Closet cleanout and repurposing

I've been cleaning out my closet lately, trying to get rid of the things that are unflattering, don't fit, or that I just don't like. That's partly what inspired the whole 30 for 30 thing.

On what seems like a totally unrelated note, I've been wanting to find some little cloth shoe bags that I could put shoes in when I travel so my shoes don't get my other clothes dirty.

So I'm going to beg friends and family with sewing machines to let me come over and use them for an afternoon, and I'm going to chop up my old clothes and turn them into my travel bags.

But I've got to do it soon. I'm so over 'someday' projects and having piles of stuff that 'I'm going to do something with' lying around gathering dust.

Guess What I'm Making With...

-One piece of wood (16x30x2)
-16 adhesive hooks
-wire

Go on, guess!

Daaaarling Paper Flower Ornaments

If you don't feel like blowing a bundle of money on christmas tree ornaments, you could make a bunch of these super cute ornaments designed by Jessica at How About Orange. Cute, easy, and budget-friendly. Perfect.

Friday Faves - Earrings

Several of you, though I'm guessing not all of you, know that I love earrings. REALLY love them.
You might call it an obsession, a fetish, or an accessory imbalance. But, call it what you will, I love earrings, and I thought I would share mine with you today.

I have amassed many pairs of earrings in my life. In total I think I've got between 85-90 pair of earrings. I counted a while ago but I don't remember the exact number. Almost all of the earrings I wore growing up are gone because they were mostly post earrings, and now I tend to wear drop earrings 99% of the time. I have zero tolerance for being stabbed in the neck by an earring post. Hooks are so much more gentle on the skin behind my ears.

Keeping track of all my earrings (specifically, rummaging through them all to find the ones I wanted to wear) had become a challenge in the last couple of years, so I finally devised a way to keep them all in one place. This was the resulting crafty project.

Ingredients: One unfinished glass-free frame from Robert's, several lengths of ribbon, staple gun, staples, white paint, clearcoat. Oh, and 3M hooks for the necklaces and rings at the bottom. LOVE those hooks.

There are some changes I would make to this having now gone through the process once. I would use eyelet screws on the inside of the frame where the glass would normally sit and I would either use thinner ribbon or wire. I kind of like the way the ribbons wrapped aroung the edges of the frame, but the earrings with the smaller hooks tend to slip off the ribbon because it is too wide and flexible.

Regardless of those little issues, I have loved having this earring holder. It keeps them all in front of me, and it turns my earrings into a sort of haphazard artwork.

A couple of years ago I decided that instead of spending money on random souvenirs on trips I take (which inevitably end up thrown away, lost, broken, or being picked up by me as I scratch my head and wonder where I got it), that I would purchase a pair of earrings for each vacation I go on (or multiple pairs, if I am visiting several locations in one trip).

It started in 2005 with a Thanksgiving trip to New York City and has continued up through mytrip to Alaska this summer.

I'm not going to lie--picking my favorite earrings was a challenge, because I wear so many of them frequently and love them for different reasons. But here are some of my favorites and where they came from.

These turquoise hoops are a recent purchase, custom made by her. (I love Etsy. Seriously.) They are to replace a pair of earrings I bought at the Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program rug auction and jewelry sale in 2005. I lost ONE of them just a few weeks later and have been looking for a replacement pair ever since.

This pair of red coral spheres I purchased at an outdoor market in Berlin right outside of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

I wear these earrings at least once a week. They were a Valentine's Day gift from a coworker who knows how much I love earrings. We were on a business trip together and she gave me these and a great card with a quote from Van Gogh about painting. (She obviously knows me really well and is an extremely thoughtful person.) Thanks, Gena!!

These earrings were also a recent purchase, because I didn't feel like I had any silver earrings that were really basic but still had some substance to them as far as their size. These are maybe one inch across, so not huge skanky hoops, but they don't disappear once I've got them on, either. From Target (as are most of my earrings).

This pair was a Christmas gift last year from my best friend Happy. I wasn't sure how I felt about them at first, because up to that point I almost never wore anything but silver and cool colors. Thanks Hap! (For the earrings and helping me branch out).

This pair is also from the Hapster. She got them from a woman who had a booth at the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days fair. Apparently this woman never makes the same pair of earrings twice. I love these earrings, and I get tons of compliments every time I wear them (which is pretty often because they're really versatile).

And to wrap it up (I'm sorry... who knew that anyone could write this much about earrings??), these earrings are coming my way soon. Again, these are replacing a pair of earrings (my favorite pair EVER, hands down--I wore them every day of my mission and then some) because I lost one while napping on my parents' couch. It disappeared into the depths of the cushions or elsewhere, never to be found again.

They are also from Etsy (this shop), and I am sooo excited to have found some that are so similar to the one I lost (I still have its partner in my car so I could periodically stop by Argento and ask if they were making them again).

Okay, I'm done. If you read this whole thing, you are a trooper. :)

"How to Create an Abstract Painting" from wikiHow

I thought this little "tutorial" from wikiHow was kind of fun.

How to Create an Abstract Painting

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Abstract painting might look easy, and it might look as if the artist did not know what they were painting. It might look like it; however, this is far from the truth. Abstract can be more difficult than landscape or scenery, because there is nothing to copy from, and nothing like it has been painted prior to the moment that the artist picked up the brush.

Steps

1. Buy a ready made canvas in a craft store. Buy any size that you feel you would like to work on. A smaller one, 10x10, or 12x12 might be best, if you are just learning and experimenting. The canvas will be ready to work on as is, but if you prefer a colored background, buy a jar of Gesso, to prime the canvas and give it a touch of color. When doing this however, you will have to wait about 24 hours until the canvas dries before you can paint on it.
   
2. Decide whether to use acrylics or oil paint. Acrylics have no odor, are easy to wash off surfaces and clothes, dry faster and can be painted over if you make a mistake. Oils are the complete opposite.
   
3. Buy a color chart and an easel and paints and brushes. Buy the basic colors at first, and use the color chart to determine which colors belong together.
   
4. Start your painting by thinking of an object, or a scene. Do not think of the actual drawing of each, just dwell on the thought. Look at a vase, not at how it actually would be sketched, but how you would think it would look. Your imagination, and your feelings will create what you paint on the canvas. Remember, you are interpreting, not drawing.
   
5. Allow the brush to take over painting with one color. When your thought process stops, you stop. Add another color, shade it, make it lighter at any part, or heavier at another. Improve what you see on the canvas and of what you think should be added.
   
6. Add a bit of yellow, to a part of the red, blend it and make various shades of orange. Some areas will be darker, some lighter according to the brush strokes.
   
7. Remember once you feel that the painting is finished, stop . Do not go back to improve or touch it up. Do not overwork your painting, but learn to finish it, the moment you feel it is finished.
   

Found this here.

Tips

• Experiment with adding textures to the canvas, and painting over them for added depth to the painting.
  
• Use colors according to the feeling you wish to paint. Read about colors and how to use them to express emotions. Reds and yellows will be happy, while blues, blacks, and browns will signify darker feelings. The feeling you wish to convey will depend on the colors and brush strokes you use.
  
• Don't be afraid of drips and splatters. At times drips might add texture to your painting and so will splatters especially of a blending color.
  
• Don't wear nice clothes. Wear something you don't mind getting paint on.
  
• Sometimes the best pictures you make are the ones with your eyes closed. So don't be afaid to close your eyes and just have fun with it.
  

Warnings

• Wash your brushes with a cleaning solution after you are finished painting to keep your brushes soft and usable.
  
• You can also wrap your brushes in clear film or a carrier bag and they will stay fresh for weeks.
  

Sources and Citations

• All about acrylics
  
• Painting
  
• About Abstracts
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Create an Abstract Painting. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Take Out Photo August Monthly Special - Photo Within a Photo

Marc Olivier of Olivier Photography has started a really fun blog called Take Out Photo. He centers his posts around a monthly theme, and gives a photography "assignment" based on that theme. Participants can then post their assignments on their own blogs or Flickr accounts, and link back to his post via a special setup on the comments page.

I thought with so many photographers in the family this might interest some of you... I gave this month's theme (Photo Within a Photo) a couple of tries...


Attempt 1
I walked in to my parents' kitchen yesterday to find dozens of old glass slides and a light box on the counter, as well as a handheld slide viewer on the kitchen table. Dad is doing a big project trying to scan his own paper-mounted slides, and he's trying to capture grandpa's slides without the benefit of a machine for viewing glass slides (they are much thicker and don't scan properly). Right now it's a matter of putting the glass slides on the lightbox and taking a picture of them in macro mode. Not ideal, but if it's the only way to get grandpa's pictures, then it's worth doing, right?
Does anyone know of a better solution for doing this?



Attempt 2
This consists of me bragging about Heather. Hello, Creativity personified. These items were all made by Heather and I think they are great examples of how she uses pictures of her family.

The vinyl tabletop on the boys' little lunch table had ripped, so heather took the table apart, Mod Podged pictures onto the top of the table, and covered the whole thing with a heavy duty plastic(?) before reattaching it to the table base. Darling.

This is a project I've been wanting to do for a while. Maybe Heather can blog about how to make these (or, since she has a newborn baby, maybe I'll just try and let you know the results). They are old board books that are sanded down to remove the glossy finish, and then covered in cardstock/scrapbook paper (using Mod Podge) and turned into custom-made story books. Here is Taylor reading one about going to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point.

This third project a darling way to display photos of your children and the art they make. This would also be really easy to turn into a mini magnet/cork board, a key holder, or a way to display souvenirs and pictures from a special trip, favorite year of high school/college, etc. There are a dozen variations I can think of for this particular project.

The magic ingredients?? Mod Podge, a plank of wood cut to the desired size, pictures, ribbon, a staple gun (or glue to attach the ribbon to the back) craft paint, clips to hold the art (hooks for keys, a strip of cork or metal, etc.), and a way to hang the finished product on the wall.

I hope this has inspired you in some way--I am definitely feeling the need to go find some cheap board books...

And don't forget to jump over to Take Out Photo and look around. Marc's posts are always interesting, his photography is great, and he has just started a series of posts demonstrating how to do helpful things with Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.