Showing posts with label upcycle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label upcycle. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

I'M BACK! :) with so much to say!

Helloooooo friends :)
it seems we have much to catch up on... July 5th was my last posting.. has it been that long?! Oh summer.... so much busy time and the few non-busy times in between the last thing I feel like doing is switching my brain onto high-power write mode... lol ANYWAYS..... where to begin?! Follow ups on my last post, I suppose..... Old home day went off even better than I thought... the puppets came out great (pics to follow post) and my costume, though not as elaborate as I had planned, also turned out GREAT! A dozen or so other marchees approached me to do or redo their facepaint upon my arrival at our meet up spot before the parade... here's the secret to great face paint: Do NOT use store bought crappy "face paint"... throw it in the trash where it belongs and pull out your ACRYLIC PAINT. Not only does is spread like butter on your face, but it makes detail super easy to achieve, and dries quickly and with a fair amount of flexibility.... PLUS it washes off in about 10 seconds with some soapy water face-rubbin.... Now back to the topic at hand: The parade float in contrast to the rest of the floats blew everyone's socks off... In fact, we won one of the grand prizes for parade floats, AND the owner/director of the art center now wants me to take complete creative control of next years parade float.... I'm planning on tackling something the likes of which my small-time town has never seen so hold onto your hats ;)

I fixed my bike and have been riding as consistently as I can between the alternating buckets of rain and heat waves :) which is to say not as much as I'm wanting to ride... but it's better than nothing, right?

The Tag Sale with my sister-in-law has not yet happened, but I'm hoping to work it into this late summer/early fall... meanwhile I have been accumulating a MASSIVE amount of stuff... If you live in the area this will be a tag sale not to be missed!

CONTEST RESULTS: The winner of the contest was chosen on or around July 15th and was: DOGIMO! Dogimo please comment or email me with your contact information and let me know what you would like for your $25.00 worth of goodies from ANY one (or a combo) of my shops! I will post a special reserved etsy listing for you!

Speaking of shops... I officially launched my newest endeavor: WOOKIT! The name was inspired by my son's favorite phrase (which is usually accompanied by a single tiny pointing finger) "Wook it!" The focus of this shop is on digital printables of all kinds, and you may find it at WOOKIT.ETSY.COM Lots and lots of samples of what you can purchase in the photos below... all photos are linked to the listings as well, to view the full listing, click on the link in the caption.

The last two weeks of July I had the honor of teaching at a summer camp over at EPOCH ARTS, and what fun it was! The kids where split into two groups: Pre-5th, and 6-10... In the course of the two weeks we made an unbelievable amount of cool things! Some highlights: The small kids group made Concrete stepping stones with objects embedded (photo below) , as well as some origami models, pop art paintings, bead necklaces, and picture frames! The older crowd was given some more challenging projects and the kids were able to create fused plastic wallets and purses, origami mobiles, T-Shirt reusable bags, and the project they seemed to like the most: Recreating used "Junk"... Every year EPOCH holds a massive tag sale with the donations they recieve throughout the year... so by now the back rooms are FULL of random objects of all sorts... my students were given the task of rummaging through these boxes upon boxes of goodies to find their "diamong in the rough"... not for what it was at that moment, but for what it could be with a little love and a lot of paint! Some of my favorite creations they completed: A "Mystery" old fashioned candy machine, A wall clock, A (very large) wall miror, and a Photo Album! We had so much fun and I can't wait till next year's summer camp!

The past week has been a challenging one... After years of having fairly large apartment's my current living space is a mere 11x14 room.... this includes sleeping space, play space, and work space... needless to say it's a bit crowded... this week I set about fixing the "sky is falling" feeling that my space had presented.... After two new storage furniture additions, several large bags of tag sale donations, and several large bins of stuff to be banished temporarily to the attic... and lots and lots of shoe boxes... my living space has gone from being a nightmare, to being fully functional and inspired! I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I will get some pictures soon and post them for you all to see. I should have taken some "befores".... but then again I don't want to embarrass myself that bad! The task was only finished later yesterday afternoon, I can't wait to work on my first project in it! I have three wall letters I am planning to paint this afternoon, and a pair of overall shorts that I need to finish for my son... I'm painting characters from one of his favorite movies: "The Yellow Submarine" on it! I will try to post again soon, but I cannot say 100% that it will be soon ;) I am volunteering at TWO locations (painting murals at EPOCH , and helping run an organic juice bar/green cooperative) , as well as running my businesses, helping my parents with their business (magicaljewelry.com) in their busiest of seasons, preparing an enormous amount of paperwork for a private matter, and trying to mentally prepare for OCTOBER when I start teaching again.... this time I am tackling a half a dozen different classes.... I am super excited and a bit nervous about doing so many at once!

This upcoming weekend I am tentatively planning a vacation to a beautiful beach-town in massachussets... it is dependent however upon other plans so we'll see how that goes... I'm really crossing my fingers though... this was the same yearly trip I was hoping to get out of the hospital in time to take last year and due to my doctor's concerns even though I was out of the hosptial he didn't want me to chance going that far.... soooooo, here we are a year later and I feel so desperately in need of two or three days to focus solely on Lennon and I... to recharge, relax, and unplug..... Crossing my fingers......

Still so much to say... but I feel this is becoming long winded ;) So I will just post some extra photos of some of the past month's happenings and creations and I will say so-long for now! I do hope that everyone is enjoying their summer as much as I am (or more!) :) and I will see you again.... when I see you!

Warmly,
Kalee



Lennon... after a particularly hard ride.... so you can imagine how exhausted I was ;)



Lennon and I and our bike


Teaching Lennon how to spin Poi (ancient new zealand tribal dance, sooo much fun, look it up! :))


My mama at the "Mad Hatter Tea Party" , we had a blast, Thanks Cathy! :)


My "Mad" Nana and her Mad little sisters at the Tea Party :)


DAREDEVIL Lennon at the Old Home Day Carnival on his favorite ride... that $20 wrist band was so worth the thousands of these smiles he flashed that day!


These were the bases I was given to work with for the parade puppets.......*sigh*


My finished Creations... and putting my best Lion Face forward....


Sun Puppet and Performer Hilary (Tribals painted by your's truely)


Moon Puppet and Performer Kayla (Tribals again by me)


HEY CUPCAKE - Printable Recipe cards available at WOOKIT


Ain't no Phoney - Printable Calling Cards available at WOOKIT


HEY CUPCAKE - Printable Potluck/Bakesale labels available at WOOKIT


HEY CUPCAKE - Printable Recipe cards available at WOOKIT


Lennon discovering the wonders of an "icecream" cone (ice cream is emphasized because Lennon is allergic to dairy and this is a non-dairy coconut milk substitute... and much better than the real thing I might add.... :)))



Of course the teacher had to save one stepping stone to make for herself... ;)


Lennon in his usual position! Playground at Rose's Berry Farm, where they have the most AMAZING Belgium waffles and fresh fruit Sunday brunch on earth!


I can Toucan Necklace - Created for myself, BUT I will take custom orders at Mama Trashheap's


Lennon in Tunnel.... LOVE THIS SHOT! :)


Mirror and Switchplate painted to coordinate with fisher price RAINFOREST nursery CUSTOM NURSERY DECOR AT ATIONS.ETSY.COM


Swine Flew Earrings ;) COMING SOON in stock, for now - taking custom orders at Mama Trashheap's


The nudies COMING SOON in stock, for now - taking custom orders at Mama Trashheap's


New Race Car themed wall letters CUSTOM DESIGNED for you at ATIONS.ETSY.COM


Lennon ready for another ride, I scrubbed all my chrome the same day I fixed my tire, doesn't it sparkle like nothing you've ever seen??


Lennon's new Sit and Spin! Thanks Freecycle! :))

GOODBYE FOR NOW!!! :)


Thursday, May 21, 2009

Art for the MAIL in your life...

Greetings,
just a quickie before I hit the hay.... Took Lennon down to the playground this afternoon and in between manning the swing and pausing to "wook it airplane"s :) I did a quick photo shoot of some recent projects that I've mentioned lately.. The steering wheel cover.. the Recycled envelopes and such... I am attempting to list the Recycled Envelopes as we speak but Etsy's listing editor is giving me some hassles with uploading my photos... :( Keeps getting stuck. Anyways, hopefully those will be up tonight before I'm through.

I also spent a good portion of the day swearing at my sewing machine... but the final result made me smile wide. I created some gifts for my students in the writing class I teach. They've done an awesome job and have grown so much.. tommorrow (today?) is our last class and I wanted to give them something special. So I crafted some journals with some leftover scraps of ribbon and fabric, as well as some tacky cover but nicely blank-paged journals I had picked up for the project... I will post photos tommorrow after I have given them, since they have the website address for this blog and though it's not likely they'll visit in the next 15 hours, JUST IN CASE... I want them to be a surprise. I'm off to finish the battle with Etsy's servers, and then to join my snuggly wee one :) Have a peaceful night all...
Kalee











Friday, May 8, 2009

PHOTOS and POEMS and ANGELS

Hello and Howdy Enablers :)
I don't know about other areas of the country (or world) but today in Connecticut was BEAUTIFUL! Perfect temp, blue skies, just lovely... actually, with one exception the past few days have all been pretty nice. I took advantage of the weather on Wednesday and took Lennon down to the run off some energy at the lake while I took some photos of some new creations, and some reshoots of some of my not so hot photos... Hopefully I'll find the time over the next few days to get these up into my shop. I did a clothing photo shoot with my baby sister Addi (incidently it is her 19th Birthday today, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADDI) to showcase some of the upcycled clothes I created several months ago... That will also be going up in the trashheap's shoppe very soon.

New creations the past few days were mostly of the felted beads or written variety. However, I'm noticing that as the weather is getting more consistently nice... my thoughts and inspirations are turning away from the crocheted and felted... to the painted, the upcycled and the repurposed... Over the next month or so I'm thinking that much more creations of this variety will be spilling forth... I will also be placing my monthly order for blank letters from my supply-guy and for the next two weeks I expect to find paint on my wardrobe and under my nails on a very regular basis while I work on creating several full orders and a whole lot of Pay It Forward orders

On to my best of news... On a whim, while online a few weeks ago, I had submitted a small want-ad in the "neighbor to neighbor" column of a local paper asking if anyone would be willing to trade with me, some muralist work for some or all payment of a used car... I didn't really think anything would come of it, but figured, what've I got to lose... I am in dire need of a car, I had jobs lined up for this summer, teaching summer camps, art classes and such, and I have had no car of my own ever since I sold my car last June a couple of days before I ended up with a very serious illness... it was a long and hard recovery and just the past couple months I've finally started to get back to my old self again, but have still hadn't begun to be able to get back on my feet financially... it's the old catch 22 of needing a car to get to a job to make money... and needing money to get said car...

SO ANNNNNYWAYS :) To get to the point... I got ONE single response to the ad... A wonderful woman several towns away offered me a 99 Hundai that runs and is in great shape with the exception of a transmission issue... which isn't necessarily an issue.. it could last another couple years for all we know... and the woman is GIVING it to me and wants ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in exchange... I plan to make her something nice regardless... she is a dog trainer so I'm thinking maybe a picture frame or two and a set of letters spelling "WOOF" or something along that lines, with paw print design... I go pick up the car tommorrow, and next week will be much fun time spent at the DMV(dept motor vehicles) and such getting registration and whatnots.... Happily, waiting rooms at the DMV provide ample opportunity for sketching and felting :))))

What a wonderful blessing and SUCH AMAZING PEOPLE that do exist out there... I am so incredibly thankful for this little bit of help... It feels like maybe... just maybe there is someone out there looking out for me, and maybe my 10 year streak of catastrophe after catastrophe is finally winding down... :) Here's hoping... and to give a little more back to the universe I'm going to be putting up a few "PIF" TWENTY CENT LISTINGS in each of my shoppes next week... I'll let you all know when I do so you can get'em while they're fresh :)

On Thursdays I teach a writing class to 6-12 grade students.. I wrote a poem during this past one, about my Lennon, that I'd like to share... the title was inspired by his love of trains... he says "train train" instead of "choo choo".. he thinks that is the noise they make, hehe :) Here is the Poem....

"Train Train"

Every time he says it
my heart just turns to smush
like the tiny buggies he "quishies"
between his fingers till its goosh

He likes his uncle's "sickle"
when he revs it it goes vroom
Instead of "mom" he calls me "Key"
says "ah Yah You" when I leave the room

Sometimes he be's a "Peenbutt"
but mostly he's just "Hah-Pee!"
We "wook it cars" and "wook it Fwollers"
and sometimes "wook it trees"

The "toy planes" in the sky
and "ban-yahyahs", "beegles" and "ookies"
oh the wonders of a "Gow-Beech Twuck"
and all that HE's taught ME to see...


Lennon and I had a great time tonight running on the playground for a couple hours...playing "I Get you" and swinging.... Tommorrow morning we are going to a car show that my big brother, Donald, is DJing, later going to pick up my car, and finishing the day at a dance recital for little sis, Addi... The funk is dissolving and tommorrow should be an AWESOME DAY! Perhaps if I am not too spent I shall pop in for a quickie tommorrow evening...

Until then,
Kalee