aunt peaches

Painting with Watercolor and Glue

I don’t think I’v ever seen a painting of flowers that I didn’t like. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Van Gogh, or a finger painting on a refrigerator, I just can’t help but love the sight of flowers on paper. When Pentel asked me to come up with an interesting way to use their watercolors, I thought of a new take on this old technique with white glue. Not going to lie, it came out splendid! I’m getting some mats cut right now so these can be up on the walls soon.

These sorta work like coloring books. Some lady peeps came over a couple weeks ago for a weekend crafter-noon and we had a blast making these. The hard part is letting them dry. I may have attempted expedite the process by putting them in the oven. A couple may have come out over crisped. I say, it just adds artistic integrity!

If you are not condiment in your ability to doodle flowers in a vase, no problem, just scribble and fill in the holes. Like this!

Want to see how to make them yourself? Pop on over to Pentel for the step-by-step.

Happy Monday: Goosebumps and Goodnight Moon

by aunt peaches 1 Comment

Happy Monday my friend. It’s Memorial day here in the USA, which is actually a very somber occasion dedicated to fallen soldiers, but mostly we celebrate it with grilled meat and gardening. Hashtag: MERICA

After an epic day of weeding and BBQ yesterday, it’s now pouring rain and I’m feeling a little relieved to have a valid excuse to stay indoors and catch up on all the odds-n-bobs I have neglected lately. Or, I could cruise the internet for nifty things to distract us all from any sort of useful productivity. You’re welcome!

Ukrainian artist Alexey Kondakov takes scenes from classical paintings and drops them into modern-day life. The results are stunning.

Eleven fascinating facts on legendary children’s book, Goodnight Moon.

Attention 90s nostalgics and craft beer enthusiasts: Hanson makes beer and you can order it online. The name? Mmmhopps.

In honor of Ireland’s historic vote for marriage equality: Oscar Wilde’s love letters.

Need to up your tea party game? Edible sugar doilies.

Portuguese grannies learning street art in Lisbon. Hell, yes.

If you loved RL Stine’s Goosebump books, you’ll love this look behind the scenes of their triply visual style.

I am slightly, snarkily obsessed with this youtube series on spiritual living from JP Spears. Namaste!

Scrunch Shibori

by aunt peaches 4 Comments

Contrary to popular belief, Scrunch Shibori is not the name of the hipster gas station attendant who sells poems about his goat; it’s what you can do with a nifty die kit and a duvet.

Want to make one? Yeah. You do!

Hands Down, the Best House Paint I Have Ever Used

by aunt peaches 43 Comments

Welp. I did it. I painted my living room black.

Okay, almost black.

In my heart I wanted navy blue but the sample looked horrible in the space (I might even get rid of blue stuff in the room in general — it just doesn’t play well with others in here). I tried out a few swatches, but this was the clear winner and I’m delighted! In the can it looks like a true gray, but up on the wall it reads as an all-over black. Actually, that is what I love about this color – Cracked Pepper – it looks blueish in some light, brown in others, and sometimes at dawn it looks like a deep eggplant…but you look at the room as a whole and it reads black. AND I LOVE IT. It will look better when I hang the art and bling out the flat surfaces, but I like to live in a space a month or two before adding frosting. I need to bring some more white in the space to balance off the dark, and my recent foliage kick gives it that glamorous, Floridian swamp feel that I love so dearly.

Also. Shout out to this paint. Major shout out.

Actually, the shout out belongs to Eric when he read my post a couple months back about wanting to paint a room black. Dark paints are notorious for requiring multiple coats and a tinted primer, but he suggested I try Behr’s Marquee line and “you can skip the primer and get it done in two coats.”

Well Eric. I did not get it done in two coats.

BECAUSE I GOT IT DONE IN ONE COAT.

Bam!

Okay, maybe one and half. But that’s mostly because I was sloppy with the roller and expected to go back for a second. I bought two gallons thinking I would need that and then some, but you know what? I barely used half a can. This stuff is the best. And that’s not a paid endorsement, and I might even get in trouble with paint companies that have sponsored in the past, but I’m keeping it real and spreading the good word. Y’all. This is it.

Behr Marquee, you have me for life.

Living room, I’ll see you with a hammer later tonight.

Happy Monday: Fancy Funerals and the Underground Tiki Party

by aunt peaches 10 Comments

Happy Monday everybody!

Hope things are well by you. I sit here on my laptop next to an open window, relishing, no — wallowing, in the sunshine and cool breeze. The height of spring sprung over the weekend and I don’t recall a time when every tree and bush decided to bloom at the same time. Every trip outdoors is literally a chorus of blossoms. I am in awe. In less exciting news, I am coming off a heavy work week (new record – 256 design document exports in a single day), and while I’m very grateful for the work, right now, I’m a lot more grateful to be chilling out next to this open window and thinking about doing something NOT ON A COMPUTER. Hurrah!

For those of us who are stuck in front of the keyboard and looking for a little distraction, here are some happy distractions to get you started.

Business cards made of crayons? Yes, please.

11 Acts of kindness that will change a stranger’s day.

Is Dolly Parton the way forward for hipsters? (<<That’s a rhetorical question)

Feminist Lisa Frank on Tumblr is incredible (even if the real Lisa Frank isn’t a fan).

Addictive app for finding color combinations.

Fruit that tastes like chocolate pudding? HELLO.

And speaking of funerals: FAO Schwartz is closing and I am irrationally upset.

The peculiar details of Emily Dickinson’s funeral.

If you find a spot at the underground traveling tiki party, save me a seat!

Watch a cat experience an ice-cream induced brain freeze then go back for more.

If you know your 90s music jams, you know the Semisonic song Closing Time and you probably thought it was about a bar at closing time, right? Wrong. WE WERE ALL WRONG.

Adventures in Chain Link

by aunt peaches 8 Comments

I have a strange affection for chain link fences. Cyclone fences, as some folks call them. Some of my west-coast friends think they are horribly outdated, but they are still a mainstay here in the backyards of middle America. They are old. They are charming. They are sturdy-as-all-get-out. They are are also an interesting canvas for all sorts of artistic adventures (which is a valid and nobel excuse for avoiding regular yard work, which is probably what I ought to be doing right now).

Look!

Sources:
Cup and bottle designs (also called “cup rocking“)
Michael Jackson
Positive thoughts
Bottle flowers

Or for those who want a little more approachable DIY method…

Marilyn and other art by Put-in-cups (<<these are seriously nifty)
Lace embroidery
Fish Cross stitch

And this one below…. Guuuh!

My friend Geri sent me this video of an exhibit that was at Rice University in 2013. It’s chain link meets rainbow meets every Lis Frank file folder I ever left on the bus. Sigh. Man, I miss those file folders.

Soo Sunny Park: Unwoven Light from Walley Films on Vimeo.

Happy Monday: The Science of Redheads and What’s Weird in China

by aunt peaches 10 Comments

Source: “Touch” by Kwangho Lee

Incredible must-see photo essay: The Chinese Art of a Crowd.

Also, China has the weirdest nicknames for celebrities. My personal favorite: Lord of the Butt.

Six important things every cat lady needs to celebrate about herself.

A day in the life of an ugly Renaissance baby.

The fascinating story behind why so many nail technicians are Vietnamese.

Ever wanted your bike to sound like a galloping horse? For $32 and a Monty Python reference, you can have it.

The science of redheads.

Need a belated Mothers Day gift? The candle that smells like fried chicken is always a winner.

Iris Apfel on Palm Beach. Always.

Miss Piggy is receiving a prestigious award for her contributions to feminist progress, and everyone is like “YAY!” when really we ought to be like “FINALLY.”

Looks like Mr. Darcy, the Mr. Darcy, was a real person (and he wasn’t Collin Firth).

Throwback Thursday: Illustrated Baby Quilt

by aunt peaches 10 Comments

Happy Mother’s Day!

The interwebs tells me this is the week to discuss things you can buy and make for mothers, so I thought it might be nice to share one of the first gifts my mother ever received, which just happened to be a DIY project; a handmade quilt featuring images from Mother Goose stories.

Behold!

The quilt was made by her older sister, my Aunt Cake and her son Tad, who I suspect was around 10 or 11 at the time. As a structure, the quilt is pretty beginner-friendly (although I would never classify Aunt Cake’s sewing skills as anywhere near beginner) — It’s just nine squares sewn sewn together. The drawings came courtesy of Tad, using fabric crayons (I used some on a pillow I made for Pentel not long ago). Then she bound it all together using polka-dot kelly green ribbon (this probably where my deep love of polka dots was born) and a few bows. Nearly 36 years later, the dots have worn off and one of the bows is missing (but it’s still here and it’s still ticking).

(Apparently I am very fond of parentheses today).

Weird thing. This quilt is made from that special sort of cotton that always stays cool. Do you know what I mean? It’s cool to the touch. Sometimes I will find that in vintage sheets. I’m not sure if it has some rayon mixed it, or maybe it was a certain genus of cotton plant that we killed off with pesticides. I don’t know, but I one of the reasons I love this quilt and keep it in circulation is that it’s lovely to use as a bed spread in the summer. Lola likes to wallow on it. She knows a good thing when she sees it.

The images are pretty cool too.

That’s Mother Goose flying above the city. Weird thing, this quilt became a major learning tool and one of the first places I ever learned to recognize what animals looked like, and it was because of this drawing that I always saw geese as a valid mode of transportation. Still do. Sometimes I’ll see Mother Goose illustrations and she’s holding a regular size goose under her arm and I’ll think, Woah. There is no way that port bird can support a full grown woman.

Here is Froggy Went A ‘Courtin’. If you are not familiar with the story, you can listen to Bruce Springsteen sing it here.

And Three Blind Mice.

And I have no idea what this is.

You’d think I would know after 36 years but I’m clueless. There is a cat chasing a mouse in front of a duck (?) on a throne. Not sure. But I’m digging the duck’s pink hat.

And here is my mom receiving the quilt at her baby shower in 1979.

Let’s discuss this picture.

So, FIRST OF ALL, Props to my Mom for having a co-ed baby shower in the 70s. I know it’s the cool thing now, but back then it wasn’t terribly common for dudes to want to hang out and open diaper baskets. I’m proud to say I’m still friends or in touch with five out of the seven people in this photo (and that’s because the other two have passed).

And SECOND OF ALL, note the champagne. I’m not pushing alcohol on anyone, but I take some pride knowing I my first party had real champagne and not some pink and blue sparkling grape juice horse crap. That would sooooo not fly at our house. Actually, I don’t think this was our house, but Mom wouldn’t be caught dead at a party that didn’t serve booze, even if it was her own baby shower (she had very strong opinions on a lot of things – champagne and chardonnay in particular).

Speaking of celebrations…Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful mommies, grannies, step-moms, aunties, godmothers, fairy godmothers, and any other woman who is hustling to make a positive impact on the life of a child. Sunday is for you!

#Update. My old school pal, Sonnet, just identified the mystery illustration on Facebook: “The unidentified picture is from the rhyme “Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been? I’ve been to London to see the fair queen. Pussycat, pussycat, what did you there? I frightened a little mouse under her chair.” MYSTERY SOLVED.

Art vs. Pretty: Anne Ten Donkelaar

by aunt peaches 19 Comments

Gut is a weird concept. It’s a biological location, but it’s also an abstract word for something nobody knows how to describe, we just know that it’s important. We are supposed to follow our guts. Listen to our guts. I get annoyed when people use phrases like “I love your guts out” or “I’m going to run my guts rotten” because nobody would ever say “I love your pancreas out” or “I’m going to run my mental and emotional meridian rotten.”

It just doesn’t work like that.

When I was in art school there was a more-than-slightly obnoxious Scottish drawing instructor who liked to torment his students into “drawing from the gut” which usually meant looking at your finished work while getting yelled from behind one ear, in the path projectile spittle, eventually leading to a saliva drenched canvas. One time he made everyone in class draw trees while holding conte crayons between our teeth. I hated him. But I will say, as much as I hated him, and he wasn’t a very good teacher, I feel indebted him because he gouged a nugget of something into my brain that has never left. In his spittles streamed Scottish brogue he yelled at nobody in particular; “Pretty speaks to your mind, art speaks to your gut.”

That rule applies to just about everything I suppose; music, writing, dramatic performances…even boring stuff like business, or complicated stuff like relationships. The world is filled with plenty of fantastic, beautiful, interesting, pretty things, but very few of them itch your gut, and when it’s art.

Sometimes people ask me the difference between art and craft, and I suppose that standard applies too. Just because you make something with your hands doesn’t make it art, but when you make it from your heart, from your guts, that’s when it’s art. There are artists who make crafts, and crafters who make art. I usually don’t feel much need to compartmentalize the two, but the other day I was flipping through pinterest and I saw an image of one of Anne Ten Donkelaar’s flower collages and the caption read “This would make a great craft project” and I nearly leaped out of my bathrobe and through the screen to say THAT IS NOT CRAFT THAT IS ART.

Pretty speaks to your mind, art speaks to your gut.

So. Ten minutes of cyber stalking later, I come to scour her website and am totally blown away by these delicate works of art. I believe they are mostly photos of flowers that are then cut and glued pieces onto real pieces of dried twigs and grasses, then mounted on pins and frames. You can see the shadows…

Is that not incredible?

This soooooo speaks to my gut.

I’m tempted to try and DIY something similar on my own, but I don’t want to. I want to remember the impact and the feeling I have just looking at these works as they are, over the internet, on my laptop, speaking to my gut. That’s art.

Go see more incredible art over at Anne Ten Donkelaar’s website. Because even if you aren’t into to flower collages, she has a number in the middle of her name and that is really badass. I’m pretty sure that’s just a Dutch name thing, but I’m not above switching my name to Aunt Seven Peaches.

It could happen.

A Royal Weekend (for crafts)

by aunt peaches 5 Comments

Today is a great day, for not only was the Duchess of Cambridge delivered of a daughter today, the world was delivered of a Lolabelle.
Happy birthday, Lola! Everyone knows, only real princesses are born on May 2nd.