Work in Progress: PYOP Ornaments

Yesterday Brie and I went to The Pottery Stop to work on pottery for the first time in months. I'd been thinking about doing some smaller pieces...something manageable where I can work on several at one time while I wait for parts of them to dry.

I'm using my usual wax resist technique on these ornaments but I thought I'd try something a little different and not just use a black background (which will turn into the outlines of the drawings on my piece). So on some of these I am experimenting with dark brown and gray backgrounds, for a softer outline.

So on the top right is an image that may look familiar...I've used Whaley on a few items before but I love him so I painted him again. The bird in the tree also may look familiar...

The two bottom images are Tuscan scenes I've been thinking about painting for a while. Just reminiscing about Italy a bit...

The fifth ornament, on the top left, is still blank...wasn't sure what I wanted to paint there yet. Brie (always helpful) suggested Sean Connery in a red diaper a la Zardoz (if you haven't seen that movie, it is totally bizarre, but worth checking out for his outfit alone!)

I was thinking more along the lines of an elephant with a pretty blanket on its back, or perhaps a pirate ship, or a little city scene. If I'm gonna do Zardoz I'll definitely have to do some practice sketches first and not just freehand it.

More pictures to come when these are done...and they will be for sale in my etsy shop!

Snow day art projects

I had off yesterday afternoon because of the snowstorm...and since I was stuck at home, worked on some pear collages that I'd been thinking about for a while.

I like how this one came out...it is pretty much how I pictured it...only I'm not sure it is "weird" enough...despite the odd bandage illustrations I glued on there in places.

materials: Strathmore Bristol (smooth), Plaid Royal Coat Decoupage Finish in 1401 Clear, Faber-Castell Pitt artist pens (#169 and #177), various books, magazines, paper tape, paper towels, transparencies (leftover from my Kaplan days) and other paper ephemera.

 

Finishing old projects: decoupage boxes

Recently I've been doing a lot of cleaning projects...and in the process, I found a bunch of old craft projects in need of finishing. Last night I knocked out two decoupage pieces: a set of drawers that would make a great jewelry box, and a shadowbox frame (courtesy of IKEA, of course).

I've been using a crap abridged illustrated copy of The Mutiny on Board HMS Bounty that I cut up and glue in pieces...for these two projects I was using just the text, no illustrated pages.

I love the look of black & white lately and have been wearing a lot of black/white/gray...no surprise that this theme continues here. It's sort of a wintry look :P

Sometimes I like to collage the book pages in small pieces for a patchwork effect, but for the drawers on this I wanted to use one solid piece of text...which was a pain in the butt (particularly with the little drawer knobs), but I like how it turned out.

More book ruining later, perhaps...

materials: IKEA wooden shadowbox frame, wooden mini dresser, black acrylic craft paint, books, Plaid Royal Coat Decoupage Finish in 1401 Clear.

PYOP (Paint Your Own Pottery) ladybug jewelry box

Things have been pretty busy--I'm studying for an exam, switching to a new office at work, and how does the laundry keep piling up? In between all the craziness I did find some time to go paint pottery with Juli at The Pottery Stop. Thursday is ladies night so gals get 20% off the price of the pottery, and you can bring your own wine or beer.

I wanted to make another jewelry box since the last one with the butterfly turned out so good...I wanted a similar look and feel like they were part of a set. I used my usual wax resist technique to give it that stained glass look. On this one I did a ladybug with some leaves and flowers. It turned out so pretty!

On the bottom I don't like to just put my initials (boring!) so I painted a little bee picture with them...get it...bzzzzz...

 

 

 

 

Next time: PYOP coasters!

Custom owl orders

I recently had two fun custom orders of my embroidered felt owl ornaments!

The first was an etsy order for 10 pink and brown owls for a baby shower--what a cute idea! The owls are great for decorating, and can then be given as favors to attendees after the party.

I did a bunch of color variations. I actually cut out 19 owls to give the customer a chance to pick which combinations she liked best.

 

 

Here are the finished owls in the color combinations she selected.

So cute!

 

The second order was a set of blue owls for my friend Mary (they were a gift for her daughter who goes to UNC). It was Mary's idea to do them in her daughter's college colors...also very cute!

 

 

I love doing custom orders! Sometimes customers have great ideas for color combinations or uses I hadn't thought of yet :) Plus I love making these owls, they are a lot of fun to sew.

materials: DMC, eco felt, grosgrain ribbon, thread, polyester quilt batting

PYOP (Paint Your Own Pottery) Part 4

My friend Angie was in town this week and she is also crafty so we spent an afternoon at The Pottery Stop. I finished two pieces that came out pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself! Angie had never tried PYOP before and she had a great time and may be hooked on it too :) And her piece came out amazing!

Angie painted this lovely bowl (as part of a vertical spoon rest) with a Tuscan countryside scene.

 

I just love the koi on the inside of the bowl, what a beautiful touch! Angie has really meticulous attention to detail which paid off here, especially since the bowl is actually quite small (about 4 inches in diameter). It looks awesome.

 

This time I thought to take "before" photos of my pieces...partly to show the difference, and partly to remember what paint colors I used and how they looked before they were fired. I tend to use blues that are too dark and hide the black outlines and don't want to make that mistake on my next one.

 

Here's my three-section tray, with a ladybug, bird, and dragonfly. Before:

 

 

And after:

The ladybug was my favorite section on this one once it was fired. See what I mean about the overly dark blue sky in the other sections?

 

I also decided to paint a cute little design on the back.

 

After I finished this piece, I had some extra time while waiting for Angie to paint her tiny trees, etc. So I started a new tray (wavy sushi plate) with one of my favorite little scenes that I've painted in watercolor and other media before...whaley!

My little whale scene before:

 

 

And after being fired:

 

 

I love how bright all the colors turned out! And I did a little bit of a dotted texture detail in the coral, which came out better than expected. I added a silly little chicken legs box signature design on the back for fun:

 

 

We really had a great, relaxing day painting our pottery! What a nice way to spend the day with a friend :) And then picking up our pottery pieces was like a surprise present all over again, to see how they turned out!

PYOP (Paint Your Own Pottery) Part 3

I went back to pick up my latest pottery piece from The Pottery Stop and was sort of surprised with the results. The vase turned out great on some sides...on others the design did not come out quite as I intended...but overall it was a pretty successful experiment!

 

The side with the red bird is the one I'm happiest with. Even though the branch near the top didn't come out quite as visible as I would have liked (I underestimated the darkness of the dark blue I used for the top), it looks pretty close to what I had in mind. The birdie is so fat and cute!

 

 

Here are some of the other views...

 

I'm not thrilled with how the side with the monarch butterfly below turned out...I think I was rushing to finish on the leaves and they didn't come out quite right.

 

The colors on the leaf were not what I was expecting for some reason! Haha. Otherwise I am happy with the dragonfly panel though. 

 

 

This side has a bird on it but you can barely see the top because I used too dark of a background, unfortunately. Otherwise it looks really pretty...sigh.

Vase bottom...I guess it got a little scratched in transit to the kiln?

Overall the vase was sort of an ambitious project for a beginner at PYOP so I'm fairly pleased with it...and ok with the slightly imperfect results. Hey, I can always go back and do it again! It was lots of fun to work on :) What a great crafty activity to do with friends!

Even more tiny bird paintings

I made a little bird watercolor painting for my friend Amy for her baby shower (she's having a girl)...and it turned out so cute I made a few more similar ones. Which colors do you like better?

 

 

I really love painting these, they are so much fun. What other animals should I do?

 

materials: pencil, Prang semi-moist watercolors on Canson Montval Watercolor Block, Faber-Castell PITT artist pen (brush) in #177.

Winter projects and downtime

It's nice to have some downtime this week. I've taken a break from a lot of my other activities over the past month or so to try and relax from all the craziness. I had a bunch of crap go wrong: one of the birds got sick (repeatedly), I got sick (also repeatedly), I got in a minor car accident, etc.
 

Just for the sake of amusement, here is the email I wrote to the rental car/repair/insurance people about the first car they gave me. To their credit, they did replace it with a car of my choice that was a major improvement.

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Hi Dave,

Thanks for sending this and thanks for your message as well. Your service has been great and I was very pleased with how fast and easy everything was the other day!

Quick question (maybe you know or the Enterprise folks do)...is there an "air freshener" hidden somewhere in the rental car? It is very strong and smells horrendous, like a toilet, and I'm having to drive with the windows open even in the cold to keep from gagging. I looked around in the car but couldn't find the source--I would REALLY like to remove whatever has created this nasty smell if I'm driving this car for the next week.

Thanks!

 

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I also finished several new batches of coasters, some elephant ornaments (including a custom order for a mom with baby elephant--how cute is that?!), and a crapton of pins. These are mostly available in my etsy shop right now.

Green leaves coaster set

Autumn heather rainbow coaster set

  

Brown and tan woodland flowers pin

 

Elephant mom and baby custom Christmas ornament 

 

Green woodland flowers felt pin 

 

Pair of gray elephant Christmas ornaments

 

Purple poppies felt pin

 

 Zen black and gray leaves coaster set