Lovebird Ladybird

Good morning & night

What a fantastic morning! The sun came out (and stayed for most of the day!), I watched the final episode of battlestar galactica (mostly awesome but kind of a let down- then again, how can a series finale not be?) and took a trip to home depot with mister bird. I bought supplies for the garden, flowers for the window box, a can of spray paint (the cheap, good stuff) and some random stick on letters as well as a couple metal numbers. I couldn't resist. Besides, I just glued one of the numbers onto the cover of the art journal I'm finishing up and it looks pretty sweet.

I made this arrow garland for a teen display a while back. I had it stretched straight across so that all of the arrows pointed straight down but I brought it home and played around with it and I've decided that it looks much cooler draped into a saggy 'M' shape.

Want your own?

1. Cut up about 45 arrows (or whatever shape you want- dots would look cool, too),
2. Cut a wide piece of ribbon approx 6'
3. Cut 9 lengths of skinny ribbon about 1.5' long
4. Take two of your arrow pieces and sandwich one of the skinny lengths of ribbon with them. You can use tape or glue to do this. Repeat so that you have between 2 and 4 arrows on each piece of ribbon.
5. Tie the arrow ribbons onto your long wide ribbon every so often. Do whatever you think looks good.
6. Pound a couple nails in the wall (I did mine about 2 feet apart), hang it up and you're done! Enjoy!

I take it back!

That water based krylon totally blows! Don't waste your money on it. I was lured by the sale price and the fruity colored caps. If you like spray paint that doesn't adhere to a surface and that is totally blotchy and spotty, then this is the paint for you! But if you have half a brain you won't waste your moolah on this crap. Boo. :(

I have been super amazingly productive in the art department today. I feel good and proud of myself for doing some good work. Moving onto canvases and old windows for a little while is a good change of pace.

dogs, collage and pink paper towel dispensers

For whatever reason, I was thinking about my grandmother's dog the other day. Punky was this little poodle-ish dog. The poor thing would have to endure weekly trips to the groomers so that the color of the bows on his ears could be changed. If memory serves me right, he even had his toe nails painted a couple times.

Is it any wonder that he was such a scowler?


This is a piece that I've been working on for the art journal swap Dory and I are doing. I decided not to crop it and leave my shoes and the grass in the photo. The green feels hopeful.


More of the bubble wrap printing. I just can't get enough of it.



Mister bird played at a place that has the best paper towel dispenser anywhere! It's pepto-pink and was obviously hand painted. I'm assuming they did it to make the ladies restroom even more 'ladylike'? Eh, who knows.. All I know is that next time we go there I'm bringing some glitter spray and I'm gonna make this thing even more awesome. Just imagine this baby covered in glitter- perrrfect.

Bring spring to me

Once in a while I'm inspired by a martha craft. The last thing was those puff balls and now I'm onto hooking cherry blossoms onto branches. They call for using vellum which would hold a better shape, but I didn't have any laying around. Tissue paper looks just as cute if you ask me. Go outside and grab some branches that the wind has knocked down. If you come back empty handed, find a tree that needs trimming and get 'em that way.

Find a vase for them. I used big old brown bottles. Once they were filled with water they were heavy enough to hold the branches up.


When I brought this in it was all branch and no bloom. Give it a week and even though you wake up to snow one morning, you'll still have a reminder that spring is on its way.

Decorating for the cheap and easy.

hah. I crack myself up...

Last week I mentioned that I was experimenting with altered photos and that there was one still in progress. Here it is. I've been going a little nuts with the bubble wrap printing, it seems like I'm using it on everything these days. Yeah, well, I don't care- it's so beautiful and fun. I'm addicted. I haven't had a lot of luck with the bigger bubbles, though. I think the problem is that they are too full of air and so they don't have as much surface area available to pick up paint on.

Mr. Bird and I just moved into a sweet new place. I've decided to post some photos of little inventions that I've come up with thus far in terms of decorations and half-hearted attempts at organization. Nothing crazy, but fun things that are super easy to make. Here, let me show you!

First off, a fun bulletin board/key organizer:


This was way simple because this was originally a bulletin board. If you don't have one laying around, modify a whiteboard. Buy some of that cork that comes in rolls and has adhesive on the back. Cut it to fit and put it down! I also lucked out on this project because the frame was already this lovely pink. You can paint yours whatever color you want. Best part- you don't have to worry about masking anything off! It's gonna be covered by fabric anyway. Okay, so this fabric is from an old pillowcase that I used as a screen printing test subject. Use whatever makes your lips tingly.

Measure the big open space in the middle and cut your fabric to this size. Next, mask off the frame with some masking tape and spray the cork really well with spray adhesive. Grab your fabric, line it up and slowly put it down. Run your hands over it a few times to make sure it's all smooth. Hooray! You're done. Oh, I also added a couple finger hooks that I picked up years ago at Archie McPhee's in Seattle. I decided to paint the nails to match the red in the fabric. You could use some plain ole hooks if you don't happen to have a few severed fingers in your toolbox.

P.S. I made some sweet little push pins out of old clip on earrings. They are totally easy: use your pliers and pull off the backs of a few earrings. Put some E6000 on there and attach a round pin back. Let it dry over night. I love these!


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Next- mail organizer out of an old LP sleeve. This is not an original idea of mine, but sadly I can't remember where I saw this.. Anyway, grab a cover that you like. I like this one because of their ultra modern silver space outfits!



Split it into two pieces- the front and the back. Exact-o knives work really well for this.
Next, flip the front cover over and use an old record that you don't (or can't) play as a template. Trace a half circle a little higher than half way down. Cut this out. Take this little half circle piece and glue it to the back cover. You're gonna be gluing the half circle onto the inside of the back cover. Run beads of glue along the side and bottom edges. Attach the front cover piece. It helps if you have some binder clips or some clothespins to hook on now over where the glue is. These will help the peices set together better. Let the whole thing dry overnight and you ought to be ready to rock! I just put a pin in mine to hold it up, you could punch holes in the top and use ribbon also.

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Another thing that I made the other day that I'm totally digging: This little clip board thing.

I like this a lot because I can change the art whenever I want and because it just looks cute. It is made out of the cover of an old scrapbook that I found. I chopped off the extra part that folds over, ran a ribbon through it and hooked a couple clothespins on. (Make sure you tie a knot in the ribbon before you tie a bow) easyeasyeasy!
P.S. props to mr. bird for his self designed show poster.


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A while ago I posted photos of the love birds display that I did for the children's area of the library. After taking it down I brought home the background and reused it in my kitchen:


You could make something like this totally easily. Just use some butcher paper or open up a bunch of brown paper sacks and cut some big scallops into them. I started at the bottom and attached them to my wall with a stapler. Nothing fancy but it looks pretty cute.

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Finally, I made some more of those tissue paper puff balls. I love these things. I messed up this time though and didn't look at what size of tissue paper I was buying so I ended up with puff balls that are kinda small and not as full as I would have liked. ehh.. I still think they're pretty damn cute:
 
take care & make stuff! xo.

she has pink eyes

I'm a terrible sick person. For the life of me, I just can't get myself to sleep during the day and be good like a severely ill woman should do. Instead I put up wallpaper, make red tissue paper puff balls, cut flowers out of tissue paper leftovers and attach to tree branches that I sawed off with a steak knife. I play with gel mediums and re-use display backgrounds on my own walls. I do dishes, watch kids in the hall on dvd, move wall art around and eat candy. No shit! At this rate, I'm never gonna get better...

Speaking of playing with gel mediums- I am having so much fun! I've wanted to buy some for quite some time but have always found something seemingly more deserving of my 40% off coupon- not anymore! Now that I have it in my hot little hands, I have been running all sorts of experiments with it. Making textures galore, gluing things together, seeing what it tastes like! (kidding)  I'm really into using those mesh fruit bags at the moment:

It gives kind of a fish scaley-ness to it to I'm really enjoying. Next up - transfers!

I am also trying my hand at altering photos. I had a breakthrough when I realized that I needed to get the photo WET first! duh.. For a while now I've been running an emory board over dry photos in a mostly vain effort to scratch them up. Well, now that I've cracked the code (soak your photo in warm water for 10-20 seconds and then pat dry with a paper towel) I am off and running! Hooray! Here's the second one so far- The first attempt is still in progress after being affixed to some cardboard so that I can hang it on the wall. Anyway- here's my momma and I from a long long time ago:


I mentioned that I got some new spray paint in my last post - here it is, out in the wild. A word to the wise though- (this is that water based krylon, btw) make sure you shake it like they say on the can for 2 minutes. Too long if you ask me (I can think of many other things I could be doing with all the time I spent shaking a paint can) but as you can see below, I got kind of a weird result because I just shook it a few times like I normally would with regular spray paint. Shake it up well and it works just fine.


xo.

she was alright cause the sea was so airtight

Oh, good grief. I'm sick again and I'm working a lot. Boo. I guess I'll just keep guzzling tea and looking at book covers depicting seals making out. The best medicine, right? ha.

On to more photos!  

I know that I'm a little behind the times in terms of the whole typewriter key bracelet thing.. BUT, I'm stoked that I did not buy one- I put my old typewriter out to pasture in style and made one myself!

Home Depot samples = treats! My favorite are those wood flooring samples. I wanna round the edges and make all kinds of pendants and other weird jewlery with them. FYI - they make a really fantastic sound when you plunk them down in  a pile.

Speaking of jewlery- make yourself a sweet little necklace holder with the top lid of an old typewriter case! This one already had a couple latches on it to keep the typewriter in place. I added various nails and hooks and now I am getting closer to having my jewlery semi-organized! It's always a struggle... haha.

And, last, a little color. Whoops- I just realized that this photo is blurry! You get the idea anyhow. tah, tah. xo

i want this!

Boy Howdy!

Welcome back from a too long intermission!  It's nice to be back and to be moved into a sweet little place with an entire room (most of it, at least) as a dedicated studio space! No more eating dinner amongst paints and paper scraps, no sir! I am moving on up, I'll tell you what.

I discovered the perfect project for sick days earlier this week when I happened to be smack in the middle of a couple of them. I spent an entire day watching marathon amounts of King of the Hill and gluing paper scraps into my newest board book art journal. I guess the thing that's so revolutionary about this for me is that it is an entirely new way of working. I usually make up my pages and write on them directly after finishing them. It's always, up to this point, been a one shot deal. Working this way is totally awesome! I was able to laze around gluing random scraps into this book and now I have something that I can carry around with me and write in whenever I want! The portability! Oh my, I'm so stoked. Hah- I feel like a goof getting so excited over this. I'm sure this is probably what most people do all the time. I'm just a little slow to catch on, you see.

I also bought three amazing colors of spray paint the other day and plan on adding stencils and patterns and whatnot to these pages. I can't wait for it to stop raining so that I can try these out:

  

I was processing new picture books yesterday and I noticed a quote at the beginning of Patricia Polacco's Someone for Mr. Sussman. I really like it:

For all those crooked pots who have finally found a lid.