Hello Readers!
It's a blustery morning! Gonna rain later today I do believe!
I stepped out on the front porch and was met by a blast of frigid air from the north. The weather gurus predicted rain overnight but I don't think any of that severe weather they were watching came anywhere near me! If it did, I slept right through it! Didn't look like it had rained, but it sure looks like it might!
That's the wheatfield north of my house. It's greening up nicely!
I need to make a trek out along that fence line to my mother's property line and take a good look at my little trees. We planted 147 of the little guys, I think it was three summer's ago. I say "We", but in reality...I had absolutely nothing to do with those trees getting planted. My two boys and their wives planted those trees for me. I haven't been out to really see what they're up to for better than a year!
The ones I can see from the porches of the house are getting taller but I've no clue if there really are still 147 of them doing that! They stretch from about midway on my property, across my sister's property to mother's property line. All of them planted roughly 4 feet apart.
They were tiny seedlings when the kids planted them. You can see one of them smack dab in the center of the lower half of the picture above.
I will not be going to look at them today however.
Yep, a gray day just waking up. I took this picture and the one above about 7:30 this morning. If you click on it, it will get bigger. I wonder if the little junco has decided to settle in or has he left the premises for good? I have not seen him in a few days. He was flitting around for better than two weeks, acting as though he just adored the eaves on the burnt house. I'm in hopes he's found a suitable site to build his nest and sticks around for awhile. The female should be showing up soon.
Last summer a little house wren built a nest in that cow skull on the right hand edge of the picture. It hangs on a wooden post that doesn't really have any function now. It used to be one of the stakes for the hammock. They put the propane tank there after the house burnt and that post lost its usefulness until I hung that cow skull there. The wrens did not use that nest but I watched the male for three days build it. In and out of that skull he went...numerous times a day.
Some fur kids wanting to go outside. It's now 8 am and only one of those kids is still outside. That would be Tippy whose still out. She's a brat of a cat, that one is! That's Murray looking all zombie this morning in background. I was out on the porch when I took this through the screen door.
Yesterday I was putting my jacket on to head off to town to buy the furkids some food. Every time Fred dog sees me getting ready to go outside he starts wagging from one end to another. With each thing I pick up he winds up even more. I put my jacket on..he started woofing. I put my glasses on...he woofed even more. I picked up my cane and headed to the front door and my ears were hurting from the barking
coming out of this dog.
He barked at the bottom of the steps. Yelling at me to be quick about it. He wants to go for a ride! He shuts up the second he gets in the van and he doesn't have another word to say till we get back home and he repeats the procedure in reverse as I get to the house. He is a very silly old dog!
Ten minutes after 8 and Tippy has decided she's had enough of the cold wind. She was scratching at the door and meowing as loud as her little lungs would let her. I suspect before long she will join Lola (who refused to go out) and her sister Murray on my bed in a cat nap.
As usual I've been busy in the creative department. My creative goal for today is to clean off this desk and finish up some projects that have become buried in the debris covering this desk!
I didn't take a picture but the coiled basket has some progress made on it. I sewed another couple rounds the other night watching the latest episode of Project Runway on hulu. I have no idea why I like that show so much. I'm not a fashionista in the least! I'm more of a fashionista's worst nightmare when it comes to fashion! I wear what is comfortable, not what is in style. Yet, I truly enjoy seeing the crazy outfits those designers come up with!
The faces for the cone dolls I showed you last post are sitting exactly where they were when I took that picture! Still having a bit of a problem actually cooking them. These are still on the back burner.
I have however completed two more cone dolls. And I still have my doubts about them....they are very weird!
The pink cone doll has the face made from toilet tissue and varnish painted with pink fingernail polish. His/her??? eyes are two green beads. I put holes in the head before it had dried to be able to give it some hair. Hair is crewel embroidery yarn. I made some danglies from beads and copper wire and sewed them willy nilly here and there. The square green thing is a ceramic tile glued to the body. It has some wooden beads on silk cords sewn around the bottom of the pink part also. This one is about a foot tall. This one looks scary to me despite the cheerful pink below that terrifying face!
This one is made with the red face that was made from that same red fiber wrapped around its body and white glue to hold it all together. I painted her mouth with fingernail polish. Her eyes are two plastic beads with a dot of black fingernail polish. (Maybe the other one needs some pupils?) Her hair is glued beneath the face and is crewel embroidery yarn. I sewed various glass and plastic beads all over her body. She's about 8 inches tall.
I have four more cone doll bodies ready to finish once I bake those polymer clay faces. Stay tuned.
Those of you who read this blog regularly know I have an obsession with paper and weaving. And when you put the two together I am not happier!
These were intended to become a basket. That did not work out. What I got instead are embellishments for something or another. I think the smaller of these will end up in the cereal box book. The other three larger ones? Perhaps they'll end up on a canvas? I really don't know. I just know they will not become a basket anytime soon cause the strips used to make them are not the right size to do that kind of weave to end up with a basket. I also know that I put too much time into them to just chuck them in the circular file!
Weaving wasn't going so well on the 7th of April. This thing was supposed to have been a
St. Brigid's Cross. That is not what it turned out to be....not exactly. I considered this a total failure on the goal set forth. Then I reconsidered and decided it was a total success in the embellishment department! It's made from chipboard from the package a doll came in. It's a nice green cardboard weaving. It's big enough one could use it for a disposable coaster. I'll be trying to make another St. Brigid's Cross some other day. Next time I'll use another material and pay better attention to the instructions. Like I said, it is a total failure at being a St. Brigid's Cross.
A Little Paper Boat
that actually floats. It won't last long in the water though. It's made from a 4 inch square of magazine paper. It's a cute little canoe though and kids could have a fabulous time at the beach with some of these!
There was much talk about carving your own stamps awhile back. I found some giant erasers to do just that with. Need to dig out my exacto knives and see what happens! I only bought one, but I know where the others are kept. If this one turns out, I'll do more.
I'm telling you! Weaving did not go well! This is a failed attempt also. It's sparkly and little though. We can say that about it. I cut out some circles to try to accomplish these little ornaments with pretty designs made with embroidery thread. If you do it right, you can accomplish that. I just couldn't wrap my brain around keeping the numbers straight to get the strings to go where they should have! I still have seven of these chipboard disks to work with. We'll see what happens. I forgot to save this tutorial to my bookmarks and I don't remember what it was called. Will have to do a history search and find it again.
I was waiting for the post office to reopen after lunch yesterday and painted some eggshells.
I was thinking the wooden nickles in the picture below might look nice with some mini mosaics on them. Again, we'll see what happens.
I keep egg shells occasionally. All depends on whether I feel like cleaning them RIGHT AFTER I use the eggs. If you don't clean them rather quickly it is a bear to get that membrane out of the eggs. If you don't take that membrane out of those eggs when you go to make mosaics, the eggs will not behave properly.
I dropped the green one on the floor and it broke into three pieces. They are fragile. I keep my egg shells in an old coffee can till I need them. Then they are painted or whatever.
I thought I had many more than 13 wooden nickles. I cleaned out my bag a few months ago and found these in the bottom of it. I got all these wooden nickles at the State Fair back in September! They have advertising on both sides of them. I painted one side with some white wall paint (works almost like gesso....two coats instead of one). I was thinking magnets. I like magnets. I painted one of them purple with the kid's watercolors I used to paint the egg shells. This is a work in progress for sure.
For the length of this post, you'd have thought there would be more finished things to show for my time. Gotta lot on the table and not much added to the treasure pile! I will plod on! I am a Taurus afterall and we Tauruses plod well. Slow and steady.
I do suspect beings it is going to rain today, I will not be making that trip to Hays as planned yesterday. Guess I'll stay in and make art!
Thanks for stopping by!
Be good to one another!
It matters
Peace
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