whimsy and wonder art club

This rain, I tell ya, is sapping my creative energy. I am fuzzy brained and unmotivated. Luckily, I found a nifty account on instagram called The Whimsy and Wonder Art Club that offers up a weekly prompt through a selection of vintage or antique objects or object. I'm late to the game, and may not manage every week but this might kick my ass back into crafting. I may even get back to making the bed all fancypants like. 
 

50 things I made last year...(I think there may even be more)

 

a wee proposal {second title}

I am certain there were things I wanted to write about. Things that may have involved cooking or shopping or sad racooning. And now, since I waited sooooo long I cannot think of anything to share. At least anything remotely interesting to anyone other than those involved. Oh wait! I remember....I need to re-title this hold on a second...

A few weeks ago a was working on the february bed and fretting over the artwork when I found a thrifted granny square in pink, white mad grey! I found two more but they were of the grey variety and I thought...

"Drats! If only I had more to choose from..."

Okay, now I have an idea. My birthday is in six days and I was thinking about how much I love a granny square and how inept I am at needle arts. I've already got a partner for a granny square/garland swap but I was wondering if anyone else out there would be up for sending me a square or two or three. Anyone?

 

I would love to have a basket full of gloriously artful grannies to hang over the bed or place about the craft room for splashes of pretty. Some may even make an appearance in a photo shoot. What I can offer you up in exchange is a set of six dillydelicious pom-poms made by me or perhaps a painted newspaper garland/papel picado?

 

I do love making pom-poms even if they aggravate my allergies (while wearing a filter mask even) but there is only so much room in the-room-that-shall-one-day-be-cleaned to store them. So what do ya think? Is it time for a swap?

can it...garden style

 Last weekend I was still reeling from my wallow when I decided to craft myself out of the hole. Crate Paper had just announced its April Color Challenge and I thought, oooh, I have some Crate Paper product, I should make something.

 

So, after a little bit of stitching and a little bit of typing and a little bit of gluing, I came up with these.

 

And so I did...I decorated tin can planters for Earth Day garden gifts. Aren't they purdy? It wasn't until I was about to send in my entry when I realized that the largest bits of paper weren't actually from Crate Paper but from October Afternoon! Yikes! They both had lines called Farmhouse. Can you tell I am not a scrapbooker? If only I had more moolah to spend though I could get seriously addicted...take cakewalk for instance...swoon!

 

So there you have it, three little cans all decked out in their finery for their happy herbal selves...now if only I had someone to gift these to.

sticks and stones

 I am not a knitter. Nor do I pretend to have any skill with a crochet hook. It is what it is and I have had friends gleefully chuckle at my ineptness yet that doesn’t stop me from buying yarn. I seem to lean towards grey and more grey and I have no idea why I continue to peruse the yarn aisle when I get the chance. Since I have a small mountain elevating in my very craft-cluttered living room I felt it was time to do something with all that happy (though not fancy) fiber. After sitting on our old sofa that is in desperate need of covering with my eyes darting from one pile to another I spied a small bundle of sticks (yup, sticks) which immediately made me get up to see if I had my beach rocks within sight.

Thinking back to making friendship bracelets and the happy calm that comes with knotting  knot after knot, I scooped up some yarn, sticks and stones, grabbed a pair of scissors, popped an episode of Wonderfalls on and began knotting and knotting and knotting some more.

Here is the wonder I came up with:

 You might be thinking this is simply a rock with yarn wrapped around it but you are wrong. It is a rock, yes and there is yarn, yes but the yarn is not simply wrapped, it is knotted and if you look closely you will see a tiny pattern running across the surface of my flat happy beach stone. Instead of simply wrapping, I whipped out the magic of the friendship bracelet knot. You can do this as well, it’s really easy, all you need is a palm-sized flat rock or larger. Grab a length of yarn and tie it around your stone and begin wrapping as you would a friendship bracelet, replacing the rock with the center thread.

 

 

 As you knot, always pull in the same direction to create that happy bumpy dance across the surface. Add another color if you like or, switch it up and knot around a twig or stick. To create more patterns, thread a large eyed needle with embroidery thread or yarn and weave it in and out across the surface of your yarn wrapped stone. Keep all untidy knots to the bottom or use shorter lengths of yarn and knot on new lengths and keep them visible for a folksy look. You can use your rocks as desk decorations or paperweights. Glue two or three atop each other for added oomph or simply use them as building blocks.

 So what are you waiting for? Toss on a sweater and a pair of comfy sneakers and hit some nature for a rock hunt, don’t forget the sticks!

a peek at a process

 You may or may not know that I gift the mister with a Bert & Ernie portrait each Christmas. The last few years, I had portraits painted by two different artists. This year, funds were low and time was short so it was up to me to get my Bert & Ernie on. I knew I wanted to do silhouettes but I couldn't decide how. Frontal or profile? Classic black and white or kitschy colors? What to do?

Sometime in November I picked up a coloring book hoping there would be a good profile or image of the dynamic duo to trace or enlarge. There was one, of Bert and it was smaller than I wanted. I hopped on the internet and searched, searched, searched for something better, bigger, more! Nothing was working out and so I sat back and let the mulling mull some more.

Things narrowed down a smidge when I scored some wood plaques at the Goodwill Outlet in town. Two matchy-matchy plaques of comparable size appeared and I pounced and it was back to the drawing board. 

 

Suddenly it was the week before Christmas (uh-oh) and I uh...needed to get a move on and I was battling the evil cold that swept through town. It was time for me to brave the pencil and draw those fellas myself. Thank goodness I was going for silhouettes for when I tried to add features the poor fellas looked like they were three sheets to the wind. But buckle down I did and I sketchy-sketched both Bert and Ernie onto their own bit of scrap paper and prepared to make stencil for some sponge painting.

I prepped the plaques with a coat of white paint and then painted each edge in their signature colors. After an excruciating hour eeking out their silhouettes with a sharp blade I decided I was nuts to think I could paint them evenly and hit the suitcase (the big blue one stuffed to the gills with all sorts of paper and scraps) to see if I had any usable paper.

Score! Fate decided the process once again and this time I broke out the scissors and snippy-snipped those happy shapes out. Add a healthy dose of mod-podge and a twisty-turn, flippy-flip, I had myself an awesome pair of silhouettes drying on the kitchen table.

 

I did it!