A Bit of OLD ART transformed, some new art and an orphan

Hello Readers

I have Nickleback up loud in the back ground, working on a fish picture this morning. I have drying time to kill with the fish picture so I figured it was time to do an update.

All is well in my world. 

Very well!

:)

I was on an internet search the other day when sleep evaded me and I came across a little dice that was made from a one inch wooden block and six inchies glued to the outside of it. It was darn cute but a tad big for a dice in my opinion. I got the idea to make cubes out of some of those inchies I made back in 2009. 

So I gathered up the scotch tape, my wire kit and the box of inchies and went to work.

These are three different shots of the same pile of inchie cubes.

Some of the cubes have a theme...like the apples in the foreground, the mushrooms, cupcakes, the flowers on top of the pile...others don't have any theme at all....all random inchies like the one with the squirrel and the finger on it...no theme there! 

I'm thinking to make them into garlands with ten cubes strung out over about 8 feet in length. I'll have to experiment with the length and whatnot. It's just an idea at the moment. A garland with ten cubes has 60 original pieces of art on it! 6 inchies per cube....... still thinking on this idea.

The bale for the little paper cubes is made from a 6 inch length of copper wire and a seed bead. I looped the wire in half, threaded the seed bead onto the two free ends and left a loop in the top. I then wrapped the two wires below the seed bead, first one way around the other wire just under the seed bead, about 4 or 5 times, then the other wire gets wrapped the same the opposite direction wrapped around the little bundle made by the first wire being wrapped. Then I made little curly cues out of the tails on the copperwire so it would all stay inside the cube. I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of a bale before it was inserted in the cube. Copper wire is salvaged from a small appliance of some sort or another.

Art Pennant Banner

I made this chipboard art banner early in the month of July. Yes, I know the pictures say March, but pay them no mind at all, they are wrong! That fool camera has a mind of its own and does just whatever the hell it wants to do the date! Anyway...it's made from chipboard food boxes (Cheez Its I do believe!) It has several layers on it. On top of the printed side of the chipboard is a layer of woven paper from a kids book in the middle. The on the outside have herringbone designs in that same paper on them. Then I painted green printers ink over the whole shebang. I didn't much like how that turned out so I put a layer of metallic green acrylic paint over it all and wiped most of that off with a damp paper towel before it got too dry. I really like how it shines! The line around the edge is metallic silver sharpie. The letters are made from fabric paper. Finally found something to do with the ton of it I have! I drew the letters and then cut them out. They have an edge of dimensional paint in black around them. There are green metal eyelets in the corners of the pennants. The danglies are stringed green sequin, plastic cording and satin ribbon. The pennants are six inches high and four inches wide at their widest.

This ugly thing is supposed to be down farther in the pictures but it ended up here so here it is. I've been sewing again. This is my third hot pot holder made from fabric scraps and old sweaters. I should not have used the variegated green crochet cotton for Mr. Kitty's eyes. This is a work in progress still. Those eyes need some irises and it needs a hanger still.

I always end up with an ugly one in the bunch! :) 

This is the fish for the fish picture I'm working on this morning. It is drawn on some  kind of canvas with markers. I really don't know what this canvas is originally for. I thought it was drywall tape but the fellow at the hardware store looked at me like I had lost my mind when I described it to him. He hadn't a clue what it might be for but he was certain the hardware store did not carry it. It's wonderful stuff! Comes on a roll 4 inches wide. It is stiff stuff, woven just like canvas with a coating quite similar to gesso. It takes paint, markers, ink....pretty much whatever you'd like to throw at it will work pretty well! I paid a quarter for the roll I have at a yard sale some years ago! 

I forgot to color in the black part of the fish's eye before I scanned. I see after the scan, the scales pretty much disappeared when I went over it all with the yellow sharpie. Need to put a little definition into the scales before it gets adhered to the canvas. 

I'll be drawing another fish quite similar to this one for the foreground of the canvas. Maybe two.This fish is about three inches long. The canvas I'm working on is an 8 inch square. I'll have to see how it looks with just two fish first. I make it all up as I go along.

I'm hoping Evelyn will let me borrow it back for a few days the middle of August so I can enter it in the county fair.

I'm thinking I should get my butt in gear and make a leather bound book to enter in the fair also but I'm still working on the design of that in my head. The muse just hasn't shocked me into action on that quite yet.

You all will get to see the finished fish canvas. I'm playing with spackling compound, palm tree bark, funky fibers and shiny plastic disks this morning on the fish canvas. I'll add some color and another layer of stuff tomorrow when it gets dry.

I don't believe I have ever put anything but fish on a canvas. Not sure why that is....

You were supposed to see these pot holders before that ugly cat.

Fleece, felt, old sweater. The purple material in the background used to be pajamas, the blue fleece around the edge was a shirt. The rest is felt I bought on clearance at Hobby Lobby for 12 cents a sheet.

Lue above, Terah below.

My daughters-in-law

After I made the pot holders, the burgandy colored sweater the background of the mat below is made of, yelled at me~! I had to do something with it! I cut it a lot bigger than a pot holder. Not so much on purpose, it just worked out that way. The kids are scraps of felt, fleece, sweater seams, silk and bit of embroidery. That sweater was made of wool and I accidentally put it through the dryer. It shrank like crazy! But it's so soft! And I just love the color of it! It worked beautifully in this hot mat.

Pot holders and the mat are all four layers, 3 of sweater material and  1 fleece, quilted together. The mat is blanket stitched around the edge with light green crochet cotton. The mat is a potential Christmas present. Not sure who just yet. 

And then the Inchie-a-thon happened over at AFA. I made all of these for that the weekend before last.

Frog Inchies

markers on cardstock

Zentangle heart Inchies

markers on cardstock

Green Eyed Gray Kitties Inchies

markers on cardstock

whimsical flower inchies

markers on cardstock

These inchies made an appearance in this post earlier in the pictures of that pile of inchie cubes.

Kitty Inchies

markers on carstock

Dog Inchies

markers on cardstock

Apples Inchies

Markers on slick chipboard

The markers did not like this surface at all! They turned out alright but won't be using markers on this type of blank again. These make an appearance in the pile of inchie cubes also.

Bird Inchies

markers on cardstock

Cupcake Inchies

markers on cardstock

I still have dotee doll bodies that need to embellished. Three of them, I think. I'll sew more stuffies and what not in the near future. 

I have yet to do anything more with the snake cane. It's hanging on the back of the wooden rocking chair in the livingroom as pale as it was in the picture I showed you after I'd put the snake on. I'll get back to it soon enough. Might get it done in time for the fair too. Might. 

The orphan I was talking about in the title of this post is this critter:

My sister and her boyfriend brought him to me. Not sure where they found him. They were out for a drive....hard telling where all they went on their travels. They brought him to me though so I'm taking care of him till I can hand him off to my son and his boys to take care of. Little boys cannot do much harm to a little box turtle. My sons had a box turtle for a pet when they were little boys. 

My sister dubbed the little turtle, T.S. Elliott.

As you can see from the  photo of Elliott sitting on my hand, he is indeed a very smalll box turtle! I have never seen one of his variety this small! He's cute as a button and he loves tomatoes! 

After the Phillipsburg Fair they will turn him back out in the wild. There are turtle races at the Fair in Pburg. Elliott can be trained! He's a fast little turtle!

I do hope the world is treating you all well! 

I will post again soon! 

Peace, my friends!

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