A Silly Green Hat, Birds and Bees, Dolls and Leaves

Hello Readers!

Not much happening in my world. The old body went into rebel mode a few days ago and I slept for hours on end. And as usual, when I'm sleeping, I get absolutely NOTHING done! Oh how I wish I could create while I sleep!  Lord knows I do enough sleeping for two!

At any rate, I'm feeling much better today, Thank you! 

A few days ago this green material came in the mail. When it arrived it was two legs off a pair of pants. My niece requested a LOZ Link hat for her Halloween costume. I happily obliged. I cut a hat shape out of one of the pant legs and Ma took it home with her and sewed it up on the machine. I really can't call this finished project all mine. Hopefully Allison will approve! She should get the hat on Wednesday or Thursday. Let's hope the post office doesn't lose it from here to there!

I don't remember if I told you all about the peanut critters in the last post or not. I think I had started on the hummingbirds when I wrote the last post, but I'm uncertain right now. The old head is still a bit foggy from the 18 hour nap I woke up from an hour or two ago.

I have since finished all the peanut critters.

First off we have hummingbirds.

They are all made from a peanut shell painted with acrylics.

They have toothpick pieces for their beaks.

And sparkly black with gold fabric for their wings. I cut a length of copper wire, made a loop in it and glued it in a hole in their head for a hanger. Their little legs are short pieces of crewel embroidery yarn. I used sparkly blues and green with a touch of red paint at the throat. I used hot glue to attach the wings and the beak. White glue for the rest of the gluing.

In all, I made a dozen hummingbirds.

And beings there were still stale peanuts left....

I made some bumblebees too!

Their wings are fine yellow netting material.

A dozen were made.

They too got the copper wire loop embedded in their heads. I'm not sure the bees are done yet. I think their eyes need a bit of detail before I call them done. And perhaps a coat of some shiny varnish. That clear coat I put on them didn't do them any good at all. I think they'd look better with a bit of shine.

I made some dottee dolls for a swap over at AFA. (The link is up there in the sidebar.)

I don't usually give my dottee dolls a mouth but one of the requirements was that the dolls had to have a mouth. So I embroidered one. This blue dottee has a striped fabric covered button for a hat. I think she looks quite 'arteest' like. She's made from wool suit material. Aluminum chain and an old earring. Her eyes are rubber beads sewn on.

this one is the wild princess. She's made from silk (that used to be a blouse), a red ribbon, some fake pearl strings, cotton string for hair, She has wings also. Brass wings. Her eyes are small wooden beads sewn on and she also has a fabric rose and a cotton button on her tummy. I'm not sure what that cotton button is really called. A rosette? Folks make them and use them in quilts. I got a bunch of them from somewhere and used this one as an embellishment for this dottee.

This is Uncle Eddie after a hard night out on the town. He's made from an acrylic fuzzy sweater, eyelash yarn for his hair and aluminum chain. His eyes are small wooden beads sewn on.

This is Aunt Gladys off to the market in her best striped dress with her walnut shell basket in tow. She is made from cotton material, her eyes are two metal bead caps, her hair cotton yarn and her danglies are ball chain. Her basket is a carved walnut shell.

I did get the leather book cover sewn into a book but I forgot to take a picture of the finished book. My phone is doing an update at the moment so no picture of the book. I'll get one for next post later this evening.

I haven't worked on the red ribbon basket since the last post. And the little houses are still sitting in the kitchen on the table waiting for something to happen with them. 

I cut down 17 aluminum cans and got them ready for crafting yesterday. I'm thinking of making some little houses out of them and leaving the graphics from the cans on the outside of the houses. We will see how that pans out...

This evening I am packaging things for a mailrun tomorrow. I have a fish that needs to swim to Washington state, that hat and a bee and a bird will go to my niece, I had a sale in the etsy store today that needs to go to Las Vegas, Nevada. Wish I could go to Las Vegas..... and one of the hummingbirds is flying off to Abilene, Kansas. No one there knows of its arrival. I love sending surprises! And there is probably another surprise on the way to someone else as well. Who knows who will find what in their mailboxes!

There is no update on the soybeans. That field looks exactly the same now as it did six days ago!  Something strange going on out in that field at night though. I've changed my nights and days around (again) so I'm up all night. For the last three nights running there have been coyotes out there singing at the top of their lungs! They are close!!! Very close to the house. Fred dog could care less about  coyotes. He pays them no mind at all unless he sees one. Then he gives chase and barks at the top of his lungs as well. I stepped out on the front porch the night before last because it sounded like they were in the front yard. Those coyotes stopped their singing and were quiet until I stepped back inside where they couldn't see me. I never laid eyes on any of them. It was dark out....The strange thing is that those coyotes shouldn't be out there in that open field. And if they are out there hunting for small critters; like mice and what have you, why the devil are they singing at the top of their lungs? Wouldn't that shoo off any potential dinner? Logic says there are definitely small rodents all over that field what with the soybeans popping out of the pods and falling on the ground. And the dead critters I keep finding on the kitchen floor everyday. The coyotes were out there earlier tonight. They didn't sing very long cause the dog on the other side of the river (that's about a quarter mile away as the crow flies) started barking. It isn't uncommon for the coyotes to use the field to get from one place to another....I don't know why the field hasn't been cut and I don't know why the coyotes have taken up howling in it at night. Befuddles me. I don't even know how many coyotes are out there singing at all hours of the night. Sounds like dozens! Could be only a few. I hear them singing in the field and there's another batch of them over by the river that sings at all hours! I don't mind the coyotes one bit. They were here long before I was and they have as much right to be here as I do. I've never had any problems with the coyotes in the 14 years I've lived out here so I'm certainly not going to start worrying for nothing now. I do wish they wouldn't come quite so close to the house though. I do worry about a cat becoming dinner for a hungry coyote. I can't control coyotes or cats so if a cat does become dinner for a hungry coyote, there's not a thing I can do about it! Therefore there is not much use in worrying myself sick about it. I am pretty sure my Billy cat was lost to a hungry coyote a few years back. Billy just didn't come home one morning in early June. 

Living in the country one must deal with the wildlife. How one deals with it determines how one fares with it! I prefer to just let the wildlife do whatever it is the wildlife do. My coyotes are too close to town to worry about hunters shooting them. I don't think coyotes should have a bounty on their hides, but as far as I know, they do.  

Here is the wikipedia entry about coyotes if you care to learn something new today. I found it good reading and will follow up with some other research later. 

I will let you all know if anything happens with the soybean field.

Last summer I came home from a visit to my son's house and found two new baby trees growing happily in my west yard. We also call this the back yard. They have both grown about two feet since they were planted. My mother and brother did the planting. I had no say in these trees. I was gone. I came home and there they were! I am not complaining, mind you! Oh no! Baby trees were quite welcome! The shade they'll provide is greatly needed.

It's getting colder by the day and the leaves are starting to change. I plucked these off the baby trees day before yesterday. 

I don't want the cold to come. I am pretty sure I never complained about it being too hot this summer. I will complain about it being too cold. I must call my sons and get their hides busy with fixing the skirting so I can turn on the furnace! Tonight it is cold! There will be a heavy frost covering everything come sunrise. 

That's all for me for now.

Thanks for reading through.

Remember....

Be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace

831

A Bathing Cat, A Mermaid, Some Other Things and Soybeans

Hello Readers!

When I downloaded the pictures to this post, I started off with soybeans but this bathing cat showed up first in line instead.

Miss Lola taking a morning bath really has nothing to do with anything except Miss Lola taking her morning bath. I just put this series of bathing cat pictures here because, really.....who doesn't enjoy a cat picture or two. And when was the last time you got to see stills of a bathing cat?

You're welcome!

I woke up with this cat in my bed this morning. That's nothing unusual actually. This cat always sleeps on my bed. Sometimes there may be another cat or two sleeping on the bed also. 

So when I woke up I grabbed the phone off the headboard of the bed and had a photo shoot with Lola before I ever even climbed out of bed! 

It appears all the pictures are catty whompas  from how I downloaded them....

We are just going to run with it...

I've been working on this mermaid art doll for the last few days.

I didn't take pictures along the entire process unfortunately. 

Her armature is poly rope and thick brown yarn. I paper mached her top part with paper towels and watered down white school glue. I then painted her top part with brown acrylic paint.

The scales on her tail are ribbon that has been cut into 1/2 inch squares (give or take. I did not measure. I cut the ribbon in half length-wise and then into small squares.) The ribbon is some kind of plastic. I hot glued all the ribbon pieces directly to the yarn wrapping of the armature.

Her arms are way too short! I'll be fixing those arms later today.

Her boobs are two seashells hot glued on.

I gave her a nose with hot glue that was then painted over. I should have given her a chin as well, but I didn't. Her face is yet to be completed. She'll get a mouth and some pupils for her eyes.

Her hair is green eye lash yarn. I cut some lengths of yarn about a foot long, tied a knot in the center to hold them all together and then glued the knot to the top and back of her head. She has three knots of hair. I really like her hair!

Her tail fin is cut from a cracker box, paper mached with paper towels and white glue, painted blue metallic (acrylic) with hot glue for the spines of her fin, also painted.

She isn't a gorgeous babe of a mermaid, but she's coming along. You all will see her in the next post when I finish with her.

I lengthened her arms a bit (a bit too much on one of them, but it is what it is!). She has a cap on her head to keep the glue off her face and out of her hair! I just added extensions to her stubby arms and paper mached them just as I did the rest of her torso. 

I painted her seashell boobs the same color as her and then added dark brown and pink spots for her nipples. And then I covered her bosom with her hair and glued a few strands in place to hide her goods. 

If I am to ever birth pretty mermaids, I will have to practice on making mermaids.

I bought this antique salt cellar at the yard sales I went to a few weeks back. I got three of these little purple glass salts for a dollar. This one has a giant chip off the rim on the other side (where you can't see it). I felted some wool roving to fit in the salt, glued it to the bottom with some white glue and called it a pincushion.  I haven't decided if I'm going to try to sell this one in my Etsy shop or if I will keep it for myself. I really don't need another pincushion though. I have a tomato for pins in the livingroom and a steel wool bird in the deskroom. Those are the only two rooms of this house where I do any sewing.

I'm still working on little houses.

They keep changing colors.

I doubt they will all end up with blue roofs. I haven't decided if I will paint these houses or if I will collage them or if I'll go out in the yard and find some natural things to pretty them up. Houses are a work in progress. I have 15 of them built at the moment, 4 of them finished. 

I broke down all the food boxes that were laying on the floor in the cutting room. I have enough chipboard boxes to make a whole flipping country of houses! I don't believe all that chipboard will be turned into houses though.

More to come with the houses in a future post.

The red ribbon basket (might end up being a tote, all depends on how the crocheting goes) is coming along a good pace. It really hurts my hands to do this crocheting so I only do a round or two a day.

I'm working on a new book also. This is a piece of white leather that had some faint staining along one edge so I splattered it with paint and made those stains disappear into the background. I still need to cut three more signatures for this one and then I will sew it together. You'll get to see it done in the next post. It will have a closure of some kind on it. Pages are made from plain copy paper.

I repainted the windsock and hung it back on the pole on the porch railing. The wind blew like crazy about five days ago and the windsock left. I found it out in the ditch by the highway. It was none the worse for the wear. It needed a bath but that wasn't a problem. It is painted in acrylics on muslin fabric. The oil pastels I originally painted it in didn't hold up the UV rays from the sun. Those colors faded big time! We shall see how the pigments in the acrylics holds up.

A fish was requested so I made it a special envelope to travel to Virginia in.

Acrylics on plain white envelope.

The fish was drawn on brown packing paper, cut out and painted before being adhered to the envelope.

A terrible picture of the combine cutting the soybeans north of the house.  This was five days ago. 

14 October 2014

16 october 2014

It still looks like this on the 18th. (I wrote most of this post on the 18th.) If I've selected the right picture to put here, you can click on this one and see the combine on the far side of the field out there by the tree line. It took me a few minutes to locate it when I was standing on the front porch taking this picture! 

And it still hasn't been cut completely on the 21st of October. I really don't know what the hold up is on cutting it. Last evening I walked out there to where he stopped cutting. There are beans on those plants. The plants appear to be dry and brittle. And the beans are falling out of the pods onto the ground. I do not know why he hasn't come back to finish the job. Perhaps these beans are useless? Perhaps the price of beans isn't right? Perhaps I have no flipping clue what I'm talking about? I honestly do not know why the beans are still in the field. 

That's about all I've been up to. I have a few projects in the works besides the little houses. I'll be back in a few days time with something more to show, I'm sure!

Thanks for sticking around to the end!

Remember....

be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace 831

A Bit of Art and A Soybean Update

Hello Readers!

It has been a few days since I was here last. I don't have a great deal to show for the days passed but here's what I've been working on...

I made a copperwire bird's nest pendant with glass beads. I should have gone to the cutting room and found some oval beads, shaped more like eggs, but these clear glass beads were sitting right beside the desk and they seemed to suffice for the purpose. It was an experiment afterall. I've made other bird's nest pendants but none made in quite the way this one was. And as usual, I didn't save the tutorial and finding it again may be neigh on impossible! 

I did save the tutorial for the little houses I made over the past few days.

chipboard houses

Mine were made out of cereal box chipboard. I think one of those boxes was a mac and cheese box.

If you follow the link below the first picture, you will find the template to build these houses. 

These little houses are still in the making. These are made from a box a light bulb came in. The blue ones are backing from a toy airplane package.

To keep the houses together while they dried, I taped the ends with cellophane tape. As of this writing some of them have their roofs, some of them do not. I worked on these yesterday. I had a roaring migraine that came and went all day yesterday so I didn't really get much done on them. They are on my list for today.

I made a couple of owl magnets with zipper parts and tin can lids.

This one still needs some feet and both of them need cleared of the hot glue strings that are always present when you use hot glue on a project. These are both about three inches wide.

This is the big pink basket you saw in the last post. I painted mushrooms on it and then decided

I wanted it to be sparkly so I put glitter all over the mushrooms. I also painted the green with glitter paint so it sparkled as well.

I'm still going through bottles of paint, trying to eliminate the ones that are useless. 

So we have a couple more painted newspapers. These aren't newspaper though. They are brown kraft paper that came in a package I got in the mail a few weeks ago. It was all crumpled up, keeping my things safe. I uncrumpled it and put it to good use! These will become either backgrounds for something or another or they will become little book covers.

I painted a rose on a dictionary page with acrylics.

Another tutorial I forgot to save....a little pink sweater snail that I turned into a magnet.

In the tutorial the snail was supposed to end up being about 10 inches long. Mine is about 4 inches long. To make good snails, I will need to experiment more with this pattern. I just freehanded a pattern in the same shape as the tutorial showed. I need to dig out the wool sweater remnants for the next one so his shell is a bit bigger. Acrylic sweater material is not as thick as wool. His body is made from fleece.

Ma brought me this giant spool of ribbon last week.  There is a lot of ribbon on this spool. 250 yards! It wasn't completely full, but not much was missing when I got it. 

The ribbon is 7/8 inch wide. Perfect for crocheting! I'm in the process of making a tote bag. Will be a few days before it is done. Crocheting hurts my hands something fierce these days. So a little at a time and eventually it will be done!

This is my giant zentangle in progress. It is done on the backside of a poster. I don't remember just what that poster looks like. I've been working on this thing off and on for over a year now. It hangs on the wall in hallway into my spare bathroom. I put a few marks on it every now and then when I think about it. It's done in sharpie markers in various sizes. The poster measures about 3 feet square. My daughter-in-law oohs and ahhs over it everytime she comes to visit so eventually it will be hers. 

That's all for the art this time. As usual, there are other things in the works.

I thought yesterday was the day the soybean field would be cut but they only cut one pass of the combine all around the field yesterday evening. I got pictures but they've not been downloaded yet. I'm assuming that was a test cut to see if the beans were really ready.

8 September 2014

9 September 2014

It was cold and rainy on the ninth.

12 September 2014

Later today I will download the pictures of the combine hard at work and post tomorrow on what's happening with the soybeans. It's almost 11 am and there is no combine out there at the moment. It was almost 6pm when they did the cutting yesterday so who knows what time the cutting will commence again. 

Until then....

Remember to be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace

831