Marilyn Scott-Waters's Blog, page 9

Spring Me

Spring comes early here. All the rest of the country is freezing cold and dark. We are planting and planning. The wonderhub built a bunch of new raised beds and cleaned and replanted all the pots.



 My adorable mother-in-law bought us a flat of heirloom tomatoes and basil at Roger's Gardens. They had a special event called Tomatomania, which is the perfect name for a place that sells two hundred varieties of tomatoes. They had everything from romas to beefsteaks, tiny yellow cherries and pink blushes, black zebras and Amish varietals. Now, I'm dreaming of summer pizzas and tomato salsas.



So now are 'maters are in pots up to their necks in good soil, with three aspirin at the roots in full sun. They've doubled in size in the last week.

  
 We had some beautiful guests over last night. Joel and Tori McKinney and their daughter Abby. They are artists that live on the Banks of Plum Creek, in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. http://www.blackhawk-studios.com/
We noshed on cheese and baguettes, drank beer and tea and talked about art. We talked about making art, learning art, art in the schools, selling art,  teaching art. Joel and Tori lead summer workshops in bronze casting, ceramic tile murals and fiber arts. How cool is that?
 
 Tori is an amazing weaver and fiber sculptor. She told me about a spraying diluted bleach on stencils tie-dye technique for dark fabric that I have to try.
 Big Joel and Little Joel. We named our kid after this guy.

 Joel 2.0 and Abby hit it off great. Abby draws Manga and they were off talking their own language.

One of the things that we talked about was how little art education kids get in schools. Big Joel talked about taking middle school kids to an Artist Co-Op and having them pick several artists and write about what they liked and didn't like didn't like about their work.

Art teaches critical thinking, decision making, planning, hand eye coordination. Making art tethers you to the real world and lets you think past it. Making art is a gift that we should give our children.

What are you making this week?

Marilyn.




--

 "Invent your world. Surround yourself with people, color,
 sounds, and work that nourishes you." ~ SARK

The Sewing Project.

I'm wearing the sassypants today. Can't find a teeshirt that fits in a decent color?






Made one!
 
 Like the way a ten dollar sweatshirt feels but don't want to look like a giant raisin?


Remove the cuffs and hem. Cut a slit down the front and bind it with left over scraps. Instant kimono jacket.

Take that closet!






--

Use the talents you possess – for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best. ~ Henry Van Dyke 

Buell Children's Museum

The Mysterious Math Carnival
http://www.sdc-arts.org/buellchildrensmuseum.html




 The Buell Children's Museum made life sized versions of the toys from my new e-Book "The Mysterious Math Carnival for an exhibit.

http://www.sdc-arts.org/buell_current.html


 Kids can roll the turtles in  The Turtle Arcade. 
 
Feed the Picky Parrot



 Grumpy Monkeys





And the kids can play "Counting Clown Fish"


They even filled a display case with all my paper toys. I am tickled pink.

The Mysterious Math Carnival will be available to buy as a PDF download soon. Let's make math fun!

Wishing you a creative week,

Marilyn.

--

"A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled."  ~ Plutarch

Making Peg Dolls

Cue Trumpets!

  Photos by Margaret and Paul Bloom, used
with permission of Hawthorn Press.
My amazingly creative friend, Margaret Bloom has a book out that you are just going to love, It's called "Making Peg Dolls" and it is the most beautiful craft book that you can possibly imagine.

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Dolls-Crafts-Family-Activities/dp/1907359176/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Her book is just chock full of wonderful ideas and patterns so that you can create your very own peg doll world. There are peg dolls for every season; flowers, bluebells, Purim and Easter for spring, mermaids and garden sprites for summer, gnomes and owls for Fall, and King Winter, angels and all kinds of glorious things for winter.

I thought that these adorable dolls needed some furniture so I came up with some for little sprites that came to visit my workshop that I will be sending out in my next newsletter.

 

Check out some of the interior pages on Amazon. 
Have fun together making things!

Best thoughts,

Marilyn.



--



“Books. People have no idea how beautiful books are. How they taste on your fingers. How bright everything is when you light it with words.” ~ Rachel Kadish

Thinking about Spring...

Thinking about Spring...

The wonderhub was up early this Saturday morning. He had dismantled the Boy's fort a while ago and we had a big pile of boards in the backyard. He recycled it into raised beds for the front garden. Our house is on a mesa and the soil is pretty much adobe bricks that's great for growing citrus trees and artichokes. (which are pretty much big thistles) but not great for other plants.

.


Now they just need to be leveled up and filled with topsoil.
 

 The leftover bits will fit in as stepping stones.

The fish were happy to be fed.


I drew this this morning. 
Now, off to the market. Busy day! 
What do you think we should plant? I'm hoping for herbs and strawberries.
Marilyn.
--
"Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls." - Joseph Campbell 

Making things, Fixing things...

This morning the amazing Wonderhub is whirling about fixing things.



He is fixed the coffee maker. I am continually amazed at his ability to fix anything.

And a guitar that he made...


 
And he is building a screen door for the dining room. I am completely delighted about this! 
He also surprised me with this book, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, as a belated Christmas gift. It's a lovely book of vegetable recipes. We made the spiced polenta recipe last night. Every recipe that we've tried so far has been stellar.
  
A couple of days ago I tried his basic bread dough recipe. I had to look everything up because all the measurements and a lot of the terms were in, well... "British" Now I know what strong flour is bread flour. I can work my way around grams and milliliters. I know that courgettes are zucchini and coriander is cilantro.  The googling was worth the effort because the the dough came out perfect. 
Here's the results.... lovely pizzas.


 
The American version of this book is available in May 2013. I can't recommend it enough if you like to cook. All the dishes are simple to make and taste amazing.


 
I designed this textile yesterday. I'm still trying to master the drop repeat. 
Well, I'm off to drink another cup of coffee. I love weekends,
Marilyn.


-- 
“Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't "try" to do things. You simply "must" do things.”
~  Ray Bradbury

Sewing Party!

One of the boy's friends received a new sewing machine for Christmas so she brought it over and we had a sewing party. I'd put the machine away over the holidays and just now pulled it out again.

I made a tee-shirt and a pair of pants for the first time. The v neck tee-shirt when together pretty quick and fit like a dream. I want to make a whole closet of them.

I'd never made a pair of pants before and I had to rip out half the seams because I kept getting everything backwards. I made them out of grey flannel and they are big and baggy, ugly as homemade soap. However they are the most comfortable thing in the world, like soft little warm clouds.

 I think that flannel is an under appreciated fabric and if I ever had my own clothing line it would be all clothes made out of flannel for the winter, but some how sneakily look like regular day clothes, not pajamas. With my Day Flannel collection you could go to the market and run errands and not have people snark at you for wearing pajamas in public. Just a thought. :-)
JoAnne's is had a 99 cent sale on patterns and I bought five. Dangerous, I know.
WonderCon is coming up and the boy and friends are going as a Steampunk airship crew. Perhaps I should make a costume for myself. What do you think? :-)
What creative mischief are you managing this month?
Marilyn.

“Each of us needs something of an island in his life—if not an actual island, at least some place, or space in time, in which to be himself, free to cultivate his differences from others.” ~ John Keats 

The Awareness Project

 Hello and Happy New Year from Casa Del Aguas.

This is my friend Annie Rugyt. She is not just an amazing illustrator, she is also a wonderful musician with a voice like a lost angel. She came over a couple of days ago and tested out some of the Wonderhub's guitars. I cannot tell you what a treat it was to hear her play them. It was like she breathed life into the guitars and made them glow from the inside


Annie and I have conspired to be more aware of what life is really going on around is in the world. So we have pledged to write about real things that are going on around us. We have dubbed this "The Awareness Project". The writing prompt is "Today I realized that...."


The light blue guitar is The Spazzmaster = handmade Jazzmaster inspired guitar, Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders Pickups, Mustang Bridge, rosewood fingerboard, vintage spec jumbo frets and vintage spec white "witch hat" knobs.



This is a Selmer Maccferri D hole Gypsy Jazz guitar. Spalted Mango back and sides and Bearclaw Sitka top. Ebony fingerboard and bridge.



Telecaster inspired guitar, glued in neck, Charley Christian pickups from Vintage Vibe. Bound Cocoabolo fretboard, contoured maple top.
I love the way this guitar sounds. It's got a retro jazz sound that transports you to a different time and place. The whole room just gets cooler when it's played.


Also in the news...  

The"Great Tidy" is in full swing. Every year after Christmas we attack the house and garden, decluttering, organizing, and giving stuff to Goodwill. It feels so good to have everything ready when school starts on Monday.  Here is a picture of one of the kitchen cupboards before... (Mister Mischief is helping out.)

Before....



 And After....
 We fix dinner for my mom every night and so we have lots of plastic containers. Now we have lids and bottoms all sorted. All the bowls are ready for soup and cereal.


 The juicer had been stacked wonky and was always falling off the shelf. The Hub lowered the shelf an inch and now it fits perfectly.



All the coffee cups have lids. Yay! 
So today I realized that friends can light up a room and make it beautiful more than any expensive piece of furniture or stained glass window, and having less stuff is much better than having too many things. Less is more? Dang straight! 
What did you realize today?
Marilyn.

----  To see Annie's art and read her take on the guitar test go read her blog here....

 
http://annieruygt.com/

The Toymaker's Christmas

Friday I did a book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Oceanside.




 
The Nutcracker from The Toymaker's Christmas . (Thanks to my awesome intern, Annie Ruygt for these fine toy photos.) 
 

Countdown To Christmas!
 
 A splendid time being creative.
 
My artist buddy, the adorable Kim Dwinell drove me down and we met with the lovely Katie McDee who also is an amazing illustrator. We caught up on all the news over some delicious Thai food. and sauntered over to the book store where we made paper toys and simple stamps with both grownups and kids alike.



 Boys too.




We stamped patterns and then made envelopes.




 Also in the news, yesterday we bought our tree. In our family, Christmas tree acquiring is treated as a combination of the Indy 500 and the Olympic Pentathlon. We time how long it takes us to park, pick tree, pay, load and leave. We all are pretty much crowd averse so the whole concept of leisurely inspecting each tree, whilst sipping hot cocoa, humming carols and wearing mittens is completely lost on us as a family.

We were unable to beat last year's time of twelve minutes, due to going on a Saturday afternoon. Still, a lovely Nordman Fir is standing in our living room, smelling lovely and ready for decorating. And the Boy was so fierce in his tree carrying that one of the Home Depot guys offered him a job.


 How about you? How is your December unfolding? Do you have any quirky holiday traditions?

Warm thoughts,

Marilyn.



---

Do give books - religious or otherwise - for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal. ~ Lenore Hershey

How to Make Simple Stamps

I was given a giant pack of sticky back foam sheets by a friend and thought I'd figure out a way to put them to good use.

http://www.joann.com/fibre-craft-4-1-2-x6-adhesive-back-foam-sheets-65pk-multi/zprd_02358083a/

 
To make simple stamps you will need a felt tip pen, a small block of wood or a bottle cap for a base, scissors, a pencil and a piece of sticky back foam.


 Cut a small square of foam the size of your block of wood or plastic bottle cap.



 On the backing of the square draw a simple shape, a star, leaf or letter of the alphabet.
Cut out your shape.

 Peal off the backing and stick your shape on the base.
 
Color in your shape with a felt tip pen or use a stamp pad.


 

Use your stamp to make patterns. When the ink is dry you can add details with colored pencils. 






I still have 64 and a half pages of foam left. Any suggestions?

Marilyn

Imagination creates reality.
~ Richard Wagner