Happy Weekend

It is Saturday.  For most people that is the start of their weekend.  They will sleep in this morning, wake when they cats walk over them or their dogs ask to be let out.  Or maybe their children will turn on the TV in the other room and the volume will wake you up.  You'll have your morning coffee, think about what tasks you have mentally scheduled for the two days, and get dressed.  The chores of the weekend may include planting your garden, mowing your lawn, volunteering at a charity or soup kitchen, going to a concert, going on a bicycle ride...what about art?  Does art or craft play a part in your weekend plans?  Are you going to paint?  Do a mosaic?  Melt some glass?  Throw a pot?  Compose some music?  What are you planning to do that will help your creative side?  Here's an idea for you - build craft or art into your weekend plans.  Make sure that you indulge yourself by allowing your creative side to have some expression; not just throwing basketball with the kids, but thinking about those arcs that the ball makes and putting them onto your paper or computer screen later.  Set your kids down to practice their music and sit down with your own instrument, keyboard, or voice and work on a new composision.  Open the tempra paints for the kids and take the last easel for yourself - see who can express their views of summer better or in a specific time frame.  Then get the sprinkler out and run through the sprinkler - it will help get any paint overindulgence washed off.  Play this weekend. 

I'll be working today, but I'm already looking forward to my pasta for dinner and a relaxed evening and Sunday.  I haven't put the resist down on my silk yet because I've been too tired after a day at the shop to sit down.  I hope to get that done on Sunday.  Then I could paint the center tree on Sunday, set the paint on Monday and wash the resist out of the silk.  Then I could put the new resist onto the fabric on Tuesday and do the next painting on Wednesday.  It will be pushing things to stick to that schedule, but it would get me a bit closer to schedule.  So we'll see if I can get Step 1 done tomorrow.  Have a creative weekend. 

Sharon's Gift - Part 1

Sharon got a multi-part gift which I will describe in two posts. Today I'll cover that darned presentation box that took so long to get together - LOL.

The actual box was a cigar box that I sanded down to get any decals or other things off. I then primed it with white spray paint and sat down with my colored tissue paper to begin covering the box. Using a decoupage medium and colored tissue paper, I started glueing on pieces and strips of paper, building up multitudes of coats. There are (of course) things that I would change if/when I do a project like this again, but I was actually fairly happy with the results. The worst part was waiting for each coat to dry so that they next coat could be applied. It's akin to watching paint dry - really boring :-)

The front of the box featured a geometric design of stripes and circles and had a final embellishment of metal conchos accented with flat-back Swarovski crystals. The back of the box had a signature panel stating "Mellon nin" along with my signature, sigil, and the date. "Mellon nin" means "friend of mine" in Sindarin (yes - that's Elvish cropping up again).

The final thing was lining the box. The skills and some of the tools that I had used on Chickie's Bar-B-Que book were used here to put in the crushed velvet lining and making absolutely sure that the corners were properly fitted. There were no rough edges - I actually folded each edge to make sure that the box had a finished look. Tomorrow I'll show more clearly the jewelry that I made to go into the presentation box.

Modge Podge and Snowflakes

Isn't this a wonderful picture of the Winter Solstice at Stonehenge? My BFF Sharon and I traveled there in the late 1980's. Although I didn't feel a great connection with Stonehenge (prefering Avebury), there is still something really special about the ley lines at Stonehenge, and this picture was a beautiful reminder of the seasonal crux coming up in a few days.

So I'm busy trying to finish up holiday gifts. I suspect that I'm far from alone in that hectic and time-deliniated path. Although I celebrate Solstice, I know many of my friends who celebrate Christmas which allows me an extra four days - pathetic, aren't I? LOL. I wanted to make some blue and white snowflakes for my sister-in-law. I'm having issues with them, however. The beads I chose are really beautiful, but they don't fill the snowflake arms sufficiently, leaving too much play. I'll have to add something else to the bead mix to make them work. I had hoped to have these complete already, and it's back to the design/drawing board again (sigh).

And then there's my DH's gift. That's actually working out well, although I still have a lot of work to do on it. Even though I wanted to hand-paint the central character's image in enamel paints, I didn't feel as if I had enough skill with the media to make it look the way that I wanted. So, after making the copper disks look really wonderful with multiple firings, I cheated. I used my computer to make a high-resolution image and then printed it out onto paper. I then carefully cut them out and glued them onto the disks. Then I started applying Modge Podge in thin coats, wet sanding after every few to smooth out the surface. The decoupage is starting to work really well, and I'm VERY happy with this result, even though it wasn't quite the original image. And isn't that what makes art unique? The ability to roll with the punches and change on the fly to complete the project that you visualize is key to artistic success. So the changes in the disks and in the snowflakes will end up enhancing each project even though they are slight deviations from the original artistic vision.