Spring projects

Since we have such strange schedules, please forgive this odd-day post. I don’t like to post on the weekends, but as I have the time (and the project to share) today seemed as good as Monday.

All four feet of the Mystery Project are done. I am now working on the tail, and will begin with the bottom half of the body. It should be pretty interesting. I have an idea of how I want it to turn out, but I don’t know if I have the skill to make sure it does. We’ll see…

In other news, Matthew brought home 20 cutouts from a framing mat. Apparently a client needed the mat replaced in his 20-picture frame. So they took a new mat and cut 20 holes. The leftovers were too small for the store to use again, so Matt got them at a reduced price and brought them to me!!!

Naturally, I had to do something creative with them. So, I tested different mediums on the matting, and ended up drawing (and painting a few pictures). “Well,” I said to myself, “it doesn’t seem right to make these artistic things and not hang them up!” So I looked around and realized that the only place I had left to decorate (since Christmas) was the shelf we used as our faux fireplace. Thus began a project!

These are what I made. The black and silver one was first, then I wanted to see it in color, so I drew that next. I found the scrap of green cloth (it is a floral print) in my scrap cloth with my sewing machine. I remembered I had a mini clay pot from when I tried to grow cone flowers from a kit in college (they died–I never did figure out why), and filled it with beans.

I used a floral pick from Christmas project leftovers, Christmas ribbon and floral tape. I found a felt leaf I made, and a hot glue gun.

So I cut a ribbon length, then looped small sections and taped them.

I trimmed those…

…and worked on my leaf while the glue gun warmed up.

Next, I glued the petals and the center to the floral pick. I started with a High Temp gun, but switched to a Low Temp.

Then, I decorated the “mantlepiece.”

Cool! More later.