“Signs, Signs, Everywhere are Signs…”

More Fruits from my art room –

I love making these signs. They are 6″x8″ hard wrapped canvas boards. I have fun with my Unicorn Spit paint, let them dry, spray them with fixative. Let them dry again. Then I print the saying on them. I’m going to take these to Rags & Roses Collective in Greenwood to put in the booth I share with my good friend, Carla.

 

“Attitude”

 

 

“Attitude to Spare”

 

 

“Not Lazy”

 

 

“Sarcasm”

 

 

“Nicer Person”

Easter Mailbox Decoration

I’m of two minds about putting up decorations on our mailbox these days.

One of the school buses comes right by our house, and used to stop at our driveway years ago when our son was attending school here. I think about the kids seeing what we have put up twice each month, hoping they get a kick out of the decorations.

Since the schools are closed, maybe through the end of the school year due to the threat of COVID-19, it may be like throwing a bottle in the ocean. Maybe no one sees our decorations but us and our good mailman.

Now we put them up in a spirit of hope that the world will soon get through this awful time.

“Everyone is Wise Until He Speaks”

May the dust of your carriage wheels blind the eyes of your foes.
May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.
May your fire never go out.
May your well never run dry.

May we be alive at this time next year.
May the roof above you never fall in and those gathered beneath it never fall out.

May the hinges of our friendship never grow rusty.

May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.

I can resist everything except temptation. ~ Oscar Wilde

HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!

Creating Instead of Cleaning

Chanse Hart via Bethany Kerr

I’ve been having fun this afternoon playing in my art room.

I’m working on a suggestion regarding earring designs from my friend/sister-in-law, and have 3 pairs in the works. I’m also having fun painting a gourd. I can only do a little bit at a time, waiting for things to dry in-between steps, but it’s really good to spend time up there again.

I went up there today with the idea I would clean things up a bit and ended up with paint all over me and new, fun projects instead…. :0)

Thoughts on A Friday 2-28-2020

Tasmanian Devil, commonly referred to as Taz, is an animated cartoon character featured in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. Wikipedia Creator: Robert McKimson

We just put Taz up on our mailbox this morning on the way to Lunch Bunch. The Tazmanian Devil is one of our favorites.  It’s funny the way our designs have differed over the years. This one seems small and light, particularly compared to the Snow-Goon we just took down and stored in the shop. This one is only about 2 feet tall, where the Snow-Goon is almost 4.

Jerri St. John of Jewels from Jerri’s VIPS  (https://www.facebook.com/groups/jewelsfromjerriVIPs/?fref=nf )

bought a couple of pairs of earrings I was listing on my Etsy site. They were delivered yesterday. I was so happy she liked them. Then she did THIS –

on Facebook. I’m STILL grinning and dancing. What a NICE, generous thing for her to do!  She is a representative of Paparazzi Jewelry – FUN pieces that I can’t resist. I buy things from her all the time. She couldn’t do a better job of responding, filling your order, shipping, etc.

We had our normal wonderful time at Lunch Bunch. We look forward to catching up, good food, good conversation, laughs, and good hugs.

One of our errands was at Walmart. On the way out to our truck, there was a crowd. A person was down in the parking lot. We stopped, asking if there were anything we could do, but they told us an ambulance was on its way. My heart goes out to the person in distress, but I was happy that so many people stopped what they were doing to try to help.

It is a bit after 2 pm here. The sun is shining and it’s 55 degrees F. here!  What a lovely day – and it’s still February!! I’m going to go out and visit my veggie plants and walk around the yard. What a treat!

Have a happy day!

Snow Goon Mailbox Decoration

One of the many Snow-Goons created in Calvin & Hobbes comics by Bill Watterson

 

Even though we are having mostly spring-like weather here in Arkansas this year, we wanted to be sure to honor one of our favorite cartoonists, Bill Watterson.  I’m really hoping that we can get through this month and half way through March without more ice or sleet or snow, but I AM smarter than my daffodils – already blooming and probably soon to have their beauty cut off by Mother Nature…

We had fun with this one, particularly because of the 3-D nature of the piece. We had to make his arms and hands, welding them carefully to the two pieces without blowing holes through the sheet metal. This is one of our larger, more bulky mailbox decorations and we smile each time we put it up.

 

A Beautiful Day, Except…

i.pinimg.com-originals

We are having a truly gorgeous day today – particularly for February. The sun is shining brightly and it’s 59 degrees outside!

Yesterday we not only saw the small herd of 6 deer beside the road on the way to town, but also saw a roadrunner when we got home.

Getty Images

This one above is not the one we saw, but the picture gives you an idea. He was up on our deck railing, eating the handful of seed we try to leave in the “bird” feeder we made from a shovel.

Shovel Bird Feeder

Shovel BirdFeeder and Friends on the Deck Railing

He seemed quite comfortable eating brunch as we watched. Two squirrels and a rabbit rounded out the wonderful display of nature.

Our doggies have LOVED the day, wearing us out with letting them out and back in again over and over. (They have to go out separately, since our lab, Amber, is jealous of our elderly cocker spaniel/schnauzer cross, Molly, and tries to hurt her.)  We are getting our exercise today playing “doggy doorman.”

Amber

 

Molly

I got the ingredients for keto chili in the crock pot early this morning – at my husband’s request – so we’ll enjoy having that ready to eat for dinner tonight. I also cut up a HUGE container of strawberries because my husband lives for his ‘cakes, ice cream, and strawberries’ each night.

This would be a perfect day except that it’s February, meaning I need to get our paperwork organized for our CPA to do our taxes. I have kept spreadsheets on the various deduction categories this year, and I have made myself enter the data each month, so I think it will be mostly a matter of checking things over, totaling everything, and printing the spreadsheets, then adding the appropriate backup for each thing.

Stock records to confirm as we wait for the company to send us the official records, filing, updating, and THEN opening the spreadsheets for the records for 2020 are also on the list.

If all this paperwork were done with a swish of my magic wand, I would be the happiest of women….

 

Valentine’s Day Mailbox Decoration

We put up our Valentine’s Day mailbox decoration yesterday on the way to do our other errands.

This cupid is about 2-1/2 feet tall by almost 3 feet wide. It is made of heavy sheet metal, cut out by my husband using our CNC set up. We found the design on the net. He uses a program to convert the picture we have found to what is called “G-Code” a language the computer can understand. We save this on a thumb drive and take it out to the shop. We put the thumb drive into the computer and decide speed of cutting and a few other things. After set up, we start the program which guides the torch to cut the design out of an 8 foot x 4 foot sheet of metal.

Once the design is cut out, we add the piece that will attach the design to the mailbox, welding it on. We use an overhead projector and a transparency we have made to mark the salient points of the design onto the metal – both sides.

I then paint both side of the metal and the attachment piece with paint made for outside. When the painting is finished, I spray the piece with polyurethane spray to protect the piece as much as possible from sun, wind, and rain.

We change our decoration twice a month.

If you look carefully in the background of this picture, you can see our 100 pound robot made from scrap metal who welcomes people who want to come up our driveway. You can also see two metals owls – each about 2-1/2 feet tall, perched on top of poles that hold a gate we can close.

We really enjoy making decorations and yard ‘critters’ together.

My husband is trying to find a good design now for “Wonder Warthog.”

Playing in My Art Room

2 STAR art

 

I finished a small plaque last night –

It’s 8 inches tall x 6 inches wide and solid wood. This is another item painted with the Unicorn Spit Glaze/Stain that my sister-in-law sent me awhile back. I have truly had a blast experimenting with this. I’ll list this on ArtFire

I used the ‘spit’ to paint these wooden earrings for myself. I haven’t taken the time to put the hardware on them yet. I also have two pairs that require me to drill holes in them. It’s been rainy, so that’s on hold until the weather is being more cooperative.

 

 

Godzilla!

We just returned from doing errands. On the way, we stopped and got our mail and put up a different mailbox decoration.  We love the classic, cheesy Japanese movies featuring different ‘monsters,’ and Godzilla was a favorite.  This is the back of the decoration.  You can see where I tried to paint the mounting bracket to include his feet.

This is the front. I like to picture the kids who ride past our driveway on the school bus morning and afternoon. I hope they get a kick out of this one.

Thoughts on a Saturday 12-28-2019

We just changed the decoration on our mailbox from Santa to Happy New Year.

We love Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson, so we have made two mailbox decorations to honor his great work and sense of humor.  This one appeals to us because we have never been the nostalgic “Auld Lang Syne’ types at New Years.  At our age, we just got used to writing ‘2019’ on our checks and now we have to think again before writing… :0)

I just finished adding my hand painted wooden earrings to my new Etsy shop – EyecatchingEarrings. I can’t decide if I need to work on a banner to go across the top of the page or not. If you have the time to take a look, I would appreciate your opinion.

As we came in from getting the mail and putting up the new mailbox decoration, I was appalled to see dog hair balls on the floor that were blowing in the breeze we made as we walked by. This tells me two things:

THING ONE – I need to get up off my duff and VACUUM, and

THING TWO – I need to defurminate Molly again.

I absolutely will do thing one and will TRY to do thing two.

I hope that your Saturday is a good one!

 

 

New Clip-On Earrings Designs

My friends were griping, asking why I wasn’t making wooden earrings for people without pierced ears, so I decided I would gather materials and give it a try. The ones in the picture above are 3/4″ in diameter, having clip-on hardware.

 

 

These earrings are much larger – 1-1/4″ in diameter.

 

 

These are a clip-dangle, with a 1-1/4″ disc at the top with a 3/4″ disc attached. The earring length is 2-1/4″.

 

 

 

This picture shows the comparative sizes of the three designs – 3/4″ –       1-1/4″ and           1-1/4 wide x 2-1/4″ long.

If you would like to see more, I’m adding about 17 pairs to my ArtFire shop today. I also have the pierced earrings displayed there.

Each pair is $9.99 with free shipping to the contiguous U.S.

Thoughts on a Sunday 12-15-2019

Kanno Hisao

It’s 42 degrees F. today – gray, wet and downright depressing outside.

When we left, we stopped at our mailbox to change our decoration.

We were really cold, trying to loosen nuts and change out cold metal decorations in the wind, but I’m glad Santa is up now, maybe waving at folks as they pass our driveway.

We got our groceries for the week. When we got home, I spent the next hour prepping food. My husband saw I had a lot to do, so HE browned the roast to go in the crock pot for tonight. I think that’s the first time in the 50-1/2 years we have been married that he has done that. I tried not to act shocked, and thanked him when he finished, giving him a big hug. :0)

While he was browning the roast, I cut up strawberries for his desserts, plus carrots, radishes, and celery to go with cherry tomatoes as part of my lunches. Now, all is finished and I’m relaxing with a cup of coffee.

I finished painting and spraying the two sizes of discs for the experiment on clip-on earrings. If I get them together today, I’ll post pics and you can tell me what you think.

I made a big push yesterday and am almost finished getting Christmas presents ready. I’m giving all handmade this year, and the Lunch Bunch group is exchanging gifts this coming Friday.

I finally found the large tub of Christmas decorations I’ve been looking for for a couple of WEEKS now. The tub was in the storage space under our stairs. I have the decorations about 2/3 finished now, and am definitely starting to get into the spirit. My husband was able to dictate (while I typed)  a Christmas letter to go into the cards of friends and family we don’t see all the time. I may get to the Christmas cards, too.

Definitely a day to enjoy being warm and dry here. I hope that wherever you are, you are able to enjoy the day.

Kids and Tree Mailbox Decoration

Back of piece.

 

Front of piece

I’m not really into the holiday spirit yet, but we have now started by putting up one of two mailbox decorations.

This one is about 2-1/2 feet tall by about 3 feet wide. It is painted on both sides. The white on the hat and the popcorn on the tree are done with Sno-Tex, a texture-y white paint that gives a nice 3-D quality. The white also shows up nicely at night when headlights hit it.

 

Turkeys

We put up our turkey decoration on the mailbox as we left to go to Lunch Bunch and errands this morning.  We love making these.

 

I paint both sides of the piece so that people passing our driveway going in either direction can see it.  I hope they smile.

 

We made this yard critter turkey out of an old propane tank, a farm ‘tooth’ of some kind, rod, come metal strapping, and sheet metal.  We have him standing toward the top of our 650+ foot driveway to the side, beside an old, defunct computer my husband decided was ‘decorative’ and placed it on the edge of one of our brick planters. Happily, birds like it and make nests in it each year.

 

Unicorn Spit Christmas Ornaments

I’ve had a great time creating flat wooden Christmas ornaments painted with Unicorn Spit Stain/Glaze. These are some samples. There is a total of 16 different ornaments right now. I will add a name and the year on the ornaments at no extra charge. You can order multiples, but please understand that, though I will use the same colors, the blend will turn out differently on each ornament. Even the two sides of each ornament are different! :0)

 

In addition to the Unicorn Spit, I’m using black webbing paint. The finished ornaments are then sprayed with polyurethane to set the colors.

 

The ornaments are different sizes, as well.  I’ve drilled a hole in the ornament, if needed, to attach a shiny silver cord for hanging.

 

If you are interested in looking at the other designs, please click on this link for my ArtFire shop.

 

I’m offering free shipping to the contiguous United States. If you live elsewhere, please contact me at lwlca47@gmail.com and we can figure out shipping.

 

Thanks for looking!

Fall Tee

 

This is one of the newest tees I have painted. I wore it for the first time this morning. We went from super hot, humid summer, to 3 days of fall, to winter, so long sleeves were needed.

I have admitted to you before that I’m a slob, often spilling things on my tees. If I cannot remove the spots, I then put the shirt in a pile in my art room to be painted. This way I can still enjoy the shirt for a long time to come.

I’m actually looking forward to  having another tee to paint since I can experiment with my new Unicorn Spit Stain/Glass on it. :0)

 

New Month – New Mailbox Decoration

 

“Mr. Natural is a comic book character created and drawn by 1960s counterculture and underground comix artist Robert Crumb. ” ~ Wikipedia

Since my husband and I started creating decorations for our mailbox, we take turns on favorite characters to make. Mr. Natural is one of my husband’s favorite comic book characters.

We found the image on the net. My husband does his magic, transforming the image into computer code that our CNC computer-guided torch can read.  We save the code to a thumb drive and take it out to the shop. The computer-guided torch cuts out the image from a 4′ x 8′ sheet of metal. We then make a mounting attachment for the mailbox and weld it onto the cut out piece. We use an overhead projector to mark the salient features on the metal, front and back. I then paint both sides of the piece using outdoor paint, and then protecting it from the elements with polyurethane spray.

This piece is about 2-1/2 feet tall and a bit wider.

We’ll change the decoration again on November 15th or 16th, depending on the weather.

 

Thoughts on a Tuesday 10-15-2019

We Love Earth

It’s not raining yet, but severe storms are forecast for us this afternoon. We scooted out the door this morning to avoid the worst of it while we did our errands. It only sprinkled on us a bit.  I’m hoping we just get a good bit of rain, rather than flying hairballs.

We put up a different mailbox decoration while we were out –

I added some Day-Glo orange paint to this one, so it shows up nicely when headlights hit it in the dark. :0)   Because of Columbus Day yesterday, the mail is being delivered later than usual.  We’ll check again after lunch sometime to see if we received anything.

I’m having a wonderful time playing in my art room, experimenting with the Unicorn Spit stain/glaze. I’m trying to use it on a wooden plaque we cut out years ago. I did the first layer yesterday. I’ll add a second layer today. I have no clue what I’m doing, but it’s exciting and fun.

Elliptical and yoga await later in the day. FIRST, I’ll play in my art room before I need to fix lunch. :0)

Have a glorious Tuesday!

 

Pepe Le Pew and Penelope

“Pepé Le Pew is a character from the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons, first introduced in 1945. Depicted as a French striped skunk, Pepé is constantly in search of love and appreciation.” Penelope is a black cat who catches Pepe’s eye. She is constantly in a situation where paint falls on her, or something similar, so she has a white stripe down her back. Pepe is mad for her.

This was one of our favorite cartoons, so we delighted in making this decoration for our mailbox.

The decoration is about 2-1/2 feet high and about 2 feet wide at the widest point. We cut the design out using our CNC machine (computer guided torch) from sheet metal. We welded the piece onto an attachment section so we can bolt the design onto the pole of the mailbox. I then use an overhead projector to mark salient details and then paint both sides of the piece. The final step is spraying it front and back with polyurethane to protect it from the elements as much as possible.

Hoping this will bring a smile to YOU, plus people who drive by the bottom of our driveway.

Therapy

Bruderhof Communities

Playing in my art room is therapy for me. An escape from anything that is bothering me. A way to work out feelings. A joy in experimentation.

We converted a third bedroom into my art room several years ago. I helped my husband put up extra shelves all the way across one wall. We got extra stand-alone shelves and a drafting table advertised in the newspaper. We put up a few more shelves on another wall. I converted the closet into a supplies area. We put up another large table that is as long as one wall.  There is a ceiling fan from which I hung a cute mobile of merry-go-round horses.

Years ago my husband and son got together to give me a present of a lot of my favorite songs on CDs. I have a player up there, so I can fill the room with glorious music – some of which I danced to as a teenager a hundred years or so ago – and lose myself in the world of music and paint.

The only limitations is my imagination and my ability to make my visions come out on whatever I’m trying to paint. Lately I’ve been having ideas for tees on which I have spots that won’t come out in the wash. Since I’m a slob, I seem to have a never-ending supply of tees that can use a face lift.

Yesterday I finished another.

 

Lately I am trying to do things each day that make me stronger.  I’m getting back into exercising, monitoring what I eat more carefully, working in my flowers when the weather isn’t lethal, playing in my art room, spending time with our son, walking outside several times a day, and reading.

The result of all this is hopefully a stronger, happier, calmer me. I don’t have to be able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound, but being able to handle whatever comes as well as possible would be good.  I am in DAY 4 today. So far, so good!

Perilous Adventure

We got our blood pumping on the way to Lunch Bunch this morning. We wanted to change out the decoration on our mailbox. Usually, this is a very quick thing. We take off the old one, put it in the truck and replace it with the new one.

Today we started to take off the old one and wasps came flying out of the holes in the post that holds up the mailbox and acts as the attachment bar for the decorations. We had this happen once before, but we hosed it with wasp spray and hadn’t seen any wasps since. My husband got ‘grazed’ (but not actually stung badly) before we could get back into the truck. We took the can of wasp spray we now keep in the truck and hosed down the post again before heading for Lunch Bunch and errands.

We checked things out carefully when we returned before getting out and putting up the caterpillar with the Hookah pipe from Alice in Wonderland.  This time, no problem, but we’ll remain wary for awhile.

Excitement

We went to do errands this morning with Catbert in the back of the truck to put up on the mailbox as we left. When we got out to change the decoration, we found 8,011 (more or less) wasps had taken up residence inside the supporting pole that is between the back of the mailbox and the decorations. It is filled with a bunch of holes in line vertically so that we can attach the decorations with bolts and nuts.

This has never happened before, and they were really swarming. We decided to do our errands, add a stop at Yeager’s Hardware for some cans of wasp spray, and then see what we could do when we got back.

They were having a buy one, get one free sale on wasp spray, so we took advantage of that. We parked at the bottom of the driveway and my husband hosed down one side of the pole after telling me to ‘stay in the truck.’ I thought of all the movies we’ve seen where a character tells someone else to ‘stay in the car’ and they never do, resulting in all kinds of bad things. I also thought of created a cheesy horror movie – naming it, “Revenge of the Wasps” in my head as I watched.  He had to use almost one whole can in order to get things under enough control that we were able to

• rush over and get the “Fritz the Cat” decoration down and into the back of the truck.  He then sprayed two persistent wasps who kept reappearing.
• We then rushed over and put up “Catbert, the evil HR Director” from Dilbert cartoons, spraying one more time before we drove up the driveway again.

We left the partial can and the 2nd full can of wasp spray in the truck so that we are armed to get our mail tomorrow. I also want to make sure the wasps are gone so they don’t sting our wonderful mailman.

When I told my husband it was time to change mailbox decorations, I really wasn’t expecting such an ordeal.

Post for Irene

These are the two owls I was talking about in my post about Fritz the Cat as our current mailbox decoration. Each is about 2-1/2 feet tall and about 18 inches wide.  We put them on top of posts on either side of the driveway toward the bottom, where we have a bar we can use to close the driveway.

 

This is the picture I SHOULD have posted, where you can see one of the owls and just a hint of the one on the other post.

I hope you’ve been having a wonderful day, Sweet Irene!

 

“Fritz the Cat” Mailbox Decoration

Fritz the Cat is a comic strip created by Robert Crumb. Set in a “supercity” of anthropomorphic animals, the strip focused on Fritz, a feline con artist who frequently went on wild adventures that sometimes involved sexual escapades. Crumb began drawing this character in homemade comic books when he was a child. ~ Wikipedia.

This is one of my husband’s favorite comic strips and characters.  This decoration will stay up until the middle of August.

We cut the outline out of sheet metal using our CNC machine. My husband did the computer coding that makes it so the computer can ‘see’ the design we’re trying to make and can guide the torch. This was a difficult one for me because it was mainly just bare sheet metal with the mailbox mounting on it. I did a lot of work with our overhead projector marking the metal so I could then try to paint the design on both sides of the piece. We sprayed the finished piece with polyurethane to protect the paint as much as possible.

You can also see our ‘welcome’ robot and one of the two owls on either side of our driveway.

It’s easy to see that you are passing a weird place as you drive by. :0)

Yosemite Sam

 

We put Yosemite Sam on the mailbox this morning.

He was a favorite cartoon character of both my husband and myself.  I can still hear him yelling, “I’m-a warnin’ you, Stranger!”

We found a picture of him on the net. My husband used a program that converts a picture into code the computer can recognize. We have a CNC set-up in our shop. (A computer, plus a big metal table on which we put 4′ x 8′ sheets of metal. The computer-guided torch follows the code and cuts out the design. My husband creates an attachment piece for the mailbox and welds it onto the design. I then mark salient points on the bare metal, both sides, with the use of an overhead projector.

I then paint the piece on both sides and then spray the sides with polyurethane spray for protection.

This piece is about 2 feet high and 2-1/2 feet wide.

 

Take Time

sayingimges.com

I rewarded myself for prevailing over my technology challenge this morning by spending some time in my art room. I’ve spent part of three afternoons up there and it really does my heart good. When I’m playing up there with my favorite music playing, all the stuff that is bothering me goes away. My heart and mind rest and I can simply enjoy playing in the paint trying to make the images rattling around in my head come out on the piece I’m working on.

The last three days I’ve been making a new set of note cards. I finished them today. They are drying.

Tomorrow I’ll take pictures, share them with you, and then list them on my new Etsy site, ArtworthyNoteCards.

Independence Day Lewis Mailbox Decoration

 

We put up our Independence Day mailbox decoration last night. We love Snoopy and Woodstock, and this design really made us smile.

Ask Alice

The Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland went up this morning.

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”  ~ Alice In Wonderland , Lewis Caroll

 

 

Popeye the Sailor Man

One of our long-time favorite cartoon characters is Popeye the Sailor Man. My husband and I both grew up watching these cartoons. When we started cutting out designs for our mailbox, we had great fun choosing these characters, and we quickly agreed that Popeye should be one of them.

We cut these out of heavy sheet metal using a computer-guided torch on a CNC setup. My husband converts the image we find on the net to a code the computer recognizes. We save the code on a thumb drive and take it to the shop computer. The program guides the torch to cut out the design. We then mount the design on the special attachment piece my husband welds for attaching it to the mailbox.

We use an overhead projector to mark the significant part of the design on both sides of the cut out metal and then I paint both sides, using outdoor paint. We spray the finished piece with protective coats of polyurethane.

We hope people who drive past the bottom of our driveway smile when they see him.

Changing the Mailbox Decoration

On the way to our second round of errands this afternoon, we changed the mailbox decoration. This is Wyle E. Coyote, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the Roadrunner.

This decoration was a lot of fun to make. We cut the main decoration out with the CNC machine and computer-guided torch, then added rod to make the Roadrunner’s legs. The decoration is probably 4 feet wide by 3 feet tall.