Category Archives: projects

The Box

06 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by in art, crafts, Inspirational, projects, woodwork

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We’re excited about life. The pieces are all there. We have plans and everything seems straight and simple.

Construction gets under way. We’re moving forward. We know exactly what we want.

And then the Carver picks up an instrument and begins the work.

We hold tight. We think I can do this. It’s ok.

But then things change and we’re not so sure.

People are brought into our lives that make us uncomfortable.

The cuts get deeper.

Color pales and we get confused.

We watch as bits of us drop away.

We look down and see what is lost. We mourn what has fallen. We don’t want to part with things we think are important.

The Carver keeps the instruments sharp. Carefully honing the blade, we hear the swish of metal on stone and we’re afraid.

We no longer recognize ourselves.

There are strange steps. Odd bits of life, ragged and raw.

The gouges are deep.

We weep over the pile of loss from the past. We focus on what is gone.

What we don’t see is how the Carver’s hands firmly and lovingly hold us.

All we see is the pile of shavings that obliterate our view.

But the Carver sees. The Carver sees a beauty on the inside that we can’t see from the outside. The Carver whittles away, bit by bit, to reveal the treasure within.

We don’t understand the Carver’s dream. But we reach a point where we must trust. Even though we don’t understand, we let the Carver work. And we begin to let go.

We begin to trust that the Carver has a greater plan. It is too big for us to understand right now. But now we think I can get through this. It’s going to be ok.

And for the first time, we’re ok with it.

♥

To be continued…

Drying ties

15 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in All Sparkled Up, crafts, Etsy, projects

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Today’s creative activity – hand washing, drying and pressing disassembled men’s ties to use in my first Etsy project for All Sparkled Up. They dried quickly but I decided to leave them hanging up all day just because I liked how they looked in the breeze. Click photos to see a larger image.

Many thanks to my dear friend Janette and daughter-in-law Holly for helping me disassemble them all last night!

Ballerina Cake Pops!

09 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by in baking, birthday, crafts, family, food, party, projects, tutorial

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Here are more photos from my granddaughter’s 4th birthday party. This is a long post with many photos. Please click on a photo to see a larger version if you wish. I made Ballerina Cake Pops for her in her favorite colors, purple and pink.

Ballerina Cake Pops

I drew little ballerinas on white plastic cut from clean buttermilk jugs. Then I carefully cut them out using embroidery scissors. The cake balls were made and chilled and then I inserted the ballerina into the cake ball. You can see the feet of the ballerinas sticking out of the bottom of several of the cake balls. It would have been easier to just make picks but I wanted my Granddaughter to have a little plastic ballerina to play with when she was done eating the cake pop, so of course they had to have legs.

Since there was a ballerina in the cake pop, I could not dip it as usual. I spread the melted white chocolate around the ball with an offset spatula. These were placed in styrofoam and then placed in the refrigerator to chill.

The prepared cake pops were allowed to come to room temperature before piping rows of sugar ruffles using a small rose tip.

All the cake pops were placed on a stage made of styrofoam around which I pinned crepe paper streamers and gilded trim.

She loved the Ballerina Cake Pops. I was so happy!

 

I made a banner of ballerinas but forgot to take a photo of them hanging at the party. Here are photos of the construction.

Honeycomb Ballerina Banner

The ballerinas were drawn in Photoshop, based on a similar project in Marie Claire Idees magazine. I had to modify the Marie Claire version since it was flat, not with a full honeycomb skirt. Here you can see the honeycomb bridal shower garland from which I cut the skirts.

The ballerinas are drying after I applied glue and glitter to the shoes, bodices and tiaras.

The ballerinas are prepared for hanging. A single thin wire will be attached through a pinhole at the top of each ballerina and strung with crystal beads.

The ballerinas are hung temporarily in my dining room as I work on the hanging wires on each one They looked lovely at the party and I’m sorry I forgot to get a photo.

I just adore my granddaughter and there is no project too tedious or complicated that I wouldn’t do for her.


Post-it-Note Pocket from three sticky notes

06 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by in art, projects

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I’m forever losing small notes and scraps that are tucked inside book covers. Today I made a super easy pocket inside my notebook cover. It takes just seconds to create the pocket using three sticky notes.





Items stay securely in the small pocket.

Just a side note, this is my notebook for a creative class I’m taking online – Your Living Canvas – taught by Art McCracken and Christy Tomlinson. Art’s introspective journal exercises add a nice layer to the creative process and Christy’s wild and colorful artwork is so much fun! When I get a piece done, I’ll share it. For now I’m just writing in my notebook.

The notebook I made to use for an e-course online – Your Living Canvas – taught by Art McCracken and Christy Tomlinson.

Art tool bucket

04 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by in art, projects

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I’m much too tired to post more than a quick one tonight. Today I made an insert to put in a bucket to hold craft tools – knives, paint brushes, etc. I used the hard cover of a book and cut two pieces, fitting them to the tin and slotting them together. Then I painted the piece and wrote scriptures about creativity on it. I love the idea that there are scriptures about creativity hidden amongst my craft tools.


Word Confetti – U R Going 2 B OK

11 Friday May 2012

Posted by in art, Inspirational, mixed media, projects, words

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I’m taking an online class, Soul Restoration 2, by Brave Girls. One of the projects is making a vision board using words cut from magazines. I snipped away at the pages until the table was littered with word confetti. As I cut, I got a panicky feeling that I might not find all the words that represented me. My magazine stock was very limited and I worried about finding enough words. The stack grew much bigger than the canvas could possibly hold but I kept snipping away, feeling as though my entire life needed to be fully represented or my perfection-driven soul wouldn’t feel complete.

I paused, scissors in hand, and looked at the pile stretched across the table. There, in a little cleared spot, was U R Going 2 B OK. Nearby were 2 others – Life Matters and Good Enough. A huge wave of relief washed over me. It was OK!
It is OK to be someone that people don’t understand. It is OK to have big ideas and not be able to put them into words. It is OK to try to do your best and still stop right in the middle to smell roses.

I have this photo as my desktop today. Please feel free to save the image for your own use.

U R Going 2 B OK. Word Confetti. Please click photo to see the larger image.

The Art of Wild Abandonment Bloghop Post :)

04 Friday May 2012

Posted by in altered books, art, crafts, painting, projects, woodwork

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Welcome and greetings if you are following the Art of Wild Abandonment Bloghop! You probably arrived here from the amazing blog of Paty Shaulis. Her artwork is exquisite!
If you didn’t start at the beginning of the bloghop, you can join in the fun by visiting http://clairesmillie.wordpress.com/ and learning all about it.

Make sure you scroll to the bottom of my blog post to get the link for the next hop on the bloghop!

I and hundreds of others recently finished the e-course, The Art of Wild Abandonment, taught by Junelle Hallstrom Jacobsen and Christy Thomlinson. The projects were crazy and colorful and we learned all sorts of new ways to get our hands messy and express our wild creativity.

In addition to learning how to draw radishes and owls and sheep, altering a purse with paint and turning a roofing brush into an art brush holder, we painted wood blocks! Here is my version of the wood block project – Bloom!

It started with a couple wood blocks my dear husband cut for me.

Supplies gathered to decorate the blocks – my sketches, paints, modeling paste, ink pad, oil paint stick, wood blocks and, not in this photo, a flower and a coffee bean.

Once I got the blocks painted, the rest followed quickly.

I decided to make a 3 tiered cake with swags of thick sweet icing around the side. The word I chose for the top was Bloom. It’s the perfect word to describe what happened to so many members of the class. We all bloomed!

A view from the top of that sugary cake.

But wait, what is this on the bottom of the blocks? Another design?

A view from the top of the blocks flipped over. But then what happened to those sweet swags of white frosting?

Is that… a sheep? 0_0

More sheep!

And a sheep on top!

It’s a whole hill of sheep! Bloom Hill, covered with sheep!

But let’s check out that cake again. The sheep are upside down. And what is that under the rose on top?

The sheep’s hooves!

To make the hoof prints, I glued a coffee bean to an eraser and used it like a rubber stamp.

Eat cake! Draw sheep! Bloom!

Have fun hopping to the next post about The Art of Wild Abandonment on the wonderful blog of Janet Terrien Bracewell. I love her art journal!

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog. :)

A huge thank you to Junelle and Christy for teaching the Art of Wild Abandonment. It was a really fun e-course!
And Thank You to Clairesmillie for coordinating this bloghop!

One last pic – my owls.

Finished a mixed media piece – Her Heart

01 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in art, Inspirational, mixed media, painting, projects

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Mixed media - No matter how far she roamed, her heart was never far from home. Click photo to see a larger image.

This canvas took weeks because I was discouraged so many times.

It started with a handful of disjointed pieces, cut and torn. Bits from a vintage vinyl wallpaper book, a scan of a page my mom colored when she was a young girl in 1941, my sister's beautiful calligraphy printed on tissue paper.


I was discouraged because I accidentally covered the canvas with too much paint, the colors of the vintage wallpaper butterflies and house seemed too bright, the woman seemed too pale. But I kept going and encouraged myself by saying “It’s not done yet” as I added brush strokes, sponged on painting, glued on butterflies. I set the project aside and looked at it as days went by and I tried to figure out what it needed. I finally rubbed in the brown oil paint stick around the border, and teared up, realizing that it was finished and I actually loved it. It says everything I want it to say.





The last thing I added was painting light in the dark door.



Paper Ballerina

23 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in crafts, projects

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She’s turning four soon. Today I made the first ballerina that will twirl from the banner for her birthday party. The directions were in the 2011 November/December issue of Marie Claire Idees magazine, my favorite craft magazine, even though I can’t read French.

Paper ballerina - made from card stock, a piece of honeycomb bell and pink glitter.

Printing on tissue paper for mixed media work

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in art, crafts, projects, tutorial

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I am making my first piece of mixed media art and wanted to use printed tissue paper in the background. I took quite a gamble using my new printer because any time you play around with something like this, it’s possible to void the warranty. Despite that risk, I did it anyway.

The design I used was from a class I took by Jeanne Oliver. She’s an amazing teacher and if you ever get a chance to take one of her classes, do it! When I get my piece done from her class I will post a photo of it.

I ironed a sheet of tissue paper to a sheet of freezer paper, with the shiny plastic side of freezer paper against the tissue paper.
The paper was loaded as usual and printed with settings for a regular sheet of paper.
The printer didn’t jam, even while printing over the wrinkles.

Tissue paper ironed to a piece of freezer paper prints beautifully with the ink jet printer.

Tissue paper is carefully peeled off the freezer paper after printing.

The same piece of freezer paper can be used three or four times. I made the mistake the first time of thoroughly ironing the tissue to the freezer paper. It was impossible to remove the tissue after printing without tearing. I had to use the iron to melt the plastic holding the tissue to the freezer wrap.

If the tissue sticks too much, the tissue side is held carefully against the hot iron edge to melt the plastic that adheres the two pieces together. Tissue and freezer paper are peeled apart.

The first tissue print was a bit lighter than I wanted. I removed most of the background color of the file and increased the contrast in photoshop.

The sheet printed with isolated text layer in photoshop printed crisp and dark.

These maps printed on tissue paper are from scans taken from a 1935 World Atlas.

My favorite of all - my sister Donna's beautiful calligraphy of Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

I’m using a Canon Pixma MX882 printer. The printed tissue paper stood up well when placed on a surface brushed with matte medium and then brushed over with more matte medium.