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.

birdwire cloche becomes a birdcage

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I decided to try my hand at a wire cloche. I’ve seen photos of them on Pinterest and I love them.
Let me tell you… its not something I’m going to be rushing out to do again any time soon! Its really not that easy to shape birdwire. There are tin bits of birdwire all over the place in the workshop!
However, it came up ok. I had a wooden base missing its top so I created a wire cloche which would fit in it, then added a broken drawer pull as a handle to the top.
This is what it looks like with a photo in it.

It was okay.

Not great.

Just okay.

I wasn’t entirely happy with it.

So I did some more work on it. For one thing, I found the perfect  base for it. A very old, discoloured filigree silver dish. It must have held a cystal bowl at some stage. Anyway, it was perfect.

Goodbye wooden base, hello gorgeous silver base.

Now it was a birdcage, not a cloche.

So, what does a birdcage need? A perch… and a bird!

I’d seen these gorgeous little fat birds made of fabric on Pinterest but I seriously didn’t want to sew. So I made up my own birdie pattern and made it out of felt – I cut up a piece of wet felted ‘fabric’ I’d made, then felted colours over it to create a colourful little bird.

Here’s the finished product…

Don’t you just love the typewriter? A friend of mine found it on the side of the road on a hard rubbish collection day and had to fight off 2 guys to get it for me! What a friend!

Its all rusty, the bits are kind of welded together and no parts move, but isn’t it great? I think it’ll look great with the right plant growing around it on the porch. If I can find the right plant for the porch… Only succulents can survive summer on our porch!

z

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flyscreen pinboard

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This weathered old flyscreen has been hanging around my shed for a while. I can’t remember where I found it, and I had no idea what I’d do with it, but I loved the look of it, especially the metal flyscreen with a few rusty spots and a few small holes.

ie character.

Anyway, while considering what to make of it, my eye fell upon a piece of bulletin board I had… could I make it into a pinboard?
Yep.
The bulletin board was just the right thickness. I cut it to the right size and popped it into the frame from the ‘front’. I put a piece of plywood on the back to finish it off. 
Now the ‘back’ is the front. You can pin photos or notes onto it, putting the pins through the flyscreen into the bulletn board behind.
I added a bit of wire through the holes already in the frame where the hinges used to be, and it was ready to hang.

I pinned some photos of mom and dad on it for the photos. I’m really enjoying having all these old photos!

I sold this pinboard at the last market to a friend who owns a cafe. Maybe I’ll see it there next time I visit…

z

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while i’m reminiscing – scooter and the big bad cows

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http://poodlelane.com/ScooterBook/index.htm

While I was looking over my websites this morning, checking what needs to be updated, changed, making sure links still worked, I came across my links to the book I wrote about Scooter.

Its not that I’d forgotten I’d done this book, its just that I hadn’t looked at it for a long time.

I opened the links and looked at the preview page I’d set up for it, which lead to the Lulu page to buy the book. It was looking at the drawings that got me feeling nostalgic.

I sold all the original watercolours I’d done for this book on ebay after I’d finished the book. They were simple pen and ink and watercolour drawings, but they were so expressive. Now I wish I’d kept a few and framed them for myself.

Oh well. At least I still have a copy of the book.

I miss Scooter. He was such a character. A huge personality in a tiny package.

z

the lost blog is found again

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Billy, the great naked hunter, seconds before he dove into the river after some ducks.

Long ago, when I first started blogging, I was using Shine on Yahoo.

Then, one day, Yahoo changed its settings and you had to register and do some jumping through hoops to keep using Shine, which they’d changed as well… Don’t ask me. My brain stopped working when I went to post and found I had to log in and register differently. So I went looking for another, easy place to blog.

I tried to transfer all my old posts over to blogger.com but couldn’t find a way to do that, so I wrote it off as gone. I may be a whizz at doing design work on a computer, but when it comes to technical stuff… forget it!

After that, I couldn’t find my old blog anywhere. Shine no longer existed and it seemed the whole thing was lost forever.

When I did a search on google I found one post and from there I was able to find the whole thing. Only now its in archives.

I started blogging in May 2010. I set it up before my first trip to Greece since moving to Tasmania in 2003, so that I could keep in touch with friends while I was away, and to have a record of my trip. When I thought the blog was lost my only comfort was that I’d made a photobook of the trip and used posts from the blog in it.

Anyway, you can see the old blog and read posts by going to this link. It was a great trip and the posts I shared at that time were funny and I’m glad they’re not totally lost. All those family stories I shared… I didn’t want to have to post about them all again, like an old person telling the same stories over and over to a bored audience who can recite them word for word after all the times they’ve heard them.

It seems like such a long time ago.

I was living in Fentonbury, I still had Billy and Scooter and Pagan were still alive… sigh.

z

an old bathroom cabinet gets an update

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I’ve had this little cabinet for a long time now. Back when you could find solid timber bathroom cabinets at the tip shops. For the last few years these guys have become scarce. I’ve only seen plastic (yuck) or metal ones, usually that really awful rental flat stuff.
When I found this cabinet it had the same mirror (which shows its age) but it was painted in layers of thick paint – not in a chippy yummy way at all. Just yuck. The inside was stained and even yuckier…

What I did was sand all the paint off using a grinder with a sanding disc cause it was a serious job which called for the big guns. 
The back of the cabinet and inside of the door was rotten, so I kept the mirror but put in a new sheet of ply to cover the back. I replaced the back with some old tin stuff I’d found. I’m told its siding from an above ground swimming pool. I don’t know. I just liked the look of it.
The metal contrasts nicely with the old distressed timber inside…
And the back has some bits of rust and discolouration cause, you know… its OLD.
Finally, I coated it all with some satin varnish to finish it off.

Originally I’d made my own knob for the door but it broke – and the magnetic catch I put inside the door is really strong and my knob didn’t really give enough grip. So when I decided to revamp it last week I replaced the knob with a sash window pull. A nice old rusty one I had in my collection of drawer pulls and knobs.

When I was living in Fentonbury I had this little guy in my kitchen to hold coffee, tea, etc. Its never been used in a bathroom. But maybe, one day, if we ever get around to redoing our bathroom, it’ll find a place in there.
Unless I sell it first.
z
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what to do with an old rubbish bin lid

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One day, not too long ago, I found this galvanised iron lid at the tip shop.

I just had to have it. I loved the colour. Or should I say ‘discolouration’? It was marked with old paint and rust and who-knows-what-you’d-rather-not-know-about.

It was wonderful.

I took it home, gave it a good wash, a bit of a scrape with steel wool and it was clean but still colourfully trashy.

Since it was magnetic (see magnet on right hand side of above photo), I thought it’d be ideal as a magnet board for photos or notes or whatever…

But there was a handle in the middle. What to do with that?

Make it into a ‘whatever’ holder!!!

(I did mention I had a whole LOT of birdwire, didn’t I?)

I drilled a couple of holes on the top and bent some wire to make a hanging hook, and done.

The photos are my dad and a friend in cowboy costumes, and my mom and her brother at a dance.

I found a couple more lids at another tip shop a couple of weeks ago and grabbed them. Both of these ones sold at the last market. They were simpler versions of the one above – ie magnetic boards with a hanging hook. They came with 3 magnets made from buttons.

These two were reversible… you could pick which side you wanted to hang as the front – I love both colours. The old galvanised metal as well as the old fashioned green paint.
z
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the broken rose frame

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Have you ever had one of those days weeks months when your life just seems to be so busy it overwhelms you?

I’m having one of those months. I look at each week ahead of me and I groan at how many things I have booked in. Work, dogs to groom, meetings, appointments, other work, supplies or groceries to buy, things to fix, make, wash, etc.

Wayne is always lecturing me on how bad I am at prioritizing. That I have a busy week ahead of me and I go on and cram more stuff into it. That he virtually has to drag me out of the house to spend a bit of quality time just relaxing.

I always say that I can’t not do something. I even like to work on something while I watch TV. I love audio books cause I can listen to a book while I drive, groom dogs or work in the shed.

I do remember being able to just relax, once, a long long time ago… and I remember having days in my life when I had nothing planned and could spend the day doing as much or as little as I wanted.

What happened to my life?

Does anyone else have this problem?

Up till about a month ago I was working 5 days a week. Now I’m working 3.5 days and I’m busier than ever. Please, someone, explain to me how I manage this.

Failing that, can someone please point me in the direction of a cloning facility?

Ok. Enough of this self indulgent crap. Time to share something creative.

I had found this old frame in an op shop a long time ago. I loved the rose pattern on it but whole chunks of the roses were broken off. A friend (yes, you Diane) told me I could create new roses but that sounded like too much hard work to me.

Besides, I’m a trashy kinda girl. I like things in their natural state of disrepair, patina, rust, grime, etc.

All I did was paint the frame white, then give it a bit of age using some burnt sienna acrylic paint and a damp sponge. It made the roses really pop and the blank spots actually don’t look that bad.

I had been considering putting a chalkboard into the frame, cause, you know, chalkboards are so popular… but I wanted to go a bit different this time. So I put in bird wire.

Yes… I’m going through a bird wire phase…

I did mention the failed attempt at keeping birds from nesting in our roof. On Saturday I had to cut two holes in the wire I slaved to put up in order to remove a dead adult bird and to let out 3 youngsters who were trapped…

I have tons of bird wire I won’t be using on our roof….

Anyway… I got out my trusty staple gun, put in the birdwire and voila!

The photos, for display purposes only, are my parents. Mom as a beach babe, my dad, and the two of them in a loving pose on a beach.

I took the frame with me to the Lazy May Market on the weekend and donated it to the raffle. I did consider buying tickets to the raffle… it would have been quite cool to win it back and keep it! But I didn’t. It didn’t seem fair.

Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll make myself another one!

z

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another day, another market

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Its been another long day, another fun day at a market. After this market I’m taking a break.

Till the next one.

Actually, I don’t plan to do another till sometime in the beginning of next year. I need a break. I need to do some housework (though I’ve successfully avoided it for so long I’m not sure I remember how…), I need to groom my own stinky dogs, I need to make more stuff to take to the next market.

I need to finish painting the house…

Here are a few photos. Some of these items I will post about when I get a chance, others are sold and I won’t be able to get more photos of.

Like these two bird prints. They turned out great but I wasn’t able to get photos of them before the market.

A flyscreen bulletin board…

 

Some bin lid magnet note boards…

Some felt animals… little ornaments… sold and not photographed.

A fun altered art frame…

Some bird wire framed birds…

Wayne came with me this time which was great, he’s always handy to have around to carry things, but he’s also chatty and funny.

My brain is fried right now, we had the work Christmas party last night and got home at 11pm, then got up at 5am.

Hopefully, once things get back to normal I’ll be able to post a bit more. You know, normal. Like only 133 things to do a day without the added pressure of a market to get ready for.

I need some sleep.

z

raggedy lampshade

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Its been a quiet day here at Wind Dancer Farm. I’ve pretty much succeeded to avoid doing much of anything today.
Wayne’s been out behind the garage sorting out old timber. When we bought the farm there were piles of all sorts of things in the paddocks. Over the last couple of years we’ve gone through and sorted things out, burning the timber which was beyond saving, re-using some of it to build the stable, trying to save as much of it as we could.
In fact, every time Wayne made a pile of rubbish to burn off, I’d sneak out and rescue any bits of wood I thought I could use. He hated it!
The reason we have to do this right now (and by ‘we’ I mean ‘he’) is because we’re planning to have our driveway and the dam fixed and the old timber is lying right in the path of the excavator. Of course, the other reason is to clean up the place. I know farms aren’t usually neat and tidy as there’s always that extra space to ‘just toss that there till later’… I just don’t like big messes. We’ve cleaned up a ton since we moved in here, but there’s still plenty left to do.
Last weekend Wayne sorted out weatherboards for the eventual revamp of our small timber shed. Today he sorted out floorboards. One day I’ll have a little studio shed.
I can dream…
For now I’d settle for a new stove. A new kitchen. A new bathroom. A dam that doesn’t leak. A driveway that doesn’t turn into Niagara Falls when it rains.
I don’t ask for much.
At least I have my projects which allow me to feel a sense of accomplishment amongst all the things on the To Do list.
Like this lamp.

This is an old lamp that I’ve had for quite a few years now. I never had the original shade for it so I’ve never really used it. Its been hanging around in the aforementioned timber shed since we moved here.

Last week, while sorting out things to make, do and finish for the market, I found the lamp base and decided it was time to actually do something with it. I mean, the colour is gorgeous!

I pictured beachy, fresh, white. I pictured texture, rags and frayed edges.

I had kept a couple of skirts I was given , even though I’d never wear them, cause I had planned to do just this with a wire basket I have. I guess the basket will have to wait for other fabric now.

I wove and wrapped the ripped fabric around the wire shade frame, tying new strips as needed, creating a random pattern of weave and knots. I added a few lines of pale taupe as well for a bit of interest.

The result is a gorgeous textured lamp shade. The freshness of the white combined with the turquoise of the base is exactly what I’d been hoping for.

I’m quite happy with how it turned out!

z

fun day at the market and another baking tin caddy

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Its been a long week day. Today a friend and I had a market stall in the Shabby Chic Market. I enjoy meeting people, selling stuff and spending some of my hard earned cash at other seller’s tables!
 Its always fun to do a market but getting ready for them is a killer. 
I don’t do them very often. I have more than enough on my plate as it is. A market means more time spent making things to sell and less time spent on cleaning the house, washing dishes or doing laundry.
Come to think of it, I should do more markets…

I’m sleep deprived.
I’ve been up late every night in order to get a few things finished and guess what? I haven’t finished them all.
And guess what else?
I’m doing another market next weekend!
What’s that saying? “No rest for the wicked”… or is it “Glutton for punishment”?
On the positive side, I came home to a cooked dinner, washed dishes and clean washing. Wayne is a gem!

Anyway, thought I’d share another baking tin storage caddy. I made 3 but only photographed two. I shared one last week but this is my favourite. It didn’t sell today and I think it might be a sign.
I’m seriously considering using it at the sink to hold dish washing liquid, hand soap and sponges in the kitchen.

I’ve taken photos of some of my projects which I’ll be sharing soon but I apologise in advance for the quality of some of the photos… The weather was ‘ordinary’ yesterday so I had to take most of the photos indoors with lousy lighting. Not even Photoshop can fix some of those photos….

z

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