December 2003 Archive

Saturday, December 27, 2003

Christmas Presents!
Now that my mom and sister have opened their gifts and enjoy them, I can show you what I made them.

For my mom, Bobbie, this collage:

Here's what I wrote about it when I made it - The first in a series about hair, inspired from my mother's career as a hairdresser, love of drawing hair and the beauty of the comb as an object. When I finished the portrait of the woman, I knew I had to give this piece to my mom - both because growing up around salons was her doing and because the woman looks so much like her, especially a portrait of her drawn when I was very young. Not intentional, but appropriate. I knew I had to give her this one for Christmas.

She said that she's got the perfect spot for her shop. And coincidentally, it'll be very close to where she keeps the combs.


For my sister, Burgundy:

I knew I wanted to make something for Burgundy and Mike's new home - but I haven't seen it yet. I called my sis and asked her what rooms were what colors. She asked why I was asking, and I said that I was thinking of making something for the house and had some ideas. Burgundy wasn't concerned about the surprise factor of the gift. I gave her my list of ideas. Surprisingly her voice lit up when I got to "placemats." She's excited to have dinner parties in her home.

Placemats it is. And some.

Given that they've got tomato red dishes, I started with that. I went to Vogue Fabric in Evanston. Giant store with sorta odd inventory. Perfect place if you don't have the answer in your mind about what exactly you want.

I started in the remnants department, looking at some white and offwhite raw silks. Nice stripes and tones. I thought I could kind of go for the Burberry plaid red and tan color scheme. I wandered off to the un-remnant silk section in the store to find red silk.

On the way, I was stopped by a section of taffetas. All stripes. I started putting together the black, silver, gunmetal and red stripes. Woah. Sharp. Only one red stripe, but I thought that would be good because then the mats would compliment the red dishes, rather than compete with them.

Got 4 half yards of the silver, black and gunmetal ones, a yard of the red and black combo. Remembered to get some black cotton twill for the napkins.

I shit you not, all the fabric cost a mere 13 dollars! (Coincidentally again, the day of the month of February that Burgundy was born on.) Definitely a gift that was more of a labor of love that I wallet-wounder.

Pre-Vogue I had already thought of the (uh, brilliant) idea of making the napkin rings out of safety pins. I already had a myriad of black, red and silver beads. Even some of the last beads that I used to make my bridesmaid red safety pin bracelet for sis's wedding this summer. Those came together, no sweat. Beads on safety pins, safety pins strung on elastic cord. Gorgeous against the black napkins.

Sewing was messy, but painless. Taffeta frays like a mofo - so my carpet is still coated with taffeta hair everywhere. I cut the fabrics in various width strips perpendicular to the stripes on the fabric. Sewed them together. I had the longest piece of remade fabric. I divided into 8 equal lengths. Doubled those over and sewed them together. Surprisingly, I the placemats came up short for a standard 12" x 20" size. I woulda/shoulda added a 5 half yard of another stripe to the mix. No big deal though.

My resilience to something like that reminds me how far I've come in my blow-my-top-at-anything-less-than-perfect perfectionism.

Napkins were easy, just turned over and finished the edges.

Last part, the lil' placecard holders and place cards. I was very pleased to make the cards out of the scraps of Burgundy and Mike's guestbook, that I made in July! The holders are dark, dark gray polymer clay (Preemo, specifically). Little lumps with a slit to hold the cards.

Well, I threw in the first batch. Fifteen minutes later, I thought, "Uh-oh! Something doesn't smell right!!" Polymer clay burning!!! They had doubled in size and were big lump of bumpy, toxic, toxicity. I unplugged the polymer-clay-only toaster oven, threw open the windows, put a fan in one, and knocked the smoke detector off of the ceiling with a broom handle before it went off! Choked on awful smoke.

Ya see, I broke the toaster oven's polymer-clay-only rule once. I cooked a Lean Cuisine late one night trying to remedy a skipped dinner. So, the oven was still set at the higher, really-bad-for-polymer-clay temperature.

Bad.

But, I've been working with polymer clay for over a decade now and that's only the second time I've burnt it. Not bad odds.

After the smoke cleared, I reset the temp and tried again.

So, Burgundy got: 8 placemats, 8 napkins, 8 napkin rings, 8 placecard holders and a bunch of place cards.

I was really proud of those two gifts and it sounds like they were well-received!

I hope everyone had creative Christmasses, for those who Christmas.

July
A day at the beach for this midyear month of sun and sand.


posted on 12/27/2003 12:28:51 AM

Friday, December 26, 2003

October
The October collage started strong with the masked woman, pumpkin and spider. Then I paused for quite awhile. Tonight, the rest fell into place.

Thursday, December 25, 2003

March

May
I woke up this Christmas morning sorta stumped by the calendar. I had several months started. This morning I was just sorta shuffling around boards and paper and not doing much of anything. Happily, I tapped into a vein of ideas and was rolling up until now, off to a Christmas party tonight. Two completely, May and March. Flowers for May, cooking in March. Off to the party, and back to the collages tomorrow.

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Impromptu Button Crafts!
Inspired by this, I pulled out my stash of Christmassy buttons and made these wire and button tree ornaments. And it took less than the length of a sitcom! I'm feeling spontaneous and accomplished.

Earlier this holiday season, I got the idea to start a new tradition, but it came too late to begin this year. Kent's aunt makes ornaments each year and sends them in her Christmas card. I thought, "Now there's a rockin' idea. I love ornaments much more than I do cards. What a cool annual craft/mini-gift for family and friends."

Between that and the fact that I didn't make any new ornaments for the open houses this year, I've got an ornament-making bee in my bonnet. Gotta get back to the calendar and pick it up in about 10 months...

Monday, December 22, 2003

January
After much working on top-secret Christmas projects and holiday designs, I'm working on something new - a 2004 CafePress calendar.

Yep, it's sort of 11th hour and I may have missed most folks' window for their calendar shopping, but I persist. Honestly, I'll very likely keep the same images for a 2005 calendar. I'll put the inidividual months on cards and journals and such is one in particular strikes your fancy. I'm testing to see how these orginal 9" x 12" collages work for mini-posters.

CafePress gives it's shopkeepers the option of creating a true calendar with 12 different designs plus a cover. I'm excited to create 12 new collages to adorn your wall for the upcoming year. Here is January. I'm a January baby and love hunkering down in winter, so it was easy to work on the a theme of snow, stars, cold and quiet.

I'll post the months as I get them done this week. I've got a good chunk of February done and jumped over to October. Halloween's motifs are so much fun. Easy Peasy. The biggest challenge is making a celebration filled but nondenominational December - and generally trying to pick common themes that don't always fall into the obvious (ex. shamrocks in March).

Back to work...

Friday, December 19, 2003

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

Quiltariffic! Part II
Here is Jim using his new quilt while we watch Queer Eye. Rufus is dubious.