Julie took her last final of Fall semester today – and is headed home for the holidays tomorrow. Tonight we went to Painting with a Twist to create a work of art. This is my version. Not bad. A little festive. Probably worth hanging on the wall for a week or two (?) 🙂
I’m at SeaTac, ready to board my flight back to Austin. I need to come up here more often.
The D Concourse has some very large glass artwork in the windows. Here’s a couple of peeks. Both of these are by an artist named Dick Weiss.
I’ll be home in a jif!
My mom has been on my mind lately, so earlier this month I decided to make a trip to spend some time with her before the Christmas bustle. I can work from her house there and spend the evenings with her.
So today, after work, I hopped on a plane. It is pouring rain here, and is expected to do the same all week. I wish i could bring some of this water home with me…
I’ll also have a chance to see my sisters and brother while i’m here. An added bonus. Noreen gave me this beautiful leaded glass piece that she designed and made just for me. Celtic knot… love it! She does beautiful work. I can’t wait to pick out a place to hang it at home.
I was inspired to make this wreath by a do-it-yourself project that I ran across on pinterest (original link here) and pinned it in my “DIY: wannado’s” board a month or so ago. I immediately knew that I was going to try to make one – not just because I loved the way it looked, but because I have been hoarding corks for 10-15 years (much to monte’s bemusement) just waiting for a project I could use them in. The hot-pad-trivet-made-out-of-corks projects I usually run across just didn’t do it for me.
I love wreaths, and with Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner, I knew I’d better get started if I wanted to finish it before the holidays. I love how it turned out. Here’s how I did it.
I bought an 18″ diameter straw wreath body (from Michael’s) a box of 1 1/4″ dressmaker pins (longer is better) and some craft glue (from Joanne’s). Then I dug out and dusted off several bags/boxes labeled “corks” from the garage and started sorting. I didn’t keep track of exactly how many I used, but I’m pretty sure it’s on the order of about 400-500 corks. I can’t help but do a little math here…. if i estimate that on average I spent $12 a bottle… that means this wreath cost in the neighborhood of about $5000. (heheheh… sigh) Anyway, as I was sorting, I tossed corks that weren’t 100% solid cork. Many were made up of lots of little pieces of cork molded in the shape of a cork. I also wanted to mix up the red wine (stained) & white wine corks and mix in a champagne cork every now and then. So I picked out bunches of them as I went along.
Stick a pin into each cork – get a good bite but leave as much of the pin hanging out as you can.
Then put a line of glue on the pin.
Then stick the cork into position by pushing the head end of the pin into the straw wreath form. I inserted them all at an angle, where one row laid on top of the last one. Sometimes the pins went into a gap between the straw and didn’t stick well. So try to make sure you poke the pin through some of the straw when you push them in. Between the pins and the glue, the corks were surprisingly stable in the wreath when finished.
I must admit that it was a little daunting getting started, but after the first row or two, it really was easy and went a lot quicker than I expected. Here is a close up of how the layering turned out. Some of the corks had years printed on the end or a unique logo, which added a nice touch to the detail.
I hastily added the ribbon as an afterthought, to dress it up for the holidays. I know the ribbon looks a bit hokey, but I wanted to hang it up on the door to take a picture, so I was in a hurry. But you get the idea. After Christmas I’ll remove the ribbon and hang it on a wall in the house dining room or kitchen.
Start saving those corks!
On one of my trips out to the shop in the wayback part of the yard today to see what Monte was up to, I encountered this little art exhibit.
He’s been talking about wanting to make a sundial. But I don’t think this is it.
The story behind the shot: Monte is very fond of colored bandanas / hankies, and won’t get dressed without having one or two of these in his pocket. He uses them for pretty much everything. Well, last weekend he declared that he was running low and came back from a shopping run with a couple dozen bright, crisp, new colored bandanas. They bleed profusely, though for the first 5 – 10 washes. So he’s taken to washing them in a bucket of saltwater to set the colors. This is apparently the drying cycle for the latest batch. 🙂
Rachel is back home. Julie is studying. Monte is at the lake. And I’m getting ready for a Sunday afternoon full of work-work.
We went to brunch at Güero’s this morning, then I dropped Julie back at her apartment, before taking Rachel to the airport. This is a shot of some of Julie’s many glassybaby pieces. These blue ones are pretty. I also like the taupe/beige/cream colored ones. But I guess I’m feeling blue today.
We had a nice weekend. But we all have a busy week ahead.
Tomorrow is Rachel’s first day as a surgical resident (u go girl!). Julie has a test. And I have a full slate of meetings and presentations.
Here’s to the next girls’ weekend.
And, Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there! My dad is gone – for several years now. But he would be very proud of his progeny, especially the two very talented, determined and self-reliant granddaughters that I got to spent the weekend with.
Tonight was my third foray into painting at Painting with a Twist, this time with Jen. The shot above is the palette we used.
And…. VOILA!! I give you…. Wildflowers at the Park:
Please hold your applause.
The one the teacher guided us through didn’t have any bluebonnets (!). Well, i simply couldn’t paint a hill country scene without bluebonnets, so we improvised.
I’m just realizing that the clouds look a bit like hats. Oh well. I’m sure Picasso had to work at it a bit before he got the hang of it, too. 🙂
When I got my Mac, I realized that it could only open the windows filesystem on my old USB backup drive in read-only mode. Not great for doing backups. I’ll need to reformat it to use it. But I’ve been procrastinating, because i’m going to have to sort through what’s on there to see what to keep and what to get rid of. So this week I took the first step – I copied most of what was on the backup drive to my mac to prepare to reformat the USB drive.
Consequently, the next time I opened Picasa, it found ALL the photos that I had just copied and loaded them into its library, which took a while. But, once it finished, it makes for very easy viewing of many years of pictures. So, I’ve been spending a lot of time this morning browsing through photos I’ve taken that I haven’t looked at for years.
When I got to this one I thought I’d share it with you. This is a photo that I took when my sister, Colleen, and her son, Jacob, were visiting about 4 years ago. We drove down to Port Aransas for the weekend, and stayed a place right on the Gulf-side of the beach. This is a picture of Colleen and Jacob jumping together in the surf. I used some piece of software, can’t remember what, to create a water-color effect — oh, and I edited out the oil rig on the horizon :(. I later printed this and framed it for her.
I guess it’s kind of appropriate, too, because this is Mother’s Day weekend, and she’s a great mom.
I have to smile every time I look at this pic.
In the interest of spending less time running errands on the weekends, I have really embraced on-line shopping. And not just for presents and big purchases but consumables – I’ve recently bought shampoo, sunscreen, batteries, light bulbs, hangers, replacement parts, adhesives, air filters…you name it. It’s GREAT!
I signed up for Amazon Prime about 6 months ago. It offers free 2-day shipping, and sometimes discounted prices, for many items. It’s a god-send. And only $79 a year. You also get free online video streaming (which is handy with a kindle fire), and free e-books. Check it out.
Amazon does sell postage stamps, but when I ran out this week, I just ordered from usps.com. I usually buy a couple hundred Forever stamps at a time, and they show up in my mailbox in a day or two.
The picture above is of a sheet of Forever stamps that I ordered on Thursday that arrived today. They are of a painting by Edward Hopper called The Long Leg, part of the American Treasures series of stamps. Pretty, gaff-rigged sailboats. I couldn’t resist. I have admired several Edward Hopper paintings and drawings (especially The Cat Boat) over the years, but I don’t know much about him otherwise. So I googled him and in the process of doing so, found a most awesome website for viewing art called wikipaintings.org. What an amazing resource. They have several hundred artists and many thousands of art work browsable and viewable online. A must-have in your bookmark list.
We started out this evening with dinner at Z-Tejas downtown with the visiting Three. Frozen mango marg and a salad for me. Delicious!
Friday, Saturday and Sunday night… a trifecta of fun.
Walking to our car after dinner, we stopped by a statue store to take some pics. Ran into the King. Then we headed over to Lori’s to play a few rounds of a game that Denyse told us about… called Telepictionary. It goes roughly like this… each person writes a sentence at the top of a piece of paper. Then they pass it to the right and the next person draws their interpretation of the sentence. That person folds over the sentence, so the next person can only see their drawing. And the next person then must write a sentence that captures what their interpretation of the drawing is. Then this person folds over the drawing and passes the paper to the next person, who can only see the sentence that they wrote from the previous drawing. This goes on for several more passes. We had 7 people playing tonight. When the paper makes its way back to the person who wrote the original sentence at the top of the page, the round is over.
It’s funny to compare the original sentence to the last one on the page. The shot below is of one my sentences after having made it around the table.
You get the idea.
I love that it’s getting dark later these days. I can get more things done after work. But it does tend to make the days longer.
Tonight it was 8:30 by the time we both sat down and and starting thinking about what to do for dinner. So, we decided to pop out for a quick, late, bite. We ended up at our local pub, BB Rover’s.
BB Rover’s is a great bar. Good food. Nice patio outside. Tons of beer. They have over 300 beers from all over the world to choose from every night. They have a tradition at BBs – once a patron has tried 100 different beers, their name goes up on the 100 Beer Club wall of fame. Don’t worry, you don’t have to drink all 100 of them in one night. 🙂 To help keep track, they have a form that you can use to check off different beers as you drink them.
We’ve been going to BBs for a long time…over 16 years. We have friends that have made it to the wall of fame. But, I can never seem to make progress towards the 100 milestone. Oh, I’ve tried. I just dug up my old scorecard. I have 23 different beers checked off, so far. But, try as I might, I usually just end up ordering a Stella on draft. I guess I know what I like. Maybe I’ll give it another go. It could happen.
In our travels to the Caribbean, I’ve found some local lagers that I like: Carib (Trinidad & Tobago), Kalik (Bahamas), Hairoun (St. Vincent & the Grenadines). But they are hard to find in the US, so they haven’t made it to BB’s checklist. I guess we’ll just have to keep going down to the islands for a cold one of them.
I’ll leave you with this (source unknown):
The Beer Prayer Our lager, Which art in barrels, Hallowed be thy drink. Thy will be drunk, (I will be drunk), At home as it is in the tavern. Give us this day our foamy head, And forgive us our spillage, As we forgive those who spill against us. And lead us not to incarceration, But deliver us from hangovers. For thine is the beer, the bitter, and the lager. Barmen
Yesterday I joined a bunch of friends at Painting With a Twist – my 2nd time. It’s a BYOB painting studio where everyone in the class follows along with the instructor and paints the same picture. I have had my eye on this red landscape for a while. I knew exactly where I wanted to put it… the blank wall in our (not so) recently remodeled master bathroom.
So, today I hung it up. It’s smaller than what the space calls for. But, I like it!
Tonight Sue & I went to an art studio called Painting with a Twist. They hold a painting class every night where everyone in the studio paints the same picture. Oh, and you can bring your own wine and snacks to help get the creative juices flowing (that’s the twist part). You can choose which session you want to attend by checking out their calendar and signing up ahead of time. They have studios in many cities, check out their main website if you’re interested. Tonight’s piece is called Moonlit Cherry Blossoms.
I know friends that have tried it, but this was my first time. It was FUN! The pic above is one I took of my painting after I got it home. I look forward to trying this again.
Look out people, ARTIST COMIN’ THROUGH!! 😀
Tonight a friend of ours was having an art show in a gallery near our house. Check out her work here.
Sheila365 