Hello - finally!
Well, after much too long, losing my job, major surgery, and almost a whole year being unemployed, I'm back! Don't feel sorry for me - the job was getting horribly stressful, the surgery was for a benign problem, and couldn't have gone any better than it did! I was able to concentrate on my art business, and last art fair season was the best I have ever had (I consider myself an artist, and not ENTIRELY jobless)! I've been spoiled being able to do what I want to do WHEN I want to do it.
In the meantime, I somehow got caught up in Miniature gardening (aka fairy gardens), since I already create Faery Doors. I was always fascinated with miniatures anyway, and it just took off!
One of my ornaments....I made the arbor and gazing globe :)
After creating several container gardens, even some ornament and globe gardens, I also have started a small plot in my gardens under a variegated Redbud tree that will become an outdoor Fairy Garden come Spring!
Until then, I have to stick with the indoor projects. I have discovered only a couple shops near me that carry fairy garden items, but I hate to buy much of that. First of all, the items are pretty expensive, plus I never like to have things that everyone else has, and you also have to stick with the scale they're made in, and some aren't quite the size I need. So I make my accessories myself whenever possible.
Today I'm working on a tiny bottle that I want to create a little "beach" garden in. I also wanted an umbrella for the scene, one that would be fairly waterproof, since I'm a gardener and all my little gardens will have live plants in them (or will be outside), so I can't have anything made with paper or cloth. Here's what I did:
First, I found a small piece of heavy duty aluminum foil.
Next, take a round object close to the size you want the umbrella to be. I wanted this one to be a little larger than the coin, so I just drew (using a ball point pen) the curve a little larger. I'm good at just "eyeballing" things, but if you want, just find something that you can follow exactly.
I used some shears with a scalloped design to cut it with.
Anyway, when the glue dried, I painted the umbrellas with acrylic paint....
And decided to paint the undersides too, so you can't tell it's foil.
Open it up and use the pen to divide the circle into eighths. I put it on some thick paper so the lines would be deeper. Just be careful you don't poke through the foil!
Using the pen, I put a little more form to it. This step isn't necessary, but I think it looked better.
Cut a round toothpick to the length you want (making sure there's enough to stick into the "ground").
Glue the toothpick to the underside, then stick into a piece of styrofoam or whatever will hold it till it dries. I couldn't find my styrofoam, so I'm using the end of a stalk of celery! Hey, don't judge me - you wanna learn how to do this or not!? I know you're laughing at me behind my back...
In the meantime, I also wanted a beach blanket that again wouldn't absorb moisture. I used a rubber jar opener, since it had a texture that sort of looked like cloth, cut a small piece, painted it with white acrylic, and drew the pattern with permanent markers.
One last step - I thought it might be best to seal the paint since it will be in a moist environment. I had some with sparkles in it (of course!).
Here's the jar. This was just a cheap souvenir I found at Goodwill, it had "Hollywood Beach" printed on it (I made sure it could be easily scratched off), and it had sparkly white sand and some largish seashells in it. I broke up most of the shells to get them out and saved the sand. Actually, it is cut underneath the cord on the left (that's how they got the shells in!). I tried to see if it would come apart, but no luck, so I had to do it the hard way!
The inside is difficult to see, but I'm doing this the "patient" way. Instead of trying to clean the sand off each plant, I'm just going to wait until the plants start to grow and push the sand off themselves. I'll show another photo of it in a few weeks.
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