As I say to the visitors at the art studio in the Chicago Children’s Museum, sometimes you have an idea of something you’d like to make, and sometimes you appreciate a prompt. When I first picked a needle up again during the Covid times, I had a few ideas of pieces to stitch, but I also enjoyed responding to the Stitchtober prompts.
Recently, all I could think of stitching was a piece for next Stitchtober, which, of course, is futile since the prompt list isn’t revealed until September. So I was glad to find another Instagram prompt to respond to – the Words to Live By Challenge. Although nothing except a piece I had already stitched – Never Let The Old Woman In – came to mind at first. Then I saw a fabric piece by Emma Carlow – an anchor with the word Hope – and I thought that’s my word to live by! On my way to get some graph paper to design my own hope anchor, my Hope sculpture by Bill Healy and a heart in hand card my friend Susan had sent for Valentine’s Day one year caught my eye. And my design was born!
In addition to the anchor and two hearts, I added some other symbols of hope – crosses, an olive branch, and a rainbow. Apparently, the number four is also a symbol of hope, so I filled the fingers with four stitches apiece.
I decided to outline the hand, which was challenging, but helped when I saw another prompt. One of the play and learning facilitators at the children’s museum has her own gallery – Yes Project Space – and she put out an open call for work to respond to the work of two poets – one of whom is another play and learning facilitator. As soon as I read his first poem, I knew I wanted to respond to it.
So I planned my piece “Minion Insurrection”. Since I couldn’t cross stitch a small photo of Walt Disney, I attempted a torn picture of Mickey Mouse – half is on the middle Minion’s sword and the other half on the ground at his feet.
My piece was accepted into the show, which is pretty exciting!
I wonder what I will find to respond to next…
It always amuses me when people on Instagram talk about searching for art for their walls or objects for their shelves because here it’s more a matter of trying to find places for the things we just happen to acquire!
Recently, I had to find places for my Easter gifts – the yellow cast iron bird and the small purple flower tray. The yellow bird ended up on top of the CD cabinet. There were some birds there already and yellow in the art above the cabinet, so it seemed like the right place.
And the little purple flower tray with its purple flowers and gold edge seemed to belong on top of the shelves with the purplish glass vase and gold bowl.
Another object we acquired recently is a small ceramic bowl. We really did simply acquire it because when we bought a ceramic cup at an open studio event, we were given the small bowl as well. It seemed to belong on the sideboard as it was the perfect size for the small eggs that didn’t really have a place to be, and since it goes well with the ceramic bowl my husband made as a child, it will look good there even after we put the eggs away.
And then there are all the things I make! It took a bit of book rearranging, but my latest cross stitch piece found a home on the small bookcase.
I’ll write more about this piece in my next post!
After my last entry, I realized two things. I had forgotten to write about two of this year’s purchases and also that Spring Miscellany was a better title than Miscellaneous Spring. So, to rectify both (and to add a few other things) here is another post.
I couldn’t resist these wooden farm stand pieces when I saw them at Target’s Bull’s Eye Playground. I also couldn’t resist enhancing them with a bunny salesperson and some more carrots. “This is the cutest carrot I ever saw,” my oldest granddaughter said about the glass one. I’m not sure where we got it, but we’ve had it for a long time. The pipe cleaner one in front came with a pipe cleaner body antique paper bunny head figure (like the elves I made this year) but it seems I no longer have him. The carrots on the left went with some that I made but wasn’t satisfied with.
Another of this year’s purchases were several of these enameled bunnies from JoAnn fabrics. Their tag says they were made in India from Mango wood.
When I saw the Heidal egg tin filled with chocolate at Marshall’s, I bought it for my husband’s Easter basket, but I also imagined it paired with a vintage reproduction paper mache egg we already had. Here they are together – both sides work!
At our house, spring decorations stay up from mid-March to the end of April or even mid May, so it still isn’t too late to add to them. Another idea from Sandra @stilundherz was a perfect project to do with my grandchildren when they spent the night this weekend.
As soon as I saw a cute snowdrop made from an egg carton on Instagram (@stillundherz), I wanted to make one, but it took us a while to empty an egg carton. When we did, I made two, and they were perfect additions to the dining room Spring trees.
My Brooklyn niece gave us some honey for Christmas this year and I saved the jars because I thought they’d be perfect to use for a Spring scene with some of the fairy garden figures I bought at a dollar store a while ago.
My Seattle niece also gave us honey for Christmas – from France! I’ve been saving those small jars as well. I think I might be able to create scenes in them as well with the tiny equinox frogs from last year.
I hadn’t come across any frogs this year, so a few days before the equinox, I stopped in at the plant store on the way home from the gym to see if they had any, and I found some glow in the dark ones. It’s so fun to see the tiny little lights in the middle of the night. The one on the right is the one that appeared on the toothbrush holder on the morning of the equinox. And there is one of the tiny frogs from last year hanging out with him.
Our spring decorations ended up in the same places as previous years for the most part, but I added a new display. We have far too many eggs for the egg tree, so I arranged the leftovers in the bowl from Nonotuck Jen.
Speaking of eggs, we tried a new way of dyeing them this year. We made a paste of baking soda, water, and food coloring and “painted” the eggs with it. Then we poured vinegar over the eggs – lots of fizzing and eggs that looked tie dyed.
Here’s my Easter “basket” – a yellow bird and a plate with purple flowers which is covered with Easter grass right now. I’m not sure where they’ll end up yet.
I found this metal egg at Marshall’s for my husband’s basket. It has a different picture on the other side and was filled with several different kinds of chocolate.
We had a great Easter – strawberry pancakes and treats for breakfast and our traditional Italian Potato Casserole (topped with chopped hard boiled eggs) and hot cross buns (crosses added by one of our favorite guests) for an early dinner.
My daughter gave me this wonderful sun vase for Christmas. It’s been waiting for the Christmas/Valentine’s Day vase to disappear so it could take its place in the hall and be featured on the blog. The felt flowers I made last year work well in it, I think. I love where the bee ended up perched on the side.
When my daughter bought it, she imagined it would go here, but her husband asked if it wouldn’t go with the other suns in the dining room. As it turns out, this area has quite a few suns as well now!
For my Valentine’s treats, I decided to continue with the tarot theme I used for Halloween, but I didn’t want to give friends and acquaintances the lovers card, so I googled tarot card for friendship and found the Three of Cups.
I attached them to three Dove milk chocolate hearts and wrote “To Friendship” on the back.
I’ve been making hanging Valentine’s cards for over 20 years, so there are a lot now, and since I’ve also been making and buying ornaments, the kitchen garland was getting pretty crowded. I decided to hang the hanging heart cards separately this year. I attached them with tiny clothespin to some Be Mine ribbon tape and hung them in the windows.
(I gave my husband the m&m characters to arrange, and this was how he placed them!)
And here’s the garland. It sports two new hearts – a wooden one with a red ribbon which we bought in Door County three years ago and which has been lying forgotten in a drawer since (top left) and a purple glass one I bought at a flower shop downtown this year (top middle above the arrow). Since all the paper hearts are hanging in the window, we had room to bring back some of the older ornaments, too.
On Instagram recently, Brittany from the House That Lars Built demonstrated how to make a Victorian folding valentine, and I decided I wanted to make some too. I couldn’t figure out how to make one from her directions, but I did some googling, and after watching several YouTube videos, I finally figured it out. I decorated them with stamps and colored pencils.
Here are some photos I took at the beginning of the process before I bought some new ink. Unfortunately, if I used regular copy paper, the stamps were visible on the other side of the paper. I made several trips to Michael’s to buy paper that was slightly thicker but kept buying paper that wasn’t what I needed. I finally found some at the children’s museum, but using thicker paper made the folding more challenging. While I was never fully satisfied with any of them, it was fun to make and share them with family anyway!
I had been holding off on this present incorporation post because my daughter gave me a beautiful sun vase, and I wasn’t quite ready to incorporate it yet. But I realized I wanted to keep the winter vase arrangement out for Valentine’s Day and through February, so I should go ahead and write about incorporating our other presents.
My husband gave me the red guy in the middle this year after purchasing him in Saugatuck this summer. Of course, he had to join the one to the left, who is also from Saugatuck and the one on the right we bought in Brattleboro. They were all made in Guatemala. I always thought of the yellow one which we bought first as more Zombie like than skeleton like, but the store in Saugatuck labeled the white one as a skeleton. Whichever, they look like they are planning something! Placing them together meant moving some other things around, and this is how that section of the gallery wall looks now.
My Birmingham niece gave me a mermaid that joined some similar ones hanging above the mirror in the bathroom.
She’s the one on the right. I love how the lights make her glow!
My quilting sister in law became interested in Barn Quilts this year. While painting quilt squares on barns seems like a traditional craft (and some websites assert that it is – perhaps mixing them up with hex signs as I originally did), they are actually a more recent trend. The first one was created in 2001 by a woman named Donna Sue Groves to honor her mother, a quilter. She then collaborated with the Ohio Arts Council to create 20 more barn quilts, and the Barn Quilt Trail was born. There are now Barn Quilt Trails (a collection of barn quilts within driving distance of each other) in all 48 states as well as in Canada.
Barn Quilts are usually based on traditional quilt patterns – one square is painted on plywood or composite aluminum and attached to the barn. My quilting sister in law has given us several quilts over the years, including an incredible red and white piece to commemorate our 20th wedding anniversary. This year, with her new interest in Barn Quilts, she gave us a wooden red and white Ohio Star Barn Quilt ornament. I decided to hang it year round in the hall near the anniversary quilt and the pictures of her and my husband’s family.
While it’s hard to see in a picture, I like the way its star points relate or speak to the points of the oil drum sun at the end of the hall as well.
This year’s living and dining room decorations are snowflakes made of 16″ doilies. They are a variation of the paper bag snowflakes I made a few years ago. I found the directions on an Instagram account @woodlark.
The kitchen garland is full of elves!
I found the vintage Santa elf at a store in Andersonville and he inspired me to make some elves out of pipe cleaners and vintage elf faces like the Halloween cats and pumpkins I learned to make from a Martha Stewart Living magazine a long time ago.
After I hung them all up, I realized they needed pom poms for their hats, so I took them down one by one to add those.
As soon as an ad for the Dala horse on the right popped up on Instagram, we made a trip to World Market to buy him. He’ll actually stay on the shelf year round even after those gnomes are gone.
While we were at World Market, we also bought a little red mixer to add to the kitchen ornaments.
While we have elves in the kitchen, we have gnomes on the shelves. On the left of the top shelf is a new gnome that my friend Jen sent from Northampton. The gnome on a pile of books that I won at Rushmer Christmas last year fits perfectly in front of the bookend that is usually on the second shelf from the bottom. On the right of the top shelf is a new tiny painted branch gnome I bought at Neighborly in Lincoln Square.
I bought the large one on the left at a craft fair in Northampton many years ago. One of my granddaughters made the middle one at Breakfast with Tomten at the Swedish museum several years ago. We’ve never been to Breakfast with Tomten, but when we went to see the St. Lucia procession in Andersonville, we parked in front of a store called Vase and Vessel. We stopped in on our way back to the car and bought a wooden tree for our newest Christmas collection. At first, I was afraid it was too small, but I loved its shape and the dark color and grain of the wood, and it turned out to be the perfect addition.
With gnomes on the shelves, wooden trees on the CD case, and all the rest of the decorations in their usual places, we are all cozy for this month and next!
Yes, time to put away those Fall leaf fairies but it’s also the time of year when instead of finding presents for others, I find more for myself! On my first Christmas shopping trip in Andersonville, I found another wooden mushroom that I couldn’t resist. It was at the front of a store with many handcrafted booth spaces, but there was no information about it. Somehow, I think it ties all the other mushrooms together!
And then, on my shopping trip to Lincoln Square, I found this resin mushroom. Since at this point, I had packed up all the Fall decorations, I added it to the top of the bin and took this photograph, which doesn’t do it justice at all. I’m really looking forward to seeing it and photographing it hanging on the Fall branches next year.
And now, onto the Christmas/Winter decorating and finding gifts for other people!
I recently found two murals by the same artist on Roscoe between Broadway and Halstead.
And then one day I came across an artist painting a huge new mural on Melrose right off Broadway.
It took a week or so but it’s completed now.
It’s kind of cool the way the shadows of the fire escape and the street lamps and signs become a part of the underwater fantasy.
Collections and Other Stuff I Like 