The Ultimate Cast-offs....

I happened upon an As-Is Goodwill on a side street the other day...Funny...I've been on that side street before...How had I NEVER seen it?

As most As-Is' are, it was a bit smelly and a whole lot messy.

Big cardboard "crates" on pallets.

Easy in. Easy out.

This is where you find the best stuff...the stuff the regular RETAIL Goodwill's don't want or that didn't sell.

I found a handful of thimbles. Some clothing to use in a couple of sewing projects.

And this "hulking" beast...

This guy weighs a ton! Well, not literally a ton, but let's just say, if you dropped it or got a finger caught under it, you would know it...

It was literally a steal...It's an adding machine from about 1939. It STILL WORKS!!! It's missing a #1, but...

I'm trying to decide whether to order a replacement key off of Etsy or Ebay...the keys cost more than I paid for the WHOLE thing...

OR

dismantle it for the guts, the body and the keys for art creations...?

What would you do???

*****

The other AWESOME find was this...

It was in one of those cardboard crates...it has A LOT of CHARACTER! And no one wanted it!!!

It doesn't smell. It's not covered in pet hair. It's perfect!!!

Soft. Muted. Worn.

 Very, very, very worn.

 The tattered edges.  

The holes.

The stains.

...at .79 cents per pound, just over $3.00, I think it will make the perfect base for some wall art...

Add a few buttons. Some meaningful quotes, poetry or song lyrics. A bit more dimension and texture with wire, paint, more fabric layers....

Now I just need to decide whether I should make ONE LARGE piece, or cut it up into multiple sections, medium and small, and create numerous pieces...This quilt seems larger than a full, but not quite queen-size.

I love it!

I love the price!

I love the tattered patina!

I love the canvas in front of me.....

Lots of options here...

Technique Tuesday....A Simply Summer Necklace.

My first Technique Tuesday video for ICE Resin....

How to go from this....

...and this...

....to this

...in just a few simple steps.

The hardest part is resisting touching the resin before it's ready to take out of the mold... :-)

Stay tuned...for next week's Technique Tuesday...I have more up my sleeve...

Light Through Yonder Window Breaks....

Tuesday night, Ty's darling girlfriend, Jania, assisted me in hanging the two old windows in the opening between the two retail areas in the future home of the Rusty Monkey...yes, the windows are still filthy...but, I just was too excited to get them hung up!!!! I'm sure you understand...lol

As they are just hanging in the opening, I'm waiting for the lightning bolt to hit with the perfect fasteners at the bottom...dominoes, square-head nails, blocks...You'll know as soon as I know...but there needs to be something there to keep them from swinging freely. In my house, they could just hang, but in a "public" place, I'd feel more comfortable with them not.

Janice and I will be off on a field trip on Saturday to pick up MORE of these cute windows.... Yay! I can see window workshops in our future....
Even though I'm super, duper excited about the whole process, it is a process and with all the other LIFE that is going on right now, it will be a couple more months of tinkering on the space...I can't complain, because it's a fun process and I have NO problem what-so-ever playing in an unfinished space....

In the meantime, I'll just keep writing down ideas in my journal and tinkering...it WILL be worth every moment of planning and dreaming...

*****

Here's my grandmother's hutch against the dictionary page/starch papered wall...I'm liking it, but I think it needs a little updating in the handle, knob and hinge department...the 1990's knobs are a bit on the boring side...and the brass hinges are just, well, dated.

Here's a peek at the hutch through the dirty windows...

It's SO cute in there....and every. little. bit. of setting up and planning is making me giddy with excitement....

Comments from the Peanut Gallery....

Welcome to this week's feature on 

ICE Resin Creative Team Wednesday. 

Every month, each of us on the Creative Team are given a challenge to create from a box of goodies received from ICE Resin. A recent theme was Mixed Metals.

Oh yeah! I love me some metal, that's for sure. So with that rolling around my head and a new Bezeled Ring in my hand, I created a fun, interactive piece aptly titled:

Comments from the Peanut Gallery...

Here's my story.... 

*****
With our Creative Team challenge of Mixed Metals, I’ve embellished an old vinegar bottle with all-sorts of mixed metal bits and bobs. Bronze. Silver. Gold. Rusty.

When I first laid eyes on the SLK Bezeled Ring, the texture reminded me of a peanut shell. That was my jumping off point. Using my smooth jaw jeweler's pliers, I gently bent the ring into a peanut shape using the actual peanut shell as my form. The interior of the 1/2 shell had such a beautiful, naturally stippled color, that I simply cast resin into it and let the resin work its magic!


The bezel portion of the ring was filled with thickened resin and fitted with a children's "fat" pencil I found at a dollar store. I cut the pencil very short to represent a pencil that has been worn to down to a nub from a lifetime of comments from the peanut gallery. You know the ones…funny, sarcastic, off-color…sometimes welcomed, sometimes not. We’ve all stuck our foot in our mouth from time to time. We’ve all been part of the peanut gallery!

True to my nature of using cast-offs, the pencil and the bottle were embellished with a sewn brown waxed paper bag leftover from a friends cookie exchange party.

With brown Staz On stamped words like "two-cents, wisecracks, opinion, input and remarks" and paper sealed letters spelling out P. E. A. N. U. T ., the theme is further enhanced. I coated the top portion of the bottle to create a bit of texture.

Adding to the silly-ness, an oval hobnail bezel fitted with the word Hinkey dangles from the rusty chicken wire. I first heard the word Hinkey in the movie The Fugitive. Its slang definition means ‘strange or unusual’. Perfect - as our family is a bit unusual. We are a HUGE movie watching family and we are constantly quoting various scripts in our day-to-day conversations. So when I found the words in an old music book –

- Hinkey Dinkey Parlez Vous -

I simply used my new SLK oval template and the fitting was easy!

I have begun filling the bottle with small fortunes and my hope is that over time, the bottle will be filled to the brim with fortunes, small notes, and other such fun tidbits!

If I wore jewelry, the peanut/pencil could easily be wire wrapped and turned into a cute necklace too!

I'm guessing I’d get at least a few random comments...

ba da boom! :-)

SLK supplies can be found online at www.iceresin.com  - ICE Resin; Bezeled Ring SLK611; Bronze Wire; Oval Hobnail Bezel SLK612; Circle Collage Template (oval shape)

*****
Be sure to visit the ICE Resin website regularly to see what my creative teammates are up to. There's a huge variety of jewelry and mixed media going on!