Lyda here.

I love found objects. My car trunk usually has a variety of weird bits and bobs rattling around in it – although no human Bobs have been spotted anywhere in my car, sad to say, but let’s not go there – and my garage has a collection of odd items that will someday certainly make it into one of my collages. Or so I tell myself.

My love of junk and discards and rusted metal have caused my son no end of embarrassment – “look at that, let’s pull over and put it in the trunk” “oh Mom!” – and also led to Gorgeous and Available Engineer Brother saying, “Sounds like you need to learn to weld.” Which is why it’s on my list.

So y’all know I love it when I find other artists playing with junk creating art with found items. I found this site quite by accident. Check out Nathaniel Stitzlein’s stuff –  cool wire-and-found-object sculptures and mobiles.  Michelle Stitzlein’s work is quite beautiful, yes? I love the teapot and cupcakes. And of course: CAKE! In addition to the couple’s graphic design work – check out the leaping llamas! – she teaches and writes books on her methods, and has appeared on the HGTV show “That’s Clever!” – here’s her tutorial on How to Make a Lollipop Flower.

Which is a nice segue into my semi-review of “That’s Clever!“- careful at work, that link has sound. Of course y’all aren’t reading this at work! HGTV has lots of shows that I watch – including tons of design shows, one of my favorite TV addictions. “That’s Clever!” features three crafters/artists per episode, creating one of their pieces on camera. Some of it is interesting, some is beautiful, and some is just silly. Kind of cool to see all the different people doing their thing. I haven’t watched enough episodes to be sure about this one, but it’s worth checking out. Even if just to see all the people’s wonderfully messy and creative studios.

And speaking of messes, I’m currently making a mess with:

• sewing, on a project full of tiny irritating pieces – which keep moving and slipping and falling on the floor. I’m going to get some fusible stuff so that next time I do a project like this, the little pieces can be ironed in place and I won’t have a million pins stabbing me at every turn of the fabric.
• cutting up magazines – I love doing this and making collages with the images, and saving things as inspirations, and clipping pictures of rooms and furniture and such for my “someday” file – there were a lot of old magazines at work and I brought them home and I’ve been cutting them up in the last month. I haven’t done anything with all the clipping yet but make a big pile. And it’s been too hot to play with fiber sot this has kept my hands busy.
• drafts of posts – I’ve started a zillion posts and not posted them – see, a few months ago I used some of my tax return to finally buy myself a camera, and I’ve been taking pictures, but I keep forgetting to add them to the posts I’ve written to go with them…

That’s in addition to the mess I’m making with my life in general. But let’s not go there on a Friday, okay?

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