The Fool?

At one point, this was captioned "Men's manners, like their clothes, should be unobtrusive" but on reflection, it reminds me of the Tarot card The Fool.

Fairy tale circus--rider

Currently, my plan is to embedded this in a book. Although I have a set of the circus figures, so maybe I should make them a series...

Mental Health Through Will-Training

The window is covered with a convex lens (hence the glare from the scanner).

I am not entirely sure, yet, about the finish around the lens--it is a rim of gold paint and brass beads. It needs just slightly something more, but not too much, and I don't know what that something is.

Also need to determine a good hanging method, it's quite heavy and I want it to hang flush...

A fashionable effort

I love how insouciant he is, smoking his pipe in his pjs...

From the Library: Fabulous Jewlery from Found Objects

Lots of basic techniques for working with found objects using commonly available (i.e. in your garage/basement/workshop) hand tools. Many of the jewelry examples were constructed using more specialized jewelry making tools and techniques, but not so much as to be discouraging for us craft dilettantes.








Beverage can brooches--I want to try this one, it looks like it has some possibilities, even beyond brooches. AND it would use up some of those "vintage" beer cans living in my basement...








I also want to borrow this idea, using my new lozenge tins. I don't know about cuffs, per se, my tins seem a bit big, but maybe a pin or pendant?

The only books I ever returned to Amazon...

Buying craft books online can be such a crap shoot...


This one is emphatically for miniaturists, for whom quilting is an adjunct activity to building and/or decorating doll houses. It doesn't shed any new light on piecing technique, process, or design. Which, really, is probably obvious from the cover/description/and various Amazon reviews.

For the doll house completists, however, it does offer good insight on selecting fabrics for use in teeny, tiny doll house quilts; as well as solid instruction on the basics of piecing, for those who aren't already quilters.



This one is what it says it is, I just really don't like the abundance of swirly, rainbow hand dyed fabric. In my heart of low brow hearts, I really like commercial fabrics.

His guidelines for fracturing the quilts are interesting, but not so hard as they require regular consultation. Check this one out from the library.

Tin full of art

I love the concepts of small things, hidden things, talismanic/fetishistic/amulet-like accumulations of things...

Although in the realm of "altered" things (books, tins, what have you) and artists trading cards, so many of the examples (I'm looking at you Cloth Paper Scissors, Somerset Studio) skip magical and go straight to twee. I'm beginning to worry that that is a function of the medium, or over-saturation to the point that everything is going to look tired and sentimental.