Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Ideas and inspiration abound!

Hello to my lovely followers!!  Hope you had a bit of time for some creativity and dreaming today.  I am excited to finally have a direction for the cabin!  The answer was staring me right in the face all along. Miss Vivian has been needing a place for her twin sister, Vanessa, to live.  Of course she is welcome at the Big House (AKA Lilac Hill) but it really isn't her style.  She lives more of a free-spirited Bohemian lifestyle (She has aqua hair!!).  Very much a creative soul, Vanessa currently is living in a tent in the back yard.  She doesn't mind it really but she has no place for her artwork.  She loves to paint and sculpt, using all kinds of mediums and finding inspiration every where she looks.  So naturally the cabin would be great for her studio!!  It is on the family property, but would allow her complete freedom and privacy to create however and whenever the mood strikes.  Oh yes, I am on to something now!!  The old Merriweather Family hunting cabin shall be made ready for Miss Vanessa! I have already started gutting it.  The top floor will be cut into a sleeping loft in order to let in more natural light (very important to a painter!). I think the outside will be stucco perhaps.....  So much to do!!

I was lucky today to have my friend, Cassie, come over to work on minis with me!  I showed her how I made the baskets we chatted up a storm.  I wish I had a picture to show you of her latest creations.  She is very talented in making detailed miniatures. I have no patience or skill for the tiny accessories, but Cassie real excels at it!  She made some tiny pencils and small packages of sandpaper for a craft shop she's currently building.  So amazing!! So extremely detailed!!  We decided to do some swapping, which we really should have thought of sooner.  Since she likes my red sofa, I'm going to make her a modern chaise lounge piece. In return, I get some of her tiny "craft supplies" for Vanessa's artist studio!  I promise to post pics of everything. :)

Today I finished a rug that I have been working on lately.  I am amazed by those of you out there that do needlework on silk gauze to make those exquisite rugs!  I am just plain toooooo lazy and impatient (bad combo, huh?) to do that myself.  So  I was looking at that burlap the other day after making baskets and had an idea.  I put some on an embroidery hoop and stretched tight and fairly straight.  Took a big blunt end needle and some embriodery floss and set to work "weaving" a line as long as I wanted my throw rug.  Then just turned at the end and went back. Over under over under and so on. When I had enough lines to look the correct width I wanted, I quickly looped around the end edges and snipped off my floos.  Turned it over, still in the hoop, and smeared Elmer's glue all over the back and pretty heavily around the edges.  Once that dried well, I simply cut out the rug and Bingo!  It turned out pretty well for just winging it (which is how I do most things!).  I think I'll unravel a bit o burlap and glue it to the ends for some fringe.  Man, burlap is cheap and proving to be pretty darn useful!!

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A gift made by my friend, Cassie!

A gift made by my friend, Cassie!

The burlap rug

The burlap rug