MOAN-DAY!....LOL.... This is phone HEdoublehockysticks week in the old department I used to work in and in which now I am forced to help out because ... well.... anyway, I was on the phones all afternoon and I am SO VERY glad to be done with that for the day.
Getting into my new learning journey of learning mixed media art has been a lot of fun. It does however need space for storage and sorting as it creates bits and pieces of various sized paper. All but the the tiniest pieces are keepers for future projects.
Spending so much time now around my art desk I am reminded of things there that previously needed organized, some for a long time, but nobody would do it.
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So recently I had worked on some of that. Who needs this many paint brushes?? It seems I do, an accumulation over some years. I took them all out of their cups and organized them along with other art tools. Do I need them all out on the table? I don't know and yet here they are.
Back around February 29th, when I was contemplating paints and papers and various collage projects, I drug many containers out of my craft closet and brought them into the living room. I stacked them all over my Great Aunt's antique dresser.....
.... and in chairs and anywhere else that had a clean surface. I knew I would not need half that stuff, but I wasn't sure what part of what was where, so I dragged a lot of it out.
Thing is, I haven't gotten to that kind of collage projects yet and so they really haven't needed to be out there for 6 weeks, but when I was finally tired enough of looking at them, it still seemed silly to put them back in the closet without going through them and seeing what I could throw out. So last Saturday was projects day and I did just that, going through, throwing out, reorganizing and putting them back in the closet. It took a while, but it was kind of fun. There was no rush and I was finally going to have them out of the living room.
I got that done with the exception of the top old jewelry container. There was too much to go through and at least it was all corralled together, so it went back in the closet as it was.
I found I had an abundance of googly eyes, so you may see them show up in multiple places later.
One of the things that was with all that junk was a container of old and new paints all mixed up. This is not it below, but was after I got started going through them.
I would take each bottle, shake it really good to see if something was in it and mix it up if it had separated and then I squeezed a drop out on this little plate. If it was good I put it in the container and if it was not, it went in the trash.
After I did about 6 or so, I decided I needed to make use of these drips as I went along, I mean, why not? Surely it slowed me down, but I could use the papers later.
So I took one of the new finger daubers and pulled over a few of the papers I had used for blotting previously and sure enough, it made some fine papers for future projects.
I loved the close ups of the papers.
So I thought I'd share a few.
This one turned out to be my fav. I only half cleaned the dauber between changing colors and if I pressed it down hard, it put down the new color in the center and some leftovers from colors before around the edges.
Anyway, I got rid of the bad and still ended up with a box full of paints that were still good.
After I got it sorted that far, I thought I should have put a dab of paint on the tops of the bottles, so I wouldn't have to lift multiple bottles up to find a color I wanted. A few came from a company that already puts a color sticker on top, but most did not. I started doing that, (see a few tops at the bottom of the below photo) opening the bottle getting half a drop and putting it on top. Then it dawned on me, why am I doing that when I can just turn the bottles upside down? Surely the paint may settle, but it doesn't do that fast and nearly always leaves some amount clinging to the inside.
That was a great revelation, well, it felt like one to me and nearly instantly, the job was done. Since they are in a container, if anything accidnetly leaks, which I have never had them do, it won't get on anything but the bottom of the box and possibly tops of a few others, but that won't matter.
Now it was done. I did a few other projects on Saturday like that and it felt good to have it done. Not like there is not more things that need to be done around here, but now there are at least a few less.
Now I am sharing something else I figured out accidentally. I am on well water and normally that is what I drink. It tastes good and has tested well, but, then I think my sweet old Uncle didn't change the filter on time, so although I couldn't see it when the water ran, if the water set for a while, a fine silt could be seen gathering in the bottom. Because of that, I drank bottled water for a while. For real it is no telling how much I drank before I noticed , but it didn't kill me, so it's all ok and it got corrected.
Still, I ended up with a lot of empty water bottles, most of them gallon size. This one was skinny though and before putting in the recycle, I cut it in half to use the bottom for water for my paint brushes while I was creating, I mean, might as well give something a second life if you can.
Then I noticed that the top of the skinny bottle made a fine funnel to pour things in the bigger bottle. Now both halves were going to get a second life.
Not only that, but the funnel top, could rest in the open bottom to drain after I used it.
Sometime later I cut up one of the big gallon jugs. The top of which made a wider funnel. I'm not sure what for, but there it is.
The bottom however had this neat flower petal shape that was raised in the middle and I found that I could use it like a paint palette when I was using several paints at once. It worked really well for this. Who knew you could use parts of them for so many things?
OK... I guess that's enough drivel for one post and besides, I'm getting hungry and fresh bacon just came out of the oven. I'm going to add some of it to my supper salad.. .Yum ! Yum ! Bacon makes everything better, doesn't it? I think so.
