Creative 365: Day 35 More Flowers

This morning I had a bit of time to  finish a few more blooms.  One group  is crochet, nine flowers total varying in size from 4-5 inches across. I did not center these with buttons or beads as I liked the feel of them without. The yarn is, as is usual with me, recycled and rescued bits, some harvested from old sweaters while the rest was wound up into balls in a basket of fibers I snurched from the thrift store.

I also finished up the felted wool blooms I had cut last night.  I used an old ivory wool sweater, felted it and then cut the layers of petals. Felting the wool one more time (washing machine felting), I layered the wool, four layers for each flower, and centered each of the five with one of the vintage mother of pearl buttons that were harvested from the sweater. Each of these average 4 inches across and are very full blooms.

I have a fair amount of stitching to do later today. I hope to make some progress on 

Bug Bungalow, and maybe even crochet some too.

 It is a gray day outside, perfect for some creative play inside!

Creative 365: Day 34 Crochet Flowers

For those of you following, you most likely noticed that I have yet *again* changed my blog background! While I really like the grunge-texture-natural feel I had going on, it was just too dark. So, here we are again, at least for awhile, with a new background. (At least until I am moved to change it again!)

This afternoon I finished up some of the flowers I have been crocheting the last couple of days. These are made with recycled yarn and centered with beads that I have harvested from old jewelry.

I am also felting some wool today that I hope to fashion into some pretty little white flowers.

Creative 365: Day 33 Crochet

Late last night and today I have been crocheting.  While the picture doesn't show it very well, this thread has a really pretty, sparkly gold woven through it.  The fiber itself is a recycled bit, so I only had enough to crochet this much, and I intend to turn it into a little purse. I need to find some fabric to line it and a complimentary thread to crochet a draw string.

This evening I think I am going to sit down and start sketching some of my other "bug abodes"!

Creative 365: Day 31 & 32

As I couldn't do much more with my bracelets until I receive the ribbon end crimps I ordered, I picked my stitching back up the last two days and began work on Bug Bungalow. 

 

I keep changing things!  The final piece will have a few more flowers down around the base of the mushroom, and I found some red glass beads today at the thrift store that will work well to add a few more little ladybugs! 

As I was sketching this piece, I started thinking about a series of this little abodes, like an apple into a worm home, or a picnic basket  over run by ants.  

Creative 365: Day 29 & 30 Bracelets

This weekend I have been working on jewelry. I wanted to work my love of texture, fibers and beading into the designs, and with boxes and bins of bits of this and that, I started working on the first of what I hope will be many. They are so much  fun to put together. As a big fan of collecting discarded pretties, I decided that I would only use found and recycled fibers, beads and stones.   This is what I have done so far...

I started with a piece of vintage quilt binding  tape as my base, and couched various fibers to it along with bits of broken necklace chain. I added shell beads, glass beads and a variety of semi-precious stones and beads. I hope to finish it yet today or possibly tomorrow depending on when I get a clasp for it.

The pictures were taken with my phone camera as I have been down at my mother's helping her with her recovery and forgot that I did not have my digital with me, and so they are a bit blurred, but I will take better pictures with my camera once I have finished the piece.

Creative 365: Day 28 Dryer Lint

So today I took pictures and scans of this.

.  

Dryer Lint!

 I played around with the  image, added some digital effects, merged it with some other manipulated images Here is what I came up with.  This is a project I will probably revisit! 

The dryer lint made its way into my bin for future paper making.  Off to stitch, well, eventually. Right now though I think will take advantage of the gray skies and take a nap while the house is still quiet!

Creative 365: Day 27 Bug Bungalow (rough xstitch chart)

Today I finished up the chart for the next cross stitch design. Stepping away from my snowy-types for some springtime color for the next couple of design concepts.  I have come across some fun beads and buttons to recycle and re-use, and as I usually do, I will be including the embellishments in each chart pack. Because they are found goodies, each bug's bungalow will be just a little different with a different buggy family residing!

Bug Bungalow CM Designs 2011

Now off to teach a group of eager young artists, and then a night of stitching. Can't think of anything better than that as the first of the spring rains continues to make the skies grey!

Creative 365: Day 25 & 26 Sunday Sketch Up & Frosty Fishing Friends

Today I finished the companion cross stitch design to Snowy Snuggles. This piece is called 

Frosty Fishing Friends. The design stitches up at 96w x 104h and uses DMC floss, Weeks Dye Works threads and the Kreinik's holographic blending filament to give the snow a little sparkle in some places.

Now I am going to set aside the snow and work on something with a little more...spring. Using this sketch I had started for Sunday Sketch-Up and finished today back in school, (Day 25 of my Creative 365, yes, I'm a bit here and there with this personal challenge after my mom's illness and in progress recovery!) I have this heavily embellished bug bungalow in my head.  Wichelt has a pretty aida called Butterfly Blue that I intend to use, and Kreinik has recently put out some delicious candy-themed braids that will work perfectly for this. 

My mom is on the road to recovery, and my spirit is feeling a bit lighter for it. Time to put some color back in my creative process as well!

Creative 365: Day 24 Remembering Dad

Creative 365: Day 22 & 23 Windows and Doors

As my mother recovers from a pretty scary illness, I have not had time obviously to do anything overly creative. I did have a fair number of hours to dig around in search of images, textures, fonts, this that and the other thing to use in future work. I also had time to try and organize the piles of said images, textures, fonts, this that and the other thing while mom slept and the doctors were out. 

For some reason, today I was drawn to windows and doors. I have not really had the time or focus to figure out why I found myself purposely looking for these images, but knowing me, there is a reason and it will probably come to me around 3a.m.

Here are a few of the doors and windows that I tucked into a folder.

I was not suprirsed, I guess, that a lot of the images had broken glass and worn out wooden frames. I find this sort of image to have character, but I have also been sort of...obsessing...lately on broken things, for whatever reason. Maybe because of everything going on with my mother, maybe just because I like old things that some people look at and determine to have no purpose.

We'll see what direction my thoughts take me tomorrow.

Creative 365: Day 21 Broken

As I wait for a call from the hospital regarding my mom, I have tried to distract myself with something creative that reflects how I am feeling right now.  A year ago this week we were saying goodbye to my dad, 

and now mom is in the hospital and quite ill.  I feel as though 

I've been scratched and left raw, cracked, and still I am not feeling anything but numb. 

Not Quite Broken

(click to enlarge)

Creative 365: Day 20 (click on image to enlarge!)

I did not have a lot of time to indulge in much of anything creative today due to some issues needing my attention. But I did manage to play a bit in the wee hours this morning and started a couple of pieces that I will continue to work on.  I used some of my own textures and stock photography to layer together, trying to achieve a rich textured and organic feel.

The Trees Sing

Stones

Both pieces need additional work, but I was happy with the progress so far.  I will post them again when I've finished them!  

Creative 365: Day 19 Chaos

I worked with some digital images of broken glass, spider webs, scribbles and stone.  My goal, to create visuals of the chaos in my head right now. I feel as if someone has shaken me and my head is this odd snow globe, only filled with too many thoughts and worries rather than the swirl of artificial snow that will eventually settle to the bottom of the little glass globe...

Chaos I  cmmanning~2011

Chaos II cmmanning~2011

Chaos III cmmanning~2011

I know this feeling will pass, it always does.  This time though, instead of wasting time waiting for it to pass, I am going to try and create my way through it. 

Creative 365: Day 18 tree spirits

The Spirit of the Trees

Am so in need of a walk in the woods. This was as close as I could get for now. Hopefully with a predicted warm week coming up, more of our snow will melt so I can at least get on the main path and walk! Meanwhile, playing with images of the forest will have to do until I can get out there and play with the trees myself!

Creative 365: Day 17 more bohemian bedroom additions & playing with icicle images

Today I took the textures I made with the photos of icicles and used them to create two new digital images.

My mother has been in the hospital since early this week, and so I have been unable to sleep and have found myself playing around with a lot of images and losing myself in 'mindless' creative things, just goofing around with effects I've never tried and looking for images to meld together with those I have snapped myself.  My mom is a very creative spirit herself, and it has felt right to be experimenting with different ideas even if some of them will never go any further than a post here on my blog. 

I have been creating my own space, a retreat where I can re-energize, meditate, read, create. When I make my thrift stores trips, I have been looking not only for things to recycle and repurpose in my art, but things for my room as well.  Yesterday after visiting mom I went rummaging and found a variety of colorful sheer window panels and a few new pillows. Slowly it is coming together, piece by piece!

new pillows and more fabric on the wall

Sunlight through the sheers

window by all of my candles and incese, a collection growing as well

When spring comes, I intend to paint what walls I've not covered in fabric yet!  I also have a sheer canopy coming for over my bed. More photos to come! 

Creative 365: Day 16 Digital Icicles

Yesterday I snapped a few pictures of the icicles hanging off the roof of my house. I knew they would all be melted away by the afternoon. It got me thinking about digitally melting that ice I caught in the photos.

What I ended up with was not so much a melty thing, but textures, and that is alright too. I will probably play a bit more with the icicles to see what other effects I can achieve. Meanwhile, I've tucked these into my texture file.  I have been thinking about broken things lately, and have some images of broken glass that I think I can combine with these for some interesting manipulations. 

Now off for more coffee, another Golden Girl rerun and some stitching!

Creative 365: Day 15 Hands

The last few days I have been exploring hands and the idea that they allow us so much more than touch.  Hands convey emotion, often dependent on the other elements surrounding them. They can paint ideas into our minds. Nurturing, freedom, sadness, peace...love, hope. 

Last night in the wee hours I explored some of this further, and these two pieces are the result. I will be revisiting this path again and am thinking of other mediums to explore.

Creative 365: Day 14...Hands

I love my garden and cannot wait for spring so I can get in and start digging in the dirt. Spring also means opportunity to get back into the woods and find that connection with Earth again,  I am a very tactile person, and that is most likely the reason why my primary artistic focus has been with fibers and textiles.  

In spending time looking through images for inspiration, I began looking at hands and found myself fascinated by what I was finding; the different ways hands are used to express emotions, words, images. I think hands are even capable of hearing. 

Today I think I'll spend a little more time pondering all of this, studying hands and working with my own.

Dirt