Yarn Vase and Pom Poms

     A friend of mine for Christmas gave me a bottle of Sparkling Apple Cider, which I drank in one meal setting. Afterwards the family and I were just sitting around still talking and because I needed something to keep my hands busy I started to peel off the labels. Now that I had a naked bottle I suddenly wanted to keep it and find something to do with it. Well thanks to Pinterest I found something I wanted to do. 

     I found a pin on the vases first (here) then found the pom poms on top of sticks (here). The page for the pom poms didn't really explain how to do them, so then I did a pin search for then and found this jem (here). 

Supplies

• A Couple of Branches
• Branch Cutter
• Bottle
• Glue Gun
• Scissors
• X-acto knife
• Yarn

Wrapping the Bottle

     Now I didn't do exactly what the pinned blog said to do...I did it a bit different and it worked better for me. 

Step One

Glue the end of the yarn to the bottom of the bottle. I put a dot of hot glue on the bottle then laid the yarn down on top of it.

Step Two

Pulling the yarn tight I laid it down across another dot of glue about two or three fingers away from previous glue dot and repeated.

Step Three

Remove any excess glue with an Xacto Knife. (Be very careful, I almost cut myself twice because I got careless.)  

• I sometimes left the excess glue so that it created a space on the next row. Especially in the middle area of the bottle. At the bottom and when the top narrows, I had to take off most of the excess to keep there from being too many spaces. 
• I made a slice next to the edge of the yarn then scraped under the glue to get it off.

Step Four

As I got further up I was faster and the glue wasn't dry on the opposite side, so I had it hanging off the table as a wrapped.This made it so that any of the glue I left for spacing didn't smear and string. 

Once I was in the middle I tilted the bottle on the table and continued to wrap. Be prepared for your fingers to get a bit cramped...at least mine did because I was able to spin faster. 

When the bottle started to get smaller at the top I again changed how I held the bottle. I angled it again on the edge of the table. 

Step Five

     I couldn't wrap the yarn as tightly together at the top without gluing more often. Again, I started spacing the glue dots about a two finger distance. 

• I also used to X-acto Knife more at the top because I didn't need the glue to help with the spacing. 

Step Six

   At the top I put a dot of glue on the upper inside and tucked the yarn in the inside. 

Making the Pom-Pom

Step One

     I cut about a 6 inch piece of yarn.

Step Two

     I then wrapped the yarn around the fattest part of my fingers about 90 times. (The more wraps the thicker the Pom-Pom will be.)

Step Three

     I cut the yarn then carefully removed the wrap off my hand and laid it across the 6 inch piece of yarn I cut earlier. 

Step Four

    I used the 6 inch piece to tie around the middle of the wrap. 

Step Five
   
     Using the scissors, I cut the looped ends on both sides.

Step Six

    The Pom-Pom needed to be evened out a bit. I put a plastic bag down to catch all my clippings and clipped it until I felt it was round enough looking.

Put it All Together

Step One

      I cut the branches the size that I wanted then glued the Pom-Pom to the top of it. 

**I apologize for some of the blurry pictures, they were taken with my left hand**

Marker Portraits

I stalked some friends on facebook, printed off pictures of them (in black and white), then cropped them (3x5). Although many people have been great influences in my life or have helped me to be more of the person I want to be, I only chose 15 of those individuals to draw for a final project last semester. I used 5 shades of gray markers and a grid to draw them. I started off with the darker shades then moved to the lighter shades. Not all of them are perfect, since it was my first time working with markers, so some of them were a bit of a learning curb. 

Ceramic Projects

I started off the course with a 6"x6"x1" clay slap that I drew a picture of a Cala Lily on top of and then carved away chunks of the soft clay until I had a basic shape. To get the finer details carved I had to slowly dry the clay and wait until it got to the perfect carving state. Once the project was dried it was fired, black ceramic stain was applied, re-fired, green ceramic stain was applied, re-fired, and then mop and glow was applied to make it shine...I am totally serious about the mop and glow. 

Who knew that coil pots don't always have visible coils? I didn't. Mind blown. As I decided on the shape of vase I wanted for my coil pot, I laughed when one of my sketches looked like it had an eye ball sitting on top of it. That's where I got my ah ha for the design. He is a cyclops. This "vase" is 8 inches high and is my first official coil pot. I started out with a 2"x1" circle base and placed a coil around the base then smoothed it down so you could no longer see the coil, this was done all the way to the top. One coil at a time. I carved the iris of the eye, eye brow, and mouth and added the handles to look like ears. Then he was fired. I didn't want him to be Mike Wazowski, so when I applied the terra sigalatta I tried to make him orange. The hard thing was if you added too much of the dye it would end up flaking after firing it. So as you can see the orange is not very strong...but at least he's not green. He was then re-fired, I added a clear glaze on top and on the inside, and re-fired. Everyone still says "Hey, it's Mike Wazowski." So with out further ado, here is Wazowski.

The biggest project we did was a Historical Pottery Replication. The pot I replicated is from Italy; the late 14th century. The original is only 11 inches in height, but my replication is 18 inches in height. This is also a coil pot. Once the pot was leather hard I applied the slip and used dyed slip to paint on the decoration. I absolutely loved this project, even after the amount of hair I pulled out because of it.  

Photography Projects

I am working towards a Bachelor's of Fine Arts with an Art Education emphasis. For my degree I have to take foundation classes, which I probably should have done while working on my Associates, but didn't. This semester I took a digital color photography class and had two projects that I really enjoyed. 

My midterm project was centered around wooden structures. I love capturing lines and basic shapes because they're simple and help move a viewer through the picture. 

 

My final project I decided to play around with over saturating my photos. When I was first seeing what worked well I played with a flower in some weeds, which turned out to be really interesting. I originally wanted to do some old school building, but they didn't turn out to be what I was looking for. I then stuck with rural area things and I am glad I did. Turned out to be a lot of fun. I might even enlarge one or two of them.

My Dad when I showed him my final just looked at them, nodded his head, and walked away. So before he got too far away I asked what he thought and he just said "I don't get it." I am sure most people will look at these and have the same thought or expect a rhyme or reason. But honestly there isn't anything to get. I like showing things in a different perspective, whether it's from a different angle or an unrealistic portrayal. To me I just think it's different and pretty. And that is what I am all about.