, "Cootie catcher!" That's what we used to call them.

There's even a Klutz book on how to make them called "The Cootie Catcher Book." Somehow, this makes the name "official" to me. ;)

Great site -- terrific work!

Anonymous said...

Fortune Tellers for me. How creative you are in your "spare time". I would never have thought of doing this. They're adorable.

janey
http://janeysjourney.com

Jan Allsopp said...

In Australia we don't use the word "cootie", so while I will accept the consensus' opinion as the name for it in the US, I will leave it open a little longer for the Aussie version. The feedback I've got locally is that we didn't call them anything at all! No name.

dinahmow said...

In New Zealand in the 50s they were fortune tellers or "named" individually according to the message.
Lovely idea for the prompt!