It has been forever since I made a post. Lots have been going on. Lots that I thought I was going to share and now have to put in the hold file.. hehe.. But all is good. I don't get too personally sentimental here on my blog. But with the New Year knocking on our door, thought I would share. My dads side of the family is a interesting mix for me. For the most part they are the village that made me the person I am today. This last year I lost one of my favorite Aunts. She encouraged me to think out of the box. The major part of this learning spirit happened the summer of 1974 (age 15) when I went to spend a few weeks with them to help out with my little cousins as my aunt had just had a new baby. As they lived in northern Michigan in the middle of no where, my aunt had signed me up for ceramics class as time away from my babysitting duties. I remember butting heads with the ceramics instructor.. I had picked out this chicken cookie jar to make.. I wanted to color it with chalks. The instructor was set on that was not how you should do it. I went home voicing to my aunt that I didn't want to paint it like the everyone else did. I had a different look for my jar.. I'm sure it was a phone call or a stop by the shop before the next week when I went back I was allowed to do what I wanted to do without any negative instruction. To this day that silly chicken is one of my favorite pieces I have made. I wouldn't change a thing I did.

In my adult life I did not see her as much as I should have... more like the usual gatherings.. weddings, funerals and a baby shower here and there.. But it was always a joy to see her and catch up. My Aunt Ruthie loved antiques.. the more unusual the better. It was always exciting to hear what new item she had acquired. And loved to see the expression of one of my cousins faces as they would roll their eyes in that what you going to do with that look. This fall was her estate sale. I took this opportunity to make the 2 and half hour drive north to wander around the property and reminisce. I didn't go up with any intention of really purchasing anything. But to my surprise the above cabinet was in the sale. It was one of her favorite pieces, the other being this awesome buffet with marble top. It needs a little bit of work.. With the help of my husband we will fix it without changing any of the outside look. The paint patina is just awesome. I am pretty sure my aunt hadn't done anything with it since she purchased it. I acquired the dust bunnies and spider goobers, probably a good thing I hadn't looked inside the drawers before I loaded it up to bring it home... lol.

Most of the drawer bottoms are made from what appears to be a stock market recording chalkboard. I love the reuse of items. Make it or fix it with materials on hand. The drawers are broken up into little compartments, with a couple full drawers. At some point in time someone decided the drawers needed to be numbered.. Adds so much character to the piece. In one of the drawers I found a baggie of linograph press letters. Could that been the use for this.. held letters in a print shop?? Wish I could get a picture of them.. but they are so small I couldn't get anything that you could see what they were. Its fun to just imagine what it might have been used for. With the little cubbies it must have had a definite purpose. The color is closer to the picture below.. much more green tone than whitish.

This piece has quickly become one of my cherished pieces. For now it will be in my living room while we do some work to sturdy it up. I think at some point it will end up in my studio. It has to be a useful piece for me.. if I can't use it to store items.. it's not much use. My aunt encouraged self expression. As long as it did not hurt others and was respectful. This lesson I have tried to follow in my life. Happy New Year everyone.

Apothecary Challenge

When Laura Carson of Artfully Musing and team designer for Alphastamps posted her Apothecary Challenge I thought why not. Boy what a challenge it was. It just kept growing and growing. Here is what I started with, a grape crate.

And this what I ended up with. My darling husband got right into the challenge also. He added shelves and this trim I found laying around. He figured out how to add some doors. I just had to have doors. I covered the inside of the crate with some flocked scrapbook paper.

Here it is with the doors shut.

I'm going to start out with this is a long post with many photos. There was just no way I could share and not really share... so here it is. I would love to hear what you think.. please leave me a comment when your through. There are two separate challenges. Both using items made from images Laura designed for Alphastamps. The first challenge was to create at least 3 potion bottle from her images. The other a much grander challenge was a apothecary cabinet. I started right in creating my potions bottles. It took awhile longer to come up with a cabinet. In her video Laura uses paper mache boxes. This was not the direction I wanted plus I wanted something compact and that I could close up when done and store.

This is where I will make this a little like Where's Waldo and let you search for potion bottles. My apothecary bottles from Laura's apothecary sheet are, Frog Slime, Sleeping Death Powder, Bottled Ghost, Rotten Pumpkin and Poison. In there I also have some glow in the dark dragon eyeballs, zombie fingers, werewolf fur, bottle blondes and much, much more.

I do like the creep factor.. so along with your search you will find cockroaches, spiders and webbing, a rat or two and a plate of brain.

Here are a few up close and personal pics of bottles.

And some more.

More.

And one last one.. Here it is with the lights on. I can't finish this posting without stating after many failed attempts at photographing. I ended up taking most of these in night mode.

Please let me know what you think.

My skeleton book..

Here is a page I'm working on in my skeleton book.. its a work in progress.. now that I have taken a pic.. I see I need more work on this page.. but time will lead me to what is missing...

Humpty Dumpty

Heres my humpty dumpty. It started out a wire egg from Michaels that I found in the dollar bin.

My haunted house pages are complete and ready to mail for the Cherry Pie Rubber haunted house swap. This is my third year playing with Marina and the girls. I love halloween and am so excited to see what everyone has come up with. This year we changed our size format from skinny and tall to 4 inches wide and whatever up you feel with a roof being no more than 5 inches wide.

A little technique info.. The background is a photo of the barn window tweeked in photoshop. Painted blue with some iridescent blue. I used CP 's flying witch, dancing skeleton, black cat and standing skeleton. I used the hand off the standing skeleton to make a print on the window. Medical gauze and cheesecloth for the skeletons and web. Roof top is a sewing tape cut apart. All edges are inked and roughed up. On the back my info and a swarm of CP's flying bat.

 

Here is my transfer image, created for a monthly 5x5 swap I am participating in. Its a gel medium transfer with a lazer printer image. The arch is made from light modeling paste. The canvas was painted with some golden paints and them stamped on. I hope my swap partner enjoys my creation.