CYRUS, COFFEE POT PERSON

Another coffee pot, well, actually, tea kettle, becomes a garden personality! This is Cyrus:

Cyrus

Do you remember the Black Spy/White Spy duo from Mad Magazine? Well, Cyrus has idolized them ever since he was a kid growing up in Odell, Oregon. It’s a natural enough admiration, given his resemblance to them, a resemblance he deliberately accentuates, with his wide-brimmed hat and dark glasses.

He likes to call himself Cy the Spy when he’s introduced. Unfortunately, most of the people he runs into these days are too young to get it.

His occupation is not so glamorous as spying, either. He drives a cab, one of the black and whites, of course, and likes to tell his fares who among the high and mighty he’s met. For a “spy”, he’s remarkably chatty. Best not to tell him any secrets you don’t want known by one and all—he’ll spill the beans just to prove he’s got them to spill!

FOUND: LITTLE PENDANTS, MAGNETS, BY TARA

Look what I found over at http://www.jewelrybytara.blogspot.com

I thought they were darling, and wanted to share them, and Tara was good enough to give me permission. Below is her entry, copied here.

Somebody stop me please!!!

So I love, love, love, making my glass pendants! No silly, I can't make glass! Who would even let me use fire??LOL

But I'm currently obsessed with turning glass into pendants, magnets, and paper weights! Check it out...

Even fabric is turning into magnets, in my sewing shop!


So that's the latest/greatest, would appreciate all of your feedback! I haven't sold any yet, and I don't want to stop making them.
T♥

COLLAGED JOURNAL COVER

Each year, when I start a new handwritten journal, I decorate it, inside and out, with pictures and sayings that represent my state of mind at the time.

This is the front journal cover for June 2001 through July 2002. I loved the brown notebook the minute I saw it at an estate sale, bought it, brought it home, and filled it with my favorite writing paper: yellow graph paper, five squares to the inch.

As I recall, this journal, in its undecorated state, traveled down the Deschutes River with me. I'd packed all the stickers, glue, and calendar pages I needed, and worked on it evenings in camp. When the cover was done, I covered the entire thing with clear packing tape. It ain't elegant, but it's water proof, and more clear than any Contac-style paper I've found.

HAROLD ANGEL

My first entry. Is it the most difficult? Setting up the blog sure took me long enough!

But I want to introduce the first of the Coffee Pot People, not the first to be made, just the first to land here, and chosen at random. Meet Harold:

He doesn’t sing loudly, but Harold loves Christmas carols! And I’m sure you can guess what his favorite holiday is, whether it snows or not.

Harold started with a halo from the Rebuilding Center, but I haven’t had the heart to tell him that, since that isn’t exactly the traditional way angels earn them. And the halo had a prior life as a towel holder. We won't tell him that, either.

His blue coffee pot body was purchased, lidless, at a garage sale. Those wings are made from two pancake turners and a whisk (Value Village), trimmed out with garden edging (yard sale) and pipe cleaners (estate sale).

His lower body/feet used to be a light fixture (Rebuilding Center), but I put old fuses where the light bulbs would have gone.

His eyebrows came out of my jewelry box (no, nothing is sacred!) and his eyes are marbles set in the little cups tea candles come in, with wire eyelashes.

One of the things I'm asked most often is how I hold all the parts together. When I started, I tried a variety of glues and epoxies, but none of them held up out in the weather. Now I bolt everything. Some Coffee Pot People take a lot more figuring than others, though, and occasionally I've even had to resort to bolts coupled with glue, or even concrete. The concrete comes into play if I need a way to be sure the item won't move, and bolting it doesn't seem strong enough.

I'd love to be able to weld the pieces, but most old coffee pots are aluminum, and while it isn't impossible to weld aluminum, it's not very easy. It's a skill I look forward to acquiring.