A Wild Goose Chase

Hello Readers!

I call this post 'A Wild Goose Chase' because of the variety of things I have to show you all.

The muse has been very busy and quite productive since I was here last.

So, let's get started!

This guy made it to his destination intact. I had no doubts that he would. 

Miss Iowa named him Sir Witherspoon. She says she's been playing with his mustache. There is something about a mustachioed man that makes you want to touch him! It helps that Sir has real mink fur for his facial features. He's painted on a game board. Monopoly I think. I really didn't pay any attention to the board game when I pulled it off the shelf where many other board game boards reside. He's painted in acrylics. I put some clear plastic from a page protector over the whole thing mainly to keep the spoon corralled. That's a miniature tiki spoon, half a set. I still have the fork. The 'canvas' is (guessing cause I didn't measure!) 9x10 inches? Somewhere around there. 

This is the back of my March Envelope for the Envie Group (EAU) over at AFA (link is up there on the top right). I drew the little dude, cut him out and then painted him in acrylics. He's glued to the envelope which was also painted in acrylics.

Same for the front side. The rainbow, the pot of gold and the little dude, all glued to the envelope. The rainbow is painted with fingernail polish. The shamrock on the pot of gold is bumpy. It's cardstock painted with green acrylic ink and then with sparkly dimensional magic. I hit it with the heat gun to make it dry faster and the dimensional magic bubbled up giving it a really cool effect! Was a happy accident that was.

This basket is about 9 inches tall, 9 inches wide...give or take. I really didn't measure this either. I used to have to know distances in inches. I'm a tad out of practice on that skill, but still usually get it right more or less.  That skill was needed for taping stencils to headstones in preparation of sandblasting the designs. 

This basket is crocheted out of a pair of sweatpants I cut into fabric yarn. After I crocheted it, it looked awfully plain jane to me so I sewed some little glass beads to the outside of it. I got to use my size Q crochet hook for this basket. Took me a little over an hour to crochet the basket. Sewing the beads on took several more.

I was digging around in the cutting room, looking for something. I forget what. I came across a little brown box containing a typewriter ribbon on two metal spools. My fingers turned black crocheting this tiny basket out of that typewriter ribbon. I varnished it with acrylic varnish and shaped it to dry. It's about 3 inches across and an inch and half deep. 

Nothing is safe from being used as yarn.

A little map bird. 

This was an experiment. It's not a totally successful experiment either. I forgot to put his legs on. He's made from a piece of map that has clear packing tape on the back side of it to give it a bit more substance so I could sew it together. It's filled with polyester filling, sewn together with blue embroidery thread. It's about 3.5 inches long. If I make any more of these, I will have to tweek the pattern a bit to accommodate his legs. They have to be added before he's completely sewn together. 

Little books are hot and heavy on the muse's radar this year! This one is about 3 inches x 6 inches. The covers are made from a stiff felt placemat. I embroidered the circles and put pink paper on the back side of the front cover. It's sewn with pale pink embroidery thread in the japanese stab binding.

Another little book made from the same placemat as the first one. This book is about 5x7, also sewn in the japanese stab binding. Both have white copy paper pages.

I have another of these felt covered books in the works. It's taking me forever to embroidery a tree! You'll get to see some more felt books next post.

I played around with the maps and origami. That's a little blue bunny back there not cooperating. I couldn't get that stupid bunny to sit up at all! Not sure what I did wrong with him. He's supposed to sit up right!  The crane at the back is not folded correctly. I knew I needed some practice on origami cranes. You'd think after having folded about 600 of the things last year, I'd know how to fold one with my eyes closed! Nope. I had to go look up the instructions after I got done with the one in the back.  I don't know about origami bunnies...I'll have to try them again sometime to see if I can figure them out.

I made some fairies.

This is the rainbow winged fairy. All the fairies were made in pretty much the same way. Her wings are remnants from the rainbow that is on the altered envelope at the beginning of this post. 

This one isn't a fairy. She has no wings. Her body is an empty purple fingernail polish bottle. That's the only difference in her from the fairies other than she is wingless. I was going to put the purple wings on this one but her hair is in the way of any wings, so she can't be a fairy. She's about three inches tall or so.

This would be the fairy that got the purple wings. I painted these cicada wings with the purple fingernail polish and the bottle was empty after that. I took the brush out of the lid and was sitting there trying to decide if I should keep the bottle or not. That's when I decided to make a doll out of it. These other fairies are all made with a little glass vial for their bodies. A plastic bead for their heads, copper wire arms and legs. The hair is curly doll hair that I just cut off in chunks and hot glued to the bead. There's a loop at the top of the fairy's heads for hanging. Her wand is a straight pin with a metal star hot glued to the pointy end.

This one is made exactly like the previous one. Her wand is made from plastic broom bristles instead of a straight pin. 

She has a whole set of cicada wings whereas the others one has only a single set of wings, not four, like this one. Those are real cicada wings. I put a coat of clear dimensional magic on the wings to give them a little more strength. I collected the wings back in 2008 when we had an invasion of the 17 year cicadas. The cats dragged them in for weeks. Cats LOVE playing with cicadas! Their wings make perfect fairy wings! I didn't kill any cicadas for their wings---though if you know me well, you'd say, "Yeah, right! What about those dead bugs in the freezer? You killed those! You bug murderer!" Yes, my family has called me a bug murderer in the past. The last bug that ended up in the freezer was a little red scorpion the summer before last. If I still had the energy to run around the yard and hunt for bugs, there'd be others! I used to collect insects and I really enjoyed it! I love bugs of all kinds! Spiders included! 

Wings and the little glass vials I used for the fairies' bodies. The vials are about an inch and a half tall. 

There was much talk of cardboard among the Envie Addicts.

I made a book cover out of it.  I am quite pleased with my abstract cardboard design. It took me quite a long time to cut and peel and paste and rearrange and get it all where I thought it looked good.

But it all worked out wonderfully! I ended up with a very sturdy, thick book out of the whole experiment. This book has 14 signatures with 5 sheets in each. I've sewn it in the coptic stitch with tan embroidery thread. This book is 6 x 8 inches. All the pages are blank.

And I made another OJ carton book. This one is 3.5 inches square with about 50 copy paper pages. It's sewn with tan embroidery thread in the japanese stab binding. I used the leftover thread from sewing the cardboard book. It was the right length to sew this book.

I crocheted a market bag. I used up the rest of the bulky acrylic yarn on this one. It's about 15 inches tall and about 9 inches across the top. It's bigger on the bottom than it is on the top. I used what I had. The colors aren't the greatest, but it is what it is. 

I also crocheted a leather pouch from leather strips. It's a nice feeling little bag. Hefty. Smells nice. It's big enough to haul the phone around in. I don't recommend crocheting leather. It's hard on the hands. It is dang near impossible to get an even tension on the stitches. It worked out alright but I doubt I'll make another crocheted leather anything.

This isn't really art. More like craft. I'm in the process of covering this silk lantern with plastic purple flower petals. The light in the lantern is run on a battery. I'm going to give it to my granddaughter for her sixth birthday in August. Purple is her favorite color!

I don't know how she can be turning six already but I do need to be ready when it happens! This is the plan!

Well, that's about all I have for now. Thanks for hanging in till the end!

Until next time,

Remember....

be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace

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