This is a kid art display outside a local gallery.
For Cee’s Fun Foto: Seeing.
Cheerful Sighting.
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Category Archives: Arts/Crafts
Mother’s Day: NaPoWriMo 2020, Day 20
Mother’s Day
Twenty wooden clothespins, slightly askew,
painted every color of the rainbow,
clipped to an empty Starkist tuna can.
A handful of dirt,
a tiny plant
and a quarter cup
of crushed lava rock.
A gift from an 8-year-old,
it graces my typing table
in front of a painting—
gift from another friend—
that it seems made for.
Thank-you, Yoli, little girl
who makes priceless gifts
for a childless friend.
Like me, my grandmother,
peerless collector of cast-offs,
handicrafter extraordinaire,
would have declared it beautiful.
For Apr 20, 2020 NaPoWriMo we are to write a poem about a handmade gift you have received.
Amber, Carnelian and Fiber Bracelet.
I think I’m on a jag. . . Can’t stop. 3:44 a.m. and I just finished another bracelet. Someone stop me before I create again!!!
Egg Carton Posies
I had friends over to make these recycled flowers yesterday. We still have at least one more day to go, but these are the ones I stayed up all night last night finishing…Fun.
Click on any photo to enlarge all:
If you are curious about the process, this is what we did. You need egg cartons or dividers for the flowers, toilet paper rolls or other thin cardboard for leaves and stems and vines, large sharp scissors, a glue gun or white glue, paint, paper towels and patience.
I prefer egg cartons, but what we had available were these large sheets of egg dividers.
This is the reverse side.
Cut strips directly down the middle of each dividing line between the separate cups.
Then cut each cup away from the strip, remembering to center.
Cut down the four sides to the corner of the bottom of each cup,
Fold open your “flower” and cut petals to whatever shape you wish. This is a sampler of four different designs, although there are a limitless number of shapes you could use.
Paint your flower, or if you prefer, paint the strips before you cut them apart. I prefer to do the individual flowers because you don’t have to wait for the paint to dry.
Then cut strips of a thin cardboard–either the lid of the egg carton or toilet paper rolls or any other unwaxed cardboard. It is best to use plain cardboard with no printing so you only have to do one layer of paint.
Cut into a fringe to form stamens and pistils of the flowers. Paint and roll, then affix with hot glue. If you wish, layer the painted petals to form various flowers and hot glue in place.
Cut branches, vines and leaves out of flat cardboard to embellish the flowers.
Here are flowers in various stages of assemblage. The straw I am going to use for the stem of the daffodil. For the final product, look above! Have fun.
For Cee’s FOTD. An addendum: https://ceenphotography.com/2019/01/11/fotd-january-12-2019-daffodil/
Paying Homage
Paying Homage
A “retable” or “retablo” was originally a frame or shelf enclosing decorated panels or revered objects above and behind an altar. It has since come to also designate the painting or other image it encloses. In Mexico, it is common for families to have smaller versions of the larger pieces seen in churches in their homes. At the time I moved here in 2001, I could buy the undecorated, unpainted ornamental metal frames for retablos in a local artisan market and I started making retablos myself that paid homage to saints, Mexican legendary figures, artists, family members and friends. Over the years, my subjects have grown, as have the retablos. Here are a few of the hundreds I’ve created over the past 16 years. Recently, as the metal frames get harder to find, I have started using simpler boxes which I have constructed for me.
Jugetes (Toys)
“We’ll Always Have Paris”
Santa Cecilia (Patron Saint of Poets and Musicians)
Self Portrait
Hidden Kiss
Sunrise Madonna
The Circus
Sunday Afternoon Sala
Ganesha
Creativity
Homage to Picasso
Rainy Season
H
Macho
Our Lady of Notions
The prompt today was homage.
Orderly Beauty
What Can We Do to Improve our Town?
This is what the kids at Campamento Estrella (Camp Star) in San Juan Cosala, Mexico had to say today about saving their world:
(Please click on first photo to enlarge all.)
Scissors, Tissue Paper and General MacArthur
Before I leave to get busy with paper, scissors and glue at Campamento Estrella today, I want to share this crafty tradition passed on by my mother. It was my favorite family tradition.
The Daily Post prompt was traditional.
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Every year, my mom helped us make May baskets to fill with candy and leave on the doorsteps of our friends. As mentioned in an earlier post, we’d ring the doorbell and run. If the recipient caught us, they could kiss or pinch us—their choice.
Some years we bought fancy handled nut cups from the dime store and used them, but I liked best to make my own. One year, my mother showed us something special to use for May baskets. Her family knew how to make these incredible tissue-paper ornaments that, with a cupcake liner filled with candy glued into the bottom, hung down in a web-like form. We’d pin them at the top and when you held them up they would fall down in a lacy accordion effect so they were a foot or two high. The only way you could really get the effect…
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Brittle Beauties: Flower of the Day, Feb 27, 2017
Click on first flower to enlarge all and see slide series.
Glass? No. My friend Jan is the Chihuly of plastic. These beauties are fashioned using a simple votive candle, various cut-up plastic bottles and old CD or DVD discs. She had to make do with my “super match” at my house as I was fresh out of votives.
https://ceenphotography.com/2017/02/26/flower-of-the-day-february-27-2017-camellia/
Art Play Date Day 1
Click on first photo to enlarge all and see slideshow.
Beginning stages of Mazinka’s piece.
Judy’s piece..beginning stages.
Mazinka working on her piece.
Judy’s piece in progress. Possible name: Cup of Sumer.
Jan’s finished piece. I forgot to ask what she named it.
Jan creating her famous jellyfish!
Jan is the only one who finished her piece. Mazinka and I will meet again on Sunday to finish ours. Don’t judge us… they aren’t finished!!! Several people asked for photos, so here they are. The restaurant two buildings away not only loaned us one of the tables and carried it over for us but also brought our lunches. I made the blueberry margaritas and the guacamole!
