making do and interesting things

Posted on July 24, 2013 by zefiart

My cousin Zefi’s house in the commune that’s known as ‘Souvlia’ used to be the boat shed and garage. It was built on a slope so the front is a couple of steps down. As a result its darker than most of the houses on Souvlia, but no cooler. In fact, being at the back of the block, with other buildings as windbreaks, it doesn’t get the full force of the wind – great when you want to sit on the porch for a drink, terrible if you want a cool breeze to cool down.

Despite that, Zefi has made it into a gorgeous place. Thanks to her mom’s fossicking, her husband’s good taste and Zefi’s practical mind, the place is pretty, traditional and totally user friendly.

I love her old island couches. I’ve tried to find this type of couch in Australia as its the ideal outdoor couch. Its not so comfy as a living room couch, but so pretty.

I love the big dresser as well, in the traditional dark timber. Zefi’s grandfather on her mom’s side used to be a carpenter and he made some beautiful pieces.

I love the lace on the shelves inside the glass cabinets. My aunt Dora has it in her kitchen in her house as well.

One thing I love to do when I’m here (or anywhere for that matter) is look at shops. I love looking at shops. Sometimes I see things I want to buy, something I see things which inspire me. Whatever. I love to look at shops.

In the market street in Parikia there’s a traditional old homeware/grocery store. Its been there as long as I can remember. They now sell more stuff to tourists than to locals I’m sure, but its the only place I saw one of these:

Its apparently a dough bowl of some sort. You put the bread dough in it to rise. I find myself needing one of these… I never make bread, but I’m sure I’ll find a good use for it.

I also love these things:

Sieves of all sizes with all different wire thicknesses… from flour sieves to lentil and bean sieves. Pretty cute.

At the other end of the shopping scale are the home decorator stores… not very different to the type of stuff I see in Australia. Still pretty displays and colours though.

Colourful outdoor cushions with jute and bling tassels and fish, naturally.

Burlap mini cushions and a jute string bowl on a lace table runner.

A beautiful simple white bowl.

A rope and sailcloth lamp.

Table centre piece of sea urchins minus spikes, shells and starfish.

I found an antique/second hand shop which has some beautiful things in it but this one was right up my alley: old windows with photos in them.

I even found a shop which sells marble things. Like a marble sink… why have a ceramic butler sink when you can have the real thing? And this slab of carved marble which you can put in your garden and run a tap through.

A tap like this! Isn’t this a beauty?

Or, if you prefer, you can buy marble columns. Cause no house is complete without marble columns.

Of course, there are tons of places which are done up beautifully whether they’re shops or cafes or restaurants. Sometimes its something simple like these fish at a taverna by the sea:

Sometimes its way more elaborate, like the boat/couch at this bar in Parikia.

And these door coffee tables.

There just aren’t enough door or window signs though, like this one on a closed antique shop.

And I love this sign on a cafe.

I haven’t been inside many hotels, but the couple I have been into have some interesting items in their lobbies and bars. Like this lamp …

This wooden trough is now a frame for a wooden boat.

Obviously made by the same artist, this boat wall clock at the Paros Bay Hotel.

And a ton of these fishing boats.

This is my favourite. I love the humour in the little paper sailboats.

A couple of little shops in Naoussa, a small town on the other side of Paros, have gorgeous displays. Right up my alley.

Closer to home, I found some interesting ways to deal with the small issues life throws at you. This is my uncle’s solution to the wind taking his umbrella along with the small table.

It might take up a bit of table space, but it works.

My fish bowl has a new spot among the shell collection in my aunt Flora’s kitchen.

The oven in the main house has a dodgey door, so the kokones (a name we call the aunts) have found a simple solution.

Aunt Marisa has found a cute way to cover the electricity panel in the hallway using a hand woven mat.

In her house a little down the road, my aunt Dora has a small corner where she keeps her ancient sewing maching, which she still uses, and a few items from her mother’s house.

You can always tell a greek house, cause there is always an icon somewhere in it. I now have my own icon, my very first. My aunt Xeni gave it to me. I’ll have to find a spot in my home for it when I get back. My decor will be shabby-greek…

Love the old irons with the big base to hold hot coals.

my aunt the recycler

Posted on July 23, 2013 by zefiart

I’ve already mentioned my aunt Marisa, the collector. She’s collected all kinds of things over the years.

In fact, it might be more accurate to say she never throws anything away if it has sentimental, historical or potential value.

She’s been going crazy since I got here, getting me to make things for her, asking my opinion of this or that, and generally making a pest out of herself. I’ve taken to avoiding working within her field of vision.

Ok. She’s not that bad. And I do love the stuff she’s collected. The only thing is, her imagination and mine don’t always meet in a harmonious blend. At least we both like similar raw materials.

This is her bedroom at Souvlia (the family home on Paros).

The bed is an Ikea bed, not an original, but it suits her style. Everything else in the room is old and has some story to it.

This lamp had a dark green lampshade on it with gold trimming.

Yuck.

So aunt Marisa asked me if I’d cover it in doilies for her.

Remember the doily post? Well, suffice it to say, this lampshade has been covered in cut up pieces of old curtains and lace.

Three old lace curtains to be exact. Two of them are old but not antique, with no particular sentimental value. The other one, just visible on the left hand panel, is a curtain my grandmother gave her many years ago which has been ruined by years of sunlight. I had to patch a small hole on it using a rose cut from one of the other bits of curtain.

By using part of this old curtain in a lampshade, my aunt can retain the curtain and still have the memories of it.

She made these cushions for her bed out of things she ~~hoarded~~ kept after they were deemed to useless and were going to thrown away.

One of them was from my neice Alex’s baby bed. The cushion had worn thin but my aunt kept the lace edge so she could re-use it. The other one was some other baby’s pillow, I just forget who…

The ‘throw’ on the end of the bed is in fact an old curtain she’s trimmed down and edged. The bedspread is an old thin woollen blanket she’s added a lace edge to.

The cushion covers are made of old linen and and old petticoat she used to wear in the 60s. When the petticoat wore out she kept the lace… and its made a reappearance on her bed in 2013 in the form of pillow covers.

Pretty amazing.

There’s an old chest in the room, probably something my aunt found on the side of the road… she’s found the most amazing stuff people have thrown away…

On top of the dresser is an old linen towel visiting friends had left behind many years ago. My aunt added lace to it and made it into a pretty dust collector.

If my aunt was a blood relative I could say it runs in the family!

shabby on paros

Posted on July 18, 2013 by zefiart

As you know, my thia Marouso (aunt Marisa) is a collector (little Zef would call her a hoarder). Ever since I got here she’s been lamenting that I’m not in Athens where her ‘stash’ is. However, she’s done quite well despite that.

One of the things she found for me was this old spool. “I’m sure you can make something out of this,” she said.

Of course I can.

A photo holder. Though ideally you need the right photos to display. Something like that one of my great grandmother…

Or like the ones I’m taking with me when I go back to Australia… photos of mom and dad when they were young, old black and whites with crinkly edges.

Forgive the blurry photos. I don’t have my lightbox and have to make do. I’ll just say its artistic, the blurry effect makes the photo more nostalgic and romantic.

Yep. That’s what I’ll say.

And btw, just so you know, I’ve managed to extract a promise that thia Marouso will leave me her collection of goodies when she turns up her toes.

Not a hard thing to do as it turned out – little Zef is more than happy to unload it on someone else. Of course, the women in this family are long-lived… I’ll be too old to do anything with it by the time I get it.

Still, I’ve seen a sample of the kind of things my aunt collects. She’s got things in unopened boxes from the early 60s. She has embroideries and doilies made by her grandmother…

Of course, she has all these things locked away in chests and drawers. To keep them safe.

I say, what’s the point of that when you want to see and enjoy them… I love the whole repurposing thing, to me an object from the past is good cause you can use it to create something that you can enjoy now.

I’ve been making my aunt a lampshade for her bedroom. She’s seen people make light fittings out of lace and doilies and wanted something like that for herself.

Terrific. Yes, I can make it for you.

Just give me the doilies and lace.

So she brings out a stack, unfolds them and shows them to me:

This is an old curtain your grandmother gave me.

This is a doily given to my by and aunt.

My mother made these laces etc.

You can use these, would they work?

Oh, but don’t cut them.

And don’t use glue. I don’t want them ruined.

Umm, I don’t want it too lacey. I like it stretched tight.

I’ll help you sew cause I don’t want to tire you.

That’s too tight. I can’t sew it tight like you can.

Did you make that rusty wire heart? Its so cute.

You can’t put that on the lamp shade. It’ll rust the lace.

You know, don’t use that doily on there. I don’t want to ruin it.

And don’t use that one either. Its part of a set and I’d rather you made something out of those four together so you don’t separate them.

Cause I bought them in Griffith in 1965.

Oh, I like that. Aren’t you clever?

But… what if we did it this way?

You know, I was thinking you’d make it like this…

Look what I found! Another doily!

But you can’t use that on this. You can use this one on Zefi’s light fitting.

How are you going to do Zefi’s light fitting?

Sieves?

Are you sure?

Well, you’re the artist. You do it your way. I won’t talk.

Hmmm, that’ll be nice.

But I was thinking it’d be like this…

Oh ok. You do it your way. I’m sure it’ll be nice.

Are you going to use these doilies on Zefi’s light fitting?

Don’t cut them! I don’t want them ruined.

How did you cut the lace for the lamp shade?

Can you give me the pattern?

How did you make the pattern?

Can you cut me the panels and I’ll sew them.

Here, I’ve ironed all the doilies for you.

You can use this, this and this.

And this.

But not this. I’ll keep this one.

And this one.

Actually, I’ll keep this one too.

You can cut up the old curtains for her light fitting.

Sure, thia, it can be a doily light fitting without doilies.

Sure.

Whatever you say.

Your doilies, your lace.

No, I’m not offended at all. Its your lamp shade. You can have it however you want.

Its fine. I can work with curtains and not doilies.

Yeah, whatever you want.

No I’m not upset. I’m just reading FB and not paying too much attention to you.

Sure. I’ll do it.

Leave it there and I’ll fix it.

Yes, you can use the same pattern for a smaller lamp with the same shape, just don’t add extra for seams.

Not a problem, I love doing things for you.

Yep. I can do that.

Sure thing thia.

And it goes on and on.

She’s not my mother and I yet I still want to strangle her at times.

At least my mother doesn’t ask me to make her something creative and then dictate how to create.

She just asks me to hang out washing, bring in washing, move furniture and likes to point out the same landmarks and houses every single time we go past and tell me what they are and who they belong to, despite the fact that, not only have I heard the story 500,321 times, but I lived here. I grew up spending every summer on Paros.

sigh.

Just last night she was giving directions to little Zef:

You go up the road toward Aliki. At the Monastery intersection you turn left, then first left again. The road goes up past my cousins Mitso’s place on the right and his brother Dimitri’s place on the left. You come to a crossroads. The right leads to Giorgo, Dimitri’s son’s, house, the one to the left goes to my nephew Kosta’s place, he’s built a beautiful house there. On the other side of the road my entire family has property…

Thia, I just need to know which road to take. I don’t need to know who lives where!

Ok, ok, you go past the intersection and you get to a big house, build by Spiro, my mother’s godfather, of course he’s long dead, he left it to his daughter Eleftheria and her husband Niko and their 2 children, of course they’re grown up and married now. Each with their own family… Well, at the end of that property is a small church that my great grandfather’s uncle built….

You get the picture.

Ah the joys of family.

lamby – what happens when you get bored and have access to steel wool

Posted on June 9, 2013 by zefiart

Meet Lamby.

The grey sheep of the family.

This is what happens when I’m bored and have access to some wire, steel wool, couple of beads and a rudimentary wire working tool.

Lamby was made using some medium thickness wire to create a frame and legs (and a stubby tail). I then moulded the steel wool around the frame to create the shape. Steel wool works almost like felt – you can mould and shape it and join it relatively easily… but it leaves nasty tiny wire fibres everywhere.

I used bits of very fine wire to wire in Lamby’s eyes and nose and then I finished him off by giving him some extra curls of fine wire in silver and purple highlights. Lamby is nothing if not trendy.

The curly wire bits were threaded through Lamby’s body and act as added strength and support.

No gain without pain though – I stuck a fine bit of wire through my thumb which swelled up and ached for two days. No permanent damage!

I’m pretty pleased with Lamby, even if I do say so myself.

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milk churn photo display

Posted on May 31, 2013 by zefiart

Ever since I took the doors off the two overhead cupboards in the kitchen I’ve liked my kitchen a whole lot more.

I’ve finally got somewhere to display some of my pretty things, and some of my collections.

The little vignette below includes one of my scales, the lid off a small milk churn, 2 flower frogs and other old metal objects in the form of a cast iron flying pig and an old light switch.

I got the milk churn lid at the Shabby Market I took part in a while ago, and have had it sitting on one shelf or another for a long time, waiting to for it to speak to me and tell me what it wants to do.

Yesterday it finally spoke and said “I want to hold a photo”.

Well at the time I didn’t have any photos handy and really didn’t feel like printing one out. I wanted to test it out NOW.

You know how it goes…. Nothing like the present. Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today… I pray for patience, but I want it now…

I took the photo of Wayne and Ben which I just love, man and horse communicating quietly.

I got a small magnet and put it behind the photo. It worked! The magnet holds the photo onto the handle. Perfect.

Who needs frames when you can do things like this? Much funner!

rustic crate window boxes

Posted on May 26, 2013 by zefiart

I thought I’d share something I did a few weeks ago now. I had meant to share it soon as I finished it but the weather got nasty, then I never seemed to remember to take photos while the sun was out, you know how it goes.

This morning while taking photos of the fallen tree I noticed the window boxes and remembered to photograph them.

When I saw these crates at the tip shop over summer I knew they’d be perfect for the driveway side of our house which is BORING. I wanted something to brighten it up and make the house look more welcoming. These boxes are outside the mudroom and toilet windows.

(Excuse the ugly pipe, it will be painted to match the house. Its where the sink went into the mud room.)

I just love these crates! I have temporarily put stuff in them, some plants really need to go into the ground, but for now they brighten up the place. I love seeing them as I approach the house.

Mainly I’m going to keep succulents in them. This spot gets late afternoon sun in summer and I don’t want plants to shrivel up and die. Though I think a couple of them are already showing frost damage.

And just cause I happened to take them, here’s a couple of panoramic photos of our place from up the top paddock. I had to stitch these together from a lot of separate photos and I have to include them very small but you get an idea of the land around our house. (You can see the fallen tree to the right.)

The casita is the one with the red roof, the house with the blue. The wonky little shed in the foreground is the woodshed. Not so pretty from this side. 🙂

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tackling the tack room

Posted on May 25, 2013 by zefiart

Last weekend I tackled the tack room.

Actually I continued tackling the tack room – a job I started the weekend before. It was a mammoth task. Till now the tack had been scattered around the property: some in the small timber shed which we planned to use as the original tack room, some in the garage, some in the casita.

Every time we needed to do something with a horse it was like “Where’s the halter?” “You had it last. Where did you put it?” “Behind the door.” “What door?”…

This is what I’d like the tack room to look like:

Instead it looks like this:

Eh. We work with what we have.

(The saddles are covered to keep bird poop off them as well as to protect them from the sun streaming in through that window despite its liberal coating of grime. Yes, we have birds living in the casita. And mice, and rats. And a black possum named Siegfried.)

At this point I should explain. The casita is the original old cottage on our property. Not technically a shed, but a home in which a family once raised 14 children. When the original owners sold it, the new owners ‘built’ a new (relocated) house about 5.5 inches away on the other side of a tiny yard cause it made better sense than putting it further up the hill to have a view of the countryside and not of the old house… But hey, its Tasmania.

Anyway, the council apparently said “sure, you can put another house there, but you have to make the old house unlivable”. So they did. They ripped out half the ceilings, removed some doors, exposed stud walls, then put in a fence, gate, sheep grid flooring in the big room, a stock ramp on the porch and made it into a shearing shed.

When we bought the place we replaced the sheep grid floor with flooring, which I sealed with white undercoat/sealer and never painted, and we’ve been using it for all kinds of things. There’s a toilet no one would want to use without a tetanus shot, a laundry, a chest freezer for dog food, the hydrobath and my grooming room, plus a musty dark room we avoid, a feed room for horse feed and the big room which used to be the shearing shed.

The right side of the big room is my workshop. I had to re-organise that side as part of my ‘tack room makeover’.

You can see Romeo keeping an eye on me over the gate into the big room as I shifted things around.

I’d been using the left side of the big room as a hold-all area for things I was going to get to one day. One corner was being used as the spray paint spot. Horse rugs would got tossed on the floor, feed buckets thrown into corners… It was ugly.

Last week I started by clearing it out and sweeping it clean. I think the feed room yielded a full bag of chaff from the floor… In order to clean and organise you first must make a bigger mess. That’s the law.

I started by sorting out the workshop area, took down the trestles and door I was using as a work bench which I never used as it was always covered in stuff, and moved the cabinets to different walls to allow access to the dividing fence rail. That rail is a built-in horse rug airer! I added a slat of timber between the posts to create a 2nd tier of hanging space.

I used the trestles to hold the two heaviest saddles (my stock saddle and Wayne’s western saddle). Then I used an old ladder and a post to hold a second hand hybrid Wintec and some very old saddles.

Another timber slat between the far posts holds the rack I bought to hold our bridles. That’s the only new thing in this makeover.

Another slat became a spot for girths and older tack, not so regularly used. Since I have no idea where the studs are behind the masonite wall I thought it’d be safer to put a slat of timber on the wall for my hooks. I used anything I could find as hooks. More photos of those later.

I had something which looks like the side of a playpen so I attached it to the dividing fence, its now another spot to hang a horse rug. We only have 2 horses right now but we have something like 6 rugs. They’re all in varying degrees of repair (or disrepair).

We’ll be buying new winter rugs for them soon, we try to recycle and re-use old rugs as much as we can. At least Wayne does. He’s the rug stitcher in this family.

Cas will be joining us soon, this weekend I hope, and I’ll finally be riding again.

Have I mentioned Cas? She’s an older girl, a 16 yr old appaloosa who I met a few weeks ago. She belonged to the family who bought Ben. We went down to meet her and Chester, I rode both and I decided I liked Cas best. I loved Chester. He’s such a gorgeous boy, but Cas was so comfortable to ride, sweet natured and, really, she’s what I need… an older, sensible, quiet horse I can get my confidence back with.

I can’t wait!

wire light fitting

Posted on April 22, 2013 by zefiart

Over the last 2 weeks I’ve been working on this light shade for the wardrobe room that I posted about here.

I wanted something more industrial in feel to match the hardware shelves I used in the room so I looked around at what I had.

I found this fuddy duddy lampshade I’d picked up from somewhere. I’d already ripped off the granny pink frilly cover that came with it and was left with that glued on ribbon.

Have you ever tried to remove that stuff? It sets like concrete. I tried cutting it off and broke a small pair of scissors. I then tried slicing it off with a scalpel and broke that. I tried a stanley knife and cut myself.

In the end I soaked it in hot water for about two days and went back to scissors and eventually got it off.

Then I put it on the coffee table in the living room where I would do a bit of wiring when the mood took me. I had planned to add beads to it as well but only got as far as adding some small black ones randomly. I used a thicker black wire and thinner silver wire. I’m not sure if I’ll add crystals to it later or not.

I put it up on Sunday and I love the way it looks when the light is on, the pretty shadows it casts on the ceiling.

Meanwhile I’m suffering big time. I spent most of the day on Sunday gardening as I had to get some new plants into the ground before winter. Having problems with my right arm (RSI, carpal tunnel, arthritis, whatever) I tried to spare it and used the left for the heavy work: digging out gigantic weeds using a pick, taking the weight of the shovel, etc.

I put 2 blue plumbagos along the fenceline to hide the water tanks, 2 purple salvias to fill gaps along the front of the porch, 2 white gauras on the porch corner, 8 seedling snap dragons in a narrow bed on the driveway side of the house and 2 mexican orange blossoms on the ends of the trellis. I still have 2 pale yellow double banksia roses to plant and to relocate one of my hydrangeas. When they all grow (thinking positive here) it will look gorgeous.

I also put up some crates as window boxes outside the mud room with Wayne’s help cause by then my hands weren’t working that well.

As a result of all that work I have thumbs that are refusing to work. They’re sore and have no strength to grip much of anything at all.

Ugh.

Remind me never to garden again. Its bad for my health.

Shared at Knick of Time Tuesday

dragonfly windchime & other shiny things

Posted on March 2, 2013 by zefiart

I haven’t been doing much these last few weeks, but I ‘ve been messing up the living room with my wiring and beading so I could knock up a few more wind chimes for the local shop I sell through.

I do enjoy making these things as I watch TV, sorting through my boxes and collections of odds and ends till I find something which inspires me, then putting bits together to form something pretty.

As you know, I love rusty things, old things, crystal beads and shiny wire. A few weeks ago I bought my first couple of spools of coloured wire and I’m loving them!

This little dragonfly is made of a mix of silver wire, gold wire and silver beads. It sits on what I believe is the cover from an old car light I found in a tip shop. It makes the best sound when the wind jingles the tea spoons.

This heart is made from an old coat hanger bound with red and white lace and embellished with an odd collection of keys, crystal beads and a tiny sugar spoon.

A silver napkin holder makes this very loud windchime for those who like more of a chime. It consists of a collection of spoons, forks, orange glass beads, a large clear crystal and a tiny star cookie cutter.

More chimes to share soon, though I should really be concentrating on finishing the house painting. But that’s ok… I can wire and bead while I catch up on episodes of Dexter, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Supernatural, CSI, Bones and Downton Abbey.

I have ecclectic taste in TV series.

good luck bells

Posted on February 23, 2013 by zefiart

In my quest for the perfect home I’ve been doing all kinds of things. Purging stuff I no longer want or need. Giving things away, selling some, re-purposing others.

I want a home thats comfortable, welcoming, a place where I feel I can relax and be myself and where my soul will feel peaceful.

Most of the time I achieve clutter.

Partly that’s due to the fact that I art & craft everywhere, not just in my office.

I have an easel with an unfinished painting on it in the living room, along with the trolley I used to hold my materials. I have a side table and an ottoman acting as a work area and have commandeered one of the armchairs for night time crafting (mainly wiring and beading).

My brain never stops.

I don’t want it to stop, but I’d like to come into a room and not have the heaps of stuff lying around needing attention: unwashed dishes, unfolded laundry, etc.

I guess there are two solutions to this problem… 1. find myself a wife. Or 2. (probably more achievable) actually make time to do the housework.

But its so boring!

I saw this and thought how perfectly it described my life.

But I digress.

In the quest for the perfect home I started looking at feng shui as a means to an end – the end being a home with a peaceful, fortune-ful and happy atmosphere.

Somewhere in my readings I came across the lucky bells for the front door. Apparently metal bells are best and they need a red ribbon or thread.

Well, I have bells. I have red ribbon.

So last night (when I should have been downshifting my brain in readiness for bed) I started this little project.

Being me, I couldn’t just hang bells on the front door with red ribbon.

No.

I wanted something that said ‘zefi’… something old, something repurposed. Something interesting. And pretty.

I found this old tea strainer spoon thingy amongst my collection of wind chimes paraphernalia.

I created a double bow using two different widths and shades of red ribbon (in case the luck gods were particular about the red), threaded the bells on very fine wire – three lots of three bells (small for the bow and larger for the dangly bits), and for a bit of bling, added a few pearl beads to the strainer.