Color Study

$3.00 Rainbow Doily Spinners

I had been saving this idea a for a baby shower, but dontchaknow, all the babies-to-be that I know are being showered out-of-state this year.

Just the same, I’m not letting that stop me — I made a small scale model to share with you guys today. I mean, someone out there must have a baby shower or birthday party or some fun occasion to make them, right?

Right.

These are so fun and delicate looking. I chose a color scheme somewhere between rainbow and Easter egg, but you could customize as you like or leave them all white and use them for a bridal shower. Or go crazy and tie-dye. Or use markers and write messages and stuff. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Materials

40 Paper Doilies ($3.00 at the party supply store)
Watercolor paint (don’t tell me you don’t already own this — no creative person can live without!)
Tissue paper cut into roughly 4″ strips (any old rumpled paper will do just fine)
Sewing machine (or staples — see below)

Instructions
Working in stacks of two or three, use watercolor paint to cover the perimeter of each doily and hang to dry. Working is small stacks will help to stabilize the delicate paper and prevent the laciest parts from tearing, but thick stacks will leave bald batches and that’s no goo good. Unless of course you like bald patches. I myself am not opposed 🙂

I chose to iron my doilies (sandwiched between an old napkin) because they rippled up after drying in direct sun, but you could probably skip that step if your doilies dried slower and are still reasonably flat.

After they are dry, arrange your doilies in stacks of three, fold in half and cut out the solid patch in the middle, creating a ‘window effect.’

Now for the sewing; using a small stitch (the #2 setting on my machine), begin sewing a straight line down the tissue paper, then a few inches in, insert the stack of three doilies and continue. As long as the stitches are small and the needle is sharp, the machine should have no trouble sewing through paper at all. In fact, if you have never tried sewing paper before, this is a good project to start with.

To stitch multiple spinners on each strand (I did two to four on each) continue sewing a few inches past the stack of three doilies, then insert another stack. Repeat as desired. When you are finished adding spinners, pull at least 18″ of unused thread before cutting (that will be how you hang it).

*No sew alternative: Skip the stitching and use a couple of staples instead. You might need to skip the cut-out window in the middle, but they would still be pretty darn nifty. Hang with a single piece of thread looped through the top staple.

While they are still attached to the tissue paper, carry the garlands to the location where you will hang them. On a solid surface, flip them over, tear away tissue paper, and immediately hang. I taped mine to a lighting fixture, but they are very light weight and could go just about anywhere.

Important: these garlands tangle very easily. Avoid snags and tears by leaving them flat and attached to the tissue until the last minute, then hang them in place and individually pull them apart.

You may or may not need to crease the doilies so they stand out on their own. I found that sewing machine I’m tempted to see what happens if I snip the thread from the middle, but to tell you the truth, I sort of like it there. I don’t mind lose threads. They only add to the delicacy and daintiness, you know?

You can see what I mean about those bald patches I mentioned earlier — above on the right — see it’s a mix of white and orange? The paint did not fully saturate. It’s not what I was going for but I sort of like it. I appreciate a happy accident, don’t you?

They flutter and spin with even the slightest breeze. I could stare at them for ages.

Not bad for $3.00.

It’s a Floyd Colored Fall

by PEACHES 10 Comments

1. Bell Peppers 2. Purple Carrots 3. Eggplants and Tomatoes

Has anyone else noticed that fall is looking a little more saturated this year?

I am seeing brighter, richer, friendlier shades of tomato red, orange, purple and green all over the stores right now. It’s a distinctive color combo and it’s EVERYWHERE this week. At first, I thought it was inspired by produce, but then I thought, Hmmm, you know, this looks a little familiar…

That’s right: Muppets y’all. It’s a muppet colored fall! That tomato red was really just a shade of Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Scarlett. But then I looked a little further and realized, well, what I’m really looking at is Floyd.

No mistake about it, this fall is Floyd colored in and out! Huzzah. It’s about time this man came back into fashion. Long may he rein. Now if only I can convince NY Fashion Week to shine up to the idea of a Missy Piggy colored spring (Help Me Rhonda, I don’t know if I could handle it!)

Between this recent realization, the new Muppet movie AND the new album, I can hardly contain my excitement. Viva La Muppets!

Thinking in Swatches

by PEACHES 5 Comments

Never thought I would get up on the interwebs and sing the praises of teal and gray. Yet here we are, a week after I took this picture, and I’m looking to insert these colors into everything in sight. Last night I started wrapping a butter yellow napkin around to my old green garden hose because they looked so pretty together. So now my hose has a stylish neck-kerchief.

Awesome.

Now, I like to think I have always been sensitive to color, but this whole ‘thinking in swatches’ is new. If I get arrested for putting pink peonies in navy blue post boxes, I’ll blame it on Color Collective.

Mailbox Candy

by PEACHES 9 Comments

If you have ever received mail from me there is a decent chance it looked something like this. I call it mailbox candy.

OK, so I admit, it looks a little like a rainbow threw up. But I don’t mind…

The landlord thinks it’s hilarious when I drop off rent checks smeared in pink and turquoise polka dots. I’m not sure what the mail clerk at the electric company thinks, but I hope it puts a smile on their face 🙂

Truth be told, I don’t paint envelopes to impress, I just do it to use the leftover paint stuck on my brush after a project.

I figure that paint can go down the sink, or it can go down on paper.

So I just grab an envelope and give it a good smoosh.

Tada! Instant mailbox candy.

Knowing me, I’ll never remember to grab an extra envelope every time I start a painting project, so instead, I just keep a stack of them on the shelf above my kitchen sink –that way I can grab one before I rinse out the brush.

Sometimes, if the envelope is made of thick paper, I’ll run it under the faucet as well, then the paint goes on like water color. Then I clip it up on a clothes pin and let it dry until next time I want to paint.

Simple pleasures 🙂

Name that Pink!

by PEACHES 32 Comments

Every year, the good people at Pantone pull together color experts from around the world to predict design trends and to select the Color of the Year.

2010 Color of the Year: Turquoise

2011 Color of the Year: Honeysuckle

From Pantone:

While the 2010 color of the year, PANTONE 15-5519 Turquoise, served as an escape for many, Honeysuckle emboldens us to face everyday troubles with verve and vigor. A dynamic reddish pink, Honeysuckle is encouraging and uplifting. It elevates our psyche beyond escape, instilling the confidence, courage and spirit to meet the exhaustive challenges that have become part of everyday life.

Yeah yeah yeah….elevate the psyche and all that is swell. Problem is: honeysuckle is white. Maybe cream. Even yellow, maybe. NOT PINK.

Should this bother me? No. Does this bother me? Yes. In fact it bothers me to the point that I have avoided using this pink-lemonade like color the last month just because I am irked.

IRKED I tell you!

And that’s too bad. It’s a nice color. I love me some pink. And yes, technically, honeysuckle comes in a variety of colors, including pink, so I really have no right to be annoyed. But I am . I am annoyed and anxious to fix the problem.

So today, I want to give this color a new name. Doesn’t mean anyone will ever use it in an official capacity, but come on, let’s have some fun! What shall we name it?

Here, I’ll start a list–you chime in some ideas in the comments. Let’s do this!

Iced Watermellon
Revenge of the 80’s
Pink Lemonade
Mamie Eisenhower’s Underpants
Snooki Love
Pink Gumballs
Lolita
Srawberry Magrarita
Milk Punch Romance
Flirtation
Pixie Dust
Carol Channing Pink

….Your turn!

PS: Anyone share my fixation on color names, read this earlier post.

Thanks, Rats!

by PEACHES 17 Comments

Look what I found…

Took out the garbage this weekend and do you know what I found? The most extraordinary turquoise and purple berries. Aren’t they wonderful?

Y’all, I swear to you these images are not photoshoped. This is the real deal. They are turqoise and purple. Now, when was the last time you saw a turquoise and purple plant? If you can identify another plant that simultaneously blooms/or/blossoms/or/berries turquoise and purple, I’ll send you a box of paper flowers (no kidding here folks, I have twelve tons of paper flowers and sincerely want to know if there is more of this stuff out there. Let’s trade!)

The vine appears to originate right from the crack between my back fence and the garbage cans in the alley. Can you believe that? Well you know I hopped on to do some internet research quick and found out they are Porcelian Berries, and are considered to be, get this: a weed.

A weed? Seriously? How could anything so beautiful be considered a weed?

So I called my friend Nancy who knows about these things, who confirmed, yes, they are invasive and undesirable, and no they are not unusual. Nancy also told me that, this time of year, urban alleys like mine are the best places to find exotic berry vines.

Apparently rats are the ones spreading all the fun around…they eat the berries and scamper away, only to, ahem, “release” the berries out the other end while foraging for garbage in the alley. She said the vines will sprout and thrive in the alley for years before anyone bothers to try and hack them down. In some cases, they may even grow into free-standing bushes and trees like the beautiful orange and red ones below. Well you know, the second she said that I had to go back out in the alley and take a look for myself.

She was right. There were berries everywhere. Blue ones, red ones, fat ones, tiny ones, and even some orange cherry looking things. I always knew there were plenty of vines crawling up the fences, but never took the time to walk around in the autumn to look for berries. Man, what have I been missing? And to think it’s all on account of the rats.

Thanks, Rats!

Look whats growing up my alley telephone pole! Grapes!!!

Autumn Wreath 2010

by PEACHES 11 Comments

Can you spot Lola? Her autumnal camouflage is seamless!

Tomato Red & Turquoise, Oh My!

Sweater weather is here and I couldn’t be happier. Mother Nature has turned my little tree lined street into a beautiful, golden riot of color. Mother Nature will never be outdone but I can certainly do my part to color coordinate!

My apartment is on the ground floor of a busy street, right in the middle of the city. Upside: there is always something to look at out the window. Downside: Bars on my windows. Solution: hang stuff on the bars!

It gives people something to look while walking the dog or running to the train. Plus, Lola appreciates the attention, as she sits in the window most of the day while I’m gone. I swear, she is just like a supermodel with fur.

Get yourself a nice autumnal leaf garland. You know, the raggedy one in you keep in the garage. Yeah, that one.
Spray paint the leaves, preferably something with a gloss finish. The paint will look nice, but more important, it will provide a smooth surface for painting by hand later on.
Wrap the garland around a hoola hoop and remove 80% of the larger leaves from the garland. Just yank them off, no need to be gentle here. Leave a few on the vine for texture, especially the small ones that might be difficult to paint.
PAINT YOUR LEAVES! This is the fun part, especially with kids involved. When the kids realize that each leaf feeds into a larger project, they are less likely to be precious about their results (read: even older kids who always say “but mine won’t turn out good” will be inclined to pitch in). But heck, it’s really fun without kids too. Mindless, tiny painting projects like this are very therapeutic for us big kids too 🙂 I use regular acrylic paint from the craft store. It is surprisingly durable, even outdoors.
Favorite Trick, aka “Khaki Pants for the Painterly”...Whenever I have project with a riot of color or texture, I like to add a “neutralizing pattern” to harmonize the color pallet. Black and white stripes are a whimsical classic, but there are plenty of others…navy with white polka dots or gray and beige herringbone are two of my favorites, or, some prefer textural tones like burlap or copper tone metallics….the list goes on. Here, I just used Elmer’s glue to attach to some silk leaves, but you could certainly use paint or paper too.
Hot glue the leaves directly to the hoola hoop and TA DA you are done!

Happy Autumn Y’all!

Paint Chip Art

by PEACHES 23 Comments

Artwork courtesy of Behr, Premium Paint Chips. Pudding Face Kitty Snoof courtesy of Tzeitel, The Cat.

Did you hear that? It’s the sound of my Crazy Cat Lady Ranking exploding. Yes, again. Totally worth it.

Kitty and the artwork belong to my friend Bird, who is not only my bestie, neighbor, and aunt to Lola, Bird is the one person who lets me hang random art experiments all over her walls. As you can see from the background on these photos, I make a lot of, um, art. This piece is an off-shoot of my birthday resolution.

Birthday Resolution? What’s that?

Why I’m glad you asked! A birthday resolution is like New Year’s resolution, but without the dieting and unpleasantness. I use it an excuse to take on a new daily habit, skill, ritual…no big whoop, just something that helps me look back on a year and feel really good about some aspect of personal growth. Feel accomplished. Make up for the serious lack of smash cake in my life. One year I learned a new word in Spanish every day. Another year I read the newspaper every morning. One year I said I would learn the ukulele…errrr…that didn’t go so well.

Last year, I said I was going to start a blog. Setting up the dang thing took ten minutes, but figuring out what sort of blog I wanted took some time! I’m big on research…started out by noting the blogs that I liked that crossed my path the first couple of months…then everyday I would comment on something I liked….then everyday I would note a post/article I liked for its content….then every commentary formula…..then every layout…the color scheme…then font face…etc, etc. Six months and a whole lot of cyber surfing later, I identified enough patterns of stuff I liked to read, and used it as the skeleton of stuff you might want to read. In July 2010 this blog was launched. Let me tell you, for all the buildup, it started out, uh, shall we say, anti-climactic. But now, it is one year since the journey began and y’all are here and reading this. Goal accomplished. Give myself a cookie!

This year, my little ritual is something closer to a journal. I’m not big on keeping a diary, but a small memento to take away the sentiments of the day would be nice. Playing off my old 1,200 Names for Yellow piece, I’m going to name colors. I made myself a stack of blank swatch cards and grabbed a lot of painting scraps….a little snip and a dab of glue, I’m in business. For the next year, every night, last thing I‘ll do is select a color card and write down a name and date. I know this sounds very artsy fartsy, but really, all I’m trying to do is make a memory. My hope is that at the end of the year I can randomly pick up a card dated March 31, 2010, with a blue swatch called “STORM CLOUD” and recall that was the day I got stuck on the train in a tremendous thunderstorm and met a charming lady in a straw hat sitting behind the bearded man who smelled of Amstel Light.

You see, it’s all very logical.

So, 365 days in the year means I need a lot of color swatches. Initially I was going to rely on paint swatches from the hardware store, but decided it would I wanted to make use of the piles of scraps in my craft stash. Problem was, I already started grabbing pinches of paint swatches from various hardware stores. What to do what to do what to do?

Art! The answer is always art.

There are so many cool people out there making amazing stuff with paint chips. This one is easy, but you should check out some of the possibilities. I initially saw something similar to this in a model home five or six years ago. It was a giant 6’x8’ piece in a simple dining room with one of those glass tables. It was the first piece you saw when you walked through the door and I just thought WOWZERS I WANT ME SOME OF THAT. I apologize for not crediting the original artist, if you happen to know, please feel free to let me know. I’m big on giving credit where credit is do.

Materials

One painters canvas from the art or craft store (can also just paint a board white)
Paint chips
Foam Mounting tape
Bias tape or ribbon to run around the edge of the canvas.
This is so quick/cheap/easy, it hardly warrants a tutorial

1. Get yourself a bunch of paint chips (go rainbow, or coordinate your home interior)
2. Cut out squares of solid color. You could try to make them the exact same size, but that would drive me crazy. I just eyeball to keep them within half an inch of each other.
3. Tear off 1” squares of foam mounting tape. Mounting tape is super sticky, very durable, and more important, it will raise your color squares off the canvas just a tiny bit. The shadow it gives really sets them off. You could just hot glue them to the canvas, but the foam tape makes a BIG DIFFERENCE. Give it a chance!
4. Figure out roughly how many squares you can fit running the length and width of your canvas. You can try to line them up exactly, but again, that would drive me nuts! This isn’t brain surgery, so don’t take it so seriously. Just stick them up and go for it! No one is going to notice if some of them are slightly skewed or off center. In fact, it will enhance the overall character and charm of the piece. Embrace imperfections!!

Hot glue some ribbon or bias tape around the edge and SHAZAM you are done!

I’m generally not big on the concept of “filler art”…Personally, I would rather live with an empty wall then buy something just to fill the space. However, this piece is sort of a happy medium. There is no great thought or skill in making it, but by gosh, it makes for crazy eye candy!

This project is linking to Craft School Sunday at www.creativejewishmom.com

Favorite Thing: Autumn Apple Picking

by PEACHES 4 Comments

Some people say summer ends with Labor Day. Others claim it’s the Fall Equinox. In my house, autumn begins with an apple picking.

This time of year, when the light is bright and the air is crisp, there is something in me that itches to get out in the country. Places with no streetlights. Places with more tractors than people. Call it my inner farm girl, but I tell you, there is nothing more satisfying than taking in the harvest.

OK OK OK…“the harvest” was barely a bushel and it came with wine tasting and there were no combines or overalls involved…but gosh darnit, it felt great!

As a city dweller, apple picking is something of an excursion. It takes two hours to get to a decent orchard but man is it worth the trip! If you have never enjoyed what it feels like to grow your own food or to pluck it from the Earth, I suggest you start with apples. Apple orchards are pretty easy to find all over North America, and they make for a wonderful adventure. Depending on the type of apple, the arrival time will be staggered throughout the Fall, so you a re pretty much guaranteed to walk away with something great. And there is something wonderfully symbolic about apples. So beautiful. So wholesome. Fresh. Clean.

A visit to the apple orchard has become something of an annual tradition. I like to go with friends and pack a picnic. This year we went just down the road from my favorite Blueberry Farm, DeGrandcahmps, to McIntosh Orchards and Winery, in South Haven Michigan. Did you ever find someplace off the beaten path that was so special that you didn’t want to tell anyone for fear the secret would get out and ruin your special discovery? McIntosh is like that. I’m tempted to keep a lid on it, but the family that runs this place is so special and their goods are so wonderful, I feel like it’s a disservice to keep it to myself. Honestly, my standards are high. This place exceeded all expectations. If you or anyone you know lives within an hour of Chicago, I highly suggest you forward this post or this link asap. Kids and adults will enjoy themselves silly and they will thank you for it later.

McIntosh Orchard isn’t just an apple orchard, no no no, it’s a cider mill and winery. They carry lot’s of semi-dry fruit wines…blueberry, apple, peach, pear, plum…all excellent and around $10 a bottle. A bargain. As someone who saves their sommelier skills for Diet Coke tasting, I cannot claim to be an expert, however, I know a good thing when I see it: this is Good Stuff. They also sell a lovely collection of gift items, including these lovely milk bottle candles. One of those items that I saw and said “Why didn’t I think of that?!”…so easy to make, but the smell of these candles….oh how I wish the internet could convey smell! These candles where so delicious. And can you read their names? That one up front in called Barn Dance, and yes, it really does smell like a barn dance! Like fresh pine and a wood burning stove with a hint of citrus and musk.

Just a little further down the Blue Star Highway is my ALL TIME FAVORITE ANTIQUE PLACE: Sunset Antiques. It is unfair to call it antiques, really, more like a well-edited collection of eccentric rif raf, or what the call “junque” (somehow saying “junk” in semi-fake-French makes it more legit). Most of it is outdoors, shaded by a gigantic elm tree.Well over an acre. They carry everything from old restaurant signs to astronaut suits to taxidermy moose heads to wooden doors…all of it dirt cheap. I’m still kicking myself for not buying that Hurdy Gurdy!

*Sigh*

Back to life, back to reality.
I see a lot of apple baking in my future!

Adventures in Chinatown

by PEACHES 5 Comments

Some women are crazy about shoes. Some like diamonds. Some like small dogs…house wares…cosmetics…Beanie Babies…

Me? I’m all about paper. Any kind of paper: wrapping paper, tissue paper, candy wrappers, coffee filters, old maps, vintage books, foreign magazines, blue prints, dryer sheets, Monopoly money, craft scraps, postcards, damaged holiday decorations…I compulsively ~~hoard~~ save it.

Joss paper is one of my favorites (see photo above, top right). Y’all just look at that! Isn’t it gorgeous? All saffron and gold and pink and wonderful. Lovely stuff. It’s also called ghost money or spirit money…people burn it as a way of worshiping ancestors and deities in traditional Chinese ceremonies and funerals (click here for a better explanation). Not only is it gorgeous, it’s super cheap: $5 for 500 sheets. Only downside to joss paper is that you need access to a good Asian market to get your hands on it. Hence, a wonderful excuse for a weekend excursion to Chinatown!

Chinatown Chicago is about 10 square blocks, which is pretty puny compared to cities on the west coast, but man, it is really something you need to experience! The colors, the sounds, the SMELLS! It’s all packed in there like sardines; Chinese teas, rice paper lanterns, rotisserie duck by the dozen, herbal medicines, jade fountains, silk slippers, porcelain bibelots, wooden monkeys, firecrackers, golden piggy banks the size of toddlers, finger traps…My favorite store is an unabashed tourist trap. The walls are covered in silk robes and hundreds of lanterns and firecrackers hang from the ceiling. It’s like you died and went to live inside To Wong Foo, Thanks for everything Julie Newmar.

Of course the restaurants are amazing too. But Chinatown is a great place for more than just shopping and food –it’s a great way to expose yourself to something new and strange and wonderful. You know, shake things up! I admit, it’s slightly disorienting to be somewhere that doesn’t always print signs or price tags in English, but it’s also pretty nifty for someone like me who grew up thinking Panda Express was a cultural learning experience. Maybe I’m a hick, but everything in Chinatown seems so exotic and interesting. I can’t get enough of it.

Chinese folks are crazy about dragons. I read somewhere that dragons are considered the “Governors of Rain” or something but I’m pretty sure it’s more than just that. Dragons are everywhere in Chinatown, even on top of all the light posts. This one shop sold the giant dragons they use in new years parades. You know, where 10 people line up under the body and dance in big swirling patterns. So cool! That one up on the left, which is actually a lion, was priced at $139. Pretty incredible when you consider the time it took to create it! If I had a grand staircase or 2 story ceilings, I would love to hang one of those dragons mid air. Wouldn’t that be awesome? It would scare the crap out of Lola, but dang, it sure would be cool!

There are several stores devoted to herbal medicine, including one that sells ginko in barrels (above right), and there on the top left, can you read the label on the jar of dirty looking worms? It says: CORDYCEPS: $1055.00 PER TEAL =1.33oz .

#1 Holy Cats!
#2 How do I get in the cordyceps growing business?!

And then there is the exotic grocery store that sells flaked eel and dried sea horses (above photo, lower right). That top photo is just the green tea section!

Cheap household goods with the MADE IN CHINA seal on the bottom take on a whole new meaning here. Just look at those spatulas and ladles marked at $1.95! And the most gorgeous dishes and tea sets priced at next to nothing. I really don’t have the need or space for anything, but gosh, it’s fun to look. Those little aluminum dumpling tins on the bottom right were something like 20cents a piece? Let me tell you, it took a lot of restraint for me to avoid buying a dozen for a TBD art project…but the last thing I need is more stuff to store. Got to keep my ~~hoarding~~ storage situation in check. Still managed to sneak away with a few odds and ends, including a lantern revamp I’ll post tomorrow, but I have a feeling I’ll be coming back for those dumpling dishes real soon!

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