Red Shoe Studio

Bless this House, (please)

Not to sound irreverent or anything although after almost 3 weeks on the market, lots of action but nary a nibble, I'm about to dig up Saint Joseph and give him a good talking to!
We seem to have fallen into a housekeeping routine unlike any I've ever experienced...for instance, I'll always make my bed when I'm visiting family or friends, it just seems polite, but I'll usually change the sheets before I make it at home. Guess I like the rumpled bed look...these days my son is begging to spend the nights at his dad's house so I won't wake him up at the crack of dawn and make the bed with him still in it!
Then there's the cat who has lost any small sense of kitty privacy he ever had...if he heads toward the litter box for a quiet poo, I'm lurking around the corner with the scoop and a plastic baggy...
Gone too are the days of relaxed mealtimes...we have made the rounds of fast and slow food take-out options and have progressed to eating dinner if it comes out of a box that can immediately be thrown away.Let's put it this way, if you're even dreaming about a new place, think again. (And talk to me in a month or two. Either I will have turned over a new leaf and become the house proud woman I knew I always had in me, or we will have given up and started camping in the back yard to further reduce the mess of daily life!)

(What I daydream about as I mop the floors...)

Going for the gourd...

When I'm out in Colorado with my family, I love my time in the studio...a chance to be in there with my Dad, my daughter, if I'm lucky, Emma...while I did do some drawing and printmaking, I also tried my hand again with gourds. I adapted an idea from Bonnie Gibson's book Gourd: Southwest Gourd Techniques and Projects.

I used a whole gourd and the tops of several others to begin my barrel cactus project. The dried gourds are fairly easy to cut through, a keyhole saw, an exacto knife and small files are handy to have. Also, don't forget to wear a dust mask while you're cutting, cleaning and filing. The gourds are full of seeds and a type of mold that isn't good to breath in.

The clean and filed pieces...

At this point, the instructions called for painting the individual pieces but I chose to wood burn some simple lines. (These are NOT my "man" hands..thanks Dad for the demo!)

I used Eco-Flo leather dyes from Tandy to color the cactus base and flowers. An awl and a little white glue made it easy to attach the flowers to the cactus. I added a few toothpick "thorns" and a spray coat of acrylic and it was done!

Gourd gallery:

Dad's gourd...he wove pine needles around the top and used leather dyes sprayed with alcohol to give it the interesting color and patina.

This is a painted gourd I made a couple of years ago. I used turquoise earrings for the hummingbird's eyes and self-adhesive copper tape for the rim.

A pueblo gourd, wood burned and painted. I also drilled little star holes in the back and painted the inside so it could be used as a votive holder.

A buggy gourd with a beaded rim...

 

Hello?

Is anybody still out there? I never intended to take such a long break, but summer and vacations have intervened...a recap...wonderful three days in Florence where I had us on the go from dawn to well past dusk. We splurged on a little hotel on the Arno near the Ponte Vecchio. Teeny-tiny bathroom, but a wonderful balcony where we could sit and watch the river and the people go by.
Seen in Florence:

David, of course...

and "the " doors, double of course...

a grotto, something I've always wanted to see and the over-the-topness of it was perfect!

stencil-graffiti for my collection, (luckily there wasn't too much of it)

a fantastic fountain...

quick trip to see friends near Nice where I tried these...

and these

and gained back the few pounds I'd lost hoofing it on the cobblestones of Florence.