31 August 2011

Just a Test


I've had this blog for a few years now and have just discovered that if you click on the pictures, it will take you to a larger version of said picture. All this time I've been downsizing ALL the pictures I've added here cause I thought they HAD to be downsized....just discovered a way to save myself a boatload of time and give you all better pictures to look at!

If you click on the picture above, the scenery is so much nicer!
Coming up on Wilson Lake from the south on Hwy 232 in Kansas. That's the scenic route! No. Really, it IS the scenic route. There are signs along the road that designate it such. 
And it is very pretty along that 20 miles stretch of highway!
That's not Wilson Lake in that picture. That's just a farm pond. There are usually cattle around that pond. The lake proper is up around the bend a ways.

Unfortunately you aren't going to get to see the lake cause I drove right by it without taking a single picture on this trip. But here's another shot of that little farm pond.

Some trees along the highway between Lake Wilson and home. I'm thinking somewhere over by Waldo.

Sunflower field. I showed you this picture in its downsized version in the birthday bash post. This one is full size. Give it a click.

Another shot of the sunflowers.

And still another shot.

I stood up on the running board of the van to take this picture. I had to take a few shots cause I couldn't see the viewfinder on the camera from the angle I chose.


I don't have any art to show you all. Nothing's had its picture taken and I've not created any new art since the last post so no art in this post. Sorry if you're disappointed. I promise there will be more art, soon.

You all be good to one another!
Peace
831

29 August 2011

An Invasion of Spiders and Other Things to Talk About

hello Everyone!
I don't know if you can call this art. It's  more craft to me, but whatever.....my muse is still working overtime!
Spiders have invaded the studio!

These are not my spiders. This is the picture that taught me how to make spiders my way.
I do rather like these legs.
If I knew where I snagged this picture from on the www so very long ago, I would gladly send you in that direction but I haven't a clue where these spiders came from! If the picture is yours, please do claim it! And thanks for the inspiration!
We started out with a colored light bulb from a garland of old christmas lights one would put outside. I have a five gallon bucket full of them! There are probably red ones in that bucket too. It was too dark out to go out to the burnt house to fetch more bulbs once I'd used the only ones I brought in the house with me. I floundered around in the dark out there and only found the five gallon bucket full of giant wooden eating utensils. (That's a whole other story!)
I got out the copper wire and got busy figuring out how to put some legs on the bulbs and the copper wire legged spiders were born. 


Then this afternoon someone asked if perhaps pipe cleaners would work as well. I didn't know so I made one to see if it would work. It works great! Would look a lot better if the pipe cleaners were black, but you work with what you got and purple was the only color of pipe cleaner I had enough of to make eight legs. 
I just free-handed the designs on their rear ends with the tip of the paint bottle.

They prettied their spiders up with what appears to be acrylic ink, paint marker? I used dimensional paint on my spiders to give them some character.

I gave the white spider some aquamarine eyes but I took those eyes off after the photo shoot cause they look stupid on! Spiders have at least SIX eyes, not 2 and I've decided that these spiders are just gonna be blind and have NO EYES whatsoever!
(I've made blind teddy bears in the past so this isn't a new concept for me. No eyes is perfectly acceptable in my books.)

I am going to  play around with their legs. I think I can find a better way to make the legs than twisting two copper wires together. I think one wire, if of a stout enough gauge, will work great. Twisting those wires together is not fun! And it makes the process of putting one together take a bit of time. The pipe cleaner legs went on in like two minutes! I worked better than ten minutes putting those copper legs on. Yes. I'm going to tweak some legs!

I also made these little notebooks since the last post. Forty of the little devils. I used up the remnants of paper left over from making larger books. These are 2 x 2 inches square with animal print cardstock covers in various colors and designs. They're sewn with white crochet cotton thread. They have various types of paper for their pages; blue parchment stationary, manilla drawing paper, white copy paper and orchard paper. They contain from 10-14 pages.

There's a fish and a snake that have yet to have their pictures taken. More sewing involved in those ventures. I introduced  you to the fish sometime back. A big brown, naked fish. He's no longer naked! 
You'll see them next time!

I really don't have a heck of a lot to talk about....Kinda ho hum in my neck of the woods today.
Ho hum isn't always a bad thing.... 
You all be good to each other! 
It matters!
831

26 August 2011

A Little Bit of Art and a Birthday Bash!


Hello Everyone!
I've been busy with some art projects. 

Altered Coffee Cup Sleeves
Side 1

Altered Coffee Cup Sleeves 
Side 2
All four of these are drawings done in markers on tyvek and then glued to a regular paperboard coffee sleeve you'd pick up at the quicky mart on your morning commute. They are for a swap over at AFA. The link's still up there in the lefthand corner.


Then I went on another monster kick. The Birthday Bash monsters were a total success but there should have been five of them, not four. Poor Christian got left out. I forgot he is sometimes there as my dil babysits for him. I've yet to make Christian's monster cause he wants a monster with only eye. 
This is the Ugly Beige Cashmere Monster. I wasn't quite done sewing his eyes on when I took the picture. They're done now though.

Red Sweater Monster
This guy got bigger and bigger as I stuffed him and his shape got distorted a lot! I have to remember when cutting the monster shapes from this particular sweater to make the body portion much longer.

There will be more monster to come. Promise!

I worked on this here canvas for a couple of days. Lots of stuff to dry in layers so it takes a couple of days to complete one of these mixed media pictures even though it is only about 4.5 inches wide by 3 inches tall. They usually have a fish on them somewhere but all the fishes left this vicinity.

I promised you a birthday bash in the title so here goes!

Annie's Birthday Cake
Unfortunately the pictures are not in any kind of order so the birthday girl doesn't appear till a bit farther down the roster.

Annie's brother, Brenton.

Annies' friend, Bailey.

Annie's friend, Christian.
(yes, that's a little boy in a tiara! Don't hate! He was adorable and so very innocent about the tiara.)

Annie's friend and Baily's sister, Sassy.

Annie's great aunt in the background and her cousin Allison in the foreground. I can never figure out what cousin they are though. Allison is my neice and I am Annie's grandma.

Everyone gathering around for the cutting of the cake.

Annie and her daddy, Ronnie.

Contemplating the sucker gotten from the pinata  you all haven't seen yet!

There's the pinata! Annie's taking her first hit at it.
This little girl LOVES shoes. She cares not whose shoes they are. She's like a puppy when it comes to shoes. If they are not out of sight, they are not out of mind. She will take them, wear them and lose one of them! 

There's mom and dad looking on little 2 yr old Annie and her quest to get what's inside the giant flipflop.

Here's the birthday girl hiding her face after we all sang happy birthday to her. 

There's the birthday girl!

This is the best picture I have ever taken of Annie! She's waving goodbye to folks who were leaving her party.

Here is Annie and Jethro, the stray dog that showed up the day before her birthday.
The birthday party was a total success.
All the younguns loved their monsters!
Annie sent her monster swimming in that swimming pool you see in the pictures. Good thing I made all the monsters washable!

On my way home I came across this field of sunflowers over by Plainville. I had to stop and take a few pictures. Here are the best two. 



This is taken in Ellis, Kansas. I went there with my sister, my mother and Evelyn to retrieve a baby bassinet my sister had bought. It was storming and the sky was just beautiful! It really was close to this color at the time I took this picture. The storms weren't considered severe, just wild. 

Was a nice drive in the rain. Well, it was a ride for me, I didn't drive. My sister did.

I took this picture of Fred before we left to go to Ellis to get the bassinet.

It wasn't storming here.

And just because  you all haven't seen Miss Lola for awhile... she has taken up sleeping on the kitchen counter. I was surprised to find her on the west counter instead on the east, lounging among the clean dishes in the dish rack. I don't know how it can be comfy to sleep on the hard old countertop when she's a perfectly good bed with tons of pillows to get comfy on in the next room over.

She's got that wild eye again.

You all be good to one another! 
Peace
831

13 August 2011

Monsters


Today is Annabel's 2nd birthday. I don't know where the last 2 years have gone!!! 
She can't be that old already....

I got on a monster making kick. Out of the blue the thought of monsters came to me. I'm sick of sewing mice, though there are still many to be sewn. I wanted to make Annabel something for her birthday and what little kid doesn't like a cute little monster? 
Then I decided her brother needed a monster as well. 
And then RJ informs me there are two other little kids at his house and well, they needed monsters if Bubba and Annabel were getting a monster! 
So, 4 monsters were born over the last two days!

Green Argyle Monster
That's an old sweater his body is made from. It had a really cool machine embroidered picture of two men golfing on the front of it. It was an ugly sweater, but it makes a neat monster! 
There's part of a cat in the next  picture to give you an idea of their sizes.

One Eyed Red Monster
He too was an old sweater. Not a pretty sweater though!  When I cut this one out, his head was symmetrical. When I got done sewing, it wasn't. Change of plans for the two eyes I had cut for this monster before the sewing commenced. 

Sheep Horn Monster
He's made from an old cotton sweater and his horns have sheep's butts on them. Not sure how I managed to make the horns match. That was  purely accidental! His horns came from a pair of flannel pajamas. 
All of the monster's features are either felt or sweater material.
Felt is a beautiful fabric for hand sewing.
Flannel is quite easy to sew as well. 
Annabel's Monster was my first monster attempt. 

Annabel's Monster
She's made from an old cotton sweater, felt and big nubby yarn for her hair. She's a lot bigger than the other monsters here. She was also a lot harder to put together! I like the smaller monsters better than this one. I don't think Annabel is going care one way or another. This monster is big and squishy, perfect for lugging around and using for a pillow.

In a couple of hours I will be getting in the van and heading to Nickerson to see the kids and join in on the birthday bash! Pictures to come!!!!

You all have a stellar Saturday!
Be good to one another! It matters!
It truly matters!!!
Peace
831

11 August 2011

This, That and Little Bit of the Other....

Hello Everyone!

My muse is still abundantly creating.
A few projects to show you all today.
I'm working on a gift for my youngest son for Christmas right now. Thought I'd show you all the progress thus far.

This eye is done in markers on cardstock and has been glued into the drawer of the wooden piece below.

I should have taken a picture of it before I took the ashtray out, but I didn't. It has a large brass tray that goes in the circular indention on the top of the box. That's a drawer in the front. In this picture I've already started painting it. It is no longer white now though. I've painted it a sparkly metallic black. I have intentions of putting stars all over the outside of it. After it's done, I'll put the brass tray back in the top. There on the left hand corner it appears as though a dog decided this wooden box would make a good chew toy. Sanding didn't smooth that out all too well. I'll show you the completed project when it's done sometime within the next week or so. I want the black paint to dry thoroughly before I put the stars on and put a coat of varnish on it.

Dotee bodies got transformed into actual dotees in the last few days also.


Blue Denim Carnation Dotee
She's made from a pair of old blue jeans, a satin fabric carnation, mother of pearl beads for her eyes, cotton string hair and stringed fake pearls for danglies.

Dark Blue Felt Angel Dotee
Her wings are made from fine mesh netting (used for tying up rice/birdseed for a wedding),glitter glue and copper wire. She has silk ribbon for danglies, wooden beads for eyes, thick cotton string for hair and a copperwire halo.

Over the weekend, I went to a yard sale and found a boatload of felt for $2. I've been busy making mice. Catnip mice to be exact. I've given 2 purple and 1 yellow one away so far.

Here's a close up.
They are made from a pattern I drew myself after an internet search for things to make from the felt. They look a whole lot like the ones I drew the pattern from. Mine are about 3 inches long, 1.25 inches tall. The first ones I made were filled with fiberfil, but I've since been filling them with 100% cotton Cotton balls. They each have about 1/2 teaspoon of dried catnip in them as well. There are no beads or anything like that for a cat to choke on on them. They have mini rick rack tails and french knots for eyes. 
I can report that having two cats in the house while making catnip mice is, let's say, challenging! I had more help with these little guys than I actually needed! Billy and Lola both tried to run off with numerous mice and they were johnny-on-the-spot when it came time to put the catnip in the mice. Those two felines could be at the other end of the house the whole time I was sewing but when it came time for the catnip, it was like they'd been paying attention and here they came running to stick their noses in the tin of catnip or try to run off with the mouse before it was even completed!
I have about 2 dozen of these little guys cut out, ready to sew. There will be many more mice!
I am sending them to the flea market in October.

And then there were more dottees.....

Purple Fuzzy Alligator Dotee
She's made from an old sweater, has wooden beads for eyes, cotton string hair, bathtub chain danglies and a plastic alligator bead sewn to her tummy to keep her company. She's a fat dotee!
(I have one more alligator bead that will probably end up as a dotee embellishment.)

Tiny Denim Dotee
She is a tiny one! Less than four inches from the top of her head to the ends of her danglies. She is made from an old pair of jeans. She has mother of pearl beads for eyes, cotton string hair, and bathtub chain danglies.

Blue Felt Pony Tail Dotee
She's made from thick blue felt with cotton string hair, mother of pearl beads for eyes, a sparkly plastic flower bead in her hair and danglies made from squished grommets and stainless steel wire jumprings. She's a little one too. 

Yellow Polka Dot Dotee
She's made from an old cotton shirt I used to wear quite frequently! It went through the washing machine with bleach one day and ended up with bleached out spots so I cut it up for the fabric. She has danglies made the same way as the dark blue felt ponytail dotee. Cotton string for hair, mother of pearl beads for eyes and a little orange ribbon flower in her hair.

I was getting tired of sewing together mice the day before yesterday, so I went back online to see what else could be made from the boatload of felt I've acquired. I came across this snake on the same site as the mice, I do believe. The tutorial showed you how to make your own pattern for the snake. I'll be making some more snakes, they are cute as they can be! Will have to figure out another way to do the eyes though. I'm not crazy about the sequin and seed bead route I took with this fella. He's a tiny little fella. Only about an inch and half wide at his head, and as he's made in a spiral shape, he's not more than 6 inches wide when he's coiled up. He's stuffed so tightly though that he stands up on his own. He was a fun one to make!


With the scraps from cutting out all those mice, I made these two lenths of tiny pennants. Not sure just what the heck I'm going to do with them.... I may use up the rest of the pennants already cut from those scraps and put it on my Christmas tree come December. I'm not sure what will happen with it.


And here's the paper mache box I've been rattling on about for the last few  posts. 
Nothing special. Just a box made from food packaging chipboard and paper mache clay. That thing is so sturdy, if you turned it upside down, you could use it for a step stool! I wouldn't suggest doing that as it's only  a 10 inch cube, basically. Not quite big enough to be standing on! I'm using it to hold all those newspapers that arrive weekly in my mailbox! 

I used artist grade acrylic paints to paint it. 

It's blue inside because blue is the color that needed to be used up! It was getting quite thick in the tube. Mission Accomplished. That blue acrylic tube is now empty and I've a lovely shade of blue inside my new newspaper box! 
Making more paper mache clay is on my list of things to do!

I suspect there will be more creative endeavors to share before too many days go by! 
The County Fair starts on Monday of next week so there will be at least one Fair Post. I don't know how many days I'll make it to the fair....I will make it there on Monday though cause I need to take the fish picture I gave to Evelyn for her birthday there to enter it in Open Class. 

Until next time.....
be good to one another! It matters so much more than we casually accept. Be kinder than necessary. There's always someone battling bigger demons than you are!
Peace
831

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