Bragging Rights

So, I've been hinting rather strongly to my husband (it still sounds so funny to me, "my husband"!) that he should make another salvage robot, since his first one, here, was such a success. I also suggested that it be a snowman, befitting the season.  Well, once he got in the swing of things there was no stopping him, and look at this handsome guy!

This is my favorite part - Mario found a few old vinyl records a while back at a salvage place, and remembered that one of them was a Christmas one, so he cut out the center and was able to put it behind the glass of the center gauge. I just love it!   And for his scarf, he even used fabric from an old Pendleton robe that was my Grandfathers, it's damaged but we couldn't part with it.  Am I a lucky girl or what?

Posing with other Christmas decorations...

We'll be leaving town this weekend through New Year's, so I want to wish everyone a very happy and safe holidays!

Fa-la-la-la-la

I'm feeling better, and have been busy wrapping and finishing my shopping and even made some tag/ornaments - it felt good to be at my art desk again!  This month is always such a whirlwind - I wish time would just slow down a little...

I just grabbed some tags and dug into my miscellaneous Christmas stash and had fun  - it's been too long since I had done that and I really enjoyed it.  German glass glitter is everywhere though - it turns out I'm not a very neat and tidy glitterer.  That was mostly for a different project that I haven't managed to photograph yet, but I don't think my desk will ever be the same.

As I was sitting and enjoying my tree last night I decided to try and get a nighttime picture of it. The lights are called flicker lights, and they each independently flicker like a flame, with a very gold light - I've had them for years and can only find replacement bulbs on e-bay sometimes. I dread the day I won't be able to buy more... This picture doesn't really capture the flicker action, but it's the best I could do!

Christmas trees make me happy!

Recovery

Between the Thanksgiving holiday and then coming back to surgery the next day, I haven't been doing any art or even felt up to keeping up with all your wonderful blogs - I hate the feeling of being behind on what's going on with all of you, but have really only felt up to laying around and watching any Christmas movies I can find. I planned ahead and decorated my house early, and even put up a Christmas tree the night before my surgery. If I was going to be laying around the house for a week, I wanted to be looking at a Christmas tree!  I took some pictures of the house yesterday, I thought I'd share my view if I don't have any art to share, but after downloading them I've realized how bad I am at taking indoor pictures. I didn't even get a decent one of my Christmas tree.  I think I'll just go ahead and blame my camera...

 

God-awful picture of my Christmas village...

 

I adore this old French hand holding up some garland

 

 

My little nutcracker tree in my bedroom

 

And lest anyone feel too sorry for me, my Mom is here which has been a treat, and she baked me some of her fruit cake (don't judge) the best, most Christmasy smell and taste there is!

A New Woman

Well, my name is new anyway, which is so weird.  I went and got myself hitched last week - we eloped, although my parents were there so I'm not sure it technically counts as eloping. We were going to Pismo Beach for a week, and we decided what the heck, let's get married. I so wasn't interested in any fuss or planning a big wedding, which is probably why we never did it.  But we thought, a quick wedding at a courthouse but in a special place, that sounded good.  So we got married at the courthouse in Santa Barbara, which is so beautiful.  Then we stayed the night at a hotel right on the beach - quite a change, going from a tiny bed in a trailer to a beautiful suite, it was heavenly.  Here are a few pictures:

" I do"

The boys looking very debonair

The courtyard of the courthouse, this was the view behind us during the ceremony

The main entrance of the courthouse

The view from our hotel room

I'll be getting back to art soon, hopefully.  Between Thanksgiving next week and sinus surgery the week after that, my month is crazy, then it's full on Christmas. At this point, I'm just hoping to complete a few Christmas projects.  But I'll be arting vicariously through you guys!

Back to Normal Life

I'm exhausted, but so glad I participated in Roses and Rust. I met some wonderful, really supportive people, and some of them even bought my art!  Here are some pictures of my booth, as promised. There was some extra space to spill out of my 10'x10' assigned area, which was nice, especially since I was selling some larger, non-art vintagey pieces as well.

I may be taking a bit of an art break, just to focus on some other things for a bit, or just do some art journaling, which I've missed. But I'll still be checking in on all my favorite blogs regularly... And thanks so much to my blog friends for all your support while I prepared for this show - it meant a lot!

King Brownie

I challenged my significantly talented significant other to make a robot out of all salvaged items from my stash or that he could find, and only told him I wanted to use this old Brownie camera as the body. He took it and ran with it, and here's what he made. His head swivels, and his arms move.  It turned out better than I could even have imagined...

Also, I realized I'd never posted this piece I finished last week. It's a sister to a piece I'd made earlier, although that one was smaller and had a different kind of old ceiling tin as the center. This is one of the larger pieces I'm taking to the show, at 2' x 2'.

Couldn't resist using another larger Frozen Charlotte head...

I love the old brass 5 I used in the corner - it was pretty hard to give up...

I Must Share...

My Oh-so-talented friend Val - seamstress, knitter and all around crafter extraordinaire - is making some darling little figures for me to sell at my upcoming show.  I think they're the perfect addition, smaller than my work so it will help balance out my offerings.  She sent me a picture of a few of them and I just have to share.

She's making some that are just the heads and hats as ornaments to hang, and some itty bitty ones that will be pins (the tiny ones are ridiculously cute). 

She just created a blog recently, wool-wine-n-wieners - if you love Dachshunds, knitting/felting, wine and overall crafting keep an eye on her blog as it develops - it's gonna be fun!

Drippy Grunginess...

I was dying to make something incorporating some of the little mummified old lead watercolor tubes I got recently.  But of course when it came right down to it I almost couldn't get myself to do it - they're so precious in their little metal case, it took sheer willpower to use any at all...  The French card I found inside a French book I had bought the same day, I just love it, and the back is wonderful too. I used the original, but I'm proud to say I at least remembered to copy the front and back before rushing to permanently glue it down!

I also used a page from my old pharmacy book (that any regular reader of my blog is quite familiar with by now!), an old paint brush, old measuring tape and what appears to be some kind of old drawer pull...Plus there's a layer of wax...

I also finally used my other old hinge I'd found to make another diptypch butterfly. Same idea, different butterfly...

Only a couple more weeks until my show, so much more I want to make and so little time, especially since I won't be home this weekend. Oh, well, I can only do what I can do!! 

The Absent, Unforgotten - Concluded

A while back I made a piece I really love, partly because of the page from my wonderful old hymn book - the title of the hymn is "The Absent, Unforgotten".  I just love it, and like a dummy I ripped it out of the book and used it without even making a copy of it first.  Here's that piece I made -

So I was looking through the hymn book the other day, and found a page that must have been right behind the original that I hadn't noticed (again, what a dummy) titled "The Absent, Unforgotten - Concluded". I was so excited!  I immediately made a copy of it, then decided I needed to make a sister piece to the original with it.  I used a different plaster material, and a different way of transferring the balloon, and it's so interesting to see how differently it came out.  I thought I used the same blue color for instance, but they turned out so different I'm not sure now.

I can't decide which I like better, but it was a fun experiment!

Dead Astaire and Mes Amis....

Meet Dead Astaire... I wish I could take credit for that name, but I must confess it goes to my always witty significant other ...  I've been having some fun putting together little digital collages then printing them directly on old pages... I love the look of the page showing through...

Then I was trying to figure out how to use a head from a beheaded Frozen Charlotte, and I became irrationally excited when it occurred to me that I could put it in a tiny watercolor tin from one of my new old sets - it had a bit of crusty old watercolor in it that just fell out, so I painted the inside black, partially filled it with Diamond Glaze, and put the head in. I was going for a specimen, creepy vibe - I have to admit, I love me some creepy... These are the silly things that can absolutely thrill me....

My Mom was in town, and Saturday she and I and my friend Val went to Mes Amis, a wonderful Vintage Antiques fair held here locally in Roseville twice a year. I hadn't been before, and we really enjoyed it.

 Two of the vendors had little tiny campers that they'd redone - they were absolutely darling inside, made me want to re-do one myself!



One of the things I was most impressed by were these big pot things at a man's booth. At first I thought they were clay or something, then when I got close I realized they're inside out wheels/tires - sheer genius!



The way they take the paint they look like old metal or clay...

Birdman, and My Antiques Haul....

Over the summer we were enjoying a nest in our big climbing rosebush.  It's now deserted so we retrieved the nest, and ever since I've been trying to figure out how to use it in a piece of art.  Then my friend Val gave me this birdcage looking thing as part of a birthday present (sorry Val - I can't promise I won't take apart and just generally beat the shit out of gifts these days!) and I had the beginnings of what I needed. I wanted a head, and I finally resorted to sculpting one...

Bird nests fascinate me, the work involved in this thing!  The little bits of ribbon and things woven in...amazing....  I put chicken wire underneath to secure it....

And yesterday was 2nd Sunday, which in Sacramento means the Antiques Fair.  And I had a banner day, I must say - it's always pretty hit and miss, but my antiquing mojo was on....And since I love it when other people do this, I took a few pictures of some of what I bought...

I think the most exciting was a box of old watercolor stuff, a wonderful black metal box full of mummified little watercolor tubes, and 4 tins of little watercolor sets and old brushes - I got a great deal, depending on your perspective of course.... And the little baby with the blue dunce cap on, just cracks me up. He's got the most startling little, ummm, pee pee going on...

I have plans for this old brownie camera... and almost hidden behind the camera is a kitchen utensil, some kind of beater, that Karen from I am Rushmore uses to great effect for background texture.  I'm stealing your idea Karen, I'm confessing right now!

Balancing Act

It was a holiday weekend here in the States - I love sleeping in on a Monday!  So I got lots of good art time in - working on my own, plus going to the Sausalito Art Festival on Sunday.

First my own art - I started quite a few things, but only finished a couple of them  This one I call Balancing Act, for obvious reasons.. Something we've all gotten very experienced at, I think...

Layers of old papers, stencil and wax, and a little lace, plus this cool old metal piece from the inside of an old sifter that I disemboweled... Not often you see the words "lace" and "disemboweled" in the same sentence, huh??

This piece of wood I got at a really cool place in San Francisco where companies donate excess materials, samples, supplies etc., then the money from their sale goes to a charity. I was determined to do something with it, but kept coming up blank.  It was tricky because of the slats, and I finally decided on a chandelier for some reason. I spent too much time working on it really, trying to get the shading and highlights right. This picture came out terrible, but I still don't love it.  Ah well, probably not a bad thing to have something to offer that's lighter and girlier than my usual!

 The Sausalito Art Festival - was wonderful, my head was spinning with sensory overload by the time we left. I didn't take pictures, but I decided to list the links of a few of my favorites that I saw this year, in case anyone is interested in seeing some new art...there were some great mixed media ones I hadn't seen before...

Cathy Rose  She is why I started going to this festival - her art blows me away. It's heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time, she's amazing.

Sandy Young - Beautiful mixed media incorporating glass, I've never seen anything like it before.

Irena Siwek - Unbelievable drawings

Betsy Youngquist - Mind-boggling creations that her husband carves then she covers with beads. For the faces she uses broken old doll faces.  The Octopus which you can see on her website took her 3 months.