Flowers for Fall...

I'm back! The creative side of my brain took a really long vacation this summer. It was too hot to be working in the garage. Aaand...let's face it...I was LAZY! 

I did finish some stained flowers, however. These are mini versions of the other stained flowers I have done. These measure almost 7" including the frame. It was really fun to paint these little guys. I could knock one out in a few hours. That being said, however, it seems to be easier to stain on the larger "canvases."

Orchid

Lotus

Stargazer Lily

I also tried something new. I added a bit of color to the plumeria flower. I painted the frame to tie it all together. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

Plumeria

A Portrait...

I am always up for trying new things (when it comes to crafting). I absolutely love painting/shading with stain, and I learn something new with every project I complete. My latest attempt at "new" was doing a portrait in stain. 

I first thought of doing this portrait about 6 months ago. It rolled around in my mind for several months. I prepped the 1" x 12" wood, which then sat around for a month while I gathered some courage. See, this portrait is of someone very special. I could not mess this up - it had to be perfect! This portrait is of my awesome, amazing, loving, passionate, hilarious cousin, Bryant. 

Bry lost his battle with lung cancer in October 2017. He was the oldest son of my Aunt Pam. The big brother to three sisters and best friend of his little brother. The uncle to 17 adoring nieces and nephews. The #1 BYU sports fan. The guy with the quickest wit EVER. The inventor of more games than anyone can count. The biggest Christmas enthusiast. (He had 7 individually themed Christmas trees, each with their own name.) 

My earliest and best memory of Bry was when we were young kids playing in the backyard of our Grandmother's house. She had a picnic table under a large cherry tree. The ground under the tree was a dark black soil. Our Grandparents always had candy and treats for us when we would visit. My favorite treat was chocolate Jell-O pudding pops. We were all eating our pudding pops outside, under the shady cherry tree. My pudding pop slipped out of my hand and landed in the soil. I asked my Grandma for another pop, but she said no. I was kinda' devastated. Bry said, "It's fine. I'll wipe it off and you can still eat it." He proceeded to lick the soil off with one big swipe of his tongue (and then swallowed)! I looked at him with awe and gratefully accepted the pudding pop back from him. Yes, of course I ate it. Small acts of service such as this defined the life of Bryant. He was loved by so very many people. Now maybe you can see why the portrait had to be perfect...

I made more changes than I can count, which is not easy with stain. However, I gained some new techniques on "erasing" mistakes on stained wood. One is that fresh (still wet) stain can sometimes be erased by - get this - an actual eraser! This technique is, unfortunately, hit and miss. Half of the time, an eraser did not work. I haven't the foggiest idea why. Maybe after more experimental crafting I can give you a good reason. The second technique is "erasing" with small pieces of very fine sandpaper and a gentle hand. After sanding, I found that using an actual eraser to clean up the area was very effective. Please be warned though, the sandpaper can also erase your fingernails!

It's not perfect, but after I was sure I hadn't completely screwed up, I made a frame with 1" x 2" furring strips, stained with Minwax Jacobean wood stain to match the portrait.

When I was talking to my family about this project, I realized just how crazy I was to attempt it. I have NEVER done a portrait. I have never even tried to sketch a portrait in my life! I don't know what made me think I could try a stained portrait, except that I wanted so badly to honor Bryant. I wanted to give his mom something to remember him, that would hopefully bring some comfort to her. I surprised her with it last weekend. She loved it (thank goodness!) and was so grateful.

Totally worth it.

Love you Bry!

Playing Catch-Up...

Wow. Am I glad that December is over! The stress of the holidays, kids out of school, and everyone getting sick (twice in some cases) is behind me.

I get the Winter Blues real bad. It starts around Thanksgiving and I don't escape the "fog" until around February. This year, however, the fog is already lifting! Probably because we have had such a mild winter. Hardly any snow to think of, although we are expecting a snow storm this weekend. The sun has been shining this week and the sky has been blue. I love me some blue sky! 

Since I'm feeling more normal (whatever that is), I actually finished some projects. And I realized there are a few things I've done that I didn't share on the blog. 

This last week I completed some signs for our Young Women's New Beginnings. If you are wondering what the heck that is, I'll tell you. New Beginnings is a time to welcome all of the girls turning 12 this year into the Young Women program. There are three classes of girls. Girls just entering and through to their 14th birthday are called Beehives. Girls ages 14 and 15 are Mia Maids, and girls 16 to 18 are the Laurels. I made each class a sign of their motto. The plan is to hang them up at the church.

I don't have photos of how I made the signs, but I was given some 3/4" plywood already cut to 12" x 16". I then stained the plywood. I found some clip-art, typed up the mottos, and printed them out. I used a projector to enlarge the prints and traced out the words with a white paint pen. I traced the clip-art with a white colored pencil and then painted them.

I used some 1" x 2" pine to make the frames. I sanded them and added some wood stain to the edges. Next, I used some wax in places I wanted the stain to show through and then painted them white. When the paint was dry, or mostly dry, I used a razor blade to scrape of the wax areas. This exposes the dark brown underneath and gives it a roughed-up or aged look. Everything was sealed with a clear coat. I am really pleased with how the signs turned out! Now I have to figure out where in the classroom to hang them...

I also made some simple Christmas gifts. My daughter's teacher is a major Harry Potter fan, so I made him a grouping of four small signs.

I sanded some cedar fence board, cut into 5" squares. I spray painted the squares black and used my projector to trace the words with a white paint pen. I added a bit of color with some acrylic paint. I also roughed-up the edges with my sander and finished with clear coat.

I made some small signs the same way, only using stain instead of paint. I free-handed these with a paint pen.

I also realized I haven't posted some of my other painting, or shading, with stain pictures. I love making these! FYI, I don't know the names of all these flowers, so I gave them names. Artist's prerogative.

Flower Blossom

Daisy Magnified

Hibiscus

Irish Daisy

The Irish Daisy above was fun. I used a knot in the wood to make the center of the daisy. That piece of wood was meant to be a daisy!

Belfast Blossom

I have used Minwax Jacobean for all of my art, but I wanted to try something different. I used Minwax Special Walnut and I had horrible results. The stain spread too quickly, so the flower looked fuzzy. You know, like when you aren't wearing your glasses kind of fuzzy. I was so disappointed because I really wanted to use a different color.

Open Rose

The rose above is a different color because it is a different type of wood. It was a piece of scrap I was given, so I'm not sure what kind of wood. It is also smaller and sold quickly, which means I need to make more of this size!

Our Last Day in Ireland...

Our last day in Ireland was a busy one. We were on the west coast of the country and our next stay was on the east coast. While it is amazing to me that we can cross an entire country in less than 4 hours, any stops we made would have to be quick.

Connemara Marble Factory is one of Ireland's treasures. It is not too far from Ashford Castle, but it is on the other side of a lough, so it was a little bit out of our way. The first time I had ever heard of Connemara marble, was from my Grandpa Darling. In sixth grade, I did my country report on Ireland. My Grandpa sent me several trinkets to show in my presentation. One of those trinkets was his "worry stone." A worry stone is a piece of marble with a circular dip carved in it. You keep it in your pocket and rub it with your thumb when you are...worried. The worry stone my Grandpa sent me is one of my prized possessions, as you could tell he had used it. It was slightly worn from his thumb.

We stopped and toured the factory. There is also a museum, but it was closed.

Geologists have dated the marble to be about 600 million years old. It comes in a variety of green hues, sometimes even with purple. Isn't it gorgeous?

 After the marble is quarried, workers cut and polish it. They then craft it into a variety of treasures.

The trip to Connemara Marble Factory was worth it. Heading back toward the east, in about the center of Ireland, was our next stop. 

Why don't we use exclamation point signs in America?

I had to capture a picture of this road on the GPS. I wish you could have heard the poor GPS say it!
"kin-sen-ten-AH-ree-brij-a-proche-road" (said really fast)

Clonmacnoise is an ancient monastic site, dating to the 6th century. It was founded by St. Ciaran as a religious center. It also attracted scholars from around the world. 

Entrance to the visitor center at Clonmacnoise.

Statue of "The Pilgrim."

The site includes ancient churches, a cathedral, two round towers, and three high crosses. The high crosses have been moved inside the visitor center for preservation, with replicas in their place.

The visitor's center also houses some ancient stone slabs.

The grounds outside the visitor's center were beautiful. I love this pic of the clover!

The plaque to the right commemorates the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1978.

Those making pilgrimage to the site over the centuries used this path, now marked with stones.

One of the high crosses.

One of the high towers.

The weather started to turn, so we headed back out on the road to our final destination, Powerscourt Hotel.

Powerscourt is a vast estate, and where we made our very first stop on our first trip to Ireland. Five years ago we toured the house and gardens. This time around, we stayed at the hotel.

Arriving at Powerscourt, Sugarloaf Mountain in the background.

We had arrived at the hotel around 5 pm, so we had plenty of time to tour the grounds again, right? Wrong!

The bellhop helped us with our luggage and our car was parked. We stood in line to check in for about 10 minutes. No biggie. It just gave us a chance to look around the lobby.

When it was our turn to check in, we were not-so-pleasantly surprised to find that the hotel had no record of our stay. Say wha...? There must be some mistake. Check again, please? After an embarrassing amount of time, we were moved to a desk to try to make phone calls to the travel agency. Remember, we are 5 hours ahead of New York, which by this time is about 11 pm there. We had copies of our itinerary, copies of payment, copies of information. We were getting nowhere with the phone calls and we were very tired and hungry. Like...ready-to-cry tired and hungry.

The concierge could see we were distressed. He said it would all get figured out, we weren't to worry. He took us to the lounge for some dinner, on the house.

We both had the potato leek soup and club sandwich with fries. It was a lot of food, but the stress kinda ruined my appetite. Another hour went by.

Finally, the concierge (wish I could remember his name) came to tell us that our room was ready. It was on the ground floor at the end of a looong hallway.

Our room was on the first floor on the far left.
Source

We opened the door to a suite. A really, really nice suite. A please-forgive-us-for-all-the-trouble suite.

Entry hall.

Closet/foyer.

King bed.

Couch and desk.

Two queen beds.

We had too many beds! I told my sis to take the king bed. That left me with the other two, so I had a "relaxing bed" and a "sleeping bed." Yep.

The bathroom was just as posh. See that black box in the middle of the mirror? Yes, yes it is a t.v.

By this time, it was almost 9 pm. Too late to explore the gardens. Too late to walk to the waterfall. And too dark to even open the curtains and see what kind of a view we had from our room. I'm positive it was spectacular.

A few funny things happened though. We were told there was an ice machine at the end of our hall. So, being the ice fanatics that we are, first my sis took the crystal (yes, crystal) ice bucket out to get us some ice. She came back empty handed. She couldn't locate the ice machine. Okay, I can handle this. My turn to take the crystal ice bucket for a long walk. This is a long hallway guys. I went from end to end twice, with no luck. Oh well. At least we had water.

Then, a little bit later, we heard what we thought was a doorbell. My sis and I looked at each other. Was that the doorbell? A doorbell? She opened the door to find a young bellhop. So, yes, it was the doorbell. The young man brought in a small gift for all of our trouble...

Gourmet chocolates. The one in the center has little gold flecks on it! Awesome, isn't it? While we had the young man's attention, we told him of our trials in trying to get ice. He told us that normally, yes, the machines were at the end of the halls. But on OUR floor, they bring us what we need. That's when we knew how bad the hotel felt special we were. He then brought us some beautiful, rare, delicious ice.

Well, we had to try the gourmet chocolates, right? This is one of those moments that I realized I am a peasant. I am not used to the finer things in life. And now I know I don't like to eat the finer things in life. These expensive chocolates were yucky. Too dark, either inside or outside. The best part of this plate was the candied pistachios used for decoration. See. I'm a peasant.

The rest of the night was spent packing and re-packing our suitcases for our trip home. We slept well, but had to be up too early to enjoy our free breakfast at this 5 star hotel. In fact, the sun wasn't up yet, so we still couldn't see the view from our room. Although, I did get more pics of the hotel while we waited for the car to be brought around.

I was so sad to leave Ireland. I love the country so very much. It's full of history and the kindest people. And, who knows? Maybe in 5 years I will go back to tour the southern half of Ireland. Fingers crossed!