Two Bird...hmm make that Mules With One Stone

Our friend Mike from California is here house hunting for a couple of weeks. Besides being a very good friend he is also a very willing Mule :) This was one of those trips we knew he was making but we didn't know exactly when. Sooooo in my best Miss Scarlett--"I'll think about it tomorrow" behavior, I must now work like a mad women to get projects and gifts done, so he can post them for us when he returns to the Northern Lands :) I participated in a couple of "Pay it forward" challenges and thought it might be a good idea to get at least one done and on it's way. The Bloglandian friend I made this gift for is dreaming of doing a bit of redecorating this summer. Since they live in a land locked state they are dreaming/scheming of bringing the beach to them :)

I also noticed that Linda and Rosie of Awfully Big Art Adventure challenge for this month is to create a piece of art with beach debris.., ok shells, mermaid tears, you know beach debris. :) AHHHH HAAA my little "gray cells" said beach decor beach debris art work why I could kill two mules with... well you get the idea.

I thought I would make a wall hanging and this is what I came up with.

I needed something light but stiff for the back board. Here plywood is very expensive and chip board is almost never seen. Why??? Cuz we have those nasty critters-- termites. Our houses & buildings are made with bricks or cement blocks. I really didn't feel like running all over town trying to find the usual materials. We were in Office Max and I looked down and on the shelf were those cheap pressed material? clip boards. Perfect LW cut the clip off for me and I was on my way:)

I wanted to cover the front with something that would fit in with the whole beach, sand, sail, relaxed, thing. So I dyed a piece of cheese cloth with strong coffee and lightly sprayed it with stickum and then patted it onto the board. It has a nice loose relaxed look. Look below see that picture that's Mexican cheese cloth. Unlike the stuff up north this is more a 2ply kinda material. It's also quilted every inch or so and there really is no way to take the two pieces apart. But I'm quite happy with the way it looks and actually it's a lot easier to work with then the stuff up north.

I own exactly TWO art stamps (yep only two) one is a nice size bird nest with eggs. The other is this large collage type one with travel things and the profile of a woman's head. That's the one I used to stamp the back of the tags I was making. I was working towards the simple beautiful look of Sara Luggs' early art work. The only thing I place on the tags were the shells and mermaid tears.

I have these ever so tiny bottles, I filled one with sand from our beach and for the other I caught 2 even more tiny mermaid tears. Both bottles I sealed with wax and then used a bit of copper wire to wire them to the board. Ha finding copper wire for jewelry and art is a whole other story I'll have to share one of these days :)





Somewhere and I feel bad because I don't know who to attribute it to, I found this quote. It's such a sensuous, almost heart wrenching visual picture. But it came to mind when I had the stamp, shell, mermaid tears and starfish all together.

Then the last piece the finishing touch. On one of our beach days I stopped to write PARADISE ! in the wet sand just above the tide line. LW took a picture of it, and one of these days we'll get it worked into the banner for the blog. It really does define our lives now. But we are not fooled it is written on sand and threatened by the incoming tide. We don't waste our time with what the tide washed away yesterday nor do we worry what high tide might bring tomorrow. Today we make and live our paradise on the sand between the two tides

When you put all the pieces together this is what it looks like. I truly hope my Bloglandian friend will like this little piece of my beach. :)

Have a most audacious today or tomorrow depending on where in the world you are ;)

PS. I might be a wee bit scarce for a few days, as my todo list keeps growing and the day Mike has left keep sliding by :( Also I still can't get Blogger to let me move pictures on my blog. So it's taking forever to get enties done :(