2016 Little House

2016 Little House Silent Auction

OffCenter's Albuquirky 2016 Little House Silent Auction will be held this year in Albuquerque at Sumner & Dene Gallery at 517 Central NW on Friday, May 6 from 5-8pm.  Help fund OffCenter Community Arts Center by coming out to the grand event and purchasing one of the 100+ little houses donated by Albuquerque artists.  The silent auction will be in conjunction with downstairs openings for artists Frank McCulloch and Mark Horst.

My 2016 Little House

This year I was faced with the challenge of creating my Little House while recovering from a torn ligament in my left thumb.  Everyone comments to me, "Well, you're right handed, aren't you?"  Yes, but YOU tape your left thumb to the rest of your left hand and try going about your life this way and see what it is like to navigate through life without an opposable thumb!  Buttons, zippers, driving a stick shift, unlocking the front door, etc.

Okay, back to the subject.  After seeing a photo in a magazine of little cabin in the woods, my first inclination was to make a birch bark cabin with a corrugated roof.  And while I'm talking about getting started, I've been asked what one of the "blanks" looks like that OffCenter provides to us artists.  Here's a photo -- it's basically two pieces of scrap 4x4 with a chimney.    

I sat with the idea of a birch bark cabin for a few days and couldn't get real excited about it, so my next thought was that since I love making little houses with button-covered roofs,  (Check out my blog for two of my button-covered roof houses.)  I'd do another button-covered roof house!!  That idea went by the wayside because after four huge garage sales this past summer to downsize and reorganize all the stuff in my studio, I couldn't find my buttons (which have now been found).

So, one morning before getting out of bed (a lot of my ideas come to me either in the morning before I am fully awake or while I am in the shower) the idea for the roof of my little house came to me --  I could use the Italian paper my friend Eric had given me -- "Grafiche Tassotti"-- of vintage Italian tarot cards about the size of dominoes.

  

Yahoo!  I'd get started right away by painting the roof of the house black and the body of the house a cream color, then going on to roofing.

I used strips of 4 tarot cards to create rows of "shingles" for the roof .  I couldn't bear to cut the tarot cards in half to create a normal shingled roof with staggered shingles -- so all you roofers out there who are reading this will know that the courses of shingles are indeed improperly laid.

You'll see the completed roof again in many of the subsequent photos, so I won't add one here.

So, what next???????  What would be the theme of this year's house????  Then the idea came to me -- I'd make a fortune teller's house -- Madame Ruth's house at 34th and Vine in the song "Love Potion No. 9."   

So, off to dig around in the studio and round up materials to start the real work.  

First I added the windows and doors to the house, followed by adding exterior decoration relating to fortune telling.

The front of the house has a door which opens to the interior (showing Madame Ruth's living room), a "Fortune Teller" sign hanging by chains from the eaves of the house, a potted palm, and Madame Ruth's crazy cat guarding the doorway.

The path leading up to the front door of Madame Ruth's house is made from smashed bottlecaps from the Left Hand Brewing Company which are surrounded by little little glass pebbles.  I thought the bottlecaps were perfect to complement the palm-reader aspect of the piece!

The house sits on a 10x10" piece of foam core board covered with "grass" made from green hand-made paper with lots of little natural inclusions.  Crocus pop up here and there in the grass, and Madame Ruth has a wrought iron sign at the outset of her walkway.

If you look into the window on the side of the house on Vine, you'll see Madame Ruth with her crystal ball.  There is an astrological wheel on the gable, and metal snake and skull house decorations.  The red and black trim on the house is some wonderful ribbon I had found in the dollar bin at Michael's a couple years ago.

The back side of the house has a picture window with a neon "Fortune Teller" sign, a metal bird house decoration, and a free standing palm-reader's hand.

The final side of the house has a sun/moon symbol on the gable, a window in which you see a shelf loaded with bottles of Love Potion No. 9, a metal iguana house decoration, and another potted plant.

Madame Ruth's gazing ball is on this side of the house in a rockery created from turquoise stones.  The rockery is surrounded by "logs" made from sliced sticks.  The (marble) gazing ball sits on a pedestal made from an itty bitty black spool.  

The 4th and Vine street signpost is made from a painted dowel stuck in an upside-down little wooden flower pot, with a jewelry finding holding the street signs.

I made a small boo-boo in that I glued down the Fortune Teller sandwich board at the base of the street sign before I added the straps which keep the sandwich board from doing the splits.  My choice was to either forego the straps or fold myself into a very weird position and attach the straps with tweezers.  Being a person who really likes completion, you know what I did.

So, that pretty much describes the entire piece, and here's one final photo showing the entire yard and street sign:

And, one final note: I  need to brag about the fact that this year's project was created entirely from things on hand in my studio -- I bought absolutely nothing new for the project.  

2015 Little House

10th Annual “Albuquirky Little Houses”
Silent Auction Fundraiser Friday, May 1, 2015

5:00 – 8:00 pm 
Held at: Sumner & Dene,
517 Central Ave NW (upstairs)
During Frank McCulloch’s Opening Reception
 

This year's Albuquirky House Tour will be May 2 -- check out the wonderful event at:

http://offcenterarts.org/events/albuquirky-house-tour/

House of Quotes

This year my Little House entry for OffCenter's 10th annual silent auction (see http://offcenterarts.org/little-houses-silent-auction/) is entitled "House of Quotes."   

 

My idea for this year's house was to use a house quotation and a vintage image related to the quote on each of the six basic surfaces. 

Some of the six ideas started with the quote and some of them started with the image.  The first two photos each show you three surfaces of the little house and the remaining six photos are close-ups of each of the six surfaces. 

Many of the embellishments on the house are rusty pieces of metal I've picked up on my daily walks in the North Valley.  Being primarily a paper artist, I usually completely cover my little houses with some sort of decorative paper, but this year I decided to paint the little house and show some of the texture and cracks in the wood.  The basic wood forms are provided by OffCenter -- the base of my house is cut from a wood 4x4" 

 

 

On the smallest side of the house I used the "may your home always be too small" quote -- matched it up with a line up of vintage bathing beauty friends and added a gold milagro -- a small gold house!

 

 

 

On the opposite side of the house I used the "house without books" quote, and added an image of a vintage ABC Book.

On one surface of the roof is the "house of cards" quote -- with three vintage cards.

 

 

The other side of the roof (the side of the roof with a crack!) has the "falling" Irish blessing with the image of a falling man.  I "patched" the crack with one of my found rusty objects.

This is my favorite side of the house -- "A house doesn't become a home until love moves in."  The squarish embellishment is one of the most favorite things I've ever found along the roadways on my daily walks -- it's some sort of a paper gasket!

On the other large side -- I just had to use the vintage image I had found of a tiger cat standing on its head!  Thus the "cat's house" quote.

 

 

My Little House donation to last year's silent auction can be viewed at

http://primarilypaper.blogspot.com/2014/03/2014-little-house.html

 

and my donations for previous years at

 http://primarilypaper.blogspot.com/2013/03/quirky-little-houses.html



Contest Cards 2015

2015 CARD CONTEST ENTRIES

The categories for this year's card contests at the Rubber Stamp Convention in February were "The Shell Game" for Saturday and "Fantasyland" for Sunday.

Neither category really "spoke" to me, therefore I didn't want to go out and buy any new rubber stamps to create my entries, so it took me awhile to come up with ideas using what rubber stamps I already own.

 

The Shell Game

You'll get a laugh out of my boo-boo on this entry.  I have a lot of rubber stamps created by Elaine Madrid and one of those stamps is of a woman wearing what I thought was some type of a leaf skirt and an anemone shell bra.  Shell Game.  Shell Bra.

 

 

Then, what did I have to accompany her?  I have quite a few little ocean/shell rubber stamps that I purchased for teaching the "Mermaid Grotto" class (see blog entry), so, I rounded up those little rubber stamps and used them to encircle the central figure, kind of like wings and Achilles' winged heels.   The small shell rubber stamps are from  www.iloverubberstamps.com (which may now be out of business).  The shimmery paper is called "Shimmer Sheetz" by Elizabeth Craft Designs -- I got the paper at an estate sale, so I do not know where it is retailed.  I thought the paper looked sort of watery - appropriate for a shell theme.   Below is my finished entry:

 

 

And below is a side shot to show you that I elevated each of the cut-outs with foam adhesive squares.

 

I sent photos of my card entries to my Seattle friend Giselle who works in the Cactus House at the Volunteer Park Conservatory.   Come to find out, Giselle was quite familiar with the image for this woman -- and it turns out that it is not a woman wearing an anemone bra and  leaf skirt -- she is wearing a cactus bra and a cactus skirt in a Roy Drachman photo from the 1940's.  You can read more about the photo shoot at 

 http://tucson.com/roy-drachman/image_b60d707c-696c-11e1-8960-001871e3ce6c.html

 

 

Fantasyland

So, now I've got another conundrum -- I don't have any unicorn rubber stamps or Disney rubber stamps or fairy rubber stamps for the Fantasyland category.  The closest thing I could come to fantasy is a mermaid -- and I could also use some of the other underwater rubber stamps I had pulled out to audition for use in my entry for The Shell Game category.  I used a mermaid rubber stamp by Linda Malcolm of Lost Coat Designs  http://www.lost-coast-designs.com/, and all the other rubber stamps are also from  www.iloverubberstamps.com.  I embossed the sea fan directly on the background "wave" paper, and elevated most of the other images using adhesive foam squares.  Here's my entry for Fantasyland and a side view showing the 3-D effect.

I'm sad to report I didn't win any prizes this year, but then again, I wasn't very inspired!   You can view my card contest entries for previous years (including some winners!) at http://primarilypaper.blogspot.com/2013/03/contest-cards.html

and if you love mermaids, you might want to take a look at my Mermaid Madness post:
http://primarilypaper.blogspot.com/2013/12/mermaid-madness.html




Gallery of Rusty Stuff Artwork

ABOUT RUSTY STUFF

There came a point in time on my daily walks in the high desert that I could no longer walk past all the wonderful Rusty Stuff I saw along the roadways and irrigation ditches.  I starting taking a canvas bag with me on my walks and started hauling home rusty stuff with me.  I started creating mini installations in my garden areas and randomly nailing some of it to wood blocks. 

Here is one of Thomas Hogan's birdhouses that I mounted atop a leftover piece of a tapered post on top of a leftover piece of 8x8"   This birdhouse is about 8 years old --  Thomas' newer work is much more elaborate and colorful.  If you want to take a look at his current birdhouses -- his website is www.newmexicobirdhouses.com

 

Here's a close-up of the post and the 8x8 -- I think I'm probably finished nailing things to the 8x8, but the post is still a little bare and as I find just the right things to add, I'll nail them on.  

 

 

And this is a the area where the birdhouse lives along with the wonderful rusty lizard I bought at a yard sale for fifty cents!  I toss mostly rusty round things into this area.  And I created the walkway from firebrick that I found buried in my back yard!

Then, there came the time that I had hauled home waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much rusty stuff and decided that I needed to open an Etsy shop and share my New Mexico Rusty Stuff with artists who didn't have as much access to it as we do here in New Mexico.  After all, one of the best things about life is creating as many win/win situations as possible!  I get to take my walks and clean up the environment and share the goodies!  And I think I must have saved thousands of flat tires by picking up rusty nails.

I opened my Etsy shop in 2008 and over the years I've mailed rusty stuff not only all over the United States, but all over the world.  It amazes me that rust actually makes it through Customs!

I thought it would be fun to ask the artists who have been using my Rusty Stuff to send me photos of what they have been creating so that I could post photographs of their artwork on my blog.  So, this post is the beginning of a gallery of Rusty Stuff Artwork.   As I continue to receive photos, I'll keep updating this post.  I hope you enjoy taking a look at how other artists have used my Rusty Stuff. 

And if you haven't visited my Rusty Stuff shop on Etsy -- the name of the shop is simply "pvcatalina"

 

GALLERY

Valerie Hibbard is a prolific mixed media artist in Ohio and her work can be viewed on her website at sculpture.plainandpractical.com/

Below are a few of her mixed media wall pieces which incorporate found metal objects from my Etsy shop:

 

 

 

 

 

Here is Keely of Southern California who purchased rusty bottle caps from my shop to use to embellish her wonderful vessels.  Aren't they just absolutely glorious!!

 

Lisa from Alabama has created crosses using rusty nails purchased in my shop -- she uses the crosses on decorative items to either be laid on table or hung on wall. She'll be selling the items at a Christmas shop in which she participates in November in Birmingham, Alabama.

Here is June's wind chime mobile entitled "Aspen" in which she used rusty wires from my shop.  The wires make great branches!

 

 

 

 

 

Jordan from Michigan used semi-rusty bottle caps from my shop in her large free-standing bifold mixed media assemblage:

 

 

 

 

 

 

More photos to be added!!

 

Whimsical DIY Hummingbird Feeder

This post fulfills my promise to those of you I told I'd put together some instructions for making my whimsical DIY hummingbird feeders.

After having had a hummingbird nest on my back portal during the summer of 2013, I decided to beef up my chances of having a nest again this year by attracting more hummies by having more hummingbird feeders.   Logical??

Here is the nest from last year -- you can see one little baby beak pointing off to the left.

 

Here's one of my completed DIY Hummingbird Feeders:

 

 

Because I had a wonderful handcrafted welded hummingbird feeder from about 20 years ago on which the rubber feeder tip had dried out, I started looking for replacement tubes/tips for feeders and finally found them (where else but) on Amazon.com.

Rather than just buy one tip, I decided to buy a dozen (a better deal!)

I started experimenting with different size/shapes bottles and discovered that the 11 oz. soda/drink bottles work best.  The size has something to do with the creation of the vacuum inside the bottle.

Here's everything you'll need:

Clean empty clear 11 oz.drink bottle, round-nose pliers, feeder tube, dowel or substitute, glass bubbles or marbles, 16-18 gauge craft or galvy wire --  I use about 5-6 yards for each feeder.  Don't use brass -- I discovered it is waaaaaaaaaay too stiff. 

Start making the wire cage on the bottle.  This is all so random that I didn't keep track of lengths of wire, because you can always splice in more or cut off what you don't need.  And each bottle I made, I wrapped in a different manner.  Just make sure your wrapping secures the bottle within the wire cage.

Wrap a length of wire round the neck of the bottle -- you can leave "arms" of wire to later add glass bubbles to the end of the arm.  You can run the wire down to the middle of the bottle and wrap around loop around the middle of the bottle.    I approach this kind of like I were putting ribbon on a package.

Attach a new wire to the wire on the neck of the bottle, send it down the bottle vertically, wrapping the wire around the middle wire, then down and across the bottom of the bottle, and  up the other side, wrapping around the middle wire, then up to the neck wire. 

To make the springy "blossoms" to attach to the wire cage on the feeder, cut 2' of wire

 

 and use your round tip pliers to make a coil at the end

then place the coil against the bubble and start randomly wrapping the wire around the bubble until you know it can't escape from the wire

wrap the remainder of the straight part of the wire around a dowel to make a spring

 

then add the spring to the wire cage on the bottle. 

 

You'll find that the hummies will be attracted to the sun hitting the glass bubbles -- they'll explore the bubbles after you first hang the feeder, but they immediately learn where the feeder tube is and subsequently ignore the bubbles.  I've read that it is an old wives' tale that hummies are attracted to red -- what they are attracted to tends to be the color of the flower in nature that is currently in bloom, or the color of the bloom on which they last fed.

On the crossed wires at the bottom of the bottle add a wire loop as a hanger.

Now you're ready to fill the bottle with nectar and insert the feeder tube.

I had a LOT of trouble at first with my DIY feeders leaking nectar.  I put up a question on Amazon.com about the feeder tubes and got about 30 responses -- all the way from "the feeder tubes suck" to detailed instructions what each person did to make the nectar not drip out.

Here's what I found works for me:

(1)  Don't hang the feeder where it is in a lot of wind -- the wind will disturb the vacuum in the bottle and the nectar will leak out.

(2)  Always start by filling the bottle FULL of nectar.  You need to do this to create a good vacuum inside the bottle.

(3)  Here's the extremely weird part -- and this really works -- it is something I came up with on my own:  After you have the nectar in the bottle, insert the stopper and keeping the bottle "upright," take it with you to wherever you are going to hang the bottle.  Now turn the bottle on its side so it is parallel to the earth.  Suck on the feeder tube as if you were sucking a straw.  Allow your tongue to catch the suction and "stop" the feeding tube.  Don't lose the suction, keeping your tongue on the end of the feeder tube, and gently turn the bottle so it is vertical.  Release your tongue and the suction.    You should have created a perfect vacuum in the bottle, and there should be no bubbles in the feeder tube.  If there is a small bubble in the tube, I flick the feeder tube with my finger and the bubble usually rises to the top of the bottle.  (This is a time where I wish Dr. Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory were my next door neighbor and he could explain all this vacuum stuff to me!)  If you didn't create a good bubble-less suction, just tip the bottle to parallel with the earth and start again.  When you've got good bubble-less suction, hang your feeder!

Alas, my strategy of adding more feeders didn't work and I was not blessed with another nest on my back portal this year, but based on the amount of nectar I am making, I am feeding a lot more hummingbirds this year!

Here's one of the freshly fledged hummie babies from last year: