I'm going to start out by saying that I'm now addicted to a website called dollarstorecrafts.com

My goodness, it is such an inspiration for broke artists like me!

I went to the dollar store the other day and picked these little mysteries up.

What are they even?  It was a big mystery to me until my sister pointed out to me that they're supposed to be baby bottles with a little ring on the side to hang them up by.

A few of the tops came off easily, but most of them didn't.
Now I have several blue cups!

Today I did some work for the dollhouse's baby room (wherever that'll be).  It was about time for the super cool furniture I got at the garage sale to have some reupholstering.

It's a yellow and white checkerboardy pattern, which is really pretty, except that it looks kind of dingy and it's fraying.

I chose a blue fabric with little flowers that looked like cotton.  A friend sent it to me a long while ago with a bunch of other fabric.

I removed the pads, then I sewed the fabric on the way you lace up shoelaces.

Check it out!  I still have to hot glue it on, but I think that looks pretty neat.  I'd show you the other piece too, but I broke the side edge of it and now I can't find the wooden bit.  Wish me luck looking!  Happy arting!

First off, happy Thanksgiving!

I made a pillow!  It's my first effort at making tiny needlepoint, and it looks kind of rustic, and I dig that.

It's the TARDIS, with a little bead as the light.

The fabric on the floor is a gift from a friend of mine tonight!  Thank you so much!  I'm really looking forward to playing around with it. 

Happy arting!

I have a few little art projects simmering for you folks, but I'm also desperately trying to make wordcount for NaNoWriMo.

So, instead, I want to show you some new materials that I'm crazy about.  I went thriftstore shopping when they were having their once a month sale to see if I could get some fabric for either upholstery or othersuch tomfoolery, and I found some interesting stuff!

A pleather skirt with a snakeskin pattern, leather pants, and this really funky printed dress.   I'll try to actually finish a project tomorrow or the next day!!

Garage Sale Saturday was a semi-success!  I got a few watches for dismantling, and I got a terrible Superman.  When I say "terrible Superman," the words don't really do justice to how truly terrible this Superman is.  Pictures don't, either, since the camera keeps getting blurry shots.  It must be his Kryptonian physique.

There's Oscar Wilde sleeping on the floor in front of him.  Anyway, Superman has hands that are scraped up with gouges and he's missing the tip of his nose.  He's going to be a real fixer upper.

Also: there's been some interest in the couch I made, so I made up a kind of tutorial.  This isn't size-accurate, just a visual representation, so that you can do your own thing and experiment with what works for you.

Fold on the blue lines, attach the red lines together perpendicularly.  Stuff where you feel it needs stuffing, cover every piece with fabric.  The backing goes onto the back of the main part to cover up where you attached the fabric (I used hot glue).  I made four rounded rectangles as the arm fronts and arm backs, and I sandwiched the blue folding tabs between them before I glued the red to red.  It's really a lot easier than it sounds!  Happy arting!

Modification complete!   Okay, here's the story: I was going to use shrinky dinks for the wings, but we didn't have any.  I tried friendly plastic... but it's really old, and probably should be renamed unfriendly plastic, at least while it's in my incapable hands.  I tried plastic wrap, shrunken.  I finally settled on paper, and sparkly watercolor, and pen, and shiny gloss.  Here's the result:

Cute as a button, am I right?
I used a fabric sunflower for the dress.  I just took it apart, and wrapped it around her, sewing it directly on.

Happy arting!  And I love-love-love to get comments, I read every single one!

You'll have to wait a bit longer for my gal to be finished.  I thought I had a material that I do not, in fact, have.

But, but, but!
Look at what I did:

It's basically posterboard, covered with light batting, then covered again with that fabric I got at that garage sale that one time.  I used popsicle sticks at the seat to help stabilize it when folks sit on it.  It feels like a couch you'd want to sit on.

I just cut out the shapes, and in some cases sandwiched them.  Actually... if you look at where the pearls are, that's where my seams are from gluing the front to the back, or the side to the side.  I think it looks really funky and vintage, and it cost me way less than a dollar to make, since, as a crafter, I had most of this stuff lying around already!

Here's a closer look!

Happy arting!

Garage Sale Saturday was pretty much a bust today.  But I did find a little doll that's just fascinating me.  Look at those strange legs and strange feet.

I'll be giving her a makeover to make her more my style tomorrow! 

Also: it's National Novel Writing Month ( nanowrimo.org ), so November may be a little sparse artwise, but I'll do my best to get things done!  Happy arting!

I had and recovered from a stomach bug on Wednesday and now I'm rocking and rolling again!  But the problem is that I'm rocking and rolling too much.  There are too many ideas rattling around in this big dumb brain of mine, too many things half-started, and my room is too messy and I'm not quite at the energy level to clean it yet.

So there are no pictures today, but there will be eventually!  Don't lose faith in me!

Yesterday I made some art for the house!

I used a die cut to make something called an elastic square out of posterboard.  Basically... it folds to look like a top of a box.  You can do the same thing by hand by scoring the lines you want to fold.

Then I attached some of that really cheap brown paper towel that you find at schools.  This way the crayon would have something to latch onto, instead of slick posterboard.  That's right, folks, crayon!

For the sunflower pictures, what I did was draw it first with crayon, then shave wax off of the crayons with a scissor blade. Then I pressed the wax where I wanted it to go with another paper towel.  Without that compression, it would just fly away when I used the heat gun.   While I melted it with the heat gun, I used a pencil to move the wax where I wanted it to go, and make sharper lines.

As for the portrait of Van Gogh... as you can tell, I'm no V.G.!  For starters, I have both of my ears, yet!  I tried the wax thing for him, but melting it distorted the shapes too much, so I moved to tempera paint, applied with a pencil, to get that really nice texturing that you see in Van Gogh's work.

It actually does look pretty great, but the pictures  blur the details.  This picture does it slightly more justice. You can sort of see the texturing and all of the different shades in the portrait!

Happy arting!

Garage Sale Saturday was a huge success!

First we stopped by a home improvement store and found a glorious shade of oopsie paint and glass tiles that match!  The best part of the glass tiles is that they were in the fifty cent clearance section.

My only problem is that I need to figure out a way to cut the glass tiles so I can actually use them in the attic floor.  I have my feelers out to see if I have a friend of a friend that can hook me up.

As for the garage sales proper, I got a tiny zen garden that might go on the roof as a giant zen garden, but mostly it's for me.  Then I got these:

A teeny bucket and something that would work lovely as a rug.

Happy arting!

How to spruce up quarter machine fish!

Paint it with a coat of white acrylic, then go to town on them with watercolors.  Darker colors will seep into the crevices and create a really awesome, textured, depth-y effect.

Happy arting!

Today, I painted the outside of the dollhouse.  I've been itching to do something big, instead of so many little projects... but I'm struggling with the walling, and I have to do walling before I do flooring.  The one thing I can do is paint the outside.

These are the before pictures.  It's more gray than blue.  I used regular acrylic, and it just soaked right in.

This is the after picture.  I used a really cheap oopsie home improvement store paint, and, miraculously, I found a gorgeous blue shade instead of baby poop color.

It's really just tinted primer!  It covers really well.  I might do another coat just to be sure, but I love it.  It went on nearly white, but it dried this hybrid between sky blue and robin's egg and I love it!

I need to figure out a color for the trim, but, woohoo!