Dinnerware as Art

This is another one of those projects that was sitting around forever before I got around to completing it. I had everything to do it for over a year before I finally go around to it. Kind of silly since it was such a simple project! It's hanging up in my dining room now and I love it! It 's a really easy and inexpensive project, so I thought I'd do a little tutorial on how to make your own.

Supply List

1. One or more wooden picture frames. You can spray paint your frame(s) any color you want, so you don't have to worry about finding matching frames. I got lucky and found all three matching frames at my favorite thrift store in a color I liked all at once, but I've never had that happen to me since!

2. Old silverware. Mine came from a thrift store. It doesn't have to be matching. I intentionally chose different sizes and patters to make it more interesting.

3. Scrapbook paper. I just raided my overflowing and ever growing paper supply. If one of your frames is bigger that 12x12 (standard paper size) make sure you get two pieces of your paper in a pattern that you can match up. The paper on my biggest frame is actually two pieces, you just can't tell because I lined the patterns up.

4. Matte ModPodge. It can be found at a craft store or Walmart craft section.

5. E-6000 clear multi-purpose glue. You can also buy it at a craft store or at Walmart in the craft section.

6. Flat art canvases in sizes to fit in your frames. Sometimes you can find these at Walmart, but they don't always have very many sizes, so you may have better luck at an art supply/craft store.

Step One

Spray paint your frames if desired.

Step Two

You are going to cover your flat canvases in paper. Cut your paper to the same size as your canvas. Brush a coat of ModPodge on the canvas and and lay the paper on top of it. Smooth it out as much as you can. I like to use a brayer for this, but you can use a rolling pin or your hands. Once your paper is smooth, brush another coat of ModPodge on top of it and let it dry.

Step Three

Once the ModPodge has dried, decide on your arrangement of the silverware. When you know the way you want it to be, glue it down with the E-6000 glue. Obviously some of the silverware is not flat, so just put the glue on the parts where the silverware touches the paper. The glue is really powerful stuff, so even if you can only put a bead of glue on the back of the spoon head, it should still stick once it's dry. Make sure you let the glue dry for 24 hours before you pick up the canvas though.

Step Four

Once the glue has dried, but your canvas in the frame. Two of my frames had little staples in them that I could bend to hold the canvases in, but one did not. On the one that didn't I just pulled out my E-6000 again and glued it into the frame. If you need to use glue, make sure you let it dry before hanging it up.

That's all there is to it! I don't know why it took me so long to get around to this project, it was so easy. Hopefully it won't take you as long as it took me! It's a fun and inexpensive way to add some whimsy to your dining room. I'm always getting compliments on it.

If anyone makes dinnerware art, I would love to see it! Post it on your blog and let me know. I'll come check it out and maybe even put a link to your dinnerware art here!

Linking up here.

When She Speaks

Lately for my 52 Weeks project I have been reading Proverbs. I have to admit, I'm struggling with this book a bit. It's not that it's bad, of course, but that it's so random! It's good, but it's been a hard book for me to get through, even more so than Numbers. Maybe it's better to read only one or two proverbs a day, instead of several chapters, but if I'm going to finish the Old Testament by the end of the year, chapters it is.

I'm celebrating because today I finished Proverbs and ended on a high note. This was the one thing in the book that stood out to me more than anything else:
"When she speaks she has something worthwhile to say, and she always says it kindly."

Proverbs 31:26 (The Message)

This is not me, but oh, how I want it to be! The Lord and I are working on it.

And now I can't wait to see how He's going to speak to me through Ecclesiastes!

Water Fairies

Sometimes I like to think that fairies come at night

and place drops of dew on blades of grass

even though I know it's not true!

"The Lord says, "Then I will heal you of your faithlessness; My love will know no bounds, for My anger will be gone forever. I will be to Israel like a refreshing dew from heaven. Israel will blossom like the lily; it will send roots deep into the soil like the cedars in Lebanon." Hosea 14:5-6

You Capture: Green

And I Quote...

"There are few things that can inspire wonder like the birth of a child – the intricacy and beauty and messiness of it all.  Life is so fragile and so precious... Every breath is miracle. The same love that called the cosmos into existence beats inside my chest with every heartbeat. It’s all a gift. What does one do with this gift though? Clutch with white knuckles and try to hold on to it? That is useless. We cannot control when we were born, and we cannot control what will finally take our lives from us. It is not clutched, greedy fists that lead us to peace and joy in this life. Instead it is surrender. It is letting go of the control and the fear, and offering all we are in love, accepting any pain that might accompany it, all as a part of this beautiful gift that is life... In the face of such an enormous and magnificent universe, one can either create illusions of grandeur for himself or admit his insignificance in time and space with humility.  One can go through this life attempting to gain control or trying to gain life by holding on tenaciously; however, she will then certainly lose it.   Perhaps it is actually only in the “losing” of one’s life that one can truly find it." -Michael Gungor

Signs of Autumn

My garden is winding down, but it's still beautiful...

just in an entirely different way!

Rusty Industry

Industrial photography is fun, and not something I get to do very often, living in a rural area.

 There are a lot of photos of flowers, barns, old buildings, outdoorsy things, and little indoor vignettes because that is what I am surrounded by.

There is, however, and awesome train museum/yard about half an hour from my home. It is seriously one of my favorite places to take pictures!

While some of the trains and street cars have been restored, much of the museum has been left to the elements. I like it that way.

I've always had an affinity for the rusty.

You Capture: Industrial

East, West, Home's the Best!

This is one of my latest collages, East, West, Home's the Best. It's very simple and one of my favorites to date. It came together quickly. In fact, I made two. One as a gift and one for me too because I loved it so much!

The idea was originally in my art journal. I think I sketched it just after coming home from vacation this summer and put it on canvas shortly after. It's wonderful to travel around and see new things, but coming home is always SO nice. There's nothing like sleeping in your own bed after ten days away.

The background is a vintage map of the world that I cut out of an old atlas I bought at a thrift store. Matt was horrified that I would cut up an atlas, even an out of date one. I think it's from the early sixties. He has a thing for maps.

The house and the word 'home' are done with acrylic paint as are the striped sides of the canvas. I'm really loving stripes on the edges of my canvases lately. I like how it looks when it's hung and it eliminates the need for a frame. I used charcoal for added detailing and the rest of the words.

"East, west, home's the best!" is actually a quote from a book in the Anne of Green Gables series, Anne of the Island, I think. I've always been a big Anne fan, and it's not the first time that has come out in my work. I have a collage hanging in my room and I covered it in pages from an Anne book. I wonder if my love of Anne will ever pop out again?

And I Quote...

"Many people think that what's written in the Bible has mostly to do with getting people into heaven-- getting right with God, saving their eternal souls. It does have to do with that, of course, but not mostly. It is equally concerned with living on this earth -- living well, living in robust sanity." -Eugene Peterson

Apples

We are lucky enough to live near an area filled with apple farms. It can get a little crazy in the fall on the weekends with lots of tourists coming for a visit. I can't blame them for flocking to the place, it's a beautiful place, very picturesque.

Since we only live ten minutes away, we go year round and avoid the farms on the weekends during the busy season. Being so close means we can go for a few hours after school. Then we can wander the orchards and farms taking pictures without hordes of people inadvertently wandering into your shot. And of course, try the samples of apples and cider without having to wait in line!

 "He found him in a desert land And in the wasteland, a howling wilderness;

He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye."

Deuteronomy 32:10



You Capture: Apple

Confessions and Quirks: Part Nine

1. I'm collecting vintage linens to make a quilt.

2. I don't know how to make a quilt.

3. I'm hoping the ability to create a quilt comes through osmosis, as I've been looking at lots of pretty quilts made from vintage sheets on Etsy.

4. I'm making a chevron striped friendship bracelet for Gemma. I used to make them when I was a girl.

5. Now I'm wishing I didn't tell Gemma the bracelet is for her because I like how it's turning out and want to keep it for myself.

6. It's really windy today.

7. I hate the wind.

8. One of my cats has gotten fat and I don't care. I like fat cats.

9. After a very prolific six weeks, my tomato plants production is slowing down. I picked most of what was left today. It will probably be a few weeks before I have more. I'm sad about that.

10. We've been enjoying beautiful, juicy red tomatoes every day for weeks, but won't be able to for a while. I'm sad about that too.

Peaches!

Just some more of my abundant garden produce!

My husband is hoping these will turn into a peach pie...

And I Quote...

John Stam:

"One never knows what one may run into. But we do know that the Lord Jehovah reigns... If we should go on before, it is only the quicker to enjoy the bliss of the Savior's presence."

Modern Dandelions

My dining room is kind of traditional and I want to give it more of an eclectic feel like the rest of my house. Out of that desire this series of two paintings was created. I call them Modern Dandelions and used a gray and yellow color pallet to five them a contemporary feel.

No special techniques or messages here. They're really very simple and were based off of some watercolor paintings I did quiet a while ago on a rainy Saturday.

I covered the canvases in some kind of book paper first, maybe music sheets? No, I think it was pages from a Japanese text book. I didn't want the paper to take away from the simplicity of the flowers, so you can barely see the writing through the gray paint. I mainly wanted the background to have some texture. The flowers are varying shades of yellow and the details are done in charcoal. 

Since completing this little series I've done quite a few sketches of simple flowers in my art journal. Maybe they'll make their way to some canvases in the coming months!

Lines

While in my backyard

the other day

lying in my hammock,

I noticed lines

all around me.

Lines intersecting,

lines criss-crossing,

white lines,

black lines,

shadow lines.

lines everywhere.

You Just Know...

that school is back in session when I am up early enough

to take a photo of the sunrise!

You Capture: Back To School

In My Garden...

Chives are growing.

 I've been trying for weeks,

 WEEKS, to get pictures of chive flowers,

 but a certain little girl kept getting to them first.

It is her job, after all, to pick all the herb flowers, but

she was a little slack this week,

and I finally got some!

And I Quote...

Oswald Chambers:

"Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life: gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness, it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God."