the broken rose frame

Posted on December 3, 2013 by zefiart

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!

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tiered tin caddy

Posted on November 17, 2013 by zefiart

I’ve always loved those cute desk caddys I’ve seen made out of old baking tins.

I have tons of baking tins. I’ve been collecting them for ages. I have them in all shapes and sizes. Same with ice trays. And colanders.

I collect them to put plants in, and I will be doing that too. I have plans…

Meanwhile I decided I’d make myself a tierd baking tray caddy. I went with 2 tiers. Its just the right size for holding all kinds of goodies. On my desk, the top holding tins with pens and other drawing stuff, the bottom holding the other bits and pieces we all collect on our desks.

I think one at the kitchen sink would be good, holding dishwashing liquid and sponges. Maybe in the bathroom to hold the moisturizer, watches, whatever.

When I have a nicer kitchen with room to put one of them… I have plans for that kitchen too.

Right now the plan is to bring in a tarp to throw over all the dirty dishes in the sink so I don’t have to look at them…

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about the birds…

Posted on November 17, 2013 by zefiart

Like all big plans, it seemed like a good idea at the time. You know what I mean. You think about a problem, you take your time thinking through the possibilities and solutions, you pick the best (easiest, cheapest) and go for it.

Then you discover it was a huge failure.

Not only did the solution not work, its created a whole new problem. In other words, its a monumental failure of epic proportions.

So it is with the bird wire under the eaves bird nesting deterrent solution I came up with.

I had a problem: birds nest in our roof. They pull out insulation as they muck around up there. If it wasn’t for the poop all over the walls, the deck, everything ON the deck, and the fact that, apparently, nests in the roof are a fire hazard, I’d have been happy to leave them there.

I like birds. We have starlings, swallows, sparrows, wrens, the occasional robin and pardalotes.

I love the birds. I love watching them flitter around and chirp to each other. I love waking up in the mornings and the only sounds I hear are birds, ducks, chickens, frogs, the rooster, the horses… and/or rain.

Come to think of it, its pretty noisy around here…

So. Anyway. What I decided was, to stop the birds nesting in the roof and stop the poop on the walls and windows, to stop losing our insulation and limit fire hazards, that I had to block off the eaves so the birds can no longer get in to nest.

Right.

I decided that the easiest, cheapest way to do it was to use bird wire under the eaves, moulding it around and stapling it to the beams and walls so they can’t get in. I had a friend come around and give me a hand and we did about 7 metres of it…

…Only to find the birds could still get in. They just use an alternative entrance: the gutters!

All I’ve succeeded in doing is create a catchment area for dead chicks. Yep. I looked up there yesterday and there were 3 tiny corpses in various stages of decay.

Wonderful.

At this point I can blame MEN. It was men who organised new gutters on the house and men who didn’t even think of getting gutter guards put up at the same time as the gutters. It would have cost, what… another $400? Tops?

I can’t blame Wayne. He probably didn’t even know there was a product which fits over corregated iron and screws onto the metal so it doesn’t budge, forming an even solid seal for the gutters.

I should have organised the quote myself.

The guys who quoted the job should have mentioned it. The friend who was here at the time, while the guys were measuring and quoting (and who’d actually used the stuff on his own house) didn’t mention it…

I should have organised the quote myself. If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself.

But, onto happier subjects.

The other day I went to an auction. I hadn’t been to one for years. This is a regular auction place in Hobart, once a week, every week. I love it.

I’d like to say that it was pure strength of will that kept me away, but I’d be lying. It was ’cause I’d been working on Fridays.

Now that I’ve dropped back to 3 days at my regular job and spend the other two days working as a tutor and grooming from home, I gave in to temptation. I stopped by before work and eyed the goodies…

I fell in love with this plate. Its old and crazed like crazy (heheh, sorry), discoloured and chipped. But I had to have it.

Of course if I wanted the plate I had to buy 5 boxes of crap.

I put in an absentee bid and won it. I donated about half the crap and kept a few things I know I can use or make things out of. And the plate is now decorating my kitchen.

What do you think of the awl collection? Cool huh? Wayne found a few of these, for working leather, at an antique store in town and I bought him a couple more. I love them stuck in the old flower frog.

there must be a name for this…

Posted on October 12, 2013 by zefiart

Surely.

I mean there’s a name for everything these days: OCD, ADHD, Packratting… why not a name for an attraction to old, broken, rusty things.

Why is it that when I see places like this one that my pulse quickens and all I can think of is how I wish I was there, climbing over things, into things, digging around, getting dirty, finding the hidden treasures anyone in their right mind would see as junk?

The best presents I’ve ever gotten were from junk stores.

An old tool caddy. Some rusty pliers.

Really, I am a cheap date!

I have to practice serious self restraint to stop myself from visiting every garage sale, every op shop or tip shop. Street markets and country fairs are impossible to resist! Sometimes its only Wayne that stands between me and the uncontrollable desire to hunt through piles of rubbish to find some treasure. Physically. I mean he has to hold me tight and steer me away, while I crane my neck to look behind me at the missed opportunities…

I’m not quite as bad as that TV show, but if I don’t get some intervention soon I might be.

Its been a couple of weeks since I saw the floor in my office. Today I sorted out piles of fabric and stashed it neatly in the cupboard. I have an excuse.

Of course.

I’ve been working on some sewing projects. And I’m planning for a workshop. So I had to have fabric everywhere and boxes full of stuff to take to the workshop.

Today my left brain kicked in and said “Ok right brain, enough with the creativity already. This place is a pit. Time to clear the clutter.”

I didn’t actually get rid of much (heaven forbid!), I’m just re-homing stuff. You know, moving it around so Wayne can’t keep track of it….

Some will go to work for a project or three. Some will go to the workshop for other projects, some will just go sit in the casita till another day comes when I get around to doing something with it.

One of the good things about running workshops is that I’ll be able to give some of the stuff I’ll never ‘get around to’ to others to work on! Two birds with one stone. I still get to work on projects, but they get to go home with someone else.

Kinda like grandkids… You get the joy of spending time with them, but they go home to mom and dad at the end of the day.

Anyway, our week hasn’t been without its dramas.

1. My computer is preparing to die. Not right now, but its coming. Its been coming for a couple of years now. I’ve called in the PC doctor and his prognosis was to make the most of our last moments together cause time is limited.

2. On Friday my netbook failed me. Its not the first time I had trouble booting it up. The PC doc said it was fine, he couldn’t find anything wrong with it. But on Friday it took 30min to boot up.

Not good.

3. You already know the wood heater is on its last legs. The baffle plate has been replaced 3 times since we moved here and that doesn’t stop it from crashing down occasionally. Then a few months ago the air vent jammed and wont unjam. Sure, we could probably have it serviced… but the actual box is cracked at the door. Seems silly to spend money on it. I’ve managed to keep it working properly by fixing it in a very high tech way… I plugged the hole with aluminium foil.

So we’ll be needing a new wood heater soon. Before next winter in fact.

Now, you’d be right to think that that was three. Bad things come in three’s right?

Well… maybe cause neither computer has actually turned its toes up yet, they don’t count as 2 bad things. Maybe they count as one combined thing. Maybe. Especially since I’m planning to replace both with a laptop, portable AND faster than the dinosaur I have right now.

The one that runs on coal.

Yeah. Turns out Murphy had another thing in store for us…. thus we come to #4 on the list of bad things that normally come in threes…

4. On Friday the oven stopped working.

No warning. I just turned it on, put on the timer, came back to check my apple crumble and found it stone cold.

Yeah, we hate that free standing cooker. Its one of those builder type ones you find in rentals. Plain, small… ok but not great. And the hotplates (electric of course) don’t work all that well. They’re hard to control temperature-wise so you’re either boiling things too hard or too slow. The oven didn’t cook evenly either. I had to turn it on max to preheat, then turn it down or a 40min bake would take 1.5 hours.

Time for a new stove.

And a new wood heater.

And a new computer.

And a winning lottery ticket!

I’m going to go drown my sorrows in a nice hot shower.

the new toothbrush holder

Posted on October 6, 2013 by zefiart

You know I hate our bathroom, right?

Its small. Its cramped. It has an unforgivably common vanity. A gold rimmed mirror. White and gold taps. (gag). A gold rimmed standard shower cubicle. A square edged clawfoot tub*. Ugly white and gold plastic towel ‘knobs’. No storage space, and less space to move.

Oh, and not to mention laminate tile sheeting.

Lovely.

One of the worse culprits was the hideous toothbrush holder in mouldy gold and white plastic.

Gorgeous.

I can’t afford to redo the bathroom right now. Though I’d dearly love to. In fact I was planning to, at the very least, remove the clawfoot tub* so there’s room to put in a cute cabinet or two and turn around when you’re drying your hair… but you can’t even get the clawfoot tub out of there without ripping out the shower and vanity!

sigh…

Meanwhile I do the tiny things which make it easier for me to go in there without throwing up.

Like getting rid of the ugly toothbrush holder and replacing it with something kinda nifty.

Like this spiritless spirit level I found at a tip shop. You can’t really see it in the photos but the test tubes and the beaker are painted in cream and white – the bottom cream, the top a white stripe.

I had wanted to do a more dramatic ombre type of thing but in the end I didn’t think I could get a nice effect on the plastic test tubes if I didn’t use spray paint. As it was, I discovered that ‘low tack’ orange masking tape ain’t low tack enough. You can just see the bits of orange pigment/glue left behind.

I figure once the paint has ‘cured’ long enough I can try wiping the residue off with some eucalyptus oil.

Can you guess why I wanted to paint the bottom of the jar and tubes? Yup. You got it. To hide the gunge that always accumulates at the bottom of a toothbrush holder.

And the reason I didn’t paint up as high on the beaker? Cause I liked the numbers showing.

I also whitewashed the spirit level so it wasn’t brown. Nothing I could do about the gold fitting though. I have to live with those. At least I painted the silver clamps white so it wouldn’t clash too much.

One day, when I have a bathroom I actually like, I might change the colours on the test tubes. Till then, this is way better than the ugly thing I tossed unceremoniously in the bin.

* I am thinking the clawfoot tub might work nicely as a cooling outdoor bath in summer. Somewhere. Maybe… I’ve always thought it would be great but never had the guts to actually do it.

NOTE: This project turned out to be a fail. The test tubes gather water which becomes mucky and stagnant and stinks. I replaced them with large gauge syringes and it works much better!

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paper storage

Posted on October 5, 2013 by zefiart

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!

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its a record!

Posted on October 4, 2013 by zefiart

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?

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art from trash – the plastic fantastic chandelier

Posted on September 28, 2013 by zefiart

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.

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a broken plate

Posted on September 25, 2013 by zefiart

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!

revamped footstool

Posted on August 30, 2013 by zefiart

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!

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