Sunday, January 29, 2017

Art On A Sunday New Weekly Sharing Event

Good morning everyone,  
     When I first learned about blogging when I retired back in 2003 I discovered Yahoo 360 and loved it, when that was no more my circle of friends found Multiply, when that platform was no more we all scattered to different places online and blogging has not been the same for me since. Mostly because my circle of friends found Facebook and never looked back to blogging.
   I find blogging more personal and is my life happenings shared in a journal form over on my main blog.
   I have been at Blogger for many years but the platform is not as easy to communicate with friends as it was on those other two sites. However, for what is available I find this site works the best for me.
   Back then we had lots of "day events" with large numbers of participation-Chicken Tuesdays, Herb Thursdays, Food Fridays, and Art Sundays to name my favorites. One of my most favorites was Art Sundays.

   For Art Sundays we all shared a post about art, or an artist. Or shared our own art. I learned allot from visiting the many posts and was a nice Sunday morning for me.


I would like to start that event up again-but will name it Art On A Sunday as this is a new day and a new year.

To participate just write a post on your blog and title it Art On A Sunday.  The post can feature any artist, or craftsman, or your own art. A biography of the artist with photos is always informative. Just a note it is helpful to also provide links to where the information was sourced from.

     I never could get those linky platforms to work without paying a fee so to share your blog post please in comments on my Art On A Sunday post please include the url to your blog post for that Sunday-NOT your blog url. I will then add it to the body of my post.


I  will start up the event next week Sunday February 5, 2017  Hope to see you there.
   

Friday, January 27, 2017

Today Was For Paper Making-Photos and Updated to Show Papers Dry

   I decided today was the day for paper making. Not too difficult to dig out all my supplies and get set up. We were in the 20s most of today so didn't want to haul water from the rock setting project outdoors several times during these cold temps. So perfect day for it-and we even had sunshine.

   This batch I really wanted color, so I added lots of tissue paper to the pulp mixture this time-more than I usually do and I think it will pay off. For the rest of the pulp I save magazines like Mary Janes Farm that have lots of color pages and is printed with recycled paper. Also today paying attention to color, along with the blue tissue paper I also looked for recycled papers that had lots of blues in them, otherwise the papers are more greyish do to all the black print. 
   So I am happy with my papers. I got 13 pieces today and only had to redo one of them.  I will know the color more once dry. These also have dry botanicals that I collect in the fall, gold threads, glitters, lavender buds, marigold seeds, and I add on top of the paper those dried dyed flowers, and also this time I added a couple paper cut outs-I figure if those don't stay in after the paper dries I will still have the impression-especially that deer.
    I also wanted to mention that when I make a paper and get it set up with those thick blotting papers (see below) I use a super big and heavy dictionary to weight it down while I make the next piece of paper.
    Many instructions say to iron them til dry-I don't want to do that. Sometimes the papers come out needing to be weighted down a bit after dry-which I will do-but these are handmade "art" papers-just enjoy the process.

as always the photos will enlarge-just click on them, since there are so many I left them smaller. I use the dip in method with simple tools from Grummer  the link will take you to what I bought.  used to use old towels to soak up the water but I bought their thick papers for this, for the size of paper I am making and love them better-can be used over and over just dry them out. here  
   Making paper from recyled papers is really fun to do and makes nice paper to make cards with-they are the perfect size when folded in half-and you can purchase envelopes for them at Wal Mart-or make them which I have not attempted as of yet.   

I like to use allot of botanicals in my papers and I also like textures-so I don't blend my pulp down all the way-so some of the tissue papers especially shows up in the paper, and sometimes words will show up too. I like seed catalogs for the words.

















Update January 30th
     The papers are now dry, and have been under a heavy book for a couple days to flatten them out more. Very pleased that they held the colors-each piece is different. I will be making these into cards and mailing them out 



Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Busy Busy-at Least my Creative Thinking Process Is and Civil War Hexagons

   I am kinda all over the place again this week-I tend to do that lol

  Last couple days I have been spending 4 hours each day putting up rocks in my bathroom wall which is going pretty well so far.

   I have my basket of civil war hexagons and fabrics, silk threads etc near the couch. Tonight I had a good night sewing up one of the rosettes. The aid of a strong clip to hold the area I am sewing is a great help. So I dug out my other basket that has the rest of the fabrics and the pattern my friend helped me plan out and I thought through that again. I found the fabrics on hand for the focal point middle blocks and will cut those out next after I sew up the next three rosettes that are ready to assemble.
    I need 50 rosettes for the quilt and then the two background colors-so will focus on the 50 rosettes first.
   I really have been wanting to make this so am just going to have the baskets in front of me and work on it. 
   Also have my weaving project to set up and weave-so if I can concentrate now on these three projects I hope to get these accomplished.
   Of course I am also anxious to spend a day making handmade papers so I can play with my new stamp and sealing was and work up several spring cards. lol
    This should all keep me busy and focused til the next creative thing pops in my head-like that other quilt I want to make.
Photos soon on my fabrics.

Friday, January 20, 2017

Feels Smells Like Spring

   After our ice storm here in the ozarks we jumped right into spring like weather. No sunshine for over a week, but we have temps in the 50s and 60s, lots of fog, birds singing, grass and weeds greening up-amazing for January I will take it over wintry weather for sure.

   Nothing too creative going on here this month. Been reading allot, and going through a big box of tax receipts. I think I have that all finished now.

   I will be getting back to the threading of my loom soon as I had taken a break with that, and I have started back on those hexagons with the civil war reproduction fabrics.
      I was talking crafts with a friend and she suggested I try using a clip to hold my pieces together while hand sewing them-to ease the pain in my left thumb area. This did improve the process quite a bit. My goal now is to see if I can sew all the flower blocks together that use the different prints and then decide what to make with them. I don't think I am up to cutting up and hand sewing several yards of background fabric into hexagons at this point in time. This is a project I wish I had started about ten years ago.
    
   These spring temperatures have reminded me I need to decide what seeds I need for my little garden and get them ordered. I loved the pole beans I planted last year. They produced all year up til the hard freeze.  I did collect lots of seed heads from the zinnia patch. I want to expand that area as it brought in so many beautiful butterflies and the hummingbirds loved it too. When I was collecting seeds I found a little hummingbird nest on top of the arch-cool

Hope this finds you all happy and well-what creative projects are you doing now??

Monday, January 9, 2017

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Happy New Year-my reflections



Stopping in to wish everyone an awesome 2017

    As I approach 70 in just a couple more years-wow that is scary sounding lol-I am valuing each day more. I have always strived to accomplish something each day-but this year I will seriously continue to do that.
     More weaving, spinning, at least one quilt this coming year, a little gardening, reading-no longer feeling guilty about spending time for that-and just really take the time to take in and enjoy my surroundings that I too often take for granted-living here in the woods. Our deer visitors are back now that look for the corn I put out for them-we are up to a group of 5 to 7 now instead of just the mom and her twins of a year ago.
   I don't make promises in the beginning of the year to do things but I am seriously working on losing my extra weight this coming year which I am beginning to realize for most of us as we age just occurs but I will continue to fight that.
    I am up for jury duty from February through early May which already has me stressed out already with the chance of winter driving but hopefully that will go smooth and could turn into a new adventure.
    I will work more on tolerance and compassion for people that don't share my beliefs;for our country especially. wow this past election has really changed many people or perhaps just brought to the surface their very nasty side-we all have one for sure. I got dumped by a friend from yahoo 360 and multiply days-shocked I contacted her and asked why and she told me it was political--that is such a sad way to view life in my opinion. So instead of staying upset and taken aback-I am changing my views to try to understand as this is happening all over our nation between many.
   I have seen many elections come and go and I don't remember a time like this-such drastic view differences-mostly coming down to being independent and freedom from government interference or wanting the government to provide for you. My husband had a discussion with a 20 something person and was shocked with her views of wanting and expecting the government to take care of everything for her-free health free education and the list went on--wow she has no idea what that really means. anyways sorry I didn't mean to get into politics here at all but I think it is on all of our minds

   Happy New Year to all of you. Do you have any creative projects in mind for this new year??

  and since you are all special to me-please take 10% off any item in my etsy shop by using the coupon code special I have fabrics, weaving patterns, and my handwoven shrug