Monday ... a birch tree paint party and other fun stuff

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      Where to start?  I finished a few projects last week and today.  

     Glass beads were going to be cost prohibitive for redoing my lampshade and while waiting for the macrame cord to arrive, I remembered seeing someone using strips of negatives to recover a shade and wondered how the color slides I had would look.

      I absolutely love how it turned out and this is just half finished.  I should be getting more slides in the next few weeks to finish it.  There are slides of Germany, some of my mom when she was a young woman before marriage, and some of me when I was very young.

     Saturday I attended a "Paint Party" and learned how to make birch trees.  It was a lot of fun and I may wind up making several of these to be a seasonal series.

     I also recovered the seats on the loveseat, and the seat on the rose chair.  I'm not sure yet how I feel about the love seat, but can always remove it.  Mostly wanted to just protect it because it seems to be where Charlie and the cats spend most of the day.

     I'm going to get some velvet ribbon to cover the staples on the rose chair where I attached the fabric.  It is an older chair where the seat isn't removable.

     I think of all the fabrics that I've ever used on this chair, this one has to be my favorite, and it was actually the fabric from the found white chair.  Tossed it in the wash, trimmed to fit, and love it.

     Before I share the picture of the white chair that I finished today, here is my very happy Christmas cactus.  Last fall I read something in a plant group on facebook that I should be using unsweet tea for them instead of plain water.  Ever since starting to do that, my cactus has just been thrilled.  When I bought it in December 2020, it only had 1 bloom and then nothing until it started getting unsweet tea.  Last December, it had a few blooms, but I didn't expect it to bloom again so soon.

     Here is the formerly white chair with 2 coats of a taupe-ish paint and new fabric and added foam to the seat.  I love how it turned out!

      I hope you have a wonderful week, and please continue to pray for the people of Ukraine!

                             Hugs,  Ci

Monday ... fabric & encaustic watercolor

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    Thursday afternoon I was gifted some fabric.  More than just some.  Several bags, a box, and three rolls of upholstery fabric.  Plus some patterns for quilting and stitching.  The one large bag contained two nearly finished quilts that just need to be edged and one completed quilt face and fabric for the backing.  It's much more than what I'm showing here and much more than what I could probably use in 1,000 projects.  (but never say never!)

     These are the two almost completed quilts.  Normally I would not consider getting anything even remotely white for my bed, and probably still wouldn't put this on the bed if for several years (until there is no longer any danger of Gracie barfing on it, or Charlie's muddy paws) if I do finish it.  But they are gorgeous and well made.

     The pink one has pencil drawings and words on some of the solid pink pieces that have a hint of being a young girl's ideas on how to personalize it, but I'm pretty sure they will easily wash out when it has been edged and finished.

    < This is the fabric for the completed quilt face, and there was enough left of the toile print to be able to recover the white found chair for my second office table, and hopefully also the rose chair.  I'm going to try to paint match the solid fabric for the chair color.

     If I do decide to tackle finishing that quilt, I may keep it for a future time to use as a wall hanging in the office (more on that in a few months ... I may decide to move ... houses not cities or states), or may just line the back and not quilt it to be used for curtains in an office if I split it down the middle.  (Can you see the smoke coming out of my ears with ideas?)

     I was also gifted a sewing machine recently which will make either project much easier than hand finishing.

    One of the rolls of upholstery fabric instantly became a casual rug in the living room.  Kind of soft blue color, and much easier to toss in the wash to clean if needed than a conventional rug.

     I've become less fond of the bright yellow rugs that I bought when I first moved in because they show every dirty paw/boot print and I'm constantly trying to get them shampooed before they become permanent works of art.

     One of the other rolls is going to become contrasting covers for a free2me loveseat, to give it a boho vibe.  The existing fabric is sort of a crushed velvet gold ~ like the armrest cover at right ~ and so the new fabric will just cover the seat cushions.  I will probably use an envelope-type closure for them so there isn't any velcro to pull strings or have the frustration of putting in a zipper.  The colors are also in the batik quilt I bought and shared [> here <].  

     > The last roll of upholstery fabric is going to be used to recover my dining room/crafting table chairs.  It has a beachy kind of coral look that isn't my decor anymore since leaving Florida, but I think is fun for the room and any paint oops will just look planned.

     Needless to say, I have projects now lined up for months and I'm not even talkin' 'bout the art classes I've signed up for!

     Saturday's art class was on encaustic watercolor.  An interesting technique of painting with hot wax.  The basic wax to seal down the fabric I chose was unbleached beeswax that gave it a yellowish tint for the pollen in it. I painted the viola and larkspur with metallic watercolor paint.  Then I used a piece of lace as a "stencil" for the orange flower.  It gives it a 3D dimension.  

     There was a lot of learning in this class.  Initially, I painted the flower stems green but did not like how I lost definition so scraped it off later.  I was able to reheat the base was with my hairdryer to recoat the fabric.  I also could have used less orange wax, and maybe a piece of lace that was not as solid in the tatting.  I had also wanted to put a piece of old music on it, but the wax made the paper transparent so that you could see what was on the backside, and I didn't want that.

     There is a great deal of [link to click there > history in the art of encaustic painting, that goes back to the ancient Greeks.  It is certainly a technique I would be willing to try again at the Wren's Nest to use my "lessons learned," but probably not one I would invest in for myself.   Some of the creations the other attendees of the class made were quite beautiful!

     I hope that your week is off to a wonderful start.  I have Monday and Tuesday to get my craft table cleared off and the room organized before the week becomes hectic.  Friday night I will be watching Encanto with the kids at church, then Saturday will be a birch tree painting party that I'm super excited to do.  I really love birch trees, and the ones in the Michigan Upper Peninsula during the fall were just amazing.

                                                             Hugs,   Ci

 

Thursday ...

      A stressful start to the week waiting for one last report to come in on my background check.  I missed a few days of training and was at risk of having to take the entire week off and start again with the next class on Monday.  But all is good now as I knew it would be.  Sigh of relief!

     I did get some buttons and was able to work a little more on my art project from last weekend.  I think I still want to find some really small ones, but after coloring in the white spaces between, it looks almost complete.

     Since this isn't the time of year to find feathers easily, I ordered some red cardinal ones off Etsy, and am just about ready to wrap up that heart in the next few weeks.

     This Saturday, I will be working on an encaustic watercolor lesson, so will be excited to share that with you that evening.

     I started pricing beads for the lampshade that I wanted to make and quickly realized that even with the least expensive source I could find, I could easily spend over $100 on beads since the shade height could be at least 12-15" with perhaps the same diameter.  Much more than what I wanted to spend on a free2me lamp! 

    Enter Plan B:  macrame.  I found some patterns I liked on Pinterest and ordered some cotton macrame cord.  I'm getting a (free) shade from that has had the fabric torn, so will use that.  Pictures as I get it started once everything is on hand, I'm probably going to combine several of the patterns because I want full coverage (I hate being blinded by a lightbulb) and don't want anything with hanging fringe (it just screams "here kitty, kitty, come destroy me!).

     Hope your week has been a good one!

                                         Hugs, Ci

Monday ...

      It was a busy weekend in a fun and good way.  Saturday I worked on an art project at [link to click >] Wren's Nest Art Studio.  It was more of a "free for all" rather than a class unless you wanted to learn how to do a barn quilt utilizing the entire canvas.

     Mine is a collage of sorts of things that I love, things about me.  From the top left:  My faith, dogs (this is a 3D clay of a print of my soul-dog, made when he was a year old), and Germany.  Found feathers for birdwatching (not yet finished, need to find more feathers), and my fav color combo of turquoise & brown.  A book page for reading and writing (which details part of a Groucho Marx comedy skit and represents my sometimes warped sense of humor), an unfinished square which will be filled with a heart made of old buttons for my love of crafting and upcycling old or vintage items, and finally, the address side of a postcard to represent my love of snail mail, sending and receiving.

     I've come up with an idea for a lampshade on the Steiffle lamp I showed earlier this week.  A friend with buttons mentioned that she liked glass buttons made me think of this lampshade that is hanging in the studio at Wren's Nest made with buttons.  Instead of making it with buttons, I want to make one with glass beads, so that it will be almost like a stained glass shade.

     The woman who got the old shade is going to give me the torn shade she was replacing it for, and I'll just finish taking off the fabric and string it with glass beads on fishing line.  I'm so excited!

     I hope that you had a relaxing weekend, a love-ly Valentine's day, and a wonderful week ahead!

                                               Hugs,  Ci