Milk Carton Lamps

One of the most exciting things I did this summer was visiting The Workshop Residence to see my friends the Batle family. Agelio, Delia and sons Noa and Nilo were the artists in residents for the month of June. Students from the San Francisco public high school  Ruth Asawa School of the Arts also joined them. They collected hundreds of milk carton jugs and made them into beautiful lamps. I am fortunate to own one that I love.

Agelio Batle cuts some of the milk cartons for the lamps.

Leaf pattern for the lamps.

Nilo Batle sorts through more milk jugs.

The jugs were turned into amazing designs.

At the end of the month a group of friends and I attended the closing reception to see the finished lamps. They were amazing and beautiful. How could anyone decide? All from made from milk jugs!

Agelio shows friends Leslie and Megumi one of the finished pieces.

far right: Braden Weeks Earp, Director of The WorkShop Residence 

with Batle family and SOTA students.

LINK: 

WorkShop Residence website

Agelio Batle website

Rubber Inner Tube Jewelry

I took my daughter Elana's bike into our local bike shop Ocean Cyclery and I got some old rubber tires from them. One can also purchase them at SCRAP my favorite art store.  I took them home and made some pieces of jewelry. Plans are for a tutorial in the future. 

I have been asked to sell some of these pieces to some people but so far I have only made a few samples of each style!

LINK:

San Francisco SCRAP website

Succulent Sisters graduate!

My daughter Elana and her friend Annakai have a small business called Succulent Sisters www.succulentsisters.wordpress.com. They make custom terrariums by order, teach terrarium building workshops and sell terrariums of their own design at the Alemany Flea Market and popup road side shops (otherwise known as the sidewalk) in San Francisco.  Both of the girls graduated this past Saturday from The Urban School of San Francisco. I wanted to make them something special so I made them both a succulent lei. 

                                                

                                        

Here are the two leis hanging on our front door ready to be presented on graduation day.

   

Here are some photos of the process of making the leis. I was uncertain how I was going to put them together. Thanks to friend Dorothy www.dotsrainbow.blogspot.com for her technical support and to friend Gloria for giving me some of the lovely succulents from her garden.

                                           

I gathered the succulents from Gloria, our garden, some from my mom and some from
the local nurseries floragrubb.com and www.sloatgardens.com

                                                         

                             

The next step was finding something in my studio to attach
 the succulents plants. I settled on some clear plastic tubing.

                                         

The next step was taking 24 gauge wire and cutting a piece and
inserting into the base of the plant and then twisting the wire.

                                     

The next step was taking white floral tape and
wrapping the wire.

                                           

                                     

After making a hole in the tubing with a hot (putting the nail over an open flame)
 nail the plants were inserted in the hole and the wire was twisted around the tube.

Both of Elana's grandmothers could not be there at her graduation. Grandma Pearl passed away in January and my mom her Grammy could not make the trip as she is caring for my 92 year old dad. Both grandmothers gave us many of their succulent clippings and we have them in our yard. I made sure that the lei had some of her grandmothers succulents.

                                       

Annakai and Elana wearing the finished succulent leis on graduation morning!

Congratulations Elana and Annakai! Don't they look great wearing their leis on graduation day. Perfect for the Succulent Sisters! I am so happy with how they turned out. The girls were so surprised! 

More graduations leis....

More high school graduations this week for my daughters friends. This time for Noelle and Erica. Their school colors are royal blue and orange. I folded crisp dollar bills and made felt flowers in their school colors. Hand delivered this morning for their noon ceremony. 

Here are Noelle and Erica's $ leis for their graduations.

A closeup view of the flowers and folded dollar bills. 

I used 1, 2 and 5 dollar bills tied with ribbon.

Graduation lei's

My daughter graduates in two weeks and many of her friends are too. They go to many different high schools. The first friend Celie graduated yesterday in Little Rock, Arkansas. The girls have been friends  since they were in kindergarten together. I wanted to send her something special since so I made her a money lei with handmade flowers. I cut spirals in the felt and coiled the felt to make the flowers using a glue gun to adhere it. I collected new dollar bills each time I went into the bank. I fan folded them while I watch the Giants baseball game until I had enough to circle the wreath.

Here is the finished lei for Celie. Congratulations Celie!

The Altered Book Show at Marin MOCA

 Marin MOCA Altered Book show is opening tomorrow.
I have my "Three Layer Cake" in  the show.

April 20, 5-7 pm
with talk by Mary Austin, 4-5 pm
Co-Founder of the San Francisco Center for the Book

Juror Talk: May 10, 6:30- 7:30 pm
With Juror Donna Seager of Seager Gray Gallery

LIVE Auction closing:  May 25, 5-7:30 pm

Marin Museum of Contemporary Art
500 Palm Drive
Novato, CA

This is my piece of that I entered in the altered book show.

This is my friend Dorothy Yuki's piece called Center of the World made
with pages from a discarded atlas.

Come by the show. There are over 150 altered books in the show this year.

Paper Cherry Blossoms

 It is Cherry Blossom season and today in San Francisco's Japantown there is a festival going on.  It will go on for two weekends  ending with a parade. For nine years our family walked in the Cherry Blossom parade with our children's elementary school representing the Clarendon Elementary Japanese Bilingual Program. I am missing the delicious udon noodles that our school sold at the festival. I might just go over there and get some. So the last week we made some pretty cherry blossom branches and cards  in my craft classes at ruthstable.org and at the San Francisco Carlisle retirement community.

I collected branches from my parents yard and I also picked up fallen branches on my dog walks. My dog was going crazy grabbing the from me!

                                                           

I carved a cherry blossom center with an eraser and we stamped the flowers.

Yasko Gamo works on her blossoms.

Lucinda poses with her finished branch.

3 more Valentines workshops coming!!!!

Workshop #1 coming this Friday!

Join me at Ruths Table where I am fortunate to be the Artist in Residence. This Friday the Feb 8th from 6:30-8:30 pm we are hosting a Craft party to make Valentines at ruthstable.org. Register online or at the door. As usual we craft green using all sorts of fabulous material saved from the landfill!!!! We are going to decorate candy bags made from ordinary envelopes, construct heart zipper pins and more...
Sue's Tasty Treats will be there! And we will have a raffle too.

The bird is made from wall paper and the red heart from a paint chip. The zipper pins are easy to make for gifts.

Workshop #2
If you live in Marin-- this one is for you!!!!    Saturday from 12-2 pm at the O'hanlon Center for the Arts
Join us at the ohanloncenter.org for a Saturday afternoon workshop at the beautiful O'hanlon Center.
Just like at Ruth's Table you will have the opportunity to make zipper pins and fabulous DIY valentines
cards. I am bringing two suitcases of goods of interesting paper, fabric, twine, wallpaper to create one of a kind Valentines. And the typewriter bar too.

Workshop #3
SCRAP fundraiser this Sunday!!!!!
A live band, food and a Valentine Workshop with the Typewriter Bar!!! Use the cool stuff from scrap-sf.org and make some Valentines....


So EVERYONE I hope you can join me at one of these great workshops this weekend. It will be so much fun!!!

This card is made from items bought at scrap-sf.org
Made from a coffee bag, velvet remnant and twill tape. I bought a GIANT roll and
it will last forever!

These are some of the Valentines we made this past Saturday at the Bethany United Methodist Church.

Repurposed materials used: wall paper, library file cards, discarded books, coffee sleeves, junk mail, maps, music sheets, fabric remnants, twine, buttons, coffee sack and more! Many of these cards were donated to a shelter for women and children in transition from domestic abuse. It was great to make and SHARE! Thank you
Gloria for inviting Dorothy Yuki and myself to host this event. It was a lot of fun and the participants were very creative and people had a great time.

"Green" Valentine Workshops the DIY way!

I have four Valentine workshops coming up this February. I love giving these workshops and hopefully there will be one or two for a lot of people to choose from. Come and make your own Valentines.
The stores have plenty of nice Valentines cards but they are so expensive and definitely not one of a kind. Check out these simple Valentines I made as samples. These are just a few of them. Can you guess what repurposed items I used?

Materials used to make these Valentines Day cards: playing card, junk mail, fabric remnant, coffee sack, reused greeting card, candy, rubber stamps, wall paper, old calendar, discarded book pages and a toilet paper roll.

Here is a schedule of Valentine Workshops.


First one!    This workshop given with Dorothy Yuki from dots rainbow.com


Bethany United Methodist Church                            Adults $10.00 and children $5.00
MAKE TAKE GIVE                                                RSVP at Marshall@bethanysf.org
Saturday February 2, 2013                                         (415) 647-8393
10:00-1 pm
1270 Sanchez at Clipper Street
San Francisco, CA



Second one!

Ruth's Table at 580 Capp Street in San Francisco                                                                    
Valentine's Craft Fest
Card making, gift bags and pink and red zipper pins                   Raffle prizes!
Friday evening:  February 8, 2013     6:30- 8:30 pm
$15.00 adults and children  $7.00 each
Register at www.ruthstable.org


Third one!

O'hanlon Center for the Arts                                  Valentine Craft Projects
616 Throckmorton Avenue                                 TIME CHANGE (due to Superbowl Sunday)
Mill Valley, CA.                                                New time: February 9, 2013  time: 12-2 pm
$30.00 adults and children $15.00
www.ohanloncenter.org


Final one!

I  heart SCRAP Party
801 Toland in San Francisco
February 10, 2013
Valentine card making party and other festivities with food and a band and more...
www.scrap-sf.org
Noon to three

Every work shop will have a special "typewriter bar" to type out your special messages to your Valentine.

I hope to see some of you at these great workshops.

O'hanlon Center for the Arts Members Show 2013

Three deer greeted me at the art center grounds

           Today I drove over the beautiful Golden Gate bridge and dropped off my
               second in a series of "book cakes" to the O'hanlon Center for the Arts
           in Mill Valley. I just joined and this is a members show. I taught my first
      workshop last month at the center and I have a Valentines event coming up soon.

This book cake is made from discarded library books, cut and folded.
 I made a cake stand from a repurposed plate and glass vessel found at
www.thrifttown.com. I bought a small plate for the "piece of cake".

OCHA Members' Show
www.ohanloncenter.org
January 8-31, 2013

Opening Reception
Tuesday, January 8, 6-8 pm
Mill Valley, CA.

more snowflakes.. for Sandy Hook

More snowflakes for the students of Sandy Hook school. We repurposed existing paper. You can see the one with the numbers which was a Pentagram 2011 calendar.

Snowflakes for Sandy Hook School

Today at www.ruthstable.org we had our weekly art class. We completed our snowflakes to send to the Sandy Hook School PTA. My friend Kim Tackett-Barbaria posted on her blog: www.tourofnoregrets.com about a crafting project to make snowflakes to decorate the school when the children return after the holiday break. Dorothy Yuki of  www.dotsrainbow.com  helped lead the class in making snowflakes last week and today. Off they go in the mail for the students. We hope it helps a little to brighten the students return to their new school.

My present!

Look what I received from my husband for Hanukkah and Christmas--- a piece of art from the scrap-sf.org  SCRAP ART show at the Arc Studios and Gallery. This is the show that I have two pieces in myself. I saw the piece the night of the opening that artist Paul Fresina made and I loved it. It is made out of skate boards.  It is still hanging in the gallery until the 9th of January and then it will come home to our house. I love the tones of the piece.