Tea on Tuesday will be on my "other blog" now:

"Words on Paper Scraps"

I'm looking forward to tea tomorrow

.... and your sweet company of course!

Lucky Frog

Do you ever hear frogs? I think they are losing their way in our chemical world. This little story in the children's reader from the 40's talks about frogs as if they were as abundant as squirrels or crows (of which I see and hear tooooo much of). Some animals abundantly prosper, while others drift into oblivion. Survival of the fittest? or the obnoxious-est? Maybe it's the company we deserve if we trash up the place. OK, I'm off my soapbox now. This is a bit of a sequel to the lemonade stand in the previous post. Personal I'm loving these green and gold and red colors right now.

Lemonade Stand

I have a wonderful children's reader from the forties with great illustrations and inane stories. I love the typestyle and use the book for most of the text I add to my art. This time around I used some text that actually went with the picture. Of course I had to add my own twist on things with the beer bottle cap. Just a bit of silliness I guess.

Materials used:

vintage bingo card, gesso, ink, book illustration and text, stamped bees and text, tin can lid, stamped sun, colored wire, beads, bottle cap, my own tin flowers, metallic gel pen.

Almost Done Sign

It's a good thing I take this down about once a week to add something to it .... today I found quite a bit of sawdust piling up behind it .... carpenter ants? Eeeeew! Something to report to the Husband I guess.

Today I added "A Story," the theme over at Mixed Media Monday this week. As always, my stories tend to involve colors, children, home and flowers.

I think I have room for one more dangly bit .... and I envision miniature animals - ducks and hedgehogs - marching across the top of the board. It's fun to have a project that gets added to over time. It's rather a chronicle of my spring and early summer .....

For all of the previous posts regarding the making of my "Welcome and Peace" sign, click HERE.

Rainy Day Tea

Grey Skies

Drooping Flowers

Hot Tea and Summer Reading

Titus Groan by Marvin Peak (a gothic british fantasy novel - #1 of a trilogy)

The Big Picture by David Suzuki (an examination of science and the environment)

The Appeal by John Grisham (let's just say "page turner")

For more tea on Tuesday - visit Nancy, Ooglebloops and Patty (my regulars) - and join in yourself if you'd like with your favorite cuppa and a bit of news :)

The Tin Man saves the day ....

(atc for ELK's swap)

It's the tin man who saved the day right? By not falling asleep among the poppies ... but then he rusted when it snowed on everyone .... but it all turned out ok in the end. I love that song you hear in the background as they run run run out of the poppy field once they all wake up .... "you're out of the woods ... you're out of the dark ... you're out of the night" .... and the witch says something like, "Why is there always someone helping that girl!?"

I made the tin flowers by using a flower punch to punch out the shape, and then added dimension by embossing the metal:

Awake!

I found some great black coated sheet metal and used it to make a frame for this piece I had done earlier in the spring.

I used an embossing stylus to get the detail in the metal, then sanded it with sandpaper, then rubbed in a yellow paint which I lightly buffed.

(I'll be putting it in my etsy shop too)

Mixed Media Monday (On Wednesday)

I think this sign will be done soon :)

I've been adding to it a little bit at a time with the creative prompts over at Mixed Media Monday. This week's prompt was "numbers."

I did a little research on Prime Numbers for another project (see farther below). The numbers strung up here are what I'm calling the childhood primes. All the prime number ages of childhood. So many of the friends we welcome to our door are children - so I thought this would fit perfectly on my "welcome and peace" sign.

********

And then I have a brother turning 47 this year. When I originally made this little 2X4 I found out what a special kind of prime number 47 is.

I added the word descriptors of "47" that I found in wikipedia as a strung up addition.

He's a really smart guy - so I think he'll appreciate it - in a geeky kind of way ;)

Taking a Little Break

I'm feeling the need to take a little break from the blog

you know, kind of like going out for recess when it's 85' in the classroom and 72' on the playground

I mean - it's a beautiful day and I'm out in it

I'll be back in a few days

I hope your day is beautiful too :)

Happy Tuesday!

Welcome to Tea on Tuesday

take a break

say hello

visit with friends

(9:00 pm twilight in the Seattle area)

this is tea from a friend

she knows more than a little something about

balms

and

remedies

And this was my project today ... lunch bags for the girls. Their school lunch boxes have seen better days and even though school is almost out - now is the time to buy oilcloth. If I wait until fall there won't be any to be found anywhere!

So I've gotten one down - two more to go!

Oilcloth Lunchbag Directions

This is a scan of a free flier that I got at the fabric store 

(where I bought the oilcloth)

If you click on it, you will be able to see it larger 

(and hopefully clearer)

Fixing

I had this broken windchime. Itwas perfectly good really - it just lost it's clapper or flapper or whatever that thing is that catches the wind and makes the thing chime.

So I made one.

It's from a tomato can lid.

***

Here's how I did it:

• I sanded the metal a little bit, just so it would take stamps and inking better than the coated surface would.
  
• Then I crimped the edge with my pliers and punched holes with my awl to give it some texture and disguise it's origins a little bit.
  
• Using Staz-on ink, I stamped a sun onto both sides.
  
• Then I dribbled 2 colors of alcohol inks all over it (magenta and yellow) and sprtzed it with alcohol to blend the colors.
  

***

Hey! Tea Tomorrow :)

C U then!

Maria Von Trapp Skirt

I had some leftover fabric from making curtains .... so not EXACTLY Maria Von Trapp .... meaning the material wasn't a curtain and THEN a skirt .... just extra fabric ... but anyway ...

I made this wrap around skirt

I just googled "wrap around skirt pattern" and got a bunch of ideas and then came up with my own amalgamation

****

It was basically this:

Start with 3 yrds of 32" wide decorator fabric.

Cut six panels 18X32" 

Take five of the panels and fold them in half lengthwise (9X32" folded).

Measure 6 inches from the fold at the top and mark it off.

Using a straight edge, draw a line from the 9" bottom up to the 6" top and cut along the line.

Unfolded this will be an equilateral trapezoid shape (12" top, 18" bottom).

Use the fifth panel to make the waistband and ties by cutting into 4 lengthwise strips (4X 32").

Sew 4 lengthwise seams and attach one folded over waistband lining up the center points. 

I did all of my sewing with the raveled edges facing outward and an unfinished hem.

I also put a button hole in the waistband for one of the ties to come through.

Quinacridone Pink

Cadmium Yellow

do you see the heart?

Happy Love Thursday!

Cadmium Orange

wordless wednesday

2Day is 2'sday T

welcome to Tea on Tuesday!

a few of us post our cuppa and share a bit about our day

feel free to do that - or just leave a comment

either way you'll get some friendly chatter with your tea

my tea today is "pukka love" from the UK and Lumilyon

it is a very very good tea

it reminds me of chamomile tea I used to drink when I was a beach loving girl in California

this is one washcloth of several I plan to make and send a dear friend for her birthday

pure cotton and pure gentleness and pure pampering

and this is my first summer read in my book bag

I loved Yoko Ogawa's book "The Housekeeper and the Professor"

this one is 3 short stories

one of the reviewers said the stories are "deeply disturbing"

"but in a good way"

hmmm

I'll let you know

*** here's the p.s. on the book (added the next day)

it IS disturbing

I can't read any more

I'm maybe on page 20

I don't think I need "disturbing" right now. ***

thank you for dropping in for tea!

I hope your day is sweet and filled with good pauses and moment of refreshing