Door Wreath, Incarnation # 3

The color is off some; those leaves are more brown than purple and the purple cord's not quite that dark--but my photo program couldn't fix the colors so I left them. It's enough to give you an idea what the wreath looks like this month, anyhow. *smiling* Tis very ephemeral, this wreath. Everything is twisted, braided, woven... only the thread (which binds the feather on) and the purple cord are secured with knots. The leaves are just tucked into spaces between the twigs and when I change the wreath again, they'll come out so new things can take their places.

I kind of like it this way. *grins*

.........wish those leaves really WERE that purple, lol!

That House--exterior pics

This is the front of That Rollercoastering House; sloppy and way too plain, but easily fixed with paint and a little woodwork. The tree on the left is in the backyard. I don't know what the street tree is, but I suspect some kind of oak.

Notice the brick street? Original to the neighborhood. Many of them have been asphalted over, but this one remains. Even one of the alleys was once brick paved.

The truck belongs to a roofer who was giving me an estimate on repairs today.

Ignore the roofer, lol; I didn't mean to take his pic. This pic is really of the north side of the house. The first two windows are above the living room fireplace; the rest are the bedrooms and bathrooms on both floors. That line on the roof is the original built in gutter. The second chimney back by the second floor is from an old gravity-fed furnace, and isn't in use any longer.

The wind is pretty fierce today and I couldn't stay any longer to take more pics. Maybe tomorrow...

Glueburning: Because everyone needs a special birthday present...

Tis Gryph's birthday, so what better than a gryphon?

This is the white inside of my flour bag. I just *knew* that paper was good for something! *grin*

Happy birthday, darlin! May it be the start of your best years yet!

Glueburning: I keep going back to basics

There are some crafts that just never get old for me. Have you burnt glue lately? I actually deliberately spent money on 18 gauge floral wire stems and some paint--despite our tight budget!--to be able to do these this year.

Remember what they are? Hint: Aleene's Tacky Glue.

Hint: recycled crafting.

I dangled some beads from the single hearts after I cut them from the main piece of floral wire, but the doubled hearts are on one stem which has been twisted at the top to make a hanging loop. The tassels are just crochet thread which matched the paint.

Hint: Simple craft, easy as can be.

Hint: You need ordinary scissors and a candle.

Got an angel in my pocket... Sometimes instead of dangles or ornaments, I make plant pokes. This angel was just a little too big and kept drooping in on itself over the candle flame, so I ended up picking up the candle and "painting" the flame over the whole surface.

Figured it out yet?

They're made from a USED brown paper grocery sack covered in wet glue! Remember? You glue cutouts together with wire down the middle, coat them with Tacky glue, and burn them over the candle flame. They turn absolutely black with soot (it does make some smoke; you might want to open a window), which you wipe off... and voila! antique metal! Then you drybrush, dab, or sponge them with metallic paint or gold-leafing, and there you are!

MY very expensive, fancy paintbrushes were wadded up damp paper towels. *eyebrow waggle* I used three paints, Folk Art Metallics Antique Gold, Metallic Copper and Metallic Amethyst. The ric-rac scarf on the angel, the crochet thread tassels, and the beaded dangles were all made from leftovers and/or scavenged from other projects. One evening's work total, including the time it took to remember how to efficiently use the candle and whether it matters if the glue dries before you burn it (nope).

I haven't had so much fun in an age. *grin*

That House--kitchen, bath, and laundry room tackiness

So yanno, when you're looking at an old house, there's the gorgeous parts and then there's the "modern, improved" parts.... I've already shown you unimproved gorgeous. Now here is the view from the back door, all the way to the front door.

I don't know what purpose the laundry room once served, but I would think it was probably a mudroom and laundry room even before automatic washers were invented. You can see this is where they brought the electricity inside.

One wonders JUST how tall these people were? lol!!!

Ohhh my gosh, let's NOT look down, okay? I cannot safely descend into the darkness, so the basement post will need to wait until I can get up and down the steps.

Moving through the laundry room and kitchen now... remember all those doorways from the dining room?

Here is the hall closet, between the front bedroom and the bathroom. One wonders what it looked like when it was new; surely not like this?

And here is the bathroom. The window has been hidden behind the panel on that back wall. The owner did this remodel/update (presumably in 1981 when he bought the house) but the vinyl flooring is courtesy the last tenant, the one who did the unauthorized remodeling which involved so much destruction.

And now for the ultimate in tacky remodels.... here is the owner's idea of what a kitchen should look like. *sigh* If the cabinets were not cheap and broken particle board, it might not be so bad... but not only are they cheap, they are filthy with years of cooking grease and general grunge. I really don't want to put my food or dishes into those cupboards, but if we do get this house--when we get this house--redoing the kitchen cabinets will be pretty low on the priority list. Buying a stove, refrigerator and washer/dryer have to come first. We'll just have to see whether cleaning can work a miracle...

It took us a while to figure out why the vinyl was missing from this patch of floor on the opposite side of the kitchen, and why there was a 220 outlet there. It was hours before I dredged up from my memories how excited my mother was to buy a freezer that just plugged right in, that didn't need a special outlet... my best guess is that there was once a chest freezer in this corner that was SO HEAVY they couldn't move it to lay the flooring.

The wood underneath here is absolutely gray and I couldn't tell what kind it is, whether oak or pine. The next time we get to go inside I will take another look.

Till later!

Cath

That House--full size pics

This is what has me so completely distracted from everything, even the internet.... Gryph and I have fallen in love with That House. Tis a Craftsman Bungalow, built in 1920, and although there are many things wrong with it, including two bad remodel jobs, there are also many things which could not be more right. This is the living room--well, one end of the living room!--with the original gas fireplace and built-in glass-fronted bookshelves. You can also see the badly built window seat a tenant installed. It was evidently the same tenant who painted the iron front of the fireplace gold, and left Christmas tree lights inside it. *eeep*

The floor is solid oak. The woodwork is original.


This is the view out the back door. The concrete is extensive; dunno whether it was a patio or a driveway originally; it might have also been the foundation for a garage, since many of the houses in the neighborhood have detached garages at the back. What the concrete would be for me? Space for flower pots, stand-alone small greenhouses, a patio table and chairs....

The doorways into the bedrooms, hallway, bathroom and kitchen from the dining room. You can see one of the original furnace vents at the lower right corner. Some of the doors are missing, but the frames are all still intact. This floor is also solid oak. The floors in the bedrooms are solid pine. The kitchen floor is covered with vinyl, so we don't yet know which wood it might be, but I suspect the bathroom floor is pine like the bedrooms.

The dining room windows, and the return air vent for the furnace. These windows face south. The top window is diamond-paned "wavy glass" although it looks flat in this pic. I don't know why it was popular back then to make a window that curved in and out.... because they could? lol!

You cannot tell from the inside, but these windows are the site of the worst structural damage to the house; the wall outside has bowed out as the foundation shifted, and has separated from the windows. It did give me the chance to peek inside the wall and see that the house is built with an inner brick wall, an air space, and an outer brick wall.

Some of the interior walls still have their original plaster.

From the kitchen, through the dining room, to the front door. You can see the windows on the other side of the living room in this pic; the fireplace is on the north wall, these windows are on the south wall. The door and the light fixture are not original... but then, they don't have to be. They're still part of the history of the house. *smiling*

Tis my dearest hope to be able to buy this house! More pics later.

Cath

Mousie, mousie

Sometimes one comes across the oddest things... recently, I came across leftover felt pieces for making catnip mice cat toys. I can't make them for my cats; you might see why if you look closely at this pic...

Yes, yes indeed... Self-Installing Canine Application, Module One, running on the DogMyFootsteps Platform.

Mousies are just about the easiest sewing project I know of. You cut three ovals out of felt and sew them together with embroidery floss, using a blanket stitch. I evidently had gotten fancy here and tried to cut a snout--trust me, it didn't work the way I wanted it to.

I twisted a length of embroidery floss into a tail and sewed it into the mousie as I put the first two ovals together, then immediately joined the third oval in, starting where the tail joined. The open side is at the top in the pic above, but it didn't stay the top of the mousie. That's the beauty of the oval shape--you can flip it over if it looks better the other way, and no one will ever know that you're not a genius. *grin*

Ready for stuffing.

All stuffed now, with catnip tucked into the middle of the mousie and polyester fiberfill all round. The mousie is stitched completely shut, the "nose" is given critical inspection--and by that point I was certainly feeling critical! lol--and here you can see the first ear, ready to be sewn on. The slit is to make it easy to pull into mousie-ear shape.

One down...

....one to go. You can see that one doesn't even have to cut the thread (floss); just go through the mousie to the other side.

After the second ear was on, only the whiskers and nose were left. Again, no need to cut the floss. Tis one continuous piece from seam to ear to ear to nose to whiskers.



They always come out a little different. Wonder what this one's listening to?