dmnh's creative endeavors

I'm Still at IT; Whatever You Want To Call IT

2012-02-12T07:37:00.000-06:00

Hello Readers!

It's been a good start to the weekend!

The computer went nuts very early on Thursday night. It wouldn't let me do anything on it! I thought it had died and I would never get to do anything on this particular machine again.

Thankfully, I was mistaken.

I gave my cousin, Jon, two tufted paper balls and a polish star for fixing it. I've no clue what the hell was wrong with it. Jon cleaned out the tower...it was a bit dusty in there...he did some updates and some other stuff. I really don't know what the hell its problem was! I hate to admit it, but this machine outfoxed me! Probably won't be the last time.

Once the computer was back on good terms with me, I stayed up for another six hours or so to get my fix of online time! I have not been to facebook since I got back online though. That means I've played nary a game of mindless whatever!

I was awake for going on 32 hours as of midnightish on the 10th, slept the 11th mostly away! It's now the 12th, 6:14a.m. and I've been awake, doing art, since about 7p.m. on the 11th.

The dog woke me a few times when I was sleeping the daylight hours away. The cat attacked my foot as I got up to let that dog in one of those times. They were somewhat of a blur if truth be known. It's a good thing no one moved any of the kitchen furniture! It's not too many steps through the kitchen to the backdoor and back to my bed. I navigated famously with my eyes half open! I was whooped!

The headache that's been in residence for three days now did not stop me from doing art once I had my fill of sleep.The headache was the reason for the 30some hour awake episode and then again responsible for the dead sleep for somewhere around 14 hours. Fibromyalgia has no rhyme nor reason! I hurt from head to toe as well, with the greatest pains in my right leg, left elbow and lower back. The headache is just there.

And that old bitch Aunt Flow showed her ugly hide after not coming round for four bleeping months! I can blame her for the headache!

Nothing stopped me from sitting at the desk once I was awake and drawing though. Had to go get my reading glasses as I'm blind as a bat today!

Have the music up, a cup of tea in front of me and this is what has happened in the last 12 hours:

There's an ATART going on over at AFA. A VALATART is what I've called it. I think it's called something slightly different on the forums...anyway I've joined the others in the trading frenzy that is an athon, regardless of it's reason for going. This one happens to be a Valentine's AThon.

And I've given them things to trade for!

African Lady

ATC

markers on cardstock

My inspiration came from this picture:

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/african-lady-in-red-patrick-hunt.html

Yellow Pear with Pink

ATC

markers on cardstock

I couldn't find the picture I got inspiration from. It was an oil painting of a yellow pear with a pink background. I like my version better.

Seagull

ATC

markers on cardstock

Seagull really surprised me! I was drawing one of these other ATCs and the song "Seagull" by Bad Company came on the media player. I love that song. Here's the link to a video on youtube.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqlfTiYAOHs

Seagull surprised me cause I don't generally do too well with pictures done in marker in shades of grays. I finished whichever one I was working on... think it was Gang Mugshot and I still had a vision of a seagull in my head. I did a google search for seagull and voila there's a mighty fine seagull!

I'm not saying he's perfect by any means, but

I'm quite proud of him!

My inspriration came from this picture:

http://rlv.zcache.com/paintings_of_seagulls_sea_gull_nautical_art_decor_postcard-p239407299098484369z8iat_400.jpg

Salad Makin's

ATC

markers on cardstock

I should have tested that fat black marker before putting it to my drawing! Wasn't the one I thought it was! OOPs! Looks OK, not quite the effect I was going for, but it works. Ain't for me to question things though! That's you all's job to say whether it's any good or not!

I wish I had bought an avocado when I went to town on Friday!

My inspiration came from this picture:

http://cdn.dailypainters.com/paintings/avocado__tomato_and_lemon_e4e678908f9752cc55f12d74754fbf86.jpg

Pink Plum Blossoms

ATC

markers on cardstock

I rather like this one as well.

My inspiration came from this picture:

http://www.asianartistsonline.com/images/art-decor/aIMG_2700.jpg

Pink For Daytime

ATC

markers on cardstock

I couldn't find the picture inspiration came from.

Gang Mugshot

ATC

markers on cardstock

This looks a bit like Ozzie Osbourne and nothing like

the picture I took inspiration from!

http://cdn.dailypainters.com/paintings/hh_gang_mugshot__9_fdeb25420e5723b93a1beeb6c3163d29.jpg

Valatart Zen #1

ATC

black markers on orchard paper adhered to cardstock

Just some random silliness that came straight from my muse.

Scarlet Macaw

ATC

markers on cardstock

This was the first drawing I did upon waking. It was finished within an hour of getting up, getting going and getting coffee in me!

Google is my friend!

My inspiration came from this picture:

http://0.tqn.com/d/webclipart/1/0/F/2/5/Scarlet-macaw-wings-Spread.png

Grey Tabby Cat

ATC

markers on cardstock

Things took a turn to the bad when I did this one. There are winners and there are losers in all games!

Even the art games! Doesn't stop me from trying for success though!

Practice, practice, practice!

And if someone falls in love with a practice piece all the better!

No one has fallen for this one at this time! lol

Maybe eventually....

My inspiration came from this picture:

http://cdn.dailypainters.com/paintings/evil_eye_bad_kitty___6ca1d8e5ffd37b4c5c14565608fb3e7b.jpg

Green Dragonfly

ATC

markers on cardstock

I got more than a few reps about this card. Lots of folks fell in love with this practice piece!

(Technically, they are ALL practice pieces.)

He's in the top three of my favorites for this drawing session!

My inspiration came from this picture:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5143/5613209956_987dac977d_z.jpg

(I'm hoping all those picture urls I've included will work...none of them are purple.)

Most of what remains in this post happened while the computer was out of its mind!

A terrible picture of Billy and the cat toy I made for the felines sometime last week. It's made from red felt from a santa hat, some thick pink yarn and 2 metal jingle bells. I sewed it all together with crochet cotton and stuffed it with fiberfil. I forgot to add catnip before I closed it up. Lola doesn't seem to mind there is not catnip. She's given this thing hell every single day it's been hanging off the back of the wooden rocking chair! Billy's given it a swat or two as well, but he's not near as enamored of it as Lola is.

I spent about an hour, maybe two folding these units for a sonobo bucky ball. And like the first bucky ball, this one is a failure. It's much worse than the first failed bucky ball cause I've no clue what the heck to do with the thing. It doesn't lay flat by any stretch of the imagination and I can't take it apart cause I taped it together as I was putting it together. And like the first bucky ball, I put this one together wrong. I'm thinking it's headed for the circular file!

All was NOT LOST on the sonobo ball adventure though!

Lookie there! A little sonobo ball! Not too hard to muck up 6 units! I need to put a string on it and add it to the rest of the ornaments!

Junk Magnet

Going to the Prom

made from 2 computer capacitors, they may be transmitters-I'm not certain which is which- there are also 2 silver sequins, 2 copper wire coils, and copper wire holding her plastic mesh to her body. the tuft of plastic mesh is one end of the bag crimped with a copper piece. It's all glued together ready for a magnet to be glued to her backside.

While the computer was being contrary I sewed some monsters.

Dragonfly Monster

Yellow cotton sweater with bugs embroideried on it. This guy has another dragonfly on his backside. His horns are made from an orange polyester shirt. His eyes are acrylic felt. He's stuffed with fiberfil, about 10 inches tall.

These next two monsters I offered for trade in the VAT over at AFA.

Santa Hat Monster is going to live in Washington!

He's made from a fuzzy Santa hat I found at the Dollar Store for 10 cents. He's stuffed with fiberfil and his horns and eyes are acrylic felt. He's about 9 inches tall.

I'm going to stuff him in a tyvek envelope and wish bon voyage, praying the whole while he doesn't become stranded in the lost mail bin. He should be quite safe in the tyvek....ain't much can hurt him wrapped in tyvek. We'll see how he travels! He's expected.

Scottish Wool Monster

He's made from a Scottish Wool sweater, handknit in Scotland, gifted to me by my sister Jeanny who stole the buttons off the sweater. She overlooked a dozen buttons though! I found 6 at the end of each sleeve. She took, I think, 6 nice black and silver metal buttons off the front of it. I like this guy's stripedness. His hair is thick yarn, eyes are acrylic felt, as is the heart on his chest. His horns are cashmere, another sweater from sister Jeanny. He's about 10 inches tall.

I'm hoping his adoption goes through.

And while I was sewing monsters I whipped out a couple of Mug Rugs from the pile of Mug Rugs waiting to be sewn. I always type rug mug first before it dawns on me, that is backwards! They are Mug Rugs!

I'm not nuts about this one, but it's quite functional.

You can toss these beauties in the laundry with no harm.

This one is sitting on my desk at the moment with my tea cup sitting on it!

The reasons I'm keeping it are a few:

it is about 3/4 of an inch bigger than any other mug rug I've made

it doesn't lay quite flat around the edges

I needed a new coaster on my desk and

I did not want to make a new one out of paper when I had this perfectly good yellow one!

It's reversible too! Purple, like the star, on the backside.

It curls up because both of these sweater fabrics are stretchy and they didn't like being bound up together with that purple crewel embroidery yarn.

And that appears to be the end of this update!

I hope you all are having a fantastic weekend!

I'm a happy camper!

Be good to one another!!!!!!!
IT MATTERS!

Peace

831

A Bit of Junk Turned into Art (or something like that)

2012-02-09T04:04:00.000-06:00

Hello Readers!

I hope you all are doing well and making lots of creative art!

I'm doing alright with a lot of creativity in my life! Not sure if it's art though.

Many things get explored on a daily basis.

Little books are bugging my muse so I'm sure she'll demand we make some soon.

The polymer clay yells at me from across the room. Luckily it's sealed in a tin and it can't yell too loudly.

Origami is always at the ready.

I folded two red foil paper hearts earlier. You all will get to see at least one of them in the next post. Not sure I'll do anything, right away, with the larger of the two. The small one is slated to go in a Junk Magnet. It's junk. That red foil paper is Christmas wrap!

I'm still working on Mr. Kitty, though if truth be told, and it probably should be, Mr. Kitty is not talking to me right now. I stand there and stare at him, wondering what the heck's the next step and he just stands there, silent as the wind! I'll wake up one morning and he'll have hollered at me all night. That's the morning I'll finish him! Can't say when that might be though. It's not up to me. It's up to the muse.

The Valentine Project is coming along nicely. You'll see progress in the pictures below.

Monsters have been invading my thoughts as well and since all the sewing stuff is out, a monster or two will probably make an appearance here sometime in the near future as well.

There's always something brewing!

I dragged out the junk to work on some more junk magnet tops for the swap over at AFA (link's up there at the top right).

Magnet making commenced yesterday.

I'm thinking I might keep this Green Man Magnet. He's awfully cool! And green is my favorite color!

He's made from nothing but computer parts and a couple of silver sequins. I'm not sure what the purpose of the green piece the man is glued to was for inside a computer. It's made of aluminum and those two white dots on either side are plastic fasteners with metal springs. I couldn't get them out of their holes so they stayed.

This is a Hornsby's bottle cap filled with a bunch of gold junk. The metal bottle cap is gold colored as well. I put a plastic button in the bottom of the bottle cap so I could slip the gold foil candy wrapper rose into the slot on the bottom of the button. There's a gold plastic rose shaped button, a brass paper fastener (I cut the shaft off it), a glass bauble from a string of Christmas garland, star and moon shaped sequins, a broken earring and a tiny brass cow bell attached with a gold jump ring. I punched the hole for the jump ring with the crop-o-dile.

Then we went a little wild with the Party Magnet--I was going for purples in this one to go with the purple of the Party sign. Underneath everything is a pc of cardstock cut from the same packaging the Party sign came from, a little purple spool of thread that I couldn't find the end of the thread on to save my soul!, a purple pom pom, flower shaped sequin, plastic flower bead, a broken capacitor, might be a transmitter, from a broken computer, the copper wire is coming out of that thing and is wrapped around the spool of thread. There is a pc from a broken coffee maker (I think that's what it came from...) atop the spool of thread that the capacitor sits in, a glass tube bead, a couple of silver colored sequins, another computer part I don't know the name of with the copper jump ring going through the hole in it holding the heart pendant from a broken chain. Everything is nestled in a white plastic bottle cap from generic soda.

Here's the Parts Bride Magnet

She's made from a piece from a computer, a piece from a broken coffee maker and her wire hair is from an adding machine, I do believe! Her eyes are two silver colored sequins with a couple lengths of copper wire coiled up for her irises. Her dress is a plastic mesh bag from some candy sports balls my sister gave me for Christmas. I wired her dress onto the capacitor/transmitter that is her torso. The bundle of white mesh with the copper crimp is from one end of the plastic mesh bag.

A picture of the junk magnet making station. The clothespin is holding together the beginnings of another magnet that I will show you in the next post.
I sort things by color mostly, sometimes by type...like with the computer junk on the paper plate. The little jars hold things separated by color.

I keep a little brown paper sack under the shelf beside the kitchen cabinets to drop all bottle caps in. The glue catcher is a plastic lid from frozen juice concentrate.

E6000 will not stick to that plastic, not for long. There are many plastics that E6000 will not stick to. You should keep that in mind when using E6000.

Progress has been made on the Valentine's Project.

I still have six pink hearts to sew onto the light pink hearts and to figure out what the devil the next step is.

My mother said they'd make great ornaments or magnets. I'm leaning towards two hearts, one of each color on a red ribbon with an origami heart done in red foil paper attached somehow as well. I don't know yet. Figuring this one out as I go along.

That little pink dolly looking thing is the beginnings of a cat toy. It has a red heart sewed on it's chest on the other side.

I sewed a cat toy, complete with hanging string the other day. The cats love it! Lola is always batting it around. Billy mostly ignores it but he's not much a player in his old age. Though I have seen him bat it a few times. Lola gets right in there and beats the living day lights out of it!

Last night as I trolled the interwebs in search of creative things that appealed to me, I came across a tutorial to make these heart ornaments out of paper lace doilies.

They weren't quite the success I had envisioned, but they weren't a complete failure either.

The hanging heart in the first picture is really pink though it doesn't quite look pink.

To do these you need some paper doilies, heart shaped or round. You get a scented candle of any color you wish. I went with a burgundy colored candle that smells divine! Mulberry, I think it's scent is. You need a metal grater to grate the candle was onto the doilies. You fire up your iron, the hotter it is, the faster your candle wax will melt. Play with it, you'll figure out what works best for you. Put the doily between two pieces of either wax paper or parchment paper, I used parchment paper, and iron the candle gratings. You'll need to saturate the paper doilies with the candle wax so if your doily isn't completely covered after the first ironing, put some more grated wax on it, cover it and iron some more. About a tbs of grated wax, I didn't measure, just grated, should about do it.

After you've done all the doilies you want, you'll take two doilies and sew them together down the center. A sewing machine would work fantastic for this, I don't have a sewing machine so I sewed a running stitch down the fold line I made in the two doilies after I folded them in half together at the same time.

You MUST get that stitch line straight as an arrow or the ornament will not hang straight. The wax I used didn't seem to be stiff enough either. My ornaments seem a bit limp. I think perhaps a few gratings of crayon along with the wax would help with the stiffness and it's just add that much more dimension to your ornament! Should have thought about that last night when I made these!

I would opt for smaller doilies as well. Mine are six inches, four inches might be better and cuter. I am a fan of miniature things! You can either cut the center out or leave it in. I did both. The completed heart laying with the others is already sewn. I left the middle in and it hangs worse then one with the middle taken out. Not sure what I'll do with the 2 hearts I cut out of the middle of that one ornament. Something though.

They're translucent, very cool and they smell good too!

Maybe I'll iron them into my altered book?

I really should work on my altered book more often than I do. I have been working on that thing for over two years now and there are a lot of pages still to do something with.

I waxed enough doilies to do 14 of these ornaments. Will have to play around with some crayons added to the waxing and see if that doesn't improve the limpness. Stay tuned, there might be more of the waxed hearts.

Well darn! I took pictures of the things I hadn't taken pictures of and downloaded them from the smart card and now the system has failed and I can't even get to my documents.

Guess you're getting all the pictures you're going to get today.

I'll talk to my cousin and see if he can talk me through fixing this mess!

You all be good to one another!

It matters!

PEACE

831

Snow fell, Mr. Kitty turned Orange and Other Dalliances...

2012-02-05T20:36:00.000-06:00

Hello Readers!

We'll get to the snowfall in a little while.
I've decided I'm going to give these endeavors of my muse, numbers, so I can keep better track of how many different things get made this year. I won't necessarily count each individual thing I make, like the hearts, I've been working on. I won't count them as 20 items. I will count the number of things I make with them. I may only count the whole lot of whatever gets made from the hearts as one unit. That's what I've done with the sweater flowers and other things as well. Anyway, I'm going to give them numbers.

Origami is one of my favorite things to make. You'll see it throughout the year.
I love the challenge of folding something new.
Sometimes, I will fold many of them, sometimes I will fold only one.

44. Origami Heart Bookmark

Magazine page cut into a rectangle. This is an easy origami project. I glued my folds shut along the shaft of the bookmark so it would hold together better. It is not necessary to glue it though. If you'd like to fold an origami heart bookmark you can follow the tutorial that showed me how to do it. If I can do it, you certainly can do it, too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gml2j4bvT88&feature=relmfu

Any paper will work for origami. The thinner the paper, the easier it is to fold though. Regular copy paper would be about as thick as I'd go trying to fold origami projects. I've not tried it, but tissue paper, I'd think would be too thin.

If you do a google search for Origami Crane, you'll find a good number of tutorials to choose from. I did not save a link to my favorites because I know how to fold this one with needing the instructions anymore. And it's an easy one to find, should I need a refresher course the next time I do a fold of this crane.

Magazine paper again. Magazine paper is great for practicing because it's readily available and it's free.

I've been having sessions with Mr. Kitty. He's now a pale orange color. He still smells like baby powder which is quite nice considering the orange paint I used on him is wall paint and it doesn't smell all that pleasant. I was going to work on him some more last night but....

when I sat down at the kitchen table, I felt the need to organize things instead and Mr. Kitty found himself back up on top of the metal cabinet in the kitchen.

I found a tutorial for some paper mache butterflies made with the paper mache clay. I had some left over PMclay from doing Mr. Kitty. So I drew up some butterfly templates on chipboard, cut out about 8 of them.

I got PMclay on one little butterfly and one big butterfly. I threw the little one in the trash the next morning and the big one is sitting atop the metal cabinet with Mr. Kitty cause it needs some more attention. My muse excused it for the time being. Just like she excused the pink tree canvas. There was no helping the little butterfly. You can only go so small with paper mache and I'd gone past the limits!

I wish I could say the kitchen table is now organized, cleaned off and ready for Mr. Kitty's finishing, but that would be an out and out, big fat lie! Cause all the stuff I organized...it's still sitting on the kitchen table, just now it's in a bunch of little containers.

The weather gurus were a bit off in their predictions.
They said we would get between 8 and 12 inches of snow.
We did not.

It was dark when it started snowing and this picture has nothing to do with the snow cause it was taken the day before it snowed. Yesterday it snowed, 4 Feb, Saturday. This was taken 3 Feb, when it was dang near 65 degrees for a high temp!

Guess we still aren't to the snow just yet.....

Here's Billy.

I'm afraid he's not too entertaining at the moment. He's asleep on the end of my bed. Or he WAS asleep till I sneaked in in the dark and woke his hide with the camera flash! I took about six, maybe seven pictures of him right then and in none of those pictures does he have his eyes open.

Lazy critter!

Finally! We're to the SNOW!

It had been snowing for no more than an hour when I first noticed it was snowing.
Fred wanted out and that is when I discovered this magical wonderland right outside my door!

Do you see the big white specks in both the pictures above? Those are snowflakes. Clumps of snowflakes, more like it, falling from the sky by the hundreds of millions! It was so incredibly cool!

That fool dog barking at the top of his lungs in the silence and the dog up on the hill answering with barks that sounded as though he were right in the back yard. Up on the hill is a good half mile away.

Out the front door, looking toward the highway, porch light off.

The bright orange glow is the yard light in the upper driveway.

The camera just couldn't capture the snow correctly with it being dark outside. These last ones were taken out the back door where there is no light to speak of.

I had just hollered for Fred to come along. He was over by the tree in the field between my and Susan's house. I took this picture JUST before he got to the stairs. I tried to get a picture of him out in the snow too, but it was just too dark and snowing too heavily to get a decent one.

And more snowflakes. It was raining/sprinkling the same time it was snowing and a raindrop fell on the camera lens for this picture.

Fred with snow on his back. The snowclumps were quite large!

It was magical! Watching it come down silently.

I was secretly hoping for a whole boatload of this wonderfully wet, snowman-making snow. It wasn't to be though....it did not happen. I hoped for it, not so I could go make snowmen--that's never going to happen again in my lifetime--I wanted it so my son, RW and his boys could make snowmen!

Half an hour later Fred's tracks are almost obliterated and it's still snowing clumps.

Unfortunately it did not do this for hours and hours. It suddenly stopped a few hours after it started and left not more than 3 inches on the ground.

RW is not a happy camper, I'm betting. He was wishing for a couple boatloads of snow. Need to call that boy and see how much snow he got to the north. He wasn't thinking snowmen when I had the conversation about snow amounts with him. He was anticipating going to work the next day. Would of been an easy peasy day for the boy had it snowed in the amounts he was wishing for and the weather gurus were predicting.

He's 23 miles north of me so it may have snowed significantly more there than it did here.

A Rarity!

All three of my furkids in one picture.

Half an hour after the first back porch picture.

Should have had Fred and the Cats in the last slot here but it didn't work out that way so there you have it! I'll just muck it all up if I try to fix it!

Someone REALLY needs to do the dishes and that someone is me! Yeah!!!! NOT NOT NOT!
I hate doing dishes but they are not going to do themselves! If I get them stacked tonight, I will be a satisfied puppy. If I get them stacked, one sinkful done and the trash taken out, I'll be a happy puppy. My maid will probably be here tomorrow so I better get my butt in gear and do something about that kitchen. She hates it when I leave a giant mess for her. She can complain, I don't pay her to come do my dishes. She comes of her own freewill. I love my maid! Thanks Ma!
You all be good to one another!
I'll be back again with more creative endeavors and I'll probably chatter on about this or that too.
PEACE (if only)
831

Homemade Gesso for Mr. Kitty and the Valentine's Day Project Progresses

2012-02-01T20:40:00.001-06:00

Hope all is well in your worlds, Readers!

Happy February!

Not sure whether the groundhog saw his shadow or not today...but the weather forecast for my neck of the woods is nothing but winter returning tomorrow!

We'll see how long it lasts.

I have updates in progress on two projects as the title suggests.

Mr. Kitty is coming along nicely.

As you can see he now has some eyes and his feet are a bit different than the last time you saw him.

I put a coat of homemade gesso on him yesterday. It whitened him up and gave his coat a smoother finish. And it made him smell like a baby!

I sanded a bit on him to smooth it out a bit more but there are still many many little bumps and divits on him that shouldn't be there. More sanding to commence once my arm decides to cooperate with that venture.

I sanded for about 10 minutes and couldn't sand anymore! I'm still, hours later, paying for that sanding session.

A detail of his sad little face.

He does look quite unhappy about something.

Tomorrow I will give him a coat of paint and things will progress quickly after that!

Then you all won't be hearing about Mr. Kitty anymore once he's finally done!

His eyes and nose will be the last things to be painted on him.

In case you're wondering how to make homemade gesso:

http://www.ajsartsanddesigns.com/2011/01/my-homemade-gesso-recipe.html

That link will take you to a recipe that I altered a bit.

Here's the way I made it!

1 part white glue (regular old school glue, pvc glue, plain old white glue--I used Elmers)

2 parts water

6 parts baby powder (or any other body powder...depends on how much you want to shell out for the powder and how you want your gesso to smell)

Blob of titanium white acrylic paint

Mix everything but the acrylic paint together and either add water or powder a bit at a time till you get the paint the consistency of pancake batter. If the scent of baby powder is too overpowering for you, use cornstarch for part of the powder. I couldn't handle the strong scent of all that powder so I used about half baby powder and half cornstarch.

I really didn't measure everything, just eyeballed it all in a big mixing bowl.

The blob of acrylic paint I put in my mixture was about the size of a walnut. I used Liquitex Acrylics. Add it once you have the paint to the consistency you are after.

It does separate just like regular gesso so it must be stirred before using.

It goes on smoothly with a brush. It sands beautifully! And I've yet to see just how well it takes paint. I'm suspecting it will work wonderfully.

Much cheaper than regular gesso!

I also used this homemade gesso on the pink tree canvas before gluing all the little stars down with paper napkin applique glue.

Good stuff for an artist on a budget! Give it a go!

I finished sewing the 20 red hearts. I'll only be using 19 of them for the Valentine's project cause I sewed the first one and then turned it right side out and it looks much different than the other 19. I might have to make a few more red hearts anyway. I'm still figuring out where this project is headed.

I have cut out 20 pink hearts and sewn 6 thus far.

I'm leaning toward making an ornament with 3 different colored puffy hearts and some embellishments of some sort....

I'm just winging it! That red ribbon on the spools in the basket is slated for this project as well.

The pink and blue rectangle sewing is the beginnings of a fabric ATC but I don't know that it will ever be finished.

The weather gurus are predicting a major snow storm so I'll be holed up in my hovel making something or another for the next few days!

You all be good to one another!

It matters!

PEACE

831

Buckyballs and A Recap of January

2012-02-01T03:12:00.001-06:00

When I was surfing for a tutorial for origami the other day, I hadn't a clue why this cool ball was called a buckyball. I just knew it was cool and I was going to make one if it killed me!

It didn't kill me and I now know why it is called a buckyball.

Buckminsterfullerene

That's a mouthful!
Wikipedia tells us that it is a fullerene molecule. Here's the link, they explain it a whole lot better than I ever could!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminsterfullerene

The cool thing about a buckyball, other than the fact you can make your own from nothing more than paper and a bit of quick drying glue, is its applications.

Be sure to read that part! It's at the bottom of the entry in wikipedia. Not only is it a good molecule for a good many reasons, it's also a very pretty one when in model form!

I spent hours folding these orchard paper triangles into C60 units. Hours! Like, 5 hours. I should have never glued them together till all the units were made and accounted for!

I put all my units into hexagons. They aren't all supposed to be hexagons. There should be a few pentagons in there as well. So it didn't end up being a ball like I was planning on when I showed you all sneak peek the other day. This is what the failed buckyball looks like. It's rather cool, but not near as cool as the ball itself!

The ball took me about 7 hours from start to finish to fold and put together 60 units. Cutting the triangles for the units is a lot more time consuming than, say, cutting squares for the paper flower balls. The units themselves are pretty easy to fold and don't take more than two minutes each to fold, once you get the hang of it. The putting it together took a bit of time as well beings it was only my second attempt and on the first attempt I neglected to pay attention to how the darn thing even went together! That'll teach me!

I told you all in the last post I was winging it!

I took the orange, white and pink ball to my friend for his birthday yesterday.

He loved it!

Least I hope that was love in his smile and not him thinking, "Gee, Donna's lost her mind again!"

The ball is constructed from cheap writing paper.

If you would like to make your own buckyball here are the tutorials that taught me how to make it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN0GAV-i9Wc&feature=watch_response

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpso1_JRlY0&feature=related

Before the clock struck midnight I had folded a crane and a heart bookmark out of magazine paper as well.

I'll show you a picture of them in the next post as I've not taken their picture at this writing.

And with those last two completed projects we are through January.

Here, a list of all completed projects and the mediums they're done in.

Those with one of these * means it will eventually be incorporated into another finished project.

1. Altered Key- red beads, pvc pipe, horseshoe charm

2. Altered Key-tones of black and white and silver

*3. Polymer Clay Clown Head

4. Ornament-Green velvet Heart w/chain danglies-beading, wire work and sewing

85. Envelope Book #1 Page (EB1P)- Orange Cat Mixed Media (MM)

*6. EB1P- red tissue paper mandala-collage and drawing in markers

*7. EB1P-fish #1 collage, MM

*8. EB1P-shades of pink solid mandala-drawing in markers

*9.EB1P-hooked fish-collage, MM

*10. EB1P-Betty White as Marie Anionette-collage, MM

*11. EB1P-heart with fabric rose-MM

*12. EB1P-words collage in shades of pink-collage

*13. EB1P-pinks in line mandala-drawing in markers

*14. EB1P-pink owl-MM

*15. Paper Mache- Marker Organizer Box

*16. Wire Work- wrapped gravel rock pendant

17. Ornament-Green velvet haired Goddess

18. Ornament-green velvet hairless Goddess

19. Mug Rug-Black with orange hearts

20. Mug Rug-Orange with blue circles

21. Mug Rug-orange with orange stars

22. Mug Rug-pink with multicolored hearts

23. Mug Rug-orange with purple star

24. Junk Magnet-Little Feet

25. ATC- On The Savannah-drawing with markers

26. ATC-Firestone Flamingo-drawing with markers

27. ATC-Pliocene Pussy Cat-drawing with markers

28. Junk Magnet-gold foil rose and blue fabric flower

29. Junk Magnet-blue milk jug top smiley face

*30. Experiment-green paper rose

31. Junk Magnets-sweater flowers-yellow cotton sweater with fingernail polish (13 of them)

*32. Chunky Page Front- black cat with pumpkin-collage, MM, drawing with markers

33. Ornament-Red Foil Paper Flower (kusudama)-origami

34. Junk Magnet-Plaid fabric rose #1

35. Junk Magnets-sweater flowers-black and white wool blend sweater fabric (7 of them)

36. Junk Magnet-sweater seam flower-black and white wool blend sweater fabric

37. Junk Magnet-Purple Origami Tulip on bottle cap with semi precious stones

38. Junk Magnet-Pink flower and clock button

39. Junk Magnet-altered key-pearls, rhinestones, white donut bead, wire work

40. Pastel Monster-sewing

41. Junk Magnet- Plaid fabric rose #2

42. Origami-failed orchard paper buckyball

43. Origami- Orange, Pink and White Buckyball

44. Origami-crane-magazine paper

45. Origami-heart bookmark-magazine paper

In addition to the projects completed, I have a few other projects in the works:

Mr. Kitty Paper Mache
Snake Cane
Pink Tree Canvas
Fish Picture Canvas
Valentine's Day Project
Paper Mache Mushroom
and
there are two million other projects swimming around in my head!
I should never have to say, "I am bored!"
I will leave you with a picture of
Miss Lola
looking quite lovely!

I'm not sure what she was looking at, but it made for a darn good picture!
Be good to one another,
smile cause you can,
laugh cause you should,
and
love your neighbor as yourself!
Peace, friends!
831

Mr. Kitty Gets an Operation and Other Creative Deeds

2012-01-30T08:16:00.000-06:00

Greetings Readers!

Can't say I've done a great deal in the time since I was here last.

Mr. Kitty did indeed get some surgery! He had a double eye implant, some eyebrow work, reconstructive surgery on his feet and some rhinoplasty!

I was going to actually give him kitty paws, toes and all...but it ain't happening just yet with those toes on the bottoms of his feet. Gotta think on that one for a bit. Might have to drag out the paper and masking tape to remedy that one. Or I may just leave Mr. Kitty with flat feet. Guarantees he'll never be drafted!

Anyway.....Mr. Kitty, as he stands at the moment:

He's not standing at all.

He's laying upside down on the kitchen table. Looks like he's floating in space but he's not quite that talented!

Later, might happen today, might not, I'm going to give him a coat of gesso. Will have to wait for that to dry so I can sand him down in preparation for his first coat of color. His eyes need repainted as well.

He's coming along slowly, but nicely!

I've worked on hearts since the last post:

I'm still not sure what is going to become of these hearts.

Magnets?

Truth be known I'm a bit tired of the magnet scene.

Garland?

Maybe.

Ornaments?

That's more likely than a garland.

Truly a work in progress with no direction!

We'll see where the hearts take us!

And because two projects in the works at one time is not enough,

I'm working on a bucky ball as well.

The ball will probably be done in the next couple days.

All depends on how intent I am on folding a gazillion little triangles into units.

I need 60 for this ball. I've folded somewhere between 30 and 40 of them.

I don't think you're supposed to put the thing together till you've folded ALL the units, but I don't always follow the rules. Sometimes, I just gotta do it my way. Whether its the right way or not. This seems to be working out OK though. I've only had to unglue three of the units to make things right. You're not supposed to need glue to hold this sucker together but my units refuse to stick together on their own. They need glue.

I'll be sure to show you the completed project.

I also made a chipboard box to house the red foil paper flower ball so it is safe in storage. The box is nothing to look at, only functional. And it's way too big for the flower ball so it will probably end up housing something else in storage that could use some protection.

Until next time......

be good to one another!

It matters!

PEACE

831

How About a Monster?

2012-01-28T19:48:00.000-06:00

No new news going on with Mr. Kitty but other things have materialized.

Hello Readers!

The Pastel Monster

I have dragged out the sweater material again. More sweater material, I should say. This guy started out life as a crowl neck hand knitted sweater. It is soft, soft, soft! I don't think there will be any other monsters made from it though as the weave in the material is bit large and the polyfil shows through the monster's skin. Her leg looks a bit cockeyed cause this sweater had a diamond pattern knitted into it and the leg seams just happen to intersect one of those diamond patterns. I used a sleeve, with much left over, for this monster.

Her eyes and horns are made of felt.

I think the remainder of the sweater will end up in the sweater quilt I keep saying I'm going to make one of these days. I might try to make a sweater rose just to see if it will work. I don't think it will though. This sweater is quite fuzzy and the hot glue might not play nicely with all that fuzz. We'll see though!

Plaid Rose #2

You can see some of the petals used in making this rose laying next to it on the kitchen table.

I don't have enough petals to make another rose so these petals will end up in the 'mulch' bag.

What is this 'mulch'? It's pcs of material that are too small to do anything with but can be used to stuff little critters when I make little critters.

I started on my Valentine's Day project.

You get only a sneak peek. I will tell you that crewel embroidery yarn, fiberfil, and those felt santa hats I talked about last post are involved in this project!

I thought I had shown you all the finished yellow sweater roses but I couldn't a find a picture anywhere! I ended up with 13 of these.

They are all stuck to my metal pantry cabinet in the kitchen. They will all disappear from this cabinet in the next few weeks though cause the yellow ones are slated as Valentine's gifts and the others are slated for the craft show in September.

You all be good to one another!

I know I say that at the end of every post but it is so important!

The world is becoming a hateful place

and

if we don't all remember what it is to be human,

we will all perish in a very sad state!

be good to one another!

It matters!

PEACE

831

Paper and Fabric and a bunch of Junk

2012-01-27T20:39:00.000-06:00

Hello People!

Not much happening in my neck of the woods. Lots of sleep going on when I'm not making something or another.

Still no new pictures of Mr. Kitty. I have figured out his eyes but have done nothing to get those eyes in place on Mr. Kitty's head, so that project is still on-going.

I showed you all the beginnings of this red foil paper flower ball in the last post.

I thought when I was folding the cones that I would take some red ink and paint all those white lines from the backside of the foil wrapping paper these are made from but I've since decided it's fine just as it is!

Foil paper is a PITA to glue together!

I tried three different glues before the regular ol' tacky glue did that trick of keeping this thing together!

I learned how to fold another origami ball last night but have yet to make one. It's on the list of things to get done! We'll see how it turns out. Don't hold your breath to see it though, might be weeks before it appears here! It's all in the planning stages right now. Got the idea in my head and I'll put it fruition soon enough.

I showed you all yellow sweater flowers in the last post. This is the same design but done in thin fabric with this plaid rose. I used to wear the shirt this fabric came from. It got a rip in the front of it and couldn't be worn anymore. I love the plaid on this one. I have enough petals cut for another one or two of these. Just need to sit down and get them made.

These are sweater material. The round one is the seam from the sweater sleeve all the other ones are made from. Not quite as cute as the yellow sweater flowers but I still like them! The rest of that sweater will be made into a monster or two.

I'm still working on Junk Magnets for the swap over at AFA (link's up there at the top).

Forgive my dirty fingernails! Had my hands in the junk before this picture was taken!

That's an origami tulip made from purple paper, there's a big black felt 'washer' in the bottom of this juice bottle lid, some old broken chain from a necklace, three semi precious stone beads (holes weren't cut right so they're useless as beads), a purple foam "O" under the stones. The purple dangly is a necklace pendant.

Another junk magnet for the swap: The base is a coiled up magazine reed (magazine page rolled into a stick), a 45rpm adapter, a bread bag tag, a clock button, a gold foil candy wrapper rose, a copper wire jumpring to hold the amber colored stone dangly, a glass donut bead, a carved stone pink flower bead and a little brass butterfly.

I'm not sure this one meets the qualifications for the swap so it might not be entering the swap. I think it's too big for the maximum size for the swap. It's the finished altered key I showed you all in the last post. I added a couple of glass beads to the spring from the clothespin, a pearl and rhinestone bauble is wired on and I added a few microbeads to it as well.

I have plans to sew a monster this evening after getting Mr. Kitty's eyes in place.
I'll be back soon with more creative endeavors to show and tell!

You all be good to one another!

It truly does matter!

PEACE

831

Some Pretty Yellow Flowers, a Few Magnets and a Bit More...

2012-01-25T02:11:00.001-06:00

Happy Wednesday, People!

Hope you all are well today!

I don't have any new pictures of Mr. Kitty. He's still sitting atop the metal cabinet in the kitchen, drying. I'm still trying to figure out what to use for eyes.

There a few ideas bouncing around the old noggin:

*sure wish I had a ping pong ball*

*big bolts...I'm pretty sure I saw some in the prepared iron bucket out in the garage the other day*

*paper clay ... my least favorite of the ideas*

or, maybe

*plastic eyeballs...not sure they are the correct size*

So, in theory, things have been getting prepared while the kitty gets all the getting done.

He must be perfectly dry before we proceed with more paper clay. I sure don't want the little devil getting mildew after all the work put in thus far!

Hopefully, next post you'll see some progress on Mr. Kitty.

Fear not, though! I have been busy with other things.

I showed you all some magnets in the last post. Well, I'm still working on magnets only these do not have a magnet on them, nor will they get a magnet till they have traveled to their new homes.

I read the hazardous materials part of the postal code. Magnets are considered hazardous materials if they exceed a certain amount 'pull'. I don't think anyone is going to attach a magnet strong enough to grab anything from 15 ft away to their magnets for this swap. That is how I read the code. You'd have to have a magnet strong enough to grab something 15 ft. away. If you have a magnet that is that strong holding your doodads to your fridge...you are on overkill, my friend!

But, anyway, the magnet tops go magnetless through the mail cause that's how the swap host wants it and that's how it will be done.

I have three magnet tops in the works for that swap. I'm thinking to do 5, might be 6...I'll have to check the swap....I'm not done with magnets yet.

I'm not sure if all of these will even make the cut for the swap.

Red Button Key Magnet

It's a tractor key with an attached fob spray painted black. I put a few little junk pieces on it; a red button in a metal jacket, there's a blue stone, a little metal rod, some other things I can't identify from the picture and a quartz donut bead wire wrapped with brass wire. I''m thinking it needs a little something more.

Blue Flower Threader Magnet

I'm pretty sure this one will go in the swap. I'm very pleased with it! It has a lot of things on it. The base is a disk cut from a microwaved CD. I punched a hole in it and hung a little wire wrapped glass bead on a handmade jump ring. The glass bead came from a broken bracelet. (I loved that bracelet!) There are some tiny screws, a couple of ceramic beads, a string of sequins, a handmade foil rose (candy wrapper), a silver metal disk from a magnetic clip, star and leaf shaped plastic gems, little metal rod from a magnet clip, plastic silver oval, glass tube bead, piece of broken CD not microwaved, blue flower fabric emblem, and a broken needle threader. It's a bit over 2 inches across.

I remedied the broken needle threader. That's not the only broken needle threader in my 'little junk' box. I made me a new needle threader that is not going to break no matter what I try to drag through the eye of a needle with it! I took a length of jewelry wire that was thin enough, when folded into a point, to go through my smallest needle. I wrapped the ends of that folded wire around a little wooden stick and secured it with 1/4 inch copper foil tape. It should last some years, I suspect.

My hat is off to whomever invented needle threaders! They are a godsend!!

Back to magnet tops:

This one is rather silly. I'm debating his joining the swap. His eyes are two little screws stuck through holes punched in two metal disks (they're like tiny bowls with straight sides) that came out of magnet clips. His nose is a metal disk (flat) that came out of the same magnet clips, a white plastic cap from a syringe (perhaps? Not sure what that thing came from). His mouth is part of a red aluminum pull tab from a can of chili. All attched to a blue milk carton lid.

I thought I had turned this picture right ways, but apparently not.

When the kids came down just after the new year began, Terah, Brenton and I had a few hours of fun with the magnet making kit I got for Christmas from Justin and Courtney.

Brenton did the orange flower and the eyeball just above the smiley face.

Terah did the purple heart, the bug with green background and the first three on the top row as you see them in the picture.

The rest are mine.

Here's a shot of the metal cabinet in the kitchen where all art magnets end up till they travel on.

Ma's yellow magnet with the butterfly in it is sitting on top of the cabinet cause E6000 does not like the plastic that peanut butter jar lid is made from. The magnet fell off, that's twice I've had to glue it back on.

This is the beginnings of a red foil paper flower ball. It should be done soon. I have, I think 8, papers left to fold before gluing can commence. I believe I'll use one of those nice red cotton strings from the dog food bag for a hanger for it.

Yes, this is a Halloween Chunky Page. Yes, I know Halloween is nowhere in sight at this time of year. So, why did I make a Halloween Chunky Page today? Cause it seemed like a good idea. I like it. I made a few mistakes in the making of it. I only looked at the templates when I drew it up, didn't actually print them out and get it just right. His head is a tad large and it's not quite where it's supposed to be according to the tutorial, but I think he'll work just fine for a first try. Next time I make this kitty I'll give him a different background and probably make the kitty a different color as well.

I've yet to do the backside of this chunky page and danglies still need to be added. You'll be seeing this one again soon.

Just an experiment with paper roses. Not quite a success, but far from a failure.

The basket holds the backside of a sweater and about 8 hot glue sticks.

It stinks to high heaven in this deskroom right now! I used nail polish to edge my flower petals which gave the flowers a WOW factor. I'm gonna have to take them outside to finish the nail polish part. I only did five of them with nail polish, there are a total of thirteen of them. I like them! They will all be a different color of nail polish. Nothing garish. That purple is about as garish as the flowers will get. If one were going to wear the polish on their nails then the garish would come in with the yellow polish that edges the petals of one of those flowers!

Here are some unembellished flowers. These things are simply sweater material cut into rough squares with one edge rounded off. You hot glue them together to form a rose. They average about 3 inches across. I was quite impressed with how very easy it was to make them! I wasn't sure what the hell I was gonna do with them, but I've since figured that out!

These are Valentine's Day Presents!

I slapped a magnet on the back of them and viola!

Instant roses for your fridge! (Or wherever!)

It's a good thing Valentine's Day is still a little ways off cause these things are going to have to air out in the burnt house for a few days at least! That's the price you pay for sparklies sometimes though! I do like the look of the nail polish though it really isn't shiny. It kinda soaked into the cotton sweater material like a sponge takes in water. I will go for sparkly colors for the remaining sweater flowers.

Once I locate that bag of sweaters I thought was in the closet I'll probably make some more sweater flowers. I've no clue what became of that bag of sweaters. It must be in the burnt house.

Another reason to go out there!

You all be good to one another.

It matters!

I will return in a few days with more show and tell!

Peace

831

Paper Mache Cat, a Few Magnets and Some ATCs

2012-01-22T16:33:00.000-06:00

Hi Everyone!

The kitty is taking shape a bit more each day. I didn't work much on him yesterday. We are in the drying stages at the moment.

I've figured out what to use for his eyes, but I don't know if what I have in mind will work or not without some experimentation.

Next post we'll see how that experiment turns out!

I'll have to put another coat of paperclay or gesso on him...not sure which just yet.

I truly do make this all up as I go along.

His face needs a bit of tweaking as well. I'll have to drag out the dremel and drill some holes for whiskers. Not sure what I'll use for whiskers just yet either.

He's coming along nicely though and I'm pleased with the progress.

Ma came over the other day and we sat at the kitchen table making magnets from jar lids and junk.

This one is mine. I'll be entering it in a swap over at AFA (link's up at the top). I have two others done that I forgot to take a picture of. You'll see them next time.

This one started out life as a cap to a gallon milk jug. It has a little of this and a little of that on it. Sequins of different shapes, plastic gems, fake pearls bauble, a puzzle piece, some copper wire jump rings, a clear plastic flower with green stripes, little feet lapel pin with the shaft removed, a heart cut from a microwaved CD, brass doodad with a plastic yellow ball on top of it, a couple of glass tube beads and a metal shaft from a magnetic clip. the inside of the lid has another lid glued in it to adhere the magnet to. The inside cap is blue and came from a vanilla extract bottle.

These two lid magnets are Ma's

I really like the one with the spider!

I drew three ATCs yesterday as well.

On The Savannah

ATC

markers on recycled cardstock

Firestone Flamingo

ATC

markers on recycled cardstock

Pliocene Pussy Cat

ATC

markers on recycled cardstock

I have a sweater monster in the works, three more magnets in the works and the paper mache kitty ongoing as well. Never a minute goes by that I am not at least THINKING of something that needs to be created.

I'll be back again soon to show you more progress on the Art Front!

Be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace

831

And the Cat Grows, Still

2012-01-19T20:21:00.001-06:00

Hello Readers!

I'm still hard at work on my paper mache cat! I have decided I will give it to my sister Jeanny for her birthday. She hasn't even seen it and already she covets it!

I told her I seriously considering painting it orange and I thought she would burst with excitement! I haven't actually told her she's getting the cat. I've only danced around the request.

I got up this morning and bulked him out some and put a last layer of paper on him.

My sister, Kathy, gave me a bunch of old paper napkins that she got from the remnants of a yard sale. I've trained my people well to look for unusual things for art! She said they weren't good enough to use for napkins cause she hadn't a clue just how old they were or how they'd been stored before she got them. They were plenty good enough to use in paper mache!

Kitty was a bit skinny in his midriff so I bulked out his shoulders a bit. Bulking out involves tape and paper...whatever kind of paper you want to use will work! Tape it on the piece and then paper mache over it. Easy peasy!

Except for his face! His snout is way too long for a cat's snout!

I was taping little balls of newspaper to his his nose area for some cheeks to stick whiskers in later and my mother told me I should be putting those balls on the other end of him! LOL I told Ma he's been neutered! One of his legs is way fatter than the other three. Ma was displeased I had cut a good 4 inches off the end of his tail by this point too. I fattened up his belly, his tail and along his backside with paper napkins and masking tape.

Then I covered him up with drug booklet paper. I like the fact the drug booklets are numerous colors. It lets me know where the next layer has been placed. Assures ALL of it is covered in each layer of paper.

His chin is a bit off! I'll correct that when I apply the paper clay tomorrow.

I had planned on getting the paper clay made today but that didn't happen so it's scheduled for tomorrow. We'll see. If I'm going to give Kitty to sis, which I'm sure I will, I have till the end of April to do it! I plan on having him done before the end of January though!

This thing, however, probably won't be done by the end of January. I spent a whole day punching stars and putting them on this canvas. This thing has stopped talking to me, as it were. I don't know what direction to take with it at this point. I've put it back on the easel to brew! I think I jumped the gun on putting the stars on! I really don't know what will happen with it.

I started a new project on the kitchen table this evening. I must have this project done tomorrow afternoon so the kitchen table is clean for the putting on of the paper clay to the cat.

I went out to the burnt house yesterday and collected up some magnetic clips. Took them all to the garage and proceeded to demolish said clips for the magnets in them. I was getting really low on magnets and I have about 2000 of those magnetic clips to steal magnets from! It's great for the ego to demolish perfectly good things. I took the little sledge hammer to them. I couldn't do more then 20some. My arm was killing me by then! That sledge only weighs 8pds. It shouldn't be so hard to pick it up! Took both hands to pick it up and aim it at a clip. I generally got the magnet out with one whack, but some of them took two whacks.

I'm working on junk magnets. The swap I entered calls them Earth Day Magnets (Sans the Magnets). Apparently magnets are considered a hazardous material to the United States Postal Service. This is news to me but whatever. I'll add a magnet when I get my returns. No problem! (I just see a lot of issues with magnets not being able to be sent through the mail. If that's true how come magnets are sold on ebay and etsy and a lot of other online stores? Does UPS and FedEx allow magnets to be shipped through them? I have questions is all. But it's no skin off my teeth to make magnetless magnets for this swap!)

These are magnets made from junk.

I have lots of junk to use in magnet making!

No pictures of the magnet progress, I'm afraid.

I've only got 1 done and 2 others in the works. All depends on if I work on them still this evening as to how many will get made. I was shooting for 7 of them, but that might not happen. Might end up with the three in progress now.

I'll show you results in the next post.

Until then......be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace

831

Some Paper Mache in Progress

2012-01-17T22:51:00.002-06:00

Remember this thing?

I woke up with this critter nagging at me.

I was on a paper mache kick back in September of 2011 when I started this critter. It'd been called everything from a cat to a wombat! I sat it on the kitchen table this afternoon and it yelled at me while I cooked some fried potatoes, so I sat down and fattened up its legs and its head and cut a bit off the end of its way-to-long tail.

Then I promptly chopped its head off and

put it back on again in a different position. Wooden skewers aren't just for BBQ!

And hacksaws do an excellent job of hacking!

It was quite liberating to saw this critter's head off! When the idea hit me to cut its head off cause it just wasn't working with its head where it originated, I second guessed myself. Questioned if cutting its head off was such a good idea. I sucked it up, got out the hacksaw and boom! No head! And it felt good! It was a whole lot easier both mentally and physically than I thought it would be~!

I have decided this is indeed a cat.

There were doubts about what it would become.

This is one stout little cat! As you can see in the picture of its decapitated head, it is solid paper! The armature is made of magazine paper rolled into reeds, taped together in the shape of a creature with four legs. From there newspapers were taped round and round that armature to develop the shape of the critter. When I got tired of layers and layers of newspaper, I wrapped and wadded tin foil around the legs to fatten them up.

I used paper napkins to bulk it out. Lots of masking tape is involved as well.

I fashioned him some ears from corregated cardboard and taped them on his head. I taped them three times before they ended up where I wanted them!

Then I sat down to a hamburger patty, some fried potatoes and a bowl of sweet corn for supper. I contemplated what to do with the cat while I ate.

After I got my belly full, I cut the cat's ears down some so they weren't quite so large and covered him in a layer of the drug brochure paper. I really wish there had been enough purple pages to make him all purple but it really doesn't matter cause that will all be covered over with paper clay day after tomorrow and you won't know it even had color!

He'll get another layer of paper and glue tomorrow. I need to give him some toes. I was half way through that first layer of paper mache when I remembered I wanted to put some toes on him! Will use egg cartons for his toes. Cut the egg cups in half and trim them down, stuff em with newspaper and tape them to his feet before I put the next layer of paper down. I'll mix up a batch of paper clay to finish him off the next day.

Not sure how I'll paint him but I'm thinking he'll end up being orange with some kind of decorations on him. Haven't thought ahead that far!

I really don't know what I'm doing! I make up the rules as I go along!

There's at least another 4 days work to do on this thing.

Nothing has occurred in the cutting room. I have no picture either.

Be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace!

831

Stuff Completed

2012-01-17T13:57:00.001-06:00

Hello Everyone!

First, I must warn you the pictures in this post are terrible! There's something wrong with my camera! Sometimes it will take pictures as clear as can be and other times, we end up with what you're about to see in this post!

I apologize for the crappy photography!

Blame the photographer. It is probably the result of my not knowing what the hell I'm doing!

At any rate, enjoy!

We'll start off with my latest project.

Completed in three days time.

I dragged out some paper mache and the paints.

I was sick of looking at the cut off coffee creamer jars holding all my markers so I made them a new organizer and got rid of three of those ugly jars.

This thing started out life as a cardboard box. My diabetes testing supplies arrived in it. I cut the flaps off and used them to make two dividers in it so the markers could stand up even if there weren't enough of them in the box. I then covered it with two layers of newspaper-like paper. (I have TONS of this paper! It is in the form of booklets addressing the drug problem in this country to high school students. I got it from the chief of police of a small town in Kansas. I got three cases of those little booklets! They're wonderful for paper mache! God knows some of the information in those booklets isn't correct any longer. So I'm putting them to good use and making pretty things with them.) After the paper mache had dried for a day, I started painting it. I lost track of how many layers of paint it is. I started off with yellow wall paint for the outside and then got out the Dr. Martins Inks and some more wall paint and some acrylic paint and I slapped it on and wiped it off and put some in a spray bottle with a bit of water and sprayed away and I just went a little nuts with it! Took me a whole day to actually paint the thing what with drying times between colors. That was a tough one for me. I usually start and finish painting with very little drying time between colors. I'm not sure I like the paint job but it's full of markers and on my desk ready for service! The inside of it is a medium lavendar color wall paint. If I decide I don't like it, I can always give it another paint job!

I'm glad to have the markers back on the desk. They've been on the cabinet where the printer lives for weeks now! Been ages since I used them!

Be forewarned--marker drawings are in the future of this blog!

Yes, I know, this picture hurt my eyes as well.

I couldn't get a sharp picture of this wire wrapped rock to save my soul! That's all it is though, a copper wire wrapped rock. Nothing special about this rock at all. It looks green on my screen, but it isn't green, it's a plain ol' run of the mill gray piece of gravel. I dragged it out of the big diffenbachia pot (plant) in the livingroom a couple weeks ago. This is the rock I told you all I would show you when I found it again.

I found it buried beneath the shipwreck of projects that were scattered all over my desk. I cleaned this desk yesterday to be able to put the marker box on the desk. And lo and behold! There it was!

It's not a very big rock....the whole pendant is about an inch long. I rather like it. I was just practicing my wire wrapping skills. They need LOTS of practice!

Ignore the sugar bag in the background. I save all paper bags!

This one hurts the eyes too. Sorry bout that!

Green hair green velvet Goddess ornament.

That sparkly stuff I made her hair out of REALLY sparkles in the picture! And so do the two rhinestones in the plastic button sewn to her tummy! That sparkly stuff came on a spool like ribbon does. Christmas stuff of some sort. For embellishing packages, like you would with ribbon. I bought it before Christmas for $1.27 for 9 feet of it. I might of used 12 inches for it, but I don't think so. She's about three inches long, stuffed with fiberfil, handsewn from velvet that was once a shirt. She has a copper wire bail sewn into her upper body so she can be hung. I've strung her up with some fishing line.

Her sister #2 didn't cooperate in the photo shoot any better than any of the other contestants in this post did!

She's hand sewn from that same velvet with fiberfil and the copper wire bail sewn in. She has a white plastic button on her tummy and a chipboard tag sewn to the belly end of the bail. She's a bit shorter than her sister at about 2.5 inches. She has no fishing line to hang her with but that could be easily remedied

I've been sewing more mug rugs as well. These will probably show up in the posts on a regular basis throughout the year. I have a whole stack of them cut and ready to sew.

black cloth from a man's shirt

light orange is from a jersey knit from a woman's sweater

yellow is a cotton sweater

stripes were an acrylic yarn sweater

dark orange was a woman's shirt

light orange is a jersey knit from a woman's sweater

dark orange is a poly blend from a woman's shirt

blue is fleece from a woman's sweat shirt

dark orange from a woman's shirt

light orange from a woman's sweater

stripes from an acrylic yarn sweater

pink background is heavy cotton t-shirt fabric from a dress

red is fleece from a woman's shirt

the sheep is flannel from pajamas

purple is fleece from pajamas

dark orange is poly blend from a woman's shirt

flower print is cotton t-shirt fabric from little girl's skirt

orange is from a woman's shirt

purple is fleece from pajamas

All are about 4 inches square, 2 layers hand sewn with crewel embroidery thread. All are made from repurposed fabrics.

I have plans to make more monsters, pot holders and maybe a tote

bag or two as well this year. I need to make a prototype of the tote bag I have in mind. You'll all see it when it materializes.

In addition to the creating, I'm slowly working my way through the cutting room. I'll show you all a picture in the next post of what the cutting room looks like today and another picture of what it looks like on the day I make the next post. I'm hoping for progress to have been made! We shall see!

I didn't read very many books last year at all. I think only four or five. One of my goals this year is to read at least one book a month. I started The Partner by John Grisham a couple days ago. I bought it at the thrift store for 50 cents. I have almost every book John Grisham ever wrote but I didn't have this one in my collection. Good to have found it! It's a first edition as well which just puts the cherry on top of the sundae for me! I bought another John Grisham novel that day too....can't remember what that one is called right off the top of my head. I didn't have it either. I'll read it next. And then I'll start in on that stack of books I got from my sister right after Christmas when she culled her book shelves. Must be 2 dozen books in that stack. Not all of them 'reading' books but I'll plow through them nonetheless!

I'm not really participating in the 365 Project this year. I'm still trying to make at least 365 things this year and I don't see any trouble in accomplishing that goal. I simply don't have the 'want to' to post about it everyday to get my projects on the 365 Blog.

By all means go visit them though!!! The link is in the upper right corner over there>>>>>

You'll get new eye candy every single day!

I didn't really participate much last year but I did hit the goal of having made the equivalent of something everyday even though I don't have something written on my calendar for every day of last year. I didn't count each ornament I made individually. I counted all those as lots. I hit 365 and beyond though.

But anyway, go check out the 365 Project blog. You won't be disappointed! I promise!

I have shelved the envelope book project for the time beings. The person I was to trade this envelope book to has disappeared and it took the wind right out of my sails on this project! I still plan on finishing the envelope book, just not sure when at this point.

Until next time:

Be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace

831

Work in Progress and Some Other Baubles Completed

2012-01-05T00:12:00.001-06:00

Happy Thursday Everyone!

It's really only Wednesday as I write out this post but it will more than likely be Thursday by the time anyone reads it!

I'm still in the swing of creativity. I don't think that is going to slow down any anytime soon. I may have to take a breather for a few days while the kids are here for a visit but I'll get right back in the swing of the things next week.

In addition to the things I'm going to show you today, I have a couple of Goddess Stuffies I'm working on and a few other things rambling around in my head that I would like to give a go. I'm also still working on mug rugs, though that endeavor has slowed down considerably. I'll probably sew some of those while the kids are here beings they are all ready to be sewn.

I made a couple of altered key ornaments. I don't know what else to call them other than ornaments. They're just hangy things to do with what one wants. They could be hung on the Christmas tree I suppose, or one could hang them from a window shade as a pull for the shade or one could hang one from their rear view window in their vehicle. I've no clue what I'll do with these two. Trade them perhaps?

They're just useless keys made into something pretty.

I spray painted the keys black and put irrediscent glitter glue on one of them. I used a variety of doodads on them. Made jump rings from copper wire and silver colored wire, used a bit of ready-made chain and some beads and charms and what have you. The one above has a pink stone of some sort that should have been a bead but the hole didn't get cut all the way through. There's another stone on this one along with the plastic and glass beads. That big round thing is a piece of pvc pipe cut into a ring. I put a hole in it with my crop-o-dile and added a couple beads to pretty it up. The horseshoe charm was once an earring. The mate to it long lost.

This one is in shades of black, white and silver with a hint of copper thrown in. It is just glass and plastic beads, a metal disk that came out of a magnetic clip, a plastic coin, some ready-made chain a white quartz stone wire wrapped to the key.

I was sitting in front of the pc the other night playing Mahjongg, thinking I was wasting my time and I decided to drag out the polyclay to see what I could come up with.

This clown head appeared! I used a burnt out camera flash bulb as an armature for his head. You can see he isn't very big from the picture of him in my hand. He's one of the works in progress. Not sure what will become of him.

I'm thinking he needs a paint job as I totally spaced him out when he was in the oven baking. He's a bit brown! I think I might sew him an outfit and make him some hands and feet out of polyclay as well. We'll see what happens with him. Heck, he may end up in a container of 'things I don't know what to do with' and nothing will happen with him! (Why has the font changed? I didn't do anything to make it change! Damn computer has a mind of its own some days!)

There is a swap over at AFA called "A Jar of Hearts" Swap. I don't think I'll enter the swap, but I got inspiration from the theme of this swap! I made this little thing last night.

It's a little velvet heart filled with polystuffing and some beads sewn to the front side, a length of wire with a loop on either end impaled through the heart to hold the danglies and for it to have a way to hang. The danglies are just ready-made chain (an old necklace) and sparkly plastic beads to match the beads on the heart itself. Jump ring is copper wire wrapped around a Sharpie marker to make the jump ring. This thing is about 3.5 inches long.

This is the work in progress I talk about in the title of this post. I accepted a challenge to make a 10 page envelope book with a pink theme. These are the pages thus far.

Cat still needs some eyes. He's free hand cut collage, a fabric embroidery patch on his chest (daisy), some chipboard cutouts, copper wire for his whiskers, glitter glue in gold, magazine paper, writing paper, cardstock, scrapbooking paper, foil paper and envelope. I used a bit of marker on him as well.

This is the backside of the cat envelope. It's a mandala done in red sharpie on dark pink mulberry paper.

This mandala represents affection.

Kinda hard to see in the picture. I really don't take very good pictures!

Fish #1 for the envelope book is a bit of this and a bit of that....the fish is made from cardstock, sparkly pink paper and little dots cut out of various pinkish colored papers. There is some gold glitter glue, silver sequins, handmade paper, ironed easter grass, pink netting, crewel embroidery yarn and a bit of marker on there. Some purple tissue paper as well. This page is a bit stiff cause I put the design on a piece of chipboard the same size as the envelope.

Backside of Fish #1. Just markers on the envelope itself. Free hand drawn mandala.

I decided to go with mandalas for the backsides of the envelopes cause to me, mandalas can be made for anything! The fish mandalas represent abundance. You can interpret that anyway you like though.

Fish #2 is made in the same fashion as fish number one minus all the stuff in the background and the need for a chipboard layer. Fishes both still need eyes attached. This one has a copper wire fishhook in its mouth. The pink background is just regular writing paper with swirls and doodads drawn on the one side of the fish with a white paint pen.

You all have already seen this mandala. It's done in ball point pen on thick chipboard, cut out and glued to the backside of Fish #2 envelope book page.

Marie Antionette Envelope Book Page.

That's Betty White's face on Marie! Makes me bust out laughing every time I look at it! Her dress, hair, shoes and the like are all free hand cut collage from various types of pinkish paper. The star on her belly is a chipboard die cut. I added a bit of embellishment to it with sharpie and white paint pen. The background is just black sharpie zentangle drawing with a hint of the white paint pen here and there.

No drawing, no art at all on the backside of Marie. This is just a pink paper heart doily cut to fit the backside of the envelope and fabric embroidery patch in the shape of an unopened rose bud.

Words Envelope Book Page

There is no rhyme or reason to this page. Just a bunch of pinkish papers glued down randomly in some sense of order I can't fathom. I then embellished it more with words in red sharpie, some peace signs and a bunch of random marks. I like the whole effect of it all though so it worked out alright! I did have my doubts about it as I worked on it.

This is the backside of the words page. This mandala represents hope.

Owls were on the girl's list of themes she likes so I went with a pink owl in keeping with the pink theme of the envelope book. This one has yet to get something on the backside. It will have a mandala like the others. I'm thinking I should add a mandala on the backside of the Marie page to keep with the theme as well. Not sure I will do that but we'll see.

There's still quite a ways to go on the envelope book before it is done. Mail date is the 7th of Feb so I better keep on with this one if it's get finished in time! There's still two covers and four more envelopes to decorate, not mentioning that I still need to figure out what the devil I'm going to fill the envelopes with! They'll need little things that will fit in the envelopes; stickers, embellishements, what have you.

All still in the works!

And then there's the paper star garland I forgot to take a picture of when I hung it on the tree the other day.

I've already shown you all the stars in a previous post. Probably at the end of November or early December. I don't rightly remember just when I did these. They started out as long strips of magazine pages, folded into what was supposed to be a 3-D star. My paper strips weren't quite long enough to make the stars all the way so I stopped at this point and ended up with flat stars. I spray painted the stars white and then they sat in a basket for weeks till it hit me one day that I could make them into a garland. So I punched a hole in either side of the stars (ruined a few with wrong placement of the hole) and hooked them together with hand made copper wire jump rings. I ended up with a garland with, (I think, I didn't really count) 28 or 29 stars.

The garland would be nicer if it were a tad longer. I may make more of these babies to add to this garland for next year's tree.

I really like how they look on the tree!

I suspect when I get more things made, you all will be the first to have a look at them!

Be good to one another!

Make this your best year yet!

Peace

831

A New Year, A New Beginning

2012-01-01T20:26:00.000-06:00

I haven't really sat down and thought about what I'd like to accomplish in 2012. I know I'll be doing artwork on a regular basis, that's become a habit over the last couple years. It's a given. I would like to write more poetry this year than I did last year. Though I wrote more poetry last year than I did the year before so maybe that's becoming a habit as well. Perhaps this is the year to start a poetry blog? Not sure about that one.

It's the first day of the new year and I have done artwork today. A bit of drawing in the form of a mandala and a bit of collage work in the form a bejeweled cupcake. I started on a new project yesterday. The deadline is to mail the first week in Feb. Time's a flying! I'm almost to the halfway mark on the inside pages of the envelope book. Still have five envelopes to pretty up and then make a cover for the book and fill it with goodies. It's a bigger project than I anticipated when I agreed to this trade. It's a good challenge though! I'm well on my way to completing it with no trouble at all. The hard part will be deciding how to bind it.
I think I am going to use a bolt system for the binding. First I have to locate appropriate bolts and nuts to see if it can even be done like I'm thinking. Locating nuts and bolts involves going to the garage and raiding the bucket with nuts and bolts in it.

I don't have any pictures to show you today. I need to clean off this desk (yes, it's still a mess from the last time I said it needed cleaned off.) so I can clean off the top of the scanner and put all that stuff back on the desk where it belongs! Messes have taken over for the first of the year! A major cleaning spree is slated as soon as Christmas gets over with! The cutting room, kitchen table (that's where I do paper mache work), sewing table in the bedroom and this deskroom all need a major going through!

One of the things I am vowing to accomplish in 2012 is to not buy anything for arts and crafts! NOTHING! If folks want to give me things, yeah, I'll gladly accept the gift and eventually put it to good use, but I'm not buying anything! Maybe a bottle of glue or two, but no paper, no beads, no fibers, no embellishments, no paint, markers or the like. I have enough arty supplies to keep me busy for an eternity! Well. at least through a whole year, with extra to share!

I've done not a whole lot today. Other than work on the envelope book for a couple of hours, I've been planted in front of this computer either playing games, trying to sign in to Yahoo (they don't like my password today...) or playing games on facebook. A rather non productive day in all aspects.
I have made three pots of coffee and cooked some rice and beef for supper. I declined two offers for supper this evening. I really don't feel well enough to traipse across the backyard to go to either Ma or Susan's house for ham and beans.. Take your choice, they both made it. There will be leftovers tomorrow I'm certain!

I'm going to try and do a post every day this year. We shall see how long that keeps up! :)
I really don't have any new news so I'll let you get on with your day!
Happy New Year!

Some Questionably Artful Endeavors

2011-12-30T01:00:00.001-06:00

This will be a long post so if you've time, grab a cup of something good to drink, settle in and enjoy!

Hello Readers!

There will be some pictures of 'art' that has been completed. I hesitate to call it art....well, the majority of it anyway. It's more like craft. Where is the line between the two? It's a very blurry line! Call it what you want! :)

Along the journey you'll find a critter or two....

And there's liable to be a bunch of chatter as well.

First it snowed.

That was on the 20th if memory serves correctly. This was taken about 4:30 in the morning. Was absolutely beautiful! I love how the flash on the camera intensifies the snowfall.

There was a nice blanket of snow on the ground when this was coming down. It snowed for hours!

Then the sun came up a few hours later...

The neighbors live in that grove of trees up the way.

I see my baby evergreen trees are growing nicely. You can make them out in the fence line if you knew what to look for! Been awhile since I took a walk out there to take a close look at the baby trees. Need to count them. We started out with 147 of them summer before last. Wears my old body out to take that long walk though.

There was about 3 inches on the back porch light fixture about 8 am on the 20th.

I'm afraid it's dark outside right now....it's 12:21 a.m. 30 Dec right now! I don't have a picture to show that the snow all melted pretty much with the 50 degree days we've experienced in the last 48 hours or so.

Tis blustery and cold out tonight. Low forties.

Proof that I got the tree in and decorated!

There was some doubt on my part as to whether I would really get that done!

You'll see another tree picture later.

These pictures gave me some trouble in the organizing department so you'll be getting a sorted tale to decipher today.

I made these altered keys earlier this year. March, maybe? Early in the year though. I dragged them all out to take a look at what I had. A few of them stay on my fridge where they all are at the moment. Not sure just what I''m going to do with all these. I want to make some more alter key magnets in 2012.

I particularly like this one!

It's stuck on a tin cup that hangs from under the kitchen cabinets. I collect tin cups and other cups and a whole bunch of other things....I have lots of collections.

I do want to turn part of my collection of old keys into altered key magnets! I wonder just how many keys are in that little tote? Close to a thousand, I'm sure!

I was surfing the web like I do almost everyday and came across a tutorial teaching you how to freehand draw a mandala. Here, my result. It's done in ball point pen (PaperMate Profile) on recycled heavy chipboard. I'm pleased with the result. This is the ONLY thing I have drawn 'forever'. I have an itch to drag out the markers!

Need to clean off this messy desk before I can do that though.

For the time being, I've been sewing (for one thing.)

Mug Rug

Upcycled fabrics. The brocade is upholstery sample. The pink used to be a dress. I loved that dress! I wore that dress all the time till it got too stained to be called a good dress. Then I wore it for a night dress for awhile.

The other side

This one isn't quite square. I like the mug rugs to be square.

No measuring involved though so you get what you get.

Cupcake Mug Rug

Purple Sweater Fleece Sheep Mug Rug

Sewing took on a larger task also.

Hot Pot Mat Orange Kid

Roughly 8-9 inches square

Red Plaid Mug Rug

The majority of the mug rugs are roughly 4 inches square.

In progress...

A whole stack of mug rugs cut and ready to be sewn.

I've sewn three from this stack already.

I went on a wire wrapping stint too. This is a rock I dragged out of the large planter in the livingroom where the diffenbachia lives. There are lots of rocks in that pot to keep the cats from thinking it is for their personal use. I wrapped the rock with silver colored craft wire. There's a green glass tube bead woven in as well.

I wrapped another rock, but I've no clue what became of it. It's probably buried on this messy desk! I'll show it to you all when I find it.

More Mug Rugs. I really like this colorful one!

Yellow Mug Rug

This one is thicker than any of the others. It is two pcs of quilting cotton and three layers of sweater material. Overkill, is what it is! A mug rug does not need to be that thick! It has purple fleece circles. The fleece came from a pajama top. I still wear the bottoms.

This is the other side of the mug rug above. This one is more to true color than the first one.

Another picture of the tree.

The Paper Flower Balls got some gold paint.

The gold paint did a few things....it stiffened up the magazine paper and it gave them some bling.

Security Envelope Polish Star Ornament

I feel like I've shown you all this one already, but I couldn't have with it being in the pictures for this date.

This one isn't quite as big as the orchard paper Polish Stars I did for the ornament project. The smaller the disk, the harder it is to get those points on it! The smaller ones are pretty cool though!

I believe there will be a drawing of a cat in the near future.

This picture inspires me!

I went on a paper folding spree the other day.

I already had the paper disks cut from the security envelope when I found the tutorial to make this medallion. It would work better if one had a punch so all the disks ended up EXACTLY the same size. You can see the white border from the backside of the paper on some of the folds. It's about 5 inches across. I put this up on my money door. You'll get to see a bigger part of the money door in a second.

Hello from Fred!

While on my surfing adventure I ran across the tutorial to make these cool paper balls. The tutorial suggests using old used greeting cards. I went looking for my stack of old cards and couldn't find them. They're lost in the abyss somewhere...So I thought, OK.... I really want to try these! Maps! That's what I started out with. RW's gift of Oklahoma and Missouri road maps has come in quite handy!

I got tired of looking at map paper and decided I'd see if I could get 20 disks out of a pc of scrapbooking paper. TaDa!

Gray Scale Triangle Paper Ball Ornament

Green Stripe Triangle Paper Ball Ornament

I made two sizes of these balls. This one of the 2 bigger ones I made. This ball is about 4 inches across.

Smaller Triangle Paper Ball

I started out using red strings for their hangers and changed over to copper wire or silver craft wire. I like the wire hangers much better than the red string.

You'll see more of these later in this post.

The money door. This is the door to my deskroom/artspace/computer room. The door is NEVER closed but the backside of the door is covered with stuff too...mostly bumper stickers on the other side. If it appeals to me, is small enough to fit in an available space on the door, it goes there. There isn't much REAL money on this door. You see just a fraction of the money on the door in this picture. The only REAL money on the door is a one dollar silver certificate. It's worth a bit more than one dollar, but not much!

Orange Star Blue Heart Striped Mug Rug

Here's a pile of Triangle Paper Balls with wire hangers.

Red Star Plaid Heart Mug Rug

Blue Security Envelope Triangle Paper Ball Ornament

Only a few hours ago I found the tutorial to make these fabulous shoe ornaments!

Fun, fun, fun!!!

I couldn't get a good picture of the shoe to save my soul but I think you get the idea.

The tute used cardstock for the sole of the shoe. I used some underflooring. Not really sure what it is called. My sister had a new tile floor put in her kitchen and I got it from the guy who laid the tile. It's compressed stryofoam balls with a thick tar-like backing that sticks to the floor. The ceramic tiles go on top of this stuff. I covered it with a piece of sparkly pink paper. My shoe is somewhat more substantial than the shoe made in the tutorial. The toe of the shoe...the upper part is made from wired ribbon. The heel is a pc of wire with a tube made from paper over it. The wire is part of the sole of the shoe. The wire is how it keeps its shape. The shoe is about 3.5 inches long.

I'll be experimenting with shoes.

Here you can see a comparison of the two different sizes of triangle paper balls.

Yellow Heart Purple Fleece Mug Rug

These birds from hatch 3 still need their hangers. They did all get painted though!

I also painted that lid they're all sitting on. It was a mess when Ma brought it to me asking if I could do anything with it. It matches the tin lunch pail it belongs with now.

There are some lazy critters in this house. This one sleeps all the time.

Red Foil Paper Polish Star Ornament

I made a couple boxes for the elf slippers. Not everyone got a box for their elf slippers. The two boxes I made were totally different from one another. I gave up on boxes for them.

Look! Another lazy critter!

And unlike these critters;

I've been a busy girl.

The ornament project was a success as far as I can tell. Not everyone has received their ornaments yet.

Christmas has not come to my house yet either. The kids will all be here sometime next week....then Christmas will happen at my house. Wish I could say I'm ready for that to happen....I still have presents to wrap.

I hope you enjoyed the sorted tale today! Sorry it's so jumbled but it's late and I don't have the patience to put the picture in some semblance of order. Chaos reigns, I guess.

You all be good to one another!

Peace

831

An Ornament Recap and some new stuff

2011-12-15T00:27:00.000-06:00

Hello Readers!

Happy Wednesday!

It's time to show off the ornaments! They're all but done!

Still need to put hangers on the snowman hats, the russian stars and the last batch of birds.

Enjoy!

1. Elf Slippers

After much debate as to whether these little slippers needed to tied together somehow, I decided they were fine as free standing slippers! So everyone will get a pair of elf slippers to do with as they please!

I ended up with 16 pairs of them, all different colors with different colored stitching and embellishments. I ended up with only two pairs that were quite similar. Just happens that the pair in the picture is one of the two that look quite similar.

These are made from acrylic felt, various types of sewing thread, a tiny gold tone jingle bell (some of them actually jingle!), some sequins, a bead and a bit of glue.

What I learned from making elf slippers:

Felt is a wonderful material to work with! Love it!!

Crewel embroidery thread doesn't play nicely with felt. It will suffice, but the results aren't all that pretty.

Regular sewing thread looks great on felt even when it is part of the design.

Tiny jingle bells are a right P.I.T.A. to sew on to tiny shoes.

2. Snowman Hats

I lollagagged around and put off making these snowman hats, hoping I wouldn't even need them for the ornament project. I'm so glad they made the cut and got made afterall cause they are cute as they can be!

I ended up with 21 snowman hats. There are three different sizes of them cause I used three different paper tubes. Most of the hats have a green hatband. I ran out of the vintage satin seam binding and resorted to the red braid (I forget what that braid is called.) All the hats have similar flowers, but there are several colors of flowers scattered amongst the hats.

These are made from toilet paper, paper towel and gift wrap cardboard tubes, cereal box chipboard, a bit of black paint, some black and silver glitter glue, clear gloss varnish, sewing findings (braid and seam binding), fabric flowers, a brad and a bit of glue to hold it all together! Most of them have a hole in the top of the hat to string a hanger through. Those hangers have yet to be added. I remembered the hole needed in the top after I'd already glued 4 tops down with quick drying glue. Wasn't not taking the tops off to make it right.

What I learned from making Snowman Hats:

One can do some amazing things with a humble cardboard tube!

The gloss varnish I used does not play well with the black/silver glitter glue. Doesn't really show up at all, even holding one of these snowman hats in your hand, but the varnish gave them a cloudy appearance when it should have been shiny. I won't use that varnish and that glitter glue together again.

Satin seam binding makes a wonderful hatband!

Various shaped metal brads don't make very good flower centers. Should have used a bead and just glued it down.

3. Russian Stars

These are only called Russian Stars cause of the Russian book pages I used on them.

There was much debate as to what the heck to do with these stars once I had them covered in Russian text. There was much frustration as to what the heck to do with the ones that refused to lay flat once the glue was dry holding the Russian text on. I like the shape of the stars and nothing else about these!

I ended up with 23 of these. There are 2 floating around this house somewhere. I cut out 25 stars, put Russian text on 25 stars, put red dots on 25 stars, but when I was done ....there were only 23 of them and the other two have yet to be found!

These are made with cereal box chipboard (I only call it cereal box chipboard, most of the boxes are actually something else. Food packaging of one sort or another, cake box, cracker box, ect. I don't eat a lot of dry cereal.), Russian book pages, tacky glue, red velvet ribbon punched into little circles, gold glitter glue, green glitter glue, irridescent glitter glue, vintage sewing braid in red and white and white foam snowflakes. I didn't show you all the backsides. The foam snowflakes and green glitter glue are on the backsides. These still need a hanger also. The hanger will be a length of clear fishing line. They are about 4 inches from point to point.

What I learned from making Russian Stars:

Do not go overboard with the glitter glue.

Chipboard will not dry flat unless you weight it down with something heavy in the drying process.

Glitter glue beats loose glitter in its ability to add bling! No mess to contend with!

I'll use this star pattern again.

4. Tufted Paper Balls

These were an experiment from the very beginning. I started off with a large light bulb from a string of Christmas lights.....the bulbs that look like chandelier lights, ones you would put outside. I made six of them with the light bulbs and wasn't pleased with how large they were! They are pretty cool, but way too big for tree ornaments! So I used 1/2 inch wooden beads as the base for the tufts of paper instead and ended up a lovely little paper ball that is quite impressive in hand!

These are made from a medical dictionary from the 1940s. I cut the dictionary pages into roughly (I didn't measure, just cut) into 1 1/2 inch squares. The little squares were wrapped around the non-working end of a small paint brush, dipped in hot glue and attached to the wooden bead. The wooden bead got a length of wire folded in half to form a U glued into the hole in the bead before the paper tufts were attached. These went very quickly! Some of them have a pinkish hue to them because the dictionary pages were edged in red and only some of the little squares had red along the edge of one side.

I ended up with six of the larger tufted balls and 53 of the little ones. The little ones are about 2 inches across.

What I learned from making Tufted Paper Balls:

What you use for a base doesn't always turn out like you plan. Shapes are deceptive once they're covered in tufts of paper.

Dictionary pages are quite thin and quite easy to wrap around the small end of a pointed stick.

I love my hot glue pot!

If you don't have a lot of time to devote to a handmade gift, these tufted paper balls are a great choice as they are impressive and sinfully easy to make!

5. Paper Flower Balls

These aren't quite done yet either. I was going to spray paint them gold this afternoon cause the weather was finally cooperating but I spaced it out and they still don't have any gold on them!

These were a bit of an experiment as well. I knew I wanted a few different paper ornaments but I'd never made a kudasuma (?) ball before. I bit off a bit more than I wanted to chew but once I got started on them, I couldn't stop till I had enough for the ornament project.

These are made from magazine pages, glue and length of white cotton string.

The balls are roughly 3 inches across. I stared out with 2 inch squares cut from magazine pages. It takes 60 little cones to make one flower ball.

I ended up with 19 of these.

What I learned from making Paper Flower Balls:

I don't know a lick of Japanese!

Folding tiny squares is very therapeutic.

If you're in a hurry to produce an ornament, these are not the ones to take on!

Television comes in handy when you're doing mindless work.

(You all know I don't own a TV, so I sat in front of my computer watching TV shows on hulu.)

Making these from one color of paper makes them much prettier than the magazine pages, but I didn't have enough of one color of paper (other than the orchard paper, brown kraft paper and white copy paper) to make enough of these for the project.

Thicker paper than magazine paper is easier fold.

The bigger the square you start off with, the bigger your finished ball.

6. Folded Paper Wreaths

Another sinfully easy and impressive ornament!

These are made with a map of Oklahoma (I used 4 maps for 32 ornaments), green glitter paint and a tiny fabric ribbon. Hangers are clear fishing line.

They start out as 8 pieces of paper cut to 4 inches by 2 inches and folded so they interlock. There is no need for glue, they'll stay together without it! I painted mine with the green glitter to give them a bit of sparkle and to hold them together a bit.

What I learned from making Folded Paper Wreaths:

Outdated maps are useful in creative endeavors!

If you don't cut your papers square, your folds won't turn out right and you'll end up with a wonky wreath.

Fishing line makes a great hanger for lots of things!

7. Polish Stars

Another experiment that turned out just right!

These look a heck of a lot more complicated than they are!

These are made from orchard paper (not sure exactly what orchard paper was used for originally. There are different opinions according to google. It wasn't, however, originally made for arts and crafts!), tacky glue, memory wire used in jewelry making and two sequins to hold it all together. You'll need a sharpened pencil as a tool to make the points.

This is mindless work one can do in front of the television. I watched every episode of Chicago Hope while making 23 of these buggers! They aren't quick by any means, takes about an hour for each ornament.

I plan to make more of these! Next ones will be made with some fancy gift wrap paper. Any paper will work though!

What I learned from making Polish Stars:

Beauty can be found in humble paper!

A regular old #2 pencil is a great tool.

Some things you cannot glue together with glue stick.

Patience is indeed a virtue! If you can make your first one of these without pulling all your hair out, you'll make a hundred of them!

Memory wire is some really cool stuff! (I'd never used it till these were made.)

8. Red Flower Ornaments

I had my doubts about these turning out as good as they did. My photography skills need a bit of work but you get the gist of the idea. These were really fun to make! I hadn't worked much with egg cartons before this experiment.

These are made with pressed paper egg cartons, red and green acrylic paint, some green yarn and gold tone jingle bell. The leaves and flower cups are all cut from egg cartons, painted and assembled with the green yarn. The leaves are painted with two different colors of green. This is an easy ornament that you could make with your kids. There's no getting it wrong!

What I learned from making Red Flower Ornaments:

Egg cartons should never be thrown away! (recycled, yes, tossed in the trash, NO NO NO)

A sharp needle will go through a pressed paper egg carton flower with NO TROUBLE at all!

Egg cartons take a lot of paint to get the color right cause they are quite absorbent.

Green yarn is easily found at the thrift store!

9. Little Book Ornaments

These were an adventure to make! I've made a ton of little books this year and these are the smallest of all of them! 1x1.5 inches. Once you learn to make books, you can tailor the size to your liking! Books are quite easy to make once you master a few techniques.

These little books are all hand sewn in the coptic stitch. They have five signatures of 3 sheets of copy paper, giving them 30 blank pages to do whatever you want on. The covers are made from game boards, gold foil paper and green velvet material. There's a bit of hot glue holding the page blocks to the covers and tacky glue holding the covers together. I glued the bales in between the page block and the spine of the cover so it's not going anywhere unless you give it a big yank! There are beads strung onto a christmas tree hook and attached to the bale along with a few lengths of broken necklace chain.

What I learned from making Little Book Ornaments:

Work quick when you got hot glue involved!

Velvet is lovely cover material. Nice to touch. It glues wonderfully.

Gold foil paper (wrapping paper) isn't a good choice for end papers. It doesn't play well with hot glue.

Metal Christmas tree hook wire is an excellent substitute for jewelry wire when you're making rigid pendants with beads. It's a nice shiny silver color too.

Little kids are fascinated by such tiny books!

10. Angels

I had a fabulous time with my mother making most of these little angels. She and I made 16 one day, I woke up the next morning faunching at the bit to make more and ended up with 36 of these.

Ma found the pattern for these in a book....The ones in the book were almost a foot tall! Much too big for an ornament on the tree. We sized them down a bit and went off the pattern a bit with the angels hair. The book angels had doll hair.

These are made from a wooden skewer cut down to about 6 inches in length, wrapped with quilt batting secured with white cotton string, a wooden bead glued to the end of the skewer, wings are wired gold mesh ribbon, halo is a length of wire wrapped around a large Sharpie to make it round, hangers are copper wire. Each angel has an embellishment on her chest. Some are plastic gemstones, some are fabric ribbon flowers and some are fabric roses. The angels' hair is gold glitter paint and their faces were put on with a brown sharpie. Glue used is hot glue and tacky glue. Some of the angels were slapped with some irridescent glitter glue along the white parts of their bodies, some weren't.

What I learned making Angels:

You don't need to buy a thing, just look in your stash, you probably have everything needed to make these. If not, you can probably improvise. Make them your own!

Quilt batting isn't just for quilts.

If what you see in a book appeals to you but you don't like it quite like they've presented it,

change the rules! That's allowable in art!

11. Paper Mache Birds

I sold one of these birds right out from under the project this afternoon. That was a pleasant surprise!

These were the first of the ornament project. They actually inspired me to make a whole set of different ornaments for all the families I know for Christmas this year. Should have started on the ornament project way earlier in the year, but at least I did start (and finished it!).

I made a total of 21 birds. One of them still needs the details painted on it, nine of them still need some sort of hanger attached to their backs and the last batch of nine that I made, I decided they weren't getting legs and feet. Good thing I made that decision too cause I left my needle tool at my sister's house 160 miles away and it is a vital tool for attaching legs to paper mache birds! The last nine birds will get an eyehook in their backs to hang them.

These are made from newspaper, watered down (1/2 and 1/2 more or less...I just eyeballed it) white PVC glue (plain ol' white school glue), white tissue paper, wire and crewel embroidery thread for their legs. some acrylic paint, white paint pen and black sharpie.

Each little bird is different. There is no way to make two of them alike! They range in size from a sparrow to a small parrot. Their legs can be posed to perch them on a branch on the Christmas tree or anywhere else you might want them to sit.

What I learned from making Paper Mache Birds:

I didn't realize just how much I enjoy doing paper mache till I tackled the bird project!

Humidity makes paper mache dry very s-l-o-w-l-y. Take that into consideration when you determine the schedule you need to adhere to when making paper mache on a deadline.

Who would of thought old newspapers and a dab of paint could be so cute!

12. Inchie Cubes

I made these way back in July not even thinking about the ornament project at the time. They aren't very Christmassy but they do look adorable on the tree. My tree this year has a modgepodge of different ornaments so these do blend in quite nicely. I think there are six or seven of these on my own tree this year.

These are made with inchies I made throughout 2009. I made 970 some inchies that year. Missed my goal of 1000 by just under 30. The inchies are mostly markers on recycled cardstock. Some are done in other mediums as well and others are done on recycled paper quite similar to cheap watercolor paper. It was originally photo album paper...you lifted up the flap with a square hole in it and put your picture there. I cut all I had into 1 inch squares.

They're taped together with regular old scotch tape. I fashioned a hanger from a length of copper wire and seed bead to insert into the corner before they were all taped together.

What I learned from making Inchie Cubes:

It takes a long time to make 1000 inchies!

These were easier to tape together than you would think.

These make wonderful rear view mirror ornaments for your car.

The ornament project was a success! I still have a few little details to work out and find some sort of box to package them all in but I'm pleased with my progress~!

Here are a few other things I've been working on!

A close up of the plastic origami crane hanging on the Christmas tree. Even if I could take good photographs, I don't think a photograph would do this little crane justice! I'm going to make more of these throughout the year for my inventory for the craft show in September.

Another close up of ornaments on my tree. There's an inchie cube up at the top right/middle, a folded paper flower ball made with white copy paper with poetry written in red on each of the little squares used to fold the cones and then edged in black sharpies before folding. I really like how it turned out! You can't read a lick of that poetry but that's how I intended it! I was just going for the handwritten look, not the value of the poetry. I wrote the poetry, all my words...but that's irrelevant. There's also one of the Polish Star ornaments off to the left top. I've never had those wooden bead garlands on the tree before this year. I like how they look with the variety of ornaments.

I went on a sewing spree yesterday.

My computer monitor bit the big one and there was no playing on the PC last night so I sewed hot pot holders. They all need some binding around the edge still. They're all slated to be Christmas presents.

Hearts Hot Pot Holder

Reclaimed sweater material, fleece material, velvet, and cotton. All material came from old clothing. Four layers for the hot pot holder itself and then the hearts and circles (freehand cut circles!) were sewn on with regular red sewing thread in a whip stitch.

Orange Kid Hot Pot Holder

Again all material is from old clothing except for the felt used on the dress. Yellow and green are felt. Old sweaters and fleece for the hot pot holder itself. Four layers. I used various types of thread to sew the parts on to this one. It still needs a binding of some sort around the perimeter of the hot pot holder.

Owl Hot Pot Holder

Reclaimed material from old clothing with the exception of the owl's feet which is from a fat quarter I bought some time back. Four layers of fleece, old sweater material. The owl is made from a sweater that had 'hair' so he's kinda fuzzy, stringy.

On all the pot holders, the four layers are sewn together with a running stitch like you see on the owl pot holder. I just wanted to quilt them together so they didn't shift on me while sewing the pictures on. Collage with fabric is what these are! All hand sewn! I don't get along with a sewing machine!

I discovered a new endeavor the other day and while the PC was out of commission last night, I wove this little mug rug out of odds and ends of yarn and crewel embroidery thread on a cardboard loom.

I had expected it to turn out SQUARE. The loom is square. The mug rug isn't square but it's big enough to sit a coffee mug on without any trouble at all! Weaving takes a long time. I worked on this little rug for almost three hours from beginning to end. That time includes the making of the loom as well. The loom was 5 inches square. The rug ended up being about the size of a postcard. I need to figure out a shuttle for this tiny loom. I fashioned what I thought would be a good shuttle out of a piece of copper wire. It works pretty good till you get to the end of your weaving. Then it gets to be a tight squeeze and doesn't work so good. I will just have to fiddle with it to see what I can come up with.

And since I've not shown all the critters for a few weeks, here's my furkids.

Lola taking a bath.

Fred sleeping in my recliner. His head on the end table cause he's way too big to fit in that chair! Oh my goodness, you should have heard the snoring coming out of that dog when I took this picture! He was sound asleep! He sure doesn't look very comfy! He always acts as though I've burst his balloon when I make him get out of MY chair so I can sit in it. He moans and groans and makes a big scene.

And last but far from least, Billy asleep on my bed. That patchwork quilt he's sleeping on is one of the best buys from a yard sale I've ever gotten! That quilt is machine sewn but hand tied, made from corduroy, an old blanket and flannel for a backing. It's the warmest blanket I own! I gave a whole dime for it!

The foot of my bed is Billy's favorite sleeping spot. He spends hours every day sleeping in this spot!

You all be good to one another!

Spread some smiles!

Give some hugs and kisses!

Peace, my friends!

831

Something New and More Progress

2011-12-10T03:49:00.001-06:00

Hello Readers!

I really like to fold paper! Origami is a great project regardless what you undertake to fold your piece of paper into!

I'd never made paper cranes till the night before last. I really can't say I've made a paper crane still!

I found a tutorial to fold cranes out of clear plastic like you'd find stickers and paper and all kinds of things packaged in.

It's a bit harder to fold than actual paper is but it works! And I LOVE the results!

It looks like glass when in hand! I hung it with a piece of 6lb test fishing line so the hanger pretty much disappears and the crane looks like it's floating! This is the only one I made. What fun though and I will certainly be making more of these!

This one is about 3 inches from nose to tail. The hardest part about this project was cutting the plastic into an even square! I cut my square about 4x4 inches. Bigger would have been easier to fold. I've no clue what my plastic came from. There are different thicknesses of it. I think mine is a bit thin cause the crane's head doesn't want to stay folded. I think if the plastic were a hair thicker the creases would be firmer and they wouldn't come apart.

I love how the crane's shadow is on the ceiling behind in it in the picture!

Progress has been made on the ornament project!

Paper mache birds now have some color to them other than that drab brown I showed you all last time!

I'm not happy with these birds! I think they are ugly! But...that isn't for me to decide! I just keep the muse happy and make what she's tell me to!

They aren't awful birds, just not near as cute as the first batch! I wasn't happy with the second batch either and others just raved about how cute they are!

So, not for me to decide!

I still have one more pair of elf slippers to sew together and add sequins and bead to. These are the finished ones of the bunch. Jingle bells attached! Those jingle bells are a pain in the butt! But they do add to the little slippers a lot! Glad Ma thought that idea up! I still have 16 jingle bells to attach!

Flowers balls are all put together!

YEAH!

(I am sick of making flower balls!)

These aren't quite done. Tomorrow they will get a spray of gold paint to give them some sparkle. Perhaps a bit of glitter will end up on them as well. Work in progress, plans subject to change!

Snowman hats are in the works!

21 of the little devils

I really didn't see these snowman hats materializing this evening. But there they are! I sometimes surprise myself! They still need a coat of black paint on the outside before we can continue on to prettying them up with some ribbon for a hat band and a little flower of some sort. Not all of them will have the same flower.

I'm still figuring out what to use for a hat band....seam binding? ribbon? upholstery material? I'm uncertain at this point.

I found the can of inchie cubes! I said I wasn't making snowman hats if that happened, but I'm taking the beaded dangly things out of the project and using the inchie cubes instead.

And here's the basket of angels all ready to go! There's 38 angels to work with!

The ornament project IS coming along nicely!

I only wish I had taken more pictures along the way. And I really wish I'd of started a whole lot sooner in the year! Next ornament project I undertake will be started in Janurary! Maybe February....I already have a project in the works that will take all of January to complete.

I'm only in the 'gathering phase' at the moment with that project. When it starts to come alive, I'll share with you all!

There may not be an actual ornament project in 2012.

As I said, 'plans subject to change!'

The Ornaments Thus Far:

Angels

Polish Stars

Flower Balls

Inchie Cubes

Red Flowers

Map Wreaths

Paper Mache Birds

Snowman Hats

Little Books

Russian Stars

Tufted Paper Balls

Elf Slippers

I have 10 days to get it all done.......

This Lola cat sometimes sits in the deskroom and watches me type on the keyboard. She sits atop the printer most of the time. She's sitting on the antique green stool in this picture. I'm showing her off cause this is one of the better pictures I've ever taken of Lola! a.k.a. Brat Cat

And this is what Fred does best! He stole my chair in the living room earlier this evening. I had just finished cutting out all the components for the snowman hats and went to the kitchen to fix myself something to eat when he decided the sofa wasn't near as comfy as my chair. I let him warm it up for me for about an hour and then he acted like I had upset his routine something fierce! Lazy dog! He is so funny though, one can't help but love him!

I don't know where Billy was when I was taking pictures so he didn't get his picture taken today. That probably doesn't hurt his feelings in the least! He doesn't mind his picture being taken but after the first one he usually closes his eyes in anticipation of the flash. He was probably sound asleep on my bed at the time.

Present wrapping has come to a standstill.

I must remedy that situation or I'll have a frantic day of wrapping everything and I hate it when that happens as it does most every Christmas!

Last year I baked over 100 dozen cookies. I was still baking cookies two days before Christmas!

I said 'never again'.

No baking at all this year!

Though I may make a nice cake for my friends in town.

I'm done rambling for today....

Be good to one another! It matters!

Peace, my friends!

831

ornament project recap and it snowed!

2011-12-03T21:55:00.000-06:00

I took this picture about 8 hours ago. It's cold, snowy and not fit for man nor beast out there in my neck of the woods today! I think it is still snowing!

One should be able to see the tree line across the field behind the house, but it was snowing quite heavily this morning and that tree line is nowhere to be seen in that picture I took!

I've been busy today with my list of things to do....

I thought I'd do another ornament recap mostly so I can see what's done and what still needs done to finish this project!

Things are coming along nicely though.....

I have 21 of these little book ornaments done.

I had 22 of them but I gave one to Brenton while I was down visiting the kids in Nickerson.

There are 38 Angels ready for new homes.

There are 15 of these beaded wire dangly things. I still need to make one more.

I made 53 of these tufted paper balls. That gives me more than enough of these for the ornament project. I figure I'll hang on to the leftovers and try to sell them come September. I have plans to do the craft show over in Lucas in September of 2012.

Unfinished elf slippers. I have one more pair of slippers to sew and all of these to put the sequins and beads on. All of the slippers need their jingle bells sewn on the toes still.

There are 14 Paper Flower Balls hanging here. I need another 2 of them for the ornament project. I have enough paper cones folded to assemble at least two more. If there are leftovers, they will be slated for the craft show as well.

I made 32 of these. I'm pretty sure all of these will be gone and none will be left over for the craft show as I plan on sending these out with Christmas cards to folks who aren't getting a set of ornaments.

Good thing about the map wreaths is they are extremely easy to make and one can make a bunch of them in a short time!

I painted birds this morning. Here they are with their first coat of paint. They still look like this! Tomorrow they get some color....actually tomorrow, they should be finished!

I've decided these birds will not be getting legs. I'm going to put an eye hook in them and hang them.

I made 23 of these Polish Stars for the ornament project.

I'll be making more of these before September comes along! I want to make some different colored ones!

There are 27 Red Flower Ornaments for the Project. And 7 more that can be put together as soon as I paint some more leaves for them. They'll be considered leftovers for the craft show in September as well.

Star Ornaments in the works!

Need to figure out how to make these things lay flat! They need some color in the guise of glitter paint and a button in their centers!

I've seen quite a few things made with cardboard tubes so the hard part is going to be deciding just what to do with them all! I'll keep collecting them for future use!

I just numbered the pictures and realize I have only 11 ornaments pictured. I can't find the gallon can full of inchie cubes I made earlier this year. They were to be a part of the ornament project. If I can't locate them in the next few days, the snowman hats are my standby! I'm hoping to find the can of inchie cubes!

That's all I have to report today!

Keep your smiles through the hectic chaos that is the Christmas Season!

Be good to one another! It truly does matter!

Peace, my friends!

831

Progress

2011-12-02T23:17:00.000-06:00

I've been home now for right at 48 hours. Wish I could say I've made tons of progress and have pictures to prove it. Some of it, you will just have to take my word for!

Apple Embellishments

These are NOT part of the progress made on the ornament project! I made these as prototypes for the ornament project in early October. I'm just getting around to taking their picture. They did not make the cut into the ornament project!

Technically they aren't ornaments but with a little impovising they could be.

While at the kid's house, I made a few shoes.

This is a picture of ALL the shoes made thus far, except for the two sitting on the table in the livingroom that I sewed today. Forgot to take their picture!

The Elf Slippers still have a bit of work to do on them before they will be done!

All the naked ones need to look like the ones with sequins and beads and they all need a little gold jingle bell sewn to their toes. Oh and there are still 2 slippers to sew. I do have them cut out and the thread ready to sew them together.. Just need to find an hour to sit in the daylight to do that sewing.

The rest I'm about to say you will just have to take my word on cause I didn't take pictures.

On the kitchen table are nine paper mache birds waiting for their first coat of paint. I put wings on the last three yesterday and got the others all ready for painting. This project is going OK, not on schedule, but OK.

Also on the kitchen table are 25 chipboard stars working their way towards being star ornaments.

There's a sack full of toilet paper tubes, paper towel tubes and one gift wrap tube hanging off the back of one of the kitchen chairs that are slated to become snowman hats.

I've no idea what the 12th ornament will end up being right now. I'm hoping to figure that out in the next 22 days...cause that's the amount of time I have left to make the ornament project a success!

All's good. I'm on it!

Be good to one another! It matters!

Get some hugs and kisses! Give some while you're at it!

Peace, my friends!

831

Musings of a 2 Yr Old!

2011-12-01T01:54:00.003-06:00

I've been away for the last 8 days visiting my eldest son and his family. I did work on the ornament project while away. Got quite a bit done on that front actually. Perhaps in the next few days I'll have time to download the pictures I've taken to show the progress made.
I took very few pictures while away. I had a great time with the kids though! I learned a few things from my 2 yr old granddaughter, Lil A.

Shoes are a girl's best friend and it really doesn't matter whose shoes they might be! She stole mine the second night I was there. Her daddy had to chase her down to retrieve his shoes from her when it was time for him to go to work yesterday.

Big Black dogs are good pals! They like hugs, kisses and being brushed by little girls.
Big Black dogs are not ticklish. Fred got a bunch of hugs and kisses from Lil A every day we were there. And every morning while Fred lay out on the carpet in the livingroom she would put her little fingers in his arm pits and say 'tickle, tickle, tickle, Fred. Fred, tickle, tickle, tickle.' and then she'd look at me and say, 'Why Fred no tickle?'

Fred sneaking a taste of Annabel! He knows dog kisses are not allowed but he could have cared less about that rule when the pair of them were close to each other!

Ewwwww! Dog Kisses!!!!

I was quite impressed with ol' Fred's tolerance and gentle nature towards her. She lay atop him on the floor quite a few times and he just took it all in stride. He was a hurting dog when we got there on Tuesday night (the vehicle we rode in was high off the ground and he don't jump so well these days...we had a few tense and painful moments for Fred on two occasions) yet on Wednesday morning she started the tickling routine and that dog could have cared less. He'd get a dog kiss in every now again and he was happy. Dog kisses aren't allowed but he really didn't care about that rule where Lil A was concerned. And she didn't mind too much either. It's his tail she learned quickly to stay away from!

I learned I am not equipped to sufficiently look after a 2 yr old on my own. They are BUSY little beings! I did do a reasonable job of keeping her from underfoot when Thanksgiving dinner was being made. She don't sit still for long but I had her 'folding' papers with me when I worked on the Paper Flower Ornaments. She'd get through wadding up four or five squares and she was ready to do something else. We had drawing paper scattered out too so she'd 'fold' papers and then color a bit and then she wanted the scissors and then she was off roaming the house talking to everyone. She's a little talker no doubt about that!

Big Black dogs will eat as many dog bones as a 2 yr old can get away with shelling out!

Dog brushes belong in the refrigerator. Thankfully it wasn't the real fridge, but her play kitchen's fridge. She stole my hair clippy the same night she stole my shoes. I found my clippy in the fridge with the dog brush. I don't know how many times I asked her where Grandma's hair clippy was. I found it purely by accident! Thought it was long gone!

She wouldn't tell me where my shoes were for almost 36 hours, but she told me just where that dog brush was the first time I asked!

Do not pass gas anywhere near other people when you have a 2 yr old in tow. Everyone within earshot will be privvy to it and under no uncertain terms know that Grandma farted! This makes me feel incredibly old despite having only 50 years behind me! I smile about it though. It was the biggest laugh I've had this year!

RJ and I took Lil A to Salina with us on Saturday to go shopping. I am not fond of shopping in the least! We did OK though cause RJ isn't a big fan of shopping either. He's a man shopper....likes to make a quick run through...find what he's looking for and don't dilly dally around. My old body can't abide that dilly dallying anyway so it all worked OK and I got a bit of Christmas shopping in. I'm pretty much DONE with shopping! I still need to find Ma something special, but other than that....I'm good to go!
Just need to wrap all that stuff in the closet!

Found myself a few things while out shopping. I robbed my piggy bank for this shopping spree. I figured I was due a few needed items out of that stash! I got a pen torch for $1 and a few things from the clearance aisle at Hobby Lobby. Found that glue I needed too! I really wanted a bottle of gesso but for some reason there must of been a run on gesso at Hobby Lobby cause both stores I went to were out of it! Found some copper coated steel pins for $1. Must be close to 200 of them in those two packages...not sure what I'm gonna do with them, but you can bet that pen torch and a pair of vice grips will be involved! I'm thinking sculpture of some sort!
My sister's flamingo got a broken leg on the trip home. Gonna have to make it some new legs. Luckily the flamingo himself didn't get broke. He's made of glass, wouldn't be able to fix him. His legs are simply acrylic beads shaped like flamingo legs. How hard can it be to build him a new pair?
I haven't actually unpacked all my bags yet. My bed is still covered with bags of stuff after being home for about four hours! I did unpack part of it though.
I don't think there will be any pictures today. I still have a ways to go with the ornament project but I have 24 days to accomplish that and I have a plan in motion so all should go rather smoothly on that front.
I folded cones for the flower ornaments and sewed 8 pairs of elf slippers in the eight days I was gone so I truly did get somethings done. Can't say for sure when I'll post again. Soon though. I need to keep track of what's done and what's not done with the project.
Right now though, I'm gonna clean off my bed, take a shower and climb between those clean sheets!
Be good to one another! Give out some kisses today! Make hugs the bonus!
Peace
831

Red Flower Ornaments and some other stuff

2011-11-14T13:02:00.000-06:00

Hello Readers!

Just as I started this post that silly Lola cat decided she needed a nap on the desk. When I let her nap on the desk, she sleeps laid out between the keyboard and me with her head atop my right arm. This works out OK for both of us when all I'm doing is playing Mahjongg or some other mindless game, but it doesn't work for me when I'm typing. She had plenty of my time throughout the night when she slept on me. I woke up to a cold kitty nose about two inches from my own nose! And my feet were nice and warm with Billy's head draped over them. Fred's not allowed in the bed. He has his own pallet to sleep on.

He forgets he has his own bed sometimes and sneaks into mine when I'm not in it. He always looks so defeated when I catch him there...I'm holding strong though! Dogs are not allowed on the bed!

It's a beautiful day in my neck of the woods and the critters can't decide if they want in the house or out in the sunshine. My weather page is telling me it is 58F.

I've just let Fred and Lola outside again. Fifteen minutes ago I let all three of the furkids IN the front door. Gonna be a busy day of donning my butler's outfit!

Looks like you're in for some chatter before I show you the Red Flower Ornaments

Ma got a new cat with built in extras. This lady had a mama cat and four kittens she wanted to give away. She was already trying to give these tiny kittens out to anyone who'd take one. They aren't old enough to be taken from mama yet! She wanted to give all the cats away cause she was moving and couldn't take them with her. Ma only wanted a kitten. She's been hunting for a new kittens for months now. She took mama and the kittens when she saw the two little siamese in the bunch.

Sorry it's not a very good picture. I want a new camera!

Not sure how I managed to walk to Ma's house without Fred right on my heels but Ma and I had a good ten minutes of kitten time without that fool dog sticking his nose in the thick of things! He do love himself some kittens! Mama Cat wasn't too impressed with that big black dog sniffing her kittens. She didn't attack but she growled the whole time Fred was near. He paid that cat no mind at all and just kept on sniffing!

I think the only thing that saved him from an attack of black cat is the fact he's a BIG dog! Mama Cat only knew about little dogs. About 10 little dogs that did not like cats! I think she wasn't quite sure what to make of that big black dog, that and Ma was petting her telling her Fred wasn't going to hurt those babies.

Those babies are ADORABLE~! No, no, no. I don't need another cat.

Ma's already got the little gray kitten given away and she's going to keep the two siamese. She's thinking she might keep mama cat too so all's that is left is the little black kitten to find a home for. I do not need another cat. Two is plenty, thanks!

After we mauled kittens for a few minutes we sat in the livingroom shooting the breeze and I said I was headed home. Ma said she'd give me a ride to home. She lives two doors down from me...about a city block away....anyway we get in the truck and she drives right by my driveway and says we are going for a ride in the country.

I was glad I had the camera along!

Pictures don't do these hills justice! They're gorgeous this time of year!

We took a drive of about 20 miles or so...out in the middle of nowhere! I'm not sure just how many miles it is on the route we took. It's a nice drive though. Even better when you're the passenger, as I was!

We stopped on the bridge on 20 road to look at the water and look who was looking back at us!

I zoomed in as far as I could. He just stood there, looking back at us. The flash on the camera didn't seem to sink in to him. He was awfully pretty and mighty nice of him to pose for a picture! I think I got six or seven shots of him before he took off. This was the only living wildlife we saw on our drive.

The spot the deer was is only about a quarter mile (as the crow flies) from my front door. There's really not a lot of water in the river right now. That's the Solomon River.

It was a great day for a drive. I'm glad Ma kidnapped me!

I promised you red flower ornaments in the title of this post.

Egg cartons, green yarn, gold jingle bells and acrylic paints.

I love them! I ended up with 28 of these. Still seven more to be put together but they will have to wait till it's time to paint the new hatch of paper mache birds. I ran out of green leaves when assembling these.

This is a terrible picture of an inchie cube colored with sharpies. It's simply a cardstock box on a string. I inch square. I made five of these things and forgot to take a scan of the four I sent off to Scotland a few days ago.

I have the makings of nine birds drying on the kitchen table. I started on them day before yesterday. All of them have tails, only one has wings and a tail. They're coming along though.

Paper folding for the Paper Flower Ball Ornaments is going slowly. I got one whole ball made yesterday but it wasn't really progress. I made it out of copy paper that I wrote some poetry on in red sharpie. It turned out pretty cool. I have yet to take its picture. I have enough paper cones folded to make about 2 entire balls but I need at least another 7 to have as many as I'd like to have.

I've determined for this project to be a success I will need 14 of each ornament.

Here's the rundown of what is already in the works:

Paper Mache Birds

have: 13

Elf Shoes

have: 5 pairs

Angels

have: 38

Spiked Paper Balls

have: 23

Folded Paper Map Wreaths

have: 16

Tufted Paper Balls

have: 53

Flower Balls

have: 9

Red Flower Ornaments

have: 28

Inchie Cubes

(not this particular inchie cube though...will be the ones I showed you all some posts back that are made from inchies and taped together. This is one is made from a box template.)

have: 34

I still have to come up with three more ornaments and finish up what I need from these on the list already started. I have about 40 days to do that....

I have cut the covers and some of the paper for 22 little book ornaments. Those will take a few hours to finish preparing and an afternoon to put them all together.

Still a lot of work to do in 40 days!

I'd really like to have an even dozen ornaments for each gift. That isn't set in stone but it's a much nicer 'set' than say 9 ornaments, or 10 or 11...I'm shooting for an even dozen! We shall see if that happens or not!

So I'm busy with my hands and staying out of trouble!

Be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace, my friends!

831

Paper Flower Balls and some other things

2011-11-10T06:57:00.000-06:00

Hello Everyone!

I see I have a few new followers! Thanks for reading my ramblings!

I've been a bit under the weather here of late. Got the blues big time! Happens this time of year EVERY year so it really doesn't come as much of a surprise to me. I'll snap out of it eventually. I always do.

I get to thinking of what I don't have instead of what I do have and it gets me down. If you all knew what I have lost over the years, you would better understand the reason for the blues this time of year.
I won't go into all that's been lost over the years cause there isn't any way of getting back what's gone. I wallow in my memories of what was, what is and what will never again be.

Simple as that.

Life.

You take it one day at a time and hope for a better tomorrow than you had yesterday.

I continue on though cause to not continue on is not an option.

And I continue creating things from castoffs.

The ornament project is coming along slowly this passed week. You'll understand when you see what I've been up to!

Pretty, isn't it?

Would be a lot prettier if it were all one color but I ran out of the pink, which is actually purple, just looks pink next to the purple color I had to substitute.

I forget what the correct name of these balls are. Kudsama or something like that....really should go look that up.... kusudama....almost had it right!

I found the tutorial for these guys here:

http://findinspirations.com/2009/07/handmade/

I knew I didn't have enough of any one paper (except orchard paper) so I decided I'd make them out of magazine pages cause I have enough magazines to last three lifetimes!

I cut the magazines into 2 inch squares and started folding, gluing and assembling.

I've devoured many hours of watching movies and television programs on hulu.com

Each ball requires 60 little paper cones. Takes almost a minute and a half to make one little cone. The more I made of these, the faster I got at it, but still takes over a minute for each one.

I started out with mostly black and white cones and the more I made, the more colorful they got.

Takes five cones to make a star and 12 stars to make a ball.

Tacky glue holds the cones together and fast drying glue holds the balls together.

(My supplier quit carrying the fast holding glue so I will have to rely on the tacky glue to hold the rest of these together that I make. It will work, will just take a little longer in the gluing time is all.)

I'm thinking they will get spray painted either silver or gold instead of just leaving them as is.

Each ball is about 3 inches in diameter. A good size for a tree ornament!

Putting the little devils together is no mean feat! It takes concentration and a good steady hand to line up all those petal points so you don't end up with a cock-eyed ball!

There are 8 of them in this shot, all hanging from their white cotton strings from the cup hooks under the upper kitchen cabinets. Yes, I did have to remove a cup to put them here for photographing.

I'll be adding a plastic pearl to each star on the flowers when I get them all completed.

My two pink containers are once again filled with flower parts in preparation of putting more together. It's moving along nicely though, right on schedule!

I've sewn another pair of elf slippers too.

I still need 8 pair of elf slippers so expect to see some more of these!

This is the second pair of yellow elf slippers.

When I downloaded the pictures of the elf slippers and the paper flower balls, a whole boatload of pictures came up on the download that I'm sure I already downloaded from the camera smart card but there they were, staring me in the face!

Thought I'd show you all a couple of the tasty pears that came off my trees this year!

These pears were delicious!

Last year, the pears were hard as rocks, misshapen and not fit to eat! They were not sweet at all. Was like chewing on tasteless cardboard! The only thing the pears were good for last year, was to throw for that fool dog, Fred to fetch! He ate quite a few of them but we can't take his word that they were any good to eat. Fred is, afterall, a dog! And what do dogs know about quality pears?
Nothing! That's what dogs know about pears!

I sat the nice yellow pears on the dark green counter and took about 50 different pictures of these two. This is the nicest of all those shots!

I never claimed to be a good photographer!

I'd still like to make some pear brandy! We had a bumper crop of pears this year! I'm hoping for another good crop next year! And next year, the old body willing, I intend to harvest more of them myself. Never did get to make that pear tart I wanted to make. The old body just hasn't been cooperative this year when it comes to physical work. Pears don't wait for a better day! When they're ready, you better be ready as well. I wasn't, not this year.

I have green yarn now so I can finish up the red flower ornaments. You'll see those in the next post.
I also have some fishes started. I'm uncertain at this point, if those will materialize into actual fishes for this ornament project or if they will happen later. All depends on the progress of the elf shoes and the flower balls.

Next post I'll do a recap of all the ornaments made thus far so I can see what's ready and what still needs done! I do believe the little birds will be in the ornament packages this year. I just love those little paper mache birds! LOVE THEM! I'll need to another batch of those for sure to have enough of them for the project but they go rather quickly so that shouldn't be a problem.

I'm going to try to keep a good attitude while these blues hang around.

You all be good to one another! You really don't know what is in the minds of those you love. Remember to give some hugs and lend an ear from time to time!

Without love the world falters. Don't let the world falter on those you love.

Peace

831

Ornament Project Continued

2011-10-30T01:44:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone!

The ornament project is coming along nicely! I need to sit down and make a list of all that is done and what needs done still.

I'm hoping to have a dozen different ornaments for the project.

What is the project?

Christmas gifts for all the families I know.

Again, I need to make a list of all the folks on that list.

I'm thinking there are a total of 16 on the list but I'm not certain without actually making a list!

I've been busy since the last post:

Magazine Reed Star

I only made one of these just to see if it could be done. I found a tutorial for wheat straw stars and adapted it to fit with the magazine reeds. I need to go swipe an electric motor off the pile on the patio and unwind the copper wire on it for use in the stars. I'm all but out of this particular wire used on this one.

I will make more of these for the project. Shouldn't take but a few hours to whip up a couple dozen of these.

It's made with 4.5 inch long reeds. I still have hundreds of reeds from my marathon reed making session last winter.

Tufted Paper Ball Ornaments

I didn't have a tutorial for this particular ornament. I was searching on Google for inspiration for something else and these came to mind from a few different sources. Sorry, the old brain didn't retain that info or I'd send you that way. These are about 2.5 inches round. They started out as a wooden bead with a wire bale glued in the hole before I covered it with Medical Dictionary pages with hot glue. The papers are roughly an inch square. I didn't measure, just eyeballed it as I cut strips from the pages. The little squares are wrapped around the nonworking end of a paintbrush, dipped in hot glue and adhered to the wooden bead. Not all my wooden beads are the same size, nor are they all the same shape. That didn't seem to make a heck of a lot of difference in the finished ball. Some of the beads were perfectly round, bout half an inch. Others were about 3/4 inch, shaped like a squarish oval.

I made these pear shaped tufted paper ornaments before the bead idea sunk in. These start out with a large christmas light bulb...outdoor lites...if you read the blog, you'll remember the spiders. the bulbs are the same ones.

My Medical Dictionary from 1940something (I tore out the copyright page) has red page edges so some of them look a bit pink. I like the effect of the pinkish tone it gives the ornaments.

The pear ornaments are about 5 inches long, big around as your fist. These took forever to glue all those little tufts of paper on.

I think these need some bling. Something red....a tassel hanging over the top? Red seed beads glued randomly? Needs something, I know that!

The bead center ones go much faster! And the littler ones are a lot cuter too~!

I don't think I'll make anymore of the big ones....all depends on if I can't come up with enough ideas to end up with 12 different ornaments.

At this point, I have 6 pear shaped balls and 17 round balls.

I sewed another elf shoe the other day.

I had one of these yellow elf shoes already sewn. The one that looks like it was squished is the second one sewn. One shouldn't wait for better than a week to sew a matching pair of shoes.

I sewed the green elf shoes with white thread and then colored it green with a sharpie after sewing.

Embellishments are white plastic beads and gold sequins on both pair.

I now have 5 pair of elf shoes.

I thought these little houses were adorable until I put this one together. They ARE adorable but they take forever to put together! If time permits, these may end up in the ornament project. They're made from a cake box, foil tape, an eye pin and some green aluminum chain. The roof is supposed to open to reveal a hidden compartment but my roof is taped shut cause I didn't cut the sides straight and there was a giant gap between the top of the house and the bottom of the roof. This is a terrible picture of the little house ornament, sorry but it's the best I could muster at the time.

All is well in my world. The body is still in rebel mode but complaining about my aches and pains does not make those aches and pains go away so it's just wasted energy to do so!

Hope all is well in your world!

Be good to one another!

Peace, my friends!

831

Ornaments and A Cat

2011-10-27T14:19:00.000-05:00

I can't keep my hands still for long.

I worked on the first item(s) in this list for five days running.

I wish I'd of taken pictures of the process of making these Polish Star Ornaments. They look a whole lot harder to make than they really are. If you're interested in trying to make your own; check out this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JXWXG3hsRg

I ended up with, I think, 23 of these paper ornaments.

They're made from orchard paper. I used an empty cardboard spool that wide ribbon came wound around for my template. You'll need something round, bout 3 inches or so for your template. You'll need 10 rounds of paper for each ornament. Sit yourself down in front of the boobtube and start cutting, folding and gluing your way to assembling.

This was a fun, if tedious project and the finished product is quite impressive in hand.

When I make more of these, and I will make more!, I will use colored paper or I will put glitter on the points before they're assembled. They could stand a bit of bling!

Blue Wire Beaded Bangle #3

I still have blue beads to make other things out of! Same basic bracelet as the two I showed you all in the last post.

And beings there were just a few glass beads left, I made this

Blue Wire Beaded Dangly/Ornament.

It's about 2 inches across, made with galvanized wire and glass beads.

And beings I was going through beads, this Dangly was created as well.

It ain't pretty.

The kids came for a visit over the weekend. Terah, her friend Chanun and I stayed up way passed our bedtimes making things. Terah took one of my storage boxes and prettied it up!

It started out as a 4 inch square box, 3 inches tall with a separate lid. The box was lavendar colored and Terah gave it some bling! I'll use this box for a Christmas wrapper!

Chanun blinged up a couple of wood cutouts; a heart and a star. I'll put magnets on the backs of them and stick them on the fridge!

Before I got started on the Polish Stars, I was folding maps into wreaths.

These things are so easy to make, it's sinful!

I used maps of Oklahoma for my wreath ornaments, but you could use any paper your little heart desires!

I painted them with green glitter paint to keep them together and to give them a bit of sparkle. The hanger is 6pound test monofilament fishing line.

I ended up with 16 of these. I'm not done making wreaths though, there will be more. They might have a different bow on them as these do though. Not sure just how many of those bows are left....

If you'd like to make some wreath ornaments, check out this link:

http://gretchenbarron.typepad.com/folded_wreath_tutorial.pdf

I made all of my wreaths in an afternoon and finished them the next day. Very quick, easy project.

I have other projects in the works. Need to finish up a few obligations for swaps and then it's back to elf slippers, ice skates and red flowers with bells!

Be good to one another!

Miss Lola fixing to take a nap on the kitchen floor after a rousing game of 'catch those rodents'!

Her all time recorded record for kills in one day?

She deserves a nap! I just wish she wouldn't bring the dang things in the house before the kill is made! (Or after for that matter!)

Peace

831

Couple Magnets, Some Angels and a Wayward Bird

2011-10-21T07:09:00.000-05:00

Hello Readers!

It's a cold morning! Only 35F out at 7 a.m. I am not looking forward to winter.

I'm still trying desperately to keep up with the muse!

Enjoy the fruits of my labors of love!

This isn't work. It is play!

Green Tree Magnet

This started out as a bottle cap. I added some stringed sequins to the inside of the cap, some nagahyde, a wooden stick, a green glass donut bead and a Monopoly house. All glued in with tacky glue. The bottle cap is about 1 1/4 inches. I rather like all the different shades of green in this magnet.

Ma and I made angels on Tuesday. This is one hers.

We adapted the instructions from a book. The angels in the book were 10 inches tall when finished. Ours are considerably smaller at about 4 inches tall. The body is a wooden skewer wrapped in quilt batting with cotton string. She's gold glitter glue for hair, her facial features are drawn on in brown sharpie and her wings are copper wire and wired ribbon. Her halo is galvanized wire.

Ma and I made 12 of them on Tuesday and then when I woke up on Wednesday there angels screaming in my head so I made another 16 of them.

Some have ribbon roses on their chests, some have plastic gemstones and some have regular ribbons and some have a ribbon and a rose on their chests. I put whatever I thought would fit and look halfway Christmassy.

Some have irredescent glitter all over their bodies. Some don't.

These are the results of hair experiments. I ended up going with the gold glitter glue for hair cause it was the easiest of the choices to apply.

Number 11 Magnet

This one started out as a gold colored metal bottle cap. Came from a bottle of spirits of some sort, I do believe. The butterfly hanging off the '11' is a broken earring, the "11" is a chipboard game piece from some game I don't know the name of, the red disk on top the '11' is plastic bingo marker, a wooden disk, a couple of buttons, some sequins, a few small wooden beads, a red sea shell (resin, it was purple before I got a hold of it with the sharpies) and a velvet star. There's a Coca-Cola bottle cap inside the metal bottle cap to adhere the magnet to.That '11' is a 1 inch square to give you scale.

This little bird finally got some legs!

In the works this morning are more elf shoes. Got one and a half pairs sewn so far, more to come. I'll show you these when I get them finished and their pictures taken. I'll do a couple more pair before I take any pictures of them.

I've two dangly things made from beads and wire, quite similar to the bracelets in the last post but on a smaller scale. And I've another bracelet done also. No pictures of those yet either.

I started working on more ornaments for the project. 16 folded paper stars, made from road maps and painted with green glitter glue.. They are not finished yet though cause they need a ribbon and a hanger added before I can take their pictures.

I do believe paper mache is on my agenda today. We'll see what transpires.

You all be good to one another! It matters!

Peace

831

Some Things I Made

2011-10-16T02:08:00.000-05:00

Hello Readers!

All is well in my world so long as the old arms keep working half way decent. That neck and shoulders of mine have been giving me some trouble here of late. Minor inconveniences, nothing that will kill me, fortunately. Hasn't really stopped my muse though so nothing to worry too much about. I will talk to the doc about these troubles when I see her next.

All in all, all is well in my world.

I did a touch of cleaning on my desk and discovered a small vial full of blue beads the other day. I had found a tutorial for a wire wrapped bracelet the day before and decided those blue beads would work out just fine for that endeavor.

The results, 15 minutes later:

and there were still beads to use, so 15 minutes later:

Another blue bracelet. This one is a bit smaller than the first one. The first one is made for an Amazon. I have big wrists but it's even too big for me.

Easy peasy project to whip up in a jiffy and it's quite nice considering the time spent in the making of it! What girl doesn't like a bracelet? Any color combination would work...great way to make a quick gift with leftovers from other projects.

There were still blue beads left after making these two bracelets. You'll get to see the what happened next when I post again.

I had felt food on my mind. The hands cooperated and with the help of my friend Google and my muse, food was cooked up!

The bacon has stripes on both sides. Two different colors of felt glued together with tacky glue. Next time I make fried eggs out of felt I will sew the yolks on and stuff them a bit with fiberfil so they aren't flat. The bacon pieces were glued on, let dry and then I trimmed the pieces to bacon shape.

Lil A's mama said Lil A needs some food for her play kitchen so all this fake felt food will be given to her. Little girls LOVE fake food! And Lil A has a play kitchen already.

The sandwich was fun to make! I didn't use a pattern, just winged it with the scissors and eyeballed it all as I cut it out. Took me about 6 hours, might of been 8, to sew it all together. Not a great deal of time spent on it. It would have sewn together a whole lot faster on a sewing machine! Well, it would of for you who get along with your sewing machine. I'd of been bald from pulling out my hair fighting with a sewing machine!

We have two slices of bread, a slice of cheese, two pickle slices, two tomato slices, a lettuce leaf and bright pink slice of bologna! It all stacks nicely into a sandwich. I didn't have a piece of red felt so the tomato slices are made of fleece. I have plans to make a burlap bag for the sandwich to fit into if I can remember where the devil that tote full of burlap is! If I can't find the burlap, I will make a sack of some sort for the sandwich.

More elf shoes!

Some of the elf shoes sew up nice and neat, some of them don't. All depends on how careful I am with the cutting of the toe and the sewing of the tip of the toe. Ma is on the hunt for some tiny jingle bells she's sure she has so hopefully she can find them and then all the elf slippers will get a tiny jingle bell on the point of the toe and hide my stitching. (I am a terrible seamstress! But I am a fearless one! I'm not afraid to sew by hand.) I already have another pair of slippers sewn. They just need the sequins glued on and their picture taken. They are green with green thread.

I made paper pumpkins with two of my grandsons this afternoon. I've no pictures of that endeavor. Miss Lou took all our pumpkins home with her to hang in the picture window in their house. I had a good time with the grandboys! Grant made some paper ghosts to go with the pumpkins. Another easy peasy project! Construction paper, scissors and glue stick!

My drawing muse has flown the coop for the time being. Haven't seen hide nor hair of her in a week or more. She'll show up again when the sewing muse gets tired! :)

I'm not gonna complain about which muse is in residence...at least one of them is always present!

Life is good, Smile often, Bitch never and live like today's your last day!

Be good to one another!

I'll be back another day with more things I have made!

Peace

831

elves left evidence and birds hatched

2011-10-12T23:39:00.001-05:00

Hello Readers!

(Hi Joss! :) )

Ok it may be a far stretch to say elves were here. If they were here, they weren't very helpful. I thought elves were helpful little beings. I could use some help with the vacuuming. But I do have elf slippers to show you all and the birds materialized as well! And of course I can't just stick to one or two different projects. Oh, no! No! I must go with a variety of things to keep me occupied!

Enjoy!

I wanted to make some 3D stars but that isn't exactly what I ended up with this experiment. I found a tutorial for these folded paper stars on the internet. The instructions didn't specify how long my 1/2 inch strips of paper should be and I thought for sure the magazine pages I cut into 1/2 inch strips would be plenty long enough. Nope. Change of tutorial! Well, I didn't really change it, I just stopped halfway through it cause my strips were not long enough! So instead of 3D paper stars I ended up with flat stars that are perfect to be made into a garland of some sort!

I made 37 of them one afternoon and I took them out to the art room in the burnt house and spray painted them with gloss enamel. They aren't exactly white, but close enough!

They look pretty cool left as they come out with the graphics of the magazine pages too. They're 2 inches across from point to point.

Mindless work accomplished watching reruns of Simon and Simon on hulu.

I've a soft spot for detective shows, especially when good looking men are the main characters!

EVIDENCE

These elves must be really short guys cause these little slippers are only about 3 inches from heel to toe! And so fun to make. I do wish elves had left them! They will end up with ribbons sewn to the heel end and used as Christmas Tree ornaments.

We have a red pair with a white bead and pink sequins and

a light blue pair with a blue plastic bead and blue sequins.

You'll see more elf slippers as I've already made more, just haven't got a picture of them yet.

Pink Stone Bead Dangly

I was going through all this stuff on my desk the other day and came across a little baggie of beads. I dumped them in a bowl and made this out of most of them. It's about 3 inches long, all the beads are either glass or stone except for the white bead at the bottom which is plastic.

I really like this magnet!

I'm a stone carver before anything else. That is my first art love....stone carving. Soap is the next best thing to stone. I can't carve stone anymore. My old body refuses to cooperate with that endeavor so I went the route of doing relief carvings on hotel sized bars of soap instead. Soap is a whole lot lighter than stone! I can carry soap from one spot to the next, can't do that with stones of any size.

I carved the pear sometime last year. I painted it with fingernail polish in three different colors just the other day...since the last post. I attached 2 strong magnets to the back of it. It's about 2x3 inches and 3/8inch thick.

I also had the paper mache going again too.

I made 8 birds but you only get to see 7 of them today as the other one is still laying on the kitchen table waiting for me to attach its legs. I was certain I had made 8 sets of legs but when it was time to put legs on, only 7 sets could be found. I've since found the missing set of legs, just haven't got them glued in yet. I blamed the missing legs on that Lola cat but when I found them laying on the floor in the deskroom next to the desk, I am certain I dropped them when I took the other ones to the kitchen. Making bird legs is a mindless activity like folding stars. I've gone through all of Season 1 of Simon and Simon and almost 3/4 of the way through Season 2. The Simon boys have been very helpful in the artistic department.
Course, only the viewer can say whether this is actually art or not.... I just make it!

Weird Bird

All of these birds with the exception of the Big Green Bird (you'll see it in a minute) are between 3 - 5 inches from beak to tail.

Little Foot Bird

They are made with newspaper, drug brochure paper, acrylic paint, wire and crewel embroidery thread. There's more than a bit of glue in each as well.

Those feet are a bitch to form in a length of wire! I've yet to figure out how to make them ALL THE SAME SIZE. I can't even make them in proportion to each individual bird like I want to be able to do. Some of the birds don't have crewel embroidery thread wrapped around their legs because I ran out of that color. All that's left is blue, I think, and blue isn't gonna work for these legs!

Rust Brown Bird

For some reason the first batch of birds stand up better than this batch does. I had a devil of a time getting them to stand on their own. Some of them aren't standing pretty at all....like this one!

I really like the colors of the first batch of birds, not so much the drab browns I ended up with in this painting session. The green bird was a planned occurance. I had no clue what color the others would end up when I dragged out all the paints.

I think I might of overwhelmed myself by taking the paint basket to the kitchen. Gave myself TOO MANY colors to choose from! We'll just have to see what happens with the third batch of birds!

Big Green Bird

This one is about 7 inches from beak to tail.

This one ended up being so much larger than the other 7 because I couldn't get this thing to cooperate from the very beginning! To get a life-size bird you start with a quarter sheet of newspaper, wad it into a loose pear shaped ball and start taping it with masking tape into a bird shape. This one refused to transform into a bird shape without an extra quarter sheet of newspaper. It worked out in the end despite the trouble the darn thing gave me at the start. I almost trashed that initial ball of newspaper....glad I didn't! :)

I'm not crazy about his feet though. Big birds need a different foot structure....wire ain't gonna cut it. Least not that guage of wire. More experimentation to come with larger bird legs!

Big Beak Bird

Tails have me perplexed. The tutorial I followed (need to show you all that) have the tails attached across the top of the birds back. My tails didn't look right up there. But they don't look quite right sticking up in the air like that either. I like the little bird that got no tail. Somehow whatever you do works out OK.

It's all a big adventure when you don't know what you're doing with your medium. Paper mache is full of fun discoveries. There is no right or wrong way.

I bought this house because of those green counter tops!

Big Foot Bird

There will be more birds in the future.

Tailless Bird

This one is my favorite from this batch. I made wings and tails all at once for all the birds. I knew the big one wasn't going to have a tail but I really thought I had cut 7 tails for the other birds. This guy ended up without a tail cause there wasn't one for him. This is also the smallest bird I've made yet. He's barely 3 inches from beak to tail end.

Yes, there will be more birds!

Couple of Chunky Pages were made....

Witch's Joke Chunky Page

The witch is done in markers on drawing paper and then glued to a cereal box base. The backside is decorated with green and purple papers. The dangly is a little 2 inch square neon green and black tiger strip print cardstock pamphlet stitched notebook with copy paper pages on which I wrote a bunch of witch jokes I had found on the internet.

Monster Chunky

I went with drawing and collage on this one. The monster is done in markers on cardstock and then cut out and glued along with the black paper spiders (I know, they only have six legs! Not sure how that got by the design team that made that punch.) and the green cardstock where I drew the web in paint pen and that's a piece of purple paper in the lower right hand corner.

I forget what the backside looks like but it is decorated. Can't look to see, I sent it off to Oregon a couple days ago.

Like I said, there are things made that need to be photographed to show them to you all. There are elf slippers, a beaded bracelet, some ribbon stars, another paper mache bird and I'm sure by the time I get around to posting again, there will be other things also.

I'm still working on monsters and hot pot holders.

I started some more magnets this evening too.

I've started another project for Christmas that involves those elf slippers and the folded paper stars. I'm working on some ribbon wreaths that are ornament size. I cut the ribbons for those already but I made the ribbons about an inch too short so they're giving me a bit of trouble but I've got 5 of them done already, still about a dozen more to go. Ran out of ribbon or there would have been more!

Always busy!

I just can't NOT do something creative every single day.

I sometimes count cooking in my creativeness but if truth be known I'm not a very creative cook these days...it seems to be the same ol' same ol' day in and day out where cooking is concerned!

I sometimes count writing poetry in the creativeness as well. I don't usually share the poetry with others though so don't expect to see much, if any, on this blog.

I keep you all busy enough with the artwork, you don't really need poetry too. Do you?

I even got a bit of laundry done and the linens on the bed changed in the last few days! (Thanks for the help Ma! 831) Means the old body is behaving for the most part. Still need 12 hours of sleep or more in a 24 hr period. Can't seem to stay awake during the day... Up all night...sleep all day.

My old body is still in rebel mode but that's nothing new. I had an attack on the right arm earlier today. That hurt like crazy! But it only lasted a couple seconds and that arm is, if sore, working like it should!
Sometimes when I reach for things in front of me that right arm will decide it doesn't want to be extended its full length and it will cease up. Won't move and it hurts like crazy! Only happens when I'm trying to reach for something though. I've never had one that hurt as much as it did this afternoon!

Time to make another doctor's appointment so will discuss those attacks on the right arm with her when that happens. She probably wants to sick the vampires on me anyway! Has been a few months since the last visit with them.....

All is well in my world more or less. More than less actually.

Until next time........

Here's hoping all is well in your worlds!

Thanks for reading and remember.....

Be good to one another! It matters!

Peace my friends!

831

Something to look at....

2011-10-01T12:23:00.001-05:00

Hello Everyone!

Yeah, I'm still busy trying to keep up with the muse.

She runs me ragged some days....

I started this batch on Friday.

It's now Saturday. There's an Art-a-thon going on over at AFA this weekend so there's bound to be more art forthcoming before the weekend is out.

That is, if all goes according to plan.

Magnets are always fun to make. I've been playing with lids and doodads for that endeavor.

And there's always little books to be made.

Enjoy!

Three Cats Magnet

This is a Frappacino bottle cap, metal. It has gold foil from a Reese's Mini Peanut Butter Cup wrapped and glued to it. There's a couple of silver metal disks glued to the bottom. They were a bonus from the clips I destroyed to steal the magnets from. There's a large polished stone atop the metal disks. Underneath everything and hanging off the edge is a spring that came out of a clock. I wanted to hang something from the end of it, but it's not strong enough to hold anything with any weight to it, so I gave up that notion. The three cats are a button glued to the edge of the lid. Everything is held together with E6000. The lid itself is about 2 inches across.

Tea Party Magnet

I'd been wondering what to do with the little metal pink tea set for a long time now! I paid 29 cents for it at the Goodwill Store some years ago. I was going through the lids in the sack on the counter in the kitchen (that's where I throw ALL lids) and came across this bright green milk carton lid. It makes a perfect table for the tea party. The square in the center is a piece of patterned cardstock. It's all glued together with Tacky Glue. This one is about 1.5 inches across.

Sparkly Blue Bird Watercolor Journal

3x4 inches

The covers are made from recycled chipboard covered in sparkly blue paper (I LOVE this paper! Wish I had more!) with a bird collaged with fabric paper, cardstock and craft foam.

It would have been much better had I just forgone the bird and left it sparkly IMHO. But it ain't my opinion that matters in the whole scheme of it all. I just make the stuff. It's up to others whether they like it or not. I just don't think this is a very nice blue bird. He'll do though.

Red Spider Magnet

This is the tray of a matchbox covered in a red napkin. Inside we'll find a chipboard game piece with a 7, an antique wooden red checker piece. small piece of white pipe cleaner, some red sequins, a few red velvet stars, a red gemstone (jasper maybe? not sure what kind of stone), wooden red bead, some dots of red dimensional pain and the spider perched atop the checker is made from a length of copper wire, a gold metal bead and a red plastic bead.

2x1 3/8 inches

Purple Book Pendant

The covers are made from a game board covered in white paper with purple netting glued on top. The inside covers are black. It has 4 signatures of 5 pages each made from lavendar colored writing paper. It is sewn with navy blue crewel embroidery thread. The lanyard holding the book closed is plastic. The bail is copper.

2x1 inches

Palm Tree Magnet

This is a large white plastic lid with a sheet of cardstock glued to the open side of it and all the goodies glued to the cardstock. We have some copper wire, a green glass donut bead, another glass bead, a plastic bead, a wooden bead, some blobs of copper glitter pain, a tiny square of text from a book I destroyed, a puzzle piece tinted green with sharpie and three metal studs pounded into it. A string of green sequins coiled with a blob of copper glitter in the center, there's a green bingo marker with a clear plastic gem on top, a fabric leaf beneath it all, a green gemstone (jadite perhaps?), and another green bingo marker with a plastic palm tree button glued to it.

This one is a bit over 3 inches across.

I rather like it.

Elephant Book Watercolor Journal

3x4 inches

Covers are recycled chipboard from food boxes covered with magazine cutouts on the outside and scrapbook paper on the inside. It's sewn in the coptic stitch (with modifications that I don't know the name of and too hard to explain in a few words) in crewel embroidery thread. It has six sheets of watercolor paper sewn one sheet to a signature. I sent this one off to California.

I did ATCs as well.

Halloween #1 Bat and Pumpkin

ATC

markers on book page adhered to recycled chipboard

Halloween #2 Black Cat

ATC

markers on book page adhered to recycled chipboard

Halloween #3 Little Devil

ATC

Markers on book page adhered to recycled cardstock.

Halloween #4 Mummy

ATC

Markers on book page adhered to recycled chipboard

Halloween #5 Monster

ATC

Markers on book page adhered to recycled chipboard

I'm sure I'll be back soon with more things to look at.

Be good to one another!

Peace

831

Finished Birds, A Book and Another Kind of Monster

2011-09-28T00:36:00.000-05:00

Hello Readers!

My birds are no longer black and they have legs attached!

Been busy painting today!

I'm very pleased with the result of the bird experiment!

Paper Mache Birds sitting on the kitchen counter.

These little guys are about song bird size...give or take.

I never claimed to know how to paint birds realistically so my birds don't really represent any one species.

I love how each of them looks totally different:

size, color, the way they stand on their legs....each an individual for sure!

Next batch of birds I'm going to play around with the tails some. They need to be longer and placed differently. Gonna study up on birds over the next few days and see what else I can come up with in the bird department. Gives me a good reason to drag out that huge animal encyclopedia with all the really cool pictures in it!

The legs were a bit tricky to position on the bird so it would stand on its own. I got lucky and had to take only one bird's legs off and start again after the glue dried. Hopefully no one will notice the two extra holes in that bird's belly! I really don't even remember which bird it was that needed a leg adjustment. It wasn't the red one or the blue one though.

The red one is my favorite of this lot!

This one reminds me of a wren. Only it's a bit bigger than an actual wren.

There will be more birds in the future!

I'm still sewing too. I'm a bit tired of monsters though I still need to make a few more before the year is out and I will make more.

Until then though, I think monsters will be appearing on hot potholders.

Like this guy!

Red Fleece from an old shirt, felt, crewel embroidery thread in a few different colors and quilt batting to give it thickness. There's a round piece of purple fleece on the backside to cover the blue stitches all around the monster on the front side. My youngest son said, "Oh wow, Mom! That's really cool!" Who'd a thunk a 27 year old man would get excited about a potholder?

And of course a new little book shouldn't surprise you all too much.

This one is made a bit different than the books I normally make. It is ATC size...the covers anyway...the pages are a bit smaller...Made from two stiff chipboard cards from a board game, a piece of book cloth, a bit of scrapbook paper, glue and sparkly star tatoos for the front cover. Pages are orchard paper...5 signatures of 5 sheets sewn in the pamphlet stitch and then glued into the spine of the book.

These are extremely easy to make but not near as refined as the coptic stitch books.

I'll return in a few days with more creativity to share.

I hope all is well in your world!

Mine is swimming right along as it should!

Be good to one another!

It matters!!!

Peace

831

A Very Big Bowl and Some Wingless Birds

2011-09-23T23:41:00.000-05:00

Hi Readers!

I'm still sewing but not near as much of late. I have a new sewing project in the works along with the dotees and monsters that are still brewing in my head! I'll show it off another day though cause it's barely started and it's going to take a very very long time to finish this project! I'll update you as progress is made. Not much progress HAS been made of yet so you'll just have to wait.

I cut 2 inch squares of fabric yesterday for the aforementioned project.

I've had my hands in tissue paper, glue, newspapers and masking tape here in the last few days.

I finally figured out another use for all those magazine page sticks I was obsessed with making late last year. This big bowl incorporates a few of them. My paper mache clay went sour on me and it smelled to high heaven but I used it anyway to cover the outside of the bowl. That was three days ago. The bowl has lost that sickly sweet smell and doesn't stink at all once it dried well.

I haven't actually measured this bowl but it's pretty big!

I took some of those paper sticks and made a disk out of them with some masking tape to hold it all together and then I took more sticks and taped them to the disk in a sunburst around it. After that I took the sticks and taped pieces of newspaper between them to make the sides of the bowl.

My son acquired three cases of brochures for me awhile back. I used them to paper mache the bowl. After the first layer on either side of the sticks I put a thin layer of paper clay on the outside of the bowl to give it a bit more stability than paper alone would.

I used Modge Podge for the glue on the bowl.

The brochures are made from newsprint paper but it's a much better grade of newsprint than newspapers are printed on...a bit thicker and sturdier, yet still quite absorbent like newspaper is. It had lots of colorful pages and lots of 'strange' words and pictures. These brochures were printed for the coalition for a drug free america. My son got them from the police chief in the town where he lives. The brochures were headed to the landfill and my son asked if he could have them.
I used only one box of brochures. Each case has 48 boxes in it. Each box has either 10 or12 booklets in it. The boxes will come in handy for altering too. Was a good find on the boy's part!

He is very good friends with the police chief and he was down at the office talking to him when he was cleaning out the storage locker at the station. The boy brought me a few other goodies that day as well.

I've no idea why these brochures were still sitting in the storage locker. Perhaps because they recieved many more than they needed? I'm not sure. I just know they were being thrown out and I've trained my boy well to spot such finds!

I have my own ideas on the so-called war on drugs in America. Some are bad, some not so bad. This isn't the place to discuss the merits or the downfalls of the so-called war on drugs.

I was just happy to have something to do with some of those brochures!

I believe when this bowl is done I will give it to my sister to put in her store to use to hold little things. A display bowl, if you will. I plan on building it a pedestal out of a carpet tube, a pizza box and more paper mache. You'll all get to see the finished product!

I was putting the last coat on the bowl and decided I'd give these little birds a shot as well. I had seen them somewhere on the web! Sorry I don't remember where....I go searching for ideas frequently, not saving them all to the hard drive on the pc, but to the hard drive in my head instead!

The last coat of paper on the bowl, which I haven't photographed yet, is a layer of white tissue paper over the colorful brochure paper.

I liked the way the tissue paper took the glue...sucked it right up! So I decided the birds would be mached with tissue paper.

As you can see they are wingless at the moment. No tails either!

They are made by taking a quarter sheet of a newspaper page, wadding it into a pear shape and taping it up so it holds it's shape. Twist a beak shape on the small end and paper mache it.

Next post I'll show you the birds with wings and tails and feet and maybe even painted! Don't hold your breath for painted birds in the next post! I still have to make their feet. That might take a day or two.

They are on the kitchen table with their wings and tails attached, drying.

I have done

zip

none

nada

in the drawing department since the last post.

Perhaps next post will bring some drawing or painting, who knows with me!

You all be good to one another!

Smile!!!!!

Peace

831