Friday, April 24, 2020

Seriously Snow!


Who knew that you could play with sculpty clay ON a bottle? I discovered that a few posts back and then I wanted to try another bottle with round two. My plan was to glaze the bottle first and bake. Then add clay and bake again. It's hard to see the glaze, but it's a shimmery glaze. I used an opalescent one with some thinner. I haven't yet come up with a technique so you don't see the brush marks, but I don't doubt I'll eventually figure it out.


I worked on this while watching the last Star Trek Discovery Season 2 finale. CBS All Access offered a free month and I hopped on that band wagon so we could watch since it's still chilly here and alternating snow with rain. I have suggested to the weather that it would be much easier to quarantine with nice weather as then there is gardening and all that, but so far my appeals have resulted in more snow. THE MAN has purchased an old lady tv table for me to use and I've been making good use of it while watching tv in the evening. I'd rather be planting flowers, but I'll make them out of clay for now while waiting patiently for winter to actually be over.


I find that working with my hands in the evening keeps me off my phone. How one multi-tasks while watching a show, I don't know, but I seem to like to do it. Social Media is completely no fun these days and I've got my fill of virus related news/fake news/opinions on virus/opinions on (insert political party here) by breakfast time and perhaps even earlier if the news is particularly stupid. So, I'm thankful for that little table. And thankful that I am a craft hoarder and lots of things to play with.

Looking forward to Saturday when we do a virtual crafternoon! Who knew such things existed!

Happy Friday!






Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Virus Interruptus (It's Latin, but Probably Spelled Wrong)





































So I took a trip out the other day because I had to find a FedEx drop box. I haven't left the house in....oh weeks. Probably about three. It coincided with the fact that a local Cupcakery (another good word) reopened and I had heard through the grapevine that their cupcakes were heavenly. So in a show of support I put my big girl panties on and put on my N95 and went in to pick up my order.





 I decided a couple of days back that pretty much if there isn't much to look forward to, maybe it was time to start enjoying the little things.


I really enjoyed looking forward to this cupcake today with an afternoon cup of tea. In a similar fashion, I was hankering to play with some vintage papers. I didn't even have a photo in mind but I found one from the stock pile of vintage granny photos that worked perfectly. I was in luck and Grandpa Ham was in it too! Love it! Makes me smile!

I am proud of myself for three big reasons this week. The first is that I got a training class out of the way for Civil Air Patrol. It was five hours on both Saturday and Sunday and I holed up in the camper and participated via webex. Then on Sunday, I cut THE MAN's hair. About 20 years back I cut his hair when we were first married and it did not go well. I did not wish to cut hair so I did it badly and consequently I freed myself up from years of haircuts. On Sunday, I wished to cut his hair. He has been going into work sporadically so I did not want him to look terrible. Patiently he let me cut his hair for about an hour. Smart people would not have tried to set up outside where it was windy. We both ended up wearing a lot of his hair but I can report he does look good. In fact, he was so impressed that he said it was a better haircut that he's gotten from his barber at times. This in a way is nice, but sometimes his barber who also does flooring gets distracted and misses a little. If he had said a better job than my hair person Kristen, I'd probably have fallen over. She's never missed a hair with her scissors no matter how distracted she gets.

My last thing that I am giving myself a high five over? It's really little and I feel silly to say. I was super nervous about going out at all much less going out in a mask. This is why there was a cupcake involved. Plus I ordered them so there was no backing out. In the ten minutes I wore a mask I almost forgot how to walk, talk, and breathe. But I did it and it was glorious when I got to take that mask off. Dear Lord how to do those medical people do it? I've worn those same masks for sheet rock (which is why I have any at all) and I already knew how much it would suck. Yup, sucked just as bad only I was more scared that I got some covid on me. I mean, sheet rock dust washes off....

So, more little things on the horizon for the rest of the week. I have a bottle to play with that I used some shimmer glass glaze on and a project plan to write with the boy, and more hostas to move into the new hill garden. Onward and upward over the Hump Day into the second half of the week!

Thursday, April 16, 2020

So Hot, Sticky Sweet





































Sheer boredom the other day prompted me to keep the syrup container out of the recycling after a french toast breakfast. Cute little bottle, but getting that label off was a bitch. Anyhow, I had this theory that I could play with some sculpty clay and molds and then bake the glass. Next trick is to use glass paint before and then the clay, but that is round two.


I wanted a way to test to see if you could just bake the clay on the glass and it wouldn't shrink too much and then fall off. So that clay is pretty much just pressed into the glass. After baking I used some metallic paint pens I had and some gold to accent. A coat of clear spray on the outside in matte and then gold spray inside.





































I'm happy with the results. A worthy experiment from the recycling bin! Next bottle gets some glass paint (getting the spray paint to dry on the inside took forever) and then some clay.

I find that keeping my hands busy makes a little less manic these days. I can't even fathom how we get back to the daily routine of things & keep people, but thankfully that puzzle isn't mine to solve. I can just do what's been asked and stay on my hill.

Sunday, April 12, 2020

I Forgot I Had A Car





































So, the other day at lunch, we were talking about cars. I had forgotten I had one. Well, I mean I knew it was out in the driveway, but I haven't driven it since a Monday about three or is it four weeks back when I got the big pile of snow hurled at my windshield. I've walked past it a billion times because we've been working on our carport. (On a side note, a big plus of being home is eating lunch with your family instead of by yourself and with your phone at work. So, there is that...of course I also have to make that lunch...)

Anyhow, Luke and I were on our way back from Guthrie Hospital in Sayre because he needed to complete his FAA Physical for his private pilot shenanigans this summer. Despite what the weather app said about the weather of the day, was snowing heavily when we left. That would not have changed going out there as the application was time sensitive, so we had a lot of wet heavy slippery snow to deal with. I was driving like a snail because we passed cars off all over. As we headed under an underpass on the highway on the way back, whompppppP! A snowplow pushed this onto my windshield. As the snow fell from above, I thought oh, not again.



One of the places you don't want to go during a virus crisis is the hospital and the second thing you don't want to deal with is car crap. Lucky for me THE MAN has glass coverage on our vehicles as this is the SECOND TIME I've driven home with glass shards on my lap. The upside was that this time they were very minimal and not in my hair. On a side note, the windshield replacement was super easy and quick, with the exception they were not going to vacuum out your car due to the virus crap, which sounded like a decent policy to me.



Anyhow, taking about cars reminded me that I still needed to vacuum out my car after the incident. I was in luck as the snow from the previous day was all melted and it was actually kinda warm outside. THE MAN was wrapping up work on pulling the electric through conduit so we can get electric back into the carport so we hung out in the driveway together. It's only been say four years since we took out the lights & wiring but due to building the back wall, we were now able reinstall. The back wall was necessary so we could bring the wire up the back in conduit. 




So while he worked on that project, I merrily vacuumed and wiped down the interior of the car. It was a bit of a time capsule. There was the concrete dust I wiped out of the back from when I ran those bags of concrete up to the Knoll so this dude could wrap up working on a storm drain. A flattened penny from the penny press at Glenn Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, which immediately brought me back to the Christmas party...and then, there was the thing under the seat. It took me a minute to identify it as a tomato from this past summer.

See, I had this big idea to grow tomatoes and to donate the extra to the food bank. I'd bring big baskets full to Civil Air Patrol because one of the Senior Members there runs the food bank in the Heights. I imagine that the offending tomato rolled there after some cadet was "ordered" to run out and grab those tomatoes from Lt. Pratt's car and transfer them to the white Chevy truck. These kinds of things make Cadets nervous because it's sketch, or so my Cadet tells me. So anyhow, I am sure in the swoooooop of the transfer, a tomato was dislodged and then subsequently lived under the passenger side seat for six months. Back this summer, my commute to work was five minutes and we had some nice hot weather, so it pretty much baked into a golf ball sized dried tomato in no time so it was more of a nice memory that I hurled over the bank and laughed about.

THE MAN was not impressed, but generally speaking after this many years of marriage he just shakes his head.

Friday, April 10, 2020

Shabby Knobs and Sympathy Pears


























Easter is sneaking upon us, one flurry at a time here in the Twin Tiers of NY. I woke up to snow on the ground and the wind is whipping around. Good thing we can stay here all cozy with our slippers and play with the materials we have on hand. Who am I kidding. I am climbing the walls and wishing I had a huge painting project to play with. Also, I'm done with cozy, bring on the daffodils and outdoor grilling!


Anyhow, before I clear these off the work bench for another project, I have been wanting to try transfers on knobs for a long time and I had some spare knobs from the last dresser I worked on since I replaced them with some black ceramic ones.


Yes.....let's take a minute to appreciate that dresser that is older than me and now has some lovely new knobs, a new transfer, and some new clear coat.

Anyhow, back to the knobs...

I sanded the old worn down knobs and painted them white. I added some Lindy's Stamp Gang Milk Chocolate Brown Starburst mist to soften the white while they were still damp. Once they were dry, I then applied Prima Paris Garden transfers. The transfers were Amazon Prime and I picked the option to send them to me later as obviously art supplies are not a priority during a Pandemic.


One was still a little wet so the paint flaked off, which was perfect, adding to the otherwise shabby look!

I can't wait to find the right piece for these...when we're able to go back to hunting furniture & junkin!



As far as Easter goes, we are sheltering here in place at Pratt Inc. We sent some yummy Harry and David pears to the 'rents. Since I decided to do something nice a week before, I had to settle for the fact that everyone else probably had done the same thing. The only thing that would get there in time was Sympathy Pears! I decided that probably did fit the bill! My Mom reported they came with a big fancy sympathy card but it made them laugh just a little, which is cool. Laughing is good.

Stay safe friends!