A Bit of Art, Soybean Update for Mel, September's Envie and Some Chatter

Hello Readers!

Not a lot of art to show you all today. I've been immersed in zippers for days now! That doesn't seem to be slowing down any so expect more zippers in the blog posts yet to come!

First off a funny story about 

this fake piece of cake. 

Which you can clearly see is not finished! I'm calling it half-baked at the moment. 

I left it sitting on the kitchen table overnight. When I got up this morning it was on the floor in the livingroom! I'm assuming Fred dog thought it was a REAL piece of cake and I had left it within reach for him. A midnight snack for the dog? He didn't hurt it any. I'm blaming the dog only because it is a big piece of cake and the cats don't usually steal things off the table. That dog, though, he can't be trusted!

Someone will be getting some cake in the mail! 

How's it made, you ask?  It is two pieces of foam rubber from an old couch cushion, cut into 'cake' shape and then 'frosted' with silicone caulking. The caulking was clear. It took almost two weeks for that caulking to dry completely. The dog didn't get a hold of it while the caulking was drying because I put it inside a cupboard to dry. I didn't want cat hair drying in the caulking. It really does look like a piece of cake! It is a bit top heavy from the caulking but it sits up nicely and doesn't fall over. It is painted with wall paint. I'll give it another coat of brown paint and perhaps some 'decoration' on top with puff paint. I haven't actually decided on the finishing touches just yet.

And I'm still busy with zippers! 

Thanks to those of you who gave me ideas of what to do with these things! 

Suggestions included:

hair accessories

brooches

magnets

embellishments

The brown basket won't hold too many more! I need to finish that brown basket and the other brown basket and the two yellow baskets. Maybe I'll drag out the paint and do that this afternoon. I don't really have to drag out the paint...you can see paint bottles sitting on the table in the picture above! But I might have to drag out some different colors. 

Anyway, zippers and paint are in my future! My very near future!!!

And just for Mel.....A soybean update!

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Not much difference other than the shadows and the clouds in the sky. 

I did some research on soybeans this morning. Soybeans have been genetically modified since the late 90's. This was news to me! They are used in hundreds of products, from livestock feed to plastics. We eat them raw, cooked, made into oil and made into soy milk. And let's not forget soy sauce. They are used in the production of cosmetics, foodstuffs, and plastics, among other things that I can't remember at the moment! They are very useful plants. 

There are many different varieties of soybeans that are used for different applications. 

Harvesting happens with a combine with a special head attachment according to my research. I'm hoping to be awake when the harvesting commences. I'd like to get some pictures of it going on! 

I'm also anxious to see if the farmer puts cattle on the field after harvest. I'm not sure that cows eat the plants off the field. They may just plow it all under for the nitrogen in the plants. We'll just have to wait and see what happens! All I'm doing here is guessing at what might occur.

My partner got her envelope for September so I can now show it to you all.

I took a presentation folder (you all saw those a few posts back when I was cutting them apart to make room for them on a shelf in the cutting room), painted it with acrylics and then proceeded to add collage elements from junk mail, magazines and what have you. There are some stickers on there also. I used four different tapes....the peace sign packing tape, yellow duct tape, the pink plaid 'locker' tape (it's wider than packing tape, but the same stuff) and some lined tape that I have no idea what it was originally produced for. 

I crocheted a little green heart out of polyester cording, cut a heart the same size in the folder and then sewed the crocheted heart into the hole with orange embroidery thread.

Inside there are some pockets to hold ATC blanks, rolo blanks, inchie strips and envelopes folded out of magazine paper. I also included a couple of origami butterflies, some postcard blanks and some bigger sizes of blank cardstock. All the blanks except the postcards and the rolo blanks were cut from the same cardstock as the presentation folders are made from. The heart on the inside of the folder is watercolor paper painted with fingernail polish. You all saw them sometime back as well.

I also made my partner a little notebook that fit in the folder. It was made with the same cardstock, covered with painted newspaper. The paper inside the pamphlet stitched notebook is green graph paper.

This was a fun project to do. It is completely different than what I had started out to do for my September partner, but I'm happy with the result and she was too!

That's it for me today!

Remember....

Be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace

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