Week in pictures

This week, I…

inspiration strikes

…had a grand time with the ladies at our inaugural meeting of the International Ladies Sewing Circle and Revolutionary Society! (There was some origami, card making, decoupage, and mixed media goodness…

creative chaos

…and rather a hearty helping of mess! And wine. It was fun.)

muddy boots

…finished up the props I’ve been working on for the Box Social. Above, “muddy boots”, aka coffee grounds and white glue (so the “mud” doesn’t fall off and mess up the stage). The boots were found in the trash! Serendipity. Below, jars of paint.

jars of paint

The script specified glass jars, so I used empty baby food jars (free from a friend who has a baby). I created those labels using some historical images from the Winsor & Newton website and a fair bit of photoshop tom-foolery, then ran the printed labels through a tea bath to age them a bit. Then just a bit of paint on the inside of the glass to make them look full.

baby food jar = paint jar

Not bad, eh?

patchwork

…completed the commissioned project above, which I think is possibly one of the more ugly things I’ve ever made. It’s a patchwork wall hanging made from my client’s collection of Phish band shirts, who is a die hard fan. (You’d have to be to want to hang this sort of thing on your wall, I’d think). It was an exercise in working against my instincts somewhat, as he was really looking for a rough, messy sort of look, and in fact when he saw the first design I came up with, asked me to make it look patchier!

My favourite part is the twisting line of tour dates  – it begins by being shot out of the cowboys’ gun, and if you follow it to the end, winds up being the little green bee’s jet trail (on the pocket). And check out the little freeplay tag I made with my new stamp. Nice, no?

batter, frying

…bought some chana flour at the bulk food store, and tried my hand at making pakoras. Hmm, delicious fried foods. This video showed me how! There are hundreds cooking tutorials on youtube! When I had access to cable TV, I used to watch the Food Channel constantly, but this is so much better… Oh youtube, why must you make it so fun to procrastinate?

mountain of pakoras

I’m pretty sure I didn’t have the oil quite hot enough as they were rather greasy, but also, rather unbelievably delicious. Yum.

…experimented in tinware made from the aluminum from various beverage cans. My friend J has Mexican tin folk art ornaments has all over her home that I have admired for quite a while.  I think the results were pretty neat, so I made a mobile with them.

Galvanized steel wire forms the branch, with little tin birds and leaves, glass beads, and copper wire.

love birds

The birds and leaves are cut from the tin with heavy duty kitchen scissors, and then freehand embossed with a dry ball point pen.

Hung in a window, it makes a pretty silhouette against those yellowing leaves. I can hardly believe the summer is gone… and it is way gone now. As I should be, too.  Wishing you a lovely weekend,

Anna