Gummi Bear Surgery

Some dear friends whom we rarely see (they live in Buenos Aires) came to visit recently, and it was non-stop fun. Tim had read this awesome instructable and decided he had to operate on our favorite German candy.

All of us were entranced. It basically involves slicing up gummi bears and sticking them back together, joining different colors. No glue necessary—-they are sticky enough to stick together on their own.

Handmade Note Pads Printed with Hand-Carved Rubber Stamp

I read about making your own notepads with padding compound on the most excellent blog, the small object steno pad, and immediately felt I had to run out and do it myself. Padding compound is a fancy word for the red stuff at the edge of notepads that keeps the pages stuck together. Turns out you can buy a huge jar of it for cheap (I ordered mine from amazon), and all you basically have to do is pinch some pages together and paint the compound on the end, then let it dry. For a full tutorial, check out the above link to the small object steno pad.

I acquired (by request) some defunct letterhead from my granddad, who was downsizing.  Then  I  carved a fish stamp using an eraser and lino-cutting tools, then stamped each page with it. Next, I saved cereal boxes for the backing.

I read in the comments on the small object steno pad that an easy way to do a bunch of pads at once is just to layer all the paper and cardboard together and paint the padding compound on the whole batch, then separate the individual pads with a knife.

To keep the pages together tightly, I pressed with clamps between two pieces of scrap wood. Voila!

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One tip on using the padding compound—mix it up thoroughly with a stick or spoon before using, as otherwise it will be too watery to work.

Lastly, I dug up a stack of commercial magnets that I had been saving for just such a need. I glued a magnet on the back of each pad so they could hang on the fridge.

Washcloth Puppets

 

More Christmas gifts. These started out as terry velour Boppy covers I had hand-dyed (I did a little gel-glue batik on the fabric as well). I did something wrong with the sewing pattern, and the covers never fit the Boppy all that well. Once my son was crawling I knew we’d never use them again. I hated to part with the fabric, though, so I thought I’d make some washcloth puppets out of them for all the kids in the family.  I used my husband’s hand as a guide for the pattern.

I probably could’ve done something simpler for the eyes, but since some of the recipients are under two, I worried that  plastic googly eyes might become a choking hazard. I ended up hand-sewing on eyes I made out of  t-shirt fabric (I colored the pupils with a fabric marker).

The noses were my first attempt at machine applique. This tutorial at Sew, Mama, Sew was really helpful. I wouldn’t recommend appliqueing terry on top of terry, at least on your first try. I found flannel applique on top was much easier.

Easy Baby Doll Dress

Recently I used some scraps to make little baby doll dresses based on this pattern by Susan Kramer. They made great gifts for those little mamas in my life. Many more doll clothing patterns by Susan can be found here.

The original pattern calls for sleeves and lace, but I just used the bodice part and folded and hemmed the edges, then added the bottom ruffle. It was easy to make the sleeveless version, and I think sleeveless is also easier for a toddler to put on her/his doll. For the closure I used a tiny bit of Touch Tape, which is an awesome Velcro-like-but-stronger-better fastener. You can purchase it from cloth diaper materials suppliers.

Here’s another version of the dress, made from a recycled men’s shirt:

Smurfy Christmas

 

It’s always fun to pull out the Christmas ornaments and to reminisce about where and when we got them. Both my husband and I have several from our childhood, this being one of them. I just love it. It makes me think of third grade. Evidently the kids love it, too, because they kept stealing it away and playing with it, and when I asked where the Smurf ornament was, they looked at me like I was speaking Sanskrit. I tried to describe the Smurf, and my daughter said, “You mean the little blue elf?”

Mr. Smurf is now safely at the top of the tree. Unfortunately several others did not make it safely there and are now in the ornament hospital for repair and convalescence.

Figure Drawing

Copyright Emily Smith Pearce 2009

I recently started attending a figure drawing session with my friend, illustrator Judy Stead. I hadn’t done any figure drawing since college, and to prove the point, when I opened my sketchbook, out fell some papers from a mythology class I took my junior year.

It was an interesting experience—-kind of like stretching a muscle I forgot I had, but it felt good, too. My muscles did seem to remember a few things. The above is a contour drawing—-that is, done using a single line without picking up the pen from the paper. I used a Sharpie—love drawing with Sharpies—they make such a bold, decisive line that you just have to go with it, and when you stop for a moment they make these great little puddles. They’re kind of stinky, though. I felt bad for the fumes I was making my neighbors smell. I used pencil and charcoal in some other drawings but this was my favorite that night.

Picnic Quilt

I finally got some red thread in my sewing machine and finished this quilt. I used blanket binding to edge it, hoping that the synthetic fiber would be less likely to wick moisture to the quilt top (the bottom layer is red nylon). It was also a really easy way to finish it. If you want to know more about this quilt, click here for info about its beginnings.

My daughter insisted we had to go on an immediate picnic to celebrate, which we did. The quilt is a little small for four rear-ends, but we had fun being cozy.

 In other news, I recently visited the brand spanking new Harvey B. Gantt African-American Cultural Center here in town. Wow! I had seen the Hewitt collection (including works by favorites Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence and others) about a decade ago and had been missing it ever since—until now it had no permanent home. I was so happy to see the collection again as well as the two stunning exhibitions of recent works by contemporary artists. The space itself is really lovely—-it would make a great event site.

Native Flowers

I finished this painting a few weeks ago. It was a commissioned piece. The client requested flowers and suggested a color palette. Here’s what I came up with:

 

 

copyright 2009 Emily Smith Pearce

I guess because I’ve become so interested in gardening, it seemed important to me that the flowers be in-the-ground native plants (or hybrids of natives) that could actually co-exist together here in North Carolina. Without lots of extra watering. High standards, I know, for 2-D plants. I used butterfly weed (the orange), rose verbena (the lower pink flowers) and coreopsis, the small pink flowers in the upper area. All of these plants grow on the hill behind my house, though my coreopsis is actually yellow (it can be pink, however).

Here’s a view of what the painting looked like at the beginning:

a little further along:

mid-way through the process:

A Shiny New Firebird

No, I didn’t get a new car. Charlotte has a new mascot. The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art is opening on January 2, but right now I’m drooling over the outside of the museum, including the recently installed Firebird sculpture by French artist Niki de Saint Phalle.

I love the way the orange brick frames the sculpture. I just couldn’t help smiling when I stood next to it. And the light! The light bouncing off it creates these gorgeous constellations on the ground.

 

I am so totally stoked about this museum. Its big ol’ collection includes works by Giacometti, Miro, Picasso, Le Corbusier, Alexander Calder, Warhol, and on and on. I can barely wait for Jan. 2. For more info, click here.

Interview on BookNAround

Thank you to my friend Kristen Knox, who interviewed me on her blog, BookNAround.  Kristen must be the most voracious reader I know—-take a look at her blog and you’ll see what I mean. If you want to know about any new book out there, chances are Kristen has already read it. She is a fellow member of the Charlotte chapter of the Women’s National Book Association.