The Winter Tree

Getting off the topic of rabbits and moving onto art again, here's a shot of one of my recent wire and paper trees:

 Lots of fun to make!

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Tiny Little Beasties

I really like tiny things. I several shelves with miniature critters, like this one:

Eggshell Mozaic Shelf

I like to make miniature books. Like this one:

Miniature Book Made From an Old Record with Music Note Pages

And this one:

Rock Paper Scissors Book With Rock Covers

So, it only makes sense that I'm drawn to crocheting tiny little beasties. Like this little rabbit:

Leapfrog!

Posing with a favorite snack!

Hangin' with friends

 
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Wait! What? Who Switched My Dyes?

One of the things I have the most fun with when I'm working on my eggshell mozaics is coloring the shells. You can pick out the colors you want to make, but it's always a surprise to see what you actually get. I've learned through lots and lots and lots of trials that the shells absorb the red dyes the easiest. Even the tiniest drop of red dye can make a big difference in the results. So, I have a lot of reds, pinks, purples and oranges, but very few true blues and deep greens. Brown is suprisingly difficult to make.

I can't tell you how many times I've poured out my deep green dye only to reveal strangely purple shells. Sometimes I think someone is playing a trick on me because the color of the shells beneath the dyed water is completely wrong.

Here's one example - these nice purple shells came out of a deep turquoise dye. Very odd.

How did those purple shells get in that turquoise dye?

Definately purple

And to make things more interesting, my black dye has a lot of red in it. So if I try to make anything darker with the black dye, it invariably comes out reddish.

I've used mostly the McCormick liquid food dyes, but I've also used some of the Wilton gel colors. I've really gotten some incredible turquoise, hot pink and purples with those. And of course I've experimented with coffee, Hawaiian Punch, other red fruit juices and various other pantry staples, but the food dyes give me the best colors.

These were supposed to be forest green, but came out a funny gray.

Lots and lots and lots and lots of shells.

Sunny yellow.

Oh, so much fun!!

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I Must Be Nuts!

So, I've been doing a lot of egg shell mozaic-ing lately and having a lot of fun with it. I'll work on it in the evenings in front of the TV and whenever I can squeeze a moment in my crafty corner.

But I have to say, as I carefully place each tiny bit of eggshell fragment, I can't help but think I must be nuts!

Here's a few of the things I've done recently:

 

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It's a Spider Party

  I seem to have a thing about spiders, don't I? Or at least, I blog about them often. Like Fred, or this poor fellow. Or even this post or this post or this post. Well, you get the idea. And you'll notice, that even though I've noticed the theme, I've decided to continue. So, once again, a spider post. But this time, they're having a party . . . 

Here's some closeups so you can fully appreciate all the legs:

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Happy Little Houses

Happy, colorful, little watercolor houses . . .

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Box O' Owls

  Because there's nothing  better than a box o' owls . . . 

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You Can Never Have Too Many Shoes

Here are the latest shoes I painted for Sweet Pea. This is Nyan Cat. According to Wikipedia,  Nyan Cat is the name of a YouTube video...which became an Internet meme. Nyan Cat has a Pop-Tart body and he flies through space leaving a rainbow trail. Apparently the video ranked at number 5 on the list of most viewed YouTube videos in 2011. You couldn't prove it by me. The only reason I'm aware of Nyan Cat is because Sweet Pea is a fan. But he is cute!

These shoes started out hot pink, but Sweet Pea isn't into pink so much anymore, so I covered all the pink. With some rainbow shoelaces, these are perfect!

 

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An Oldie, But a Goodie

I did this one quite a while ago but I've always liked it. The reflections on the glass are a bit distracting and the glass is a bit spattered with paint right now that I was too lazy to clean, but you get the idea. If I ever re-do this there are a few things I'd do differently, but overall I'm very happy with it.

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Bird on a Ball

  Sorry for the poor photography, but here's another little bird - gotta love 'em:

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A Bit of Fun

A bit of fun from my sketchbook:

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Fun With Color

When it comes to watercolor, this one is more my style - free, easy, just some splashes of color. You can come up with some interesting things.It's not anything in particular, just some fun with color.

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A Bit of Tea?

OK, this one didn't quite come out like I wanted, then I lost patience with it. I like the idea, but the final result wasn't exactly like I had pictured it in my head. Watercolor can be difficult to deal with sometimes. Maybe I'll try again with crayons.

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Bird On a Hot Lamp Wire

I'm very fond of birds. They often show up in my artwork. Like this one:

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So Easy Even a Caveman Could Do It - Or Could He?

And here's some awesome art created by one of the ducklings - Snickers made an awesome Caveman sculpture:
 

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Expirimenting

An expiriment with old scraps of paper, bits of metal, this and that:

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Monarch Mozaic

I had so much fun with my butterfly book that I'm doing another. A monarch mozaic book this time. Here's the work in progress:

What a mess, right? That's how I work - everything spread out, bits and pieces everywhere - perfect!

I'll post some pics when it's complete.

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Mini-Music

And yet another mini-book - no eggshells with this one. The cover is a cut-up record album (remember those?) with some sheet music pages and some blank pages.

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