Author Archives: zefiart

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About zefiart

Blogger, DIY-er, poodle lover, graphic designer, dog groomer, recycler, artist, wonder woman in my spare time.

paper storage

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 Its been a while since I last made something for the house.
Well… I made the LP side table, but I made that a couple of weeks ago. I’ve just been so busy with other stuff. But yesterday I got a bee in my bonnet and started 4 projects. I’ve finished two of them but can only share one today as I don’t have photos of the other one yet.
This is my new paper storage solution! I was inspired by this on Pinterest. I had an old stool with its top broken off and I’ve been meaning to make this little beauty for quite a while.
All I did was clean it up, I liked the chippy paint look. Then I got some burlap, some of the small cotton bags which came in the lot of flour bags I bought a while ago which I made cushions and kitchen curtains out of, my staple gun and got to work.
That’s the manual staple gun… not the air powered one. Love that sucker, but really for a job this small ‘Zefi powered’ was enough.
Now, of course, I’ve got my left thumb all wrapped up again. In vet wrap. Yep. Love the stuff. Turns out its just as good for humans as for pets! I really was sick of the physio wrapping my thumb in sticky stuff that took the first five layers of skin with it when it came off.
I love this vet wrap stuff so much I’ve just bought 3 more rolls of it on ebay. I always used to have vet wrap for the dogs and for wrapping poodle ears on show days, but I’m down to the dregs of my last roll. A 10cm dark blue roll. Since I have to cut it in half to strap up my thumb I’ve ordered the 5cm rolls in pink, purple and red.
Cool!

Meanwhile, back to the matter at hand….
I turned the stool upside down cause I liked the feet being on top. I sewed the cotton bags to the burlap, then stapled the burlap to the sides of the stool.
Lastly I put a bit of masonite underneath, fitted some small castors and voila.
I now have somewhere to put my rolls of paper instead of shoving them willy-nilly into a crate under the desk and scramble to catch them every time I knock the crate and they spill out, unravelling all over the floor.
And I didn’t just make stuff. I did some tidying and sorting as well. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but when the poodles went possum hunting while I was away, they did some major redecorating in the small shed I use for garden storage, the ride on mower, brushcutter and the overflow of stuff I will ‘get to one day’ and can’t fit in my workshop.
Today I tackled that and cleaned it out. Threw out a couple of mouse infested suitcases. Sorted boxes and crates from wire baskets and metal boxes. Stacked my old frames neatly. Found things I’d forgotten I had. Re-acquainted myself with the amount of projects I have, waiting to be tackled.
I actually love having piles of stuff everywhere. When I’m looking for that ‘something’ for a particular project, I just go looking through the sheds. Its like going tip shopping but free!
I started looking for more chickens (since one hen ain’t gonna provide the eggs we need) and geese for Wayne. I can find chickens on gumtree… but very few geese! Who knew they’d be so hard to find!
I’ve also started getting my gear ready for my first attempt at running a workshop on making stuff from found objects. My office looks, once again, like a herd of wildebeest lived in here for a week. Not harmoniously either.
However, I’m not feeling too bad about it. I heard on TV a week or so ago that the more creative a person is, the messier their desk is.
I am INCREDIBLY creative. My mess flows over my desk, pools on the floor and spreads out onto the coffee table in the living room. With splashes in the kitchen, on bookcases and even the deck.
In my ‘bee in bonnet’ mood today, I also got a haircut (short short short!), bought some embroidery thread and picked up my cow painting from the gallery. I love it but I seriously don’t have enough room for that much work in this house. Not enough walls. I need to sell it… or…
I’m gonna need a bigger house!
Anyway, I feel great having actually done a few new things around here! I really am happiest when I’m doing stuff for the house.
Wayne is already dreading my upcoming living room makeover… first the living room… then the whole house!
z
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its a record!

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I figured it was about time to share another project I made for the house instead of all the arty farty stuff I’ve been doing lately.
When Merrill moved to Victoria, she left behind a ton of vinyl LPs which belonged to her mother. As usual my reply to “Do you want these?” was “Yeah. I can do something with those.”
I had no idea what, though I did have visions of melting LPs in the oven to make bowls, cutting them to make LP mosaic’s… and tons of other things.
One thing I never considered was making a side table out of one! Then I saw this photo and I knew I had to do it!
 
I had the LPs, after all. (Thanks Merrill’s mom).
I had the perfect little base. I think it was originally intented to hold a pot or something. When I found it it was just metal legs.
Whatever.
A bit lot of Liquid Nails and couple of wedges to level it later, here is my LP side table!
Ok. These photos are uninspiring, I just plonked it in front of the little bookcase I put burlap on and snapped away. I could have dressed it up, moved furniture to create a cosy corner, staged the shot… but hey. I was busy! Give me a break!
At least I vacuumed our disgusting carpet.
Which is going this summer!!! See, we need a new wood heater. That means we’ll be needing a new (bigger) hearth so there’ll be carpet lifting involved anyway. May as well go the whole hog and lift carpet from the entire room!
What we’ll find is that about 1/3rd of the living room has old floorboards like the ones in the photos below (yeah, I was shamed into trying to take prettier photos) and that 2/3rds is chipboard flooring.
So, come summer holidays I have a huge job ahead of me. Not only do I have to find the right wood heater for us, but I have to remove a huge living room full of carpet (which will be recycled around the sheds and garden!), I also have to find a new flooring solution.
Ideas are welcome.
Naturally the best alternative is to put down proper floorboards where the chipboard is, remove the vinyl from the bathroom and kitchen and finish the lot.
That’d be nice but expensive.
I could put down more vinyl, good for a house with dogs, easy to clean, yada yada. There are some excellent designs around these days.
Or I could just go the cheap and labour intensive route and paint/stain the floors myself…
I guess I’ll decide once I get the carpet lifted and the new heater in.
 Meanwhile my new LP side table’s been holding paint brushes while I was working on my latest paintings. The plan is to move it next to my armchair so it can hold my coffee cup or my scissors while I work on sewing projects in front of the tv.
‘Cause, doesn’t everyone need a handy little side table to hold scissors?
z

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romeo may not live much past four

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Yep.

I’m not impressed.

Romeo killed another of our ducks this morning.

See, Wayne has been taking the dogs out for a run in the paddocks every morning when he goes out to feed the chickens and ducks.

Normally the poodles have been really good with the feathered critters. They ignore them as they run around sniffing wildlife trails. They’ll run through a flock of them, scattering them and ignoring all the flapping and squalking…

But one duck, acting differently… well, turns out that was too much for Romeo (‘duck f@$ker’ as Wayne affectionately calls him).

One duck has been nesting in the fallen tree branches in the top paddock. We only noticed it when Romeo chased her out of there a few weeks ago but didn’t think much of it.

Till today that is.

When he not only chased her out but caught her.

Sigh.

And she was sitting on eggs.

Double sigh.

Wayne is up there now disposing of ‘cover’ to avert another such disaster.

We are now down to 8 ducks. Lately only 7 have been turning up for feedings, which means there’s another one nesting somewhere.

Did I mention we’re also down to one chicken and one rooster?

Not due to Romeo, he’s innocent of that much at least.

Since our chickens are free range we don’t always know whats going on number-wise. We had as many as 6 isa browns and 2 black hens at one time. One black hen was killed by *guess who* when she landed in the yard. One red hen was found dead, decapitated. Most likely by a quoll. They do that apparently. I found another dead in the hen house the other day… no injuries that I could see. The others have just disappeared. I know the rooster has been very rough on a couple of the hens, so I’m betting they ran away.

So now we need more chickens.

And I’m thinking I may buy a couple of geese for Wayne.

He loves geese. And geese can hold their own against dogs. That’ll teach Romeo some respect.

sigh.

Life on a farm ain’t all rainbows.

z

a day in the life

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Today is Romeo’s birthday.

I’m a bad mother.

If his brother Merlin’s owner hadn’t mentioned it to me, I would have missed it.

Again.

Yesterday I groomed the kids, the poodles anyway. Barney always manages to find ‘important work’ to do on the other side of the property when its time for a clip, bath and blowdry.

Wayne’s not impressed cause this time I left some slight bell bottom bracelets on their legs. I like them like that even if it is higher maintenance than clipping them off all over. But tomorrow the kids are having a visitor. A lady who wants to buy a standard poodle.

I’m like an ambassador for standard poodles in Tasmania. When someone is considering a standard poodle I invite them round to meet my two. If they can survive that, then they know a standard is for them. If they run screaming, well… they might consider a goldfish instead.

Things have been busy around here lately. On the positive side I’ve been on a roll regarding my art lately. Firstly I got a 2nd at the DVRA Art Competition. Then I got 1st Prize at the Salvaged Art Competition, and the project I worked on with some guys at work won 1st Prize in the amateur category. Plus I sold the painting of the quoll from the DVRA comp. I now have either half the price of a trip to Greece, most of the price of a new laptop, or a start towards a new bathroom or kitchen….

Other positives are: The lawn has been mowed. Some plants have been found amongst the weeds. The rain tanks are full. I caught up with the dish washing and the laundry.

On the negative side the dishes keep piling up, another load of washing appeared when I wasn’t looking, the rain tanks are overflowing, I can actually hear the grass growing thanks to the rain we’ve had, I’m sure there is less lawn and more weeds than ever this year, and I was unable to locate some of the plants I put in last year, even once I’d cleared up the weeds around the place they were last spotted.

On Sunday I finally started a project I had planned to do last summer. I hate having birds nest in our roof but I hate the thought of baby birds in nests dying of starvation cause I locked out their parents. So the idea was to put bird wire around the eaves at the end of summer, once the nests were empty.

Of course the end of summer snuck up on me quite suddenly with rain and wind and I put off the wire thing till the weather was better.

Then, this year, spring snuck up on me and suddenly there were birds building nests in the roof again.

Time to try out that new air stapler Wayne got me a few months ago. I already had some bird wire (only 10 metres of it, but that was a blessing in disguise), I had staples, I had the air stapler… I had a friend to help. I had ladders. I was set.

We managed to do the short side of the house plus a bit around the corner. My friend cut the wire, then held it up for me on her ladder. I balanced precariously on my ladder, wielding the staple gun and missing two out of every three shots.

Serioulsy, those staples are SO narrow.

By the time we’d put up 10 metres we were done.

…I mean, we were done. The job wasn’t. I had to get up on the ladder again on Monday and cut and staple bits where the vertical boards on the house left gaps. I had to add a bit of extra wire where I’d totally missed a gap, allowing our feathered friends to still get in an out and continue construction of their mansions in our roof. I also hung up some old cds on string from the wire to further discourage building without permits.

The cds looks kinda ‘redneck’ but I prefer to think of them as a cheap, practical and environmentally friendly way of discouraging birds from squatting in our roof. The downside is they make a lot of noise thumping on the house in the wind. I’ll get used to it. Better than finding our insulation in the driveway, pulled out by birds extending to put in a pool room.

The birds aren’t the only things I’ve evicted this week. Remember Ponsonby, the black possum who moved into the casita? I did love seeing his little pink nose and his tail hanging down as he watched me do stuff in there.

What I didn’t enjoy was the full scale destruction the dogs caused trying to get him. Or the possum poop. Everywhere.

So, we bought a possum trap and trapped him. Then we released him in the bush.

Actually, Wayne released him in the bush.

First he gave me this long lecture about how FAR away I had to release him cause possums come back. Kind of like ‘homing possums’. I was going to take him up the hills opposite our place. About 10-15 klms away.

But Wayne decided he’d do it. And he just drove up our road for about 3 klms and let him go.

If Ponsonby comes back I’ll find it incredibly hard to not do the smugly superior thing…  

I told you so!

Man the weather’s been wierd lately. Strong winds. And rain. Lots of rain. I was woken up last night by rain pelting down and thunder so long and loud the house shook!

Our creek is flowing like Niagara Falls again, and the paddocks have more than one river running through them. Poor Wayne was out there this afternoon with his bucket and spade trying to direct the flow.

Even the ducks are looking water-logged.

z

art from trash – the plastic fantastic chandelier

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I’ve been trying to post a bit more often, like I used to, but you know how things go. You work, you get home tired, you work more at home, you make stuff to sell, you groom dogs, you clean house, wash clothes, think about mowing the lawn…
Then you have to attend functions and exhibitions where you win 1st prize…
Yeah! You heard me!
I won first prize at the Kingborough Council Salvaged Art Competition!!!!!!!!
This is the winning entry as it was when I was putting the finishing touches on it at home in the living room. I’d put a hook in a beam on the ceiling and one of us or one of the dogs would brush by and it would make hollow plastic clunking noises like a badly tuned windchime every time we walked past it.
The thought behind it was that I wanted to make a chandelier. Something large and pretty but out of ‘rubbish’… Plastic cups and old tuperware lids which I found at tip shops and in the bottom of my cupboard.
The ‘base’ for the chandelier is a large plastic clock I found at the tip shop. It was perfect!
I used wire, odd beads and crystals to give it a bid of bling and sparkle. Then I got 2 four meter strings of battery operated fairy lights so it would light up. The idea was to make it possible to light it when it was hung for exhibition without needing to wire it in.
Here it is in the competition. Hard to see the lights in the bright gallery.
There was one downside… somehow the lights would not set to ‘ON’ but stayed on ‘Blinking’. Not the effect I was after. If truth be told I wanted it to be full of fairy lights… a tangle of them above the clock base and going up towards the ceiling. 
Still, I can’t complain. 
I WON!
To make the night even more special, the Roadmap Bookcase I had worked so hard to pull together with the guys I work with on the Revamp program won 1st prize in the Amateur Artist category!
These are the same guys I made the footstool repurposed to shelf with. Here is the shelf at the gallery as well.
I was feeling pretty darn good last night!!!!
Wayne and I had other entries. I’d entered my recycled bag (above) and Wayne entered his wire eagle and nest sculpture.
And this cute little bird made of wire is another of Wayne’s creations which was entered.
Well, enough bragging for one post I guess…
Better go deflate my head.
z
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a broken plate

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This is a project I worked on in conjunction with a participant at Cosmos, where I work. Someone had broken a plate into 2 very nice large pieces and I thought it’d be perfect to try something I’d wanted to try for ages…
Somewhere on one of my Pinterest browsing days I came across this image and it stuck with me. 
The raised, obvious mending on a broken plate, using gold. Gorgeous.
I gave the biggest of the two pieces to a lady at work who does the most intricate pen drawings and asked her to fill the plate with whatever she felt like. I then took it home and tried to create a similar look without the benefit of a kintsugi repair kit (cause I could find them nowhere on ebay).
On the way home I managed to break it into smaller pieces… but thats ok. It still works!
I used some glue I had on hand which said it would bond glass, and when it was tacky I sprinkled it with gold leaf.
Its not quite the same, but I still think its a good effect. This is one of the pieces we entered at the Art from Trash competition. Hopefully it will sell. The artist will be thrilled!
z

the derwent valley regional arts competition

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“I live here too” – mixed media on canvas

I mentioned that I’d entered 2 paintings in the Derwent Valley Regional Arts competition. The theme was “Hidden Treasures of the Derwent Valley”.
One of the works I entered was a mixed media on canvas of an eastern quoll. I love those little guys and it just kills me to see them lying dead on the roads on my way to work in the mornings.
I used the local paper, pastel and charcoal, glue and coffee. Talk about working outside my comfort zone!
The other one I entered was acrylic on canvas – much more ‘normal’ even though I used the acrylic like watercolour on the background.
“I see you” – acrylic on canvas

Its a much freer painting than my usual work. I successfully resisted the urge to overwork it.
The cow didn’t do that well, but the possum won 2nd prize in Mixed Media. That’s something to be pleased about! Especially how I’d been feeling about my art lately.
Guess I’ll keep doing it.
z

back at art school (sort of)

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Wayne and I are back at art school!
A few weeks ago we started a course on Art From Trash at the Tasmanian College of the Arts.
Till I went into the art school I had no idea just how much I’ve missed being in a space like that. The smell of oil paint and ink, the messy, creative, interesting, fun and just plain wierdness of an art school…
Ah. Memories.
The course has been great fun. Its about changing the way we look at things and how we express them through our art. Its about experimenting with our own work and not being afraid to step outside our comfort zone. 
I’m loving being back in a creative space like that, where art is all around you. The art school is in a beautiful old building on the waterfront in Hobart, one of my favourite places in Tasmania.
This week we had to present a minimum of 3 pieces of work and our journals to be evaluated. Next we have to give a presentation on our work and we’re finished. I have to tell you, I was really stressed about what work I would do for the course and was blocked because of my depression due to my hands being sore.
In the end I stuck with my recycling and re-purposing theme, but with a slight twist. To make it ‘arty-er’ of course! I made my pieces from trash but I also made them slightly autobiographical.
When the course started we were asked to pick three words which relate to our work and our interests. My words were Everyday, Surprising, and Remade. My interest always being in taking common objects and remaking them into something functional in a fun way.
In order to step outside my comfort zone however, I had to take my words and step a bit further into the ‘art’ abyss. I’m not sure I quite succeeded, but I tried to make things which had no real function, rather made a statement.
The Dead Art Basket was one piece, and really, it failed in the no function department. It was born out of frustration and gloominess about my work. Its a basket made using ruined brushes, an old pie tin as a base, plastic rings off molasses buckets and wire. Inside the basket I tore up pieces of my work which I never finished because I hated.
This is how I presented the basket at the gallery for evaluation.
Next cab off the rank was something which is a big part of my life: dogs. I made a dog figure using wire, dog hair which I felted, some possum fur I found in the woodshed and some dryer lint to add different texture and colour. I called this Hair of the Dog.


I decided to leave the wire exposed in places to show the structure of the dog instead of making him more realistic. He’s kind of the Frankenstein of dogs isn’t he? His tail wags too.
This is him in the gallery. On a dirty plinth.
Last is That Won’t Hold Water, a humorous little piece composed of an old water bag and a retro net shopping bag. The old water bag was in the garage and I saw the net bag in a tip shop and couldn’t pass it by. I had no idea what to do with it at the time.
There’s meaning to this piece as well… I mean there’s a connection to the piece and my life at the moment.
Here it is in the gallery. Ignore the sticky tape attachment to the wall. Its not a REAL exhibition, just an exercise in setting out our work in order to showcase it and convey a message so I didn’t want to punch holes in the wall.
My three pieces were all presented simply and rather starkly on white. I kept it simple. The common thread with mine was that everything except the wire and glue was rescued from, or destined for, the trash. Plus a bit of whimsy.
I’ll share Wayne’s creations another time. He was a smarty pants. He presented FIVE pieces. 
Teachers pet!
z

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i’ve been busy, ok?

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I’ve been busy. So get off my case.
I haven’t had time to blog.
Usually I make time. I know. But this time I really over extended myself.
You know I believe I’m superwoman, right?
Well, turns out I’m not.
This month I bit off more than I could chew. I tried, but I had to spit something out. A few somethings in fact. Like blogging. And vacuuming.
Now that things have slowed down a bit, I thought I might take the time to catch up on a few things. 
Like blogging.
And vacuuming.
Really.
Even the dogs are ready to move out if the standard of living doesn’t pick up around here.
So, what have I been doing that’s kept me away from here and enabled me to build a close relationship with the dust bunnies under couch?
Well, I’m still working 5 days a week at the moment.
I’m still grooming one day a week. 
I entered an art competition, a salvaged art competition, committed myself to making some items for a shop, and started an art course one evening a week. I did 2 paintings, 3 salvaged art projects, 3 art projects for the course and am still making products for the shop…
No one does excess like I do.
The only things I’ve managed to do outside of the above are:
1. do the washing on a regular basis
2. do the dishes on a semi regular basis
3. clean the house once or twice
4. ride Cass a few times
5. sleep occasionally
5. discover I have osteoarthritis in my left thumb and a wrist injury in my right hand
6. put up the coat rack I brought home from my grandmother’s house on Paros.
This coat hanger now hangs outside our kitchen door in the mud room and holds scarves and beanies.
I love those little faces on the hooks.
On the arthritis and injury, its a horrible bummer. I need my hands for everything I do. (Like, doesn’t everyone?) But you know me! I’m always doing stuff, making things, painting…
I was very depressed for a few weeks.
For one thing, how long can I go on grooming dogs if I have a problem with my hands? I love grooming dogs. I love dogs! I hate the thought of letting my little friends down by  not being able to groom them any more. Plus, I was rather counting on doing more grooming and less work in a ‘real job’ in the future.
Now I have to rethink everything.
I’m feeling a bit better now, though still sore. I ate a lot of cake and chocolate. That helped.
As long as I can be creative I know I’ll find myself again and be happy.
z

revamped footstool

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Yes, yes. I know its been a long time between posts. To be honest I’ve just been too wrapped up in my own little world to want to get online, much less blog.
But here I am… sharing a project from work.
Some of you already know I work as a disability support worker as my ‘real job’ to support my art habit. I’m lucky enough to be able to do some creative work in that role with some of the guys I work with.
For instance, this repurposed footstool is a project I’ve been working on with some young men in one of those programs.
The aim of the program is to find, fix up and revamp items found in tip shops in order to develop the guy’s skills and produce something which can be sold to buy materials for the next project.
This footstool had been hanging around in the store room for a long time. It was just crying out to be reborn into something pretty…
We went looking for bits of dowel, finials and knobs. We drilled holes, attached knobs and stained dowel. We painted it a nice light blue colour, then sanded, repainted and re-sanded…
The lowly footstool was reborn into a cute, handy little kitchen shelf. 
Or bathroom shelf.
Or craftroom shelf.
I took it home to dress it up and photograph it cause the guys really do want to sell it. They’re proud of it and rightly so. I think it looks terrific!
The rods come out so you can put rolls of paper on them instead of hanging tea towels or pots and pans. Its both useful and pretty.
We’ve entered it in the Kingborough Salvaged Art competition and I’m posting it on Facebook. It is definitely for sale. We’ll be selling it through a silent auction.
If you’re interested in buying this one-of-a-kind piece of recycled art, please contact me on zefiart@gmail.com and put in your bid. I’ll be keeping track of all bids and at the end of the competition, on October 6th, I’ll announce the winner on Facebook and by private email.
The money raised through the sale of this masterpiece will be used to create MORE masterpieces in the future!
Go on! Make a bid!

z

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