2023 crafting for all...

[MaryFlora]

Beautiful chandab! Wonderful addition for the 4th of July!

 

[Kelly]

I love that pic of you @chandab …oh and the table runner is beautiful too!

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I am in a facebook group called "slow stitching". It's about using random bits and just being creative. It is difficult for me to do something unstructured, so this is a good project for me. It is on a vintage linen handkerchief. I am so engrossed in it lately that I can barely lay it down. Last night Pepper got my spool of gold perle thread, and before we noticed she had chewed the cardboard spool and the thread was a tangled mess. I can never get it rolled back on the spool. We are going on a trip and I think it will be a good traveling lap project. Maybe I will find something on the trip to incorporate into the design. It's just for fun.

 

[Cayuse]

Oh I like that! Is that rick-rack you used?

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Oh I like that! Is that rick-rack you used?

Yes, vintage blue with a gold thread through it, and brown. Hope it looks like a bird bath! I'm working on stems and grass now. And I painted inside the cloud purple/gray. The birds will have musical notes --not sure yet how to do those. Maybe beads...

 

[Cayuse]

Definitely looks like a birbath! I hope you post a pic of it when it's finished, I'm quite enchanted with it.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Finished. I wasn't sure when to stop, but the little bees were the last and my brain said "that's enough". It was fun; I need an idea to be inspired to begin another.

 

[Cayuse]

Finished. I wasn't sure when to stop, but the little bees were the last and my brain said "that's enough". It was fun; I need an idea to be inspired to begin another.

Marsha, you've created some beautiful things, but this is my favorite of them all! It's perfect.

 

[MaryFlora]

Agree with Cayuse! It is absolutely gorgeous and just amazing. Love the button,
Terra and Sky. A perfect touch.

Hope you frame that baby and display it!

 

[Dragon Hill]

Finished mini pony Thunderstruck finally. Paper mache clay over foil armature and toothpick legs. If anyone wants to hear the story of how he got his name, let me know.

 

[MaryFlora]

He is too cute for words! What a character and so expressive! Love Thunderstruck! I would imagine a very time consuming project!

Love the name too! I’m going to guess that when the idea for this project hit you, you were thunderstruck by the brillance of it!

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Look at his little hoof! Amazing work!

 

[Dragon Hill]

Thank you, Marsha! And Mary Flora, I LOVE your guess, maybe I should stick with your version!

 

[HersheyMint]

Thunderstruck is adorable! Very expressive. Of course we want to hear how you named him.

 

[Dragon Hill]

He started out as a ball of aluminum foil and was my first foil armature. His legs are toothpicks. I used leftover paper mache clay but it only covered the top half of him. Then I decided he was awful and set him on a shelf for over a year. Every time I moved him, his toothpick legs would fall out because I couldn't find my glue gun. I finally started on some other paper mache projects and decided to finish him. His feet are just globs of paper mache clay. I painted him, named him Thunder. While I was looking over his fresh paint job, I dropped him! He seemed fine so I set him on the shelf to dry, but when I came back his nose was cracked!

So he became Thunderstruck!
And again he sat on a shelf for a few months. But I finally repaired his nose and repainted...then added a few touches, including the golden horseshoe for luck.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

He started out as a ball of aluminum foil and was my first foil armature. His legs are toothpicks. I used leftover paper mache clay but it only covered the top half of him. Then I decided he was awful and set him on a shelf for over a year. Every time I moved him, his toothpick legs would fall out because I couldn't find my glue gun. I finally started on some other paper mache projects and decided to finish him. His feet are just globs of paper mache clay. I painted him, named him Thunder. While I was looking over his fresh paint job, I dropped him! He seemed fine so I set him on the shelf to dry, but when I came back his nose was cracked!

View attachment 50203So he became Thunderstruck!
And again he sat on a shelf for a few months. But I finally repaired his nose and repainted...then added a few touches, including the golden horseshoe for luck.

What a story! Hard to believe his legs are toothpicks. What is the over all height?

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I finished another Slow Stitch. It really is a relaxing project. No pattern, so I can listen to podcasts or even sort of watch TV while I work. The biggest challenge is keeping my balls of perle cotton away from Pepper. she has already destroyed four. I just put the tangled mess of thread in a baggie and pull out strands as I need them. I don't know what her fascination with balls of thread is.
Every piece and layer of this one has a story.

 

[Dragon Hill]

Marsha, he is about 4 3/4 inches tall to hair sticking up taller than his ears. If measured like a real pony, he's wider than he is tall. And I was thinking about all our fat little minis when I decided to make him.
I love your slow stitch. Is that an old school? Is the tiny key from a diary? It looks like a cool old doily behind the school, maybe a green one, another with flowers (mom/grandmother?) and a tie (dad/grandfather?) Of course I love the bird. Can you tell the stories?

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Marsha, he is about 4 3/4 inches tall to hair sticking up taller than his ears. If measured like a real pony, he's wider than he is tall. And I was thinking about all our fat little minis when I decided to make him.
I love your slow stitch. Is that an old school? Is the tiny key from a diary? It looks like a cool old doily behind the school, maybe a green one, another with flowers (mom/grandmother?) and a tie (dad/grandfather?) Of course I love the bird. Can you tell the stories?

I plan to make a note on the back describing some of the fabrics. The piece of green in the upper left is interesting: I bought a cushion at the thrift store to fit on a bench. It had some kind of cotton on it, don't remember now what it was, but I planned to remove it. Under that cotton was bark cloth with a floral design! Under the bark cloth was this lovely green silk. Very old. I've been cutting it into little pieces for years, saving all the scraps.
The bird is ecru gauzy lining from an old green wool coat; I painted it blue. The piece at bottom left with the pink ribbon is snipped from a table cloth made in a convent.
I'm having so much fun with this sewing style Nothing is perfect. Sometimes I remove some of it and start over. The last one I did in a greeting card size; I plan to make them from now on as greeting cards so I can share them--though not many of the people I know would have a clue!
We recently returned from a road trip. I worked on the flower one the whole way, and also in free time in the RV we rented. My husband never once asked me what I was doing! I suspect he thought I was crazy and didn't want to hurt my feelings by commenting on it.

 

[Standards Equine]

You guys are so amazing. I do not consider myself crafty at all. I have many talents, but crafting is not one of them.
That being said, I was encouraged to register in a local parade this year. I've actually never done that. So we're taking Phillippe and Jasmine and my nieces and some extra kids and giving it a shot. We're promoting Phillippe and Jasmine with their therapy animal visits, so no riding. The kids have 2 buckets of 599 stickers in each to hand out (cause 2 stickers out of the 1200 were too awesome to give away...)
The theme of the parade is Rural Life. A zillion years ago, my mom made a pair of cardboard box horses for my sister and I to wear for a local parade in Saskatchewan for our day-camp float. Inspired by her brilliance (we LOVED those things!) I built cardboard box animals for the kids. The purple pony is for a birthday girl turning 8 that day. The pig is for my 9 year old niece who adores pigs. The paint is for my other niece who is 5 and wanted a black and white pony and the dinosaur is for the birthday girl's 3-year-old brother, who obviously loves dinos...
I feel like they fit the bill pretty well. Hopefully the kids love them. I think the total cost was less than $20 for paint, brushes and crafting supplies (minus the money I spent on Amazon to get the boxes...) and it took me maybe 4 hours to get them all completed. Just need some binder-twine suspenders and away we go!