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Ring in the holidays with some paper bells. Well, the ones I'm talking about don't exactly ring but they sure are pretty!  They are lots of fun and pretty easy to make too.
Click the image below and start making some bells!  On second thought, I guess you could make these bells ring. Just add a little jungle bell at the bottom. I'm going to have to try one like that next. Happy folding!  The quote above is exactly how I felt when the calendar read December 1st last Thursday. It made me laugh too because I think it's a pretty common yearly sentiment. November really did seem to go by faster than ever before.  "December is a simple wish that brings spectacular moments." - Unknown Did you miss last year's 8-pt Paper Star tutorial? You can still find it on my YouTube Channel. Just click on the picture below.
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 Nope, It's the opera house in Zürich, Switzerland. From the nighttime lighting in this photo, it does look like it might be a good place for a Halloween costume party but the evening I spent there was anything but spooky. It was one of the highlights of my recent trip to Switzerland. We saw the Italian opera 'Nabucco' and yes (fortunately!) there were English and German subtitles on a screen above the stage. We had a pretty good idea of what was going on because before going we watched a hilarious video that used little plastic toy people to give a synopsis of the story.  When I say we, I'm referring to me and my friend Bea who I used to work with here in Connecticut. She has since moved back to her home country. This was the day I arrived after not seeing each other in person for 6 years. It's such an incredibly beautiful country I wanted to share a few photos with you.  A 30-minute ride on the world's steepest cogwheel train brought us to see this view from Mount Pilatus.  Older villages like Carona have some of the prettiest windows and doors.  I bet palm trees are not the first thing you think of when you think of Switzerland. I was surprised too but Lugano and the southern village of Morcote reminded me very much of southern California.  The medieval architecture in the city of Lucerne was stunning.  Autumn color along the Rhein River, floating towards Stein am Rhein, Switzerland. "It was a beautiful, bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it." ~ Diana Gabaldon, 'Outlander'  On these late days of summer, there's been a lot of activity in my garden. Hungry caterpillars munching away on the butterfly weed and bumble bees gathering pollen during the day and then settling in for the night, wings tucked as they curl up inside the cosmos flowers. Squirrels, always comical to watch, have been feasting on the plentiful seed pods of my witch hazel tree and I love seeing the occasional bunny out for a stroll at dusk. 
If you follow me on Instagram you've probably seen the unusual stitching project I've been working on since early July. It started when my husband was getting rid of an old pair of gray camouflage shorts that were falling apart. Knowing me so well, he asked if I might want them for something before he tossed them in the rag bin. The worn pattern was so intriguing that I knew I wanted to stitch on them.  Since I had already mended the shorts once by machine there was some messy zig-zag stitching that I wanted to cover up. That's how the dyed cheesecloth came in and it was handy that I already had a pile with a variety of colors to choose from.  This is what one of my Instagram friends said: "The peaceful sereneness of this 'landscape' puts me on the shore with the gentle waves washing over my feet as I walk, and little tide pools all along the way with the possibility of hidden treasures inside." When I started stitching I had no plan or specific intention but I did begin to think about water as the piece evolved so I really love her description. 'Tide Pool' sounds like the perfect title. There's still more threadbare fabric so I may have to stitch a few companions : )
 Japanese Anemone in my Waterford, CT garden The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. ~ W. B. Yeats Since the last studio update, I've finished several more organizing projects. Each one I finish brings another bit of joy to my working space and I'm finding cardboard to be is an amazing building material! This is the desk top shelving unit I showed last time when it was almost finished. I wasn't able to find drawer pulls that would work for the 2 drawers so I made these strap-type pulls from the same fabric the boxes are covered with instead.  I cut strips of the fabric wide enough so it could fold over for a sturdy double thickness and glued it together by ironing with Heatn'Bond.  With a sharp exacto blade I cut 2 slits in the face of each drawer and slid the fabric strips through the slits. I made sure the strips were long enough to overlap when I glued them to the opposite side. I even added a divider to the smaller drawer for storing sewing needle packets. Having them stand up makes them easy to flip through when searching for a particular needle.  The second shelving unit (on the left) for storing paper was also made from cereal boxes following the same process as the first. Painting a cardboard magazine holder that I already had now stores the larger papers I need for messy gluing projects and smaller papers for writing notes. I used washi tape as trim to clean up around the raw edges of the holder.  Depending on my projects, I have spurts where I use my sewing machine and other times it sits idle for months. I don't have room for a dedicated sewing table so my husband came up with the idea of attaching a drawer slide unit under one of the shelves on the bookcase and attaching a piece of plywood as a pull out table. When I'm not using the sewing machine I just move it to the bottom shelf of the bookcase to store until next time. A perfect solution I never would have thought of myself.  The table sticks out about three inches when pushed in which is not a problem and gives me twelve inches of work space when fully extended. When I'm not using the sewing machine I just move it to the bottom shelf of the bookcase to store until next time. A perfect solution I never would have thought of myself.
I removed the closet door a long time ago because it took up so much wall space when it was open. I put a tension rod on the inside of the door space and hung a piece of muslin as the curtain. I was at the thrift store not long ago and purchased what I thought was a pretty striped table cloth. It turned out to be a shower curtain and it wasn't even the right size for my table.  I thought it might be a nice touch of color for my studio but it was about 10" too short. Since it was plenty wide enough I was able to trim off a section and stitch it to the top. It's so much prettier than that dull off-white muslin curtain. Well, there is and it was last Saturday, May 14th. Initiated by Kolaj Magazine in 2018, it's an annual international celebration of collage. Artists and art venues are invited to hold events on that day to share the art medium that excels at bringing different things together to create new forms and new ways of thinking.
Above are the four I created while leading the class and watching the timer. Below you can see some that were done by those who took the class. Impressed? I sure am!
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AuthorHi, I'm Kathy a collage, eco-print artist, and rust enthusiast who loves to teach and help you along on your creative journey. Archives
March 2023
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