A Couple of Artsy Sundays

For the past two Sundays I've been lucky enough to spend time going to art events.

Last Sunday I went to "Cider Days" in downtown Springfield with my husband and friends David and Patti. Usually we don't end up buying much, but it certainly is fun to see the sights....

.....people walking their miniature horses.....

......wild outfits.....

...dancing.....

.....face painting.....

.....historical homes.....

.......beautiful, old trees.......

......and our spirits weren't dampened....even in the rain!

Thankfully, the weather cooperated a little more nicely while I was in Kansas City this weekend with my aunt Jo an. We had such fun looking, eating, shopping and visiting with my cousin Katrina.

(me and aunt Jo an)

We saw beautiful works of art from the stunning jewelry of Robyn Nichols

Fiber art from Mary Beth Yates

Mixed-media from John Whipple.

We also took time to watch Haylee and her friend Callie get "eye" make-overs at MAC cosmetics.

Here are the before........and after pictures.....
BEAUTIMOUS!!!

We stayed in a revived little boutique hotel with the most fun color scheme!

We had brunch at a great spot in Kansas City called One80. I had the most wonderful Cajun Bloody Mary and an omlette with smoked salmon, sun-dried tomatoes, pesto and fontina cheese....YUM!

Then later I snacked on some Wedding Cake Gelato...OH MY GOSH!!!!

However, all good things must come to an end and we come back to our "real" lives of Mt. Saint Laundry!!!

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

All about cats and dogs!

What makes a kitty cat get up on the top of your shed and hide behind the branches and leaves? Perhaps it's a big sad-eyed bassoon? I really think Truvy just wanted him to come down and play and she was puzzled at why the cat kept hiding.

The cat did eventually come down and when we called to him he would "meow" back at us. Must be one of the neighbor's cats....not sure. He sure was pretty hiding behind the leaves......wouldn't he be great in a rug?
Go forth and be creative,
Tammy

Pumpkin tutorial continued.....

.....well sort of.

To finish off the pumpkins you can use some dried vine if you'd like for the stem. What I used was some scrap yarn folded in half and then needle felted into a stem shape. I then needle felted it onto the back of the pumpkin.

For the vine I used a wool worm and kind of twirled it around and needle felted it to the front and back of the pumpkin and then cut leaves out of scrap wool and needle felted them on as well.

If you'd like to learn more about needle felting look here. It's a great way to attach wool to wool using these little barbed felting tools....a great thing to have in your creative arsenal. If you want to order felting needles I'm going to steer you towards Amherst Antiques.....Sally is a rug hooker and all around great gal!

Later this week I'll be bringing you several pictures of the things I'm working on for the upcoming Ozark Craft show. Blogs might be a little fewer and further between, but be assured I'm hooking away!

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

Of pumpkins and bikes

I've really been dragging my feet on posting the tutorial on the coiled pumpkin pins........

Here is enough to start you out and then I'll post the rest of the instructions tomorrow or the next day.

Supplies needed: worms......wool worms that is!

Pick out something suitable for a pumpkin......remember, they come in different colors these days....orange, white, blue, green....for this I'm sticking with your basic orange...but jazzing it up with a checked fabric.

Now, just take that puppy and roll it into a nice little round shape like this.....
See....wasn't that easy? Now run and go get your needle and thread......something that half-way coordinates is a good idea....I'm using brown. It's rare that I have a calling for orange thread.....hey, if you sew a lot it could happen. ME, yeah, I don't sew a lot!

Now, here is where you have to pay attention....don't poke yourself while you are threading that needle....hmmmm, better go get my reading glasses to thread that dude!

Okay....now that it's threaded let's get busy! Make a knot in your thread....I know it sounds obvious, but I HAVE forgotten before. Put your needle in about two rows back and come up through the little end of the tail....as shown below.....draw your needle through until the knot catches.

Did I mention that my freshman English teacher tried to convince me to be a technical writer?

Now take your needle and go back and come up in the center. My picture shows me being on the totally opposite side of the tail.....OOOPS! Your starting out right there by the tail and then coming up in the middle. Making sense?

You continue to do this in a spoke like fashion.....like this.....

You end up coming up in the middle and knotting off. If you want your pumpkin to be more squatty (or as Kenny, my husband, calls them.....Cinderella pumpkins) then pull tighter where you want them to squash in.

Later on....tomorrow or the next day I'll show you how I made the stem (needle felting with yarn scraps....old dried vines of some sort would look way cool, but things aren't dry enough here to find any of those yet), vine (another worm) and leaves....just cut them out of scraps of wool as well.

Speaking of spokes....

Today (okay....it's 3am here, so I guess that means yesterday....Wednesday....my day off work) we went downtown to watch the Tour of Missouri come through town.

We went down to hang out at one of our favorite eateries...Mille's

You can dine indoors or out....we were outside on the covered patio to watch the bikers come by, but Mille's did a great job of setting up extra tables outside in their parking lot to accomadate all of the folks who came to cheer on the athletes. Funny, it looks like Kenny is in jail!

This event was a pretty big deal....they shut down city streets for probably an hour for the racers to come through. My pictures are not too bad considering how fast they came by. There were 120 bikers....including the guy who won the 2007 Tour de France!

This is the guy who won todays segment of the race...it's 600 miles in 6 days across the state of Missouri....his name is George Hincapie of the Discovery Channel Team.

I'll be updating this everyday with race information.....just because now that I've been and watched these guys in action I'm a little addicted!!!

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

Halloween items on eBay!

I know, I know, I'm supposed to be posting a tutorial on how to make the little coiled wool pumpkin pins, but life here has been a little crazy......dyeing wool, working on a few home remodeling projects....well....Kenny is really working on those and we've been shopping a lot trying to decide just what we want to do with our upcoming kitchen remodeling project.

So in the meantime, I'm here at work and perusing eBay to see what kind of cool things are available for Halloween......yes, it will be here before you know it.

So far here is what I've found.....this darling hooked rug (please click on pictures to go directly to the items pictured) by one of the gals in the PRHG (Primitive Rug Hookers Group) that I'm a part of on Ebay. This crazy vulture doll....how outside the box is that?

This paper bag album.....I love these and I'm fortunate enough to have a friend who makes these for me when I need them.......(I know Cheryl....I really need to print out my Vegas pictures so you can work on the Vegas scrapbook for me!)

This is some of the wool I dyed this past weekend from the "Historic Colors" dye book by Sharon Townsend. This color is called Clementine.....yummy and oh so Halloweeny!!!

Next, a book that I have....love it!!! My friend Patti has it for auction....way creative book!

Lastly, this one just makes me SMILE!!!

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

Jeepers Creepers!

I just love the saying on this print from The Dreamy Giraffe.

"Happily ever afters almost always have humble beginnings"

It reminds me to work from my heart. Sometimes the things that are the most fun for us to create happen when we are just putzing around...playing....being serendipitous...working with bits of old, bits of new, mixing the familiar with the strangely off-beat.

That's how I came up with this.

An eyeglasses case.

It's my first adventure into mixing altered art with rug hooking.

*~*Bits of old.....wool worms from old projects.*~*

{*}Bits of new....fabric transfer from Teriko.{*}

~~Familiar....rug hooking~~

+*+StRaNgLeY oFfBeAt...incorporating them into one project+*+

I love the picture of the dolls eyes....it's a reminder to me to try and look at things with the eyes of a child.

!Be full of wonderment!

!Don't hide your joy!

!LOOK!

I had to start wearing reading glasses this past year.....to me it's a constant reminder that I don't see as well as I used to (or as the optometrist said "you're just getting older"). It's an inconvenience that really annoys me, but I'm trying to put a positive spin on it....YAY...another accessory!

As my husband says....just think of how many things you could accomplish if so much of your brain space wasn't taken up by accessorizing!!!

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

Tag....You're it!

I've been tagged by Betty at Primitive Betty's to play this middle name game.

To play the game...... you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog post containing your own middle name game facts. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

My middle name is Lanet.....I actually like my middle name better than my first name!
Perhaps that's because since I was in kindergarten there was always another Tammy in my class. In x-ray school, I was one of 3 Tammy's in my class and 1 of eight in the radiology department.
I even had a room mate named Tammy....now THAT got confusing when the phone rang!!
Here goes...



L-LEARNER-I love to learn new things....crafts, techniques, new words, etc.



A-ADORING- I adore my husband and dogs...they are simply the best!



N-NICE....maybe sounds kind of boring, but I think I'm nice



E-EXPERIMENTAL- I like to try new things...but it takes something special to hold my interest



T-TIRELESS-the busier I am, the happier I am.....maybe that's why I'm writing this at 1 in the morning :)

Now it looks like I need to tag 5 more folks to play.....
hmmmmm......
let's see........
who should it be.......
how about.......
Meg at The Magpie Nest
Cat at She's Sew Slye

Cindy at Wills Art
Toni at Rabbit Hill Creations
Jacque at The Doodles of My Mind

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

The Perfect Day

What do you get when you add one truck full of junk......

....to one SUV full of junk?

Two gals having the time of their lives at the.....

Yes, today was the big "junk market" sale down in Galloway Village at "Wild at Heart". Our spot was under a huge shade tree and the weather could not have been more perfect!!! Here's a little photo of our setup!Okay, truth be told there weren't all that many shoppers....I guess being "Labor Day Weekend" didn't help things, but none the less we got to sit outside all day...sell a few things and HOOK!!!! It wasn't hot, it wasn't cold...it was JUST RIGHT!

Not even any bugs! Unless you count these little white caterpillars that kept coming out of nowhere.

I swear I haven't had that much uninterrupted hooking time in I don't know when!!! Good for the soul!

Here are a few pictures of some of the things from the other sellers....just too much fun! I love how creative some sellers are with their displays...there truly is an art to that!

I didn't get any pictures from inside "Wild at Heart" ....just the outside. They have soooo many wonderful treasures in that place. Just ask Dulcy and Katie who stopped by to do a little shopping!!

Then to top it off Patti came over with her two little dogs, Belle (black and white) and Lily (blonde) for a play date with Cleopatra and Truvy while we had supper.
Yes, it really was a perfect day!

Tammy