A Couple of Just For Me Projects

I think January is my favorite time to make art. Maybe because the holidays are over for another 11 months and the ones in the up coming year are still a ways off. But mostly I love January as an Art month because I can pull out all those want tos, need tos, and lets play projects/ideas. You know the ones you've been shoving on the back burner, or bribing yourself with. Now that's a true me characteristic. Okay when I get this and this and that done then I can play with... :) Know anyone like that???

So just for a bit (not long enough to suffer withdrawals mind you) I've put my beads, wire and tools away. We have two of these lamps. And as lamps go they are fine, however even with a cute row of fringe on the shade it still looks like a rice worker's hat. :(  Add to that the little matter that the shades are filthy and won't come clean.

Lampshades sold without a lamp base are next to impossible to find here in town. And when you do they are the type where the bottom and top frame wires are separated and the shape is created by stiff fabric covered plastic. I had it in my mind to put the shade on a bit of a diet by making the circumference of the bottom wire much smaller. Sooooo with a lot of cursing and more cursing I figured out a way to do that and then attach the top to the bottom wire so that my shade didn't have to be stiff plastic. :) Why yes if Mrs. Ross had heard her daughter, I'm sure there would have been a bar of soap with my name on it. ;)

For the shade I used 2 of my grandmother's embroidered and cut work linen napkins. I have a tablecloth and 9 napkins. I refuse to use them any more on the table because it never fails that someone spills or wipes red lipstick on them. :( These are irreplaceable so I have been working the pieces into other things. That way I still have the pieces and I'm using them instead of letting them mildew in the drawer. So I used 2 napkins sewn together with a self casing. I ran a vintage piece of ivory grosgrain ribbon through the casing so that it would fit over the frame. By doing it this way I didn't have to cut into the napkins and by removing the stitching I'm back to 2 napkins.  

  

For the base I thought I would let my new rust addiction have full rein. You know an antique cast iron finial of some sort nicely rusted, paint peeling sort of thing. Haaaa Haaaa HA. After layers of white paint, the iron paint then the rust medium, crackle medium... well,... all I can say is even squinting your left eye and covering your right,.. rusted cast iron would not be your first or last guess!! ;)  All LW could think to say was "well it's not really that bad,  and where did you say you were going to use it?" Time to get serious. I stuck another thick layer of crackle medium on and when it dried I slapped yep slapped a nice uneven coat of white paint on. Okay it looks better. Might even pass as rusted cast iron kinda. 

  

So when you put the top and the bottom together it looks like this. Yep I'm happy with it. :)

I can't tell you exactly why but I have always wanted a pair of well loved pointe shoes, I just have. A while back when I saw 3 very well loved pairs on eBay I threw in a bid for $1.99. I guess no one else wanted them so I'm now the proud owner or 2 pairs of really well loved and one pair of sorta loved pointe shoes! :) I took the two really well love pairs and played a bit with them. They didn't come with their ribbon ties so I made some. This pair I collage sheet music for Swan Lake in the inner soles and added a bit of my tea dyed lace and manta cloth for ribbons.

The other pair I cut out a few flowers from a piece of cotton fabric and glued (shhh don't tell, I was lazy and didn't sew them on) them to the tops and the inner soles. I tore ribbons of the same fabric for the ties.

The table cloth in both pictures was the one my grandmother embroidered to match the napkins. I can not even begin to imagine the hours it took to create these. They are more then precious to me. And although I do use our keepsakes rather then sticking them away it breaks my heart when they are not respected for what they are. I want to be able to pass these to my grandmother's great grand children. This is the way I can enjoy the love placed in these pieces and still have them to pass on.

 

Today is a great day to create no matter where in the world you find yourself.   p;)