Painting Iris on Your Deck

I find it easiest to remove the spindles one at a time to paint them rather than leaving them in place and trying to reach around them but you'll need to choose the method that will work best for you.

The other advantage of doing them one piece at a time is that you don't have to be at the mercy of the weather to get your project done.

Making life interesting, sparking creativity

You never know where the good ideas will come from. I clipped this border off a letter that I received this week. I'd never thought of using this color as a background on my florals before and this incorporates a wider selection of flowers than I usually use so it encourages me to experiment and stop worrying about which flowers would or wouldn't bloom at the same time.

I hadn't quite figured out how to do Iris as a vertical border and this seems to solve the problem for me. The first way that I'll explore that is by painting them on one of the spindles to my wheelchair ramp.

Once I see how that works out I plan to explore variations of it on some dala horses.

I'm very excited about the possibilities. You never know where inspiration will come from. Start looking at things in new ways to make your life and everything around you more interesting.

Orange, Purple and Green join the party on the wheelchair ramp

Tea Cozy Project

WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO WORK WITH?

Start by rounding up all of the teapots, fabric and insulating materials that you've got. In this case an old and badly mended bath towel will disappear inside a to help keep things warm. 

Next will come your design decisions like which teapot is the right size for the bits of fabric that you have. In my case I'm trying to use the medallion is that dark blue fabric. 

The blue and white is the outside fabric. The old towel is in the middle and the yellow fabric is the inside lining. Think of it as sliding one bag inside another and then sealing them shut.

It's nearly finished now, I'm just doing a bit of quilting to neaten it up and keep all of the layers together.

  I would have liked it better if both of the outside pieces had been the same but the fabric sample just wasn't a big enough piece to do that with.

Here's what the lining looks like. It could be reversible unless you've made the inside pieces smaller.

I made each of the inside layers a bit smaller so that it would fit the teapot better.

The second tea cozy went together much easier. I sewed the outside and the lining together and then the lining on it's own and had cut it a bit longer so that I could fold it up over the front and make a binding out of it. 

You'll notice that I've made them different shapes and sizes to fit different teapots. The better that you fit them, the better job they will do of keeping things hot.

I'm pleased with the results so far and will make one more in patchwork of the scraps from the first 2. No matter how many of them are used at the same time, The colors are similar and they'll all look nice together. When I do a party, I make one pot black, one green and one tisane.

Painting Flowers on Spindles from Deck or Wheelchair Ramp Railings

My design for this piece starts with Hosta Leaves on the bottom. Above that I'll add some tulips and daisies.

The inspiration for this is my garden where I grow all of those things and many more each year.

I abandoned the idea of tulips because this just isn't wide enough to support them so I've stuck to tiny roses which fit better.

Turning a Wheelchair Ramp into an Artistic Statement

I'm painting my wheelchair ramp a piece at a time. The fact that there are so many spindles on it gives you endless choices on how to express yourself.

 My first choice was to paint it in the style of a chair that I designed for a magazine back in the 1990's.

As you can see this easy combination of lines and dots really stands out and says "oh my! I wish I lived somewhere warm." It makes me smile and I can't wait to hear what the neighbors will have to say about it.

Wouldn't this be a great project for a group? Everyone could paint up a spindle and dedicate them to different people and causes. and then they could all be put together to make a place really special. Both accessible and beautiful.

Art makes the world a better place and I feel that it makes us better people too, don't you?

Painting Projects with a garden theme

One thing I'm doing to brighten up my summer is to have spindles from the wheelchair ramp brought in one at a time to be painted in a lot of different ways which will turn the ramp into a piece of art or garden sculpture that will make it a lot more fun to look at next this summer.

In between working on that I'm enjoying painting my lettuce and peas from last season.

Recycle and Reuse Fabric Samples

 If you're lucky enough to be able to get some fabric samples from people or shops that do drapery or upholstery there are a lot of things you can do with them.

It sometimes helps to let them know what sorts of things that you need or want to make. Fabrics are discontinued all of the time and this stuff has to go somewhere. Anyone that really likes to sew or hates to see things go to waste is your best bet for someone who will help you with this.

Don't be discouraged if you have to ask around a lot before you find some that you can get. I haven't tried the internet for this but it may be a resource too.

My first step is always to sort them out with the projects that I need to make in mind.

The turquoise and white ones on the top of the chair will be cut up and made into a patchwork panel that I will use to make a pair of valences for my dining room and the blue and white fabrics on the right side of this photo will be made into a pair of tea cozies to go with my Blue and white china. after that I'll be making an assortment of throw pillows and tote bags and of course if there's any fabric left after that I'll think of something to make with that too.

New Fallen Snow and Garden Plans

This is the sort of day when it's nice to be warm and cozy with a cup of coffee and a stack of garden catalogs.

I'm finding it difficult to track down some of the perennial vegetables that I'd heard about in permaculture videos.

Even though I'm not finding the plants and seeds I'm looking for it's fun to see all of the great varieties of things that there are out there. I had no idea until today that cauliflower actually comes in white, green, purple and orange! How great is that?

I also found a couple of great ideas for houseplants. It turns out that Stevia ia actually pretty and it would be fun to grow your own sweetener in the dining room along with a coffee plant.That's got to be an exciting change from the ordinary, don't you think so?

Painting the Garden

You may remember the summer day that I picked a few things from the garden after tea. We ate them for lunch so there wasn't time to do a painting with them then. Now I'm chasing the winter blues and working from the photos that I took last summer.

I went back through my files and found more of the photos that I had taken.

The more I look at the photos, the harder that I feel that this is going to be to capture in paint.

Next summer I'm going to work harder on my photos, I think they convey a pretty good message all on their own.

Just looking at this puts me right back in that wonderful day and I can't wait to get back into my messy, crazy garden again.