multiple ashleys

Back track a little over a week ago... it was my birthday, April 16. 

 Ashley had the genius idea of making multiples of himself and placing them sporadically around the apartment to surprise me (or just freak me out). I thought I was going crazy when I awoke to go to the bathroom and was greeted by Ashley outside my bedroom door...wait, wasn't he still in bed?!?! Paper life size Ashley was standing in the hallway. It frightened me so much that I made him tell me if there were more in the apartment before I left the room. "Flat" Ashley was also jumping in the living room and sitting on the couch—too bad he wasn't preparing me brunch too...oh wait, I have the real Ashley to do that!

 

After a little Birthday party, my pal Jordan wound up taking a "flat" Ashley home. He was very pleased to have a friend to go to the park with the following day.

 Ashley is out of town this week and I am solo with Pico. I am thinking I will sleep next to "flat" Ashley tonight because I miss him so much.

art that makes me happy

Laura Carlin's folk art ceramics & illustrations make me feel giddy inside. Funny how a bowl can do that to a person.

bunny perks

One of many perks of working for Martha Stewart...

...you get to take home a 3 foot chocolate bunny at Easter...

(Nicki foil wrapping him up)

and it makes an impressive Birthday treat!

(Amy hugging her new best friend)

Mmmm dark chocolate beauty!

Thanks Martha!

egg world

Here are some more pictures of the Whimsical Window Eggs that we demoed on Martha's Show. I just can't stop looking at them. I want to shrink down and live inside an egg just like these! Magic!

 Martha made the orange horse egg above. I love the mini vintage pom-pom chick sitting at the horse's feet.

I made the pink swan egg during the live segment. I was amazed at how fast it came together. Pretty pink luscious world.  

I finished out some of the swap outs from the segment so that I could bring them home and display them on Easter. Totally in love.

paper dolls

Yesterday a special delivery came for me. I had completely forgotten that I scored an amazing piece of art on ebay last week and was giddy when a large box arrived at my desk. 

The piece is a framed pair of children in a sort of oversized paper doll style. Each child is dressed adorably, but the best part of the whole piece is that the dolls have real human hair. I love that someone created this so many years ago and took such care in making these dolls come to life.

The back of the frame revealed some information about the artist, which makes the piece even more special. The frame was old and dirty and the paper backing peeling and flaking away. It needed a bit of restoring, so I did some cleaning and replaced the frame backing with an archival mat. I also tidied up the hair because it too had flaked off underneath the glass.

I thought is was neat how the artist had decided to mount the dolls. A stretched piece of silk over a recycled piece of cardboard with old graphics. The silk was not glued or taped to the board, but was zigzag stitched from side to side and top to bottom. It made me smile at the artist's cleverness.

Of course I saved the only reference of the artist in its original form and re-adhered it to the back.

What a cool piece of homemade art!

Now I need a place to hang it!

pico lily

pretty Pico with pretty lilies

easter in an egg

 

Whimsical scenes encased in real eggshells—tomorrow's craft on Martha. Hosanna and I will show you how to make one just in time for Easter.

We'll demonstrate how to cut a perfect window in an ostrich egg and embellish the inside of the shell with sparkle, miniature creatures and vintage adornments from some of our favorite sources. 

Here's a little sneak peek...

trash picker

I just finished watching Waste Land, a documentary about artist Vik Muniz and his undertaking with the garbage pickers who mine treasure from the trash heaps of Rio de Janeiro's Jardim Gramacho landfill.

Quite an interesting film.

Portraits are composed completely of rubbish.

 

 He obviously likes to explore a variety of different mediums and material.

Other works include replicas of the Mona Lisa done in PB & J...

Che Guevara in canned beans...

 

A landscape made from 9000 yards of thread...

 

Toy soldiers position perfectly to create a portrait of a soldier...

grain by grain

 Andrew Clemens was a SAND artist.

I can't even fathom how on earth he created these masterpieces with such crisp lines and photographic realism. This takes bottled sand art to an entirely different level. You have to be a very special individual to be able to collect sand samples, carefully sort every little grain by both color and size and meticulously place each sand speck in the perfect position within a glass bottle. Wow—I'm utterly impressed.