FP10, Orange Elephant, Aluminum Cans, shrimp, a basket transformed, a dragon, kusudama ball, a bird and a box

Hello Readers!

A lot has been going on since the last time I made a post on the blog.
I opened an Etsy shop on the 17th of November. Had my first sales the day before yesterday! I really thought it would take much longer to get my first sale!

Opening the shop has taken up a good chunk of my creative time!  Also with opening the Etsy shop, I've been going through things trying to decide what to sell! That should be the easiest part of it all! I have enough stuff to keep a dozen mixed media artists busy for a few lifetimes!  At any rate, the shop is open and I'm slowly making progress on what to sell there. We shall see how it works out!

I lost a few days somewhere last week cause I slept them away. I woke up on Saturday morning thinking it was Friday and I could go check out the thrift store. I got on the computer and seen the date said it was Saturday. I was thinking, "what the hell happened to Friday???" I didn't get my dose of Vitamin D on Friday cause I never stepped foot outside the house in daylight hours!

The old body has been in rebel mode for a few weeks now. Aches and pains as usual, but sleeping more than I normally do. I'm surviving, that is all that matters at this point!

Doing good! I won't complain! I will however make a doctor's appt as I got a card from them last week telling me it has been a long time since they have seen me. Even though I do have health problems, I don't see the need to see the doctor for things I know she can do nothing about! All she will do is pump me full of pills that make me sleep even more than I already do! I do need to have a check up though so I'll call her later today and set that up.

I've rather been stuck on making paper birds for the last three days. I do not have any pictures of the paper birds but you'll get to see a different bird later in the pictures. I forgot to take pictures of the paper birds so you'll see them in the next post (whenever that will be.)

It is 6:30 in the morning right now. My brain hasn't kicked in just yet. The coffeepot refuses to make a pot of coffee in less than an hour so I've put a bottle of vinegar through it this morning in hopes of unclogging the supply lines. I have well water here at the house and it is hell on coffeepots! Lime deposits are the culprit.

I just tossed all the furkids outside. OK. I didn't actually TOSS them out, they all four walked out on their own feet! It's rather chilly and a tad breezy out this morning. It's also still dark out there! The cats are mad at me because I bought new cat food yesterday and they do not like it one little bit! I may have to go buy a bag of the good stuff and mix the two together to stay off the cats' list! I should have just bought the good stuff instead of trying to save a few dollars till the first of the month. Live and learn, I guess!

I have a lot on my list for the day. First off I have got to get that damn turkey painted! Even if it turns out to be the worst painting I've ever done in my life, it has to be done no later than tomorrow! Problem is, I've been putting off doing this turkey since the end of JULY! Painting is not even on the muse's radar these days and that tells me the turkey painting is going to suck big time! You all will get to see it regardless of the outcome!

The list of finished projects is now up to 545. That doesn't count what is in this post. We might as well get on to the art because you're probably tired of hearing me ramble on anyway! :)

An orange envelope prettied up with some tape. Nothing special, just a bit less boring than a plain old orange envelope.

The orange elephant altered envelope. Sharpie and white pen on orange envelope. I figured this one would take an international stamp and be done with it. No. It ended up costing over $2 to send and I refused to put a meter strip on it. The post lady didn't seem too upset that I insisted it have real stamps. She did get a bit touchy when I asked her not to cover the elephant's head with said stamps. I think there ended up being like six or seven stamps on this thing. Had I known it was gonna take so many, I'd of made the elephant a tad smaller to accommodate them all! Will got the envie so all's well on this front. And I am pleased with the outcome of the drawing also.

I had to go let the dog in. Like I said, it was 6:30 in the morning and that fool Fred is out there in the backyard barking his head off to be let in. I let him out the front door! I somedays really wish I knew dog language so I could figure out that dog's mind! I checked on the vinegar in the coffeepot on my way through the kitchen to the back door. The bottom of the pot isn't even covered with vinegar after 13 minutes of working at it! I may need another coffeepot! 

A few days ago I cut down all the aluminum cans I've collected in the last few months. Sheets of aluminum take up much less space than a cylinder of aluminum. I don't end up with many aluminum cans since I gave up drinking soda (pretty much-I still have one now and again but not everyday like I used to.) Tea and lemonade comes in the aluminum cans I get. Big tall cans= lots of aluminum to make things from! The tops and bottoms of the cans go in the recycle bin for metal in the kitchen. 

I made some little plaques out of parts of three of the cans I cut up. I had only 7 cans to begin with. 

The bear is part of a lemonade can. It's got a thin strip of copper foil tape around the edge of it. The silver foil tape is adhered to a thick piece of chipboard that has some eyelets put in it before I covered it with the silver foil tape. The aluminum is taped to the silver foil tape with double stick tape. That's some heavy duty double stick tape! Glad I decided to buy four rolls of it!

From a tea can. Same concept as the bear except this bull is the full size of the chipboard and the copper foil tape goes round the whole shebang.

This one is from the tea can shown in the picture below. For this one I taped the aluminum to the silver foil tape with the copper foil tape instead of going around the perimeter of the aluminum and taping it with double stick tape. 

Most of the cans aren't quite this detailed. The Lemonade cans all have a picture of a famous golfer on them. Can't think of his name right off the top of my head. There's a mango flavored tea can that is orange, red and green---lots of pretty colors on these cans. There's also the shiny silver inside of the can to work with too!

You can do all kinds of things with aluminum cans. I plan on making some little boxes out of aluminum cans. It is a great craft material.

I went on a road trip the weekend before last...sometime around the 16th. That was my sister's birthday...we went to Nebraska. We, being me, Ma, Susan, Linda, Aunt Sherry and Elaine, the birthday girl. We went shopping and out to lunch. Hit three thrift stores and an antique store along the way. Had lunch at a tavern in Holdredge. I have no clue what the name of the place was. The food was good! I live in Kansas about 50 miles from the Nebraska boarder so we really didn't go all that far from home. It was a fun day. We left home about 9 a.m and were back home by 4 p.m.  Susan and I shared the back seat of Linda's van. I made shrimp all the way there and back.

Cute little devils, aren't they?

I tried teaching Susan how to make them but she didn't have her reading glasses with her and it was like trying to teach a blind person to drive! She gave up on the lessons quite early on in the game.

Addictive little devils, too! 

I made seven of these shrimp on the roadtrip to Nebraska.

I don't have photographic proof but at this moment there are 23 shrimp in a bowl on the desk here beside me. I think the cats stole some of them. I spent days weaving shrimps after I had counted 23 in the dish. There should have been close to 30 of them in that dish by the time I counted them again. I made at least one and sometimes up to three shrimps over a four day period. 

To make your own shrimp you'll need some bendy straws. I got these on clearance at the dollar store for 50 cents. 

You'll need this tutorial to know how to weave them. 

tutorial for bendy straw shrimp

And you'll need a pair of small sharp scissors. These aren't near as hard to make as they look. I found it a bit tricky to grasp how the weave goes together at first, bit finally came to me. Persistence.

I showed you all this basket in the last post. It was pure white then. I dyed it with food coloring. I like it better this way than pure white.

I still have a lot of this elastic left. There will probably be more baskets in the near future.

I made some progress on FP10 but at the time of this post, progress has come to stalemate.

Mermaid barbie is done and attached to the canvas, finally.

I still need to make three fishes to round this out. Put a few more strands of fibers on it and I'll call it done! This is, by far, my least favorite of all the fish pictures I've made! A mermaid was a fantastic idea and I will use it again. The mermaid will not be green though. 

A couple of glitter pictures in progress. They are actually farther along now than when I took the pictures of them a few days ago. Not done yet, but well on the way. They are both 4x4 inches.

I learned how to make woven dragons. His tail is all wonky but the rest of him turned out great! You might see another dragon or two in the future beings I've mastered the art of weaving his body. It's the same weave as the bird you'll see in minute. I made 18 paper birds in addition to this dragon. The birds do not have a complicated tail like the dragon does and they don't need as long a piece of paper as the dragon. I made the birds out of 8x10 glossy black and white photographs of famous people. You'll get to see the birds in the next post. The dragon is made from a sheet of 12x12 scrapbook paper. I'll be experimenting with other paper I have that is at least 12 inches long. Wallpaper might be a good choice?

I made another kusudama flower ball. This one is made out of a graphic novel from the 1990s. It has plastic shiny star beads in the center of each flower unit and braided copper wire for a hanger. It's about 3 inches across.

Here's some more shrimp. I think there's a colony of them under the sofa if my assumptions on thieving cats is correct.

I made this little box to house strips of 16mm film. 

It's made from a cake box and some duct tape. Three beads are wired on the lid with copper wire. It's 3 inches across and just deep enough to hold the film. There are 8 one yard lengths of film in the box in the picture.

I told you all about the dozen or so reels of high school football footage I found at a yard sale for $2. I've been wracking my brain to figure out what the heck to do with all that film. I finally figured out something.

A bird woven just like the paper dragon, but made with film instead of paper. The underside of his wings show where the film was taped together to begin the weaving. I tried going for the dragon's tail but weaving with film is a totally different experience than weaving with paper and that film just would not cooperate with the intricacy of the tail weave. So I lopped the tail ends off, tied his head and called him a pterodactyl. I'll put a copper wire hanger on him when I do the same to all the birds in the stone mixing bowl on the kitchen counter.

I started embroidering another wool ball yesterday. I put a cover on the naked white ball some days back after having destroyed a shrunken wool jacket. That ball should be done sometime soon.

For sure you all will see a turkey in the next post! And some woven paper birds. Whatever else shows up will be as big a surprise to me as it will to you! 

Be good to one another!

It matters!

Thanks for stopping by!

Peace 

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Halloween, Some Fantastical Critters and My Furry Housemates

Hello Readers!

As you all know I was away for a few days at my son's house. I've been home now for five days now and just getting around to making a post. Not really a whole lot to show this go around. But here's the low down!

Enjoy!

I spent Halloween with my grandkids. Yep, I went trick or treating! I stole leaves off a tree in a stranger's yard to do some crafting with. That crafting has yet to commence.....

We spent the day before the big night making Brenton's pacman costume. We being my dil, Terah, me and RJ, my son. It's made from corregated plastic. I made it into a sandwich sign with some elastic strips that are sewn to the corregated cardboard that we spray painted yellow. There are straps at the boy's waist also to help in keeping it steady in the brisk wind he was dealing with while out gathering goodies.

Brenton's sister Annie was a sweet little witch on Halloween. Her mama did a fantastic job her makeup!

Halloween night was a fun affair for me!

I finished up this yellow embroidered ball before the trip south. I wanted to have it with me for the craft sale. I still have it and all the other embroidered balls I took with me. 

The craft sale was somewhat of a bust. I was disappointed in the sales. Our booth looked great! I'm sorry it didn't dawn on me to take some pictures of it. Terah sold some homemade goodies and I sold a few ooak goodies. I came out about 35 dollars ahead. I was hoping for way more but it didn't stop me from giving it another go when opportunity comes a'knockin'!

I made this basket the day before I came home. I took a bunch of stuff to work on for the trip away from home. I should have left a couple of those bags at home, cause I never even opened them!

While Annie made pictures on her chalkboard easel, I drew pictures with my markers.

Red Owl

ATC

Purple Violet

ATC

Purple Owl

ATC

Pink Owl

ATC

Red Poppies

ATC

Red Owl

ATC

Orange Asters

ATC

Green Owl

ATC

I went home the day after the owls and flowers were all drawn. I just unpacked them this afternoon to photograph them.

I've been playing with paint at the kitchen table so I decided to give the turkey canvas a goat of gesso and ink in the drawing.

I made a batch of homemade gesso the night before last. White glue and cornstarch mixed to the consistency you're happy with! Put it in a glue bottle and use it as you would gesso. It dries an opaque white. Look closely and you'll see pencil lines under the final marker drawing. Those pencil lines are under the homemade gesso.

At the moment there are glitter pictures in the works. I used the homemade gesso as the adhesive. I have no clue if that will be a success or not.

I can't remember if I'm working on fp9 or fp10. At any rate I am working on a fish picture. You saw it in the last post. 

I made this fearful mermaid to adhere to it. Someone is bound to fall in love with her, yes???? I screwed up when the muse kept yelling, "Paint her green! Paint her green!" For three days I listened to the muse....questioning if that was a good idea. I dove right in...painted the whole of her flesh showing, sparkly green with fabric paint. I hated it. I peeled off that paint from her torso and arms with no trouble at all. Her head however is made from a different material than her torso and arms and that green sparkly paint had adhered to her face and would not come loose. So I once again followed the muse's noise and repainted her torso and arms. Then I added some fins on her forearms. That only made it worse. Her face was horrendous with Barbie's features peeking out the sparkly green. So I let the muse dictate what came next. For a day mulled over what to do with her face. The muse said, "She's a fish, give her some yellow eyes! Fingernail polish will do the trick."  She has gray nailpolish under that yellow in her eyes. Her lips are a dark brown sparkly nailpolish color. None of it works if you ask me! Her hair is held up in its do with sewing thread and glue. I started out sewing the seed beads in her hair and opted to go the easy route and glue in the majority of them.

On her own, she scares me! LOL 

She'll end up sitting atop that big green braid towards the left hand side of the canvas. I'm thinking some E6000 should hold her on nicely.  I still haven't relocated the red fishes I saw on a shelf somewhere after I came home from my son's house. 

While I was away at the son's house, my mother cleaned the house spotless and rearranged a few things in my cutting room and the storage room. She built me some more shelves for those rooms. All an improvement, but now things are where I can't find some of them. Those fishes are one of them! I saw the little devils somewhere, but damned if I can remember where! I just haven't looked in the right place yet. This fish picture will be finished soon! 

Tippy. She's the ornery one of the bunch. She delights in attacking me from behind when I come out the hallway into the livingroom. She wraps her front legs around one of my legs at knee level and hangs on for a few steps. Never with claws out! She does the same thing to Fred when the pair of them are getting along. If Fred is snappy, she keeps her distance. 

I showed you all a picture of this cat doing the same thing she's doing in this picture the last post. I cannot keep her from doing this. I turn my back and there's Murray helping herself to the paint water. It isn't like there aren't TWO bowls of fresh water available to her. 

Lola came out from under the sofa and stuck her tongue out at me. She's the old lady of the bunch. She's four, maybe five years old.  I hadn't seen her all night last night. I thought I heard a cat meowing during the time I was asleep but I didn't really get up to see if it was so or not. When I did wake up for the day I went in the closet to find me a shirt to wear and there's fat cat Lola inside the closet. She had herself a right fine sleep on my extra bed covers and made a right fine mess of some things on the floor. Used to be she could worm her way UNDER the door to escape the closet. She cannot do that any longer. I hope she has learned her lesson about staying out of the closet when the door is open. I don't like the cats in the closet. That's my space, not theirs! I can do nothing about the other two getting into the closet cause they can worm their way under the door. Thankfully they don't decide to take naps in there.

Murray wants outside. Fred is just tired. He's so showing his age these days. 

I made some metal embellishments today. Not sure what's to become of them....magnets, maybe. Might put them on book covers. I'll show them to you in the next post. 

Until then.....

remember to be good to one another

it matters

Peace

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