Art for March

Hello Readers!

It has been 25 days since I was here last so let's just get on with this. theres not a whole lot to show actually.

I got a lot going on but not a lot being finished.

Except for this book. It started out as a box that frozen veggies came in. I painted it, glued some string on it and

called the cover done. But the more I think about this book, the more I think it probably isn't done and it needs a fish on it, maybe a few fishes.

I filled it with random papers. Mostly scrapbook paper but there are some sheet music and other pages in there too. I think there are four signatures of six pages each. It's all sewn together with the same string I used to on the covers.

This little elephant ended up on the cover a book too. I have no idea where this little elephant book has ended up though. I didn't take its picture when pictures were being taken so I must of put it in the box of done books before taking its picture.

This elephant is a tiny little thing at only three inches high. I put it on the front of a book made from a jello pudding box.

Books have been hot and heavy on the muse's radar here of late. I really wish she would get with the program and finish sewing together the little books that are ready for sewing instead of starting new books! But that isn't how she sees things so I just go with her flow and try not to fight it.

This was an experiment. It's a couple of strips of 8mm film (high school football game 1976) that I sewed together with regular sewing thread. I've no clue what this experiment may lead to. I call this the film bracelet. It's a very flimsy film bracelet so it wasn't exactly a successful experiment but it may lead to something besides a flimsy film bracelet in future. Lord knows I have miles of 8mm film to play with!

I have another zine in the works. As soon as I do a couple more drawings and tweak it to print right, I'll have another zine under my belt.

Grandma's hugs were always the best!  This drawing will go in the zine. The newest zine is the story of a quilt with memories from the past in the form a long poem. I wrote the poem some years ago. 2005 I do believe. More of the zine once it's done.

And as is usual with me, I have yet another unfinished (UFO) thing going. These woven panels will eventually become a market bag. I made the loom out of a lid to a square tupperware container. I found the lid out in the burnt house in my lid box.
The lid box is another work in progress. At this point I'm just collecting lids and bottle caps. The goal is to collect enough of them to do a lid mural on the side of the burnt house. I still have at least a year of collecting to have enough lids to start the mural. I have an army of collectors helping on that endeavor. It's odd how each of the collectors collects different lids.

 I made this hot pad trivet on Easter Morning while having coffee. It's macrame cord crocheted in a spiral with variegated crochet cotton thread. My monitor isn't showing the true colors at all. It's purple, blue, yellow and green in real life.  It measures about 9 inches across.

 My messy work space in the kitchen with six book covers in the works. All are made from boxes that food of one sort or another came in. There's a cracker box, a couple of jello pudding boxes, frozen veggie box and a couple of candy boxes. I'll pretty them up with something or another eventually.
At this point they have been covered with masking tape and painted with wall paint.

 This little bag is crocheted from plastic bags and cotton yarn. The plastic bags are bread sacks, bagel sacks, ice bags and potato bags. I'm not going to save the potato bags with the black on them anymore because they were a pain in the ass to crochet! I do like how this little bag turned out though. It stands about 10 inches tall, is about 6 inches wide and 4 inches thick. I used cotton yarn at the top to give it a bit more strength in the handle.

I have been crocheting up a storm!

I made this bag from remnants of acrylic yarn. I tried to use up all the remnants but there are still more to use up with another project. I'm sure more will be added before something becomes of all the remnants.

I have worked on the kitty book. Glued a couple dozen kitties in it this afternoon.

I started painting a little round box. Not sure where this is headed but we'll find out soon enough.

I've worked more on the crochet project I started three days ago. Give me four or five days more and that project will be complete! It's a 'let's use some of this crochet cotton up' project. It's coming along nicely. So long as the sleep pattern sticks to the pattern its on, this project will be done in a few days. I work on it when I get up in the morning. I've gotten up long before the sun has for the last six days.

And I got a new toy in the mail today that I will be playing with on a regular basis as well. You all will get to see the result of that playing once I have something to show you. The new toy is a rainbow loom. I don't intend to make a bunch of bracelets. I intend to figure this sucker out and make my own patterns of stuff. I have to admit that the cupcake I attempted, with a tutorial earlier today, was total and utter failure! We'll see what happens. I have about 10000 little rubber bands to work with so something should come about eventually!

I'm sure there are other projects in the works as well.

That's all from me today!
Here's hoping you all are well and happy!
Remember
be kind to one another
it matters!
Peace
831

Long Time No See

Hello Readers!

Long time no see! 

I have no excuse for my absence from the last post to the middle of February. Apparently I had nothing to say of the things I had made long before the kidnapping that took place for nine days that prevented me from being here to say something of the things made while on the kidnapping....

whew! 

We will just get started with the creations and tell the tale along the journey.

February was Weirdy Mail Month at EAU.

 In the last post I told you all weirdy mail was in the making but I couldn't tell you about it then as it was a surprise for Maria aka MissM up in Canada. 

This pelt turned into this:

 Mr. Leopard Weirdy has now arrived in Canada. The Canadian Post didn't like his naked status and put him in a clear plastic bag with a note saying 'this mail has been damaged' or something to that effect. 

I did mail him naked. That's how the customs sticker got wrapped around his leg! Postage and address is on the backside of him. He's about a foot tall, give or take.

I am so glad he made it to Canada! It cracks me up the Canadian Post didn't like him naked!

I crocheted some small bags sometime since the last post and before my kidnapping.

 This is a small bag crocheted with fabric yarn. This bag is about 10 inches tall from bottom to top of handle and about 7 inches across. I already put this bag in the closet and didn't actually measure it. If memory serves me correctly there should be two of these little bags.

 I crocheted a much bigger bag out of some polyester fabric yarn. It was a large, loud mumu when I first got the fabric.

 It had big flowers all over it. It's much nicer as a market bag! The blue bottom of the bag is also from the mumu. I forget where the blue was on the mumu....hemline or sleeves? I don't remember. The bag is about 14 inches tall, The bottom of the bag is about 8 inches square and flares out at the top of the bag to about 10 inches. Polyester makes fabulous yarn to crochet with. This stuff was easy to work.

 I knew there was another of those small bags. This one is a tad wonky on that one side but I like the colors of this one better than the other one.

 I put a canceled stamp from Singapore onto sheet magnet. I love this stamp! It came in the mail on an envelope filled with somewhere around 24 different origami animals. I forget what I traded for the origami zoo. This stamp is 4 inches long and just under 2 inches tall.

If you have an aversion to cats, it is best you skip quickly over the next 15 pictures. I didn't say there were 15 cats to skip over. There's a boatload of cats to follow. If you like cats, you are in for a treat!

On my kidnapping Annie and I drew some kitties! I'd drawn kitties prior to the kidnapping as well.

 The blue cat was drawn by my 17 yr old niece. The center one is 6 yr old Annie's three legged cat. And one drawn by me on magazine paper with a black sharpie.

 I drew the top cats, Annie colored them. She drew and colored the bottom cat. You will see some two legged cats in this post. I had to try more than once to convince her cats have four legs not two sticks. I think she has it now.

 I love this kitty of Annie's.

 Here are a couple of two legged cats. I like the blue one. I think he's adorable! The calico is one of mine. Of the nine days I spent at her house, four of them involved drawing cats.

 Annie's pink kitty and one of mine she colored.

 All three are mine. Annie colored the middle one.

 Some happy two legged kitties and some of mine. Brown one is markers on copy paper. The orange is a painted newspaper flyer. And white is marker on copy paper. Annie's orange and black kitty is sharpie on construction paper.

 These two are mine. Fat cat is markers on construction paper with sparkly glitter glue over all. Other one is painted newspaper flyer and sharpie.

 Mine and Annie's. She colored the blue cat.

 All mine. Annie colored the first gray cat.

 Both mine. The green guy cracks me up! He's painted on copy paper with acrylics and then with glitter glue to make him sparkle. The other one is magazine paper with sharpie.

 All three mine. First two are markers on sheet music. Other one is marker on copy paper.

 Both mine. Annie colored the first one. Other one is markers on copy paper with china marker for the white stripes.

 Both mine. The four are on manila paper in sharpie. other is sharpie on copy paper.

None of these cats in any of these pictures is larger than 5 inches tall.

 I like these two characters! Both mine. First one is sharpie on magazine paper. Other one is manila paper with sharpies.

Annie's kitty book is coming along quite nicely! I put out a call over at AFA to see if anyone could help with this project as I am sick of drawing kitties! I got some offers!!! I will share those kitties when the book is complete and I show you every single page in the book! I've no idea how many kitties will be in the book when it is complete. At last count there 70some individual cats. There are still around 26 pages to fill up! There will be hundreds of cats perhaps.

I suspect some things will have happened with the kitty book before the month is out.

IT was my job to entertain little Miss Annie when she wasn't at school. This was an easy task. An enjoyable task!
I took her to Hobby Lobby with me on the second day of my kidnapping. She wanted everything in the store! LOL I forget what it was she wanted that cost $25 but I told her Grandma didn't have that much money! I bought her a little kitchen time shaped like a ladybug for $2.50 instead. She picked out the timer. She loved the dern thing! That bell about drove me crazy!
While there we found a batik kit in the clearance aisle for $7.
This kept us busy for three days running...well, a lot of that was waiting on glue and paint to dry.

Here's Annie's batik. She explained it to me. There's a mansion, a couple of people: mom and dad, three fishes and this is where she intends to live when she gets big. She was obsessed with mansions on this trip.

This is my batik. Nothing but fishes. Ma is going to make  mine into a pillow top as soon as I drag out some backing material and cut it all to size to fit the pillow form that will go inside of it. I'll get that done later today. I brought a big brown paper bag full of upholstery material home with me. I gave my sister a dollar for it.

Little books are always on the radar because I always have books in the making. I took along a big plastic envelope full of books ready to be sewn together.

I put the holes on the wrong end of the front cover of this dragon book. So instead of opening to the side, it opens at the bottom with the spine along the top. It's 3x4 inches. The dragon is on corrugated cardboard that was once a box. I have no clue what came in the box.

This one is sewn right. Both have about 60 pages of copy paper. They're sewn with embroidery thread in the copic stitch. Both the same size. They have different backs though. One of them has a chipboard backing that was once a game board and the other has corrugated cardboard that is the same thickness as the covers but from a different box.

I use what I have! Whatever works.

Not a good picture of this flocked wall paper book. It is 3x4 inches or so. I didn't measure any of the books in this post. Sorry. All measurements are guesses. This one has notebook paper pages, sewn in the pamphlet stitch.

This one looks brown but is actually more purple in color. The lighting was atrocious for this shoot! There is pink and yellow splashes of color along with black and blue on this book cover. The paper covering is painted newspaper. It's covering a box that frozen broccoli and cheese came in. Not sure the size....5x6 inches or so? It has nine signatures of six sheets each copy paper. My brain is too addled today to do the math. It is sewn in the long stitch with different colors of embroidery thread in the pamphlet stitch.

The cover for this one is 5x7 inches made from a plastic advertising sign. The sign itself will yield a ton of little books! It was 4 feet long and 2 feet wide when my daughter-in-law gave it to me. This one has 60 pages of copy paper sewn with embroidery thread in the copic stitch. The back cover is also from the sign.

This book is exactly the same as the Red Bull book. It came from the same signage and has 60 pages of copy paper sewn in copic stitch with embroidery thread. This Red Bull signage was for a Christmas promotion at Kwik Shop.

I brought home another Red Bull sign from this last kidnapping. It is in shades of green. More Red Bull sign books to come!

Nothing is safe from being turned into a book! This a candy box with 60 pages of copy paper sewn in the long stitch with embroidery thread.

I thought the graphics on this box were pretty cool so I didn't bother covering any of it up. Inside the covers you can still see the flaps of the box. They're just double stick taped to hold them out of the way. This book is about 7 x 4 inches, 1 and a quarter inch thick.

There are two of these books made from textured wallpaper with notebook paper for pages. They are sewn in the saddle stitch. 3x4inches

I embroidered a wonky ball while I was kidnapped. I brought the wrong felt to cover this ball. It had cables in the knitting...you know cable knit sweater? Well those cables are the reason for the wonky in the ball. I used almost every color of embroidery thread in the box for this ball. It's a little bigger than a baseball. It started out as all my felt balls do. Bottle caps in the center, bead soup inside the caps and then wrapped with plastic grocery sacks to the right size, then wrapped with fat cordage (macrame cord) and then with skinny cordage (green crewel yarn) and then covered with felt before the embroidery goes on.  Not the best looking ball I've ever made, but it will do.

Valentine's have all arrived I do believe.

Chipboard painted red, two layers glued together to make them stiffer. I crocheted the hearts from different yarns and string. Not all of them had red acrylic yarn heart. Some of them had pink hearts, little white hearts and bigger white hearts. I cut the holes for the hearts after they were all done so I knew where each heart would fit without having to fiddle with it. The hearts are all sewn in with a different color of the same strings used to make the hearts.

The front side has a banner of painted paper hearts with a crochet cotton string. I really wanted to go fancier on the fronts but I ran out of time. They needed to be done and in the mail! So it came to a halt with what you see. I wrote Happy Valentines on some and Happy February on others. 

Everybody seemed to like them so I guess they turned out alright.

I made some mug rugs while on kidnapping.

They are all felt with embroidery.

They are all roughly 6x5, thereabouts...none of them are exactly the same size. I don't use a pattern.

I get an idea in my head and start cutting felt. I get the pieces pinned on the backing and I start the embroidery process.

And whatever shows up, shows up. I guess turtles and cats were on the muse's radar for mug rugs. The black cat one is my favorite from this bunch of mug rugs.

That's all the art for this time.

I promise the next post won't be so long or so heavy on pictures!

I haven't done much in the art department for the last five days I've been home.

I now have only 2 cats, Miss Lola and Murray. I gave Tommy to my sister the day before yesterday. He's in good hands. He's back to being an only cat instead of having to fend off Miss Lola everyday. He's much happier at Elaine's house. I will be getting another cat though. I'm going to bring Fluffy home from my son's house. His name will be changed back to BC when he gets here. He will also be going to the vet before he ever comes to my house so he can be fixed. He's a vagabond someone dumped at my son's house months ago. He needs to become a house cat! He's a ragdoll with beautiful blue eyes! Annie is not going to be happy with me when she discovers I am stealing another of her kitties. Murray and Tippy both were stolen from her! Fluffy needs a new home though. Gingy beats him up every single day! Sometime next week another kidnapping is in order and I will bring him home when that kidnapping comes to an end. It won't be a long kidnapping! I'll have wheels to escape this time. I'm getting a car as well as a cat. I can just get in my car and come home whenever I want. 

That's all from me today.

Thanks for hanging in there to the end!

Remember...

Be kind to one another!

It matters!

Peace

831