is everyone on holiday?

[lyn]

Hello everyone - this forum has gone very quiet so I thought I'd say something!

I've just bought a bag of scraps,
folksy.com/items/3305822-Free-scrap-bag-fabrics
and when I received it, there was a note from the sender. Her name is Flaming Nora and this was her note:
"Flaming Nora presents tales from the scrap heap - enjoy your scrap bag. Be creative, be unusual, be funny. And then when you have finished let every one know about it. Post pictures to flick.com/groups/talesfromthescrapheap"
Well, got to do it now haven't I?

My daughter has become fed-up with her craft room at her house (it's a spare room that just sort evolved into a craft room), so she's emptied it, ripped up the carpet and is going to sand the floor. Then she's going to paint the walls and put things back in just as she wants them. Oooh, I said, you're going to have a proper studio! Am I jealous? Well, just a little. I'm glad no-one can see my space. Happy though I am to have a dedicated space of my own, it's a hotchpotch of other people's unwanted furniture customised into usefullness atop an ancient fitted carpet. However, the upside is that I don't have to worry about it - I can be as rough and as messy as I like.

Right now though it looks like a room from the programme 'Hoarders'. We're re-decorating my grand-daughter's room at ours and the furniture and contents of her room are being stored in my craft room (she loves to make things so she has a large stash). I can hardly move in here now. Still, it's only for a few weeks eh?

[zed]

That's really cool, what a bargain!
This week I've been mostly sorting out fabrics, tearing off strips to use in felting and putting the rest away in boxes. I've also been photographing a lot of felt for various projects. My old camera died and I've been working out my new one. I've got about 15 felt pieces that I want various shots of: Overhead for the full piece, along the surface for the texture of the fabrics, close ups etc, and they all work differently on different backgrounds, so I'm repeating everything on brown, black and white (a bit tedious, but not as tedious as going through them all afterwards!) I discovered my new camera has a Supermacro, not quite as good as an electron microscope but really impressive, so I've been photographing textures (and eyelashes, feathers, bugs etc!)

Oh, and I just have everything stuffed into the bedroom, and I have one little table to work on, so everything gets piled on the bed while the table is used

[Shepherdess]

con gradulatoins to her on getting the space sorted out. you rally have to so it every once and a while.
I just want to say that no matter how much space you have you always end up with stuff pilled. I am a messy worker so piles of things that you pull out looking for something , chacking ho colours go to gether etc and them thinking oh I should leave that out so I will remember to try that and then the next thing you know you can hardly move again.
The scrap bag sounds like fun.

[MTRuth]

Summer is so busy. We have company and I had to move all my stuff out of my studio room to put the bed back in. At least I got stuff cleaned up. I am thinking of repainting while I have everything out but no time to do it.

[lyn]

It sounds as though we're all a bit busy.

I tried to make something today, but had so many interruptions that I made a mess of it. Doh!

Zed - supermacro sounds great - can you show us some eyelashes and bugs?

[Tess]

We are in for a very wet week, I shall muck out the goat pens and they can all go back in with lots of hay and browse, Angora goats don't do wet weather at all. I'm limping a little better this week still got a badly bruised foot but I'm up and down the stairs to the studio trying to get organized. Have some dedicated work areas, mixed media work requires some kind of order, taken a few photos will post them shortly OH is off work today as he has hurt his foot in Canberra last week. Dusted down my son's old work desk and its now my granddaughters work space, she will be so excited to be finally up there with me.
Lyn enjoy your bag of scraps, sometimes you have to look at the patterns for awhile before an idea comes and it will be perfect. Good luck with the new workspace, just to close the door on a current project for another day makes it that much more enjoyable. I think as artists you reach a point when it becomes so much more serious and your own space is vital to the creative process.

[zed]

The bugs were too fast
Eyelashes ....

[lyn]

What a fantastic camera Zed! You are going to have such fun with it. And it will be extremely useful for photographing your felty things.

Tess - hope your foot improves quickly! I really like your new space and to have the company of your grand-daughter in there will be brilliant.

Here's my effort with some of Flaming Nora's scraps (it's an altered image of a bird box and you'll need to click on the small image that shows to get a bigger one).
www.flickr.com/groups/talesfromthescrapheap/

[MTRuth]

Your birdhouse is really cute!

[zed]

That's a great idea Lyn, it looks really good

[jufergu]

We took time out to take a couple of small trips. We are also suffering from extremely hot temperatures and drought conditions. We lost one of our trees in a terrible storm. This month we have been doing some expanding on our house and I will finally have a sunroom to paint in. Tinted glass windows, added an air conditioner, a new light fixture and a roof over the attached deck. All this in one month. Crazy.

[lyn]

The new room sounds ideal Judy (especially with the air conditioner!)

[teriann]

I was away at our summer place getting ready for a craft sale.
We don't have a land line telephone, Internet or tv there so I've been out of touch.

I do this once a year and never have as much to offer as I'd like.
The sale starts at 10:00 and I'm pretty much sold out by 12:30.
I didn't sell any cat nap sacks though. I don't think they are the right fit for this sale.
It's in a vacation area and I think people are looking for small gifts.
Little needle felted wild creatures and dogs are popular.

Here's a link to some pictures from the sale.
app.onlinephotofiler.com/GalleryFilmstrip.aspx?gallery=2930311&ci=42242

[Shepherdess]

Being out off touch can be very nice. I can't get the link to work.

[zed]

That'd be nice to get away from everything and just make stuff for a while
I couldn't get the link to work either.

We can't add anything to our house, but there are two big fences either side that I often think of putting something between to make a lean-to or even just a temporary thing like a tarp to be able to felt outside but be sheltered from the elements.