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craft

Chinese Fortune Cookie Tree

craft, Creativity, garage sale finds, How to, , , , ,
Chinese Fortune Tree
My tree with the fortune cookie leaves and bread twist-tie branches.

Cheri: At garage sales I am usually on the lookout for items that I can use in a collage. I have mentioned before that I like to purchase multiples of small items. My reasoning is; if you have a lot of one item you get the luxury of messing it up and having more to fill in if you really want to try it again. So, I have multiples of various items.

That being said, when you are at a garage sale, do not overlook the free box. This is a great place for multiples. Often, people will collect silly things, like, bread closures, bottle caps, nuts, old nails and the like. I really do not know what makes someone decide to keep these items, but I am always very glad they have.

It was one of those happy instances, when I looked in a free box and there in a bag was about 200 bread wires. They were crinkled up and they looked like a bunch of branches. I had been working on a tree design that I liked and I thought the wires would look great as the branches.

This is how I put together this tree collage. After I placed the branches, I decided the branches needed leaves.  I remembered the fortunes that I had been saving from our weekly trips to China Lane (a local Chinese food restaurant). They were perfect for the leaves after I gave them a little curl. The birds were made from Fimo clay and were left over from another project I had been working on. All of the pieces came together and it worked. I really like that when that happens.

Chinese Fortune Tree
Close-up of the Fimo clay birds and Chinese fortunes.

Crafty Challenge Two-Five Dollars

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Photo of a five dollar bill.

With our first official Crafty Challenge completed (incredibly successfully too!), our eyes – and itchy crafting fingers – are looking forward to our second challenge. This one is a bit more focused in an odd sort of way. Instead of a specific material to work with, our limits are money and where that money can be spent.

The rules:

  1. There is a $5 limit.
  2. The money must be spent in a hardware store (a home improvement store counts).
  3. You can only use materials that you purchased with the $5 from the hardware store.
  4. Projects must be presented on October 23rd.

All of the Crafty sisters are hardware/home improvement store junkies. In fact, Loryn and I can spend hours just wandering around Home Depot, not really spend any money, completely solving a specific repair, craft or decor difficulty and both feel that we had a great and productive day. We are all also incredibly thrifty and bargain savvy (I think I have unofficially declared Cheri Queen of the Bargain), hence all the garage saleing, so this particular challenge is right up our alley.

So, wish us luck and tune in on Sunday, October 23rd when we will post our projects. I can’t wait to get started! I promise I won’t procrastinate this time.

Crafty Challenge One: Spooky Spools!

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Spooky spool challenge
The blocks spell "spooky."

Cheri: This spool challenge was a lot of fun to do. I think all of us had a really good time and our projects were all so different. For my spool project I decided that I wanted to do a Halloween project. That being decided, I realized that I wanted to paint some monsters on the spools and then I thought it would be so cool to be able to change the parts of the monsters  around. I spent a few hours painting the spools and then I had to decide what I wanted to display them on. I had picked up some old alphabet blocks maybe a year ago and they just had the right feel to them. I started working with the letters to decide what I wanted to spell and finally felt that “SPOOKY” was a very appropriate word. I drilled a small hole in the top of the blocks and then I cut 5 pieces of dowel. I then hot glued the dowel into the blocks. My son suggested that I paint the dowels black so they didn’t stand out so much, and voila!!! My project was completed. I think we all did an awesome job and I can’t wait to get started on our next project.

To see the other entries in our spool challenge click here: spool towel holder, embroidery floss project box and a study in teal wreath.

Halloween spools
Halloween spools.
Spooky spool challenge
Count Dracula and his pumpkins.
Spooky spool challenge
Frankenstein with screws in his neck.
Spooky spool challenge
A zombie for a neighbor.
Spooky spool challenge
It's even spookier when they exchange body parts.


Halloween Diorama

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Halloween Diorama
It looks peaceful but a party is getting ready to erupt!
Halloween Diorama
Halloween Party!

Cheri: There is something about hidden picture games. I just have a great time trying to find hidden objects in pictures. I think that is probably why I am so drawn to making dioramas.

When I decide to make a diorama, I go through this process of thinking about what I would like to relate to someone. The piece must be relatively calm on the surface and a shocking surprise below. It must use very basic materials, like a box and cardboard, crayons, markers and glue.

When I decided to make the Halloween diorama, I knew that I wanted the surface to be a grave yard and what in my “wildest dream”, could possibly be going on under that surface. I spent quite a bit of time dreaming and thinking about what I wanted the lower level to look like, I also wanted some fun surprises, like the coffin in the back acting as a buffet table, or the ghosts that are transparent and seem to float.

When I make a diorama, I am able to connect with the child-like imagination I used to experience when I was a kid. That makes all the painstaking detail worth it.

Diorama back
The back of the diorama. Rest in Peace.
Skeleton dancers
The skeletons are happiest when shaking their bones.
Halloween diorama
The ghosts choose pumpkin-head masks for their costumes.
Halloween diorama
The ghosts are transparent so they can play above the ground without being seen. Unless they want to scare you.
Halloween diorama
Trees with ghosts and spiderweb decorations.
Halloween diorama
Side view of cutouts and how they are placed.
Halloween diorama
The other side view.

Lynne: I just wanted to add that this diorama is all Cheri’s doing. She draws and colors the pieces, cuts them out and glues them in. We’ve tried to do a lot of photos to show the amazing detail, but they are so much more in person. There is something new every time you look.

Space Invaders

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Space Invader TV Tubes
The space invaders ready for a war of the worlds. Or maybe just a close encounter.

Space Invaders

Space Invader TV Tubes
The space invaders ready for a war of the worlds. Or maybe just a close encounter.

I pick up lots of small items at sales, and I have always had a pretty vivid imagination. I like to create creatures out of objects. The TV tubes are the perfect example. At one point you have just TV tubes, (which are really pretty amazing works of art by themselves), but if you put eyes on them, you give them a personality. And if you give the creatures a landscape, you have a whole story. It’s true, one picture is worth a thousand words.

TV tube robots
A really close encounter.

-Cheri

Creativity, Lost to the Web

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I love to craft, and I love to draw. There are a lot of creative endeavors that I like to pursue, and since we have started this blog, I have come to the conclusion that I even might like to write. But there are times when I am surfing on the web and I come across something that is so incredible, that is so creative that I am embarrassed. (For example, look at this Sarah Mensinga website.). Those are the times that I ask myself, “why can’t I do that?” “What am I missing, why can’t I create like that?” As I wallow in my own self pity, saying less than savory things to myself, I decide that I will never make another thing. Forget it. No way. My hands will not touch a paintbrush, a pencil, pliers, you name it. I am finished. I am done with that part of my life that gives me so much pain. As I continue to argue with myself, imagining that I am packing up everything to give it to Goodwill, there is a little part of myself that is saying, “stop being a baby, grow up, how are you going to know if you don’t try, you have faced tougher things than this.” And eventually I have to admit that this little part of me could be right. This part of me could probably be right. This part of me is most likely right. Okay, okay this part is right, and I get back to the part of my that I truly love, besides the wonderful art that people create gives me wonderful images to look at and maybe some ideas to try out myself.

-Cheri

OK Corral for Markers

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Marker holder
From electronics charger to marker holder

I’m still up to my ears in markers. It turns out that there are all different kinds and I want to try them all. These are permanent markers and I use them a lot with colored pencils. I like to lay down the broad areas with the markers and shade with the pencils.

I was having a hard time finding a suitable place to put them while I was working. The rose bowl vase and BBs work with the longer watercolor markers but the shorter markers are swallowed whole by the vase. Not to mention that I would have to go buy more BBs and that doesn’t fit in with my ‘make do’ doctrine.

I found this charging dock at that great garage sale Cheri and I went to last week. I’ve always wanted one of these for my electronics, but it turns out that nothing I have now really fits very well. I think things are slimmer now, but larger overall.

Since I wasn’t using it for charging, the dock was sitting on my table until I could decide what to do with it. I needed to shift the markers from the side table next to my recliner to the large table in my studio and I shoved them in the dock for temporary transportation. And voila, marker holder extraordinaire! I am able to see the color of the markers and it is easy to take them out and put them back in. The cord port in the back holds the pens I am using the most at the moment and there is still room left to park my phone while I am listening to an audio book.

Back view of the dock charger
The cord corral corrals my most used pens.

I always love those ‘aha moments.’ It’s great how things work some time and it’s even more fun to never know when an idea will come along.

-Lynne

Confessions of a Rock Collector

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Rock collection
Rock collection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am a collector, and when I say collector, I mean collector. I love to collect things, such as rulers, hand mirrors, pins, old rusty latches, skeleton keys and rocks. You might laugh at the rock part, but that is truly the one item I have collected my whole life. I don’t know what clicks in a person to make them look at a rock and say “I really love that rock, that is one of the coolest, prettiest, loveliest, most interesting rock I have ever seen”. Since my very first rock I was hooked. I can look into a pile of rocks and find the one I really want, it is almost like it speaks to me.

In my elementary science class I had to do a rock collection, and I thought to myself, I have this one in the bag, or so I thought. It turns out that my teacher did not want to see my pretty rocks, he wanted to know the geological names of them. Talk about disappointment, I really thought I had found a kindred spirit with my rock mania. And really, I don’t care which part of the earth they came from.

I have since found a few people that share my rock fondness, but I do believe that we really are a rare breed. I thought maybe I would take a photo to show how I have displayed some of my prized possessions. So, feast your eyes, my fellow rock hounds.

–Cheri

Rose Bowl Vase and BBs

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Rose vase and bbs
Rose bowl vase and BBs

I have been working a lot with markers lately and have had them turn up everywhere. I’ve found them embedded in my recliner, strewn across my studio table and in hiding in my pockets. I knew I wanted something that would let me flare the markers outwards so I could see the colors and get to them easily.

After a trip to my china cabinet, I came back with this rose bowl vase. It worked somewhat but I needed something in the bottom to raise the markers higher in the vase. I remembered the BBs I used once for stuffing in a bookmark and poured them very carefully into the glass vase. I did it carefully because glass is one of those things that will surprise you with its strength and with its weaknesses and BBs are heavy for their size.The BBs weight turned out to be serendipitous as that weight keeps the vase from tipping and sliding.

Anything that has the relative weight of the BBs can be used instead of the BBs. Aquarium gravel would look good and you could match colors if you wished.

I am pleased too that the markers are really pretty and look as if they were a bouquet of flowers in the center of my table.

-Lynne

Oh, Rio Rio, Dance Across the Rio Grande

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I did the first steps of my dance after placing the order. Each time I checked the tracking and saw the package was one day closer, I danced some more. I even left work a little early so that I could get home first to see the box waiting for me.

There is a new pair of flat-nosed Swanstrom pliers (hurrah!) that I absolutely love. I have needed some good flat-nose pliers as mine no longer close evenly if they ever did. I got a set of 6 diamond core Dremel drill bits in different sizes. Everything else I got was sterling silver. There are two sizes of wire, both round, half-hard. After that, the rest are different types of jumprings.

sterling silver jumprings, ss wire and pliers
Hurrah for Swanstrom!

I was very excited to put the pliers to use. I make my own clasps (mostly simple s-hooks) which explains the need for the 18 gauge ss wire in the photo. I will have to post some photos of some of my stash as that might be more exciting. I have found that my stash seems to grow exponentially and with no real rhyme or reason behind the purchases.

– Kristin