Sunday, November 27, 2011

Family Candles

I hope everybody had a blessed and happy Thanksgiving Holiday!  I was fortunate to spend the holiday in Georgia with my sister, her family and my son (who's attending school over here), for the feast and we had a beautiful time.

During our special bonding period, we decided on the perfect gift for our siblings - 8 in total - Family Candles.  Okay, so what is a Family Candle?  Actually it's something we made up... my older sister is the historian in the  family who we're always calling to find out about birthdays, deaths, etc.  So to eliminate this annual question of birthdays we decided to put it on a candle!

Sorry, I don't have very many pics but it's easy to follow:

First we identified the pictures we wanted to use and printed them on tissue paper.  We found the best way to do this was to tape the tissue paper along the corners and edges on top of plain paper.  I think it's better to print your pictures first to make sure your candles will be the correct size.

We then took plain candles and glued the pictures on them.  I used mod podge for this.





So this is my family





Well, remember I said we can never remember each other's b'day... we also typed the date of birth for each sibling and glued it to the back of the candle, because there were so many of us we were always dubbed The Rolland Clan (smile).




We didn't stop there...my parents died at a very early age and none of us (excepting my sister Teresa the "historian") could remember their date of birth or death.  So we purchased additional candles to include my parents.



And then we included my grandmother (on my father's side) who played a major role in our upbringing.  I remember taking this picture of her when I first started playing around with black & white photography.  Although she enjoyed dressing up, on those hot,blistery Georgia summer days she was known to sit on the porch with her hair wrapped in a scarf.  When I showed her this picture she was quite upset...but I always loved it.




This is the first of our Family Candles.











Although it's difficult to tell from the pictures the candles used were creamy yellows (siblings) and white (parents).












I was so impressed with how these candles turned out I decided I would try to do a family line using candles.  They make a beautiful display plus they'll provide a good source of reference for my son when he's ready to trace back his family line.

Because I'll be leaving in a few days, I'll be giving each of them their Family Candles early.  But I'm hoping we will never have to call the "historian" for birth dates again (smile).




Now its your turn to LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Picture Frame Painted

In my earlier blog I mentioned I was working on a few small projects for my kitchen counter.  The first was the kitchen clock I completed.   Sorry, there aren't very many pictures showing how I did everything, I've been fighting a cold and not feeling too well.

This is a picture I kept on my counter for years...



It's been a while since I repainted my kitchen, so it was time to get creative with my frame.   I was too lazy to pull out the primer so I base coated it with chalk paint...




I then painted it with a Williamsburg Blue paint I had gotten from a craft store.  I then distressed it and finished it with ocher paint that I would then wipe down.




I wasn't too pleased with the results, the frame looked like it was missing something...





So,  I slapped on another coat of paint, applied a raised stencil, and repeated the process...


















Well I'm gonna take some cold medicine and huddle under the covers for a while.  But don't forget to LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Frustration & Carousel

Have you ever worked on something so simple but couldn't get it right?

It happened to me while working on my candles.  Along with everything else I had to do, I decided to try to finish up on my candles but there was one particular candle I just couldn't get right.  I started with a simple candle






I glued on the tissue paper, and then I painted it black... easy so far




Then I added copper....one word "yuck"!





So,  I gave it some thought and decided to go simple and use silver...

Hated it!



By this time I'm frustrated and so rather, then pull my hair out, I decided to work on a candle nugget.  I had already plastered it a few days ago so I decided to play around with it.


I decided to use happy colors... and as I painted my nugget it reminded me of a merry-go-round.





I then smudged the colors while they were still wet, used a translucent white over it and then washed over it with a bronze glaze followed by wiping most of it off.







I always give my candles names...so I decided to call this one Carousel.






I then went back to finish off the "evil one".



I painted over the silver with bronze and decided to do a Strie, figured the streaks of silver showing beneath the bronze would look nice.  Dumb me, I forgot to make a glaze and used straight paint.  I don't need to tell you the paint begin drying quicker then I could drag a brush through it...so I'm pissed.
If I'm now ready to give up but I decided to give it one more "go round".   So, I pulled out  a stencil to see if I can do some justice.   I'm sure you can guess the name of this candle...




Yep, Frustration!




If you look closely (with a magnifying glass) you can see some silver streaks trying to peek from beneath.



Frustration and Carousel...



































So what can I say?  Even when you're frustrated and tired and nothing seems to be going right, you can still LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

My Kitchen Clock

One of the project I've been working on at home is trying to get my kitchen counter arrangements coordinated.  They're mostly minor projects, but I'm beginning to realize with a full time job my time is extremely limited, and with the time change I can barely keep my eyes open when I get home.

Here's a clock I had on my counter.  It was given to me by a friend several years ago.  It was originally in my Study, but when we started experiencing a number of power shortages I became irritable having to reset my microwave clock 2-3 times weekly so I moved it from my Study into the kitchen.





While I know it isn't a kitchen clock, it's battery operated and I no longer have to worry about setting the time, but it's out of touch with my kitchen decor.

So after some thought I decided to paint it. 

I used chalk paint  (homemade) for the base coat.






Then I went over it with a gray blue paint...




While this was okay, the white was a bit too "clean" for me and the gray blue needed to be played down, so I decided to dirty it up with ocher.







Here's a close up









My kitchen clock all dirty-up!






Sometimes it's okay to dirty things up when you LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!

Monday, November 7, 2011

My Inspiration




I was at the store and spotted this simple drinking glass



I decided I wanted to transform it into a vase...





I wanted to add some flowers to make it look more "vase-y" (is that a word?).  I remembered reading the blog villabarnes and I was inspired to try plastering some silk flowers.

I rummaged through my bag and came across selected these




Apparently I did something wrong because this is how it turned out








So I decided to give it another attempt.  I had never used Plaster of Paris before so I assumed my mixture was weak - too watery.   I added some more powder to the mixture to stiffen it along with a little more gesso.

Then I grabbed another flower...



Although some of the color seeped through, I thought she was a beauty! (smile)






I didn't let it dry completely before picking up so pieces of plaster crumbled off revealing some of the stem, but I like it thought it was perfectly imperfect!







I did several but I wasn't sure how I wanted to place them in the vase.








After some thought I decided rather than sticking the flowers inside the vase I would lay it on top of the vase and seal it with glue.


THE BACK

The piece sticking up in the back is a strip from a coconut tree...











I call this vase my INSPIRATION.






You can click here to see special wrapping.

I hope you're inspired to LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!