Adventures in Burlap

I am a fan of all things retro, modern and industrial.  I know, weird.  Over Christmas we happened to stop in at one of the local coffee places while my son and his girlfriend were in town.  I asked the workers what they did with the empty burlap coffee bean bags and the guy in charge said, "We give them away."  I came home with three.  (Was there any doubt?)

They have been in the Bat Cave since then.  I kept looking at them, but they just sat there looking like lumps.  They are very cool, though.

Fast forward to Spring.  I needed a new purse, but I wanted to make one out of the coffee bean sacks. They kept lumping at me, not saying a word.

To make a long story short, after several weeks of fruitless Pinning and hemming (pun intended) and hawing, I decided to buckle down and get at it.

So, I went to the store and bought an 'easy' pattern.  I quickly discovered it wasn't going to work with the burlap.  No way.

So, I did what I should have done from the get go.  I used the saviour of all do it your selfers: YouTube.

I watched a couple of videos and decided I could just do my own thing.  I know.  Kind of scary.

I made a pattern out of the brown packing paper that I hoard.  I even used a measuring device.  I ironed my burlap and my lining fabric.  I traced the pattern onto these pieces with a blue Sharpie (very professional that Sharpie).  I cut everything out and then I went to work.

I broke about 6 needles sewing this damn thing.  I eschewed measuring anything after the initial pattern making.  You can't make me.  I made about 5 million trips to the basement to iron seams and stuff like that.

I also learned a lot.  The main thing being that burlap is a bitch to sew when you are using fusible felt for a bit of structure.  It's also hard to sew a strap made out of burlap, fusible felt and lining onto a purse made out of burlap, fusible felt and lining.  If I wasn't so lazy, I would have run up to the store and purchased some sort of strap-like material.  I might have saved a needle or two.

Anyway, the damn thing is done.  I would make another, but I doubt if I would use that felt stuff.  It is hard to sew with the burlap.  Maybe just the burlap and some canvas cloth for the lining.  Also, I would definitely purchase some strap material.  Or maybe a heavy duty machine that handles such things.

This thing isn't perfect by any means and the lining doesn't really fit.  But I'm using it.  All. Summer.

Dammit!  Besides, it's really cute!  And that, folks, is all that really matters.

PS:  I did put all my pursey things in it and they stay; as in - the thing doesn't turn inside out because of the weight.  I may need to sew on a pocket of some sort so that I don't continually have to dig for my keys and phone.  Then again, maybe not.  Glue is looking mighty tempting and I do have some E6000...

Brown Bagging It

I needed to send thank you notes out about three weeks ago.  I wanted to make them and kept getting bogged down with other little chores.

Today, I finally had a chance to make them up.  Now, I just need to write and send!

I stole the splatter idea off of Pinterest.  Then the rest is my own.  I decided to use what I had at home.  My guess would be that all of you have these items:

• paintbrush
• water
• watercolors (kids pan type will do)
• water color paper
• cardstock
• brown paper bag
• some sort of left over twine, ribbon, trim
• stapler
• ink
• paper trimmer

That's all it took to make these.  I promise.

First, just cut your piece of watercolor paper to the size you prefer for your card.  I chose 5 1/2 " wide by 8 1/2 " tall.  Then get your favorite water colors really wet and gently tap the brush against your finger over the watercolor paper.  Let it dry.  I think I used about five colors.

Copy the original onto cardstock.  I was able to get two cards out of an 8 1/2 x 11 " piece.  Cut each piece to the size you picked.  Fold in half (I have a folder thingy and used it).

Tear pieces of a paper bag and stamp Thank You on the pieces.  Edge these with ink of your choice.

Splatter paint onto the Thank You bits and let dry.

Fit the Thank You bits onto pieces of twine, trim or ribbon.  I actually just untied this piece from a gift today.  I save all that stuff.  You just never know.  Attach the trim to the Thank You bits using a stapler.  I used a Tiny Attacher.

Staple these onto each card.  Finish off the front of the card by edging it with ink.

That's it.  Now it's up to you to write the note on the inside.  Or up to me, I guess. Now repeat after me: Splatter is Good!

Picture Perfect

I love to take pictures.  However, just because I love to take them doesn't mean I am any good at it. In fact, I'm not very good at all.

I attended a Landscape Photography workshop a couple of weeks ago at a preserve in the middle of our fair state. Four of us packed up our cameras and equipment, clothes and enough food to feed an army and off we went.

We stopped for lunch and shoes (duh) on the way and after a good night's sleep we arrived at our workshop location.  I pretty much knew that I was in trouble immediately.  I did okay with the basics of working the camera, but then they started talking about filters and my eyes crossed.  I kind of panicked.

After a few hours in class we were all getting restless and they set us free.  We were supposed to take pictures.  So I did.  Not very well, I'm afraid.

We were given a great location to shoot some sunset pictures and we all had a lot of fun running around in the cornfield trying to get some shots.  My car was in most of them.  I offered to move it several times.  Honestly, I did .  We had some laughs with the selfie stick and finally managed to get all of us in one shot.  Sort of.

I am not sure that Landscape work is my forte.  I'm not at all sure that photography is anywhere near my forte. I learned so much that I thought my head would explode.  I had fun with my friends.

I have chosen the best ones to share.  Enjoy.

I shot this one of Pluto before I left for the workshop.  I was practicing with my tripod that I never use.  I did learn that I like using a tripod and that I have a pretty crappy one and I need to get a better one.

This wasp was our friend for lunch.  I didn't have much else to do, so I shot a bunch of him.  I think I like the close up stuff better than the landscape stuff.

I actually like his shadow the best.

We fed him.

I took this while we were eating lunch.  Not much was growing yet.  I thought this branch with it's curled up dead leaves was cool.

There were lots of birds around while we were eating.  I think I took this with my long lens.

We happened to be at our location right before things really started blooming so I got a couple of cool buds.

I love the bright green here.

Sunrise on our last day of shooting.  After this we went for breakfast at the casino.  Yum.

My sunset picture.  I like it.

Working Minimally

No, I am not describing my life (although I work the minimum number of hours that I possibly can), but a page that I did for my Inspiration Wednesdays class.

I am not one to normally leave much 'white space' when I create a project.  Not my thing.  In fact, it is almost physically impossible for me to leave white space.  It's why I have trouble making watercolor work for me.

So, that being said, this was difficult in that there was a lot of color that I had to wipe off of the pages.  Kind of goes against my grain.

However, I do like the look.  Oh, and some of it needed a touch of white paint here and there.  I may not be good at 'white space' but I am good at white paint!

The flower in the upper left is stamped on the
inclusion page and the main page.  

Ha, you can see the random spots of white paint that I used
to brighten the page a bit.

I mean really, was there any other choice here?

The Elephant in the Room

Darn those elephants.

Elephants are my thing right now.  I have always loved them.  They fascinated me as a kid.  And the elephant show at the St. Louis Zoo was one of my favorites.  I had to see it every time I went. I would say that they are kind of my spirit animal right now.

For Inspiration Wednesday, Week 3, we learned some new techniques and used some products I had never tried before.  My favorite was the drywall joint tape.  Such cool texture.  I own a roll.  It's in my stash.

There is some underpainting on these pages. That is topped by some Golden Fluid Acrylic Titan Buff mixed with gesso.  Add some black paint, some cool sprayed stencils, some scribbles, stamping and there you go.  I thought that I was finished.  This is where our instructor stopped.

You see, I have a problem.  I keep forgetting to stop at the appropriate time. I really, really promised myself that I would stop where Donna did and then if I wanted to go off in my own direction I would do it on another page.  I tried to stop. I planned on stopping.  Honestly.

But, then the elephants were calling.  They are sitting all around me at my art table.  I have them out all of the time.  The big guy just kept peeking at me from the pile.

That grid looking stuff that you see is the joint tape.  Love!

I gave up.  Then I had fun.  Blue elephants. Actually, they were supposed to be teal, but, I grabbed the wrong paint.  Oh well.  I still like them.

Maybe I can finish the laundry now that the elephants are satisfied.  Wait.  They are still in the room somewhere...

The numbers are upside down.  That would be because
I held the stamp the wrong way.  Geez.

All About that Stash

A year ago, my daughters gave me a gift certificate to our local art museum.  I used it to take an art class.  I have since taken a couple more classes. The latest were two basic drawing classes.  I loved learning to draw.  I am not a natural, so it was a lot of work.

Yup.  I did these.

Of course, I could get better if I would practice more.  Oh well.  I am an impatient artist and I get frustrated when what I see won't come out on the paper.  Again, maybe practice would help.

Regardless of whether or not I can draw well, I still consider myself an artist.  I will still try to draw. I will still create and paint and get messy. I will still buy art supplies.

Because, that's really what it's all about, isn't it?  The stash.

Inspiration Wednesday Week 2!

That Brown Holes Ready tag on my side bar there?  That's the link to the fabulous class that I am taking with Donna Downey called Inspiration Wednesday.  She releases a new video every other (wait for it...) Wednesday.  I am caught up.  Of course, it is only Week 2, but I am caught up.  For the first time in a class.  Ever.

Modeling paste for extra texture.

This one was tons of fun.  It was collage oriented.  I had no idea where I was going with it at first.  I just followed the video lead so to speak.  I have some really great packaging material that I have been wanting to use in my art and boy was I able to capitalize on that.

Lots of goopy layers on this one.  That equals a lot of drying time which is part of the reason it can take a while to finish.

I took this picture of Alaska Girl at O'Hare the year she
spent a semester in England.

The pics are a few years old. I just printed those out on paper. I was looking for a quote and it struck me that the Latin was perfect.  I have trouble believing my kids are so old.  Heavy sigh.

It is snowing here.  A lot.  We have at least 10 inches and it will probably finish at 12" or so.  I want to go out and take pictures because it is a heavy, wet mess.  Oh wait, the wind is blowing.

Maybe I will stay inside.  Let me check with my injured body parts.  Nope.  They say no way.
Maybe tomorrow.

I inked wings around all of the kids.  Here Swim Girl opens
a Christmas gift a few years ago.

Yummy.  Texture.  I love cool packaging.

I Am an Artist

Gulp.  It really is frightening to say those words.  I don't always feel that I really am an artist.  I cannot draw what I see.  I don't understand shadow and light.  I screw up all the time.

But I create.  And anyone who creates is an Artist.  Do you sew?  Do you quilt?  Do you make cards? Decorate?  Then you, my friend, whether you want to believe it or not, are an artist.

It doesn't matter if you sell your Art.  If it gives you and others pleasures, well, who would deny that there is an Art to that?

As part of the Inspiration Wednesdays class that I am taking, we have been experimenting with different mediums.  A couple that I have never used before, to be specific; super heavy gesso and acrylic glaze.

May I just say that I am obsessed?  With both.  I foresee lots of use of those two products in my future.

The super heavy gesso goes on like butter and looks like plaster. Yum.  The glaze thins out the paint without thinning out the color.  Double yum.

Enjoy.  Oh, and the elephant thing is my deal this year.  Kind of my spirit animal for the time being, if you will.  I know. That's pretty heavy.

(Please forgive the photos.  It's dark here and the Bat Cave is rather unforgiving.)

I Did It!

The finished journal.  I happen to love the skull covered button that I made myself.
I had all of the fabric leftover from other projects.  Use the stash!

I do not sew often.  In fact, I have been known to pile up little sewing projects and toss them because they get too dusty or out of style.  So, my inner monster was thrilled when I decided to take on a little sewing project.  I could hear her dancing around in the back of my lizard brain.

However, she didn't know that we had 2 cold days this week. So, despite my inner monster in my lizard brain, I finished the project!  Ha.  Take that!

One of the signatures with an inclusion from my stash.

I am enrolled (shut up) in a class called 'Inspiration Wednesdays' through Donna Downey.  (I have a button that I will put up after I remember how to do that.)
  A new class/technique is delivered online every other Wednesday during 2015.  We are supposed to put everything in an Inspiration Journal. Because the journals would be sold out of her shop immediately, I decided to try my hand at making my own.  I mean, I own a sewing machine that I use at least once a year. I have fabric.  I have thread and bobbins and needles.

Unfortunately, I didn't have several of the supplies needed so I trudged to the store(s) and picked them up.  Have any of you ever heard of an Anywhere Hole Punch?  Me neither.  I had trouble finding a grommet tool also.

I will not be giving any instructions on how to make the journal since Donna sells the video in her shop ($5 if you are interested).  Suffice it to say that despite a few glitches, I got er done!  I even added 2 signatures so that I can put in all sorts of messy goodness.

Enjoy!


PS:  I added the Inspiration Wednesdays button for any of you who may be interested in an Art Journaling adventure!

I have all sorts of doilies and decided to use this hideous
gold one.  It will get all painted, I'm sure!

Be It Resolved

A resolution.  That's a scary thing.  I don't like making them.

I had been, however, wanting to start blogging more consistently (duh) and I want to use my huge stash of supplies and tools in the Bat Cave.

So, I am going to attempt to create more.  Hopefully this will happen weekly.  I may need to delete all the games off of my iPad to do it, but by golly, it needs to get done.  If I don't use up some of this stuff, I will have to annex another room in the house.  Say, that's not a bad idea...

To start the New Year off right, I have completed a little project that was totally practical.  I received several gifts from students and I needed some Thank You cards.  What better project to help me use up my stash?

I want to stop here and say that I am going to be giving written instructions right now.  That is because while I know how to use the video cameras that I have, I can't figure out how to get them up above my head to film down on the process.  I probably need some super special little thingy ma bob that I can get for a few bucks.  I don't have that.  I also am not sure what you have to do to post them to your blog.  Hopefully, I will progress to film as I know you all would like that better.

1.  I started with a sketch of what I wanted to do.  I know, I know.  But, in this case it was super helpful.

2.  Next, I slopped some gesso on a piece of plain white cardstock (maybe they call it index?) that you can buy at any office supply store.

3.  After the gesso was dry I cut the cardstock into two 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" pieces.  This is the size of the card I will make.  I also will have an extra if I screw one up.

4.  I then sketched the design onto the card.  I did it portrait style at first, but then felt that a landscape card would fit the design better.  I love my eraser.  Note: you could just copy the sketch onto your gessoed paper if you can get it to run through your copier.  I didn't try it since I need all of the drawing practice that I can get.

5.  I then used my Caran d'Ache Neo Colors to color in the design.  These are very cool watercolor crayons.  I use them all of the time, but I haven't touched them in a while.

6.  After I colored in my design, I chose a watercolor paint brush, wet it and then went to town.  Note that the words aren't on there.  I can't tell you how many times I have finished something and then screwed up the lettering.

7.  I wasn't going to, but I wound up cutting the watercolor off of the rest of the card.  It made it easier for copying.  Yup.  I am crazy, but even I don't want to watercolor 12 thank you notes from scratch.  I had to play with my copier a bit, but I was finally able to copy directly onto the white cardstock so that I could get two cards per sheet.  Each copier is different so you will have to experiment with yours.

8.  Because I am not any good at folding things nicely, I have a little tool called a Scor-It-All.  It helps me make a really nice straight fold.  You do have to know how to divide by 2, which on some days...

All copied and folded.

9.  Still no lettering.  This time I thought that I would get smart and practice a bit.

10.  Now I just need to write the words on each card.  You are probably thinking that I should have written on one of the cards and then copied that.  It would be easier, but I wanted copies from the original, not from a copy of the original.  Got it?  Oh, I used my Faber Castell Pitt pens for this part. I think it was the next to thickest one (medium?).

11.  Ta da!  Finished cards.  I made a few extras so that I have some to grab when I need them.  I will keep the original and make up more as needed.  Just think, if you give me something, you will get an original piece of art, albeit a copy.  

So, there is the process in a nutshell.  Or two.  It wasn't hard to do and I used some of my favorite tools.

My next project is gessoed.  I just have to find time to work on it.  I will give you a hint:  wood and doodles.

Have a Happy and Wonderful New Year.  Time to eat!  Oh, and write 12 Thank Yous.