Thursday’s Thrill

This may not be a very high standard for living on the edge but I humbly submit my Thursday’s Thrill.

Transfers are my favorite way to add text to the edges of boxes. It’s a process that I’ve found cannot be rushed.

I try to wait a full 24 hours before peeling off the paper and revealing the words underneath. I love seeing the words gradually become clearer and clearer.

I fully realize the risk involved in this kind of behavior but sometimes you just have to take a chance. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Progress of Sorts

These have taken up the better part of a couple of days. You wouldn’t know to look at them, would you?

Then I got stuck for a minute or two or three and when I went looking for inspiration I remembered I had these. That helped me with some forward momentum.

My next thing is to decide whether to use one of these fabrics or not. If I do, it will be one of the last bits I need to work on before I can wrap up this project.

I have decided not to use these – even though I like them and the colors are right. That’s my current plan anyway.

That’s how these projects seem to go. Spending time on research and deciding what will work, what inspires, what goes, what doesn’t, ideas for techniques that can be adapted, ideas from other places that I can incorporate. Decisions, decisions – and hope they are the right ones.

Sometimes I Use a Pencil

and sometimes I use my phone. In the middle of my current box project, I was looking for a photo I had taken with my phone – you know that’s a thing these days – and I realized what an odd collection of pictures it held.

It was like a visual notepad from the last, oh I don’t know, the last couple of years. For example, I took this picture of the Rit dye display so I could remember what colors are available.

When we were in London I snapped this to send to my son who I hoped would get a laugh out of it – he’s a Star Wars fan.

One of my favorites – sunset at the beach and

then one of the Super Moon.

I’d almost forgotten that we were riding the Rockin’ Roller Coaster in May of last year. Has it been that long?

There was shopping for a replacement vehicle for my daughter when her car died.

I have no idea what this was about . . .

We were a captive audience in our favorite coffee shop when there was an amazing hail storm.

I’m not sure why I have this picture of a giant birdcage is on my phone – perhaps because it was a giant birdcage.

Outdoor dining in July – at a really cool pizza place. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Rain.

My husband and daughter in Asheville over Thanksgiving – what a great night that was!

That same weekend, I had to take this one to show my daughter her drawing on the cover of a book in a bookstore. I knew I’d need proof.

Some cute Christmas cupcakes for some nice people we know who work really hard.

And there were lots of photos of latte art – this was the most recent one.

Now I better get back to work –

A Peek through the Window

Various photos of my table throughout the day showing snippets of the box in progress. Who’s that peeking through the window? I think I recognize that face . . .

A Duck Tale or Why Some Days I Don’t Meet My Goal

The box is still in progress and at the end of each day I have a certain place I want to be on it. Sometimes I get there and sometimes I don’t. Most of the time, I have fairly normal disruptions to my plan. Yesterday was a little different.

I noticed early in the morning there was an unusual visitor in my front yard. She didn’t look like any bird that would normally be seen around our neighborhood. I left her alone because I had someplace I needed to be.

When I returned a couple of hours later, I had forgotten about her and went about working on this again.

Soon there was a knock on my door. It was my neighbor who wanted me to come and look at something. It was then I remembered the bird from earlier and I felt certain that was what she wanted me to see.

Sure enough, the bird was still hanging around. We agreed it looked like a duck even though it was unlike any duck we had ever seen wandering through and thought she might have escaped from her home somewhere in the area. What to do?

Then I went back to work on this some more.

As I thought about the duck, I decided somewhere someone is missing a bird so I stopped working on this.

I knew there were a few homes around that had chicken coops so I decided to go and introduce myself and ask if they had any escapees.

“Whassup?”

No one was home so I left a note on door and went back to work. Every so often while I was working, I would stop and go check on the bird. Was she still there? Was she okay? She didn’t move about too much.

“You lookin’ at me?”

Work. Stop. Check on the duck. Work. Stop. Check on the duck. I began to worry what would happen if it got dark. Luckily, I had another friend not too terribly far away who keeps chickens. He offered to come and check things out if it got dark and this Muscovy duck was still hanging around. (Thanks D!)

Back to work. Stop. Check on the duck.

Then the phone rang and it wasn’t the owner but someone who lived next door to her and after some conversation it was arranged that soon the duck would be retrieved. The funny thing is that the duck hardly moved at all so I had this impression they would just come and pick her up easy peasy.

Not exactly.

 
“I know what you’re up to.”

The duck seemed to get a little bit of life in her when her peeps came to get her. She apparently seemed to think getting airborne was her best bet for survival. Don’t ya wonder what goes through a duck’s mind? Anyway – to get to the end of this tale, I sort of helped herd the duck into a corner where they could nab it. It was my very first time herding a duck!

 
“My complacency was just a pretense.”

The duck and her peeps went sort of happily back home. By then it was after 4:00 and I went back to this.

I almost stopped again to check on the duck but then I remembered, I didn’t have a duck anymore.

Figurative Sweep

I have a new project on the horizon but first the almost finish to this previously shown head.

Here he/she is body and all. I’m not exactly sure how he/she will be adorned yet but I didn’t want to leave him/her body-less for too long.

I still have intentions of completing a couple of more involved projects snippets of which can be seen here but then an IDEA came to me involving this:

I suppose I should clarify by saying I have decided to push the others back in the queue while I pursue this inspiration – or that’s the current plan anyway. Sometime my ideas come in fits and starts, and then sometimes in a HUMONGOUS wave. Then I have to act. I have to do a figurative sweep of my arm across my table and start anew.

I look and think and PONDER and try to determine where it is I should begin. I might have twenty ideas for that one piece and I know I won’t be able to pursue them all. When and where I begin will be the start of its evolution rather than the start of its completion – because inevitably the beginning will take me down an unknown path. While I will still have my original goal in mind, the work, as it gets underway, will reveal not previously considered options.

Each choice will affect the direction of the idea. Hopefully when I am finished, it will have some semblance of the original plan – TUCKED away in the heart of it all. And hopefully, when I am finished, it will not be a wasted effort.