How To Polish Silver with Ketchup

The Reader's Digest for November 2013 just recommended using ketchup to polish silver. Non-toxic is always my first choice, so I thought we should try it.

We donned our fairy tutus and turned it into a fun messy activity with paint brushes. It was a novel experience since you cannot usually commission your preschoolers to polish silver for you.

I quickly determined that my 2 year old needed her own little private artist's palette of ketchup as she used the paintbrush as a spoon! I did not want her eating the tarnish-laden ketchup.

Thacia and I soldiered on, however, and this is the result after rinsing 15 minutes later:

 
The before photo is a little deceiving because in addition to the yellow cast it was also fairly dull before, whereas the photo makes it look shiny. You get the idea though. Transformation!
The verdict: It works!
Hold on a minute before you toss your heavy duty polish though, because we did some candlesticks too. Here's what they looked like before:

 

And after:

Yep, same picture because they didn't change a bit. These candlesticks say they are silver plate, but they look more like pewter from a distance.
What do you think of ketchup polish? Is it worth a shot?

Silk Lace Peacock Shawl: An Experiment in Dyeing

In a feverish quest for iridescence one young hero conquers adverse circumstances, and most importantly her own fear to imitate one of nature's most awe-striking wonders: The peacock. Did she triumph? You be the judge! 

 Note: Dyeing is an art and a science, but I apply it as art. This post is meant to be a creative journal showing my decision making process on how I dyed a shawl in peacock colors rather than a literal dye recipe. I considered splitting this into smaller posts, but it's hard to find them again if you are searching, so this one is just really long. 

It all began 3 years ago...

–See the diary after the jump!

How To Make a Unicorn Lamp DIY

Checking in again from girlie mcgirl world. Sorry you moms of boys out there! 
Well. I don’t know about you, but the unicorn bug bit us pretty hard after watching Despicable Me. Personally I think Pegasus is way cooler, but the girls are growling

Perfect, because I had adopted a resin deer lamp with the horns broken off. 
The poor buck was turned into a doe, and hankering for horns. You see this kind of thing in garage sales and second hand stores fairly often. The horns aren’t that sturdy on these poor deer. Something about this buck's plight spoke to me, and yes, I paid green money for him. I don’t know if this is what he had in mind, but he looks pretty happy now! 

Now you may say that a deer makes an ugly unicorn, and I might feel embarrassed about that except a) he's no uglier than the one above while being equally fluffy, and b) to a 3 year old he's enchanting.

Apart from the lamp itself, most things in the supply list are probably ones you have floating around if you do many crafts. If not, come borrow some from me!

Materials

• metal file
• spray primer for plastic
• spray paint 
• wood barbecue skewer
• white paint
• a few dabs of glitter glue
• wire nippers
• multicolored embroidery floss
• metallic embroidery floss
• a card
• scissors
• small crochet hook
• little hair tie
• glitter glue
• hot glue gun
• glue stick
• super glue

Directions 

1. The first steps in the deericorn's transformation were filing off his horn stubs with a metal file and giving him a coat of primer and several coats of paint. You know how to do that, so I don’t have to tell you. I will say that we tried pink first, and we all agreed it was not his shade. We had pushed him too far. We settled on Valspar 85083 Satin Everglade Glen spray paint instead. As an aside, I like working in a copy paper box lid on messy projects like this. It's a tray you can take it outdoors, indoors, cover it with paint and glue, explode glitter everywhere, and not get any mess in the house.  

2. Next dip a few inches of the sharp end of a bamboo barbecue skewer in white latex paint and let it dry. This softens the point and thickens the horn up a bit.  Bonus for not putting your supplies away right when you are done with them: the Valspar can holds the skewer nicely while it dries.

3. For the mane and tail cut up a card from your junk mail into an appropriate length fringe for each. I did 3 3/4” for the tail, and 2 1/2” for the mane but your deer might be a different size. Wind the flosses around the cards. Cut the wrapped floss on one side of the card so you have lots and lots of pieces of floss. 

4. For the tail, wrap a little non-slip hair tie around the middle of the tail yarns, or tie it in a knot.

5. Technically you can do the next part without a crochet hook by finger crocheting. Whether you crochet a chain by hand or with a hook, make sure it is the length you want for the mane from forelock to end. Using your crochet hook or the point of a skewer, fringe the mane onto your chain. 

6. Now back to your horn once it is dry: Coat the painted part with a glaze of glitter glue for some sparkle. I tried actual glitter as well and decided it was a bit over the top for me, but it’s up to you. 

Thacia is showing you glitter glue.
It’s the love of her preschooler heart. Besides spinny skirts, that is. 
I sincerely hope the glue was dry by before she was helping here, but I can't be sure. I was in the zone.

7. Once the glitter glue dries, cut off the amount of horn you will need with the wire nippers/cutters.

8. Drop a nice big dab of hot glue on the place you want your horn to go, and stick the horn in. Hold it at the angle you want while the glue cools. Make another generous dab of glue on the deer’s rump for the tail and holding the tail vertical, press the hair tie or knot into the glue. Quickly arrange the tail the way you want it and press it in while the glue is still pliable. 

9. Impale the forelock of the mane on the horn, and glue that down with hot glue as well. Now your unicorn has a really bad hair day. Wet the strands down and arrange them more artfully. Trim the hair up with scissors. I went for a bit of a natural tapered look if the term “natural” can be applied here. If you untwisted all of the strands it would look even better, but this momma has other projects to get to!

10. Finally, use super glue to permanently glue the hot glue dots to the deericorn. The hot glue holds the accessories in place, but you need the super glue to get them to stay on the lamp.

11. Give him a kiss on the nose and tell him how handsome he is. 

  

Found: The Secret Hiding Place

Don't you just love old books- the sueded pages, the old paper-and glue-scent, the dust jackets crumbling into that which they are supposed to protect the book from?

I found this gem at the Goodwill Outlet. It's a cute story about a little hippo who is deeply doted on, but needs some autonomy: A place to be alone, but not too alone.
Look at the lovely flocks of birds in the above illustration, and Little Hippo's joy as he realizes he has found his place, because the big hippos will never look up!

The line quality is luscious, and look at the peeved look on the older hippos face as he wonders where Little Hippo's been hiding himself. I love the chameleon's smirk, and the the happy, contemplative gaze of Little Hippo.

The true genius is when the ink drawings are layered on top of these loose little rainbow-colored watercolors. They make me think that writer and illustrator Rainey Bennett is full of the kind of gold coin showers that are mixed with sunshine and rainbows aplenty.

Boys and Their Toys

toddler boy gift ideas

Boys are simultaneously easiest and hardest to shop for. They are happiest with a ball or a gizmo, but gosh darn-it if you don't want to give them something cute– at least when they are little. 

I am facing this conundrum often, what with an influx of little nephews this year, and some other small boys in my life to gift. All of a sudden I got inspired with this truck pillow and was feverishly sketching it way after I should have been in bed. 

I used matte fabric paint on vintage flour sacking for the design. If I do it again, I will leave at least on inch of margin all the way around the picture so that I don't lose so much of the drawing to stuffing. So far it is a hit with my daughter, who is loathe to let it leave!

As a quick reminder, there is still a little time left to enter the contest to win the tassel bracelet giveaway!

Vintage Feather-Craft Folk Art Makeover

When were these Mexican feather craft pictures popular? They used to turn up every so often in estate auctions when I used to work for an auction company. This pair has been knocking around my house ever since they came to me from a great grandmother's estate. I liked the quirkiness of them, but not they weren't in the best condition. We revamped them this week to hang in the nursery, and here's how 

we did it:

 

Here are the originals in their carved cedar frames. I generally hold that it is recklessness in the first degree to paint over nice wood, (don't get me started about "distressing") but these needed a little jazzing up. Obviously they aren't a matched pair, were a bit dinged up, and pretty faded.

  

The first step was to cut them carefully out of the frames.

 

Then I pulled out the backing nails and cleaned the glass.

 

I carefully dusted off the pasteboard backing with a soft brush. 

 

The original condition doesn't look too bad in the photo, but the purple and blue were especially faded. I touched up all the colors with India ink and a medium bristle square acrylic brush. You can see in the after picture at the very top that I actually made this guy acid green instead of grey.

 

I could not be out there when my husband painted the frames, so there are no pictures, but you know how to use spray paint without my instruction!

We used Rustoleum spray paint in gold, a light dusting of copper, and a very very very light dust of aqua. I can't say I am all that thrilled with the color. If someone knows of a more mellow butterscotchy gold, please share! This gold looked like a high school prop to me at first. 

Then my husband reassembled the whole kit and caboodle. Done. Bright and cheerful for babies who like birds!

Sorry these aren't perfect photos. I am relaxing my standards to survival mode until further notice! 

Here Comes the Bride II

You know how earlier this summer (it's still hot here, it's still summer) I embroidered a Here Comes the Bride banner for a friend? Well, by tragic mistake I sent it to an address with fewer zeroes in it than I should have and whoever got it didn't send it back!!! Was she having a wedding too and figured it was a thoughtful gift? We will never know. So I made this one really quick right in the middle of moving. It made it just in time, not a minute to spare! This weekend is the wedding. We are thinking of you Jill, even though we can't make it to London town!

I used the same font I had designed for the other one, but this time I traced it lightly onto canvas– after hemming of course– and painted it with several coats of gold metallic fabric paint. 

The "lace" is just cut out of the canvas and lined with gold paint on the front side, fray check or clear nail polish on the backside to keep it from fraying. I used giant vintage buttons from my stash at the top. Easy peasy. 

I think it would be cool to try a more ambitious lace idea with this technique born of necessity!

Found: Lead Paint

I figured I'd just prime and paint the living room window frame when I was redoing the kitchen cabinets: A fine example of home renovator's While We're At It Syndrome. First, though, there was some peeling paint, so I pulled out the ol' paint stripper and rubber gloves and got to work. The paint beneath the layers of white was strangely crumbly in gorgeous layers of peacock blue and jade.

So while we were at it we had to pry the window frame out of the stone wall... which cracked the plaster in the living room.

The upside? I don't think it's going to freeze again since this last cold weather, and I passionately love the raw stone underneath.

Sea Foam and Red Color Inspiration

It has been very difficult to post without a camera, especially for Found Stuff Fridays. It is almost impossible to keep this blog current with what I am working on and thinking about because I can’t show pictures unless I sketch them or borrow a camera.

I’ve had it with this, so I saved up and bought a new camera which should arrive sometime next week. I can’t wait! I have so many delicious projects to show you!

Van Gogh La Mousme 1888

I love the simplicity of clean colors and architectural lines in clothing and decoration, but I also go through fits of the aesthetic “too much is not enough.” There is something oh so satisfying about repetition, & exciting about brilliant color. I am especially in love with combinations of punchy orange-red with glowing aqua-green these days. When I found these pictures paging through old reference books, they seemed irresistible.

Enjoy these examples!

From Kaffe Fassett's Glorious Color, photo by Steve Lovi

One morning on the way home from church on the east side, I gazed up the sidewalk to see Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably strolling my way. Fassett’s remarkable coloring was unmistakable, and any doubt I may have had vanished at the sight of Mably’s intricate tasseled intarsia fez & Fassett’s colorful scarf. All of this registered a moment after it was too late to smile or say hello. I can’t explain why I was so feverishly dumbfounded, except that I actually recognized someone on the street I had truly wanted to meet. Rosy O’Donnell, Betsey Johnson, or various models are interesting, but I don’t really have any questions for them. I wouldn’t, for instance, have died for an internship with them.

The pair passed me, and I stood there wondering whether I should hail them and introduce myself. I think that now I would. After all, they would probably have been at least amused. I can’t imagine that they get recognized on the street so often that they wouldn’t enjoy some praise. They were hardly being stalked by paparazzi. But in the moment my collegiate self was full of doubt, so I have not shaken their hands yet.

From Kaffe Fassett's Glorious Color, photo by Steve Lovi

Found: Watching Paint Peel

Watching paint dry -or peel- wouldn't be so boring if more of it looked like this. I love the wood grain, the pattern of the paint, and the way the shadow is broken up, not to mention the soft colors. This paint is on the outside wall of my new-to-me studio, and really speaks to all the piecing I have been doing.

I am still sewing today. Hit a wall with top stitching on the jacket and I need to come up with a solution. My idea was to top stitch in standard gold on the denim, but no stitch and thread combination seems thick enough and uniform enough at the same time. I may resort to blue top stitching just to make it all smooth first. When it looks like something, I'll post pictures!

Hippo of Happiness

I was a little nervous about design class today: The high schoolers I am teaching are beginning their final projects and they are creatively scattering in all directions. It just goes to show how versatile design truly is. The great and challenging part is that it has me changing gears every 3 minutes or so as I guide them. Whew!

This evening we are going to eat dinner with some friends. Their daughter painted this hippo for me sometime back, and it holds pride of place in my studio now. My friend asked me if she should try to get her daughter to paint and color in realistic colors. I told her of course not! She'll find out soon enough that hippos aren't pink. As soon as Tara stopped harassing her, the budding artist started working in a more conventional color scheme. Ah, the vagaries of art and rebellion!