Repurpused.....

....with love and gratitude.

Remember I said I had a plan for the circles I cut from Eliza's wrapping paper?  Today I cut smaller circles from a few pieces of art she has given me over the years to pair with the wrapping paper. She's given me a lot....so I wasn't depleting my stash too much.  I adore Eliza's art!

The wrapping paper was a pretty blue on the back....so I cut her art circles a bit smaller and let the blue be a border. Then I just put them back to back and ran them through the sewing machine.  I ended up with a 5 foot mobile she could hang in her room....or wherever.

It was hard to photograph it this afternoon... it was a little unruly in the breeze.

I didn't pay any attention to the order of the wrapping paper circles....so I got three pink ones in a row. But it will twirl a bit as it hangs so it's all good.

I think it's fun....I think I want one.

I am grateful to have a creative little 6 year old in my life.....Elisa brings me a lot of joy!  

Fun wrapping paper and very special art...repurposed with love and gratitude.

Day Three...

....was spent mostly waiting around. The construction/rehab business is on fire here in South Portland so they are juggling a lot of jobs at the same time.  My little job gets squeezed in...and sometimes squeezed out. I'm very happy with my contractor Mike and his crew from Waterhouse Builders, so I'm just going to be patient.

The drywall guy finally came about 2:30 and got the first couple of coats on....but that's all that happened.  He's coming back tomorrow morning so hopefully things will keep moving along.  Oh yes...and there was a little drama with the furnace which is still not working so we have a space heater going so the mud will dry overnight.

I have tried to work on projects while I've been up here...but I am highly distracted with what's going on in the house. I'm even distracted while waiting for something to happen.  But I did sew some mobiles together to hang in my show and pieces and parts of a few other things.

And best of all....Paul came up mid afternoon and that was a good distraction!

And I spent a little time outside and discovered lots of crocus blooming in the back yard.  

Strips of Color

I've mentioned my velum mobiles before. I still love them so I knew I wanted to have some hanging in my little art show. I played around this last weekend and came up with the idea of adding the little circles that give a nod to the sun on the horizon....they also add some interest. I may do some in just sea and sky colors....again with the little sun on the horizon.

I can tell from this picture that the circles are too low....so I will move them up when I make more. It's funny....in person it didn't strike me as too low...but it's really clear when you see in on the screen.






I also played around sewing together a variety of overlapping circles and rings...but I need to work on the technique and placement a little more.

Paper Mobiles

I recently got an e-mail from Wayne, a good friend from Maine that made my day.  I used to babysit for his daughter Addie...we had the best time together. At some point during her growing up I made her a paper mobile for her room. Wayne wanted to let me know that Addie went off to college this fall and the only decoration she took for her dorm room was her paper mobile. I was touched...and honored.                                                                                                                  

It all started with the one on the right that I bought at a gift store...somewhere...a long time ago. It's made from strips of colored velum and it lives in my craft room....I just love it!

When I first got started I didn't have access to colorful velum...but I did have an abundance of wonderful card stock that came in a nice gradation of colors.  So I started with that...making them by the dozen in the rainbow spectrum and other combinations such as sea glass colors and just black and white for a baby's room.  I sold them at Folly 101 and I gave them to friends and family. I made a whole bunch of them in whites one year for the Folly 101 Christmas window...I wish I had a picture.

A few years ago I was asked to help out with decorations for a baby shower for Paul's colleague Dana and her husband Sean.  I kept it simple...making a series of mobiles in soft colors that I hung from a dowel suspended from the ceiling over the food table.

Recently Paul and I visited Dana and Sean in their new home and those mobiles from the shower are now hanging in her son, Leighton's room.

I finally stumbled on colored velum at Hobby Lobby in Madison and a few other places since...so I shifted to velum.  I cut my strips using a slide cutter and sort them in paper cups that I have glued into a box top.

I have several of these cutters and use them for so many things.  

I feed the strips into my sewing machine one by one with a little space in between.  That's it....pretty easy!  I leave a long piece of lead thread at the start....for hanging and I often put a bead and the top and the bottom.  

The one I made today is quite long and was hard to photograph.  It was fun getting these colorful little strips back out....I may have to make some more.