My New Junk Girl Sewphie Zipperbutton

My female found object sculptures tend to reflect parts of my life even though I never consciously plan it. I look at my junk collections and use what jumps at me. My first girl Office Joy obviously got inspired by the fact that I’ve worked in offices for many years and it was certainly my love for baking that led to Abby Sugarbaker. As sewing is one of my favorite techniques to create something, it is not amazing that Sewphie Zipperbutton was born eventually.

Sewphie is a practical girl and likes to keep her sewing supplies and notions close by. She can grab a pin from her head, use her right arm to mark a pattern or take one of her sewing machine feet when she needs one. She always keeps some money in her coin purse head in case she comes across a piece of fabric she can’t resist. I’m sure the fabric lovers amongst you can relate. :)

  

I know that my friend Traude hopes for a romantic relationship among some of my junk characters. So far there is no couple in sight though. There had been some flirting between Abby and Popping-Eye Pete but they decided to be just friends. But who knows, maybe they are friends with benefits. I don’t know what’s going on at night. ;)

Sewphie will take a break from sewing to attend these great parties:

Party Junk at Funky Junk Interiors

Talk of the Town at Knick of Time

Sweet Inspiration Link Party at Kreativ K
A New Life at Rostrose
Sonntagsblatt at Raumseele

More Than One Reason to Sing and Dance

If you had been in our kitchen yesterday morning, you would have seen me singing and dancing to radio music while I was baking apple crumb cake. The moves of my legs, hips, arms and my head slowed down the baking process a little bit but I didn’t care at all. I just couldn’t help it. After a long hot summer that wore me out, it rained and the temperature came down to 77°F/25°. I felt a sudden boost of energy. I hadn’t been so dynamic all summer long and I wanted to do 10 things at the same time. My multi-tasking skills are not the best anymore but I managed the simultaneously baking, singing, and dancing quite well. :)

While the hot temperatures before hadn’t make me sing and dance, there were some other occasions during the summer that made me do just that. When I was contacted by the editor of Sew Somerset about the lace hearts I made over 4 years ago, I was a bit in a dilemma. I was certainly excited about a possible magazine feature but those hearts were sent to friends long time ago. Recreating similar ones just didn’t feel right as my style has changed over the years. I explained my thoughts and was happy that a set of denim hearts I just had finished, got accepted instead and were published in the summer edition.

I was also thrilled about the opportunity to provide some pictures for the Inside Look section of Somerset Home, another wonderful Stampington publication. Especially happy made me to see my rusty map flowers among my 4 published photos.

Last but not least I was asked for permission to include my lace fish in the the Pin Interest section of the lovely Australian magazine Homespun. The fish made it into the June issue.

Thank you very much to the editors of all three magazines for publishing my work!

It’s supposed to rain for a few more days and I will embrace every single drop and maybe sing and dance some more. What has made you happy lately?

I will join these great parties:

Sweet Inspiration Link Party at KreativK
Saturday Sparks at Pieced Pastimes
Brag About It at VMG 206 

Talk of The Town at Knick of Time

Party Junk at Funky Junk Interiors

Summer Fun with Index Cards

The ICAD (Index-Card-a-Day) challenge over at Daisy Yellow is on again. Tammy challenges her readers to create something on an index card for 61 days in a row. I participate for the second time and use this as an opportunity to try new media, techniques and styles and to work with colors I usually avoid. Therefore you’ll get to see a wide variety and probably some creations you wouldn’t have expected. Well, even I was amazed by some of my ICADs and by how much I like the abstract ones. So far I haven’t followed any of the optional prompts this year. I often started without a specific plan and painted or collaged a background first, hoping I would come up with an idea afterwards. It somehow worked. :)

I’ve grouped my ICADs in terms of colors and themes for this post, so they are not in chronological order.

Acrylic paints, vintage book page, handpainted papers, stamps, white gel pen, black crayon.

  Acrylic paints, vintage book page, handpainted papers, stamps, white gel pen, black crayon, bingo card number.

I had some fun creating Lucy, the deer lady and the giraffe with and an ostrich head. You know that I like weird and quirky. :) Both heads as well as the giraffe body are parts of vintage images from The Graphics Fairy. I turned the second ICAD into a birthday card for a 12 year old girl.

Vintage book page, acrylic paints and clothes labels.

 

Vintage book page and ticket, handmade paper, acrylic paints, thread.

 

Handmade paper, acrylic paints, thread.

 Vintage book page and map, back of an envelope, handpainted papers, polyester organza melted with a heat gun.

Acrylic paints, ink, thread.

Handpainted papers, acrylic paints, thread.

Acrylic paints, black crayon.

A piece of an old t-shirt that I used to clean my brushes, ripped into strips and sewn randomly together with a zigzag stitch directly onto the index card.

Vintage book pages and other papers, acrylic paints, black and white crayon, ink, stamp.

Vintage book pages, corrugated and other recycled papers, handpainted paper, acrylic paints, black crayon.

The corrugated papers and pieces of vintage book pages sewn together and then used left side up provide interesting textures.

Vintage sewing pattern, book page and other vintage papers, scissors image from The Graphics Fairy, stamp, black crayon, thread.

Vintage book pages, handwritten letter, used sandpaper, corrugated and other recycled papers, acrylic paints, black crayon, stamps, thread. Rubbing a black crayon over a textured background gives a nice effect. I used that technique on several cards.

Acrylic paints, markers, white gel pen.

Acrylic paints, white gel pen.

Acrylic paints. Stamped with corrugated cardboard, bubble wrap and a bottle cap.

Markers only.

Just threads and a printed quote.

Watercolors, fabrics, threads.

My first attempt was a failure. I glued lots of different green littel rectangles onto and index card. Then I free machine stitched pokey lines to look like grass. After I had appliquéd the blossoms and machine stitched the stems and some vines it looked too busy. I cut out the flowers and glued them to a watercolor background with some curvy stitched lines. I’m still not too happy with it though.

 

Acrylic paints, corrugated paper, Japanese snippet.

 

Vintage book page, acrylic paints, white gel pen, black crayon.

Assorted used sandpaper, corrugated paper, parts of vintage book spines, bingo card number.

Crayons (melted with a heat gun, then rubbed with a paper towel) and a leftover piece of a vintage book page.

I like to thank Tammy for all the work she puts into the challenge. I enjoyed it so far and it is a great exercise but to be honest, I feel a bit exhausted. Just while I’m writing this, I have decided not to continue. We have high temperatures here and no A/C. These hot summer days and nights without enough sleep drain energy out of me. I rather like to spend that what’s left on my favorite subjects and create new fabric/fiber art and found object sculptures. I wouldn’t want to miss the challenge though. It’s good to leave the comfort zone for a while and try some new media and techniques.

My cards will show up at these great parties:

The Creative Circle at Up to Date Interiors
Sweet Inspiration Link Party at Kreativ K

Saturday Sparks at Pieced Pastimes

No Happy End

Only one week after I introduced you to Finn, the terrier mix we recently rescued, we had to put him to sleep. It started with little twitches in his left front leg. Two days later those had turned into severe cramps that compressed his whole body. Finn was in awful pain and cried heartbreakingly. It was a neurological disease and the vets said that there is no cure. We are very sad that we had to let him go but at least we could give him a loving home for some weeks. He was a cute and friendly little guy who had won our hearts in a short time. He made us laugh every day and we enjoyed having him around.

We miss you. Farewell, sweet Finn!

The Snail Siblings and their Stepbrother

Over the last few years I’ve taken apart several alarm clocks. You always find one of those metal spiral thingies inside, called alarm-clock springs. When I recently disassembled a clock, the spring had a gear attached to the middle. The whole piece reminded me of a snail and I just had to make a snail assemblage.

I love the rough texture of the wooden box. I made it out of an old strip of pallet wood. For the background I glued vintage book pages onto a piece of plywood and painted over with acrylic paints.

“The snail siblings were slightly irritated when they saw their stepbrother for the first time. It could have been worse though.”

I haven’t talked about it here before but over the last 3.5 years we’ve fostered several street dogs and their litters until they got adopted. In this country, it never takes long until you see a cat or dog who needs a home. In many cases they are in a very pitiable condition and need medical attention. It’s very often heart-breaking because you can’t help all of them. A few weeks ago we sat in the outdoor coffee shop of a large hardware store, when a little terrier mix puppy came by, begging for food. He was just bones and fur. A lot of hair was missing and his skin was red and flaky. The little guy must have lost his mother and siblings a while ago. We couldn’t help but take him home. One injection and 8 medical baths later, his fur and skin are almost back to normal.

We named him Finn. He’s a funny little guy and already a good watch dog, barking at every single turtle or snail that approaches the house. Good thing he protects us from these dangerous and scary creatures! :)

 I snapped some pictures in the garden which is mostly a huge wildflower field with some fruit trees and grape vines.

 

This Queen Anne's lace grows in our neighbour's garden. It's such a pretty flower.

Here's Barney sitting in a grape vine. I wish he would only climb into these but often enough he can be found very high up in one of the 20 feet high olive trees. It always freaks me out.

I hope you all have a wonderful and happy weekend. We have the  perfect weather at the moment with sunshine and 75° F/24° C. I love it.

The snails and their stepbrother will attend these great parties:

Party Junk at Funky Junk Interiors

Talk of The Town at Knick of Time

Sweet Inspiration Link Party at kreativ K

The girl who likes to bake

I grew up with cakes that were bought in a bakery or a supermarket. Given the fact that neither my mother nor my grandmothers ever baked, it’s pretty amazing that I became such an avid baker. This is a good thing because the cakes and pastries we get to buy here in Albania are usually super sweet and not really after our taste. I still have some baking recipes I cut out of German women’s magazines several years ago but most of the recipes I use, come from American or German food blogs or other food related websites. My favorites to bake and eat are all kinds of apple cakes, cheesecakes, muffins, brownies and cookies. Our local friends enjoy these kind of desserts as well and some suggested that I open up a pastry shop. I’m pretty sure that this would take the fun out of it for me but a new friend of mine stepped in. Please meet the passionate pastry chef Miss Abby Sugarbaker. :)

  Abby’s head is a glazed speckled egg I found among my Easter decorations. All other body parts are flea market finds I had for years. I don’t know why I bought the tiny beater at that time but it sure came in handy and Abby wouldn't want to miss it. :)

 

It was fun for me to sew a baker's hat and an apron for her.

These are some of today's sweet treets. I constructed the easel chalkboard out of craft sticks and a piece of heavy cardboard.

Do you like to bake? What is your favorite kind of cake, pie or cookie?

Abby will offer her sweet treats at these great parties:

Vintage Charm at Thrifty Rebel Vintage

A Morning Cup of Joe at The Cottage Market
Sweet Inspiration Link Party at The Boondocks Blog
Party Junk at Funky Junk Interiors

Talk of the Town at My Salvaged Treasures

A New Life at Rostrose