Perpetualplum’s Weblog

 There is nothing like having children at home all day to make you want to get organized.  I was getting so tired of finding parts to our Wii all over the house that I finally broke down and sewed a caddy for the parts.   Our couches have too big of arms and no way to keep such a heavy caddy on the arm.  Luckily we have a table and chairs in the living room as well.  I decided to put a caddy on the back of one of our chairs.

Here’s a list of the materials I used

1. Brown upholstery fabric found at an estate sale
2. One upholstery fabric sample from an interior design shop
3. Elastic found at an estate sale
4. Rivets and setter
5. Cotton twisted cording
6. Cotton thread

  I just cut a strip 17″ x 31″ from the brown material.  I then cut my fabric sample into half.  One of the halves I cut into half again, the other I put away for another project. 

I sewed a seam at the top each of the checked pieces for the elastic.  I basted two gathering stitches at the bottom of the fabric.  I threaded the elastic through the top and gathered the bottom.  I pinned the pieces one overlapping the other and sewed the sides onto the brown fabric.  I divided the whole thing in half and sewed down the middle of the piece.  I marked my seam on the back of the brown fabric.  I flattened out the fabric at the seams and held it down with pins on either side of the seam.  Then I sewed a line from the beginning of the checked fabric to the end.  I divided the fabric into quarters and repeated the process on the lower checked pocket.

I folded the brown fabric in half with right sides together leaving a hole for turning.  I turned the fabric right sides out and ironed the seams flat.  I sewed the rest of the seam shut and stitched a 3/8″ seam around the edge of the brown fabric from just inside the top pocket on one side to just inside the top pocket on the other side.

I added 4 rivets, two on each side.  I put rivets in the top corners, folded the fabric over the chair and marked holes for 2 more rivets.  After setting the rivets, I folded the fabric over the chair, threaded some twisted cotton cording through each of the holes on either side and tied them to the chair. 

Most of the materials were scraps.  I didn’t have to run to the store.  I had everything already in my stash.  I didn’t use a pliers rivet setter.  I did mine with a hammer and the less expensive base and setting tool.  I did accidentally hit my finger with a hammer when I was setting the rivets.  I refrained from screaming, but did have furrowed brows and a little black cloud over my head for a while.  My finger will heal.

I doubt the kids will always put the Wii parts back.  At least I’ll have some place to put them (and be able to find them) when I clean up. 

I was finally able to keep the kids out of the garden long enough to get strawberries for making jam.  Fresh strawberry jam is a real treat for me in the winter.   The bright red is so cheerful on those cold winter mornings.  I can sit down with my cup of tea, chai with cream,  a couple slices of hazelnut toasts slathered with jam, and a magazine.  What a great way to start the morning.

 I made 6 cups of jam to put in the freezer. 

Strawberry is the only type of jam I make for the freezer.  I cook the rest of my jams.  I just think homemade strawberry jam tastes better when I use the no cook method.   Luckily, the kids prefer blackberry jam!

Both of our girl’s took a flower making class at The Decorette Shop in Tigard, Oregon.  They made wild roses, regular roses, sunflowers, and drop flowers with buttercream icing.  I went to class with them and watched, but I didn’t really participate much.  I did try some fondant when they made fondant roses.

A’s Flowers

The first flower they made was a wild rose on wax paper attached with frosting to the flower nail.  They used the #104 tip to make the petals.  The second was a regular rose using the same tip.  They made the rose on the rose stick.

J’s Flowers

They changed to the #352 tip and made sunflowers.  They held the tip so you couldn’t see the V and made several petals.  This same tip was used to make leaves.  They used tip #129 to make the drop flowers.  I think they are pansies.

The buttercream frosting takes a couple days to dry.  We took all the flowers home to let them dry.

We had a lot of frosting left over, so J and I decided to make some flowers at home.   I tried my hand at the wild roses and regular roses.  I think J is much better at making them.   I redid my fondant rose and made a rose bud with the leftovers.  I did a lot of experimenting.

It was a great class.  The time went by fast.  A great time was had by all.

HUGS!

When I was uploading the flower photos, I found this photo my husband had taken of the kittens, Oscar and Luna.  It’s so nice to have two kitties that get along so well.

Now that my daughter is finally out of the hospital and the family is finally getting back on track, I decided I ought to get my art life back on track as well.  I had a meetup scheduled on August 6 already.  I decided to schedule 2 meetups in August, the first a meet, eat and chat and the second a working meeting.

I am the organizer of the Portland Area Found Art, Mixed Media, and Assemblage Meetup.  The group is open to anyone interesting in working with alternative art materials.  We accept all levels of experience.  Both meetings have limited capacity, so please RSVP if you would like to join us.  Both meetings are scheduled on the west side of Portland.

Below is links and information for both meetups.

Portland Area Found Art, Mixed Media, and Assemblage Eat and Chat

Portland Area Found Art, Mixed Media, and Assemblage Working Meeting

Conestoga Recreation Center is a beautiful facility.  The rooms are located at the lower level and have wonderful natural lighting from a wall of windows.  The room also has a sink.

Art is great therapy.  I know it has helped me cope with the stresses in my life.

I was so inspired by the polished stones from that broken necklace I found at an estate sale that I decided to make another necklace and bracelet. The remaining stones varied in color from red to purple.  They had a bit of grey, white and green in them.  I was able to separate the stones into two piles.  I used the rocks that were more purple for the necklace.  I used an old earring that had lost it’s mate as a pendant for my necklace.  The earring was from an estate sale as well.  I have a few very pretty vintage (often rhinestone) earrings just waiting for a project like this necklace.

I used 6 more polished stone beads for a charm bracelet that matches my necklace. The set of stones in the bracelet includes both purple and red with a little green mixed inside.  I used glass fire-polished amber colored beads and little gold metal beads as accent to my stones.

I’ve added the necklace and bracelet to the Unique Re-tiques Etsy Shop.

I’ve been doing so much wire-wrapping lately, I think I could do it in my sleep.  It’s time for me to move on to something else I think.

My daughter came home from the hospital on Friday. We’re no longer making the long trips to the other side of Portland. I decided to take it easy this weekend. I’ve been trying to get our house back together. I straightened up a few piles I’ve had lying around. I made a list of projects I needed to complete. It’s a long list and will probably get longer before it gets shorter. In the mean time I thought I would share a few photos.

One of the previous owners liked to experiment with the plantings around our house.  We have a lot of onesy and twosies of a large variety of plants.  I’m always amazed at what I find.  Often I don’t even realize what’s planted until I see it bloom.  It’s July and we have a couple of Yucca plants blooming.  I thought it was a little strange that we had Yucca in northwest Oregon until I noticed the characteristic white bell flowers in other people’s yard.  It’s nice to see something thriving while the grass is quickly turning from green to brown.

In our garden the blueberries are in their prime.   My husband and eldest went out and picked a couple of buckets.  I had a special request for a pie.  I ran out of white flower, so I used whole wheat.  No one seemed to notice any difference.

Inside the house the cats have completely taken over the downstairs.  When they’re not sound asleep, they’re into everything.  I caught them sleeping together in one of my baskets.  They were just too cute to resist.  I had to take a picture.

 Well, I have my list.  I really need to get out my sewing machine and start sewing.   I have a pair of crochet slippers started.  A few books with some wonderful patterns.  I have some beads wire-wrapped and ready to made into jewelry.  hmmm….what shall I do next?

I love the polished stone beads I picked up at an estate sale. I think I was drawn to them for two reasons.  The first reason is my husband collects stones.  Pretty rocks decorate the surfaces of our tables and mantels.  The second reason is nostalgia.   When I went on vacation as a child our family traveled throughout the southwest.  One of the big treats on the trips was stopping at the gift shops.  They always had a bucket full of polished stones.  When I saw the broken polished stone necklace in a baggy at an estate sale I thought, “Wow! Someone actually drilled holes in their polished stones!  I can actually make something wearable with them”.

Originally I was just going to make a charm bracelet.  When I put the bracelet together I thought it was way too heavy and full to wear on a wrist.  I took the bracelet apart and started on a necklace.  I wanted to keep the necklace simple so I stuck with basically 2 colors, yellow/gold and green.  I decided to add some iridescent amber beads and some gold metal beads.  The amber seed beads are necessary to keep the stones on a wire-wrapped head pin.

 I decided to go ahead and make a matching charm bracelet with a little less of the polished stones than I originally had planned.  The bracelet uses the same sort of beads as the necklace minus the heart bead.  I think they turned out very simple and very elegant.  I was pleasantly surprised.   Sometimes my materials have a mind of their own. 

This necklace and bracelet set can be found in my Unique Re-tiques Etsy Shop.

My youngest finished up a 3 class kid’s cake decorating class at The Decorette Shop in Tigard, Oregon yesterday.  The first day they learned how to pipe frosting.  They learned how to make stars.  The next class they used their new skill to decorate a sailboat cake.   She did a great job. 

I, of course, had to bake the cake and make the buttercream frosting.  In the process I figured out why my buttercream frosting never tastes the same as the buttercream frosting in cakes I’ve bought from the bakery.  They don’t use butter in their buttercream frosting!

On the last day of class the kids played with fondant.  The cake was round and they were supposed to create flowers on their cake.  When I walked into the room I immediately noticed that my daughter’s cake was more highly decorated than the other children’s cake.  Her philosophy is Why do when you can overdo.  The cake must have weighed 10 lbs…OK, I exaggerate a little…only a little.

She enjoyed the class immensely.  I wish I could have taken it.  They weren’t offering a full cake decorating class for adults in the summer. :-(  It’s probably a good thing they didn’t, I seem to have a little too many projects to complete now.

I was rushing around so much in the morning that I forgot to bring something for me to do while a waited a couple of hours for J to finish her class.  Luckily the class was in a shopping mall.  Next door to the cake shop was a yarn shop.  They concentrated mostly on knitting, but I did find the Fun and Funky crochet book on the left at that shop.  Joann’s was also in that mini mall, so I perused their yarn section.  I ended up buying a slipper pattern book and a skein of Red Heart yarn.

At the yarn shop next to the cake shop, I found this book on needle felting.  I always wanted to try it, so I bought the book and some roving.

J has another cake decorating class next month.  I better remember to bring my yarn and books next time.  I don’t think I can afford to buy anymore crafting materials.  I know I don’t have the time to finish anymore projects.

I recently found some turned wood beads at an estate sale.  I had never seen handmade turned beads at a sale before.  The wood was much more beautiful than the packaged wood beads from the 70’s.  I decided to take some of the smaller beads and make a couple of bracelets.  I hadn’t worked on a charm bracelet for a while.  I thought my etsy shop could use a few more button and bead bracelets.

I decided to make the first bracelet a simple tribal design.  The wood on the oval beads was so lovely that I decided it didn’t need much accent.  I found the black and white beads in the basket with my wood beads.  I added dark blue posted buttons.  I added the buttons to add color without drawing attention away from the simple designs on the white and black beads and the beautiful browns of the wood beads.

I loved the wood bell beads from the moment I saw them.  Each bead is unique, a wonderful characteristic of handmade materials.  I added the same elements to each wood bead, blue beads and a silver bead cap, to make all the beads look similar.  I decided to add turquoise and silver to the warm wood color of the beads.  I think they look like little turquoise and brown bell flowers.  This is a very full bracelet.  I used every wood bell bead I had.

The last bracelet is made with flat flower shaped wood beads.  I’ve had the beads for quite a while.  I’ve been looking for a good use for them.  I used them as I would a bead cap on either end of a white bead.  The white bone ( I think) beads came from a broken necklace I acquired at an estate sale.  I liked the gold, brown and white color combination on this charm bracelet.  I found a variety of gold buttons to go along with the beaded dangles.  This is another very full bracelet.

I have to take a few more photos before listing them in my shop. 

I’ve been avoiding estate sales and garage sales for months.  In the last month, we’ve had 2 close to home and one right around the corner from my mom.  I just couldn’t resist!  I thought I would show you what I bought at the estate sale near my mom’s.

I found some broken jewelry at the sale including a double strand necklace of white stone beads and a necklace of polished stone beads.  I’ve seen a lot of polished stones available, but this was the first time I had seen them made into beads.  I also picked up a broken multi-strand campy faux (plastic) coral necklace.  I just had to have the plastic beaded grape ornaments.  (They had one of those large resin grape bunches, but I decided I better skip it.)

I’m a sucker for books.  The estate sale had a whole room full of books.  I had to breeze through them because I had my daughter and my mother with me.  I did pick up a set of Complete Photograhy from the 1940’s.  I don’t think the set is complete, but the photos were very nice.

I found a very broken illustrated children’s book from 1905.  The hardcover is beyond repair, but inside the illustrations were just so nice, I had to take it.  Opposite the title page is the only fully colored illustration.

The children’s book also contains several large blue and white illustrations and many black and white illustrations. 

I did purchase a book called Caesar’s Commentaries from 1918.  The book is in great shape and has many photographs and illustrations.

The illustrations in the Caesar books included both color and black and white.  Many diagrams and maps are also included.

I also picked up the two books above at the same estate sale.  I was impressed at the condition of the book on the left from the 1950’s.  The book is full of black and white designs with color charts for simple designs typical of 50’s home decor.  The book on the right is a 1940 something edition of Emily Post’s Etiquette.  I bought it just because I enjoy reading that sort of thing sometimes.

I think I shouldn’t ever go out during the weekend without an escort.  I just can’t seem to resist those Estate Sale signs. 

I have a backlog of creations I need to get around to making and a house that need straightening (Again!).

Until next time…