Tag Archives: roses

Special Request: The Nurse’s Rose Bush

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My hand still hurts from using those cheap decorative scissors, but I guess it was worth it.

They asked me to do an extra bulletin board for the nurse’s office. The health aide had painted the bulletin board and added the paw print border and the letters but then she didn’t know what to do with the rest of the space, so the attendance clerk’s idea was to let me fill it in. Which I did. I couldn’t find any pinking shears so I ended up buying a set of 12 “decorative scissors” for $13 just to get the ones with the zigzag edge, and let me tell you, you get what you pay for. Those scissors were just awful, but I wanted to make the leaves jagged like rose leaves are.

I had the Girl to help out one of the days, so she cut 30 leaves, which is more than I thought she’d manage. I cut 170, making 200 leaves total. There are 27 roses, 12 ladybugs hiding in the foliage, and 6 yellow butterflies. This one took forever, in part because each little component was time-consuming, and in part because I was so busy last week that I never had any long blocks of time to focus.

As I finished, I told the aide, “Let me know when the kids destroy this one and I’ll make you another.” And she said, “The kids are not allowed to touch it!” And I said, “Yeah, but they will.” However, it will last longer than the designs I do in the breezeway because it’s inside, protected from the elements, and there will never be unsupervised kids around it. Any kid who gets near this delicate papercraft will necessarily be no more than 5 feet away from an adult. So I give it until at least next fall.

If you want to see some close up pictures of the flowers you can check out this little gallery on my Instagram (taken with my Moto X4). If you like flowers, cactus, pets, food, or my art, you should totally be following my Instagram. I’m hubris_and_smoke.

It’s Not a Table Set for Ants

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These items are still too big for daily use by ants.

My actual kitchen table is 50% kitchen table and 50% workbench/junk drawer/stuff The Man doesn’t know what to do with, but I can set some lovely miniature tables with dishes and fruit and vegetables. Last night, I made this cute bowl and a single lemon and 3 roses and a vase, all out of the little scraps of clay left over from other projects. I didn’t fire them last night because it was pretty late, here they are now. My tiny vase-making skills could use improvement, but I think I’ll try some other, more complicated kinds of flowers and fancier vases in the future.

Yesterday I sent what I believe to be the final files for the Bonnie Jo Campbell comic book to the printers. I can scarcely believe it, but they should exist as physical objects in meatspace within the next week or so. I’m terrified there’s a mistake somewhere, or that I could have made them better with more work. It’s a strange balance, since I started this blog with the intention of giving up the drive for perfection, but somehow, print seems more momentous than pixels.

Natural Geometry Mandala

Classically beautiful...

Classically beautiful…

I’m in love with this elegant purple mandala. It’s really regular in symmetry and even thought it’s limited and color and shape, that simplicity opens up a greater complexity in the overall design.

Flowers are their own kind of mandala

Flowers are their own kind of mandala

Today was a nice day as far as being an artist goes. I read fairy tales to kindergarteners, repaired books for the school library, and took a rambling walk in the park, mostly for the purpose of take photos of roses. I also spent a lot of time swinging on the swings, for the purpose of giving little dragon some air. How many hours a week did I spend swinging when I was a kid? Jumping rope? Skipping? I mean, seriously, I probably jumped rope a couple hours a week, every week.

Here’s when I stopped swinging a lot: I was probably about 12 or so. I had a Walkman (children…it’s like an MP3 player, but it only holds one album at a time) and I was swinging with my eyes clothes and my headphones on and a toddler ran in front of me and I kicked that little sucker right in the head. I don’t remember the kid’s reaction, but I do remember the mom freaking out. She wanted to be mad at me for swinging with my eyes closed and my headphones on, but she knew it was her own fault for letting her baby run in front of the swings.

So today I didn’t close my eyes. A little girl came over and swung next to me. I could tell she wanted to strike up a conversation–I am a colorful person, after all–but she was too shy. Instead, she tried to swing as high as me. I decided that I was going to outswing this kid, that I would keep going longer and higher than she could. Trying to keep up with kids is better than a FitBit. So I ended up pumping for way longer than I would have otherwise. Eventually, the kid had what sounded like an asthma attack and stopped swinging. Which means I won!!!

Then The Man and I went out with the Missesses Kitty and ate a really unreasonable amount of West African cuisine, which I have been obsessed with all month. Fufu! Peanut sauce! Goat! Good stuff.