Wednesday Wonder- time out

I am still taking a time out. I have been taking it easy and doing a lot of resting, just hanging out, and taking care of Madi.

At the end of the day I am all out. I have a hard time thinking of anything to say that is uplifting or happy.

I am working on clay though and playing.

I listed a new unzipped heart in a color instead of the ivory looking ones I do.

 

 

I think I like it. Soft and romantic, eh? I might try some more of these.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/78515796/unzipped-heart-48-purple-rose

 

I also did a light antiquing on the Seagull statue.

Let me know what you think of it. I am happy.

 

Brings that smirk on his face out.

 

I like the antiquing.

 

 

 

I do think he is just fine.

You can see it with out the antiquing here

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/07/happy-friday.html

Thanks for your help with this!

Have a great day.

Wednesday Wonder- Wheat Weaving

I had no idea that when I went to research this weeks Wednesday Wonder that I would be opening a window in to a wild world of wheat weavers and associations. Weally, I mean Weally??? ;-D

Osburn Butterfly, © 1998 Marje Shook, Photo by Marje Shook

 

I found the picture above on the National Association of Wheat Weavers site, I did say National Association. This is a big deal, at least it appears to be. The are having

 

 

The 2012 NAWW Convention

“DREAM OF WHEAT”

Portland, Oregon

April 11th – 15th

 

Their website is here: http://nawwstraw.org/

They have a gallery here: http://nawwstraw.org/index.php/gallery

It is kind of hard to believe this is wheat straw.

History

 

 

“Even for the earliest civilizations success of a harvest has always been critical to survival. In the ancient mythology of many cultures there are tales of harvest celebrations and by the 1500s in Great Britain there are accounts of sheaves being decorated to represent the spirit of the harvest. By the late 1800s the making of harvest tokens seems to have been quite widespread throughout Europe.” From the history page at the National site History

http://nawwstraw.org/index.php/about-straw-art

 

These are buttons. Photo by Karen Bell and Nan Rohan

Colorful punched shapes of marquetry are appliqued onto wood in pleasing designs and then lacquered for protection. I love these.

 

 

Dale Scoot owns a little company called “Wheatweaving company” and will teach classes, sells kits, and has free projects up there and links for buying wheat too.

http://www.wheatweaving.com/

The gallery is on the home page.

 

Here is a beginning project for weaving a heart called a Mordiford from Dale’s site:

http://www.wheatweaving.com/project1.html

 

“Wheat is the symbol of goodness, prosperity, and life itself, and wheat weaving is a fine craft that has been practiced throughout the world for centuries.” from Rocky Rothschiller’s site

Rocky Rothschiller is quite adept at Wheatweaving and also incorporates yucca, suede, and feathers.

Amazing and contemporary.

Rocky’s Corazon with Feathers 21″x 18″ from his site “Wheat Weavers”

http://www.wheatweavers.com/

 

 

Even Illinois has an Association of Wheat Weavers http://www.illinoiswheatweavers.org/index.html

 

 

Amazon even has a book on Wheatweaving and Strawcraft http://www.amazon.com/Book-Wheat-Weaving-Straw-Craft/dp/157990078X

 

There is so much more and I feel that this is a very good sampling to peruse of Wheat weaving.

I also found out that this is a very old traditional medium that has become a non-traditional medium.

I am thrilled that is being kept alive by the associations above that I have listed. It is beautiful, natural, and steeped with meaning.

 

Wednesday Wonder- I love duct tape

In the early 80′s we were driving to a how in Orange county and we saw a car
that had duct tape all over it. Everything on this car was duct taped together.
As we got closer there was a bumper sticker and it said “I love duct tape”. I
thought it was awesome. It was creatively done and even the bumper was taped
on!

My youngest daughter, who has always been a trendsetter, duct taped her whole
back pack, it looked great.

It was amazing how many kids started doing stuff like that to their school
supplies.

I loved it and her back pack was indestructible and almost waterproof, saved
me money too!

Now there are all colors and prints in duct tape. I so want to buy them all
every time I see them.

There are even How to books totally devoted to duct tape.

This my friend is a non-traditional art medium.

There are also all kinds art being made with duct tape

Duct Tape Art Winners: Melissa Walker (left) and Mariah Walton earned first prize in Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s first Duct Tape Art Contest with their beautiful replication of �The Scream� painting – all from strands of colored duct tape.

This is a contest from the Rose-Hulman
Institute of Technology

“Getting the creative juices flowing was a Duct Tape Art Contest in early
January, organized by the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and
sponsored by the 3-M Corporation”

The Duct Tape
Guys even have a Duct Tape Gallery (this is great!)

You can even submit your own duct tape creations.

From the Duct tape guys Gallery. Tim fashioned this sportcoat for Red Green. He promptly said it was “the ugliest thing he had ever seen” and auctioned it off at a public television fund raiser. It brought $1000. (Heck, it was worth at least $2000!)

Also from the Duct Tape Guy’s Gallery. I adore this. Duct Tape Art from students at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Created for the Duct Tape Ball silent auction

These guys have a wonderful page and there is even a duct tape Jesus and a
Wedding Dress.

You have to check out their store http://www.octanecreative.com/ducttape/store/index.html

And visit their refrigerator http://www.ducttapeguys.com/index1.html that
is the index page for all of this. There is trivia and info and free stuff. The
art is amazing!!

Here is a whole page of duct tape crafts at About.com http://familycrafts.about.com/od/ducttapecrafts/Duct_Tape_Crafts.htm

You just have to go look at Mona Superhero and her duct tape creations, she
is the queen of the tape!!

http://monasuperhero.com/

From Mona’s website http://monasuperhero.com/

Here is Mona’s Blog http://monasuperhero.com/blog/

Jeremy Tubbs is also a duct tape artist and he has a blog, he does some
wonderful photographic images

http://ductart.blogspot.com/

From Jeremy’s blog.

WOW!! Here is Jeremy’s Website http://jeremytubbs.com/ another great place
to visit!!

Here is a story about a freshman on his was to being a duct tape artist
extraordinaire from the Winona Daily News.

His name is Ricky Becher http://www.winonadailynews.com/news/local/article_a71762dc-88dd-11e0-9cdb-001cc4c002e0.html

Go Ricky, go!!

Need a wallet? ;-D

Here is the Mother lode of Duct tape videos from “All stuff duct tape” on you
tube

http://www.youtube.com/user/isThatAllDuctTape

And finally… but in no way the end of the pages and pages of duct tape
fiends

http://www.ducttapefashion.com/useruses.htm

Duct tape Fashion pages.

Wednesday Wonder- I have bone to pick with my little stick

Oh my.. this just keeps getting better and better. I sit down to write and think *Wednesday wonder* and an image pops in to my head.

This time it was Popsicle sticks. My daughter, when she was younger made me some candle glass holders completely out of Popsicle sticks. I love these things, they are colorful, beautiful and simple in design.  Hard to clean if you live in a dusty place (which I do), but the look is marvelous and complicated. She made them out of colored craft sticks which are Popsicle sticks really.

 

 

Then I ran a search, and there before my eyes popped up all of these links to sticks- tooth picks, Popsicle sticks, matchsticks, and tongue depressors, I have hit the little wooden stick mother lode.

 

The first one to come up was,

 

David Hrobowski makes furniture out of popsicle sticks — thousands of them, glued together one by one to construct spiraling 3-foot-tall table legs, lampshades finished in the most improbable fringe, or as pictured here, a room divider with Japanese flair, its red-dyed sticks arranged like cherry blossoms. The 56-year-old antiques dealer calls them “riffsticks” — each stick like a short melodic note repeated over and over. – from the L.A times http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-0403-hrobowski-photos,0,4008394.photogallery

The man makes gorgeous, with a capital “G”, lamps, and tables, chairs and screens and a couple of mirrors too.

these two pictures come from the L.A. Times article and the link to see more is above

David’s website is here http://www.riffstick.net/ and from there I found some more talent in the form of little  wooden sticks.

 

Brad Griffith- http://youtu.be/4RmbsDU3SNc craftstick bending video, great info and some skill that might be very useful for crafts. Build your skills.

 

Stephen Guman- Aspiring World Record Breaker- http://youtu.be/WodL_QiAqEw  too much time on his hands. Popsicle stick addictions gone wild.

 

Steven J. Backman-The essence of patience- http://www.toothpickart.com/ full of patience and tooth picks, the things people in western culture will do to skip meditation ;-D

 

Chang’s Art- http://www.changsart.com/index.htm I really love the eggs and the airplanes.

 

Jack Hall the matchstick man- http://www.catfish1952.com/MatchstickMan.html  Jack’s claim to fame is the beautiful instraments that he crafted out of used match sticks. Gorgeous music.

 

Robert C. Haifley- 6 foot tall sculpture of toothpicks

http://www.thecross-photo.com/The_Gift-Toothpick_Sculpture_by_Robert_C_Haifley.htm

 

Wayne Kusy- Ships of Picks http://www.waynekusy.com/

 

Franceska Mc Cullough- http://www.toothpickmoon.com/index.html the sculptor of toothpicks

 

Wednesday Wonder- Not just any ordinary bean

This one is fun and I love Jelly Belly’s, so it is really perfect. I am trying to eliminate sugar from my diet so I thought I would write about them instead. Jelly Belly’s are not the first things that pop in my mind when I think about art, but I am staring to change my ways.

from the Jelly Belly site. A-maizing! Click on the picture to go to the recipe at Jelly Belly’s site

Jodi and I have used Jelly Belly’s when we were playing with our food http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2009/04/playing-with-my-food.html to make cupcakes from the Hello Cupcake book written by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. The book is full of cute, no darling, cupcake designs that are made using candies and one of those candies is Jelly Belly’s. Well, I bet you never thought that someone would use Jelly belly’s for the colorants of a painting… or maybe you would.

The Jelly Belly company itself is having a contest to decorate cupcakes with their product and they will even give money for the best one. It is possible to win 10000 beans, I mean dollars, for it.

Hurry the contest ends soon. Contest begins at 12:00:01 am PT on 11/15/10 and ends at 11:59:59 pm PT on 7/10/11

http://jbcupcakechallenge.com/landing/

I know the more I do these Wednesday Wonders the more I find nothing surprises me anymore and all that I look forward to now is how creative people can get.

I know that when I see others doing things out of the usual, it opens my mind to being and going outside of the usual. Long live the imagination of man.

 

Artist: Kristen Cumings 4′x4′

Watch this! I think this is so cool! 170 hours of work Geesh!

I can bear-ly believe this is candy and a little kidney shaped sugar delight at that.

these are from the Jelly Belly site and I think they just might be my favorites. Simple yet so perfect, even down to the metal cupcake papers. Click on the picture to go to the recipe.

 If you would like to see some more Belly art you can find it here

http://www.jellybelly.com/Art_Gallery/bean_art_gallery.aspx

Malcom West made this.

Impressive, very impressive.

You can read about the conception of the art of the bean by Pete Rocha here

http://www.jellybelly-uk.com/bean-world/page/?id=25

You can see more UK bean art here http://www.jellybelly-uk.com/fun-stuff/bean-art/

OK, now Belly up to the bar and admit this is cool art, yes art.

Belly, Belly, nice art.

And from Australia http://www.jellybelly.com.au/jb_bean_art_gallery

Wednesday Wonder- Woodwife Wednesday

It is a wonder to me how many giving and talented people there are out there
in Blogland.

How can it get any better than that?

I know all of them!!! ;-D

My friend the Woodwife is a
multi faceted, talented woman.

I love this tutorial, here, http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/05/to-antique-or-not-to-antique-part-5.html simple,
effective, and quick,

and
the Woodwife, Donna, took some of
my pieces and included them in one of her works of spirit.

I love being able to be a piece of this love charged piece.

And this is what she did with them.

Cool huh?

Nice touch.
Everyone can use a guardian angel.

I adore the colors on these.

Great Job
Donna!!!

Donna has a couple of Etsy stores too.

The Woodwife Wares http://www.etsy.com/shop/thewoodwife

Blue Otter Arts http://www.etsy.com/shop/blueotterarts

Wednesday Wonder- up, up, and away in my beautiful balloon

Ok, Wednesday Wonder is back and so am I a little. ;-D

I have always loved balloons and I think they are just yummy. Colorful, helium, clowns, birthday parties, and the absolutely radiant smile Madi gets when she gets a baooooon!

That my friends, is sunshine on a cloudy day.

I think that balloons still qualify as a non traditional medium, even after doing the WW on Jason Hackenwerth here http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/09/wednesday-wonder-lot-of-hot-air.html 

I mean to tell you after Jason it is kind of hard not to think of balloons being an art medium period.

But this one I love because a non traditional art medium, Balloons, is being used in a very non- traditional way. 

No air was involved, that for one, is another reason.

And they get points for the greatest use too, it is one of those, “I never would have thunk it” things!

At least to me anyway. Maybe, just maybe, you will agree.

With out any further ado,

I want to touch it, don’t you???

Looks comfy, a mass of latex balloons.

It is a rug! WOW!

Another tactile texture trap,

I love Black and White, so this one makes me happy.

Doesn’t that just make you smile?

These are from Alicia Beck’s Esty store and you can see The Miranda Sue here,

http://www.etsy.com/shop/themirandasue

And you can see Alicia’s great designs at her website here,

www.aliciabeck.com

You can follow Alicia’s blog here
http://hiyahhiyah.blogspot.com/
And I forgot to add, all pictures used in this post are from Alicia’s Etsy site.
  

Well done Alicia!

Hey Alicia, how do you clean those rugs?

African Trade Beads- Part 9b the third giveaway

There are 8 parts to the African trade bead how to’s, you can see all of the links below. I have more but I am going to take a little break right now.

These are large earrings, but whisper light. 3 13/16″ long, 1 1/2″ wide, and 2.5mm thick.Hand formed wires and jump rings of copper.

 

So this is part 9b- the 3rd giveaway…

You can find the first and second giveaway here,

Here is the 1st give away,http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/04/african-trade-beads-part-9-giveaway.html

Here is the 2nd giveaway,

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/04/african-trade-beads-part-9a-second.html

 

1. It is open to anyone blogger or not.

2. Leave a comment on this post if you would like a chance at these earrings.

3. This giveaway will close on the 17th at 6pm.

4. I will ship world wide.

5. Please tell your friends.

6. You can enter if you have entered the other giveaways listed above.

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.

-Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

you can see part 1 here,

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/03/african-trade-beads-part-1.html

you can see part 2 here,

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/03/african-trade-beads-part-2.html

you can see part 3 here,

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/03/african-trade-beads-part-3.html

you can see part 4 here,

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/03/african-trade-beads-part-4.html

you can see part 5 here,

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/03/african-trade-beads-part-5.html

you can see part 6 here,

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/03/african-trade-beads-part-6.html

you can see part 7 here,

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/03/african-trade-beads-part-7-continued.html

you can see part 8 here,

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/04/african-trade-beads-part-8.html

Wednesday Wonder- OWOH pressie

I wonder how big the magnifying glass is that Amber Dawn works with?

I got this pressie from OWOH 2011 also, it came later because it was custom-made for me, see there is my name.

If you look at the picture without any other pieces or fingers or ruler there, it looks as if it might 2″ in diameter. So much detail.

The only thing that really gives away the size is the jump ring, but not really. 

With a penny, now you can see it.

It covers the penny. It is smaller though. 

Amber Dawn has a blog Inventive Soul here http://www.inventivesoul.blogspot.com/

So small.

She also has a wonderful Flickr site here http://www.flickr.com/photos/inventivesouls/

The jump ring looks huge here compared to the charm.

Amber Dawn also hosts International Charm day here http://www.internationalcharmday.blogspot.com/

It came like this in a 1″ button cover. It doesn’t fill it up.

I wonder!

Now you know why this, to me, qualifies as a Wednesday Wonder.

Thank you Amber Dawn, this amazes me and I adore it!

Wednesday Wonders- Bento lunch and back

Japan has been on my mind since the Earthquake and Tsunami. I am so sad and I can not watch the television anymore.

I wanted something for Wednesday Wonder, something unusual and interesting.

I kept coming back to Japan as I was searching for something, so I decided to go with it. I searched for art, there is so much, so much. This group of people, the Japanese, are talented in their culture, it is in their blood.

I also needed to smile and something that was light and cheerful, Bento Art came up.

Wow, I had no idea.

These are little works of art that are gone in minutes and so beautifully done. Really amazing stuff.

Bento is a lunch box in Japan and if I was a kid in Japan I would definitely eat my lunch. It looks so good. There is a mother’s love in these.

I got this from a wonderful site, http://www.djdesignerlab.com/

http://djdesignerlab.com/2010/10/06/20-creative-and-interesting-bento-box-art/

there is a post with 20+Creative Bento boxes.

DJ also looks like he has some other intriguing things to look at too, check it out!

He is a web designer and has a passion for designing.

I got this awesome wave from Alice’s blog. http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blog/list?user=2udpd7cec1v2w

Alice is a prolific poster and has tons of art focused posts. A very interesting place to spend some hours. She has 9 other pics of bangin’ bento.

Here is Alice’s profile at http://www.mymodernmet.com/

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profile/alice

From Sakurako Kitsa. This is her Bento box Album at Flickr to look at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitsa_sakurako/sets/72157600857507834/

She has some other great photos to look at here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitsa_sakurako/

Here is a great article at http://www.squidoo.com/ 

http://www.squidoo.com/mrbento

all about Bento and there is even a video for making formed hard-boiled eggs. It is called the Japanese Art of Bento!- lunch in a box? or art?

It basically tells you everything Bento. Great!!  

And this is a fantastic source of Bento and how-to’s from Anna the red http://www.annathered.com/

And here is Anna’s photostream at Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/annathered/

Well worth the visit too.

In honor of the Japanese people, their richly diverse culture, and their creative minds.

My thoughts and prayers are with you all.