Finished Set

"Nothing dies as beautifully as Autumn." Ashlee Willis

There was another frost last night...not around our condo...but here and there on our chilly morning walk this morning.

These photos are from the hood and the windshield of a car.

Aren't Mother Nature's patterns fabulous!

I worked on another UFP today.  A year or so ago I made several of these scrappy trees....the first one for my friend Patty that I wrote about here. I gave several away and had a couple requests for this year.  

I had these two in my stash last year....and offered one or both to Jane for her collection.  We both agreed that it would make a nice set if there was a third medium sized one. So that's what I did today.

I cut my tree shape out of foam core and fused black striped fabric around the edges.  The corners are kind of fussy.  Then I traced the shape onto the release paper. 

I fused strips of fabric onto the release paper overlapping them as I went. Once I covered the tree shape I filled in with skinnier accent strips and finally cut it out.

Then I fused it onto one side of the tree.  The other side is one piece of Christmas fabric matching the other two trees. I covered a skewer with black and white striped tissue and attached it to the tree and the base. I also covered the tiny tree trunk with black and white so they all would match.  Now it's a nice little set for Jane's tree collection.

Another UFP is now a finished set! 

I have one more large tree to make....hopefully tomorrow.

UFP

Paul's cousin Caren and her husband David are visiting from Colorado so we did a little touring this afternoon.  It was raining....so we didn't get out much. But it's still fun to drive around our lovely city.

While they were visiting Margie this morning....I started working on the Anchor Image Exchange project....that's what I'm going to call it....unless I come up with something better.  I will be working on both mine and Tracie's images this week. I usually have to play around with several ideas...then let them sit for a bit until I figure out what I'm going to do.

So while I'm mulling things over I decided I'm going to try and get closure on a few UFP's (un-finished projects) I have laying around.  Things I want to give away...and maybe a few I'll try and sell at the consignment store or get out into the world somehow.  There could very well be dozens of these UFP's in my studio.

I made this wooly leaf piece back in 2020 right after I did the Swirls of Color class with Izzy Moore. The technique was inspired by Izzy's class and the design was inspired by Ellen Lindner.  If you're interested in the process....I wrote about it here: https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2020/08/wooly-leaf.html

On the left is where I started this morning...and the right is where I ended.  This is going to my friend Jane...who I think is giving it to her daughter Kate. 

I found a paint panel that was the right size and trimmed the piece to fit on top.

I cut a border out of hand dyed navy fabric and fused a stip of webbing on one edge.  In this photo the paper is still on the webbing....but I took it off before I stitched.

I stitched it onto the piece mitering the corners just like I would do a quilt binding.  You can see the fusible webbing edge which gets pulled around and fused to the back of the wooden panel with a hot iron.  You can see my Swirls of Color project and some photos of this binding technique here in this post: 

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2020/07/rainbow-and-swirls.html

Here are a couple of side views. It's a clean and simple way to mount a fabric piece.

One UFP is now a finished project!  Yay!

Anchor Images

Some of you may watch the CBS News Sunday Morning show and are familiar with the variety of suns that are displayed between segments. 

Did you know they all come from viewers...and there have been over 9000 displayed?  That concept was one of the inspirations for the next art exchange. with Becky, Tracie and Brenda.  

This photo is of a fabric sun I made for an exchange I did with my sister Marilyn years and years ago....also inspired by the Sunday Morning show suns.

My Madison group isn't doing suns, but each of us has picked an image that we're calling our anchor image.  It could be a photograph, a work of art, or an image from a magazine or Pinterest.  Over the course of 4 weeks we each will do a rendering of each other's anchor image. We can use any media and interpret it however we want...as long as we honor the image. 

We'll do them one at a time and hold them until the end when we will mail them at the same time to to the owners of that anchor image. So at the end of November....we will all end up with 4 versions of our own anchor image. Phew! Does this even make sense? 

Thank goodness Becky made us a chart so we can keep it all straight. I digitally sent my anchor image to Becky this morning....and Tracie sent hers to me...and I'd have to check the chart so see where the others went. We're off and running and it's going to be an interesting challenge. 

I should have had my own image rendering done by now...but I changed my mind at the last minute so I'm starting over.  But I'll get two done this week.

If all goes well....you'll be hearing more about it at the end of November or the beginning of December.  There will be lots to share.

These were the photos Alyson (Paul's sister) shared with me last evening....
they got 7 inches of snow in Denver.

Chunky

I took advantage of this last warm day and washed more windows.  I enjoy watching the birds and all things nature through the clean windows during the fall and winter so I'm happy to have have this job done.

Sometimes a simple puzzle with a lot of color is just what I need.  This one was just 300 pieces...so the pieces were large and chunky and it went together really pretty quickly. 

There are enough difficult things in life...so easy was the way to go this time.

Aren't the colors scrumptious!

I think Margie will enjoy this one!

I wanted to transition out of the pink and orange scheme on my tags....and since blue is the complement to orange I decided to move to that side of the color wheel.

One of the layers on the last tag was done with blobs of color on tissue using chunky Stabilo Woody water soluble pencils....so that could be another transition element.

So last evening I did some blobbing (I don't think that's a word...but it should be) using a couple of blues and orange and pink.  I dipped the Woody pencil in water and let the color pool into a blob dot. Sometimes I used two colors on one blob.  

It was a watery mess when I went to bed.....but I was pleasantly surprised what I woke up to.

I like the way the blobs dried creating color and texture...and little pools of muddy brown where the blue and the orange ran together. Originally I thought this was going to be a background for something else...but I think this side is done.

First Pass

It was a beautiful fall day with temperatures in the 70's...and I spent a chunk of it trying to win back the garage.  In the summer months it's full of bikes, tools, and all things garden. It was time to purge, sort, and stash.  I made the first pass today...and even took a small load to the dump.  

The warm weather made for a lovely evening....and I tracked the nearly full moon during my after dinner walk.

I also made a first pass on the next art exchange with my Madison friends. We aren't going to see what each other is doing until the end...so I won't be able to share anything here until late November or early December. It's going to be a interesting project and I will try and explain it in another post.  

Keeping it simple today.

This Happened!

It's been a difficult day in Maine...and the whole country for that matter. How many more of these horrific mass shootings will it take for there to be change. My heart is heavy.

But I had a welcome distraction today....and it was even better than these lovely euonymus berries I came across on a walk.

At least two years ago Roseanne saw something of mine on Pinterest and linked to my blog.  I don't post my own stuff on Pinterest...but others can right from my blog...and I'm tickled something caught her attention.  She started following along with my Joyful Puttering and made contact with me during the 4 x 6 card exchange I did with Brenda and Becky back in 2020/2021.  

Roseanne and I started chatting....and haven't stopped since. We've visited on Zoom several times, talked on the phone a handful of times...and exchange texts almost daily about art...and all the layers of our lives.  She has become a dear friend cheering me on and lifting me up just when I've needed it the most. 

And finally today....this happened.

Roseanne and her husband John were on their way from Connecticut up the coast to visit her brother....and they stopped in for breakfast.  This is the first time we've actually met in person.  Pure Joy!

Done For Now

"Observation is one of the most important factors in creativity, it is often just seeing all sorts of everyday objects and occurrences and letting them feed your personal visual archive.  If you don't allow yourself the time to consciously observe, your creative mojo will almost certainly become starved.  Philippa Stanton

Paul and I took a little practical field trip this morning...breakfast out and errands.  We seldom do errands together...so it was kind of fun.  And because some of our errands were in South Portland...we stopped at Bug Light Park....still one of our favorite spots.  The park was quiet...but the harbor was busy.

I hadn't remembered that there was bittersweet.   

Here's the art journal spread I've been working on.  It may not be done...but it's done for now.  On the left page is the quote that at the top of the post.  It's a couple quotes strung together from Conscious Creativity by Philippa Stanton. Philippa is the one who really taught me how to observe the world around me...in all of its beauty and decay. My close observation of the strawflowers has certainly fed my creative mojo recently....and I'm going to visit them again very soon. 

Not Enough Days

There aren't enough days this time of year to post all the interesting and beautiful things that are right outside the door.

It was 36 degrees this morning when we walked and we saw the first frost in the low areas.  The frosty edges on the leaves and grasses glistened in the morning light.

 

And just around the corner I was drawn down the street to look closely at this hydrangea shrub.

The color combination was quite striking.

Strikingly Pleasing I should say!

As I was tidying up my craft table last evening I used some of the scraps to make a little starburst on the back of my "Look Again" tag.  I didn't realize at the time that the colors would match the hydrangea so well.

It's simple...but that's why I like it.   

I think I'm going to call her Betty...Betty The Bear...and I found her.

Do you see her?

There It Was

I was picking up a few things at Trader Joe's....and there it was.  I regret not taking a photo...because all that I could see was the stem.  The rest was buried under all the other gourds....and I actually laughed out loud! As I was checking out the clerk commented on what a great stem it was....and she loved my line "it's all about the stem." She gets it!  

Where's the Bear?  Paul took the hint....now I have to find him. And I'm pretty sure he/she needs a name.

Paul's sense of humor was on display today....look what he came home with.  This isn't the first time I've gotten a stem as a gift. He gets me. But this gift won't be on display.

I came across this grass punch in my stash and it reminded me of the fluttery edging of the strawflower.  

So I punched the edge of the little stubby page in the middle of the spread I'm working on....and shaded it to give a nod to the bloom. I think it works. I'll share the rest of the spread tomorrow....even though it's still a work in progress.