Autumn 2018

     It's been a long while since I blogged, it has been an eventful year to be sure. My sister Laura, cousin Leila, and nephew Hayward are headed back to Alabama after a lovely visit. She brought kittens all the way from Alabama to their forever home, they are so precious! We had an unplanned kitty event as well, my husband brought home a kitten from the streets of Grant's Pass here in Oregon. She is a Siamese mix I named Gi Gi with stunning blue eyes and a sweet disposition. Our new arrivals are both boys, one named Li Li and the other Mi Mi, and their sister Journey is here being part of our new little family, which also includes our nephew Robert and his kitties too. He will be starting college in 10 days, which is also exciting!
     We have had some ups and downs, for sure this last few years, and this one in particular. My husband had heart surgery and is now really recovering from that. He now has a defibrillator/pacemaker which gives me a lot of comfort. Our daughter Bonnie was diagnosed with oral cancer and is alive thanks to Louisiana State University which saved her life. She had extensive surgery and 30 radiation treatments, and is now slowly recovering. She is still struggling to recover and is having some issues with blisters and swelling inside and out of her mouth and neck. They removed 60 lymph nodes which process fluids, and so now fluids build up in her neck, inside and out. her weight is an issue along with just simple acts of eating and drinking. Her sense of taste is sporadic but hopefully with time it will come back. She's struggling to gain weight because eating and drinking are difficult and can be terribly painful. I pray her health returns soon.
     I have expanded my artistic endeavors this year to include painted glass eyes on glass cabochons, selling them to others and using them myself in my jewelry. Some are realistic and others are fantasy, my kaleidoscope eyes are fantasy, but oh so pretty!

What is really interesting is viewing them under the microscope, it blows my mind! I will be getting a camera to interface with my microscope. I have to tell you, getting my microscope rocked my world! I got it for looking at my gems, but it has come in handy in other surprising ways, like removing a splinter, a big help! I have a passion for tools, and this is a great tool. I have more to share, but for now I am posting this because I need to go to town, and I have already lost 2 posts I wrote, I am determined to post this without another glitch. Be Well and enjoy the day, it will never come again❤

     

In my last blog post I showed you a few steps to make your own paper pulp out of junk mail. After I made my paper pulp, I squeezed out the water and let the paper clumps dry, so I can have the pulp ready to go. You can also store your paper pulp in the freezer, if you have the room. I have made many things from junk mail paper pulp, I even rebuilt our tip out in the trailer we sold in Washington State! I took my paper pulp and re moistened it, and I added white glue and white clay ( Crayola Clay) and used it just like modeling clay. I also made some small tiles to show you, and I brushed on some extreme glitter mod podge on top of the tiles before sealing them with a water proof sealer. I love spar varnish because it totally waterproofs your paper clay, or cold porcelain clay jewelry creations. Shellac works well on things like pine needle baskets, but it does add a touch of yellow, which is not always what we are going for. I want to redecorate my back splash area with something simple but pretty.

I have also made my own paper which is really fun to do, and I will share what I know about that in a future blog;)  For these little tiles, I used some white Elmers glue to help the paper tiles be extra strong, but it is not mandatory. I then used an Altoid metal box lined with non stick aluminium foil, so I could just lift the tiles out and let them dry. You can use different shapes such as squares and hearts, which I have done with my art paper. If you are in a hurry to dry your tiles, you can put them in a very slow oven, about 125 degrees, or in front of a fan, they will dry according to the atmospheric conditions, moist air makes the process slower. These little tiles are like little bricks, very hard and durable, and what a fun project with children! I also have made a life size model of a woman I named Lucy, to model my jewelry, but I must rebuild her because I did not seal her, lesson learned!

                                     I do miss her, I still have her wire skeleton so I can rebuild her;)

I photographed the entire process, and I'll share it if there is interest out there! Paper is so useful, and recyclable and is just a great medium to work with. It is also a very kid friendly craft, non toxic, and imaginative. Have an adult seal up your treasures;) I bought a paper shredder to make the process easier, and then I blend the strips with a blender until the desired fineness is achieved. Some chunks of paper can be desirable if the look you are going for is rough, like my little tiles. You can also make impressions in your clay, with objects, or you can actually lay a dried flower on the top of the tile, and seal over it. The possibilities are many. Paper is actually a very forgiving medium to work with, and lots of times what seems like a mistake, is just another opportunity to experiment! If you are interested in making your own junk mail jewels, I will be happy to share whatever I can;)

After I made this particular paper, I took fresh morning glories and pounded the flower onto the paper, and then removed the plant itself, leaving the color behind on the paper. What fun that is to do! There are other ways to decorate your creations, such as stamping or stenciling, painting and embedding. Let your imagination soar! You do not need anything fancy to make paper, and making different shapes is quite fun, and I have a few tricks and processes to share if anyone is interested;) Paper is the perfect way to express yourself and have a lot of fun doing and sharing with others. Time to go, and find some flowers to press for future projects. Have a sweet day everyone, and don't forget to do something fun today!                                                                                                            

Tackling Plastic Trash With Long Term Solutions

As an artist and a photographer, I pay close attention to the world around me. I have wandered the wilds of Alaska and Washington State, Arizona, and now Oregon. They all have a lot in common. There is trash everywhere, and the plastic is not degrading, and is releasing toxins all the time. There are big problems with plastic trash, but the truth is we are dependent on plastics, they are ubiquitous world wide. So, it's time to start thinking differently. I have a low tech idea to put it to good use. I envision a plastic "brick" created by compacting the plastics into the desired shape of brick or unit, and then coating the brick itself with a thick plastic, creating a usable plastic brick. The plastics would be contained and used in a positive way. Imagine a fence or wall made of these bricks. Sun proof, water proof, maybe even fire resistant, lots of minds could make it happen pretty quickly. If we can do this, with a little time, plastics could be under control and useful. No one could ask humanity to give up plastics, they are too useful, but we can change the fate of used plastics and clean up the planet. I envision a simple compacting unit everyone could have, and I see balloons and candy wrappers, grocery bags, and many other types of plastic waste. You know, maybe the Sanitation Industry could do this, and I will ask them to think about it! We CAN make a change for the better without losing all that is good about plastics. Thanks for reading friends, be nice to each other!

The photograph here shows my dried paper pulp in little lumps, and I will be posting how to make it, and what you can do with it, and you can then show me what you can do with it! Have a Sweet Day

A New Year Approaches

Well it's Winter Solstice today, we made it thru the tunnel! The sun will make it's majestic return, and another cycle of life begins! Here in Cave Junction we have had a lot of rain, and as long as the trees don't fall, it's a very good thing. Right now the mushrooms are starting to spring up, and my new camera "I and I" will be mushroom hunting very soon! The wild turkeys don't like the heavy rain, but it does help make the worms rise! Today I focused on photographing some of my greeting cards, and getting them on Amazon Handmade, it's a long journey from start to finish! I've also been designing more wire work, and will be sculpting with cold porcelain clay later this week. I made a lovely batch of clay that is properly aged and ready to accept color. I use both acrylics and watercolors to color my clay, then I custom blend each batch according to it's purpose. I am going to be making my first cold porcelain Wedding Bouquet with this batch, I've been practicing my flower sculpting, so this will be so much fun! I work with silk, satin and organza for my silk ribbon bouquets, and I have discovered that the process is quite similar, but the porcelain flowers take much longer, it's quite a long process, but one I hope to share with you all when my laptop arrives and I can demonstrate in person! This evening is wire work at the kitchen table, I am finishing up another bracelet right now. Time to be brave and go feed my kitties bunnies and horse, and take my big girl for a fast and probably soggy walk! Next post will have pictures to share, Happy Holidays!  

Cold Porcelain Clay

Oh I have been having so much fun experimenting with cold porcelain clay! I will be doing video tutorials soon, and sharing my results with you all. I started by learning how to make my own cold porcelain clay, and I searched far and wide for instructions. Almost all of them contradicted each other, so I took the best info and created my own process, and I learned so much, the hard way, lol! I will be posting photos soon of the process, step by step, and giving all the information I've learned to share with you. Cold porcelain clay is really affordable if you make it yourself, and is easier to work than polymer clay. Also, it is much less expensive that polymer clay and you can get more detail with cold porcelain clay. It air dries too, so no baking required! Stay tuned for more info soon! Have a sweet day everyone!

Hello! Welcome to my blogspot:) Today has been a very busy day, and a productive one too! I finished panel # 2 of my "Crazy for You" series of crazy quilt panels. It is more complex and larger than panel #1, I tried out a few new ideas which worked well for me:) This panel is ready to embellish and make your own, and is going to be posted in my ETSY shop "Simplylisette" a little later tonight. It has been a very soggy few days here in Cave Junction Oregon, we had almost 3 inches of rain in the last 24 hours, and that's quite a bit! We live on a beautiful creek, a small river really, and let me tell you it sounds like a waterfall right now! I thought I heard a tree fall in the night, and it turns out that I did. It was a standing dead giant, and it gave up the ghost and broke apart, and a large section of it fell into the creek. I love the trees, even after their lives are over, they host life for many many years. I love the homes that the birds and squirrels make in the gentle giants, and when they become stumps, which must take decades, they become covered with all manner of moss and lichen, and lots of beautiful mushrooms too:) I need to get out and take some mushroom pictures tomorrow, they are everywhere right now. We have not had a hard freeze yet, and so everyday I shake down apples for the der, and grab a few to eat right away, and oh are they good!. They are cold and crispy and full of sugar and flavor:) We feel very blessed to have such beautiful apple and plum trees, and delicious grapes too! My freezers are full of fruit, and it is almost time to make jams and jellies, and I think maybe some fruit jelly candies too:)I have a recipe for the jellied fruits that are like applets and cotlets, which are addictively delicious:) Well, it's time to make dinner, my sweet husband is sick today with a cold I think. We had our flu shots, so we should escape the worst of it if it turns out to be the flu. I think I'll open a jar of home made fruit cocktail, for a special treat:) Goodbye for now, Lisette