30 June 2014

Art and some other ramblings

hELLO rEaders!

Forgot I had the caps lock on.....
Been awhile since I was here and there is lots to show today so get a cuppa something and settle in for the long haul.
We had a storm last weekend. On the night of the 14th.
It got nasty.



Trees snapped. Things flew through the air. My van got buried under the broken trees in the front yard.
There are big dents on the top and back end of the van and this lovely broken windshield too. That brown stuff all over the window is sawdust from the cleanup.

Looks a bit better after the cleanup but all the morning shade from the trees is gone. It's a bit bare out there now. That highwire pole in the middle of the picture is right in front of the house there. When I talk about the burnt house, that's the house I'm talking about. My yard light is on that pole and now there is no darkness on the front porch at night. I liked the darkness on the porch. That light shines right on the front door of the house now. Some would say that is a good thing. I agree somewhat but I really did love the darkness. I could go out and star gaze on the porch but now that isn't so easy with all the light.



I mainly put the previous two pictures here so I could see them side by side. This is the view to the north off my front porch. The top picture was taken on the 11th, before the storm, and the bottom one on the 15th. I'm not sure exactly what is planted in that field. I think it is soybeans. Though it may be milo. I haven't actually walked out there to take a good look to see the plants upclose. 
I thought some of the trees in the tree line on the other side of that field had been damaged in the storm also but they look about the same in both pictures. 

Insurance didn't cover the van nor any of the clean up of the fallen limbs. The van wasn't covered cause it has nothing to do with the house and the limbs weren't covered because they didn't fall on anything that was covered on the insurance for the house. The check to cover the skirting and siding on my house came the other day from the insurance company, so it wasn't a complete loss. I can still drive my van....till they tell me I can't with that windshield like it is!
I really enjoyed talking to the adjuster. He was a nice man.

It is storm season, so storms are to be expected. 

Now onto the art.


I made some little bags out of metal mesh lint traps and other doodads.
This one is my favorite of the two. I made it second. It has acrylic smokey colored beads on black ribbon hanging around the opening and the bottom. It has a plastic button closure.

I think I showed you all this first one in the last post. It's been so long, I'm not really sure. I revamped it a bit from what it originally looked like. I did away with the closure all together on this one. I like it much better now.

It has two fishing swivels to hold the ball chain handle and more ball chains along the bottom. The other one also has ball chain fringe along the bottom but it's put on differently than this one.
I'm in the process of making more felted balls. Another green ball has been added to these two since the picture was taken. These still need their felt covers and some prettying up with a bit of embroidery.


I really like all the dots on this ball, but this thing took twice as long as any other ball in this post to embroider.


None of these, nor the green ones above, have a rattle in them. They're just recycled balls. 

You all have seen this ball previously in another post sometime back. I added more embroidery to it. It has a rattle.

Baskets have been on the radar. This blue one is made from macrame cord with blue cotton yarn crocheted over it to for the coiled basket. This basket is about 9 inches across.

This little white basket is made with the same macrame cord but it is sewn into a coiled basket with pastel colored nylon string. This basket is about 3.5 inches across.

Another crocheted coiled basket. This one made with brown nylon cording for the core and crewel yarn crocheted around the cord.

This one is made with the same macrame cord as the other two and this one has red acrylic yarn crocheted into it. It is about 7 inches across.

I spent a couple days working on some bowls. here they are on the front porch railing drying in the sun for a few hours.

And a day later, we have finished bowls.

They are made of paper pulp and painted with regular old wall paint in three different shades. They look like they're made out of stone.

I made another needle felted bird. His beak is a bit too long, but he's a cute little fella. He's about three inches tall.

Next post will have more felted animals.

I dragged out the paints with all intentions of doing a lot of painting one day. This is all that the muse would allow. Altered envelope painted with watercolors. I still need to paint the backside of this one.

People save things for me. One of the things they save is toilet paper rolls. I have about 300 of them by my guesstimation. I've never counted them so it really is only a guess but I have  more tp rolls than I know what to do with!
I found these fishes made out of tp rolls one day while trolling youtube. 

I painted them with acrylics before covering them with glitter.

Then the when the glitter dried, I added more glitter to their fins and tails.

And when the second layer of glitter had dried I put scales and eyes and gills on the fishes with puff paint.

This dark pink one is my favorite.

The blue one and this red one are headed to new homes as soon as I stuff them in an envelope and take them to the post office tomorrow.

This yellow one is my least favorite. I put jump rings in the nose of the two I traded but I think the others will end up as magnets.

An experiment. I crocheted a little ball and stuffed it with plastic strips from a bread sack. The experiment was to see just how easy that would be and whether it would work as I had planned. It's a cat toy.

And last but not least, I'm working on a project with the pastel colored string I talked about earlier with the little white basket. Not sure just what this will be....I'm shooting for a bag of some sort. Might take years.....

You all be good to one another!
Thanks for stopping by!

Peace
831








08 June 2014

A Month's Worth of Art

Hello Readers!
It's been almost a month since I was here last and I have a lot to show you all! So, get a cuppa something and settle in for a long read. 

The pictures are in no particular order.

These trees are ATCs. You'll see four  more of them later in the post. The backgrounds are painted in acrylics and the trees are painted in fingernail polish.

This is a crocheted basket in progress. Brown cord and bright green cotton yarn. This basket won't be very big as it isn't a very sturdy basket. We'll see what it turns out to be. Will be awhile before I can call it done. I work on it every other day or so.

I recently got a shipment of wool roving and had to play with it. I made this needle felted mug rug the other day. The edges still need to be finished...probably with a blanket stitch in crewel embroidery in...I'm not sure what color. I'll figure that out when I actually get around to doing it!

I discovered a very important fact while making this cute yellow bird. You can needle felt polyester fiber filling! The innards of this little bird are fiber filling and the outside of him is wool roving. His legs are steel wire. He's about 5 inches tall. I'm really pleased with how he turned out! I will be putting him in the etsy shop soon.

I know this just looks like a random picture but if you enlarge it by clicking on it, you will see a hawk moth flying around my cutting room.

Here's a better picture of him in flight just inside the doorway into the cutting room. 

Here's the cat that alerted me to this moth while I was standing at the kitchen sink. The moth dive bombed me as Miss Lola was on the chase. He flew up behind the kitchen window curtain and I caught him.

I was headed to the deskroom to retrieve the camera so I could take his picture when he got away from me. I was headed down the hallway and as I walked past the cutting room he fluttered away, Miss Lola hot on his tail just as she had been on mine as I traversed the hallway!
As far as I know, he's still in the cutting room, two days later. He dive bombed the light fixture and disappeared in the abyss that is the cutting room.
I caught him to put him back outside where he belonged. Out of reach of that cat! 
It was cool to see him and even cooler to get to see him up close and personal!
I am fascinated by insects of all sorts. The bigger they are, the better!

I made some charms out of some beads and head wires.

I was hunting for something in the cutting room the other night and found these woven wire lint traps hanging on the wall. I took down one package and opened it to take a look at these lint traps. 

Ideas started stewing...

I looked down at the table in front of me and saw those three little bags of ball chains....

and decided these two things would make a great little bag!

You can buy these things at the hardware store. I found four packages of them at the thrift store for a quarter each. I do not know how much they cost at the hardware store...probably only a few bucks though.

The bag doesn't look like this now. I changed it up a bit earlier this evening.

I'll show you the revamp and another bag in the next post.

Thought I'd show off my collection of fingernail polish. I don't generally paint my nails, but I do paint with the polish.

I've never done a count on just how many bottles of it I have.

A lot though....and I bought two more bottles of it yesterday morning. 

This stack of real and fake leather will eventually become little books. The stack started out as a pile of purses. I think there were seven or eight purses to begin with.

Chickens
ATC
acrylic on carstock

This is the result of two experiments. The blue and purple sheet is tyvek that I hit with the heat gun. The other three sheets are a man made material that feels somewhat like tyvek but didn't react at all to the heat gun like the tyvek did. All the heat gun did was dry the acrylic paint they're colored with. The tyvek was also painted with acrylics.
Not sure what these will end up as.

I am almost done with this fish picture. I need to go take a look at the backs of the previous fish pictures to figure out if this is number 10 or 11.

It still needs a few strings over the fishes and then it will be done. I may add a few more doodads to the rock shelf at the bottom. Will have to sit and study it for awhile before I decide if it really needs anymore doodads.

Here are some potential doodads that may end up on this recent fish picture or they may end up on a future one.

This poppy painting is done in oil pastels on that man made fabric/paper...I really don't know what to call it. This picture is about 12x18. It will become a book cover.

My brother gave me two giant orange trash bags last weekend. I cut them into plarn to make a basket out of them. 

Finger painted background ATCs. Acrylics. I think I did around 20 of these all at once. All the trees in this post have finger painted backgrounds.

Peace flag made from muslin and painted with acrylics. It needs a couple grommets in two corners and then I'll hang it out in the pear tree.

I cover my work surface at the kitchen table with a single sheet of newspaper and cover it with waste paint while I'm painting at the kitchen table. In a few sessions of painting I have covered that single sheet of newspaper and will use it in making little book covers eventually. There are about half a dozen sheets of newspaper waiting on the shelf in the cutting for me to do something with them.




Four more bubble trees. ATCs with acrylic backgrounds and fingernail polish trees.

Green Jellyfish Chunky
4x4 inches
The background is tyvek colored with markers and then hit with the heat gun. The jellyfish is tyvek hit with the heat gun and various ribbons and such for the tenacles.

The only difference with this one and the one following from the one previous is that the tyvek background was painted with acrylics before being hit with the heat gun. There's also some gold dust (used in resin work usuall...I seldom follow the directions though :) ) 

The jellyfish are sewn to the tyvek before being glued to a piece of matboard.

The cat annihilated my paper cube sculpture. Seems to me I already told you all about this sculpture? 

Garage Sale finds from two weeks ago. I paid $5 for the box full of paper ribbon. Some of that paper ribbon is actually plastic ribbon masquerading as paper. That ribbon will end up being baskets. The green snake skin was an excellent find! I will make it into little book covers. I should be able to get at least two out of it.
The material beneath the snake skin is a sequined fabric. I don't know what it will become. It was just too pretty to leave there. I gave 50 cents for the snake skin - it is 23 inches long...and I gave 25 cents for the sequin fabric.

I opted out of going to yard sales this weekend because I convinced myself I really didn't need anymore crap this week!

Thanks for sticking around to the end!
Remember....
be good to one another!
It matters!
Peace
831

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