Frida's House

This weekend I made two pairs of earrings from calendar prints of Frida Kahlo's paintings. 

I tried incorporating important details in the earrings.  In this pair, the hands seem important.  She is holding shears in one painting and in the other she is holding paint brushes and a pallette.  Those details I used for the rooves.

Here's the other pair. 

I covered them with resin last night so that they would add hardness to the card stock.

Wee Houses in July's BeadStyle

I got an advance copy of July's BeadStyle magazine today.  My wee house earrings were featured in  a spot.  Yippee!  I'm pretty excited.  The July issue goes on sale May 31.

Since I am not a beader nor a jewelry person, I'd never seen the magazine.  Looking through it though, I saw lots of good ideas that I can use.  Maybe I'll even get out all those beads I used to buy, but never knew how to use.

Wee Bunk Houses

I've enjoyed making the wee houses from time to time.  I've only just started turning them into wearable art.

This is one of the earliest of my "wee houses".

A quote printed on this business card attracted me me enough to want to use it.  "Its never to late to be a cowboy."

I love the sentiment.  I'd love to think that no matter what my age, I can still try new things and even reinvent myself.  Probably, I have done just that a time or two already.

That quote and the graphics made me imagine a house on a western ranch.  I think of the newer houses that followed as the ranch's bunk houses.  They're about an inch tall and 3/4 inch wide.

I've added earrings to them so I can wear them during my lessons on architecture.

Earrings for an Architecture Lesson

The after school knitting group went to a French cafe for our little gathering today.  How excited I was to see their richly colored business cards.  Though this isn't exactly what I had in mind for my architecture earrings, they'll do for now.

Here's how I made them:

I'll show you my artsy earring collection soon.

Earrings as Teaching Resources

My coworker heard two students discussing my earrings the other day.  "Ms. Johnson wears cool earrings."  I got a kick out of that.  They were probably referring to the ones of Mona Lisa, The Scream, Warhol's Campbell Soup Can, or similar ones in my earring collection.

It occurred to me today that it might be fun to have some related to architecture, since I am in the middle of teaching that topic right now.  Then I thought about the wee houses I used to make.  So, I went through the recycle bin at home and pulled out a bunch of cardboard.  The Folger's coffee box looked interesting so I played with that.  This is a little bigger than I would like to wear as an earring, but that is the starting point from which I'll  be departing.

Wee Fish House?

This business card is from a nice restaurant near where we live.

For some reason, the way I have arranged the graphics on this building, reminds me of an old seafood restaurant near the beach.

I'm guessing it is 1/2" tall.  I suppose I should go measure it, but believe it or not, I don't measure too much on these.

Last One on the Block

I think that the house on the far left is going to be the last one on the block.  The neighborhood feels just right the size.  I may go back and add chimneys though.

Someone suggested that I put little white lights inside, which is an idea I love.  (I sure wish that last week I hadn't given  a set of battery run little white lights to the Goodwill.  Sigh......  A week ago.  I kid you not.)

And So it Grows

The Wee Neighborhood Grows

Wee Row Houses

I contemplated driving to Old Town Alexandria today.

 Instead, I borrowed its colonial row house architecture for my wee buildings.
















They're made from packaging of a southwest soup mix.

 These are slightly bigger than the last ones, but still, they're only as tall as a battery.

Another Wee Escher House

I feel as though I have been awake for 36 hours though I have been awake for about 10.  Does that mean that days spent alone drag or that I just get so much done it feels like multiple days?  Hmm...

Here is my wee house of the day.  I had some of the Escher postcard leftover, so I used it on another house.

This is about as small as I've gotten this week.

Wee Psycho House if Built by MCEscher

 I put M on a plane this morning.  He will be out west having a trip of a lifetime paddling on the Escalante River.  I will be home working.  No grumbling here though.  Nuh uh.  I get a week at home alone.  Introvert that I am, this is almost as good as a bonafide trip of a lifetime.  Well, not really, but I do love time alone every once in a while.

As soon as M leaves, our whole house changes.  My little corner of the house known as "Snippyville" explodes into "Snippyworld" and spreads to every nook and cranny of this abode.  Scissors and paper scraps can be found everywhere.  And the gym that normally shares the space down in Snippyville spreads out as well.  My road bike is now set up on its stationary trainer apparatus in the living room.....next to the Lazy Boy that temporarily triples as a nap space, computer station, and Snippychair.

My idea for a wee house tonight was based on the house from the Hitchcock movie, "Psycho."

I looked around for something made of cardstock in which to make a Psycho house.

Out of nowhere popped this book of postcards by M.C.Escher.  TaDa!  The perfect whacky building material for a twisted house. 

Here's the house to scale.
Whacky, huh?

Wee Adobe

This wee house is made out of a card from Silverado restaurant.  Mmmmmm.  Yummy place.  I guess it is a Virginia version of Tex Mex food. 

 

  

 I'm trying to work tinier.  This is about 25% the size of the split level. 

 

Our fall break from school is coming up.  The kids are out Wednesday after next and we are out that Friday.  It sure couldn't come fast enough.  I have no plans at this point, but sure want to do something.  The best plans I can imagine involve being far away from tv and internet news.   

Wee Little Split Level

The neighborhoods in which I live and work look like "the land of a thousand split levels." 

 

So I snipped a split level

out of a business card from a conglomeration of restaurants that we adore. 

 

Still feeling under the weather.  Blech.

Wee Restaurant

 Today was the first day that I have felt half decent in weeks.  I think I've coughed myself out and there are no coughs left in me.  The antibiotics are finally done and thank goodness for that.  That stuff was nasty!

I sat down in Snippyville for the first time in weeks as well.  While I like to snip images of what's going on in my life, a snip of me laying under a pile of blankets was not appealing to me.  So I snipped a simple wee little building from a business card.  This one is for the restaurant "Carlyle's" in Arlington.

And that's about as much as I can muster at the moment.

Tiny Building - Harlem Renaissance

While I was working on the Tar Beach video, I started being aware of the Harlem Renaissance pieces that I encountered. That inspired this building.









I found the background for the house in a book of love poems accompanied by works of art at the Met. The book was at a library book sale and there were already some photos removed. I bought it with the idea of dismembering it at some point. It must have hung around the house for a couple of years before I started doing anything with it though.

The original collage was one of a series by Romare Bearden, called "The Block."

Jackie mentioned something recently about the tiny houses I used to make and so I thought that might be something with which to entertain myself.








After assembling the house, I decided to challenge myself to use other images from the book in order to add dimension. Some of the details are from ancient Egypt and some are from the Renaissance. Peeking though the windows are details that I can tie together in a story in my own mind.


I like the tiny buildings. Maybe I'll work in this direction for a little while.