surfing for knit and craft

i was surfing yesterday and i came across threadbanger, a craft/sewing site with useful videos like this one...





also, more poop to peep...i forgot to give the link so you, too, (not youtube) can knit a mr. hankey the xmas poo...whoda thunk it

arrr....

merry merry silly

tagging (not the graffiti kind) and a contest

"howdy ho boys and girls..."

things have been hopping here at craft pirate lounge...taggers have crafted and conquered! all ten of us created fun and cheerful tags for presents...here are (in some cases blurry and shiny because i have a crappy camera) some close-ups of some of the ones i made....





this last one is so cute i wish it came out...it says button up your overcoat...its from the end of a player piano roll box...then there is the pix of the gal in a heavy 4os coat... a piece of veil from an old hat completes the collage...

drum roll please...

i now present the group shots of each crafty gal who participated...their names are on tags in the pictures themselves....(except this one which is mine...of note: i didn't do an xmas theme at all...i went with my usual multi-media assemblage/collage gig)...










thanks to all of you who participated in this swap...i'll be hosting another one soon if you care to join the next round... it will either be "inchies" or atc's (artist trading cards) ...i'm open if you have an opinion...don't know? google these and see what you like...let me know...

things at the lounge are mellow .... we celebrated the season last sunday night as my in-laws are leaving this week to be snowbirds in arizona and mr. pop pirate is leaving for alabama soon ...we ate a lovely turkey dinner...now, i didn't take pix of said bird but it was a small one--9.75 lbs--on the serving platter it looked like it could be a big chicken....turned out great...didn't do a fancy glaze like i did for thanksgiving (honeyed fig balsamic vinegar glaze gleaned from the food channel ) just slid my hand under the skin and applied a rosemary,garlic,salt 'n pepa, sage and basil rub...delish....we've been playing waaaayy too much guitar hero....this is our xmas present to ourselves...

i'm on to searching out my UFOs...in knitting lingo that means unfinished objects....i've got a sweater i've been working on (or not) for too long to say...wanna wear it...gotta finish it...... new pair of socks is on the needles for mr. pop pirate...the first (and only so far) pair of socks i made turned out perfectly....i mean, they fit his feet and everything...they both are the same size and there is not one imperfection....hard to live up to ...the pressure's on....

ok-- now for some more fun....go back to the top of this post...see the quote? it's an xmas reference...who says this? the first one to comment with the right answer gets some arty goodness from me....

ride

at work we have a "secret santa" gift exchange...i know my recipient may read this but doubt it...here is what i made her...


it's called "ride"...rita the nurse is a horsewoman, owns them, rides them...

here is a close up of the barn wood and painted wish bone...love the western paper...

this is an original old photo of five children on a horse...on the back it says "if everyone wants to ride at once they go and catch old clyde. see turkes the dog under the hay baler." there isn't a date on it...


i know she'll like it...

we are all doing well here during this holiday season... mr. pop pirate is getting ready to leave for alabama for a visit with his family...i'm working xmas day...i really like to work holidays as people are usually in great moods and there is a sense of "well we're working on this holiday, let's make it fun"...

taggers! only a few days left until the due date! the ones i've received....wow! you are each crafty and artsy in your own sweet ways...these will be great for tagging your gifts!

i'll be posting this weekend a sample of the tags so's you knows who made what tag....most of you didn't sign them so i'll just post 'em...fun!

a banner day

who doesn't like to get packages in the mail... well, this gifty came all the way from palmer alaska
from fellow crafter lisabeth ... she decorated the jewelry box complete with pop-up armadillo... inside was a great jewelry pendant "inchie"...


lisabeth, who went to art school before she became an A-#1 R.N./F.N.P., made a linoleum print card...love the raven...thanks l.b....only 126 days until artfest, baby...

the day the package arrived, i was busy...i took these....


cardboard templates, beautiful papers and sparkly letters and made this...

it says"grateful"...i think it turned out fab...it is hung above our new xmas tree i picked up at
a&j antiques, where i have a booth, as many of you know... it's plastic and white and pre-lighted, and has glitter all over it...




for someone who really could take or leave xmas...i sure am having fun with the holiday spirit already...ho ho arrr...

grateful

i'm grateful for so much these days...morbid as it may seem to say, my mantra has lately been "every day above ground is a good day"...it gets to the heart of the gift here on earth...only so many days i will have... being an oncology/hospice nurse makes that perfectly clear to me...

i am grateful for my family and friends...you all make me who i am and you are my only wealth...

i am grateful for my healthy body that is going to carry me on the four mile turkey trot run this very very cold morning...gotta earn my extra slice of pie...

i am grateful for art/craft and how it is a vehicle for my heart's expression...i'm sure you all can relate to this as you are all creative people...

i am grateful for technology that allows me to talk with you and share my visions, humble as they may be...(i am currently not grateful for my digital camera however...broken...no pix for a bit here in blogspace..)

eat ... drink... and be merry....life is a gift....

inch by inch

been working on getting my "inchies" on...what kind of debauchery is that, you say? inchies are one of the latest new art swap...or maybe i'm getting in on the fun late in the game...either way, i'm having a blast working with paint techniques and working in simple assemblage accouterments, as well as working with what i call my "word salad," scrapping incomplete sentences, mixed with visually pleasing punctuation, creating grammatical tension...all that in one square inch...or at least that's what i'm shooting for.. this is in preparation for Artfest...whoopie!

sorry for the blurred pix, still learning the ins and outs of digital close-up snap shots...i love lumiere by jacquard ...iridescent, pearled paint...


tags are in the mail, compadres... tag! you're it!

swap update

Great news, crafters! craft pirate's tag swap has been linked up by Swapdex , a site dedicated to crafty swaps everywhere! so here's the skinny...the cut off date for our current swap is the 15th.... tags will be sent straight away and due back to me by 15 december... i will get the finished tags to you all swiftly for holiday use if you chose...simply email me your street address (don't leave it on the comments as that is public) at waters at frii dot com....i will email you with my address as well...let the tag-fastic fun begin!

swap-o-rama

wow, seems like an age since i was back bloggin'...so sorry to my three readers, but....iiiii'm baaaack....(snicker)

so, in case you didn't have enough to do around the beginning of the holidays, i am going to add to the chaos... join up for the tag swap! what's that, you say? this is how it works: the call for participants is made, i tally the number of us and send out that number of plain, manilla shipping tags to each of you...say 10 of us sign up you receive 10 tags...then you proceed to decorate, paint, alter, sew on, collage, glue found objects....all of them the same or each a unique work of craft and art... you send them all back to me and i'll organize them so that you each receive one of each of our tags.... you can use them on gifts or, as i'll be sending them back on a string for hanging them up, you can just enjoy them as a hanging piece of art.

so, who's in? here's the guidelines: on one side leave enough space for us ,if we wish,to write on them. Have a string of some sort in the hole so that we can hang them on the gift. send them all to me by 5 december...this is important for the swap to go smoothly...

here is my example:


collaged tissue paper, paint, old children's book cut out and magazine words, wire, plastic flowers and lace.

here are some other examples i gleaned from Somerset Magazine...



email me at: waters at frii dot com or just leave a comment if you wanna do this!

recently i took myself on a walk along the railroad tracks just off of trilby road...look at the rusty stuff i found.....yippee...

i love treasure hunting...aaarrr!

boo!

...did i scare you? i'm back on line after a major epic, saga, story that i will not bore you as it really bored me... aaarrrr...

friends emily and mark came over for dinner a few nights ago and we did what every dinner party extravaganza ends up doing....pumpkin carving! guess whose squash has an eye patch???

back to more art this week....posts soon...

kitty update: eating, grooming, happy chasing kitty toys...jaw is quite crookedly hanging off his skull...it doesn't seem to bother him....he's happy, we're happy...

we are experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by ...(while i am pulling my hair out and saying, "AAARRR!)

my computer's harddrive had a bad, fatal accident...while i am away, please know i am thinking about all 3 of my readers...

cat update: he got his resin posts undone yesterday and is finally eating full plates of food instead of just a teaspoon at a time...he's lost a lot of weight and his jaw bone wasn't ready to be mobile but ...his jaw is crooked but he is a happy boy now...depression is lifted...

now go forth and make a great day for yourself...back late next week ...

aarr....

what's important

not much art has happened in the past week as we are dealing with a broken kitty...last week i came home from a twelve hour shift to find my kansas city kitty walking from the back yard in shock...his jaw was broken in two places we soon found out...he was at the vet hospital for four nights... on the fifth day he had surgery to wire his jaw back into place and to have his top and bottom "canines", if you will, resined together, essentially wiring his jaw shut...

here's before the operation...

the cutiepie is our vet, Eric's daughter, Erica...you can't see the mess kansas' jaw was in (do you really want to?) but you can tell somethings not right... here is a very unhappy cat...

there is just enough space for his tounge to get through.... no, grant didn't take a bullet in the forehead, he bumped it on some stainless steel edge in the kitty kennel before the kansas surgery...there are more details but i'll pass--let's just say he's had to return two more times to the vet, gone under general anesthesia twice more .......

he is now a very depressed kitty, hardly eating....

soooooo....

i like to look at the ground....in search of treasures ( i am a pirate)...i find my best rusty things along busier streets...more detris, flotsam and jestum....while grant and i looked at a run down 1910 farmhouse on trilby road this week, i looked on the ground...it wasn't hard to find junk....the yard had been used for a dump. literally. some people....

here's what i found... the gnome was delighted as i was...notice the small machine gun? that will become a charm on a gun necklace i'm making...

now, what to do with junk one finds... art dolls are a great choice... i get great enjoyment in assemblage...taking disperate items and making them congeal into a coherent piece...

these are three that are from earlier in the year that i thought i'd share... salad tong fork, key, soldering dripping, copper wings from a nasty 60s wall art...the wings were put in a solution of miracle grow in order to get that oxidize look real quick...

here's one with a sewing machine lightbulb, wire screening, a crushed piece of thin metal i found in a parking lot in ithica, ny...and some solid metal thingy....it stands or hangs on the wall...a fav...

the above piece is poorly fotographed...i'm still learning...it's a vintage spoon from some hotel, a sewing machine lever, wood, electrical parts, a watch face etc...

i invite you to go for a walk, look down and find that buried treasure that might just make it into your next art project... pop pirate, off looking for buried treasures....

here knitty,knitty

the weather is turning a bit to the fall direction...wet, cool, cloudy...i bet i'll be able to see my breath tonight...so i've pulled out my knitting...a co-worker is having a baby in october so i've started on this...

the yarn is a baby-soft, champagne colored acrylic i got at hobby lobby for 99 cents a skein... once i knit all the funny twists and turns it will turn into a tiny version of this...

it's an orgami teddy bear pattern that is knit up flat, and then folded in such a way as to, all of a sudden like, look like a bear...i gleaned from one of the many mags and books i copied when i first got into knitting... the multi-colored one above is for a bear auction in november to benefit the children's harmony house in fort collins...

here's a very warm lion wearing the scarf i'm knitting for my mom...

she (my mom, not the lion) picked out the nubby grey and white yarn and i am cruising through it while we watch the hbo series "Rome." great entertainment that fall of an empire is..

new art soon to be posted... i got commissioned by emily and marc to create some art for the wall space above their bed...i have been in quite a flow and can soon reveal it ... it is an interesting process to make art that fits with another's vision...more later...caio (yes, pirates can speak italian as well as say aaarr!)

TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!

... AAARRR mateys, i can't believe it's here again. ...my blasted favorite day of the year next to thanksgiving, ( montana's birthday...my birthday, grant's, dates with friends...) well, ok it's up there with my favortite days....i've got pirate-tude, how 'bout you, you scurvey landlubber???

festerin' boils! it's cold as a witch's tit this mornin'... well, i hyperbolize a bit here but it's a cold 'un...so i sit at the computer with tea in hand (i'm certain pirates can drink tea...should i get some grog and splash a shot in it?) and see just how many of us pirates are about... there's this one...and here's one that you must take some time to ckeck out...

so pull on your boots, grab your sword, but most of all get your pirate on and have fun searching for buried treasure today... you might be suprised...

AAARRRR!

to market, to market, to buy a ....

i invited grant to come with me to the Ballpark market in denver saturday...i've been wanting to go all summer and i finally made it happen...it turned out to be a flea market that is a bit more focused and doable in a morning than milehigh fleamarket ... look at the first booth i saw and just know i was in heaven...

i saw vintage and new aprons wafting in the morning breeze at the just picked vintage booth...

and just look at the plethora of vintage clothing...

and here's just one of many boxes of rusty things i picked over...

grant initially really didn't want to come, but decided to join me in my junkers world...he ended up spending way more money than i did...he bought an oak sideboard we will use in the office... here he is wheeling and dealing with steve the funiture guy...

what a great way to spend a gorgeous fall day...



...home again, home again, jiggity jig!