I am so grateful to be on Spring Break this week and to have dedicated time to spend in The Oodlearium.
The Gazing Ball
I got back from running on Saturday and my husband asked me if I wanted to finish up the gazing ball. A quick trip to Home Depot to find something to use as a stake and we were ready to assemble everything. A few years ago our neighbor’s huge pine tree was struck by lightning. When they finally had the tree cut down, they offered us the trunk to use in our fire pit. One night during a late night fire, we threw one of the chunks in the fire— which of course was not a good idea! However, the charring on the trunk is gorgeous. It was the perfect compliment for the metal of the washers. I am SO excited how it turned out!
A lot of people have asked me how I did this. I bought about $10 worth of washers from Blaine’s Farm & Fleet along with a tube of E6000 from Home Depot. It took me a few days, but it was super easy and very meditative.
Pour Painting on Acrylic
A few days ago my husband mentioned that he was curious what it would look like if I did a pour painting on a piece of acrylic. He thought it might be cool to see what the back of the painting looked like under the acrylic. Over the weekend he cut me an 8×10 piece of acrylic and I had to give it a try. He had never seen me go through the process of pouring— layering the paints in a recycled yogurt container. For a few months I have only been doing pours with strainers. However, this coming week I am going to teach a friend how to pour, so I have been working on basic techniques like circles and flips. On this particular pour, I did circles and I 100% love how it turned out. In reality, I ended up with two different paintings— the front that looks much more vibrant than on a traditional canvas and then the underside, which shows more of how I actually poured. He has a bunch of acrylic scrap, so I know I will be doing much more of these pours in the future.
Front side
Underside
Teaching pour painting
I am so excited to have the opportunity to teach pour painting to a good friend this week. I mentioned the idea the last time we had a virtual chat and I was over the moon when they said they would love to learn. It will be an awesome opportunity to practice for my pop-up art classes that I want to host this summer.
I’m intrigued by this class
A quick Google Search for pop-up art classes yielded this class. It sounds super interesting and gets amazing reviews. Check it out!
Index Card Art
A week or so I finally started with my index card art and I cannot overstate how much I love this project. I have a stack of notecards and a drawing pen in a ziplock bag. Each morning I sit down at my desk at school and I take ten minutes to fill a notecard. It is so incredibly calming and centering. On Friday we had a super stressful meeting and I was extremely anxious about the meeting. I sat down and created a card with the word calm on it. I incorporated everyone’s initials into it as well and then I kept it in front of me during the entire meeting.
Cricut
Earlier this week I was ready to return the Cricut Maker we bought a few weeks ago. I was so frustrated and confused by what to do with this incredibly powerful and useful tool. I decided to dedicate some time over my spring break to learn some of the features. I found a super cute Easter SVG file on Pinterest and was so excited to create some bling bunnies for my Easter cards.
52 Frames
I had so many different ideas for this week’s slow shutter speed challenge, but I opted to revisit a technique I learned a few years ago. I wanted to play around with one of my blinky lights from my running shoes. I try really hard not to repeat subjects from previous challenges, but I had a specific goal with this image. I wanted to create a unique pattern with the swinging of the light. One of the comments I received said the final product looks like a sci-fi slinky— mission accomplished!
Breakfast sausage
One of the best purchases we made during the COVID19 Shelter in Place was the meat grinder attachment for our Kitchenaide. I initially started with just grinding beef to make patties for burgers. Then I started making bulk Italian sausage. I haven’t branched out from those two items since we started last summer…until this weekend! I was so excited to try out a recipe for breakfast sausage. I can’t wait to see what we try next. This pin from Pinterest has a great starter’s guide for making sausage.
Save the concept
Use only handmade journals
Watch Jimmy’s book binding video
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