Col's Creations

Serendipity

2012-01-29T12:19:00.010-05:00

A year or so ago I received a pretty set of polymer clay tiles from my AuntM. I dressed them up a bit by adding a layer of gold clay to the backs, painting the edges with metallic blue acrylic paint, and sealing the top and edges with Sculpey glaze. Now what to do with them? After stumbling onto some turquoise cube beads, I knew. But while I could see the finished bracelet in my head, I no idea on how to put it together. So the tiles and beads made their way back to AuntM and a bit later they show back up in my mailbox as a finished bracelet - exactly the one I had envisioned. Go figure!

A month or two ago I decided I needed to start using up some of the supplies I had on hand to make some actual finished pieces. Plus I was in the mood to work on my wiring skills, a mood that lasted a few weeks and produced several bracelets, necklaces, and even a pair of earrings. This is one of the bracelets.

A few days ago I happened to be wearing the tile bracelet while looking through my "things I've made but haven't decided what to do with yet" box and HUH! Look at that!

Don't they look fabulous worn together? I love it! A one-of-a-kind "set" that was totally unplanned.

Dust Bunnies: Update

2012-01-24T18:50:00.012-05:00

The trio were adopted as a group and went to live in the office of an animal emergency clinic. What a great home for them! They shouldn't want for prey there.

But look at that crazy googly-eyed one in the middle, he's pulled his own whiskers out!

Adrianne, you must make sure that poor guy is getting his share of hairballs or you'll have to take him to therapy.

Vampire Dust Bunnies

2012-01-23T12:03:00.005-05:00

After trying a snake, a penguin and a dragon (what was I thinking?) I realized - I can't sculpt. But I came across a tutorial (PolymerCafe, Oct. 2008) for making Vampire Dust Bunnies. I loved the idea and since there were step-by-step picture directions I gave it a go. This guy to the left was my first attempt. Cute huh? The tips of his ears got singed while baking but I think that just added to his character.

A week or three later I made the trio below. This time I stuck lots of "fuzzies" in the clay to make them really messy looking, and added a touch of red acrylic paint to the fangs for blood. ;)

I used "buck tail" (found at most fishing supply stores) for the tufts of hair on their heads and fishing line for their whiskers. I was afraid the fishing line would melt if I stuck it in the clay before baking so I glued it on afterwards, which for me was the hardest part of making them. Oh, and I used PearlX inside the ears to make them a bit iridescent.

They all traveled to Illinois where one lost his head in transit and another was almost sent to the burn-barrel with the packaging but they all recovered and are reported to be doing a fine job in keeping the Dust Bunny population under control in their new homes.

Wire Choker Necklace

2011-11-16T22:01:00.007-05:00

If I told you how long I spent on this you would think I have the IQ of a grasshopper so I'll just say, I am very happy with this!

Picked a Peck of Peppers

2011-10-28T20:38:00.004-04:00

Here it is, only October 28 and they are calling for 6-10 inches of snow here this weekend! So we decided we best go pull the last of our peppers for the year.

Pulled all the plants, stripped some and hung the rest up to dry in the greenhouse. We are plumb out of room in our kitchen for any more peppers!

Go Cards! And go away, Snow!

Time Off For Bad Behavior #4

2011-10-15T09:58:00.002-04:00

Don't think this one needs me to say anything about it.

Rudy

2011-09-24T12:43:00.003-04:00

Sayonara, Pup.

WARNING

2011-08-16T21:45:00.003-04:00

I noticed a new Follower on my blog today so clicked their picture (down there under "Who's Following Me") to see who they were. I went to their blog they had listed and was taken to a Spanish-language BlogSpot blog that looked like a legit clay-related blog. Except it was loaded with ads and pop-ups that my blocker didn't stop and now I am infected with some malware crap. The follower/blog name is "MOMENToCOMPLEMENTo". Until I find a way to remove this "Follower" from my blog, please do not click on them to visit them. Uhm .. anyone know how to remove an unwanted Follower from your blog?

Wind Chime Rescue

2011-08-16T17:05:00.003-04:00

I love wind chimes. Even the ones that don't actually make any noise, the purely decorative ones I call "porch danglers".
This one here made a lovely delicate little sound but it didn't take a wind much stronger than a sneeze to tangle the streamers up something awful. Then we had a storm come through which blew this one down, breaking some of the discs and leaving the rest tangled beyond hope.
So I decided to re-do it, my way, and hang it indoors.

First I made swirly accents out of copper wire to add some "oomph" to the discs.

Then I re-strung it, adding nice glass beads plus fishing sinkers to the bottom to weigh down the "streamers".

I intended to hang it on the orange wall of my kitchen/craft-corner but it looked a bit lost there. So I think I will just leave it here on the window.
So that's it. A relatively simple rescue-project with a result much better than the way it came from the store. And look - the main copper part is my initial. :)

Image Transfer Tutorial

2011-08-07T15:23:00.014-04:00

Ok then .. If you all remember, my last big project was making polymer clay "Helping Hearts" as I dubbed them and using image transfers to put a logo on the backs of all of them. I previously blogged about my trials & errors thus far with image transfers and promised when all was done I would write up a "tute" on how I finally ended up doing it. This is that tute.

As I did not want to attempt transfers on soft raw clay, my first step was making and curing all the hearts. I made the hearts in layers so they would all have a nice white back to put the logos on. After curing, I sanded them, giving extra attention to the backs so as to have a very smooth surface for the transfers.

On to the tranfers ... First step is printing your image which is not as easy as it sounds. You want to size the image right to fit your project, and, you want to fit as many images on one sheet of paper as you can as the paper for this is not cheap. I used Avery Light Fabric Transfers paper. Note this paper is designed for use with inkjet printers, which is what most home printers are, so no need to run to a copy shop to use a toner-based printer. My cost was $2 per sheet. Not going to break the bank but not exactly paper you want to waste either. I then used PhotoScape to get about 70 logos per sheet for printing. Took some trial and error there to get the image size and PhotoScape settings just right, but, it's a free program and the best for this purpose of the many I tried. My logo included text, but I printed the image normally. I did NOT make it mirror-image. That reverse-imaging when printing is not necessary with this method.

I cut my sheet into strips and applied a coat of Kato Liquid Polyclay clear medium. (I'm not endorsing PrairieCraft, I have no experience with them, they just had the best product page, LOL)

I had read that you should brush the liquid clay (LC) on in a very thin layer, and do it in two coats, brushing a different direction each time. I found that un-necessary, and, brushing it on very thinly did not work well at all for me. I got much better results brushing it on "normally". In other words, I did not knock myself out trying to get an uber-thin coat, nor did I slop it on thick.
I tried a number of different brushes and got the best results with a somewhat stiff, straight-edged nylon brush. The firm, straight brush and a firm stroke let me apply the LC evenly and smoothed out bubbles at the same time. When brushing on the LC, make sure you cover the entire piece of paper you are working with. Having a straight clean "edge" like that will make peeling the paper backing off much easier. Thus why I cut my sheet of images into strips.

As you can see from the pic, I am very messy when it comes to anything involving a brush so I always work on top of paper I can throw out and replace as often as necessary to keep my work area from becoming a sticky mess.

After applying the LC I baked the strips at 255* for 15 minutes. I placed them on a file folder on a metal cookie tray and used magnets to hold down the ends of each strip, to prevent them from possibly curling up while baking. I also tented the tray with foil. (It took me much trial and error to arrive at a suitable temperature and since ovens all have their own quirks, please experiment on some junk pieces first if you are going to do this, to find the temp that works best for your oven.)

After removing from the oven, I slid them into a pan of ice water. The strips curled up almost immediately upon hitting the water but it's just the paper curling so no matter, it doesn't hurt a thing.

After they are cooled, simply peel the paper backing off.

Isn't that GREAT? No soaking and scrubbing to remove all traces of paper, it simply peels away!

After I had all my strips baked and peeled, I cut the logos apart and trimmed them. I trimmed very close to the edges of the image as I saw no reason to leave excess LC around them.

Now I have cured hearts and cured liquid clay transfers. Perfect! This means I do not have to worry about mushing or marring the raw clay piece or smearing the ink or any number of other possible problems that could arise from working on raw clay and wet ink and un-set LC. All I have to do is stick them together. :)

So, using the same brush as above I brushed a very thin coat of LC onto the backs of the transfers. This time, you do want to go as thin as possible, just enough to make the image stick to the surface of your piece. Then stick the transfer, wet side down, onto your piece and press firmly, using your fingers to smooth it from the center out, to make sure you have no bubbles or wrinkles. If you use too much LC, the image will slide around as you press/smooth, so as I said, use just enough LC in this step to make it stick, and be sure to cover the entire back of the image.

With the image in place, I brushed a thin layer of LC over the entire surface. In other words, I covered the entire back of the hearts, not just the image transfer area. I then baked again at 255* for 10 minutes, dunking them in ice water when they came out of the oven.

After cooling, I gave the backs another sanding with 800 then 1000 grit wet/dry paper. One of the best things about this method is that the ink is protected under two layers of LC so it is not going to rub off, or even sand off. (Unless of course you go at it with 60 grit paper or something, LOL.)

At this point, they are done. Finished. Good to go. :) Fully cured and the ink safe under the LC. But, I am obsessed with things being shiny, so I choose to apply a coat of high-gloss glaze to the backs. LC, if a high enough heat is applied to it, will turn shiny and glass-like on its own but that requires great care not to burn or bubble things. Playing with the heat gun is fun, but for a mass-production situation like this, I took the easier/faster way and used the glaze.

And here are my finished pieces (before I applied the glaze):

Crisp, clear images & text and great color transfer. No scrubbing paper off. No messing with mirror-images. No need to go to a copy shop to make your prints. No worries on the image rubbing off. No worries on mushing the piece out of shape or smearing the ink as you work. Three rounds of baking, yes, but the benefits of this method far outweigh that methinks.

So that's it, that's my method. I read many tutorials on doing image transfers before I embarked on this project and every one was different. I took a little of this and a little of that and experimented until it synthesized into one successful start-to-finish method.

MoeSmile Beads Necklace

2011-08-05T16:06:00.013-04:00

This necklace started down at the river one evening. I practiced twisting wrapped loops while the Other-Half fished. He ended up with a nice stringer of catfish and I ended up with a bunch of little copper sticks with wrapped loops on one end.
A week or three later I spent the day with a friend, getting hands-on help with learning some basic wire techniques. I have books and a computer and a long-distance tutor but I just wasn't "getting it". Somewhere between looking at a picture of a step and my hands actually doing it, things get garbled. Like most people I suppose, I learn much better with a live example to follow.
So feeling inspired and much more confident after my "class" I went to work on making something out of those wire sticks.

First, I picked out some beads and made a number of segments, like this:

Then I needed a way to connect them so I made a pile of jump rings and used two at each link up. (OK, OK, jump rings were the easy way out here, but it worked and I like the way it looked.)

Here's the end result, a long necklace with largish beads on copper wire. I like the copper with the orange beads. I did not make the MoeSmile beads, by the way. They came to me as a gift and were gifted back to the giver in the shape of a necklace. ;)

Did you notice the unique clasp on it? Here's a larger view of it:

I was looking through my collection of store-bought clasps, not liking any of them. Too flimsy, too hard to fasten, wrong color ... and in a flash of insight and inspiration said to self .. why don't I just devise my own clasp? This is what I came up with. Cool huh? I'm pretty proud of me for thinking that up.
Actually, I'm pretty happy with the whole thing. :)

And in case anyone is wondering what happened to the catfish, we gave them to neighbors. I'm from the Midwest where catfish seemed to be on everyone's menu, but here in the Northeast, not so much. I don't think I've ever actually seen catfish on a menu here. Which is fine by me, much better fish out there to eat. ;)

Helping Hearts 2011

2011-06-01T21:30:00.003-04:00

My latest project, now complete: 100 polymer clay hearts, approx, 1.5 x 1.5 inches, made and sold to help raise money for the American Cancer Society.
You can visit my photo gallery HERE to see all of the actual hearts.

This year I decided to put the logo of "my" Relay For Life team on the backs of all of them, using liquid clay and an image transfer technique. I had more trouble with that then I counted on, almost gave up the idea, but stuck it out and worked it out and think they came out fabulous if I do say so myself. :)

I also decided to use several different colors for the awareness ribbons this year, instead of just periwinkle. The different colors were a success as it turns out everyone has their "pet" cause that means something to them, and they want the color to show it.

My regular readers (HAHA!) might remember that I posted a while back about my experiences thus far with image transfers. Well, after many more fits and starts I finally worked out something that worked for me for this particular project. I'll be posting soon about how I ended up doing it, mostly so I don't forget myself. ;)

For now, I'm off to practice more on making wire loopdeloops.

Adjustable Length Cord

2011-05-29T13:06:00.009-04:00

My friend JoAnne taught me how to do this and I think it is just ingenious in its simplicity. If making a pendant on a cord, you don't have to worry about how long to make it with this "trick". How great is that? One size really will fit all. :)

I chose to tie a little bead on the ends of my cord, but that is totally optional, you can leave the ends bare if you like. If you leave the ends bare, that makes it easier to un-tie it, slip on a different pendant, and re-tie. If you tie a bead on, that makes it easier to grasp the tail ends while you're wearing it and can't see what you're doing. ;)

Take the left end of the cord and tie a simple slip-knot around the right side of the cord.

Pull the knot tight, using your thumb to "push" the knot along so that only a small tail is left.

Now take the right end and do the same thing: tie a simple slip-knot around the left side and pull the knot tight.

You'll end up with something like this. To shorten the necklace, pull the tails away from each other, at same time. To lengthen it, pull the sides away from each other, at same time.

At its longest length, you'll have a "single strand" cord and the knots will be touching each other at the back of the necklace.

At its shortest length (half the longest length), you'll have a "double strand" cord and the knots would be touching each other at the front of the necklace. (Well, the pendant will be in the middle of the knots, so not actually touching each other. ;)

Now, how cool is that?! A totally adjustable necklace that leaves no extra length hanging down the back when you wear it short because it doubles up on itself. And so easy to adjust you can change the length on a whim, while wearing it even. And if you're selling it, no worries about exactly how long to make the cord - one length really will suit all as the buyer can adjust it to any length they want.

And so simple to tie, even I can do it. :)

The Empty Box

2011-05-24T18:35:00.004-04:00

We needed a few boxes so stopped at the liquor store where they always have mountains of them for the taking. The liquor store is the best source for free boxes if you don't mind all the advertising on them. It's also the best source for booze and beer. And wine if you're in to that kind of thing. ;)
So we're rooting through the pile and .. what's this? A perfectly pristine plain brown box. Completely sealed, and completely empty.

And conveniently labeled:

!!! The box sits in my office now as it makes me laugh every time I look at it. I'm sure there's a logical explanation for this but I don't want to hear it. I prefer to revel in the absurdity of it.

Best Deal Ever

2011-05-21T23:29:00.003-04:00

Wow!! God's autograph is going for a minimum of $75 on eBay right now but with this deal you get a bible AND the autograph for a mere $50.

(Yep, from the same local classifieds that brought us "Call Ed".)

Sew This Will Be Easy ...

2011-03-20T14:02:00.005-04:00

A while ago, a friend gave me this great hoodie. Neon lime green with a subtle tie-dye pattern on it. Most excellent! Delighful as it was, I decided I had to "enhance" it a bit. Partly because she has an identical one, and partly because I have a reputation for personalizing my jackets and shoes, so ya know, wouldn't want to let people down ;) When I start looking like Mimi, someone stop me!

First thing I had to do was slice the neckline open. More convenient when pulling it on or off, and I just like the way it looks. But for reasons best left unsaid, I ended up with not just a slice, but with a u-shaped section of fabric actually cut out. I just happened to have a heart shaped patch in a matching color so I sewed that onto the wider-than-wanted opening.

Now, I have zero skills when it comes to needle & thread crafts. None. So I got this nifty "invisible thread" to use, to hide my messy amateur stitching. For anyone who doesn't know, this is what invisible thread looks like:

See? It doesn't look like anything because you can't see it! Sewing with this stuff is a total nightmare, but I got the heart on without too much hair loss.

That should have been good enough but I found some ribbon in my ribbon-drawer that I thought would be just dandy on the hoody. Why does someone who can't sew have a drawer full of ribbon? I don't know for sure but I think it just jumps into my basket at the craft store all by itself.

So I decide to sew a length of ribbon around each cuff. Easy right??

I begin by carefully measuring out a length of ribbon and sewing one end of it all the way across the width of the cuff, securing it in place so I can sew the edges all the way around the circumference of the cuff. After several hours and much hair-pulling and cursing, I finally get one edge of one cuff done. Pleased as punch with myself, I put an arm though the sleeve for a test-look. Oh %#&$#@! I can't fit my hand through the cuff now!

Turns out that cuffs stretch to let your hands through but ribbon doesn't. Did my amateur self think to allow for the stretchiness factor? So I get a seam-ripper gizmo out and set about undoing my progress. And let me tell ya', even with a magnifying lamp, ripping out invisible thread is just as hard as stitching it on!

Back to where I started, ripped back off except for the starting end seam, I need a break so fire up the Instant Messenger and tell my Mom and Sister my tale of woe. My sister, in her practical, logical. problem-solving way, says "Can't you just buy a ribbon that is stretchy?". Thanks for the assisterance (get it?) but I want to use THIS ribbon. WAHHHH!

Frustration now vented, inspiration strikes! I will put a can inside the cuff to hold it stretched open enough to get my hand through, then sew. How smart am I right? I end up with a can of dog food that is just about the right diameter and begin sewing again. With the can in there, it's extremely difficult to poke the needle through the fabric, especially since my fingers don't know what they are doing anyway, but several hours later, I've made it about half way around one side of one cuff again. It is at this point that I realize, $%#@&, now that the cuff is stretched out a bit, the ribbon is now too short!! Back to the seam-ripper. Sigh.

I put the project on hold until I can waylay Snake-Lady and ask her advice. Snake-Lady is the nice upstairs neighbor who I know used to sew her own clothes. She tells me, well, for starters, I'd do it on a machine ... OK, I am not on good terms with my sewing machine, and even if I were, I can't fathom how I'd do it without sewing the sleeves shut as the cuffs couldn't possibly stretch around the base of the machine. So hows about telling me how'd you do it if you were going to do it by hand? Her advice is to stretch it around the can, pin it, take the can out, then use my fingers to stretch it from pin-to-pin while I sew.

Sounds reasonable so after a day or two's vacation from this ordeal, I start again. Now, I am predominantly a "lefty", but like most lefties, I am also rather ambidextrous. Which means if something doesn't come to me naturally I will use either hand until one learns what it is doing, or I will use whichever hand is most convenient to the task. Like painting in a tight corner or whatnot- easier to switch hands then contort to fit the space. So with the cuff pinned and can removed, I am struggling to hit on something that feels natural. Stretch with right, needle in left? Nope. Stretch with left, needle in right? Nope. Nothing feels natural and it seems as though one needs super-hero strong fingers to stretch the fabric as you manipulate the needle with the fingers of the other hand. AHHH! I need three hands! And the invisible thread constantly getting caught on the pins now in place is not helping matters!

But I persevere. And my Other-Half, watching me go bananas, asks "Why do you keep using that invisible thread if it's making you so crazy?". I reply, "Because my stitching is way out of whack so I don't want anyone to be able to see it". He says "Well, maybe if you used a thread you could actually see to work with, it wouldn't BE out of whack". Uh, Good point, Kemosabe, I'll keep that in mind if I ever attempt another sewing project.

Elated to FINALLY be done with what was supposed to be a quick & simple little project, I fill my Mom in on the outcome. "Pins?" she says, "I could have told you to pin it but it never occurred to me that you WEREN'T using them".

Was it worth the time and tribulations? Heck no! But I will wear this thing to my grave now!

More Hearts

2011-03-13T16:12:00.005-04:00

After the first batch of "Helping Hearts" I received a commission to make 10 hearts (no ribbons) that were going to be given as gifts. I had a lot of fun with this batch so got a bit carried away and ended up making 35!

You can see all 35 here: Hearts Gallery

I took all 35 to the woman who commissioned the 10 and let her pick her favorites. Then I put the periwinkle awareness ribbons on the remaining 25, and sold them, too. Proceeds to benefit me, LOL.

This batch was all hand-sanded and buffed to a high shine. Using a glaze is a real time saver for "mass producing" but I still prefer the natural shine from buffing.

Helping Hearts - 2

2011-03-13T15:47:00.003-04:00

Back in May 2010 I came up with the idea for "Helping Hearts". They were a much bigger success than I expected and raised over $300 for the American Cancer Society. You can read about those hearts here: colscreations.blogspot.com/2010/05/helping-hearts.html

In December I made another 50 to be sold at a fundraiser for the same Relay For Life team, proceeeds of course going to the ACS.

For more pictures you can click here: Gallery - Helping Hearts 2

For these hearts I used a glaze (Air-Dry PermEnamel Clear Gloss Glaze by Delta) instead of buffing them as I did on the first set. Huge time saver!

The image transfer technique I have been working on is so that I can put a logo on the next batch - Helping Hearts 2011 - due out in May if all goes well. ;)

The Chicken Dance

2011-03-09T15:18:00.008-05:00

Two vastly different products sold in exactly the same form. Want to guess what happens when the one on the right is accidentally used on the sensitive underarm areas instead of the one on the left?

If you guessed jumping around flapping your arms like a mad chicken for twenty minutes, you would be right. You definitely don't need any morning coffee afterwards. Trust me.

Image Transfer, Part II

2011-01-18T10:17:00.005-05:00

Next step - how to get the image transfers, which at this point are like thin rubber sheets, onto an actual clay piece?

Two problems to overcome. First, the transfers are translucent. So to make the image really "pop" it needs to be over a light colored surface. And since white is not an ink color but rather an absence of ink, any white in an image transfer is actually just an empty area that will go from translucent to transparent when properly heated. So to keep the white in an image, the surface you apply it to needs to be white. But what if you don't want your finished piece to be white? That would be pretty boring, if everything you made with transfers had to be white!

With that in mind, I decided to put a thin white backing on my transfers so that I can then apply them to any color surface and not lose the "pop". Or the white where it should be white. So first I made a sheet of Premo white, #5 on the pasta machine. After carefully trimming the transfers I laid them over the white sheet, cut out the background shape I wanted, then removed the transfers. I then baked the white pieces and sanded the tops, to get a very smooth surface to apply the transfers to.

To permanently adhere the liquid clay transfers to the cured white clay, I need to use a thin layer of liquid clay as "glue" to form the bond. Now here's where dilemma #2 comes in. The white backing bakes at 275*, any higher and it will most likely burn. (Will definitely burn, I should say, as I tried it at 300. I had to see for myself.) But the liquid Kato, according to the manufacturer's website, should be baked at 300* for 20 minutes to get a matte finish, then at 350* for another 10 minutes to achieve crystal clarity. What to do, what to do ....

I ended up doing it in two steps. First I brushed a thin layer of the liquid Kato onto the backs of the transfers, smoothed them onto the white backings and baked at 275* for 15 minutes. That gave me a bond without burning anything but left the surface of the transfers very dull and matte. I still need to get the liquid clay hot enough to clear it up and make it glossy. Without burning the white clay.

So I got the heat gun out and did a couple of pieces without applying any more liquid clay. That did not work out very well as the exposed white Premo clay areas burned. I was pretty sure that would happen but had to try it anyway.
With the remaining pieces, I brushed a layer of the liquid clay over the entire top, hoping that would protect the white Premo areas from the heat gun, and it did! Was able to clear up the liquid clay and get a nice glossy surface, with no burning.

The cured pieces are thin enough they can be still be trimmed with scissors if desired (though next time I will make the backings thinner, as thin as I can) and are ready to be made into ... somethings.

As I continue to go along, I am sure that I will be able to shorten this process, combine or eliminate steps, etc. But for now I am happily moving along, learning as I go. Which by the way, here are a few things I have learned so far.

#1) Most tutorials I have read re using liquid clay say to apply it in very thin layers, cure, and repeat if desired to build up thickness. When I brushed it on as thin I could, I did not get very good results. It ended up with a sort of crackly texture. I got better results applying it a bit thicker.

#2) I have also read that if you let the liquid clay sit for a bit (after brushing it on) before heating it, it will help it "seek its level". So I let a few pieces sit
for about 20 minutes. I did not get results with that; the liquid clay sort of contracted, leaving "naked" areas all along the edges. So I had to add a little more to work it back out to the edges.

I've experimented in the past but failed to note anything I did, assuming I would remember the do's and dont's I'd learned later. Not so! :( So this time I am noting what I am doing. Makes for very boring blog posts, but lets me remember what I did. ;)

Image Transfer Trials

2011-01-14T18:37:00.012-05:00

Images were printed on an HP Photosmart Plus inkjet printer and I used Kato liquid clay. Except for as seen in #3 where I tried TLS. The Kato looks a tad bit sharper, and I thought the Kato was easier to brush on. Which is what I did - simply brushed a thin layer of the liquid clay onto the image, then baked on a cookie sheet.

With the first and second tries, after the clay cooled, I let the paper soak in water for about 10 minutes, and then worked on scrubbing the paper away. NOT fun. And not practical for doing lots of pieces. And took the ink off with the paper.

On the third try, with the Avery transfer paper, I dunked the papers in ice water immediately after removing from the oven. But I only let them sit for about a minute. I wanted them to cool quickly but did not want the paper dissolving into a mess that would be hard to remove. So after a quick dunk, I peeled the paper right off - no scrubbing and great color transfer. Hooray!

	Regular "multi-purpose" copy paper. Set with heat gun. Soaked & all paper scrubbed off. Only a little black ink remains. :(
	Regular "multi-purpose" copy paper. Oven baked for ? minutes at ? temp. Some color because the paper was not scrubbed completely off. Nice & glossy surface. And bubbles. :(
	Avery paper #3271 "Light Fabric Tranfers" for Inkjets Baked 10 minutes at 275. Paper was very easy to peel off. Excellent ink transfer. :)
	All of the third batch. 19 of 20 came out great. Can you spot the one that didn't?

The Avery transfer paper, I bought it at Walmart. Came in a pack of six 8.5 x 11 sheets for $12. At $2 a sheet, I didn't want to waste paper, so the hardest and most time-consuming part for me was trying to fill a sheet with multiple images, at the sizes I wanted them. I must have 30 different image-type programs on my computer but none of them seem suitable for this task. So after one test sheet I ended up putting the actual transfer sheet through the printer 4 times at different positions, to try to fill all of it. Gott'a be a better way.

Anyhow, that aside, I think this transfer method was pretty fast and simple. My next step now is to actually apply these transfers to cured pieces. That step scares me as I'm not sure of the proper baking time or temp to get them crystal clear without burning them. So uhm, suggestions/advice welcome ... ;)

Tie-Dye For Tots

2011-01-09T14:13:00.018-05:00

Some teensy little tee's and some "onesies". I did two pairs of baby socks, too, but they didn't come out. :( The dye did not take to them properly. Not sure why as I thought they were 100% cotton. But here's the shirts:

How cute is that?! The perfect spiral tie-dye. :)

Three color bulls-eye.	Another three color bulls-eye.
Spiral onesie.	Bulls-eye onesie.
Another bulls-eye onesie.	Pleated onesie.

Tie-Dye: Round 2

2010-12-19T18:48:00.004-05:00

Adult Hoodie.
I knew it wouldn't be easy doing a long sleeved hooded piece but gave it a go anyway. And as I suspected, it wasn't easy!

Had a hard time figuring out how to wrap the hood and sleeves into the tie for the spiral pattern I was aiming for. I have a tie-dyed long sleeved zip-up hoody that I purchased this Spring, and can tell from the dye pattern on it that the sleeves and hood and main pieces of the body were dyed as seperate swatches and then sewn together. AHHH! THAT'S not gonn'a happen, so I did the best I could working the sleeves and hood into the wrap.

After you truss your piece up and apply the dye, you wrap it in saran-wrap (a plastic bag would do, too) and let it sit for 8 or so hours. After I applied the dye, I thought I had ruined it. Got splotches and splatters where they shouldn't have been, and ran out of dye before I was satisified with how much was on it.:(

But when I unwrapped it the next morning and got through rinsing it out - the hardest part I think! - I was pleasantly surprised.

More white in it than I would like (LOTS more dye if I ever do another of these), but overall, much better than I was expecting. What do ya' think?

Tie-Dye Round 3: Tie Dye For Tots - coming soon to a blog near you.
Here's a sneak-peak, Kate. ;)

Christmas Cactus 2010

2010-12-08T11:51:00.005-05:00

So last fall I was given a cutting of a Christmas Cactus and by mid-October it had bloomed. You can read all about that here: 2009 Cactus.
But here's what it looked like then:

And here's what it looks like today:

It just started blooming this week, making it much more a Christmas Cactus than last year. Last year it was more a Halloween Cactus. But wow! Look how much it's grown in a year. I can't believe it survived a whole year+ in my care.

Journey to the Polls

2010-11-02T19:45:00.003-04:00

About two weeks ago I got a nice glossy postcard in the mail from President Obama telling me why I should make sure to get out and vote on the 2nd. It also told me where my polling place was. The polling place listed was not familiar to me so I kept the nice shiny card for future reference.

Voting day arrives today so I take the card to the job with me, so I can look the address up on the GPS unit thingy in the van. That shows me that my polling place is located in what I think to be a rather odd place. So when we get home from work, I go to the computer and look the address up on MapQuest. MapQuest shows me the same place the GPS unit did. Hmmmmm. Ok. That's where we will go then.

So with MapQuest printout in hand, my Other-Half and I set out to find Liberty Street. (Yes, my polling place address is on Liberty Street. Really.)
Liberty Street turns out to be not much more than an alley. A dead-end street with four run-down looking duplexes across from a bar long since closed and an industrial building. And this Liberty Street is on South Side. South Side being part of the city but we don't actually live in the city, we live in a borough.

Villages and townships and boroughs and all the other podunk hideyholes large enough to have their own mayor but yet too small to have their own postal address have been a thorn in my side ever since moving to these parts but that is for another day. On this day, at this moment, I am just wondering why the postcard, and MapQuest, and the GPS unit thingy, all sent me to an address in the city when I live in the borough. Even I know that I wouldn't be voting at a city location when I'm a borough resident.

Now I'm doubting myself. Did I read the address wrong on the postcard? Did I make a mistake? Certainly it's not a Democratic conspiracy to keep people from voting by sending you to fake addresses.
So I get my voters registration card out of my wallet. I had remembered last night to dig it out of my desk just in case I needed it today ... On the back of my card I now notice it tells me my polling place. Which is NOT Liberty Street. It's the municipal building in my borough. Exactly where I remember voting last time.

So ok, we will head over there. But since we will be in the neighborhood I want to stop back home first, to get that postcard. So that I can double-check the address on it and settle my own unease that perhaps I read it wrong. When we get home I find a large glossy flier on my doorknob, courtesy of the Democrats again, telling me where my polling place is. Liberty Street! Ahhh! We were just there. There is NO polling place there! It's a conspiracy afterall!!

So we head to the municipal building. Ya know, where I voted last time and what's noted on my voter's registration card. But nothing. Dead. No voting go on there.
Now, the municipal building houses the borough offices, fire department, and police department. There is a lower lot where the police and fire people park, and where the entrance to the police department is. You can't park there. You have to go to the upper lot to park, where there are two doors to the public offices. Someone in there ought to know where the hell I'm suppose to go to vote. So we park.

The main door has a sign on it. "Closed. Please use other door." With an arrow directing to Door #2 over to the left. So I go to Door #2 on the left and that has a sign. "Code Enforcement Only. All others use other door." With an arrow directing to the left, to the stairs that go down and around the building to the police department door.

Now, I have been to the police department before. (For those of you who remember my Carbondale years, no, I have not yet outgrown parking tickets.) I know that the police department door has a sign on it that says "Please ring buzzer and speak into the intercom for admittance. And please note that your buzz may be answered by the fire department." Now, I am NOT buzzing the fire department to ask them to ask the police secretary to call upstairs and ask the borough office people where the heck the polling place is! So to heck with my civic duty, lets just go have a drink and toast how swell the government is doing.

We stop at a drugstore four blocks from home. Which happens to be right on the border of borough vrs city jurisdiction. I ask the cashier if she knows where the community center on Liberty Street is. She has no idea, says she doesn't even think there IS a Liberty Street in the borough. Now the older lady in line behind me speaks up. "Are you looking for the polling place?". YES!!!
"I just came from voting" she says, "it's right behind the library". "You can walk to it from here" she adds, "just push the button at the crosswalk and it'll let you go right over. It's the little garage behind the library." The cashier chimes in that she knows where the library and the garage is, and says with a laugh "THAT is what they're calling a community center?". I don't know about that, but I do know where the library is. It's just a few blocks from home and probably no bigger than my bedroom.

So we head down the road to the library. And yes, there IS a little garage behind it, and yes, there is voting going on. Absolutely no labels on the tiny garage or elsewhere, but clearly a polling place by the activity. So we park and I go in.
There are two folding tables and three volunteers sitting at them. The woman closest to the door asks me to fill out a form. Ok, but I ask her first, am I in the right place? She asks for my last name and finds nothing. Then asks for my first name to check again. Uhm, ok, if my last name isn't in there, my first name isn't going to help ....

She doesn't know what to tell me but the jolly looking middle aged man at the far end tells me to come over, he'll help me. So I give him my voter registration card and he tells me the municipal building is my place. Uh, thanks, but no, I say, I have been by there, twice now, and there is no voting go on there. He says, "Well, it moved since these cards were printed..." UGHH! "They moved to Liberty Street".
Noooo!!! ..... This is like a bad dream now!

I tell him, I have the glossy postcard and the big shiny flier telling me to go to the community center on Liberty Street, but there is no such address, not according to my GPS or MapQuest, both of which sent me to a deadend on South Side. Jolly-looking middle-aged man turns out to actually be jolly and pleasant and patient. He first tells me to calm down (though I was ready to claw someone's eyes out at this point I didn't think it showed) then tells me where I am actually supposed to go and block by block direction on how to get there. I tell him that without pen & paper to write the directions on, forget it, its no use. How about a landmark instead? Do I know where the pool is he asks? No,I don't. I didn't grow up here, I don't know where The Pool is. How about another landmark. The ballfield? Uhm, no, don't know where that is either. Damn. BUT, I tell him, my mate who is driving, he'll know. "Well" he says "I'll go out and give him directions on how to get there just to be sure you all can find it." Thankyou VERY much, I say, but, I'm sure he'll know where it's at with those two landmarks.
Jolly-Guy also now tells me that as a member of the Lions Club he helped build the community center, and that as a "joke" they named the road it's on "Lions Way". The borough even put up a street sign that says Lions Way to thank and acknowledge them.
AHHHH!!!! THAT explains why noone knows where the hell Liberty Street is!

I thank him and head back to the car. Other-Half says he knows exactly where the pool and ballfield is. So we head there and finally, bingo!! Definitely a polling place!! I side-step the group of gentlemen outside still trolling for votes and go in. A nice suited man takes my name and YEEHAW!!! I'm finally in the right place!!
With a smile on my face and laughter in my voice - thanks to jolly-guy at last stop who righted my mood - I tell him briefly of my woes in getting there as he finds my paper to sign. He says, "Well, at least you are taking it in stride and still smiling, the last woman in here was FURIOUS that she had so much trouble finding her way ...."

So good gads almighty - an hour and many miles in circles later, I got my vote in today. Did you?

Tie-Dye 101

2010-10-17T20:40:00.008-04:00

Philadelphia Flyer fans here. Several friends who are die-hard Pittsburgh Penguin fans. Free "Pittsburgh Sucks" T-shirts. 100% cotton, too, all the better for dying. And for irritating all the Penguin, Pirates, and Steelers fans among us. (Did I mention we're in PA?) Could there be a better reason to finally try tie dying?

I did a long sleeved tee for myself and a baby tee for my expectant niece while I was at it.

This is the first time I have ever tie-dyed. I read some tutes and watched some how-to videos, but none explained what I really wanted to know. But I guess the great thing about tie-dye is, who's going to know if it's wrong? Right?
Overall, the results are better than I was expecting but next time around I'll use more dye as these didn't get the coverage I wanted.

(click pictures for larger images)

Call Ed

2010-10-17T19:23:00.007-04:00

Right there between the free Bowflex and the like-new sofabed. Call Ed. Not even "Dr. Ed". Just "Ed".

Day 42 - 6 weeks

2010-09-26T22:39:00.002-04:00

Cigarette Free

for 42 Days

6 weeks - in the bag!

Day 14

2010-08-29T19:52:00.003-04:00

Cigarette Free

for 14 Days

Helping Hearts

2010-05-29T12:41:00.007-04:00

101 to be exact.

The hearts are 1.5 x 1.5 inches, made of polymer clay and Dremel-buffed to a high-gloss shine. The ribbon charms are also polymer clay, but since buffing was not practical they were clear-coated with MinWax water-based polycrylic.
Periwinkle (which is a rather subjective color and hard to mix!) is the awareness color for gastric cancer.

The hearts were donated to a Relay For Life team to sell to help with their effort to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The "Helping Hearts" as I dubbed them were a bigger hit than I expected and raised over $300 for the ACS.

You can view all 101 Hearts here:
Col's Helping Heart Album

Special thanks to AuntyM (aka MoeArt) for her generous donation, without which there only would have been 76 hearts.

Textured Heart Necklace

2010-04-17T11:03:00.003-04:00

What was I thinking? It seemed like a good idea to wrap wire around silk cord and add little glass beads for decoration. But it took six arms and I of course only have two. Don't think the "look" was worth the effort.

Carnival Necklace

2010-04-17T10:36:00.006-04:00

Polymer clay swirled-lentils, glass seed beads, and 3 metal star charms.
My first real effort at wrapped loops.
(The lentils aren't really squished on top, they just look that way because of the light reflection.)

Sort of a silly necklace, but fun. Looked great I thought with my black turtle-neck sweater. I sent this to my 11-yr old niece.
See it in my Photo Gallery

First Charm Bracelet

2010-04-17T09:19:00.007-04:00

I had these six "stained-glass" beads I had made from cane scraps. (Not my canes as I haven't made enough yet to have any interesting scraps.)

I wanted to make a bracelet out of them but wasn't sure what direction to go in with them as I am still in the beginning stages of learning wire wrangling.
When I saw a picture of a bracelet that had been made by simply linking split-rings together, I knew that was it. Not only should it be a no-brainer, I said to self, it should also make for secure links I don't have to worry about being pulled open.

So I decided to make a charm bracelet for my 11-yr old niece. After linking up enough split-rings to make the "base" of the bracelet and adding the six bead charms, I realized, OOPS!, not a no-brainer afterall. It wasn't hanging right. So I undid it all and started again, this time paying close attention to which "side" of the rings to attach the next ones to. That meant constantly picking it up and straightening it out to see which way the next ring should be. So I twisted up two sticks of wire and stuck them in a block of styrofoam, to hold the bracelet stretched out for me. Not pretty, but worked like a charm. (Pun intended. Hee.)

You may have noticed there are 10 beads there, not 6. Six was not enough, not even for a small wrist, so I had to find some of the same scraps to make up more. After much contemplation over how long a bracelet should be for an 11-yr old, I decided 10 beads would work out just right. So I made 4 more beads, strung it all up, and added the little metal charms.
My first charm bracelet.

(After taking the pictures, I switched out the last end ring for a larger, colored one, to make it easier to find the end to fasten it with.)

Sunshine Blog Award

2010-01-21T12:21:00.026-05:00

The Sunshine Award
is awarded to bloggers whose positivity & creativity
inspires others in the blog world.

A big thankyou to Betty Jo of
Knightwork: Playing With Clay
for passing this award to me. :)
Have a look at Betty Jo's shop.
I just love that foil heart pendant!

The rules for accepting this award:
Put the logo on your blog or within your post.
Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.
Link the nominees within your post.
Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

MoeArt Polymer Clay Creations
Because it's AuntyM's fault I got into claying and blogging. ;)

The Pleasant Pheasant
Because Jackie's just such a nice lady.

2 Good Claymates
Because Carolyn and her husband create together.

Chasing Rainbows, Too
Because I love the name Sue gave her blog.

Polymer Clay, Etc
Because Alice shares video tutes.

Tonya's Treasures
Because Tonya's blog is beautiful.

Butterscotch Grove
Because Melissa creates from a cabin in Alaska.

Name My Frog Muse

2010-01-06T23:28:00.001-05:00

He came home with me today. Isn't he great? He's over a foot long and eight inches wide, from toes to toes. He's supposed to be a garden decoration but I hung him on the wall in my kitchen/craft corner.

Maybe he can represent my muse. (Can a muse be a frog? Or a he?) "Oh, froggy, what should I make today? ..." But he hasn't told me his name yet. What do you all think his name might be?

Lost Cat Ad

2010-01-03T10:59:00.005-05:00

HUH? Why not? Is it armed and dangerous?

(For anyone wondering what a Savannah cat is, here's a link: savannahcatbreed.com )

CDC ALERT

2009-12-09T09:31:00.004-05:00

Just issued, please take care.
Important CDC Bulletin

Pick a Pack of Purple Peas

2009-11-22T13:51:00.005-05:00

Pulled down all my Hyacinth Bean vines today and plucked the seed pods off.

When they are all good and dried out I will shell them and save the seeds for next year. I think I'll have enough to cover our whole block in vines!

What is a Hyacinth Bean vine you ask? It's a hearty annual climbing plant that produces lovely purple & white flowers and large shiny royal-purple pods that turn magenta-hued with time.

It's a very strong vine but needs support to climb; it can't climb up a wall on its own like an ivy would. We grow them up around the columns of our front porch, adding twine as necessary to support them, until they reach the top where we string more twine and let them grow horizontally 'til they meet in the middle.

I love our purple pea vines.

Say It Ain't So!

2009-11-13T16:40:00.005-05:00

I ordered an old issue of Polymer Cafe magazine because there was a specific article in it I wanted. So it came yesterday and I'm doing a quick browse through it and see this iguana, a runner-up in the True Color challenge.

Wow! That thing is excellent! Such details - the toenails and scales and eyes and spikes ... Just wonderful I think. Maybe with years and years of practice and a brain transplant, maybe I could make something that good someday.

Then I read the caption.

WHAT?? "One of my first attempts at sculptures". Are you kidding me?!
I threw the mag down in disgust. MY attempts so far at sculpture have not been good. Other-Half says, don't be discouraged, you just need to find a class to take where they'll teach you the basics and start you off with something simple, like a snake. A snake? I tried a snake, I says. They'd need to start me off with something really simple, like a marshmellow.

With a grunt I pick the magazine back up and continue reading. It gets worse. Much worse. Did you read the last sentence? "I'm 13 years old ...".
Say it ain't so! Put to shame by a 13 year old's first attempt. Sigh.

Kim, if you're out there, GREAT job.

Christmas Cactus 2009

2009-10-30T09:22:00.005-04:00

A month or so ago while doing a residential job, I commented to the homeowner on the large plant on her patio. She told me it was a Christmas Cactus and that it blooms into pretty pink flowers once a year. She offered to give me a cutting from it but I said, no, I'll kill it for sure. But she said no, it's easy to grow, just put the cuttings in water and when roots start growing, pot it.

So I took some cuttings home and put them in a glass with water and left it on my front porch. There didn't seem to be much change at all from day to day. It wasn't dying, but it didn't seem to be growing either.

Then the second weekend of October, temps dropped and we had snow in the forecast so I moved it indoors. Placed it on the shelf over my kitchen sink, directly under the cabinet light. Within days, it was noticably bigger. The little bumps on the ends grew into pink buds, and then the buds started blooming. It's blooming like crazy now, a new bud opening almost every day.
(Click images for larger pictures.)

Close-ups of one of the buds blooming.

Pretty isn't it? Since it's called a Christmas Cactus I don't think it's supposed to be blooming this early, so it's probably getting too much light under the cabinet there, but what the heck. If I keep it there maybe it'll keep blooming all the way to Christmas.

Sparkle Plenty Necklace

2009-10-30T08:05:00.004-04:00

Isn't this just super fabulous?!
Sparkle Plenty
Conversation starter show stopper stunning!
Festive one of a kind piece with real pearls and Swarovski crystals - and free shipping - how could you go wrong with this?
It happens to be a MoeArt creation and Moe happens to be my Aunt but I'm not being biased (well ,maybe a little), I just think it's a fabulous piece that deserves some attention. :) Check it out.

Brain Beads Bracelet

2009-10-16T20:14:00.006-04:00

Feeling encouraged after the Earth Bead II bracelet and some practice making twisted loops I made this simple strand bracelet.

You can see I drilled some of the holes off-center, but look at the ends! My best attempt yet. Third time's a charm they say. :)

The beads don't look like brains (do they?) but the lump of scrap clay I made them from did, thus the name if you're wondering.

Earth Bead Bracelet II

2009-10-16T19:27:00.005-04:00

After the first necklace I decided I HAD to string up - and do the ends - on some of the loose beads I had made before moving on to anything else.
I had enough Earth Beads left to do another bracelet but thought another plain strand would be boring. So I decided I'd make the original single-strand bracelet into a double-strand bracelet. And I decided having the two strands lying together would be no fun, I'd have to make a separator somehow.
No idea how I was going to do that, but I was bound and determined.
This is what I ended up with:

The ends on the new strand were an improvement over the ends on first strand and I was pleased as punch with the separators. Can't explain how I got there, but the separators are on double lengths of jewelry wire so they are stiff enough to keep the strands separated and strong enough I think that they won't break.

I've worn this a bunch already and so far so good, no breakage and it fits over my wrist bone just the way I like, a bonus I guess of learning to make your own jewelry. And I'm learning I thinks!

First Necklace

2009-10-16T18:15:00.004-04:00

This was my first attempt at stringing beads together into something I could actually wear. I used plain beads from my Martian Bead set, which are the first beads I made. They look like they all have flat spots, but they don't, that's just the light reflection in the picture. Which, by the way, is not actually a photo. It's a scan. Put the necklace on the scanner and wah-lah! - nice pic with very little effort. Thanks to Tammy of Shimmerwyck Jewelry for that great tip!

But where was I? Stringing. This is when I learned that 1) there are LOTS of choices for what to string on, and 2) that at some point, learning real wire wrapping techniques would be a good idea. ;)
I strung it on an ultra-fine jewelry wire and then there it sat, no clasps, until I fudged my way through finishing the Earth Bead Bracelet. With that experience under my belt (Hah!) I tackled these ends. Better but still far from proper.

My New "Craft Corner"

2009-10-13T10:52:00.017-04:00

It's finally done and I am one happy camper!
(Or maybe that should be happy crafter instead?)
I now have a dedicated work space that is cheerful, inspiring, and organized.

YAY!

We knew the shelf unit was longer than the table and would overhang it so we had to add a base to it. Looks a little off-kilter over reaching the table as it does but the bonus is I ended up with extra storage space that way.

The large right-side cubby-hole had doors which I initially thought would be nice for hiding large unsightly items, but I decided to leave them off instead so that the little 3-drawer organizer holding my hand tools fits in there.

The shadeless light used to be a nice bankers type lamp with a green glass shade. But I of course broke the shade. :( So it looks tacky but I like the extra light it gives off without a shade so am keeping it, tacky or not.

After countless coats of white paint inside the trays and drawers and STILL seeing the wood grain "bleed" through, I decided to heck with that and lined the bottoms with heavy-duty paper from the craft store.

Adds an extra touch of color when I open them and bonus, I can easily change the paper lining if/when the current stuff gets gooked up.
But I have lots of drawer space now.

YAY!

The tall, narrow blue drawer slides out to reveal three more long shelves with semi-sides on them to keep things from falling out when I open it. I originally wanted to keep that space open, for magazines, but Other-Half made a magazine rack on the left end of the piece, so no need. Now I have a magazine rack and a nifty extra pull-out storage place. :)

In the main "inside" area, we added two wooden dowel rods for hanging strands of beads or works-in-progress or what not. Not sure yet, but they seemed like a good idea. ;)

The wall outlet had to be changed. It was only a two-hole outlet while most everything I want to plug in has three prongs. Sigh. Always a complication somewhere. So Other-Half replaced the outlet for me. Wonderful! Except, the outlet was already nearly blocked by the edge of the table. When we put the shelf in place with its back lip, the outlet became inaccessible. :(
Raising the outlet was out of the question so ever-thinking Other-Half cut the table legs down a few inches. :) Great! That made the outlet fully accessible, 'cept now the rolling cart I have my clay and beads stored in didn't fit under the table anymore. So I had to move the cart elsewhere which meant moving a chair that had occupied the space the cart is now in to the living room which meant re-arranging the living room some to make room for the chair. Whew!

But it all worked out and I am deliriously happy with my new "craft corner" and with my Other-Half who not only gave his time and talent to this project but also gave up half his kitchen so that I could have a nice work space. :)

Green Chair

2009-10-04T20:24:00.009-04:00

A year or so ago I bought some soft stretchy sort-of-fuzzy bright green fabric. I intended to cover my dingy gray utility chair with it but after a battle with my sewing machine I banished both machine and fabric to the basement.
But now that my kitchen/craft-corner makeover is mostly complete, I HAD to cover the chair, it was an ugly frown in an otherwise happy room.

So I retrieved the fabric and set to it. The seat was easy. I just cut a piece roughly the right size and stapled it on to the underside then trimmed the excess. Did the same with the arms, but added some extra padding first.
The back though, that's another story. It's curved and both sides as well as the edge all the way around are visible. Now some time ago, back when I was still on speaking terms with my sewing machine, I covered an identical chair in purple. For that one I cut a front piece, back piece, and edge piece, and somehow managed to sew all three pieces together, ending with a cover that fits right over the back and can be slipped off for washing. Ok, but not something I wanted to try with my fuzzy green fabric sans sewing machine.

So what to do? Well, like with many things, I just winged it. I stretched the fabric around the front and edges and stapled it on the back side, same way I did the seat. Half-way there; now I just needed to cut a piece to cover the back and attach it in a manner that wouldn't leave awful-looking seems all the way around.
I cut the piece and got some invisible thread I had lying around and set about trying to sew it on. Have you ever seen invisible thread?
It looks like this:

Don't see it? Neither did I. Just trying to thread the needle was an ordeal; sewing with it made me want to pull my hair out. I gave up and switched to a green thread instead, normal thread. Much better. I got the back piece sewed on and much to my delight, turns out the fabric is just fuzzy enough that the seam virtually disappeared. Great! I didn't have to worry about nice neat stitches or a straight seam.

Here's the chair:

A very quick make-over - if you don't count the year+ I had the fabric. :)

Work In Progress

2009-09-25T00:28:00.005-04:00

I've been very busy lately. So busy my brain is too fried to even come up with a cliche for how busy I've been.
One of the things that has been taking up my time is this work in progress. When finished, it's going to be the bestest custom craft-storage thingy ever. After, gads, three weeks? I hope to finally have it finished tomorrow. But hopes and reality often don't mesh, so we'll see ...

After my re-decorating of our kitchen this Spring, I claimed the table and surrounding area for a craft area. We never actually eat in the kitchen and having nowhere else to set-up, well, the kitchen it was. This is what my "craft corner" looked like then:

Yes, the table is an eyesore, but after years of abuse as a craft table, that's what happens. So until I decide what to do with it permanently, I'm just going to throw a table cloth over it. ;)
Anyway, my "craft corner" doesn't look like that anymore. It's messy now. Very messy. Thanks to my extremely generous Aunty Moe I have accumulated a grand amount of wonderful claying goodies. Wonderful stuff, delightfully colorful bottles and jars of assorted powders and paints that inspire me on sight. Except, they are all over my table, leaving little room to actually work and offending my sense of aesthetics. Something had to be done.

A few weeks ago, we're driving up the alley the night before garbage pick up. I will admit right here and now - I have no shame - I will pick up "curbside finds". One man's trash is another's treasure right? I like to call these finds "reclaimed goods". So we're driving along and spot this piece out for pickup. Either a hutch top or maybe a headboard thingy for a kids bed set, don't know, but it was in great shape, absolutely nothing wrong with it, and it had cubby-holes! Cubby holes! I want that! I can put it on top of the table to use for craft storage. My other-half agrees so we take it.

The piece was your typical heavy pressboard type piece with every surface veneered and laminated to look like white-washed oak. I can deal with it as-is and would have put it on the table right away but Other-Half decides it needs a major overhaul. He wants to make drawers for it so that all the cubby-holes are more practical. Sounds good to me.

So we take the piece to his brother's workshop where we have room to, well, work on it. Let the games begin. We decide along with making drawers, the whole thing needs to be painted. And painting means also having to sand it all first 'cause painting over slick veneer is not an option. So first, the whole thing has to be dismantled. Ever-thinking Other-Half decides a paint spray gun will be more better efficient than brushing. I agree. So off we go to our storage unit across the river to get our spray gun. Back at the shop, I have 18 zillion now-sanded pieces to cart outside for spray-gunning. Now, pneumatic paint spray guns kick out a lot of air so you have to have your pieces well above the ground so dirt and leaves and what not is not blown up into your wet paint. So that means gathering all sorts of what-nots from the shop and carting them outside to set up make-shift above-ground tables to put the dismantled pieces on. THAT done, we get to spraying. Then there's nothing to do but wait for paint to dry. And while the paint is drying, every gnat within five miles as well as a two bees and six flies, decide to land in my wet paint. Sigh. Now I need to buff out the bugs and dust everything down between coats. We have to take all the pieces and all the what-nots that make up our make-shift tables back into the shop each time we're finished for the day. And dis-assemble and clean out the spray gun each time. And then bring out and set up everything again the next time. So the first step of base-coating became a dreadfully time-eating process.

Some eons later, we have that done. Other-Half re-assembles the now solid-white pieces into their former state of wholeness. I decide this thing is NEVER getting taken apart again so decide it'll be a good idea to fill all the screw holes with wood goop so I can paint over them. Great. Except that means waiting for the goop to dry, then sanding it, then, sigh, painting all those areas again, then, sigh, waiting for THAT paint to dry.

Meanwhile, Other-Half is contructing the drawers and trays to fill the cubby-holes. This involves clamping and gluing, which, you guessed it, means more time waiting for glue to cure. The there's more wood goop to apply to fill imperfections left from assembling, waiting for that to dry, and finally, sanding it all down. Whew!

So we finally get to the point where I can begin top-coating everything and me being me, I have to do it in four different colors. Five if you count white. All the drawers & trays need base-coating in white first, then color. This means lots more time waiting for numerous coats of paint to dry. This make-over could have been done in two days if it weren't for all the WAITING time. Plhppp. Patience is not a virtue of mine.

So, here is the main piece, re-assembled and painted:

and here is the painting-in-progress of the drawers:

Tomorrow, I hope to have the painting finished and the drawer bottoms lined, and that'll be that, we can finally put this baby to bed and move on to other things. I can't wait.

Time Off For Bad Behavior #3

2009-09-16T06:54:00.003-04:00

I just want to know, how do you mistakenly butcher a deer? Did he mistake it for a big log of pepperoni?

Earth Bead Bracelet

2009-08-26T23:34:00.003-04:00

After all the orange & green from my Martian Beads and first two covered bottles, I couldn't wait to break out some new colors. Blue & white was on my mind so I took the dark blue clay I had and gradually mixed in white 'til I got a soft baby-blue blue. Good. Now I had the two colors I wanted but no idea what I wanted to try making with them. I started "braiding" thin extruded ropes of both colors together and that ended up keeping me occupied for some time. I kept breaking them or smushing them or making uneven twists. I had no plan for what to do with the braids, I was just bound and determined by that point to make some that looked halfway decent. I finally ended up with a few short halfway decent strands and a bunch of scraps. So I did the easy thing and rolled the scraps up into a bunch of beads. Little Earths I think. Now I have Earth beads to go with my Martian beads. :)

Now to actually make something out of them. Oh my. I have a ton of beads as well as beading "accessories" but had never actually made a piece of jewelry. Why? Because while I was quite confident I could string beads together I had no clue what to do with the ends once I got there. Or what I should chose to string them on in the first place. I ended up going with a fine gauge wire and after several false starts and several spills, I had a bracelet assembled out of my Earth beads and some glass beads I was gifted with.

But I still wasn't confident about how to finish off the ends. I was told I needed "crimp" beads. Ok. Off to Michaels I went. Uh-Oh. There are a lot of different types of "crimp" beads! I bought three different kinds and managed to "seal" off the ends of the bracelet so no more bead spills. But still had to conquer a fastener of some sort. I ended up using a basic spring ring and jump ring.
I don't remember at this point how I finally managed to attach each to an end, but it did involve bringing out the soldering iron, wherein I learned that the solder I have did not want to stick, no-how, no-way, to the jump ring or crimp beads. Which is why, in the picture, you don't see the actual clasp ends of the bracelet. They're functional but not pretty. ;)

Here's the finished bracelet.

I've worn if often now and I'm confident it won't fall off or break, but I need to devote some time and brain cells to learning how to properly attach clasps to finish a piece.

Time Off For Bad Behavior #2

2009-08-26T23:24:00.007-04:00

Seriously. This was actually in our paper.

This is Not a Tute

2009-08-10T08:18:00.007-04:00

I'm a complete novice with polymer clay, I couldn't begin to teach anyone anything. But while puttering with some clay the other day, having no idea where I was going with it, I puttered myself right into a rather simple way to make swirly/spiraly patterns. This is how I arrived at the pieces I used to cover my Starry Night bottle so I figured what the heck, I'll share how I got there.

I started with this, a brain of pre-conditioned, pre-mixed clay I had been gifted with.

I pinched off pieces of it, smooshed them up a bit to further mix & mute the colors, then rolled the pieces into little snakes.

Then, holding the snake in one hand, I used the thumb and forefinger of the other to gently twist down its length. The closer and harder you twist, the tighter the spirals will be. And the easier they are to break! I broke a ton of them while twisting. I was aiming for a random pattern so wasn't worried about being consistent here.

With some "twisty snakes" made up, I went in two different directions with them.

1) I lined up a number of them to form a rectangle, then fed it through my pasta machine 'til I had a sheet in the thickness I wanted.

2) I coiled twisted snakes into lollipops, then used a brayer to flatten them, resulting in nicely defined spiral patterns.

Also, if you know the "back" side of your spirals aren't going to be visible in your project, you can stick your coils onto a flat piece of scrap clay and feed it through your pasta machine (or hand roll it), then when you've reached the desired thickness & pattern, cut out the areas you want to use. This way was more manageable, but I couldn't apply it to my bottle since the scrap backing side was gong to be visible.

So, that's how I made my bottle. And remember, this was not a tute. :)

Starry Night Bottle

2009-08-01T09:11:00.008-04:00

I covered one side of a little glass bottle with spiraly-patterned pieces of clay, fully intending to cover it all. But I thought it was kind of cool looking through the glass on the un-covered side so I decided to leave it open. A window into the bottle if you will.

It also reminded me of Van Gogh's "Starry Night". I know, Starry Night is blue not purple, but nevertheless, that's what it made me think of. So with that er, "theme" in mind, it needed stars. And it needed something inside the window.

I decided to dangle little metal star charms from a chain inside the bottle and to adorn the cap with a star. I didn't have any purple or gold star charms, but I did have pink and yellow and that was close enough for me. ;)

To assemble the cap, I drilled a hole through the center of the cap (well, I was aiming for the center anyway) and through the white star base. I drilled half-way through the star. I snipped an eyed skewer to length, basted it with super glue, and inserted it through the cap and base and into the star. That gave support to the star topper, and gave me a loop on the inside of the cap to attach the chain to.
Here's the finished bottle:

A completely useless knick-knack, but I'm pretty pleased with it. :)

Time Off For Bad Behavior #1

2009-07-30T10:34:00.009-04:00

That's one of our favorite songs. It's by Confederate Railroad. David Allan Coe also does a version of it and we like that one, too. But it seems like a fitting name for occasional blog posts re funny police-blotter items from our local paper. Time off from craft stuff for a little bad behavior news. We live in a small town. Not insanely small (you can talk to my sister about that kind of small) but small enough that some silly things end up in the police blotter.

Here's a short story from Tuesday's paper: First Report
Did you read it?

"Radio scanner reports indicate he was wearing a ski mask with antlers".

WHAT?? Where would one buy a ski mask with antlers? Likely nowhere, so it must be home-made. But why on earth would anyone want to attach antlers to a ski mask in the first place? And why would they choose to wear that to a robbery? Nothing inconspicuous at all about walking around in a ski mask with antlers on it right?
I laughed all day after reading this. There I am on the job, pulling nails out of plywood - hundreds of them! - and I'd suddenly just start laughing. My other-half would look at me and ask "ski mask with antlers?". Yep! It was just deliriously funny to me.

Wednesday's paper carried this front-page follow up story: Second Report
Turns out it was not a ski mask with antlers, it was ... wait for it ... a Batman mask! The paper even included a picture of the discarded mask lying on the sidewalk. This is just getting better and better!
Never mind the question of why would one wear something so conspicuous to a robbery, the bigger question is, how did the witnesses confuse antlers with bat ears?
Antlers or bat ears? Antlers or bat ears? Only in P'burg, folks.

Frosted Sandpaper

2009-07-30T09:50:00.003-04:00

I cut up little strips of sand paper and keep a handful of them in a baggie with a piece of cloth. Then when I have a clay piece that needs smoothing, I'll take the baggie and the clay with me in the car to make good use of my "car-time" (we often have long rides to work). Sometimes I'll sit in the living room with my baggie and clay and sand/buff as I otherwise relax, but I never sand/buff in the kitchen which does double duty as my craft "studio".
Now, my other half occasionally puts an empty glass in the freezer so he can have a nice frosty chilled "mug" o' beer. Sometimes it's in there for days before he remembers to use it. Yesterday he pulled out the glass - which had been chilling since the weekend - and found a used strip of sandpaper frozen to the inside bottom of the glass.

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't have been there when he pulled it out.
How on earth did that happen?!? One of life's little mysteries I guess.

A Real Snake

2009-07-18T12:56:00.005-04:00

Snake Eating Toad. Or, Toad-Eating Snake. (Punctuation is everything, 'ey?)

Came across this act of nature on the job site yesterday. A little Garter Snake in the process of consuming a live toad. I know this is how snakes eat but had never seen it live in the wild. Will probably never see it again, either. A little gruesome? Sure. Did we feel a little bad for the toad? Sure. But it's nature and it's simply amazing how snakes can consume prey so much larger then their own mouths & bodies.

To save the squeamish from seeing something they may not want to see, I'm posting links to the pics here rather then the pics themselves.

Overview
Close-Up #1
Close-Up #2
Close-Up #3
After

Martian Beads

2009-07-05T19:05:00.002-04:00

My first little batch of beads.

I can see how bead making might become addictive. There are no rules! They don't have to look like anything. Like, say, a snake head. They just have to be round. Or not. And you have to be able to thread something through them. I'm still working on that part. But oh yes, this is going to be fun ...

Silly Little Snake

2009-07-05T17:48:00.002-04:00

For reasons I won't get into, I decided to make a snake as my first clay "sculpture". I had it on good authority that snakes are easy for beginners. Just roll, taper the tail end, flatten the head end, and slice open a mouth. Presto - you have a snake.
I had no problem with the rolling part and the tapering the tail part. The shaping the head part, uhm, as you can see, that part didn't go so well for me.
I worked on the head for more time than I'd like to admit but nothing looked right. Too flat. Too round. Too lumpy. Too long. Too square ...
I think if I had had a picture of a snake head, any snake head, to look at for a guide I could have done better. I wasn't sure what final look I was striving towards, just knew that nothing I was doing was resulting in anything that looked right as a snake head. I finally just baked it. I figured once cured, a coat of paint might distract from the strange head and it wouldn't be a total loss.
Maybe, maybe not.

Next time (I am going to try again!) I'll use wire inside for support so it doesn't droop like this one did.
Ya' live and ya' learn and ya' try again ...

Some Kitties

2009-06-28T11:25:00.006-04:00

Not mine. Well, the pics are mine, but the kitties are not. It's the first time in a long time that I've had my camera out for real pictures so thought I'd share a few.

Fun With Slideshows

2009-06-14T18:02:00.005-04:00

I recently found this cool - and FREE - website/tool thing. It's called ImageLoop. Here's their link: Image Loop
You use it to make your own slideshow then just copy the small snippet of code to embed the slideshow anywhere you want. That's the easy part.

The hard part is figuring out what's happening behind the scenes. I'm still figuring it out myself. Your photos get stored on ImageLoop and you get a public page like this one: http://colliope.imageloop.com where people can view your shows, comment on them, rate them, etc. You can make shows private if you want so that they don't show up on this public list. And you can make shows and allow other people to add photos to them. I know that would be useful for something, just not sure what yet.

But if you just want a slideshow to put on your webpage - which is all I wanted- this is a fun and easy way to do it. There are tons of design options. Have fun! Here's one I made for a sample:

Fiesta Kitchen

2009-06-14T16:45:00.003-04:00

More pictures and my comments on them are here: Fiesta Kitchen Album

Down in May there's a "Home Decor Horror" post. Two small pics there will give you an idea of what this kitchen started out like. Blecch! I love being in it now. Colors really do affect your mood.

Silver Enamel Bowl

2009-06-11T22:39:00.007-04:00

Isn't it fantastic? I found it in a thrift shop today. It had an original sticker on the bottom reading "Reed & Barton. World's Finest Silver Plated Ware. Made in the U.S.A." and a "Reed & Barton - #102" stamp. I bought it because it was deeply tarnished and I love polishing silver. There's something about rubbing that magic polish on and watching something old and dark turn new and shiny again that's quite satisfying. Pity there's no such thing as a people polish.

So I brought it home and polished it up and then decided to look up this "Reed & Barton". Turns out Reed & Barton is a rather respectable outfit that's been operating since 1824. But I wasn't able to find anything about their enamel-lined line of ware other than a few eBay listings.

Blue #1
Blue #2
Green #1

Red #1
Red #2
Red #3

(That green is gorgeous!)

So I don't know when this bowl was made or how many other items they made in this enamel line or how many colors they made, but I just love it. And I paid exactly $1.00 for it. :) Gott'a love thrift shops.
The orange & yellow vases, I found them at the thrift shop, too. The trio will make a nice addition of absolutely-useless-but-decorative knick-knacks for my kitchen, ey?

Trying a New Thing

2009-06-08T17:19:00.006-04:00

Clay! Polymer clay. See that link under "Who I'm following" for MoeArt Polymer Clay Creations? That's my Aunt. She's a self-professed clay addict. But that's OK because she's very good at it. (And very funny so go read her blog!)

Aunty Em, being the generous soul she is, sent me a wonderful box containing everything I would need to try my hand at clay. I haven't touched any kind of moldable material since SillyPutty and the Play-Do Barbershop days but I was eager to get started.

One of the many things in the box was a large bag of clay scraps.

Perfect for practicing on without wasting any of the pretty, new, solid color bricks. So I rolled and kneaded and folded and smooshed and rolled and kneaded and... and made lots of gray.
I practiced rolling out snakes and had fun cranking clay out of the extruder and spent a great deal of time with the brayer trying to make a flat rectangle of the same thickness. Harder than it sounds. Harder than picking up the polymer clay lingo. ;)

After several hours (uhm ok, more like all day) I had a piece ready to bake. 45 minutes later plus a little cooling time, and I had this, a cuff bracelet made entirely from polymer clay. Mis-shapen and mangled in places, but a bracelet nonetheless.

How cool is that? From the above melange to a bracelet!

After I tried smoothing the edges with a disposable emery board (wrong!) I ended up with what, to a visually impaired person, could possibly pass as a worn leather cuff.

I then decided, what the heck, I'll paint it. So I dug into my drawer of acrylic craft paints and found a sheer metallic copper and a sheer metallic silver. Alrighty! Seemed like just the thing. An hour later I had this:

I couldn't get an accurate picture of it, one that didn't make it appear shinier/brighter or flatter/matte-er than it really is, but you get the idea. It looks like medium-aged penny with pewter accents.

Is it beautiful? Is it going to win awards and make people stop me on the street to ask where I got such a grand bracelet? Heck NO! But it's my first ever polymer clay piece so I am shamelessly showing it off here.

Many thanks and mahalos to Aunty M, and a special thanks to "Mary Kay Too" from the PCC forum who contributed items for my clay care-package. I now have another hobby I am going to love.

Hunters in the House

2009-06-08T09:29:00.004-04:00

We have a dog and two cats. The older, larger cat, Scratch, is your typical black shorthair. Typical except that Scratch is a bully cat sometimes possessed by demons. We've about given up trying to keep Scratch from getting outside. This seven pound mass of fur has bested us humans in that contest of wits.

One reason we try to keep Scratch inside is because he's an excellent hunter. A natural feline trait but one that tends to upset bird & bunny lovers everywhere.
And cats as you know are not satisfied with just catching something, they have to bring it back to the lair and give it to the humans. So we occasionally find mice & shrew corpses on the front porch or back deck, lying just over the threshold where we can't miss the little gifts.

Saturday morning I'm relaxing in the living room when in struts Scratch, as only cats can strut, carrying a live chipmunk in his mouth. Lookie Lookie what I have! If this were the NFL he'd be doing the "I'm so special look at me I made a touch down happy dance". I immediately jump up to grab the cat but the cat is much quicker than I am and I can't even get within lunge-distance. And now that the cat has my attention, he wants to play. He releases the chipmunk and all hell breaks loose. Now both cats AND the dog are rocketing around the apartment after the thing. With three predators and a human after it, its only means of escape is to seek cover in small places. Boom! Thump! Meeeooow! Clang! Yowl! Bark! Crash! #$%&*!

Each time the chipmunk got cornered, Scratch would pounce, take it to an open area, and release it again. ARRGG! I need a net! After 20 minutes of Keystone Kops antics, the little thing finally ended up under the water heater in the basement. So I give up. I figure the chipmunk will eventually make a break for it, the cat will catch him, tire of playing, and I will find the trophy waiting for me somewhere out in the open. Well, I was sort of right.

Sometime overnight the chipmunk did make a break for it as Sunday morning the cat has my office area staked out. The little critter is now apparently behind my computer desk and large metal filing cabinet. Do I want to move the desk and file cabinet, knowing the little thing's just going to shoot off somewhere else as soon as I do? No. And now I'm getting mad at the cat. YOU started this, YOU finish it.

Well, the cat sat patiently in front of the filing cabinet all morning. The dog however - not so patient. Barking and whining and pawing at the floor and getting tangled in the computer cords and being a general nuisance 'til I finally banished him to the backyard. Then we had to leave. We were gone most of the day and returned to the same scene - cat STILL patiently lying in wait in front of the filing cabinet. The dog though had thankfully either given up or forgotten about it.

Another night goes by and it is now Monday. The chipmunk is now behind the dresser in the corner of the kitchen. (Yes, you read that right, I have a dresser in my kitchen.) Once again, cat is quietly, patiently lying in wait while the dog is going crazy. Dogs do not apparently understand that making a ruckus does not help lure prey out into the open.

I can deal with a chipmunk in the house. The cat will eventually tire of his catch & release game and will end it, leaving the trophy corpse out for me to find and dispose of. But in the meanwhile, the dog is making me crazy! I will have to take an active approach now ...

Behind Closed Doors

2009-05-30T09:10:00.003-04:00

I suppose it doesn't make much sense to choose paint colors based on dishes that are kept behind closed doors, but I know they're in there. ;)

Decorative Birdhouse #1

2009-05-26T02:24:00.003-04:00

Kitchen Hall: Before & After

2009-05-26T02:19:00.000-04:00

Our apartment has a long narrow hall connecting the living room to the kitchen end of the apartment. The hall is actually two sections separated by a doorway with no actual door in it. The front end of the hall is the longer section, with a door on the right to the bedroom. After the bedroom, you pass through the doorless doorway, pass the basement door on the right, and hang a right into the kitchen.
With no windows and no light fixtures, no matter what time of day or night, both sections of the hall are always gloomy. So when I started my kitchen make-over, I wanted to make the kitchen end of the hall as bright as possible. The yellow and green did the trick, you think? :)

I haven't decided yet how I want to do the basement door so its still a "before" door.

Purple & Green Bathroom

2009-05-25T13:12:00.004-04:00

I knew I wanted to do purple & green in the bathroom. When I went to pick out paint I found a lovely purple, just the color I had pictured in my mind. Except it could only be mixed using a designer-label base at around $27 a gallon. Being just a rental place and all, I said no way to that and picked out another purple from the any-base'll-do display.
The purple looked right in the store but turned out to be a chameleon color on the wall. By itself with the green, it looks suitably purple just not purple enough. If you put something blue next to it it looks purple, but if you put something truly purple next to it, it looks blue. This makes it absolutely impossible to find the right color accessories as NOTHING matches this blue-purple shade. So I have to be content with only apple-green towels.

The window looks out onto a deck we share with the tenants in the other side of this double, and then the backyard. Being a small room, I didn't want to lose the little bit of natural light the window provides, but needed privacy. After a little searching I found a roll of translucent stained-glass effect window cling stuff. It was a real PITA to apply, but provides the needed privacy without losing any light, plus adds a nice touch of color. :)

Home Decor Horror

2009-05-25T10:55:00.010-04:00

When we moved into our current apartment the uh, "decor", was "OMG! I want to vomit!" BAD. It may have been the work of one previous tenant with extremely poor taste. Or it could have been the result of many tenants over many years adding their own little touches here and there to the existing mess, resulting in the overall "done by color blind monkeys on acid" effect. I don't know, but it was BAD.

The bedroom and main hall was gray-green. I've encountered this color in several of the places we've rented over the years and my upstairs neighbor reports the same gray-green in her unit, too. I think all landlords must buy this color in bulk at a Cheap Stuff For Rental Properties supply shop. Trim in both butter-yellow and white complimented the gray-green walls.

The kitchen and end hall was peach color paint on the upper walls with a green & white checkered wallpaper on the lower walls. The tiny checks had the unsettling effect of making the walls seem to move in and out if you looked to long. Topping this off was a birdhouse patterned wall paper border. As if the checks weren't busy enough.

The bathroom with standard tan fixtures (bought I'm sure at same Landlord Supply Store as the green-gray paint) had two types of pinkish-white wall paper, one patterned and one textured, and pink-mauve trim.

The living room. Oh my. Pepto-bismal pink walls with splatter paint and sponging in white, yellow, and two shades of blue. Topped of with a busy teacups & flowers wall paper border and the same awful butter-yellow trim found in the bedroom and hall. Did I mention color-blind monkeys on acid?

Not too long after we moved in, I painted the bathroom. Being the smallest room in the apartment and there being nothing in it to move, it was the logical and easiest place to start. Unfortunately, that was as far as I got. The rest of the place remained un-made-over for, well, too long. I think the "decor" just sucked the life out of me

But this Spring I decided that to save my own sanity I would have to take action and decided to start with the kitchen as it has the least amount of stuff that needs to be moved to paint. The kitchen is now near-complete and I have finished painting over the splatter painted mess in the living room. The LR is now all white. Boring and sterile, but the paint was cheap (and it took LOTS of it) and I see it now as a blank canvas as I wait for inspiration to strike.

So, as I make progress, I'll be posting before & after pictures. (Well, maybe just "afters" as the befores are just too awful to show in any more detail than seen in this post. ;) )

Firefox Personas

2009-05-22T03:07:00.003-04:00

Anyone using the Firefox browser, check out Firefox Personas.
It's a fun & easy way to give the browser a super quick make over. Change your look with the click of a button, hundreds of designs to choose from or make your own. I'm currently sporting one named "dots_stripes_and_colors".
I made this one. It's currently being used by 16 people, so the site says. :)

Adrianne's Accent Table

2009-05-22T01:10:00.004-04:00

I did this after THE box and my table. Apparently I was going through a checkerboard phase at the time.

I was really proud of the legs on this table. To do the harlequin pattern on them, I made a cylinder of the same size as the legs out of paper, then laid it out flat and measured out the size the diamonds needed to be. Then I cut out one "string" of diamonds, reinforced it with masking tape, and used that to trace the pattern around the legs.

Fishing Anklet

2009-05-18T08:34:00.008-04:00

My other-half is an avid fisherman so I've spent countless hours in tackle shops. It occurred to me one day, standing amidst aisle after aisle of shiny, sparkly lures in every color you could imagine, that they might make interesting jewelry. I made this anklet out of dis-assembled spinner baits and used a line swivel for the clasp.
I think it's a fun, unique piece, the sort of thing I might be able to sell. Except the lures alone cost $25, so I'd have to sell them for at least that plus labor and I doubt there's a market for $35 fishing anklets/bracelets.

Landscaping Blocks

2009-05-14T16:49:00.005-04:00

What else would you call these concrete things? I don't know, but we used them in front of our trailer in Florida. I didn't have tape, and I wasn't on psychedelic drugs, when I painted them.
Click Here to see all 16 blocks.

Yep. Really.

Thankfully, my other-half has always been very tolerant of my adventures (er, misadventures) with paint.

Rebel Yell

2009-05-14T10:55:00.004-04:00

During our Florida years, we owned a trailer in a mobile home community on a small lake. We were lucky enough to have one of the lots directly on the lake.
I had a ball painting a rebel flag on our shed door. You couldn't see it from the road, but you could see it from all around the lake. :)

Cohiba Door

2009-05-14T10:20:00.005-04:00

Some 10 years back I managed a cigar store. One of those boring jobs where the day drags on and on and on ...
One day, for lack of anything better to do, I decided to paint the door to the bathroom. Being a cigar store I of course thought "cigar band". Since Cohiba has a design that I could actually do, Cohiba it was. This was before I had any kind of internet access, and Cohibas being illegal to import, I didn't have any to look at, I was going off of a small picture in a magazine.
All those circles on a vertical surface - I couldn't manage it with a brush. And of course my trusty tape isn't any good for making circles. So I did all those circles with a white-out pen. Really.
And as it turns out, if you look closely at a Cohiba band, all those white spots on them, they're not even circles, they're squares! :(

The Ice Fishing Theme Song

2009-05-12T17:34:00.003-04:00

Huh? What is a fishing video doing on what appears to be a crafting show & tell blog? Well, it's here 'cause I made it; a rainy-day project that didn't include paint or tape.
Part of the "And Other Things" bit.
My first venture into making a video. Took a bit of head-banging, but was generally fun to do, and I'm happy to report over 2,000 views on YouTube so far. :)
If you click the big arrow button, it'll play inside the purple box. So be sure to click the little square-in-a-square icon on the bottom right instead, that'll make it play full screen.

Skinny Dresser

2009-05-09T16:43:00.005-04:00

This was a typical rainy-day project for me. I had paint. I had tape. I was bored. This was the result.
It started out as a night stand. Then it became an odds & ends holder. (Everyone, no matter how organized, needs at least one "junk drawer". I had 5.) Then it became a storage place for fishing tackle. I recently reclaimed it to use for craft storage. A little worse for the wear, but still lively.

* The inside of the drawers, I lined with wrapping paper. It's not paint.

Gabelli Map

2009-05-09T16:17:00.006-04:00

Ric and I did this in 1996 while living in Florida. I was managing a map store at the time. (Really. It really was a store that just sold maps. And globes.) Hated the job, but I did get this nice colorful Gabelli map out of it.
Ric made the frame out of molding and then we painted it together. We kept brushing on different colors and brushing them off 'til we got this muddy mix and uhm, "antiqued" look. This particular look may have been inspired by Canadian Whiskey. But I love it, and 13 years later, it still hangs on our living room wall.

River Rocks

2009-05-09T15:30:00.003-04:00

Just some flat rocks I gathered from the river and painted. My intention was to place them in a flower bed, but I don't have a flower bed so they live in a box.

Painted Lady Chair

2009-05-09T13:26:00.008-04:00

I painted this in 2000, maybe 2001, and thanks to countless coats of spray-on clear protective enamel, it's held up pretty well, just some wear on the seat.

The thingy-bobs I added as a decorative touch on top are another story. They were constantly getting knocked off and having to be glued back on. I tried SuperGlue and Krazyglue and wood glue, and even bought a hot-glue gun to try but no dice, they just didn't want to stay on. Eventually, Ric used tiny little metal pins as dowels, and more glue, to attach the white blocks to the chair for me. That has kept them firmly in place, but the purple balls still get knocked off, and the dragonflys, I gave up altogether on trying to keep them attached.,

My Accent Table

2009-05-09T12:55:00.002-04:00

This is the first thing I painted after THE Box. The checkerboard went on first, the rest of the design just happened as I went along. I really don't like the colors I used, but it is what it is.

THE Box

2009-05-09T12:00:00.009-04:00

I picked up this beat up old box at a flea market for $0.50. It had cubby-holes, I had to have it! As it was just junky scrap wood, sanding & staining it was out of the question. So I decided to paint it. I went to the craft store, stocked up on various colors of paint, and set to it. I had absolutely no plan what so ever for a design. I just started painting. I did the two rows of checkers on the top first. Then, hmmm, it needs some red, so I added the red border. And so it went, just randomly adding color sections until it was done. So, if you're wondering why it looks like a cross between a checker board and a dart board and a baseball field, that's why. It sort of painted itself with no advance planning from me.

I'm not sure what possessed me to try a stain-glassed look on the inside lid, but it was fun to do. And took lots of tape. The cubby-holes, I alternated black and color.

This was my first painting project of this sort and it's how I discovered how much I enjoy "puttering with paint". $0.50 and some new paint went a long way ...

Mom's Trinket Box

2009-05-09T11:21:00.004-04:00

Another geometric design with no particular rhyme or reason for it.

Diamond patterns are a challenge because you have to measure and math-ify first to make it work out right. But for some odd reason, I enjoy it. My highschool geometry teacher would be proud. ;)

I lined the inside with sprinkle-on felt - fun but a little messy. The big button lying inside plays "These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things".

Ginny's Dresser

2009-05-09T10:37:00.008-04:00

I don't remember how this dresser started out, but I do recall wishing I had used a primer first because the white paint wanted to peel away with the tape I used to mark off the squares.

This was my first (and so far only) attempt at painting plaid. I have no idea at this point how I did it, but I'm sure it involved lots of tape. :) Also was my first use of stencils. I don't trust stencils to keep paint from going where it's not supposed to, so I just used them as a tracing tool to draw the flowers on in pencil.

Message Board

2009-05-09T10:03:00.009-04:00

Dry-erase board with typical fake wood frame.
Boring! So I gave it a quick make-over.
Too quick as my measurements didn't work out right.
You can see that in the upper right corner. :(

I used a paint pen for the white lines.

Kokopelli Tray

2009-05-08T15:03:00.008-04:00

A friend of mine moved to Albuquerque and I thought it would be fun to make her a house warming present of some sort. I decided on painting a wooden serving tray. I found a Kokopelli character on the internet, printed it and carefully cut it out. Then I spent hours with the cutout and pencil & paper, trying to come up with some sort of design. I wanted something Southwesterny, but it had to be something I could actually paint, lol. This is what I came up with.
For a hundred and one reasons I won't go into, the tray never got finished and never got sent to Albuquerque. I think I'm going to leave it as is, with the unfinished white outsides, and hang it in my kitchen.

Decoupage Switch Plates

2009-05-08T14:30:00.014-04:00

I'd never tried decoupage before, but thought, it's got to be an extremely easy way to deal with ugly $0.29 cent plastic covers. The first one I tried doing, I used regular copier paper. Cut it into strips and glued away. Not the best paper choice. I tried again with wrapping paper. Better, but still not-so-great.
Then I decided on tissue paper. AHA! A little tough to work with as it's so delicate, but you can see through it! Meaning a striped tissue paper, applied in two layers going opposite directions, gets you plaid. Cool! Stripes over squares as in the middle plate shown here, not so cool.

Birdfeeder Birds

2009-05-06T17:08:00.011-04:00

or, "Why Mechanics Should Stick To Cars"
A friend of ours is a mechanic. He got the bright idea one night, with the help of some homemade raspberry wine, to build a bird feeder out of scrap wood he was burning. He thought it was such a fine idea, he made two, exactly alike, and gave me one. Both are monstrosities standing a good three feet tall and weighing in at least 30 pounds.
Much too big to actually use it as a bird feeder, but I thought, if I paint it, perhaps I can use it for something else. So it being a bird feeder, I of course thought "birds, it needs birds on it." But I don't paint things. I paint ON things. I couldn't draw a cat, for example, to save my life which is why I shy away from that kind of decorative painting and stick to shapes and patterns. But I wanted birds.
So I found some bird graphics on the internet, printed them, carefully cut them out, and then used the cut-outs to trace the bird shapes onto the bird feeder. Then I painted the shapes white.

Then, using the original graphics as a guide, I winged it (pun intended) filling in the shapes free hand. Being my first attempt at this sort of thing, I was pretty proud of my results even though I did forget to give some of them feet. (But I didn't paint perches for them either, so I guess they really didn't need feet.)

This mechanic-made monstrosity now lives in the basement. I think it may come in handy if we ever move next door to Big Bird.