Mustang Arts/Crafts Show

My mother and I have talked for some time now about doing arts/crafts shows together.  We both love to create unique pieces of art and home decor.  Tomorrow is our first show together.  It will be held at the Mustang High School Commons Building in Mustang, Oklahoma from 9:00am-4:00pm.  Below are some photos of our booth.  Thanks to Randy Mitchell for being so wonderful in encouraging me to participate in this show.

Turquoise Wooden Cross with Rusty Metal

This 19" x 12" cross was made from weathered fence slats, wrapped with twigs and embellished with rusty metal found in New Mexico.  It is $29.00 plus shipping.

Rustic Cross with Sunflower 28" x 18"

Using fallen branches from my backyard, I made this cross embellished with burlap and sunflowers.  The cross is 28" x 18".  $29.00 plus shipping. - SOLD!

"Cowgirl" Wall Hanging

When my dad moved from Arlington, Texas to Mooreland, OK, he had a bunch of my grandmother's old stuff that he wanted to get rid of.  One of the things she had was a small wall hanging from the 80's. It was an oak frame and on the inside it had two geese on a country blue background.  I took out the geese, repainted the frame, and inserted my own picture.  This is the result:  10" x 5" Cowgirl

Rustic Cross with Aluminum Flower

My brother recently sent me several crosses made of weathered fence pickets.  He wanted me to get creative and see what I could create.  Below is my first attempt.  I took the basic cross and added a flower made from aluminum cans.  The center part of the flower is made from coiled twine glued to a thin cardboard piece.  I finished the piece off with random twigs sticking out.

One of a kind Rustic Cross with Aluminum Flower 20" x 11" with 3.5" wide pickets - $29.00 plus shipping

My latest little project..."Believe" in Bleeding Cowboy Font, edged in Distress Ink.  The background is a mottled beige paper that was distressed using four different ink colors and then topped with a paragraph from a book.  The frame, 4.5" x 6", is painted turquoise.

$15.00

Grizzly Bear Acrylic 23" x 28"

This is a grizzly bear I painted this afternoon.  I guess I need to sign it!

More Trash to Treasure

So it turns out that the mom of one of my students was dumping her old stuff into the dumpsters at school.  I found this out because when I would drag something out of the dumpster and bring it into my classroom, one of my students would say, "Hey, that's my mom's."  He apparently told her and he told me later that she had said that she wasn't supposed to be throwing things in there.  Luckily for me, I got two of her old pieces.  The table from the last post was one, this director's chair is another.

Again, I was out on bus duty one morning and saw this calling to me from the dumpster.  I dragged it out and thought....I could paint this and make it really cute.  It started with really banged up oak colored wood and the canvas fabric was a tan with a beige paisley pattern.  I forgot to take before pictures, but below is the end result.  I think it turned out pretty cute.

Trash to Treasure

As a teacher, we usually have to do extra duties.  Last year, my bus crosswalk duty took place close to the school dumpster.  One day as I was waiting on a bus to arrive, I looked over at the dumpster and saw a small, square table on top of a heap of trash.  There was no bus in sight, so I walked over to take a peek.  It looked like it was in pretty good shape, so I hauled it out just about the time one our our PTA moms was driving by.  She rolled down her window, laughing at me and asking me what I was doing.  I told her I was going to take the table home and repaint it.  It's black solid surface was a perfect canvas for...something....

Today, halfway through July, I finally painted the table top.  I still need to replace the legs because the metal legs the table came with are not all that sturdy.   But here is a photo of the finished table top.  I was pretty happy with the result.

Hawkins Homestead

This past winter, a man came into my sister's barbershop for a haircut.  As he sat there in her barber chair, he was admiring the mural I had painted on the walls of her barbershop.  He told her he wanted me to do a painting of his boyhood home.  I met with him shortly after that.  He thought the old place was still standing so I drove from Mooreland to Ft. Cobb to find the old house so I could take photographs from which to draw the house.  Unfortunately, it had been torn down about a year earlier.\

Luckily I had some old photographs and was even able to find a blurry picture of the house on Google Earth before it had been torn down.  All of the photographs were missing the front porch so I had to improvise.  In the planning process, Mr. Hawkins decided he didn't want a painting but preferred a pencil drawing.  He wanted the house in one picture with two separate pictures on the side...one of the windmill and stock tank and one of the barn.

This is the finished house....

This is the barn....

And the windmill....

Be Yourself

I made this using an inexpensive plastic frame - the type that is "L" shaped and you slide the picture in.

Trees

This is a tree that resulted from an art project with my fourth graders.  Kinda fun...