Post Holiday Season 2011

Happy New Year Yall!!

Now that the holiday season is over, well not officially, there is still about three days left, I have decided to post my Post Holiday Season 2011 craft commentary. I had all the best intentions of starting doing the Christmas and Hanukah crafts before Thanksgiving, but you know what they say about good intentions.

Every year the school does a pageant and it is always hectic for me, trying to secure the acts, doing the programs, organizing gifts for the community kids, refres hments, decorations, and on and on and on and on. At the end of the holiday season I feel like I need a vacation, preferable somewhere tropical. This year we opted not to do the tables in the performance hall, but have refreshments in the canteen. I am really all about the red, green and sparklies this time of year, and knew I had to do something with the room. It is blindingly white.

As I started mentally planning the roomscape I knew there was one primary project I wanted to do, a candy cane Christmas tree. Adding to the challenge of the pageant, I was directed not to spend any money. WHAT THE EVERGREEN??!!! I for one love event time because I get to go shopping for all sorts of stuff, but thought it would be very interesting to see if I could pull it off. Once I mapped out some key areas I wanted to tackle in the room I began collecting items for the projects. The basic premise was to create a space the kids would enjoy.

On the ceiling I wanted to have it feel wintry and whimsical. I went to the teachers’ resource center and pressed out with the Ellison die cuts: angels, snow flakes, snowmen and spirals. I coloured the shapes with crayon and hung them on some kite string I bought eons ago. For the bare wall that was going to be above the refreshment table I took canvases and silk screens I had in my studio and covered them in wrapping paper.

The candy cane tree was the pièce de résistance. I found a tomato basket in the basement at my grandmother’s house when I was pilfering some tiles for coaster project, and knew I had struck gold.

It was beaten up and was missing some wire but I figured with some spray paint and love I could get my tree. I found some wire I had used for the first event I did the decorating for and used that to build up the tree. I sprayed the whole thing green but was still unsatisfied with the look, until I stumbled upon a roll of green ribbon. I hot-glued the ribbon to the wire frame and violà, magic. I used some wired Christmas ribbon for the tree topper, hung it from a wall, and decorated with candy canes and red and gold bows.

To present the desserts I used some glasses and plates from a centerpiece of 3 Christmases ago and the glasses from the fall dinner centerpieces in November, and created stands. They were sprayed gold, red and green.

All in all the only money I spent for the decorating the room was $6 for two cans of spray paint. I had the red leftover from a centerpiece I did during the summer. I enjoyed the challenge immensely, plus it justified my pack-ratish behaviour. I am so looking forward to next December!

Stay Crafty My Friends!

kam

The No-Sew Apron Project

I cannot use a sewing machine to save my life. However there are fabric projects I would like to do which require sewing. I have been lucky enough to get away attaching fabrics using Stitch Witchery or Heat n’ Bond. Last Friday I was in my studio and found an old pair of jeans which I always wanted to make into an apron. I devised a “No-Sew Apron” project.

I used construction adhesive as the binding agent, as I was not confident that the Stitch Witchery or Heat n’ Bond were strong enough to hold the denim. Also, because I was adamant that this was going to be “no-sew”, including sewing notions, I used items I had laying around. To hold the material during the bond I used binder clips.

After the apron was dried I felt like it needed some embellishment. I screened some an image of Buddha on it and the words “Zen Cooking.” I don’t think I am finished with the embellishment, but I am taking a break at the moment. I posted the photos on FB and my friend Kitty asked for one for her birthday. So I started a new enterprise, Zen Cooking Aprons.

Selassie on Caulked

Mixed media art is a favourite of mine to explore and observe by other artists. I am always in awe at the way people use materials, how an idea can evolve and be realised. I began began working on a mixed media project by accident. In my post about my screening mishaps I mentioned the one I did with Haile Selassie's speech. Well I had that canvas staring at me, taunting me day to day, so I had to do something. At the same time I was doing research on transfer techniques, something I absolutely love doing. So I came up with this idea to do something on the speech canvas.

The end result was this

I achieved the look by silver spray paint for the borders, sand for a little texture, then I poured resin over it because when I did the transfer I still wanted the words to come through, plus really empha sizing the layered effect. Then caulk transferred an image of the Lion of Judah, which was then painted with green food colouring and sealed in Mod Podge before doing the image transfer of Selassie.

Unintentionally the sand makes the star on his jacket appear gold. I have to cover it with another layer of resin then it would be done, but it has been raining here like the dickens and I like to do resin work when the weather is dry.

See yall soon

kreative kam

Mad Screening Issues

Ok so who ever said, “Patience is a virtue,” is a genius. Tying with, “Haste makes waste.” Safety is never really that high of a concern for me, but I tell you what this time I might have done some cocking up, royally.

Sometime in the Recent Past (seeing the progress of Warholing Kemba)
I have been promising my sister to Andy Warhol her for a while now, and have decided to finish up the project. I had her send me some photographs to work with. I studied Warhol work on Marilyn Monroe and layer separated my sister's photograph. Then I took out the trusty tracing paper and traced each layer on it’s own sheet, outlined it with a Sharpie, then scanned it onto the computer and coloured in the negative spaces in the Paint program, then printed them onto transparency sheets.

Yesterday (me & Che yesterday)

I geared myself up to get the screens all burnt last night. I photo emulsified the screens, but the eager beaver in me could not wait for them to dry. I really think the temperature had a lot to do with the slow drying time, even though I had a fan blowing on them, they still looked moist, but were not sticky to the touch so I decided to proceed. I burned the face of for 15 min. I felt it might have been too long because it took forever to wash the unburned section away. I burned some words for 10 min. and the washing went much smoother. I left for choir rehearsal, resolved that today would be the day.

Today
I looked at the screen but still after and night out they still looked kinda dry. I still went ahead however, burning and washing screens all morning. And this is where I know I screwed up. The screens were not dry, thus during the washing some pieces that were not supposed to wash away did. Also, I did not orient my sister’s face in the same direction in all the screens, two are facing left, two are facing right. I am going to test all the screens now. I am so not looking forward to this. Then again I might be pleasantly surprised, but I doubt it.

Test 1: My apronIt has a duck on it, my very first screen print done using the mod podge and quilting hoop method. I was going to screen PLUCKY DUCKY on it with yellow ink. It looks terrible. FAIL

Test 2: The purple shirt I wore today
Screening Che’s face. Only half of his lime green face came out. I am now shirtless and confused. FAIL

Test 3: Canvas
I am out of clothes so I must now turn to my ever so reliable canvases. I had prepped a canvas for a collage but instead used it to screen a Haile Selassie speech. It looks kinda nice but it needs some embellishement after it dries. The canvas was pink and I used red ink. A lot of people are anti-redpink but I like it.

This is not a test. I am about to make a first attempt to do the face. The culprit that started all this. Wish me the luck. First things first, I am beginning with the back to front face. **deep sigh**
I decided not to screen the face today, but to do some touching up with the Mod Podge and let ir dry over night. I am learnig this patience thing the hard way.

Deuces

kreative kam

Get a Life

I am not the most ambitious person that I know, but I have always had an idea of what I should be feeling when doing something as a career or profession. I am so excited to

say that I think I am there. Since graduation I have been taking jobs that have been leading me to this thing that I am doing. There is no clear cut way of describing what I do. Let's just say I make things. And of course that is not the only thing I do but it is what Finesse Events & Creations is all about. I feel like I am part of something great, special and amazing.

I always knew that I wanted to be involved in something that set my imagination free and allowed me to make stuff. However, I thought that it would be in the kitchen. When I was younger you could not tell me that I was not going to be a baker. I briefly got my Enzo on but it never seemed to pan out, not saying that that desire is completely behind me I'm just not there right now. I am, in fact, building a roller coaster of a life.

I was inspired to do this blog after doing my last project, an island. I was thinking about how involved this process was for me figuring out all the various components. This was just the intro blog. The next blog, hopefully soon, will have all the details of that project and pics to help you make visual sense of it all.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/finessecreations

kreative kam