Lahaina Aloha: A Mermaid Catcher!

Foam Magazine ran a feature about my work in their print magazine and asked me to make a little video to accompany their online DIY article. Great excuse to learn how to use iMovie on my iPhone!

Here’s a shot of the magazine with the article.

Sea Dreamer feature in Foam Magazine

I made two pieces for the feature — one is called Lahaina Aloha (after a Beach Boys song) which features a huge doily center and salvaged hula grass from SCRAP PDX. It also has hand-felted jellyfish from my mermaid-in-arms Suki Kapinao of Suki Healing Arts. Her stuff is super fun and you can see it on her Etsy shop: http://sukihealingarts.etsy.com.

with Suki's jellyfish!

With sand from Canon Beach, Oregon, The Great Salt Lake, Utah, and Bellows Beach, Hawaii

The other piece I made is called “Little Surfer” and I got a lot of the materials at the hardware store…chain…paint samples…neon nylon…

so easy!

Thanks Foam!

heart garlands

I’m not into flowers and chocolates but I do love an excuse to cut hearts out of paper. In Montpelier, Vermont where I was living the Valentine Phantom would plaster the town with thousands of red hearts. That means spending several hours in sub-freezing temps in the middle of the night taping pieces of paper to every window on every store in town. Amazing when you drive down the street on Valentine’s day…

Sometimes my friend Suki and I would do guerilla arts and crafts for V-tine’s with kids or other women and would write love poems on pretty paper and stick them in random public places…on elevators…bathrooms…etc. I love the idea of spreading love…not just romantic love…but love for everyone.

Anyway, here’s a simple project I used to do with my students. Start by taking a magazine and cut strips about 1″-3″ wide. I used an older Free People catalog.

Fold strips accordion-style…

If it’s helpful, you can draw a heart on one end, but make sure you leave a little room where they will connect to each other on the folds!

Cut the top half…

And then the bottom! Unfold and tape together to hang where you please, or to wrap around a small gift.

This piece took about 3 days to complete and features vintage metal fringe, a detachable fox tail fur charm, earrings from fortune cookie fortunes and vintage lace, with a huge vintage doily behind a hand-woven “web” with vintage button “spider”. There’s also a plastic water bottle feather garland, which was featured on the Free People blog!  You can see tons of photos here on my Flickr.

the beast! it's over 6 feet tall!

detail of the large piece at Free People

this piece features a detachable fox tail charm!

on either side of the piece hang earrings featuring fortune cookie fortunes and vintage lace!

The second one I made is MUCH smaller, but no less charming! It features vintage trims and gold painted feathers.

here are the two raffle prizes!

raffle prize #2!

pic of me and the beast!

sweeeet.  got a guest artist spot over on the always-inspiring free people blog.

i love sharing how to make stuff.

here’s a basic way to make a little dream catcher. riffing on the round object with danglies (found in every culture) i’ve been (finally) finding uses for my slightly embarrassing doily collection.

also featured here are diy doily crystal necklaces. my friend heather treasure cautions mindfulness about sourcing quartz and other crystals, and recommends arkansas crystal works.

from the building 25 free people blog

dream eyes & god catchers

object with vintage trims and detail view

start here

start here. i used a bangle. tie string, loop around.

keep looping around, and when you get to the beginning...

catch the loops and weave the string through each one. back to front or front to back, it doesn't matter as long as you are consistent

keep spiraling in until it gets too small to work with. add a bead and tie off. add feathers, etc. and you're done!

object with doilies and painted feathers

pastels or crayons, watercolors, collage elements

draw with pastel or crayon, add collage elements, and paint over.

cut out, draw designs with markers. i like sharpie paint pens.

finished product, and "dark star"

doily, lace & quartz necklaces

wrapped in wire, held by a piece of vintage lace

quartz necklaces & lace

the piece i sent to julia at fp

some of my wares included galaxy nebula apparel which i bleached, dyed, and then painted, various necklaces made from chains and quartz crystals, some flower head pieces, and some giant “dream catcher” sculptures, one of which was the first piece of art purchased by a 13 year old on her birthday.

flower head pieces at the Expo

wares

my table

"gold dust"

"dark star"

quartz crystal necklaces

Expo interior

quartz crystal necklaces

dream catchers

head piece with feathers & vintage button

head piece with peacock feathers & vintage brooch

headpieces

DIY galaxy apparel

photo of me and my table

this year i scrounged around and found some dried clementine peels (god knows why i was keeping those), some “panic button” essential oil (lavender, petitgrain, neroli, tangerine, rose), some coriander seeds and some cardamom pods.  i put the dry materials in the coffee grinder and mixed them with the salt.  some glitter for good measure.

covered the jars with some paper and glued some lace and cut up doilies on the side, ET VOILA.   done!

bath salts

bath salts up close

more bath salts

these were made from cut lettuce heads, apples, and leaves with acrylic paint on canvas:

lettuce core rose

apple core & parsley print

rose from lettuce core

apple core star print

apple core star print pattern