Bloomin'

Challenge 47: Work with flowers - artificial or real, live or dried, picked or bought.

So I have this wreath that a coworker made from wild grape vines growing in her yard.  I really like grape vine wreathes, possibly only for the nostalgia of my mom cutting wild vines and making wreathes a lot when I was a kid.  The wreath I have hanging in my apartment now has been decorated with different ornaments - dried flowers, toy spiders, handmade birds and flowers that I've made from felt, and other embellishments.  Here it is!

I've made several felt flowers before and usually attach them to hats I've made or sew a pipe cleaner on the back and bunch them together in a vase.  I sold one this summer to a boy who wrapped it in the button hole on his coat, rendering it a sweet boutonniere - I loved that idea!  Here are close-ups of the flowers on the wreath:

I love the look of flowers, and really dig the funky blue poinsettias you can get at the store during this time of year - so pretty!

The end!

Face it!

Challenge 46: Face it.  What can you do with a face - yours or someone else's?  This doesn't have to be face painting; you could use food or something else to decorate it, or try molding it into a new shape with hands or tape and documenting it.

I actually have a lot of ideas for this challenge - I love painting, drawing, and sculpting faces.  These days, however, I've been finding that my time and energy are tapped.  I haven't done a challenge in a while and looked at this one and thought that I might have some old work I could showcase here to fit the challenge description. 

And then a wonderful, magical thing happened.  I scoured the digital pictures on my computer and found some gems. 

I few years back, a lot of people I know were trying out a funny website where you could take a photo of yourself and "insert" your face into pre-selected pictures, in essence creating a picture of yourself that looks like it's from another time in the past 60 years or so.  I can't remember the exact website, but I'm sure I could track it down if I wanted to check it out again.  Of course, I tried it out back when it was the new thing with my friends, and don't think I ever shared my photos.  Let this be my debut:

(1952)

(1960)

(1966)

(1994)

I know that these pictures aren't new work, but I thought they were funny and I needed a good laugh.  

45

Challenge #45: Create an image with masking tape or any other kind of tape, for that matter.  Try making it on a nontraditional surface.  Extra credit: Leave it for others to find.

My first thought was to create some kind of tape sculpture - an animal or building or something.  Then I looked around at different surfaces in the apartment and zoned in on the boring coffee table:

Regular, plain ol' table top.  Nothing much to see here, but it's usually covered with books and coasters and remotes and other crap.  Still, I decided to jazz it up with a little easy masking tape geometry:

BAM!  This table totally pops now!  So my sister roommate saw this later and I suggested to her that we paint in all the triangles.  She wasn't thrilled with the idea, so I will probably just leave the tape on the table and take a few pieces of it off every day until it's all plain again. 

I played with some editing tools and came up with a cool graphic image of the tape on the table, though:

#44

Challenge 44: Make something that lights up.  Work with an existing lampshade or put a small electric light or candle inside of something you make.

So I looked around at my boring lampshades.

Not so bad to have something plain when you have one or more (mismatched) patterns in a room - but I decided to jazz up this shade anyway.  With a few buttons and some glue:

I like the result!  Using various colors of buttons in a specific pattern made this look great.  Now I might want to change the color of the base of the lamp with a little spray paint, something in a brown tone, I think.

Falling off

My month of ceramics studio time expired at the end of September, followed immediately by a craft sale with pals the first day of October.  It was unseasonably cold again this year (as in, high of 50 degrees!), but the sun peeked out in the afternoon and thawed us enough to gain some feeling in our extremities.  Here are a couple pictures of some of the pottery I made:

I sold a few pieces, kept a few for gifts, and am still looking for happy homes for a last couple pieces.  I had a great time throwing pots and would do it all the time if I could!  I spent a lot of my free time at the studio during my membership to maximize my time, which is why I didn't get around to post too much.  I'm done with craft sales for the year, except for a couple sales that friends and family members have offered to sell my stuff at.

Running craft sales with friends is a great time!  We chat, usually crochet or knit at the same time when it's not too hot or cold outside, support other local craftspeople when we make enough money ourselves to give back, and always end up with great stories of people we met or strange/wonderful things that happened.


Fall is in full force in Michigan these days, and I love it!  I hope to get back into the 365 projects soon, now that I have a little more time on my hands.