Whole Lotta Artin' Goin' On!

Hello Readers!

As the title suggests, there has been a whole lot of artin' goin' on! 

The Valatart over at AFA is in the last stretch as I type. Still another ten hours to go but I've bowed out as the muse  has gone to warmer climes...either that or I'm just too dog-tired! 

There's a surprise at the end of this post. I amaze myself sometimes.

There were little books made and traded.

Kid's Memory Game heavy chipboard tiles serve well as little book covers. 

These are 2x2 inches square. They have 15 lined pages which I acquired from an outdated Day Planner Refill Calendar from 2007. I paid a quarter for it, unopened.  It works well for pages for little books.

I did not draw the pictures on the books.

Out of the three of these, I like the dinosaur best, then the bird...is he a robin or a thrush?

I have two more of these little books ready for sewing. You'll see those another day.

All of them were sewn with white crochet cotton thread.

ATCs played heavily in the muse's endeavors this weekend.

40 Hearts

ATC

markers on cardstock

Blue Damselfly

ATC

markers on cardstock

Green Dragonfly #2

ATC

markers on cardstock

Benny Lapping

ATC

markers on cardstock

Carrying My Heart

ATC

markers and acrylic paint on cardstock

Eddie's Triumph

ATC

markers on cardstock

I got the inspiration from a political cartoon about republicans and Obama's healthcare plan. I am not a republican. I am an independent. I think they majority of politicians are a bad lot of liars and crooks! I just like elephants!  I've no clue why this one's name is Eddie. That was the first name that came to mind upon completing it.

Flaming Heart Tattoo

ATC

markers on cardstock

Heart in a Tree

ATC

acrylics and marker on cardstock

Keith

ATC

markers on cardstock

(I channeled my inner Picasso)

Maynard's Magpie

ATC

markers on cardstock

Mrs. Harris

ATC

markers on cardstock

Mrs. Walb

ATC

markers on cardstock

Orange Ladybug

ATC

oil pastels on black paper adhered to cardstock

I really need to practice with those oil pastels!

Sad Mr. Shug

ATC

markers on cardstock

Zombie In Love

ATC

markers on cardstock

Zombie Love

ATC

markers on cardstock

In the middle of drawing all those ATCs, I took a break to make a printing plate out of a CD.

I don't think the Eagles ever envisioned their Hotel California album to be used in this way.

It worked, kinda. Not the CD, it went through the house fire six years ago....nope it was beyond dead! The technique worked! It needs some tweaking on my part. 

To make a CD printing plate you take a sharp tool, I used a wood working gouge.... a darning needle, a craft knife, anything sharp will work. You draw your design on the printed side of the CD and scratch out the design with your tool of choice. I tried a darning needle. My needle may have been too small....it didn't work as fast as I thought it should.

I tried two different colorants for the print.

The brown is craft acrylic paint, thinned somewhat. It worked a lot better than the printers ink I used on the other one. The green ink was just TOO thin....my paper, orchard paper, may have been too absorbent for the ink as well. The great thing about this is that you can use the CD you've carved into over and over again. My prints aren't quite clear because I didn't scrape enough. You have to get grooves in that CD so it acts like a printing plate! My grooves weren't quite deep enough in some spots. 

I'm going to play around with my leaf CD and see what other papers and colorants will do.

A CD is, I think, 5 inches across, so these would make great backgrounds for chunky pages. They'd be even better if one could get a good print! That's my goal.....a good print! 

To clean my CD I just washed it with dish washing detergent in hot water.

All those little hearts I sewed for the Valentine Project were not used for the finished Valentine Gifts. Not sure what I will do the 22 I have left.

These ended up being magnets. That's a red glass flat marble with the red ribbon glued to the backside of the marble and magnet attached. They aren't my favorite project of the year so far!

And FINALLY, we have arrived at the surprise!

What? Mr. Kitty still looks just like he did the last time you saw him......

I was preparing for his final painting when that fool Billy cat decided he needed to sample the paint water. That cat ALWAYS samples the paint water! Doesn't matter if it's clean or dirty, Billy has to taste it. Just to be sure, you know....Sure of what, I'm uncertain!

I shooed the cat away and finished gathering supplies. Then that fool Lola cat came along and tried to steal my painting rag. She sat on the seat of the chair at the end of the table and reached between the table and the back of the chair to snap the rag that was hanging over the back of the chair. I fought with that cat numerous times to keep her from running off with my rag! It would start sliding ever so slowly down the back of the chair and I would grab ahold of it and play tug of war with Lola! Made the painting go slow at times.

Mr. Kitty has gotten a bit of a makeover though, don't you think?

He's not done though....

AHH, now he looks a tad better!

Overall, I'm quite pleased with him!

He still needs whiskers.

Viola! 

His whiskers are glued in with Elmer's School Glue. I gave them all a hard tug after the glue had dried for a couple of hours and it would take a really hard tug to pull one out of his face! 

I took my needle tool and poked holes in his cheeks to stick the fishing line in. 

I still need to give him one last coat of spar varnish and he is ready to go.

I probably ought to put my signature on him as well.

Thanks for hanging in there with these picture filled posts. Some folks would rather have words than pictures...but I'm a picture kinda girl  and this is my blog so we get pictures! 

Someday I may learn to take excellent pictures.

Till then they aren't going to be excellent pictures.

I'm rambling.

I need some sleep.

You all be good to one another!!!

You know it matters that you be good to everyone you meet!

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human spirit.

Peace, my friends!

Happy Valentine's Day!

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

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

Yellow Pear with Pink

ATC

markers on cardstock

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!

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!

Pink Plum Blossoms

ATC

markers on cardstock

I rather like this one as well.

Pink For Daytime

ATC

markers on cardstock

Gang Mugshot

ATC

markers on cardstock

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!

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....

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!

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)

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