Thing-a-day.com

I made some more progress on the red goose egg pysanky started yesterday. I drew a purple sawtooth border and filled in half of the curved shapes with color. Unfortunately when I was cleaning and scrubbing the egg after the purple dye (to return it to white), some of the wax lines started to chip at the edges. I’m not sure exactly why this happened. This goose egg is slightly rough in texture, so the wax may not be adhering as well in some places. Or maybe I just scrubbed too much. I decided to re-dye the egg red and draw those lines again. The chipped lines may still show in the finished egg, but hopefully not too much.

Two weekends ago Aidan and I went to radio shack and he was looking at these $9 bug bots which have a sound sensor, two touch sensors (antennae) and 6 legs. He was very interseted in both the walking mechanism and the touch sensor. We decided that we should add one of those to his arduino based mouse (A168).

i can’t believe it took me this long to think of this

I went for a walk today, and saw a gorgeous old oak in a front yard being supported by a column.  This gave me the inspiration to do a photo essay on my walk entitled: Humans partnering with non-humans. Enjoy!

The park that I love to go to has a resident
great blue heron. I almost always
see it in the park on days when I’m feeling
like my spirits need a lift. It’s a breathtaking
sight when I see this graceful bird glide above the
treeline. I wasn’t at the park today, but this collage
reminded me of a day last week as the sun was starting
to set, making the sky all pink like cotton candy……and
there was the bird……made me smile.

I’m tired of the traditional sort of furniture I have in my craft room now, so I’m thinking about some new stuff (and paint, and new curtains!). This isn’t high in my budget priorities, so everything will probably come from IKEA! I took measurements and laid out my craft room in 3d, and added in some placeholders for potential IKEA furniture.  (If you want to see what it looks like right now, check out my first post.)

After playing in the snow all day she is one tired dog.

She likes her bed but she rolls around allot.

At last I have made my Indiana Jones pin cushion.  I wanted something more interesting than a tomato.  I can sharpen my needles in his left leg.  The leg is filled with steel wool.  I got the original idea from Craft magazine of a Voodoo doll pincushion. http://www.craftzine-digital.com/craft/vol02/?pg=125

But I wanted something that fit my style more and decided on the voodoo doll from Temple of Doom. 

After my discouraging day yesterday, I thought I would take a break from good old Magritte. But instead, I woke up and attacked a black ink on white paper version as originally intended. Having learned a lot of lessons yesterday, the white book went much smoother.

It turned out really well but without the black, I am not perfectly satisfied (when did I turn into such a perfectionist? I am not sure; I have not always been this way…).

I have the foil on order and need to wrestle up some more black paper to make more black books. But I am afraid that will not happen by the end of Thing-a-Day.

That said, thoughts for next time: I will try a different printer although with substantially less ink, it may not be a problem. I will attempt some test foil applications. I will remember to go slow, always slow. If nothing else, the black paper with silver foil will make a cleaner looking book without all those white edges.

My brother wants a copy so I will also look into a small run from an actual print house. I wonder how much that will cost due such a small quantity and specific size / length.

Of course, being so submersed in the book this weekend, and pleased with the results today, I can not wait to try it again in black…

I thought for day 24, I’d follow the suggestions at the top of the page: Remake, revise, review, get started, finish things, keep going, send it around. This is how it went…

I finished Thing 7.

Or at least, I think I did - this was what I had planned out in my head, but now that I’m looking at it, I think the corners look kind of sparse…maybe I’ll see how it looks framed, and then see if I want to do more to it.

Thing 13 was my plastic bag yarn which I tried to do something with by way of ‘finishing’ that thing. But I quickly discovered I hated knitting with it, hated the way it felt, and disliked the texture of the ‘fabric’ it produced. Call this one a fail, I’m recycling those plastic bags the more usual way.

Next, I cut out and put together the rest of the things I printed out on Day 14 which was fun:

Jack and Gir are from Papercritters.com, and the skull is from Skulladay.com.

The skull has an articulated jaw, how awesome is that? You can make him talk!

And lastly, I got halfway down the foot of the sock from Thing 16, but didn’t finish it.

I forgot to post yesterday, so I have a combined post today.

Yesterday, I grabbed some yarn and started in on this eyeglasses holder that I’ve been meaning to start. Though the author of the pattern says you can use the basic head pattern to create any number of characters you can imagine, I loved her Ernie so much that I’m copying hers. After the work I did on it yesterday, all I have left are the eyes and hair.

Today I tried my hand for the first time at making sugar cookies. I increased the almond extract a bit and added about a tbsp. of honey to the recipe on the back of the flour bag, and they came out pretty tasty.

Here’s a pictures of Day 23 and 24 projects hangin’ out together:

P.S. - The cool thing about starting this on the first day of the month, is that you always know what day in the process it is.

Almost done with the thing for the day, I’ll be finishing it while watching the rest of the Oscars tonight on TV. It’s my fifth swatch for the month.

Ohia Tree

It is so strange

to see you rooted

in the old, wooden gutter

where you don’t belong,

and yet I am charmed

by your tiny arms reaching

with nature’s steady push

toward the light.

Today was my first day back at Nemo since spraining my wrist. As you can see, it’s been taped within an inch of its life. Got thru the shows pretty well, tho.

i reconstructed another oversized tshirt today:

i got the idea from 99 ways to cut, sew, trim, and tie your t-shirt into something special (#15, mimi) but had to modify the sleeves to make them fit better and also made the belt significantly shorter.

Was going for “No Fear, No Fail” - not quite what Jason had written…oops ..

Somehow Fail turned into Fair…Hah! Again, another mistake..hmm?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I’ve read Art & Fear…and I find it fascinating that I am so drawn to art but also so fearful of it.

First of all, Rory is a guy. And he’s a Cornish Rex cat, which means he has short, wavy fur. He is the world’s best cat: he has a fantastic sense of humor, wags his tail like a dog, is a grandpa, and is a therapy animal. His worst trait is that he’s a mooch, and wants to share anything you’re eating.