Unfinished business

Before I get to the unfinished business, here is a picture of the Fine Young Man for Dy (one of his biggest fans!), at last week's tournament. Isn't he dapper? All the other boys wore black suits until FYM appeared on the scene in this snazzy number. Now we have one guy in a light blue suit, and another whose suit is black, but has snazzy red stripes. I like to think my youngin' started the trend when he insisted on picking this fine dandy at Value Village, almost a year ago, when it was way too big on him. He really has grown so much in the last year! Here is my current work-in-progress. (Click to enlarge) This is the Valentine collage. It is a 14" X 22.5" piece of Arches watercolor paper that I received for free in an art supply order. It has about 3 layers of paper- beginning with some patterned papers from Paper Zone, and then a layer of images cut out from the cards that a friend of mine gives me. She is a gift rep, and gets tons of samples which she usually recycles, unless I relieve her of said cards. We have a deal- I can have them if I don't just use them plain- I need to make art out of them. Twist my arm!! Third layer is some vintage and reproduction scrap, and a few more card images. I used Yes! paste to glue the images, and it is all covered with 2 coats of gloss gel medium.

So now, I just have to cut it into post cards. I will do some 4 X 6, and send them as postcards, and the others I think I will cut to 5 X 7 and use with envelopes, and just write on the back. I may sell these and make some more- I would like to do another collage that had stamps and paints on it as the fourth layer. I meant to add those to this, and forgot until I was on my second coat of gel medium. Still looks good, so no worries. I feel like I should sell these and not use them myself. Trying to get some stuff together to put in the etsy shop.
Okay, these next two photos are for my gorgeous, highly inteligent, soap-making friend Amy. She happens to love to quilt and hate piecing, and I happen to love the top-making, but not the quilting. It is a beautiful relationship. Here is a top I will be sending her this weekend. It was one of the first tops I ever made. I made this one in a 24 hour period about 8 to 9 years ago, and it could be a small lap quilt, wall hanging, or a crib quilt. I named it "Hands-on Habitat". This one is not basted yet, just the top.
This one was supposed to be the first birthday gift for a little boy who will be turning 7 or 8 in April, sigh. It is much smaller, less than a yard square. This one is basted, and you can see the background fabric on the right, there. It is un-named, and is quite bright.
When you click to enlarge these, don't mind the wrinkles- I just pulled them out of a drawer to photograph them. And please remember, these are two of my very first quilts! Exact color matching was soooo important to me back then. I am really much more "free", for lack of a better word, with my colors these days. And I rarely make any quilts with actual blocks.

Ok, so. An amazing Young Man, a work in progress, and two unfinished, and hopefully soon to be finished (Thanks to Amy) projects.
TTFN,
LB

Tidbits: Slumber parties are fun, dead water heaters are not.

The sleepover went well. We only had 4 girls instead of five, and it was a good number. They ate pizza, watched Ratatoulle, and engaged in lots of girl talk. These are the Girl's closest friends, and they are all very wonderful kids. I really enjoyed having them. Some of them clean up after themselves better than others, but that is to be expected. It was really fun to listen in on their conversations when they thought I wasn't listening, and they proved to me that tween-aged girls can eat just as much as tween-aged boys! We went through a lot of food! The other thing is, I sometimes hear how different and weird it is to have a gaggle of boys, but I have to say, it was just as weird to have a group of girls around. I think we need to do sleepovers more often. (Did I just say that??)

The art part went ok, and the girls enjoyed it, but it didn't go the way I wanted it to. I had to fetch the Dude from the airport while they were in the middle of art (I should have had them just play while I was gone.), so the specific collage project I had in mind kind of turned into them just exploring and having fun, which was super, don't get me wrong, it just wasn't collaged Valentines, which is what I wanted. I learned several things from this besides being there- namely having a sample of each stage of the project, so that your pupils can see exactly what you are talking about. Another thing is to allow some time for free exploration of materials, but not so long that they get bored and just want to be done with it.

I got a lot of work done on my Valentines collage yesterday, and hope to get a bit more added to it today, but I do have to be in the kitchen baking, and we have plans this evening, so I am not sure how much I will get done.

I think the hot water heater is dying, too. I have no hot water. Why is it that things like this don't die in a timely fashion? I just forked out a wad of money for my new car, and not even sure how much a water heater costs. Sigh.

I do love my new car. It's a 99 Mazda Protege', and it is so nice to not have to plan ahead before I get into the car. No more 5 am trips to the airport, no more waiting till the Dude gets home to go to the store, and the Boy doesn't have to take the Metro bus any more, which means he regains about 2 hours of study time daily. Yay! Now to come up with a name for the new car.

Tidbits: Collage and book recommendation

Ok! So with that out of the way, let me tell you what I have been doing. First, I have been reading Acrylic Revolution by Nancy Reyner. I love this book, and plan to go all the way through it. So far, I have tried about 4 different techniques.They are still in process or drying, so I will take photos tomorrow.


I also bought a bunch of mediums and additives this week- Mark Golden should pay me, folks, my studio is starting to look like I am a spokesperson for Golden products. I don't mind- their acrylics are all very reliable and predictable- just what you would want them to be.


I also finished a collage that I have been working on (mostly in my head) for months. I made some of the papers, used some handmade papers I had purchased, and many of the papers are ones that I painted or created myself. I have been collecting frog images for months now, and am curious to hear what you think! (Yes, Pammy, you can click to enlarge.)


Okay, talk to you tomorrow.
LB