Mt. Rainier and Lenticular Clouds - Dec. 2008 copyright: JMM

July 19, 2015

Summertime Crafting

My muse has still not quite returned.  Everything I have on my pinboards and saved in my 'crafts to do' photo folder is so uninspiring.  I just don't feel like doing anything.  Sometimes I feel like taking out my paints to do some projects but clean up is such a pain, so I haven't.  

I did grab my alcohol inks to try them out on canvas.  Results were OK....kind of interesting, a bit abstract.  The colours all mixed in together though.  So I've learned it's not a good idea to use dark and light blue, shades of purple, pink and green on one project because they just sort of ran into each other.


This one started out with me colouring on the canvas with sharpie markers and dripping alcohol on it. But my sharpies were old and ran out of ink so the results were awful.  I had to try to cover it up with alcohol ink.  One of my friends said this looked like a subway map.

Glued a starfish and shell onto my last canvas piece and then added the puffy paint dots.  Boy did my wrist and hand hurt when I was done.  I have a feeling all 3 of these are going to the thrift shop.

I have wanted to try a glass plate garden flower for awhile.  There were some pieces in the boxes of glassware that Robin gave me which worked really well.  I used 2 plates and a candle cup, and glued them together with E6000 glue.  

I found the green metal stake at Benny's and used copious amounts of E6000, letting one layer dry and adding more and more till the stake was encased in glue against the back of the plates.  We'll see how well it does the rest of the summer.


Another thing I wanted to try was to spray a wine bottle with the frosted spray paint, paint a black tree and then add lights.  First of all, drilling a hole in a bottle is a pain.  The special drill bit I got for bottles works well, but due to the curve of the glass, the bit doesn't touch the glass on the sides, so you have to keep angling the bit side to side.  It took a long time and drained the battery just for this one bottle.  I used a black paint pen for the tree....not my best work.  

But it looks kinda cool lit up.  I gave this to Marsha.

This nautilus shell took a bit longer than I'd expected but it's done.  I ran out of one colour of floss and since the kit company went out of business, I had a hard time matching it.  There was no conversion for that particular colour.  I tried to match it with DMC but it was waaaaay off.  I guess if I don't point out the areas that aren't matched, no one will know.  But I know and it bugs me.

This was another Pinterest craft.  You just colour a plastic bottle with sharpies, cut off the bottom, then cut the bottle into a spiral strip.  The only kind I had handy were water bottles, which are ridged all the way around.  That made it a major league pain to colour.  

Then it took a few days of me tugging at the spiral to make it hang down instead of coiling back up.


The original tutorial showed a bunch of them all stacked together at the tops and then the spirals hanging down, but I could not achieve that with these smaller, lighter bottles.  I hung them separately instead.  We'll see how long the ink lasts outside.  Good project for kids, but use a smooth bottle, not one that's ridged, and also remove the label.  

Finally, here is the Hummel cross stitch that a friend of mine asked me to make for her.  All the stitching is completed and some of the back stitching.  Now I have to do the backstitch outlines, which shouldn't take too long.  Working on top of this for so long it was hard for me to really see the design but looking at this picture, it doesn't blend together as bad as I thought; so many of the floss colours were just barely a shade off from each other.


14 comments:

  1. Jojo, I like the lighted bottle with the black tree. I think the nautilus shell is well done. And of course the Hummel cross stitch piece is a pretty good piece. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you very much Nancy! :)

      Delete
  2. You seem to have been a busy bee even if you don't feel like doing something. The spirals are pretty aren't they. I used to do embroidery many years ago so enjoy yours. I like the lighted bottle too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! I'm still extremely unmotivated but I have to finish that hummel design before Mrs. Conti gets here in early August. The one thing I found out with the lighted bottle which is easy to forget, is that it's paint, not actual frosting. So I had it in the car to bring to Marsha and it got scraped up. I had to do some touch up spraying and then wrap it up to protect it from further scrapes.

      Delete
  3. Your endless inventiveness constantly amazes me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love the colored plastic bottles. I never would've thought to do that. Seems Pinterest has some clever ideas. Yours are very fun and beautiful - worthy, I'd say - of all the work you put into it. Of course I'd say that. I didn't do the work. I just get to enjoy the photos.
    Have a great week, JoJo, and I love you too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Robyn! Yes well sometimes when I'm doing the work I'm keeping up a steady flow of muttering obscenities and 'never again. Never a-goddamn-gain'. lol

      Delete
  5. Hey JoJo,

    Seriously, I'm totally in awe of your artistic talents and ingenuity. To think you can do this along with your alcoholic drinks, um, inks :)

    Thanks for the visual delight, JoJo.

    Gary

    ReplyDelete
  6. JoJo, it looks like you've been very productive with your arts and crafts. The glass plate garden stakes are adorable - looks like a crystal daffodil. :)
    The Hummel cross stitch is truly lovely and once you've completed the backstitching on it, it will really pop. My favorite part of cross stitch is doing the backstitching as it creates definition and completes the overall look of the piece.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Anna! I always get to the back stitching stage and don't feel like doing it but afterwards I'm glad that I did it b/c it does make the design look so great.

      Delete
  7. I love them all but especially the bottle and your tree is so artistic.

    ReplyDelete