Surprise! No "Before" Shot.

I swear to Christ I really thought I had taken a before shot of this painting. For over a month it's been hanging on the wall where I take my before shots. I naturally assumed I had taken care of this when I started altering it. Then I went through my photos and didn't have one. So imagine this without the skulls washed up on shore:

Here's a close up of the left bank:

There's a tiny skull peeking over the reeds in the middle, but you can't really tell here. And I forgot to measure it. Do as I say, kids, not as I do!

The next Church of Craft meeting looks really promising, so I'll come back later when I have more to report. Also we're getting really close to being ready to maybe finish that Prince clock. We had to wrap up some things in the garage before we got back to it. And I started another one of those log cabin blankets, this time in blue since I have tons of it.

As for these confounded before shots, as my friend Wilson likes to say, "I can't promise I'll try. But I'll try to try." That's apparently the best I can do.

Some Stuff I Forgot

Last Xmas my husband's sister-in-law requested that I make her the log cabin blanket in Mason Dixon Knitting. It took a year, but here it is:


(My husband suggested I be in the photo for scale or it would just look like a potholder.) Boy did I burn through some yarn. I'm working on a blue one now because I have a ton of old blue acrylic yarn. If I can stomach working on a yellow one I might do that after. Then I will have a lean, mean stash pile.

Here's something I just made for fun, hoping to foist it on someone as an Xmas gift. I somehow ended up with an old bamboo tray that had some horrible watermelon print fabric glued to it. For some reason I saw potential in this. First I spraypainted it black, then I decoupaged a bunch of space shit all over it:

I just recently bought a matching bamboo tray, sans watermelon fabric, so I'm going to make another one. I think it's rad as hell but I have absolutely no use for it. So why not have two? Am I right?

I'm fishing through my Flickr account to see if I missed anything else, but I think that's it. I still have to prep the photos from one last project, which I will do sometime this weekend, and that should be the last of it.

Is It Over Yet??

I thought the holiday season was NEVER GOING TO END. I have handed out all the crafted gifts, so I'm going to call it done.

Let's start slow with something that's not very impressive:

My sister has done her dining room in a Tuscan theme. So I bought a mirror at Big Lots because I liked the frame, then smashed the mirror out of it. I painted the backing board with chalkboard paint, then googled some suitable Italian words and painted them on.

I love chalkboard paint. LOVE IT. The idea of liquid slate intrigues me. But there were a few light spots after I rolled the paint on, so I touched them up, and you can totally see where I did that. I am not pleased. I did about four coats on this thing, so I guess next time I would do even more than that. I would have just re-rolled it but I'd already painted the words on by then. But she likes it, and other than those spots I like the way it turned out. And there's an assload of paint left so there will be more chalkboard projects in my future.

Remember these?
Inkblots I-IV were last year's gift to my psychologist friend, so this year I did V-X. Ask me if I took a photo. Go on, ask. Nope. Moving on...

Here's another craft project that didn't quite turn out like I planned. I asked my 6-year-old niece what she wanted for Xmas. She shouted, "I WANT A SIGN THAT SAYS "ANDREW AND BUD KNOCK" TO PUT ON MY DOOR!" I said, "Okay, sure. Do you still like Bratz?" She responded, "Yeah, I want a Bratz sign that says "ANDREW AND BUD KNOCK!"" I got one of those blank wooden door hangers at Hobby Lobby, painted it purple, printed some Bratz off Google Images and decoupaged them on, added her message, then hit the whole thing with a can of spray glitter I had in my garage for some reason:

On the back of this I wrote, "I think I put too much glitter. Love, Diana." My husband argued that when Bratz are involved there's no such thing as too much glitter. Perhaps he's right. My niece had no complaints.

Okay, here's the one I'm most proud of. During one of my weekly stops at the Goodwill, I discovered a ceramic elephant cookie jar that was primed with gray paint. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but it was $3 and it was primed, so I bought it. I stared at it for a couple of weeks and then decided to make it into a zombie:

Unlike me, my husband actually paid attention before he dropped out of art school. So he helped me mix the colors to maximum rotting effect, and had me do a nice yellow wash over the whole thing to make it more sickly. I like it so much that I hope to stumble over more primed ceramic junk.

I also did one more painting and failed to take a before shot. Just imagine the car's not there. It's 19 1/2" x 23" with frame:

Seriously, how big is the photo allotment on Blogger? Oh, and I've been making out with this effigy of Dani Filth which is actually almost life-sized:

[EDIT: Looking down below, I see that I already put the damn pig on here. So I'm pulling her off. Nothing to see here...]

In other news, the Prince clock needs to have a hole drilled for the clock kit, and then that will be done and I will post photos of the whole messy process. Also my friend sent over photos of her Xmas present that I failed to take pictures of, and I need to get those ready for posting. Otherwise that's it for now. Smell ya later.