Big Fishes, Little Fishes, Big Weavings, Little Weavings and Some Other Things

Hello Readers!

Well, I haven't gotten as much done as I had hoped to get done but things did get done before the trip south to my son's house. That commences tomorrow evening when the DIL gets here to kidnap me! 

I've barely started packing the tonnage I'll be taking with me on the trip. More on that later though, for now, let's talk some fishes!

These are the fishes I showed you all in the last post that were in need of finishing.

TaDa! Finished!

All but this pink one are 8.5 inches long. This one is about 8 inches long. All are painted with acrylics of one color or another and then they were glittered to match their acrylic color (more or less).

They still need a coat of sealer before they're done. One of them will be headed to Minnesota tomorrow.

I did some more weaving with the quilt scraps....

Two mug rug sized pads. They're about 3.5 inches across. I need a bigger hoop to make the right sized pads for sitting a glass on. These are too thick and lumpy for sitting a glass on. A mug would sit nicely though.

These next four are a lot larger than the mug rugs but not large enough for a chair pad like I was hoping for.

The spokes are elastic and the woven strands are mostly cotton quilt fabric torn into strips.

These are about 11-12 inches across.

To make ones big enough for a chair pad I'll need a much larger hoop than the metal ring I used for these. This metal ring is a bit too large for weaving a mug rug though. 

I have enough elastic left to make three thousand of these things but only enough fabric strips to do maybe three more of them. I've put out the word to my gatherers that I am on the hunt for cotton fabric.

You all remember when I was hot and heavy into making balls? These have sat on the end table in the livingroom for months now, waiting on me to do something with them. There weren't very pretty before I did some embroidery work on them.

Blue Ball.

Gray and White Ball

(My favorite of the three.)

Blue Fleece Ball

Each of the balls is roughly the size of a tennis ball. They were built using two plastic bottle caps taped together for the center of the ball. Inside the bottle caps are some little metal bits to make the ball rattle when it's shook. Around the bottle caps I taped a bunch of plastic packing....bread sacks, things of that nature. I added plastic till the ball was almost the size I wanted. Next I wrapped the plastic ball with some thick macrame cord. One or two layers of it. Then lots of layers of crochet cotton thread. And finally I sewed fabric to the ball before embroidering on it. There's no rhyme nor reason the embroidery. I just did whatever the muse wanted to do.

These balls essentially are made from nothing but scraps and castoffs. The only thing you may need to purchase to make your own ball is some embroidery thread. What are they good for, you ask?

You can throw five or six of them in your dryer and lessen the drying time of your loads.

You could give one to a baby to play with.

You could give one to your cat to play with. I had to fight with one of my cats to retrieve the dark blue one when she ran off with it while photography was happening!

You could sit a few of them in a bowl just to look pretty.

And beings you all are smart folks, you can probably think of other things to do with them. I'm going to try to sell a few of them at the craft fair.

The naked fishes I showed you all in the last post are now done.

I really like how the fishes turned out! These guys started life as packaging for cereal, cake mixes, other boxed goods. 

There's a wooden bead in the center of each one to give them a 3D effect. Nothing worse than a flat fish that isn't supposed to be flat. Usually paper mache things do end up being 3D. They're covered with masking tape and homemade gesso.

I painted each of them a different color with acrylic paint and then applied the glitter of varying colors.

The pink glitter used on these stripes is my most favorite of all the glitter I have. It's not even really glitter! I believe it's body glitter. It's some fantastic stuff whatever its original use was!  And I guess if we want to get technical, body glitter IS glitter...

Doesn't really matter! I like glitter! And I have been known (on numerous occasions) to use things for what they were not intended for.

Each fish is about 4 inches long and has a copper wire loop at their nose.

I took their pictures before I put the sealant on. I'm hoping, hoping, hoping the sealant plays nice with all the glitter colors. Some sealers don't play nice and the glitter gets all yucky.

I finished a fairy dottee doll. I sewed the body and made the wings, probably close to or over a year ago. The flower on her belly is a piece of junk jewelry. An earring, if memory serves me correctly.

I told you all I was in need of some more little books for the sale.

I drew this lady sometime ago. She's on a piece of 4x4 inch drawing board, done in markers. I sewed this book together with the coptic stitch in crochet cotton. It has copy paper pages. 7 signatures with 5 sheets in each, giving the book a total of 35 pages.

This book is 8x8 inches made from a cereal box painted gray with acrylics. It folds over itself on the front cover and closes with a velcro dot. It has manila paper pages. I forget how many...guessing around 15. It is sewn in the pamphlet stitch.

Tiny diamond book. This one is about 3.5x2.5 inches. Its's sewn in the pamphlet stitch. It has 10 sheets of different colored construction paper for pages. This book is literally made of scraps. 

Home Depot supplied the covers for this book. They are linoleum samples, 4x4 inches square. Sewn in the coptic stitch with crochet cotton. I drew the owl in markers. The back cover is left plain. This book has 6signatures of 5 pages each of copy paper. Nice sturdy little book. 

I discovered that using a curved needle to sew the coptic stitch makes a much tighter stitch than using a straight needle.

This book has problems. I did not pay attention when sewing the front cover on! The cover is cut from a vinyl record and the label on the record is upside down. It's a nice book though. Sewn in the coptic stitch, it sewed up nice and tight. It has copy paper pages. 5signatures with 5 sheets each. The book measures 6x8 inches.

I had more help than I wanted while glittering fishes. Murray insisted on drinking my paintbrush water! I'm not sure white glue is good for a cat! I'm fairly certain that acrylic paints are not good for a cat but try telling that cat the perils of drinking paint water! I did try! It was wasted energy! That fool cat drank the paint water anyway.

And the other two brats were no help either in the bedroom. I was trying to pack my bags for the trip tomorrow but Lola insisted she needed to be in the bag and Tippy insisted on trying to grab each and everything I tried putting in the bag! I gave up on trying to pack with those two around! 

I'll probably have more things to share when I get back from RJ's house. I never go there empty handed. I'll take the markers, some cardstock of various sizes, something to do some weaving and more than likely I will take the sewing with me also. 

Happy Halloween to Everyone!

Remember 

be good to one another!

it matters!

Peace

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A Bunch of Little Drawings, A Few Baskets and Some Other Stuff

Hello Readers!

I cannot say it doesn't feel like I've accomplished anything since the last post! It actually feels like I've accomplished more than I have since the last post! That probably has to do with the fact I've drawn 61 little pictures in that time.

And I intend to draw some more before it's all said and done!

The Dora lunchbox they're in is only about half full and I'd like it to be full as possible by the time I head out to my son's house later this month. I might have to fight with the 4yr old granddaughter Annie to keep my Dora lunchbox but I'll take that chance! That little girl does LOVE Dora!

All are done in markers on thin cardstock. The cardstock came in the keyrings...I just turned it over to use the blank side to make the drawings and then put it back in the keyrings when done.

I wanted a variety of subjects for my keyrings.

veggies, dogs, cats, hearts, flowers, birds

owls, licking dogs, birds playing guitar

fruits, more flowers, more cats

The keyrings are an inch and a half square but the papers inside are only about an inch and a quarter square.

These are the last four I did yesterday. I obviously didn't make much progress on this endeavor yesterday considering I did all the others in two days time. The drawing muse refused to cooperate yesterday. I just did not have my heart in it!

This is what the keyrings look like to begin with. I have to pry the two parts apart to get to the insides. Sometimes it doesn't work out quite right and something breaks in the process. That's the problem with these five. Not to worry though! I have a couple thousand of these things! Been holding onto them since 2008, trying to figure out what the hell to do with them all! I'll keep the metal parts off these broken ones and make other keyrings from some other type of material to go with them.  Ma helped with disassembling the keyrings.

I made another white basket from the 1 inch elastic I have. This one is a bit smaller the previous basket that looks just like this one. That one was 6 inches, this one is 4 inches. And as you can see in the picture, I don't know how to weave all that great sometimes! It works though, so I left it. If I'd of gone back and fixed that one spot, I would have had to taken the whole dang thing apart and that just wasn't in the plans. Yes, I'm lazy on occasion.

Orange Abstract

ATC

markers on cardstock

I was going to enter this in a contest, but have changed my mind cause it isn't really all that great! If time permits, I'll do another abstract for that contest. I have till the end of the month to get the entry in.

Another little basket. I made this one with some cotton strapping material. It's kinda like seam binding but it is 1 1/4 inch wide. This basket is cute, but it's not a sturdy basket by any stretch of the imagination! It sits up nice and pretty but you can squish it easily in your hand. Don't fill it with heavy things!

I have so many projects in the works, I will have to live another 50 years to complete them all! I take that back. Even if I do live another 50 years (which is quite doubtful), I'll still have a boatload of UFOs to leave for someone else to do something with.

One picture; two projects!

On the left is an elastic basket. I really don't know what else to do with all that elastic! Baskets seem to work alright though. I may do some other kinds of weaving with some of it in the future.

On the right are six aluminum cans I cut down to sheets yesterday. I will play around with it and see if I can make some little embossed metal boxes out of those iced tea cans. You're seeing the inside of the cans, the outsides are colorful as all get out! If little boxes don't work out, these will end up being used on book covers.

Five paper mache birds waiting on legs.

Six paper mache fishes waiting on a layer of paper mache and a paint job. I don't know if these will end up being finished by the time I head to my son's house. I need to make another batch of paper mache clay to finish them. Not sure if I want to drag out the blender and do that. It's a messy job! The kitchen just got cleaned yesterday and I'm really not ready to mess it up royally again so soon!

Some polymer clay carrot ornaments. I'm going to cover these with orange glitter after I give them a paint job.

Composition notebook overhaul. I covered a bunch of comp. notebooks in magazine paper (each notebook a different color) and then did zentangles (my version of it anyway) all over the front and part of the back. I figured I'd leave part of it without decoration so whoever buys it can do their own thing to it if the want.

I only did the yellow one this way...but there are about a dozen, probably more than a dozen of them on the shelf in the hallway. 

You all saw this basket last post. 

Now it looks like this! I bought a new stapler so I could fix this basket. The new stapler was a fine investment but it didn't really help this basket as I had hoped it would. So I covered up the staples holding the basket together with some candy corn duct tape. This basket was made with some plastic strips that were originally for repairing window blinds. This is a nice sturdy little basket! It is about 7 inches by 5 inches by 3 inches. Thereabouts. I didn't really measure it!

There's Murray showing off her teeth!  I was taking pictures of the fish picture there in front of her and she must of been tired as all get out cause she sat on that chair and yawned about a dozen times! I have no idea why the italics were on! I hit a key on the keyboard wrong and got italics.....weird!

This is what FP9 looked like the last time I showed you all progress on it.

Now it looks like this! It needs a few more fishes and a bit more bling before I can call it done. I have the fishes already made...they're around here somewhere! I just haven't located them yet. I put them somewhere safe so I could find them again when this fp was ready for fishes. You all know that feeling, don't you? Put something somewhere and promptly forget where it is? Happens to me all the damn time and it's frustrating! There are still a few spots to look before I give up and just make some new fishes! It most certainly needs more than 2 fishes! 

All the strings on it are ribbon of one sort or another except for the black strings which are 8mm film. All the strings have been braided. The pink blobs along the bottom are silk fabric that I just bunched up and glued in between the styrofoam rocks. There are some little snippets of paper from other components of other fish pictures along the rock shelf also.
Not done yet, so you'll see it again soon. I'd like to have it done before the trip to my son's house.

I showed you all these fishes the last post also. Progress has been made! I went with putting glitter on them. Need to get at least one of these guys done in the next few days as I need to send one of them off to Minnesota first of the week.

Murray was hanging around all day yesterday. Usually she has little do with me. I refused to let her outside yesterday though so I have no one but myself to blame for the cat being a nuisance yesterday! Tippy and Lola didn't get to go outside either but they didn't seem too upset about it. They slept on my bed all day and gave me the what for while I was trying to sleep last night!

Murray seemed to think those fishes on the kitchen table smelled divine!

And that is all I have for today! 

There will be more probably tomorrow or the next day. I have a lot of things to accomplish by the 30th!

Remember.....

be good to one another!

It matters!

Thanks for stopping by!
Have a wonderful day!

Peace

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