Day 38: Plastic Purse Trial

I have been tossing this idea around in my brain for a week or so, and I have decided to work on some mini-versions in order to only use the scraps I have before having to buy fresh supplies.  This is my first finished one.  I think I will put little candies in it for my Sylvia on Valentine's Day.  I just used a small hole punch and ribbon to attach the pieces together and I cut out a letter "S" for the decoration in the pocket with my beloved Cricut.  I think these clear plastic purses could be super cute for grown-ups too, on a bigger scale of course.  I would have a bunch of little zippered pouches of different fabrics and such inside, clear to view, but without showing their contents.  The plastic would just wipe clean....a big bonus in my world.

Day 37: Paper Bead Production.....Go

I am behind on my picture taking for the day. I have been stock piling paper beads over the last few evenings. I have become increasingly irritated with the slow process of producing bead, but if I make lots using just wax paper and glue stick, and then using the diamond glaze on the whole pile at once. It saves on diamond glaze that typically dries very quickly. I have also glued a half styrofoamball ball to a lid that I use for pouring out glaze. As the beads dry, the whole concoction looks like a funny little porcupine. If I continue to make these beads, I need to add more styrofoam.

Meredith, I will post the box directions tomorrow...tonight, I am done, and currently laying down while everyone else watches the superbowl. Bah, Humbug!

Photo added 4:20 p.m. 2/7/11  Bead Porcupine

Day...What day is it? I added a poofy thing and a flower to my box. whoopie.

Day 36: I bought special punches/tools a few weeks back to make paper flowers.  I discovered today that I could make roses that I am just as happy with using cut out hearts of different sizes.  I used "Walk in my Garden" Cricut Cartridge, and made the leaves there too.  I will now re-gift my punches to cousin Julie who loves these paper flowers!  I sent the tool kit and mat with a package to Pittsburgh earlier this week, but now I will send you the official punches too!  I think I am keeping the punches I use for making lilies for now though.  I also changed out the white bottom of my box to the much classier black card stock and then added a bow and the flower with the help of GLUE!  Very high tech!  I think it is cute.  I could make some little candies and put in it for Valentine's Day....I know how to fold dividers too.  I will try to remember to add that tomorrow to the inside.

After a  trip to IKEA today, my hubby assembled a loft bed with his little helpers this afternoon.  Fun, fun for everyone!  Felix has had that bear pillow thing since his first Christmas when he was 1 month old (a gift from his godmother Juju), and some of my favorite pictures of him as a baby are snuggled up with this thing.  Now he sleeps with it on top of him.  Where does the time go?  Every day that passes I sound more and more like the older generation that I used to giggle at every time they said "I have know you since you were knee high to a grasshopper."  I catch myself constantly looking at my own kids like I just blinked and now they are HUGE!

Day 35: Busy Day = Tired Jerri = Quickie Craft = Okay

I did a quick craft today, since I am so tired and this is the first chance I have had to think about this today.....so, paper boxes.  I have loved making them since Mom showed me how shortly before Thanksgiving 2010.  I know I can make boxes any size using my Martha Stewart Score Board, but they aren't as strong as these folded ones, and I can use up random pieces of one sided paper easily.  I will likely detail this box with intentional Valentine's Day cuteness tomorrow, but for tonight, the craft is bare bones, black and white, fast and dirty.....etc.  It is a box.  I am in bed.  Asleep in 5.......4......3......2.....................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Day 34: Cutting Soap, Stamping, and Freaking OUT, and making a new batch of soap!

I pressed chives from my garden into clay to make a stamp.

I went to physical therapy today, which was okay, so I thought, and then I went to bed for a little while because I was just so tired....and four hours later, I woke up, but only because the phone rang.  I guess I am a little tired.  I actually suspect I could go to bed for the night right now and be happy and asleep in no time.

I cut my first batch of soap today.  I was really surprised by how soft it was!  I know that the book said it would be soft enough to take a stamp, but really, it was like clay right out of a bag, cut open and set out for ten minutes.  I was pumped to try stamping with my collection of lyno-carved stamps and bisque clay images.  In the end, both worked, but the release from the soap was super easy on the lyno.  I could also bang away on the lyno with a mallet to make a strong indentation without fear of damaging the stamp itself.  Many of my bisque stamps are so loved that I am really very careful with them.

I was SOOOOO pumped with the results that I completely freaked out and started making a new batch right away.  I don't mean to brag, but aren't these AMAZING!  I have no idea if they are at all nice to use, but I won't know that for the rest of February, so for now....they are each the PERFECT soap with a nice, artist created image on each.

Batch No. 2:  I used coffee for the water in the lye solution.  I also added the used coffee grounds after mixing the soap to trace....I hope it will make a nice exfoliant.  I may have to carve a little coffee cup image into a lyno block so that it is ready for cutting the batch in a few days!  The fun never stops here at the Neddermeyer household.  Whew!  I think I need a nap after a mere two hours vertical!  Kids are calling....bedtime will have to wait!

Day 33: Baking Dishes and Textured Slab Show and Tell

 Okay, here is proof that I threw pots in my home "studio" today.

Step 1: Finger rings in thick compressed patty, and TORCH IT!

Step 2: Cut off and let sit on hard backer so that the bottom of the patty is firmed up too, then sling it against the work surface until it stretches out into a nice and semi-even oval....this stretches out the texture, so be sure that the initial texture is more defined than you would otherwise like....it smooths out as it flattens and stretches.

Step 3: Throw the wall of the dish without a bottom.  I like thick rims on my baking dishes, and this one flairs out a bit so I probably won't add side handles at all.  This one doesn't have a flange so it won't get a lid either.  Maybe lidded dishes for another day.....each of these ones here were thrown with 2.5 lbs.
....and of course, TORCH IT!

Step 4: Score, slip, and attach like a good little potter, but oops, I didn't size very well.  In my "younger years" I would have just had a few of these made so all of these sides would be able to find matches, or I would have recycled it if I was tired of the series.....now I wouldn't think of either throwing more today or getting rid of it....soooo......be creative.....

Tada.....I cut the lip, folded the long piece inward to draw the eye to the swirl further in its own gentle way, and wrapped every thing up to dry slowly together.  Now, I know that food crusties are going to get stuck in that little area back there.....but today, my first day of throwing in my home in a long time, today, I don't think about food crusties!  I just think YAY!

Also, as promised, here are a couple of pics of my textured slab stash.

 These are pressed in...anything really: jeans, Celtic rope weaves, tree bark, hens and chicks (the plants not the birds), textured balls of natural seed pods (I bought them in a big bag at Michaels)....I shove just about anything interesting into a slab of clay.

These are carved slabs.  I created the textures myself using carving tools, ribs, or even other bisque stamps I had made.  Most of these slabs are thicker and have patterns on both sides.  I love TEXTURE!  I have thought a lot about what texture is really about for me, and I think it is really a reflection of how super sensitively I live life.  I don't mean sensitive sense of touch really, but sensitive emotional connections.  I tend to live my life with nerves exposed.  This has always been the case especially as a band director and musician, but still so as just a person.  So art does reflect life, even before I realized that that is what I was about.

 Now that I have mentioned my "home studio" a couple of times here, I think it is time for true confessions.  Here are some photos of all of my work spaces in their glorious reality.

 The sewing area is on the left there, and the jewelery is on the right.  For now, I have been on hold with the jewelery for no particular reason, but it the space is just holding my stuff that I haven't put away in its proper place.  There is always a pile of that on some surface if not all surfaces in this room.

Yes, it is also the laundry room, but as those of you gasp thinking about clay dust in the entire family's clothes, I do have a filter down there, and am a near neat freak with the clay clean up!  My hubby built me the work table and my kick wheel sits on the end.  The racks on the wall are all of the shelving I have for works in progress, but I have lots of shelving for finished wares in the garage!

This is part of a family room in the basement level of our split-level home.  The desk area is a new addition to what was previously just for kids stuff, and now I house most of my paper crafting stuff there.  The kids can craft with me, and I don't feel that it has to be all of the dining room table for lengths of time in a row.  Paper crafts are a spreading craft....and it is really nice to have a space dedicated just to it and its special little tools=)

Of course though, the absolute best thing I did today was take a little nap today with my gorgeous godson on my tummy.  I LOVE SNIFFING BABIES!

Yes, God, today was a good day.  Thank you, Sir, may I have another?

Day 32: Trimmed cups.....hmmmm....pottery=)

These aren't very exciting, but they are the first items thrown in months (actually thrown a week ago at class, the first class I had attended in months too) and I trimmed them today.  There was a 4th one, but it dried to quickly at the art house, and I just couldn't trim it at all.  These ones got a trimming but no handles....to dry for handles.  No matter.  On to bisque firing they go!

I also picked up a textured slab that I made at home months ago.  Now it is finally through bisque and I can use it for texture on new work.  Maybe tomorrow, I will take a picture of my texture stash for clay.  It really is quite lovely.

Also tomorrow, I must think about what I really want to be working with in clay right now.  I can only throw about 3 lbs at the moment, but there is no end to what can be done with 3 lbs on the wheel!  So rather than thinking about just making what I can make, I need to think about a direction and go that way for a while.  I did throw one baking dish body tonight, and I squared it off and attached it to a slab bottom made from my newest textured slab.  I also draped a lid (also textured on my new slab) and wrapped it all up tight so that it won't be too dry when I return to it next week.  It was fun, and I love baking dish forms...covered and uncovered.....bottomless......altered.....textured, yes almost always textured.  So I will sketch baking dish forms and ideas tomorrow while recovering from a very busy Tuesday.  I love life!

Here is a pic of my new textured slab.....gives new meaning to sitting at home on my butt!

Textured slab made from an old pair of my jeans.