Archive for the ‘Week 32’ Category
INSULATING- YET DECORATIVE!- FIREPLACE SCREEN
It’s that time of year again, when the winter chill begins to creep into every available space in our house, so this week’s submission is a counter-attack measure. In the hopes that it will keep the chilly-willies from sneaking down our chimney (though I hope Santa will be able to circumnavigate it somehow) I have created a decorative but functional fireplace screen.
Fellow Geek (and also my hubby!) Michael Piper is responsible for the lovely framing; you could say this piece is a Geek collaboration, because I certainly wouldn’t have known what I was doing without him.
First I painted the screen with a Shaker tree design, which I created to coordinate with a clock I already have. I used sponge cutouts and acrylic paints. Here are a couple of pictures of the painted screen with the aforementioned clock:
Next, Mike assisted me with the frame. We are still deciding how best to keep the thing upright– hence the basket of hats, mittens and scarves holding up one side, and a big rock holding up the other!– and Mike might add some rigid insulation on the back side for added protection from the cold, but other than that, I think our work here is done.
Handmade stained glass picture frame:
amber glass, clear glass and carmel glass
Rat Kiley Carried Comic Books
Fan Fiction for Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried
Rat Kiley was drafted, and his plans to go to Canada fell apart when he realized he had no money and no people there.
He was young. Barely 18. He’d just registered with selective service, days it seemed, before his number was drawn.
His mother, single, didn’t have the money to send him to college, and so Rat left his mother, alone and pretending to wash dishes, for basic with his comic books – the one’s she’d buy him each week out of extra money she’d squeezed from her paycheck working at the dress shop. She didn’t have much left over, Rat imagined, but she always got at least one new comic on her way home on Fridays, before she bought herself nail polish or a trip to the hair dresser.
Rat loved the brown afternoons a flat paper bag littered the kitchen table.
For years I had a subscription to a great magazine called ReadyMade. It featured tons of ideas for repurposing even the most mundane household items and creating new items that are fun, funky, and functional.
One of the most interesting ideas I saw was a guy who had taken about 250 vinyl records and used them to shingle the roof of his garden shed. More than two years after he had completed the project, he happily reported he had yet to have a leak or a break.
Alas, ReadyMade is no more. The publishing company decided to shutter their doors this spring; the last issue being the June/July 2011 cover date. Most, if not all, issues are available on eBay. I highly recommend it as a source book for inspiration should you be able to put your mitts on a copy.
It seems I always have to tell a story in order to tell a story. Because of my love of all the ideas I found in ReadyMade, I have been inspired to repurpose a lot of discarded items I’ve stumbled upon in my travels. Case in point would be my weathervane/vinyl bird feeder I made a few months back, and the windchime I made from old silverware over the summer.
This week’s project is a bit more straightforward…
I LOVE kitchen accessories from the 1930s-1970s. Fiestaware, Depression glass, Pyrex, Fire King, Russel Wright pottery – so beautiful and functional. 🙂 One of my obsessions in the kitchen are metal bread boxes. There aren’t a lot of modern kitchens I’ve seen that still have a bread box, let alone a sleek aluminum or steel model. It very well could be a mark of a bygone era. Perhaps that’s why I’ve seen so many at thrift shops over the years.
I found a great white one at the Salvation Army for only $5.00. No rust or chips in the paint, and no dents. The only thing missing was a handle.
I found some high gloss marine-grade oil-based enamel paint (imported from Holland. Who knew that was such a high-demand item it needed to be imported?) at a thrift shop for just $3.00 in a lovely shade of burnt orange that coordinates with a lot of stuff I already have.
After taping off the chrome edges, I painted the bread box, and cut a sheet of self-adhesive cork to fit the bottom of the box. The paint took three days to dry completely – pretty intense stuff, but you could crack a walnut on the finish.
So what did I do with the bread box, you ask? Well, even though I did paint it in a color that would look at home on my orange marbled Formica kitchen countertop, holding a loaf or two of Wonder Bread…
I decided to use it as a desk organizer. My current desk does not have a drawer large enough to accommodate my stapler, tape dispenser, scissors, and all of the clutter and whatnots that I hate to have laying about on my desk.
It’s kind of hard to see way in the back, there, but I’ve also upcycled an old spice container with an interesting design into a business card holder, and in front of that are the lids to a pair of old tin sugar and flour shakers. I simply inverted the tops and use them to hold paper clips. The shakers themselves hold my pens, pencils, and Sharpies on my desk. The sunshine yellow color is a nice compliment. 🙂
I also painted my floor lamp to match with the same paint, and covered the shade with some fabric from my first blanket (technically a sleeping bag – two of them, that zipped together) that Mom won as a Tupperware distributor in the summer of 1977 when she was still pregnant with me.
The only thing I need to complete this project is a handle for the bread box. I’m looking for a simple chrome handle that would have been there when it was manufactured. If I see the right handle on another box, no matter how beat-up the box is, I’ll buy it. Until then, it’s not quite finished, but it serves its purpose, and I love it.
I am King Jupiter; Hear Me Roar
Early Winter Storm 1 2011
Close up
The end of October came with some snow, some places got a few inches and others a couple of feet! We ended up with 13″ but most of it was gone by Halloween. The good news is, the snow made for some interesting shots as the contrast from the late changing Autumn leaves looked quite brilliant against the pure White snow.
Anyway, goodbye Autumn, make way for Winter!
Accident(?) in the garden
so this weeks writing peice is just inspired by too much honey, rain, and emotion in a weekend – no, there is no such thing as too much honey, rain, or emotion – but! This great blend if you will folded together in the vaporry essence of my heart and combusted into an infusion of poetic words written from the perspective of an artist to her daughter – and how she might feel after her great quest of creation, to be in this role, at that very moment – an honoring of the great gift
and yes, perhaps even a little bit of what one could call – wishful thinking
– Serendipitous Eyes –
My feet pressing into the sandy shore
In all of its honey suckle sweetness – your head pressed against mine
Our embers dance with each others, our emotions caressing the flames
Building, joyfully in celebration, dancing in antiquity , in a space of preservation that states that the stars come out each night and that each morning the sun rises
The only time and space in which this type of love could thrive the only place where there could exist such a stillness, such an island
Coconuts hang low offering sweet creams, guavas temptingly roll before our feet, seashells and sand crabs scurry about, a sweet and gentle moon pulls and tugs the tides as I lock eyes – and in twine your fingers in mine
I see myself in you, and I see your father , his spirit, and I am glad for it, beyond the color I see the cosmos and I honor your journey from the stars, the way you now gift us daily as you unfold in all of your colors, in everyday where more and more you find yourself, the way that wood and glass seems to find its way upon the shore, the same magical current that washes all good things into our lives
This same dream that I taste now as the sunsets, as salt water droplets roll down my cheeks like the rains that folds over the tropical sky
It is now I know that my greatest creation has been accomplished, and my soul lives on, in your brave and serendipitous Eyes.
Another 3D render with postwork in Photoshop: Harley Quinn, the Joker’s love interest
costume textures, booties, collar and arm cuffs courtesy of heromorph.com
Okay so the pony is not mine. This is a character named Rarity from the G4 My Little Pony series “Friendship is Magic”. If there are any bronies/pegasisters in our audience then you already know this. I saw an image of an amazing group shot of the mane 6 carved into a pumpkin and knew I couldn’t do it. But Rarity is my favorite pony so I wanted to try and carve her image into a pumpkin. First I chose this image from Google…
It seems pretty simple. Much more simple than the group carving. Since I don’t have in-process photos, we’ll skip to getting the basics done.
An incredibly sharp knife (not shown) was a big help with all the curves and a chopstick made easy work of the sparkle in her eye. It was a multi-day project because sleep and work kept getting in my way. But today I finally had it gutted and worked on making her body lighter than the rest of her (as she is a white unicorn).
Two LED lights, a candle and an iPad flash later and here she is! It looked a bit better with the two LEDs and a flash light. I lost the nose and ear bits but otherwise I am really happy with this. I really like the way her tail came out, even if it doesn’t show up in this image too well. And I know I’m almost a week late for Halloween but I wasn’t about to throw my pumpkin away!
TwinGeekz Artz Project 