Salvage

I was lucky enough to be asked if I was interested in looking through an old theater company's bits and pieces before it was all hauled away to a scrap yard.
I wasn't the only one there, so pickings were slim, but I found these beauties!
My idea is to incorporate them into my new studio somehow.

I'm in love with the green pediment and think maybe over the center of the built-in book cases MacGyver is building. Maybe...things do evolve. Too short for over the French doors, dang it.

Not sure about what to do with the 'sun ray' piece or the rainbow arch underneath it. They are both made of foam, are super light weight and can be painted to look like anything. Anybody got any ideas?

Just the beginning....

Feast your eyes on my new studio!

Well, my future studio. We have a long way to go, but I'll be keeping you posted and may be asking now and then for a little feedback on some design choices. This is the view leading back up to the first floor...you can see the staircase to the left and a hallway on the right.

This is the view standing by the staircase. There will be double French doors replacing the existing door, which leads out to a pretty terrace and a lovely view of our enchanted wood. 

The room is 27x17 and will be where I do most everything but jewelry. It's also going to be where classes are held and little art shows of my work and students as well.

The wide corridor to the right of the staircase will have a counter top and a hood vent where my kiln will live and the counter top will also be where any pyrography or anything smokey or fume inducing will be done since the venting will be good.

The doorway that you can see down the hall is a gutted half bath which will be (hopefully) transformed into a little jewel of a bathroom.
To the right of the staircase is another doorway leading to a really large room where the laundry is. It's also where my jewelry bench lives and is a home for the 2000-plus board feet of black walnut my husband is building things from. Including a fabulous 4 foot by 8 foot table I'll be using for teaching and making really big things on.

It's so exciting to begin this project...... I envision much laughter and creativity happening here!
I'll keep you posted!
Thanks for stopping by.
Lora

 

A little street of Cotswold Cottages

An old English village is such charming place to take a walk in. Most of the buildings, including the houses are built from the stone available nearby and although they all have that commonality, so many are quirky and individual, reflecting the personalities of the folks that live in them.

Let's just pretend we are strolling down a little lane, taking in the soft morning sunshine, the mellow stone, lacy curtains.
Maybe the smell of breakfast is drifting by.....
We know at least one household will have fresh eggs!

And look....if you peer hard enough through the windows....they've all got little messages inside! Well, you have to turn them around, but we are playing with wee houses and pretending.

Very nearly all the supplies came from the wonderful Alpha Stamps including the 'thatch' on the roof of this little cottage.
The houses themselves are little Mini House Shadowboxes in four different sizes and they are adorable.
The papers I used are from the Provincial 6x6 Paper Pad including the little messages, which are cute tags at the back of the pad.

Looks like somebody artsy might live in this one with it's swirly door and unusual roof shingles.

And speaking of shingles.......

The roofs on these houses are as individual as the the facades!
I used some doll house shingles on a couple of them, the letter roof came from chipboard Alpha Tiles
and the thatch is Sheet Moss I glued down with my fav glue Aleene's Fast Grab Tacky Glue. Love that stuff.
I used scraps of Dresden Trim for trimming out the gable ends of the cottages and white acrylic paint went a long way for adding charming little dot details that made things pop.

I wanted the little message tags to look like they were floating, so after embellishing them, I mounted them on some wood scraps I had and glued them above the 'floor' of the cottage so it looks like they are suspended in air.

For a supplies list from Alpha Stamps click HERE.

Supplies:
Mini House Shadowboxes (no.'s 1, 2, 3, 4,)
House Jewelry Pieces
Decorative Window Set (1/24)
Windows 4 Panel Rectangular
Provincial 6x6 Paper Pad
Thin Looped Dresden Borders (painted white or brown)
7mm Flower washer 
Sheet Moss
Alpha Tiles
Copic markers (pumpkin yellow, salad, golden yellow)

Additional:
Acrylic paint
Matte Medium
Tiny scraps of G45 In the Garden and Country French Papers (window birdcage and sunflowers, chicken on the roof and the roof border on the orange house)
Scraps of old rub-ons from Basic Grey
Shingles from doll house section of Michael's

Thanks for stopping by!

You better watch out.........

You better not cry, you better not pout, I'm tellin' you why....

Krampus could be coming to your house to whack the crap out of you with a bunch of birch branches, give you nightmares for a year or, if the horror stories are accurate, spirit you away in his big black sack and eat you alive.

Pretty cheerful Christmas legend!
This is kind of what I picture him riding around in. Kind of the anti-Santa's sleigh...all dark and sooty with horns that he shed from the previous year mounted on the back of his great big chair, his sack-o-children and birch branches tossed in the back.

Krampus has only just started his rounds so his sleigh is all tidy and clean. I imagine that toward the end of the night it's looking pretty grotty and run down.

You can see a little hand sticking out of his bag. Hmmm....
And his old horns are starting to look a little rotten already.
All you really nasty kids (you know who you are!!) better start being very sorry for all the bad things you've done all year.

The best you can hope for is getting the stuffing scared out of you seeing hairy, mean old Krampus waving that big stick around.
The worse I'll leave up to your imagination....but if I were you, I would try really hard not to think about that big black sack!

This was a pretty straight forward project. I assembled the Chipboard Sleigh (Tabletop) all but the outer sleigh railings which I set aside. I painted everything black, including the outer railings, let it dry completely, and cut and fitted my red paper. You can use any paper you like...I just liked the sooty quality of the red paper. It sort of looks like a cast-off Santa sleigh to me.
I glued the paper on and let it dry.

I painted the pieces of the Arch Top Reliquary black and glued my paper on the back piece of the reliquary and then glued the frame over it.




The base of the chair is a little wooden scrap I had kicking around that I padded with a piece of jewelry box padding and covered with black fabric.

I made polymer clay horns and two arm rests for the chair and glued them on after I painted them.

I made a black sack by folding over a piece of fabric and gluing (you probably noticed by now that I don't sew) up the seam.
I turned it inside out and voila, a sack.

I stuffed tissue in the bottom to poof it out and added my little, erm, touches to it. I admit, I had a doll arm kicking around too.

I bent up a piece of black electrical wire and glued it inside the sleigh and hung a lantern on it. Krampus doesn't have a fancy Rudolph to light his way, so he's got to do it the old fashioned way.
Maybe that makes him even more grumpy.
I imagine he's got something less glamorous pulling his sleigh like yaks or water buffalo.
Or maybe something far less substantial like a couple of night mares......



SUPPLIES LIST From Alpha Stamps

Chipboard Sleigh-Tabletop
Lantern
Arch Top Reliquary-Single
Weekend Market Around The World Scrapbook Paper
Bronze Fancy Filigree Set

Additional bits:
The red paper I used was called Distressed Couture Vines from Glitz
Polymer clay
Black Wire
Black acrylic paint
White acrylic paint
Quinacrodone Nickel Azo Gold Acrylic paint
Black fabric Twine
Dolls arm
Sticks from my back garden

Thank you for stopping by!

Some eye candy...

A few pictures of what I've been up to for the last couple of months.
Why houses, of course!

Baba Yaga Longshanks

Butterfly House

Isabella's Red Wheels

A few grouped together.....The Maiden, Number 48 and Mona's Place.

Thank you for visiting!

Christmas Ornaments

I love making Christmas Ornaments. Working small, with cheerful Christmas papers and pretty, tiny little findings and lots of glitter is so dang fun. Here are four house-shaped (are you surprised?) Santa themed Christmas Ornaments.

I used wooden blanks that I cut from a template I drew, but you could easily use heavy chipboard instead of wood. I also used bits and pieces of scrap paper left over from other projects...mostly G45 Christmas papers, but any bright, cheerful papers will work!

 

I really like these cabochon medallions....the glass cabs make the images appear larger and they look great and add a little bit more gleam to the ornaments.

I added some litle dots with a black marker around the corners and edges of things to add a bit of richness and detail.

And a little extra kitsch....some quick ornaments I made using 3x3 canvas (you could very easily use chipboard), some adorable papers from the Farmhouse Kitchen Collection and a little mini red pom pom fringe. I really love the impact black and white make especially with a little pop of Christmas color!

Supplies list for the Santa House Ornaments:
Papers came from G45's Christmas Emporium and Twas the night Before Christmas...all 6x6.
Cabochon/pendant settings
Mini Clock and Winding Key Set
Bronze Bookmark with Round Setting
Kriss Kringle Collage Sheet
Santa and Children Collage Sheet
Christmas Red Stickles
Lime Green Stickles
Tiny Dot Dresden Borders-Red

Other:
Filigree Flower
Swarovski Flat back crystals in Aurora
Burgundy ribbon

CHRISTMAS KITCHEN KITSCH ORNAMENTS

8x8 Heavy Chipboard ( I used 3x3 mini canvas' but could easily make these with chipboard)
Farmhouse Kitchen Collection Papers;
Holiday Baking Butcher Paper
Salad Copic Marker
Black and Ivory Prints 6x6 Paper Pad
Mini Pom Pom Fringe-Red

Red Pony Beads
Black ribbon