This week's artistic creations

I've been slow about blogging, distracted by the summer.  But it has been a few creative days, and I thought I'd share my creations!

While watching the Olympics on TV, I made these two bracelets using beads from my personal stash.

I decided to replace the faded curtains in our Adirondack lakeside camp, for the first time in almost 20 years!  Last week I sewed and hung new kitchen curtains, and today we put up new bathroom curtains that I finished sewing yesterday.  The next big job is the living/dining room, but there's a LOT of windows so that might just be a project for the winter. 

 And my 10-year old step-grandson came over for the afternoon, and we made thin crust personal-size pan pizzas to order for everyone (including his mom, dad, and brother, plus my husband and me), using herbs, kale, tomatoes and green peppers from my husband's backyard garden, as well as other toppings. 

Here they are, straight out of the oven.  They were as delicious as they look!

 

Being creative isn't always doing a drawing or painting.  A pizza can be creative too!!

Pinterest Syndrome - or - Why my Nails are Black

Oh Pinterest, how you deceive me!  On Pinterest, I have a board titled 'I want to do this'.  And another that I have named 'I could  make this'.  And on my Beads and Fun Jewelry board, along with jewelry that I think is really cool, there are tutorials for some bead/jewelry projects I would like to try or have already tried.  Like this one, here, for example, pictured below.  The image from my pin is on the left, and my homemade version is on the right. 

I made the necklace on a warm summer day.  I couldn't locate any of those rectangular clasp thingies which were pretty essential for properly assembling the ends, so my strings got tangled and kinked time after time, and I lost count, and my beads fell off the string, and I got bit multiple times by those nasty little red spider critters, and many many (too many) hours later I ended up with it still not done.  It took me several more hours (no exaggeration here) and several failed attempts to come up with a solution to keep the ends lined up in order. What I invented looks more like the binding of a spiral notebook than a proper end cap to the bead strands, and if you look closely, all the little knots and glue attaching the strings are really kind of ugly.  So I never wear it, and I can't sell it. 

 Maybe you've also attempted some Pinterest project that wasn't, um, quite as easy as it looked?  Or maybe it was a project you instead found on Facebook, like making pendants by marbling nail polish on glass stone gems?  (I learned about this on the Facebook Art Teacher page.  Here's a link to the video that was posted.)  I tried it out a couple of days ago, which is why I have now painted my nails like this:

You see, by the time I was done, my nails were badly stained with multiple colors of nail polish, even after I had scrubbed and cleaned them multiple times with nail polish remover and Lava soap.  The only solution left was to paint them black.

The plus side is, of course, the ring I'm wearing, which I just made from one of the marbled glass stones.  It's also pictured at the top of the post.  Here are the other marbled glass stones that I made.

I expect to make them into more rings, or maybe some pendants, or buttons, magnets, or even perhaps some bracelets. 

In the defense of the project, I actually am quite smitten with how they look, and now that I know what to expect I think I will be trying it again, but I'll be better prepared.  I'll be wearing disposable glove, and will have my kitchen completely covered with drop cloths!  I made 25 of them, and finally got the hang of it only after I had completed the first dozen and made the mess.  Picture this: you are holding a glass stone in a pair of pliers. You dip it into a layer of nail polish floating in a dish of water.  As you pull it out, and attempt to wipe the excess nail polish from its edges, it suddenly springs from the pliers, wet, sticky, and colorful, and flies halfway across your kitchen, leaving a trail of nail polish drips on your counter, your floor, your clothes, and of course, your hands.

Some people on Facebook have asked me how I made them. To which I will respond thus: either check out this video link, or alternatively, go on Pinterest, and search 'nail polish marbling' and you'll find everything from flowerpots, to Easter eggs, to fingernails done using the same method I used.  And mugs, pictured below.  Really, seriously, mugs?!  If I made a big mess marbling tiny glass globules, imagine how much mess I could  make attempting to marble an entire mug!!!  Ummm yeah.....I'm definitely not the right person to offer a tutorial for something I clearly made a huge mess attempting to do!

 Am I the only person who consistently and repeatedly has disastrous results when attempting to do something I've found on Pinterest?  I wish I could remember them all to share.

 Have you perhaps tried to make a work of art with crayons glued on a canvas and heated with a hair dryer? (Here's a link to a photo of the 'fail'.  I admit that I have not tried this myself.) Or have you drawn on a ceramic mug with a Sharpie to bake in the oven?  Melted old CD's or vinyl records for some crafty project? (Don't you DARE melt any of my precious vinyl!!)  Mixed Elmer's glue and shaving cream to make whipped cream on an art project (it didn't work for me)?  Have you frozen water and food coloring in balloons to create colorful orbs to place  in the snow?  Dyed boring old buttons with Rit Dye?  Made wind chimes with cookie cutters?  Made a scarf with loops cut from the circumference of a T-shirt? (I did try this; they came out looking like shredded rags and went straight to the trash.  I took no pictures)  Perhaps you've attempted to create a personalized sewing mannequin with duct tape? Yes, I actually tried this one!  You can read about my misadventures building Violetta, the duct tape dummy, in this post right here! 

Sorry, but it is not a project I would recommend.

Here's something I want to try from one of my Pinterest boards - to make little pies made from a bottlecap, seed beads, and felt.  I suppose they could become magnets, or a necklace or pin?  Or a decoration for some unnecessary kitchen craft? What could possibly go wrong?

And then, of course, now that I'm thinking about pies... there are all those fabulous and gorgeous recipe ideas on my various recipe boards:  there are apple pies baked in an apple (how the heck do you weave those tiny strips of pie crust?),

or maybe grilled cheese sandwiches cooked in a waffle iron (my husband does NOT want me to try this one), or fried eggs cooked adorably inside of a perfect pepper slice (here's a link to a 'fail' photo) or in an avocado half.

 Or if I had a young kid at home, maybe I'd want to attempt to make hot dog/spaghetti squid, or frozen banana penguins!

 Have you made any of these things?  Do they ever look anything like the pictures?  I have my doubts...  Could I ever make a beverage that came out looking like this Italian cream soda or the s'mores martini??

I mean, seriously folks.  I'm drooling at how gorgeously delicious they look, but if I tried this, I'd have foaming puddles all over the kitchen counter, which I would be trying to siphon up with a straw. And then I'd be too drunk to care how they look...

FYI, I did an Internet image search for 'Pinterest fails', and found an endless supply.  Follow this link to see them.  They are a hoot!  There's even a hilarious picture of the crayon/hairdryer project, which I am unable to post here.  Or perhaps you might want to go here, to a whole blog devoted to Pinterest fails!

But I can't really blame all the failures on Pinterest.  I've had flops long before Pinterest existed. There was the time that, at a conference workshop, a presenter shared a fabulous Monet lesson.  Her students had created fences or Japanese bridges out of masking tape on fingerpaint paper, then watercolored the sky and water or grass for background, and used sponges and/or Q-tips to dab vibrant tempera colors for flowers.  When dry, the tape was peeled, leaving a white fence or bridge in a garden of flowers.  Or at least that's what happened when her students did it.  Home from the conference, I introduced Monet and  dove right in with my 3rd graders, not making a sample first, and was very excited about the project.  In a subsequent art class, when the painting was complete and dry, we peeled the tape, and one after another, it tore holes in everyone's papers.  One girl sobbed hysterically, non-stop for the rest of art class, but the others were more willing to stay calm.  I grabbed scraps of construction paper and tissue paper, and we tore, cut and glued quickie flowers over all the holes.  Lesson learned.  The pictures were beautiful but I never repeated the lesson. 

Every year in the fall, for many years, I sent my 4th graders home with paper to sit outside and draw their homes.  We then used carbon paper to transfer the drawings to watercolor paper, and painted them.  It was a great project.  One year, I decided we should do them large - 18"x24".  I ran out of carbon paper for one class, and the teacher down the hall offered up a big box of ditto masters.  (For those of you too young to remember ditto, the copies are purple and wonderfully smelly.)  Anyhow, the ditto masters worked just like carbon paper for tracing their drawings.  Then, we started to paint.  As the wet brushes hit the paper, the purple ink bloomed, and everyone's houses, turned purple, along with the grass, the sky, the sidewalk, and basically anything in the artwork.  And as a bonus, their hands also turned purple.  I'm sure this lesson would have been posted on Pinterest, with a beautiful picture, and no mention of the hazards of the lesson variation. 

Anyhow, that's enough for tonight!  I will leave you, above and below, with images from my  'Pinterest fails nail polish marbling' search.  I guess I should be thankful I didn't try marbling my own fingers and toes!!

And here's one final 'nailed it' image that I found and just had to share with you. I think perhaps I'll skip attempting this one!

Sock rug and artsy necklace

 I spent yesterday afternoon at the Adirondack Folk School, where I took a class called 'Weave a Sock Rug'.  Just three hours later, I walked out with this rug that I had made! 

 The instructors made it easy for us - the looms are pre-warped for class use.  We picked the loom we preferred.  The loom I selected was strung with a blue/black combo. 

 Down by my side in the photo above you can see bags with ropes made from the ribbed tops of colorful cotton socks.  The instructor purchases the pre-cut socks from a sock company, and then loops them together into ropes.   The regular weaving instructor is leaving to winter in Florida, so the woman on the right was there apprenticing with her, and will be taking over the weaving classes.  Both were terrific.

Below is what I saw on my loom as I was weaving. 

Another woman, using exactly the same color sock ropes as me, wove on a loom warped with white.  Our results looks so different from each other!

One woman, weaving on a loom strung with green and pale yellow, selected a limited color palette to go with her home decorated with terracotta and a southwestern decor.  This is her rug below.

Here, of course, is my (almost) finished rug.  I say 'almost' because I still have some more knot tying and trimming that I want to do to my fringe.

 Here's what the rug woven with the white warp looks like.

 And here's mine on my studio floor at home.  It really amazes me how the warp changes it.  Her white warp brought out the cool blues and greens, and my blue/black warp brought out the warm reds and jewel tones.  I'm quite happy with it!

 Here's a closer-up look a the nubby irregular weave. 
I like the randomness and irregularity. 

 By the way, I talked to the instructor about easy ways to do this without a big expensive loom, and she suggested hammering nails into an old picture frame and using them to warp the loom.  And of course you can make rag rugs out of just about anything, or cut across old t-shirts to form giant rings that you can link together into ropes as was done with the sock parts. I've always loved weaving with kids, and I think they would enjoy making something bigger using rags rather than yarn.  The possibilies are pretty open-ended, I think!

 

On the way home, with hubby out of town, I made a pit stop for some shoe shopping before a planned trip to the gym.  When I left the store at closing time, shoe bags in tow, I found a flat tire on my car.  EEK.  I knew no garage would be open, and made a panicked call for advice to hubs who was at his gate at a Washington DC airport, coming home.  He told me to just lock up the car and we'd pick it up the next day.  I thought I'd have to call a taxi, which would have been pricey since I wasn't exactly close to home, but when I ran into the shoe store as they were locking their doors (I wanted to make sure that my car wouldn't be towed), the woman I spoke to looked familiar.  Turns out that she was the mom of a girl who one of my son's friends in high school!  Small world!  She nicely offered to drive me home with my rug and my shoes.  Thank you!!!!

When I finally got home, I decided to finish a necklace that I had strung a month or so ago, and which had been sitting on the coffee table since then (much to my husband's annoyance, I'm sure; he's much neater than I am), waiting for me to put a clasp on it.  The clasp is now on, the necklace is complete, and a coordinating pair of earrings is in the works!!

A little bloggy giveaway!

 

A while back, I expressed my desire for my blog to hit the big round number of 1000 followers.  In response, my readers reminded me that Google Friend Connect is sort of passé, and that many people are now following me through Blogloving or some other reader, and that I probably have a lot more readers than I know.  And I suppose that's true, so I decided not to fret over the almost-round number.  But few days ago I discovered that, while I wasn't paying attention, my numbers had been slowly, quietly creeping up, and I actually had passed my goal of 1000 followers on Google without even noticing!  Right now have reached the grand total of 1002.

So to say thank you to my loyal followers, I'm going to have little giveaway.  If you read my blog a lot, you know that I love to make jewelry, way more than I ever, ever, ever could or would wear.  So I'm going to give away a necklace, possible a necklace/earring set, or maybe even two, and maybe a couple of pairs of earrings as well.  Don't get too excited - I'm not giving away my PMC (precious metal clay) jewelry - that stuff is ridiculously expensive to make and is all MINE.  This stuff is more colorful and fun, but does not include precious metals.  The photos on this post are a sampling of what I have.  While the only earrings pictured here are parts of sets, my collection also consists of many fun individual pairs of earrings, particularly right for someone who likes a dash of color.

Here's what you need to do if you want to take a chance on this giveaway:

• First of all, if you don't already follow this blog, become a follower.  
• Then, once you are a follower (or if you already were one in the first place) leave a comment.  In the comment you need to tell me the following:
• An email address to contact you if you win.  (Please feel free to write out the 'dot' and 'at' to avoid spam.  I'll figure it out.)
• Favorite color schemes/color families for jewelry, including metal preferences (silver, gold, copper toned, etc)
• Size and style preferences, such as big and chunky or light and delicate?  Prefer longer or shorter or any length? Ears pierced?  Funky or conservative?

• Also: If there is any piece pictured on this post that particularly suits your taste, please point it out, as it is possible that something pictured here might be what is sent, and if you win, I definitely want you to like and wear what you receive!

• Leave your comment no later than midnight one week from today, Thursday, June 5th.  A name (or maybe even  two or three) will be selected at random and the winner will be announced on the blog and also contacted via email for mailing information.  If you do not leave an email contact, you are not eligible to win.

 

 Thank you for being loyal readers of my admittedly sometimes quite random blog!  You are the best!