Some Questionably Artful Endeavors

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

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