Giant Fake Marker Storage Tube

 Its another one of those "pop in post" postings. Posting when ever I can post. Only bare with me since I haven't been getting much sleep lately and then there's the fact I'm super busy. A nice combination to make you sleepy and lazy. Might make my writing a bit lazy too.

Anyhow this time I'm featuring a cool way of storing all those posters you have laying around taking up needless space all over the place.  Basically you take a boring old poster tube and make it look like a giant marker. A much nicer way of storing all those posters out of the way. You can now display it on a wall next to a giant pencil like I have or make a giant container such as a giant pencil case. Its up to you. Hears how you can make one. 

You need one empty poster tube. A good place to find one for free is possibly in a not so dirty dumpster. Usually containing cardboard of various things such as boxes. Or maybe get a used one from the mail. Or going the paid rout, you can get one from a post office, parcel service office or office supply place. Its up to you. Then you can then design a template with your favorite image editing program. If you don't have one there's are many free ones online available to download. And or you can use a template I designed as a starting point. It cuts down on some of the work. (template will be uploaded at a later date)You also need a large white sheet of some kind to cover the tube so you can have a nice clean slate to glue and stack your designs on the tube to make it look like a marker. A nice white sheet of paper is best. I happen to have a few things like old shiny scrap papers that I have been saving in my odds and ends closet. Also helps to have a marker for a reference for inspiration. I myself used a design marker. You can use any type as inspiration or just come up with something you like. Once you have every thing ready its time to simply bring it all together. 

I decided to make my fake marker red.  I put a personal spin on my design as well. My marker poster tube is currently sitting in my miniature basement studio next to the giant pencil. Its a nice souvenir from Croatia given to me by a dear friend. She's past away now.

The following pics are examples of my process and end result. Enjoy! 

Empty boring poster tube. 🔺

Close up of finished fake marker poster tube. 🔺

I already had some other paper such as this red paper that I added to indicate the colour of the marker. But you can add colour with paint or whatever method you like.

More pics of the finished fake marker poster tube. 🔺

What it looks like on a wall. How fun!  🔺 

Can't see the giant pencil I know but its there. Trust me. 

 

Great! I hope you enjoyed my latest project. I hope you try and make your own. I'm tired and I'm going to bed now. Good night! 😪Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Originally posted on late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.  What ever.......

Pansies in progress

Another flower based post I guess. This time a work in progress. 
Currently working on an airbrushed image to go on a fitted sheet. Problem is that when I originally purchased the sheet I was expecting it to be a cloth even if it was mostly polyester. When I opened it up was more like a shower curtain.😕 Oh well, so it forced me to do more steps then I originally planed. So I airbrushed on a separate white cloth. Its going to be sewn on to the fitted sheet later.
First I just free handed my desired images. Then airbrushed them. No masking. Just penciled in. They’re a group of pansies. But I won’t bother cutting them out of the excess material. Just going to sew it on. Its only for me after all. 

Leopard patch

   I have this purse and I only had it for a few years. This is the type of purse that's a bit on the pricey side of things and I really didn't feel like getting rid of it so soon. So I did a bit of exploring to see what type of patches are out there. Didn't exactly like what I saw. Lots and lots of cheep looking Chinese made patches. Probably only worth 50'cents or lower but sold at a 5 bucks a pop or higher at a fabric shop. Looked in other stores too but the selection was even worse. So I decided to make my own. I first looked at what I had, did some thinking, some more exploring at craft stores est and then looked at my purse some more. Thought to my self. Lets make paw prints and a lounging leopard. I mean why not? I already had found a discarded umbrella cover I saved in my junk box with that same theme to cover up some buckles that always seemed to come apart on my purse. 
So I quickly drew up a cute lounging leopard on some tracing paper. I used tracing paper or parchment paper to first plot out all those holes on my purse. So that's why the leopard is lounging the way it is. The paw prints were for the holes that weren't so close together. So anyways I drew my leopard pattern on the pattern of mapped out holes. Then I found parts of some old jeans. They were remnants that I also saved earlier for these types of purposes too. Comes in very handy. 
I then drew out some paw prints and that leopard on to the scraps of jean materials. I ended up drawing out 3 paws and the leopard. Later I painted them up with some acrylic fabric paint using a regular old brush. I used mostly browns and yellow. Nothing fancy because that would come later. I ended up purchasing some fake plastic jewellery findings mostly shiny gold colour and another sheet of multi coloured gems cause I couldn't just get the right green ones that were the right size for the eyes. Just as well I can save those for another project. So anyways I sewed them all on my now coloured up patches. When finished I gave them a good clear coating for added protection. Later pilfered some "Shoe Glue" from my dad and then cut off the remaining jean material that remained on my embellished shapes. I find "Shoe glue" really great and handy stuff to patch on patches on to things. 
And here you have the finished product. Hope you like it. 😊

 Some different views of my embellished purse with the finished patches.

Christmas card 2018

OK lets get this over with. I know I really should wait until next Christmas or at least July. But if I don't post it now, I may never will. I have a bad habit of getting side tracked and well then things fall on the way side. Oh but don't worry I'll be showing something Easter-y next time I show off card related stuff. So please bare with me.
Here is another card I made for the same good friend. I decided to utilize some of those leaves I collected last fall, along with a few other bits not relating to fall.  I think the most impressive of all the card design was my lettering. It really turned out really nice. 
This will be one of those thing that will also be featured in my personal web site since this is a completed project.  This card design is inspired by an old vintage card I got years ago in my child hood from my relatives. I liked the card design so much that I decided to make a similar one for my friend.

BTW the lettering is hand made and done by hand. 😉

Fall wreath

New this fall. A fall wreath I finished making last year or was that the year before. Oh well but I never got around to show it off yet until now. I actually started it earlier then that, but didn't have all the material gathered. I stared by harvesting a few grape vines in the fall since we have an abundant supply of grape vines that no longer have to support grapes. Why should I have to purchase a grape vine if I can make one after all. Then I slowly bound them one vine at a time with regular non coloured twine till a round wreath was formed. It was easier then struggling just binding them at once. Of course I had to place it aside till I had the right things to decorate with. But at the time I wasn't sure what that would be, but I know it had to say autumn to me. Eventually I settled on decorating it with leaves but I really didn't wanna use real leaves. I knew that I wanted it to last more then just two years. So I ended up purchasing some really lovely artificial leaves I saw at the dollar store. They were just a simple bunch of plastic leaves fastened to a wire branch.  I took a few of them apart and glued them on with some hot glue. Then I placed a few fake plastic berries onto the wreath I found on my walk that I chucked in to my junk box earlier. Its amazing what you can forage for on a walk even if its just a piece of discarded trash. Human nature provides. 😉
Since we have lots of snails on our property I had to place a few of those lovely snail shells all around the wreath too.  No live snail was harmed in the making of my seasonal term. All were vacated anyhow.  To finish off the wreath I applied a nice clear acrylic varnish to really enhance the shells and it really protects quite well too. 
So here it its a lovely one of a kind fall wreath to grace a front door and make people happy. 😊

It looks more impressive in person.

 

Make your own basic white glue.

If you're ever in a pinch for large amounts of glue like I was last year, you may wanna make your own and bonus it won't cost you an arm and a leg unnecessarily. Its also a pretty great paper and wood glue too. Even works on Styrofoam. I used it to make cardboard and foam sandwiches. No I didn't make a tasty sandwich, but a pretty useful light box I will show in another post. 
Instructions can be found here. There are several recipes in here but just scroll down for the white glue recipe. Oh another bonus is that you can make it as thin or as think as you would like. 

Please note that if you decide to store the glue in a jar, make sure you air it out if it stinks. Unlike me I was too lazy to air out this jar which formally contained sauerkraut, which made the glue smell rancid. 😝To get rancid smell out just put a spoon full of coffee grinds in for a few days or as long as you need so it won't smell stinky. 🐷The jar not the glue. 😉

 

A St Patrick's day card

Yet another late display and share. Its a St Patrick's day card I "homemade" for a friend, about last year. 
Simply made it quick and I had about lots of odds and ends lying around and I thought why not. So I made it with some scrap water colour paper, a few fake gems, some acrylic paint some other cardboard, some card stock and some coloured paper. Oh yeah I used a nice gold marker for some of the lettering. I guess I even used a bit of coloured pencils in which I forgot to mention in the description at my personal website. Oh well. Oh did I mention the big clover with the gems springs out at you? Well it does, cause I made a mini springy thing so that it kind of pops out at you. A neat little surprise for your eyes.  😊

Humming Bird feeder 2

Humming bird feeder2 is made out of an old Ferrero Rocher egg I collected years ago. Then I burned several holes at the top of the egg and burned an opening at the top as well so that I can pour the food in. I later placed a cork on that opening and as usual glued some nice fake flowers and beads to make the openings for food access look more appealing. Then I put it on another ring of grape vines I collected from the garden together with a small plastic net I also collected years ago. Good for stability. I have yet to see if any of my feeders will attract the little hummers since I was way too busy with yard work this year.

Hummin bird feeder 1

I have yet to make some food for at least one of these. Recently actually earlier this year I decided to make some feeders after years of spotting the little hummers every so often around our yard. I hope to get some nice photo ops. I also hope these things will work and not just leak all of their contents all over the place. 

The first one you see here is made out of an well washed old plastic bottle. I also used a few old plastic flowers that were actually carnations I took apart and made something a hummer would be interested. I made a hoop out of grape vines I found growing around the house. They needed trimming any how. Some twine and an old plastic container. I burned some holes using a small nail I heated with a candle and held with pliers of course. Put it all together with hot glue. Painted the container with green spray paint. Didn't work out as well since the paint was kind of old. Glued flowers and beads and wala a feeder fit for humming birds. I hope.  😃

 

Sign Man set 7

Sign Man set 2 and 7 are out now. 
Enjoy. 👍😃

 

Farm or Chicken magnet

I kind of mistakenly bought this little magnet thinking it was a pack of sampling canvases and lo and behold it was a little magnet. I wanted to buy a pack of sampling canvases so that I could make a few tests for a project I was working on at the time. So I took advantage of it and converted an old chicken fridge magnet in to a farm scene magnet. I hand painted the little farm in the background and then added the old chicken magnet on top. Turned out pretty nice. 😊

 Its kind of tiny so its not that detailed. But it is cute. 😊

Flamingo Tee shirt.

Ok so I purchase this cheep tee cause I need a tee for mostly when its cold outside. For when its cold out side? Well ya, I like to wear a tee as an extra layer under my shirt when its winter. You know, layers?  But then I'll also probably wear it on a nice day too. You know, hot and sunny? 
So anyways, you know me, when I see a potential blank canvas, and well to me this is a blank canvas, I just had to paint something.  I decided to paint some flamingos on it. Reason, just felt like it. Just haven't gone to Florida in years and well flamingos pretty much fit the bill. Laughing gulls being more of favorite symbol of Florida to me second only to palm trees, white sand and warm weather. But somehow flamingos just seem to fit this tee. 
I decided just to freehand it instead of just putting some kind of guiding lines all over it and just went  at it. Using just pink acrylic fabric paint and memories of the birds applied the paint in a sketchy scribbly style. I went over some spots with more pink paint doubling the line thickness to produce the elision of highlights.  I tried to take advantage of the black tee and the look of the paint as best as I could. Could have finished it in one day but the paint was kind of old and had some difficulty getting it to flow out of the bottle.  So instead of getting frustrated, I just took a few days to finish it, letting some of it to dry while working on another spot. Eventually after completing it, I heat set it in the dryer. 
I think I achieved what I wanted and even got a bit of therapy out of it. 
Not totally realistic but you pretty much get what the point was.

 Meetso didn't really feel like posing that day so I kind of bribed him with some food. Little did I know, it appears he was sick for a year or so on and off. So who could blame him. Eventually in July the sheep hit the fan and poor Meetso was plugged up because of inferior food. He now eats a good quality food, with occasional natural treats, some kitty candy and the occasional wild caught food he him self he catches.  Oh and he finally got the hint of not eating the heads after loosing his meow due to a sore throat in August. Today he his back to his crazy affectionate kitten self. Well he's about 6 years old but he will always be my little kitten.  ;)

Available for viewing at my web site soon.

Encore of eggs

Tisket n tasket, one last look of my basket.......of eggs.  This is how they were meant to be seen. 

Canada and Croatia egg

Its another set of red and blue eggs only with a flag theme this time. The Canada and Croatia egg. 
I decided to create an egg which reflected my birth country Canada while the Croatian egg was based on where my parents came from. So it was only fitting to make these. If this proved interesting to other people other then me I may consider making other flag versions next year when there are more plaster eggs being sold in the stores.  Hope you like them.  :)

See previous eggs;
Polka-dot egg  Tulip egg and Chamomile egg

Little Star the stick horse.

Originally was going to be a finger puppet but seem to fit better as a little stick puppet. Finally got around to finishing it. Not sure if and when I’ll get to make North Star the mommy stick horse or former finger puppet. But eventually I’d like to make that too.  To see what its made out of, the info is available via my web site when you click on the appropriate image in my miscellaneous art section.