Beware the monitor! This is what I wanted:
What I got:
It’s beautiful, and I’ll keep it, but it’s not what I wanted. The search for June bug green continues…
I think it might be best to buy paint in person, if you have a place.
P.S. My Wet Strength Tissue arrived!
with the bestie, helping her at her mom’s place.
The details of which I cannot relate, for the hour, my dears, is much too late!
For now, I’ll share some photos I took during the Golden Hour:
Goodnight!
My best friend is visiting with me, today. We had a lovely dinner at Roselli’s on 10th in N.Wilkesboro, NC. This was our view out the window.
In truth, there was a light wire between the window and the tree. I used Chatgpt to remove it.
I found a piece of a lid to a styrofoam take-out box, going through my crafty trash stash, today.
I have heard you can mark on styrofoam, or styrene, and make a stamp.
There’s an old coloring book from when the grandkids were little in a cabinet of saved books. I remember seeing cute little birds.
I tucked the foam under a drawing and traced it with a dull colored pencil. I couldn’t find my ball-end stylus.
So, I colored around the bird to compress the foam.
I got out a couple of ink pads and some scrap paper. I tried the blue first.
I re-inked and tried again.s
I cleaned the stamp and re-inked with red. I could be more precise with the small ink pad.
I tried a copper Sharpie.
It barely transferred at all, but now, I can see the stamp better.
I’d only count this as a success if I only wanted a suggestion of a bird.
If I try this again, I might color inside the bird, to depress that area, and maybe produce a reverse image?
Oh well, it was fun to try.
Most people love Fridays, and I’m no exception! Friday is when my freebie rolls in from Karen Watson, The Graphics Fairy!
Just look at this week’s!
Some of these days, I’m going to print this, or something like it, onto Aida cloth or linen, and embroider the flowers!!! I am very pleased!
Here are a couple of other, recent Friday Freebies:
I currently have 257 images in my Graphics Fairy Album. I have been collecting for years. Here’s my first one saved on iPhone. It’s from a different season, but still precious!
Many thanks to Karen!
My friend, Eduardo Jr. Reyes, just finished a live stream about gel printing basics. You can find him on You Tube at Eddie Makes Art.
You can watch the replay, as soon as it renders, here, Gel Printing Step by Step
He discussed paints, paper and process! He produced some spectacular prints!
He really took us to school! Thanks, Eddie!
I’ve been wanting to try this experiment for years! (Off and on, when I remembered it.) Have you ever looked at all the luscious colors in a catalog and thought, “What a waste for that to go to recycling?” Well, I have.
If it’s a large enough area, I punch a shape out of it. Imagine this with a star shape punched out.
(I should say that I’m using an old Land’s End catalog for illustrative and educational purposes.)
But what if it’s a stack of colored items in that image, or a pretty page border:
What if it’s a row of dots?
Sure, you could take your scissors, cut a strip, and save it in a baggie or envelope. That pink checked page border would be easy, but the others? I hope you can cut straighter than me!
Enter double sided tape. I like this skinny stuff from Dollar Tree.
Now’s the tricky part. Choose an image you want to turn into decorative tape. You have to put the tape on the BACK of the image. (A light box would’ve been helpful, but I was too lazy to go hunt mine. A tablet or iPad set on a white screen might have worked as well, but I just thought of that.)
This is my first goof up. Remember, you got to go for the back of the image. So, I aimed for the lower row of dots. My result:
Next try. I chose an image where I thought I couldn’t miss:
Here’s the back with one side of the tape adhered:
(Yes, I was working in my lap.) I trimmed the tape:
This is what I got:
Next time, I’ll use a light box or iPad. I’ll still call this a success!
I hope it goes without saying that I pulled off the other side of the tape. (I’m saving those strips, too. They look like they’d be good for applying alcohol inks.)
Next try, MAGAZINE WASHI!
If we remodel our house for accessibility, we’d like to add a roomier living room. I’ve kept this photo of my “dream room” for 30 years.
I know it’s been 30 years. Here’s the cover of the magazine:
See the date, Winter 1996. It’s a photo from the same room.
Now, the curved beams are delicious to me, but so impractical. For one, they are expensive, and for two, they’d be a nightmare to dust.
The room is also narrow for wheelchair mobility. The plan says 15ft. I changed it to 18. I kept the window seat, and lowered the vaulted ceiling. I covered that ceiling with wood.
I kept the arched window and echoed it with an arched doorway, which there is just a hint of in the version Chatgpt rendered:
I am exceedingly pleased!
In an earlier post, I showed how I use Mark-Up to add color to my photos.
The photos don’t have to be black and white, but I do enjoy “colorizing” them!
Mark-Up is part of photo editing on an iPhone. (I’d bet there’s something similar in Android phones. Most have Google Photos.) I have an iPhone 14 using iOS 26.3.1
During a recent upgrade, all the photo editing icons were combined into one slider. It looks like this:
It appears at the bottom of any iPhone photo you open.
Click on (touch) that slider and a whole new set of icons appear.
Look for a little pen tip at the top right. It can do magic!
Go ahead and click on it if you want to explore on your own!