She's Crafty

About a year ago, my mother gave me a list of collage exercises from a collage class she took. I was fascinated by all the different techniques and ways to get an idea across, but I never sat down to actually create anything. Mostly I just plundered magazines for materials for "possibilities". On my recent trip to my grandfather's house for a week in May, I decided to take along craft scissors, two types of glue, double sided tape, permanent markers, and a sketch book (as seen above) along with the list of collage activities. I ripped through his wastebasket for magazines and scraps. The above collage was actually my 4th attempt at trying things on the list. The subject was to pick out pictures of your interests and put them together in a way that represented you. This is my finished product.

This is a picture of a "cheap" find... I went to Target to "just" buy kitty litter and I found a whole slew of other stuff, these beads being one of them. I am planning to to cut the beads off the string and re-string them as a new necklace and earrings. I got the "thrify crafting" idea from another blog that my mom sent me a while ago.

One more example of my talents before I sign off. I was on a pottery painting kick several years back and I painted these for my two kids named above. The white paint is actually a speckled glaze - the specks are multi-colored, like confetti. The dark is a rich cobalt blue (a big favorite of mine). The trick to getting the blue this dark and solid looking, is to paint three coats and they have to dry in between them (boring and time-consuming, but totally worth the effect). Don't do more or the overglaze while firing will crack and/or bubble unattractively!!

See you next week...