Recycling made wild

 What do these two items have in common?

Part of an old book... 

...and a colorful calendar?

I'm betting you'll never guess!

They can both be made into..................hats!

This particular creative adventure started with an announcement that the Ontario County Arts Council was having a fundraiser, and they were inviting people to make 'fantastical, imaginative' hats.  Those hats would be sold at an event to raise money.  I have almost never been motivated by such an announcement, but for some reason I was this time.    

So I grabbed a few old paperbacks that had been stagnating in my little free library, deciding that I'd make some altered books into a hat somehow.  I've not done this before, so spent some time online learning.  My hat theme, which seemed fitting for this event, would be The Mad Hatter's Tea Party.  I began by folding a book into a lovely, rather fancy teapot.  Before I was half done, I realized this wouldn't work.  The teapot alone would weigh a bit over a pound, and with everything else that would be needed to make it into a hat, that would be too heavy.  

Started again with another, smaller book, and a smaller design for a simpler teapot.  This was working, and here's my finished teapot.

Then I made a cup to accompany it.  Twice, as I didn't like the first one.  But....how would I put these things together to create a hat?  After I'd done a lot of thinking about options, I spent some time wandering the aisles of a local dollar store.  Without further ado, here's the finished hat.

Um....okay.  It looks decent sitting on a table, but how could that be worn?

I must say, it's a bit tippy, and someone who moves more smoothly and gracefully than I will have to model it for the show at the fundraiser.

Now, I was satisfied with that hat, but somehow wasn't done yet.  I had another, completely different idea for a second hat.  I wasn't at all sure it would work but wanted to try.  Someone in my BuyNothing group was getting rid of some calendars with large color photographs, so I took them off her hands.  Spent some time trying out cutting, folding and gluing them into spikes before I got the look I had in mind.  The second hat, titled I'm Fascinated, makes me really happy.  The spiky part is tied and glued onto a narrow headband, so it's easy to wear.

This is my (ahem) artistic take on the fascinators that I first saw on the Royal Family at a wedding.  I've since seem lots more of them.  I'm sure none are made from an old calendar.  :-)

The fundraiser will be held next weekend.  I'm excited to see what creative things others have come up with, and hope the Arts Council raises a good chunk of change with this event.

Rocks...and more

 In 2023 & 2024 I had Sssid, the Rock Snake outside my home.  Sssid encouraged people to paint rocks and place them along the sidewalk.

People definitely participated.  If I recall correctly, I had something over 100 rocks placed each year.  Some clearly painted by little kids, some truly mini works of art.

I wanted to do something different last year, so I created kindness rocks.  (Truth be told, I'd been painting and distributing small numbers of kindess rocks throughout my neighborhood for over a year by this time.)

I clearly had NO IDEA when I started what this would grow into.  By the time I stopped in September, I had distributed almost 600 rocks!!  99% of those were rocks I had painted.  I had to first find rocks of the appropriate size, rocks that relatively smooth on at least one size so they could be written on.  Then I painted all the rocks, on both sides, with a lavender outdoor paint I had, and then I could write on them.  On one side (what I considered the back) of every rock I had written Kindess rocks!  On the other I'd written various little sayings encouraging people to be kind.  

This year I did not want to do the same thing, although I do want to send a similar message.  IMHO the world really needs people who consciously put kindness and caring into the world.  Every day.  In both large and small ways, but probably focusing mainly on 1-1 interactions.  So I have a concept that I'm working on.

Have a heart.  

I haven't yet worked out exactly what my sign will say.  Something on the order of "Find a heart, make a heart, have a heart."  But I am most assuredly NOT making many hundreds of hearts.  These little woven hearts are the start.  I intend to walk along the beach - when we actually have some decent weather - and hope to find vaguely heart-shaped rocks.  I plan to get some polymer clay and make and bake some hearts.  I hope I can find some natural items (pine cones?  acorn caps?  other things I haven't yet thought of) that I can use a dab of hot glue to stick together in roughly heart shapes.  Leaves or flowers would be great, but they will blow away too easily.  

I want part of the message to absolutely be for others to find and/or make hearts and leave them here to share with others.  I'd kind of hate my sign to say something like 'please take only one' (I know for a fact that plenty of people took more than one rock last year), but I don't know what the best words are yet.  I'd love your suggestions.

WHAT? WHY?

Why, after almost 2 years, am I putting up a post now?  Because I spent 3 days moving 176 posts from my WP site to here, it got me in a head space that said I should do a current one.  So...

Here's my most recent weaving...

I've sent 2 of these lovely lace shawls to The Copper Shop, a gallery in East Aurora that usually has a few pieces of my work for sale, and put 2 up in my Etsy shop.  

 All warp is 10/2 mercerized cotton, sett at 20 ends per inch.  Both of the Peach Sorbet shawls are 50% cotton and 50% silk.  Lovely drape and feel.  As for the Lemon Sorbet, one is 100% cotton, the other is 50% cotton, 25% cashmere, and 25% silk.  That last is just so....sublime.

I had such a good time weaving the shawls, that I'm going to modify the weaving draft slightly and weave a few scarves with basically the same lace pattern.  Then I have more ideas, having been inspired by looking at 850 (!) old blog posts.  You'll have to watch and see if I decide to post more.