Lilly time is special

Things are really piling up and nothing, I mean nothing, is getting done. But, who cares, I'm spending time with Lilly (who just happens to be 9 months old today).

Valerie Bunnell // My 1st weekend Jazz Fest Favorite Artist

Each weekend, Jazz Fest has a different set of artists. The artists that make the Jazz Fest jury process are, overall, a very talented bunch. My favorite for 1st weekend, handsdown, is Valerie Bunnell.

Her creations are stimulating and thought provoking. I could spend hours viewing her pieces.

The Last Pull, for this week anyways

I picked these ornaments up at a yardsale over on Destin this morning. I'm not exactly sure of their original purpose; I guess for inclusion into a wreath, or perhaps tree ornaments of some kind. I picked them up because I thought the ends had potential.

Decided to use one now; since I already have the findings out. (The other 5 I've put into the drawer for inventory). Drilled a small hole in the top and inserted (along with some adhesive) a small eye hook. In the packet my sister sent were a variety of great translucent beads in blue/green shades. Added these too some amber beads that came off a necklace awhile back and put this piece together.

It looks a whole lot better than this picture shows ... honest. 

P.S.    I've listed it in my shop if you'd like a closer look. 

Yard Sale Saturday - April 25, 2009

6 yardsales this morning and a whole lot of jewelry type stuff. Also, not pictured is 9 scarves, a paper scrapbook and a full size acoustic guitar.

It all started with some wood Red Hearts

I'm trying to do better at using some of the materials I'm always bring home ... my found objects. I said I was going to randomly picked something at least twice a week and create with it. This morning, I opened one of the 'hanging objects' containers, reached in with eyes closed and came out with a small set of red hearts. And, since the buttons are still calling me, thought I'd add 5 of them into a bead, button and heart charm bracelet.

So, drilled little holes in the hearts, selected a variety of beads and buttons and pulled out the container of findings. I started with the 5 hearts on the bracelet, and, deciding it was too chunky, changed it to 3 hearts. And then, after getting half the beads on, decided they were still too chunky and removed the hearts altogether ... back into the container and back into the drawer for some other random pull ... lol.

But, continued on in bits and pieces and before the day was over, created two bracelets and another pull. What do you think?

Using a Couple of the Found Jewelry Objects

I'm going to continue this idea of pulling out an item and making something out of it. At the moment it's a bit heavy on the Pull side. This is because 1) I like the Pulls (I have them on my purses, I list them in my shop and I give them to friends) and 2) I'm creating a stand and will bring them to the Palmer Art Market in June, so need to build up a good number in case others like them as well.

1st:
Pulled open the drawer, reached in and the packet that was pulled out contained a set (6) of victorian era shoe ornaments. I think they were probably Christmas Tree Ornaments as each have a small ribbon attached. Removed the ribbon, and attached the shoe to a small piece of chain and a lobster clase. I decided to use 'already made' bead sets (I frequently have bead sets left over when creating something; these I toss into an 'extra' box for future use) and a few buttons.




2nd:
Instead of the drawer, picked up a piece that was sitting on the side table. Now this is a Pull that I created a year or so ago ... among the first. It's funny how these firsts are. You make it and you think it's wonderful ... and then, sometime later, you start to realize how not-wonderful they were. I think I listed this on Etsy and when it didn't sell after the 4 months, it found its way to my side table. Well, in looking at it, I can see full well why it didn't sell. But, that's always the lesson to remember ... Just because I made it doesn't necessarily mean its of value.

Anyway, I still like the idea of using the 3-prong earring base with chain and the lobster claw. I took the rest apart. I decided to add in a key (must have several hunderd keys now), and a number of the already bead sets. AND ... DRUMROLL ... this Pull is recreated and I hope it will, one day, be loved by someone.

Yard Sale Saturday, April 18, 2009

It rained half the night so Beau decided not to run. He stayed home and kept an ear open for Lilly's waking up (granddaughter spent the night) and I headed out to do the 3 yardsales in the neighborhood; he was going to call me when she woke. But, that sweet little girl just slept on and I made 5 before I headed home. Normally I'm looking only for art/craft supplies, but Alex is moving in two weeks and needs a whole lot of stuff ... so I'm adding kitchen items to the list. Today I picked up for him a variety of drinking glasses and some bowls.

Only one supplies find for the day ... a box of buttons, with a couple rolls of thread for a whole $2.00. Some great buttons in here ... Think I'll take a little time tomorrow (Lilly willing) and put together another bead and buttons charm bracelet ... or two.

Jackson Square Psychic Readers

This weekend is French Quarter Fest. As I'm not big on huge crowds, we only go on Friday. By 11:30 we had our position all set up in Waldonberg park to spend the day, BUT, it was quite chilly with a strong and cool wind blowing off the River. So, by 1pm, we abondoned ship, and after drinks and nachos at Margaritaville, wandered around Jackson Square looking at the art, checking out the street bands and such. Took a variety of pictures ... but, this one is my favorite.

Its one several Psychic stands set up. (Use to be way to Many, but they must be regulated now as I think there was only 4 or 5). In looking at this picture, the Psychic (ya right), is reading cards to the young lady. The young man sitting next to her appeared to be struggling to stay awake. Two of the standing friends were obviously non-believers by the crossed arms and one was stooping over to get a better look. The part I found the funiest was (I assume, as they looked quite similar), the mother ... talking on the phone. I don't know what the card reader was saying, but I could hear the mother loud and clear ... usual he said, she said, kinda stuff ....

I love groups of people; there is always so much going on. Note the NOPD Eye in the Sky in the background. The windows on these are always so dark you can't even tell if there is anyone in there; or if they are awake. And, where do they go to the bathroom anyway.

Although chilly, a nice day. We call this the warm up to Jazz Fest, starting next weekend.

Apparently Frou Frou is not in My Possibility Curve

When I started on this set of lace and ribbon wrist cuffs, I envisioned Frou Frou. Layer upon layer of enticing lace. WRONG. I tried, but find all I accomplish is spending huge amounts of time evaluating this and that and not creating a darn thing. In fact, with this set, I'm learning that I'm most creative if I make almost no plan at all. It's just not good to overthink things. Just pick up a piece of ribbon or lace, lay it here, grab something and place it there, etc. Here's another 6 between yesterday and today. There's actually a couple more that are buried somewhere in the huge pile of ribbons. One did not turn out well and was scratched.

These are coming out as small fabric collages. I'm using fusible web between the felt and the fabric as I think it gives the cuff a little more stability.

Low productivity days ... the internet quit working and must have spent 3 hours yesterday working with BellSouth trying to get it figured out. Apparently, it ended up being some type of problem outside the house and an unknown person came here today (didn't see him/her) and fixed it. Then, they upgraded the service and some settings had to be changed, which I apparently incorrectly answered because the the router quit working ... and, one thing led to another it's been quite an uproductive time. Alas .. tomorrows not sounding much better as I promised Beau I'd help with yard work ... Alas.

Ribbons & Lace, Wrist Cuff Extravaganza

I have designated this week to be the week of the Ribbons & Lace Wrist Cuffs. I keep finding more and more fabrics and lacy stuff out there in the yard sale circuit and I want to play with it.

Selected a group of cotton fabrics and cut pieces 2" wide with lengths between 7 1/2" and 9" (the cuffs come out about 1 1/4" smaller) as I like the end pieces to be a variety of sizes ... as one size certainly does not fit all. Brought in the felt container and selected several shades, which were then cut to match up with the cotton fabrics.

Brought in the ribbons/lace container and started routing through, matching up, etc. etc. Finished 3 cuffs and have 2 more in progress. Tomorrow I'm going to concentrate on layers.

Experimenting with Poker Chips

The Poker Chips I picked up at yard sale a couple weeks back have been sitting on the little table waiting for me to establish a container for them. I picked them up to put away, and then got to thinking about their potential. The center area is perfect for design, and the plastic is quite thin, which makes it great for drilling of holes. So, that's just what I did ... took a handful of them out to the garage (whereI have a little drill area setup), and drilled some holes with my Dremel.

I started by finding a round object that matched up to the center area. I selected one of the childrens books I have in inventory (wonderful colors/images in the pictures) and cut out 4 rounds, which I glued into 2 of the Poker Chips; one on each side. Checked after they had dried well and decided the paper is too thin. Poker chips have a slightly raised pattern and this pattern shows through the paper. But, not to be discouraged, pulled out one of the books of grafitti painted papers (which I'd painted last year) I have on my bookshelf, selected a sheet and cut out 6 rounds, which I glued down to the blue chips. Dried up and they look good; the underlying pattern does not show through. Decided to try some poster paper as well ... I have a good number of posters in paper inventory. For some added interest, cut these rounds with a scrapbook paper punch and then trimmed to fit into the center section and glued into place. These look good as well. Applied several coats of sealant to all five of the chips; both sides.

My plans for the day was to reorganize the studio a bit ... I feel like working on some more wrist cuffs. But, hated to just drop these into inventory, so I pulled out some found objects and beads and put together another two Pulls.

One Pull has little green Monopoly houses and red round wooden game pegs from someother game (which I know not the name), along with misc beads from inventory. The second Pull has pink and round plastic gem things (I have no idea what they are, other than cute, shiny and durable) which I drilled holes into to make beads, along with other misc. beads. Everything on these except the clasp, chain and findings are found objects ... yep, even the painted pages ... I pick up the paint and paper from everywhere.

Yard Sale Saturday, April 11, 2009

Today is the Crescent City Classic, which Beau runs each year with his Bro's .... (Which, I'm proud to say he finished in just 69 minutes. This is a great time figuring he's 65 and that his training period was brief this year due to a knee injury that had him on the injured reserve list for several weeks). But, what this means to me .... he's taking our only vehicle. This leaves me with only two situations; stay home or use my son's souped up Camaro. (I suppose there is only the third, rental car option, however, that's a bit exteme for yard sales). I opted to borrow Alex' car, which he was more than happy to offer up.

The paper listed two subdivision wide sales off Sharp Rd and I headed on over. Rosedown was having their semi-annual; which consisted of 2 houses, out of probably 200+; I found only one. The second subdivison was up the road (forgot the name), and it was a bit more prosperous; I think I went to 6 in there.

So, there I am, abit middle aged, abit overweight, driving around in a car that was difficult to get into without beating my head on the doorframe, and makes enough noise that folks turn to look. (Luckily he turned off the stereo system for me ... I looked complicated). So, after some contemplation about heading into Covington to see what was going on there, decided ... NAH, just going to go home. My 1 hour adventure was certainly enough for this week.

Find: One box of Fabric for $3.00.

• Enough Felt to last me a lifetime, in quite a few colors
• 6-7 different pieces of ribbon / lace
• a Variety of Other Cotton and Silky Type Fabrics.

I've now collected quite a few fabrics. I wish I could figure out how to store this stuff; it's just so bulky.

Rising Sun Zipper Pull From a Very Ugly Pair of Earrings

Awhile back I came across this really ugly pair of clip earrings. I'd say they were vintage, but the only possible proof of that would be the tarnish, how the circle part stayed in place only be inserting it inside and clip and, they are REMARKABLE OUT OF STYLE. But, maybe there not. Anyway, they are really ugly. I had placed them on my side table, where they've been for awhile as I just couldn't decide what to do with them.

Well, I'm (again) trying to clean off the side table and picked them up AGAIN. Decided it was time to do something with them and that I'd turn, at least part of them, into a zipper pull.

So, took them part and pull all, except the black beads into the tumbler for a couple hours with some of that stuff for cleaning metal. Then, started the decisions .... ummmm ... silver chain, add in a few other beads, use a little of each of the original beads .... and then, ... introducing the new zipper pull. Actually, it's not quite finished. The back of the earring part is not that attractive, so in the morning I'm going to pull out a Gold Button and glue it to the back.

The Playing with Buttons Continues

As usual, when I create a piece, I lay out the materials I think I'll be using and then the fun start. First I selected a variety of pink buttons and beads and put together the pink beads and buttons charm bracelet. These take me about 1 1/2 hours to put together, and I'm using jump rings between 6mm and 10mm, depending upon the size of the button.

I was going to put it all away, but I just had to do another one, so I switched everything out to blue buttons and beads and made another bracelet. And, since I still had quite a few blue buttons laying out, pulled a silver heart out of found objects inventory, drilled a couple holes in the bottom for buttons and put together a Pull.

I'm liking working with the buttons and I'm going to make an effort to incorporate them into more pieces.

Playing with my buttons

I, of course, collect buttons, and have been for at 4-5 years. I remove them from clothing that has passed its useable life, sometimes I find jars of them at yardsales, and periodically I just find them laying in parking lots, etc. Two weeks ago, from the Abita All-Town Yardsale, I came home with a big bag of 'Vintage' buttons someone else had given up on collecting. SO ... I've been thinking about using some of them in the charm bracelets. I've seen bracelets before using buttons and they are great fun in appearance.

Thought I'd start out simple ... beads and buttons ... and then, consider adding in more found objects. I decided to start with white buttons as I have a huge number of these. I'm using chain here I recently purchased.

The 1st bracelet went remarkably well; nothing really new, just have to use jump rings in a variety of sizes depending upon the width of the Beads. I decided to call it :Buttons and Beads, An Upcycled Braclet in Shades of White. Since this went so well, switched out some of the buttons/beads and completed the second one, which I'm calling "Black & White, An Upcycled Charm Bracelet using Buttons and Beads". (That's one of the hardest parts of having online shops ... coming up with names for the creations).

I'm going to list both of these in Artfire ... sooner or later. I'm getting abit behind on processing my pictures and getting the accessories posted.

I also started on a third bracelet ... pink with hearts, which I'll finish up tomorrow morning.

Where do missing things go, and how do they get back ?

Back in January, I created a matching of pair of earrings, which I called Disco Balls. They were a remake of some other earrings I happened to find. Now, I considered these special only in that I do not typically make earrings. They are just so common, very little is involved and everyone makes earrings. But, these little beads were fun and special. So I made two; one to list in my Artfire shop and the other to give to my sister (because she is special to me).

Well, I listed the one set in Artfire and the other set (for my sister) simply disappeared. I knew they were missing within a couple hours of creation. I looked everywhere. I mean everywhere; down the sides of the couch, and in the garbage ... everywhere. The next day, I even did some housecleaning in search. It's not that they are extremely valuable, but more than I had made as a gift which I was really wanting to give.

Okay ... I finally decided they were simply gone; maybe one of the teenagers picked them up by accident (ya right), or they had hit the garbage, flushed down the toilet, whatever ... gone, and the search was discontinued.

And then, yesterday, I'm in my studio and right there, in the middle of the floor, still in the tiny plastic bag, are the earrings. I'm think, okay, these are the ones in inventory listed in my shop. So, I rushed to the inventory box to check. Nope, they are are ... these are the lost earrings for my sister. Go figure that.

Where had they been?
How did the get in the middle of my studio floor?

These little mysteries in life are just confusing.

The Last Two Fabric Beaded Necklaces, for now anyway

I'm one of those great sleepers. I generally go to sleep right on cue ... the minute the Seinfeld rerun is over, and sleep through the night. But not last night. I woke up a 1am, wide awake. By 2am, decided enough was enough and just go up.

So, there I was, in my space in the middle of the night working on the last two fabric beaded necklaces. I'm going to try to hold off buying more styrofoam until I determine whether or not these are going to sell.

Yet Another 3Fabric Bead Necklace ... Greens, Blues & Pastels

I pulled another 5 scarves from the 'oblong' container. Think these will finish off the remaining styrofoam balls I have onand. Completed 3 of them this afternoon ... between sorting through the yardsale stuff, sitting in the hot tub, etc. etc. etc.

Creating these are going much better. It's probably a combination of things ... my sewing skills are (I like to think), improving. I attribute this fact to how I'm now longer having long and ugly one side conversations with my sewing machine, and that I have a better understand of what scarves are good candidates of these necklaces. Who'd think that all scarves are not created equal !!!

I keep thinking that I need to order a couple more sets of styrofoam balls so I can make so more, and then my better sense kicks in and I think that perhaps I should wait and see if anyone likes these enough to buy them, and then I find myself thinking about buying more styrofoam balls, etc. etc. etc. Gosh, if they don't sell, I'd sure hate to find myself with 3000 of them in the attic in a couple year, but other the otherhand, gosh, I'm having a good time making them. And, so it goes ....

Yard Sale Saturday, March 4, 2009

Here, they call this time of year Festival Season, but really, based on the number of signs out there today, it should be called Yard Sale Season. As I expected this, I had an entire plan of action. Dropped Beau off at Jackson for his run home at 7am and spent the next 45 minutes in the Marigny Trace neighborhood sale. Then headed straight to the Hosanna Lutheran Church for their annual sale, and then up to Abita Springs for the annual all town sale, which had been partially postponed from last weekend. I suppose, after about 20 or so sales up in Abita, I just got plain tired of yard sales and came home. Beau was shocked ... tired of yard sales !!!

Well, the weekly picture is not to great ... and I since I've put most of it away, I can't retake .... and some stuff was left out .... But, the finds ....

• A bunch of jewelry pieces
• A Huge Assortment of Scrapbooking Papers and supplies
• A lampshade skeleton (going to become part of the tent display)
• Bright Yellow & Red Fabric
• Poker Chips (have a whole idea for these guys)
• Inspiration Deck of Cards
• Dice
• Button Covers
• 12 rubber stamps

And, then there's this whole HUGE box of stuff. I was routing through this box at a sale and was pulling out some pieces of lace and a few stencils and some paints, so asked the woman how much she wanted (thinking it was probably going to be a quarter each or something like that), and she said $2. for the entire box. Great deal, then I could rout through it at home. Well, I did start to go through it at home and it was quite overwhelming, so stuffed it all back into the box (think a box about the size of two photo copy paper boxes), and put it under a table in my studio. (If I'd just make some table skirts, that box could not be out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

Happy Birthday Alex.

Yesterday, my son turned 21. That sweet boy has turned into a handsome young man.

May his adulthood be a happy one.

Fabric Beaded Necklaces in Red & Brown

Of the scarves I'd picked up at yardsale last weekend, I thought three of them had a solid enough texture to use for the necklaces. I'd set them aside for this, versus putting them in the 'oblong scarves' inventory box.

Cleared the beads and general disarray left over from the fiber necklaces off my workbench and set the sewing machine back up. Measured and cut the scarves into the 4" bias pieces, stitched them together and tied the beads into place.

I like all three of them. I think I have enough styrofoam balls to make another 5, perhaps 6. I'll probably work on these tomorrow ...

The Red Fiber Necklace is Almost Finished

Actually, I thought it was finished until I looked at the picture and realized that I didn't put anything in the bobbin holes .... I think it's a nice addition. So, I'll pick something tomorrow ... probably black. And then I'll get them (this and the brown one finished yesterday) photo'd for the shop. I made two changes on this one ... the bobbins are E6000's together versus sewed, the the threads coming out of the bobbin are stitched to stay securely in place and not have an opportunity to slip of the outside bobins. I'll go back and make this change to the brown fiber necklace as well.

I like these and have no doubt there will be more .. probably when I again come across a necklace or bead combination begging to be reinvented.

The 2nd Fiber Necklace is almost finished

Off and On through the afternoon, put together the bead work and made the clasp. This piece is just about finished ... tomorrow I'll trim it up a bit here and there.

Pulled out the red Fun Fur and I'm starting on the 1st red fiber necklace.

Sally gets her first Bra & Panty Set

I hung Sally at the Beads & Baubels show and was disappointed in that she didn't stand out the way I had anticipated. I was telling Beau that I maybe she was just too dull and I might need to create another one. He thought she was fine just needed bra & panties to make her stand out.

Well, I was headed up to Grans Attic after the gym this morning to drop off last months accumulation of stuff, and while there I decided to check out the undies. And, found a somewhat matching set in black. Both are too big and I've got them pinned up in the back. But, by Golly, Beau was right ... this does make her much more interesting. I'll probably alter them abit next time I have the sewing machine out.