Mask fun

When my grandson was over the other day we had fun decorating and painting masks. These were just simple wooden masks from the Dollar store, but fairly sturdy, and I had lots of paints and various "bling" to decorate them with, so we had fun painting and gluing.

And we liked how they turned out. I did one mask and my grandson did the other. I'll leave you to decide which of us did which. :-)

Water coloring doodles

 

 On Monday evening we had the fall kick-off meeting of the Jacksonville Artists Guild. It was fun, different from usual. They had a presentation from watercolor artist Janet King, but then also a gentleman from Reddi-Arts, and we all got little "goody bags" with various samples from Reddi-Arts, but basically all watercolor based.

We then got plates with little dibs and dabs of blue, yellow and red in various water-bases paints, cups of water, some brushes to use (but not to keep) and told to have fun playing with the paints! It was sort of like being a kid, though I'n not much of a watercolor fan - but I had fun mixing and smushing the paints around on my paper - I used the Bristol board from the sampler pack we got. So this is my "doodle"  - the only art I accomplished this week! :-)

Pottery again

Well once again I had my lovely summer vacation up in New Brunswick, Canada. I was away for about 7 weeks and had a nice escape from the worst of the Florida heat right in the middle of the summer. When I got home in mid-August it was still hot, but I knew I was on the "home stretch" towards the loveliest 7-8 months of the year, which we are now entering.

But up in Canada I once again enjoyed taking classes at the Tidnish Bridge Art Gallery in Tidnish Bridge, Nova Scotia, just over the border from New Brunswick. As before our instructor was Melanie Landau. The pieces are all hand-built, not thrown on a wheel. Can't you tell from their lumpiness? LOL. But I managed to successfully create an actual usable coffee mug, as well as two small bowls.

Quilting again

Yay, I finished it in time! This is a baby quilt I made for my nephew Chad and his wife Shannon. This past weekend I drove up to Wilmington, NC for a baby shower for Shannon. I'd only started it two weeks previously, even though I had bought the fabric months ago, LOL. So lots of stitching there when it came to the hand quilting.

And if you look, you can see it's really the exact same pattern as this quilt I made for my granddaughter Finlay for Christmas:

I think Finlay's quilt came out well also. I find quilt very nice and cozy to wrap around oneself on chilly evenings. And since I made a quilt for Finlay I decided I needed to make one for John as well! 

John's was a different pattern - the design sort of organized around how much I had of certain fabrics. But I wanted the stars since John is interested in start and planets right now, and the backing fabric I used was covered in stars and planets.

Anyway baby Ava Lynn is due early in May. I hope things go well with the new mother and father to be and that they get to enjoy the use of the quilt.

Finlay's quilt

Gee, my granddaughter Finlay will be 8 months old this week, and I suddenly realized that I had never posted a picture of the baby quilt I made for her! On Facebook, yes, but not here. I discovered Magrieta's Quilt Shop in St. Augustine, and they sell the most luscious fat quarters of fabrics I totally fall in love with. So Finlay's quilt is wild and crazy as it's made from all sorts of cool fabrics I just loved so much I couldn't narrow down my choices as to what to include in the finished product. Their only unifying theme is that they all have some of the same purple shades, and there is an asian feel to the patterns.

Even the back is a quilt! And a little less busy than the front. Here I got to use the butterfly fabric I had also bought that I just could *not* work into the front of the quilt. I like making baby-sized quilts. They can be done pretty quickly, though getting the letters of her name right was a bit finicky. But all in all it was a fun project and I like the quilt!

Art projects with my grandson

One fun thing about having a four-year-old grandson is being able to do art projects with him! The Art Guild of Orange Park decorates Christmas balls every year, so I had a few at home I picked up at the meeting last week, and let my grandson decorate them. It's hard to go wrong with these. You just drop paints inside the balls and then turn the balls this way and that to let the colors swirl around. You get great marbling effects and they look all lovely and shiny because of the glass on the outside. I just got out all my acrylics (slightly watered down) and let my grandson pick whatever colors he wanted to drop into the balls. And I think they came out great.

"Hurricane over the Mountain" - by John Cusick (age 4)

 Of course we had lots of wet lumps of paint sitting on a paper plate when we were done, and I hate to just waste it and throw it away. So I got out two pieces of 300-lb watercolor paper cut to a 5x7 size, and we each had two minutes to paint a picture. John gave a running commentary as he did his painting:

 "I'm making a BIG mountain. It's a big dark mountain. Now a big storm is coming. It's a big hurricane over the mountain".

"Sunrise" by Debbie Cusick (age undisclosed)

This is my two-minute painting, which I call "Sunrise". :-)

After that we still had a bit of paint left. So we finished up with "Blobbies". We fold a piece of paper in half, then open it up, and drib-drab paint on one side of the paper. Then we fold it again and press down on it hard! Then we re-open it and have our Blobby picture. They are usually quite fascinating. 

"Blobby #1"

We managed to finish three blobbies before we ran out of paint.

"Blobby #2"

But I'm sure there will be a next time!

"Blobby #3"

Christmas Craftiness

My grandson John was 3 months old for Christmas, 2009. His other grandma is an excellent seamstress, and she made him this cute little elf costume to wear! He sure was adorable in it on Santa's lap.

So this Christmas my granddaughter Finlay will be 9 months old, and my daughter-in-law would love for her to be an elf also. But at 9 months Finlay is much too big (and too chubby) to fit into John's little overalls. The elf hat and shoes still work at least. My DiL said her mom was wasn't able to make an outfit this year so asked if I could do it.

She had hoped fabric could be a brighter green to match the hat and shoes, but the felty fabric John had only seemed to come in dark forest green.

So I decided a Florida elf could get away with lighter fabric and went with a pretty dotted cotton.

And this is the result I came up with. I'm pretty happy with how it came out! The green color is right, and is cheerful, and I think I made it look a little more "feminine". 

And since John's elf outfit was reversable I made Finlay's reversible also. John's was red so Finlay's is also red in the same dotted cotton as the green side.

It truly is reversible as each side has a small button on the bib which can be covered with one of three button covers.

The pattern I used said I needed a yard of each fabric, but I had a lot left over! At least I had just enough to make this small 3-foot by 3-foot quilt top using the two fabrics plus white. Now I have just scraps of the red and green, not enough for a 4th row. So I'll probably just add a border around the quilt to make it a little bit bigger.