Bee in Skep

I'm always looking for clever ornaments for my garden. Bee skeps add a rustic look and are easy to make. You'll love this tucked among your summer flowers.

Materials

1/4" sisal rope

twine

saran wrap

varnish

Tools

hot glue gun

bowl

black permanent marker or black acrylic paint

Cover a bowl with saran wrap. Turn the bowl over and begin to wrap with the rope. Wrap once and then run a thin bead of hot glue along the top of the rope were it meets the bowl. Place the next layer on top of the glue. Press to adhere to the layer below. You don't want the glue to ooze onto the outside of the finished skep. (It's not a disaster if it does - you can pretend that it's honey)

When you have reached the end, cut off the rope leaving a 3" length. Squirt glue into the small hole at the top, bend the rope and push the end into the glue. When set, wrap the base of the loop with twine. (this twine came with the rope and was used to hold the coils in place)
Remove the skep from the bowl. The saran will be stuck to the inside. That's okay. If the skep looks too short, like mine, turn the skep upside down and add more rope layers to the bottom until it is the right height.
Cut a short length of the rope and glue it together to form a circle. Glue it to the middle of the skep. Color inside the circle with a black marker or paint. Varnish the rope to protect it from the elements.

Sorry bees, it's only pretend.

Miniature Photography

This is the opposite of "tilt-shift" photography where photos are taken of life-sized objects and then made to look like toys. These are photos of toys taken to look like life-sized objects. They were taken with a simple point and shoot digital camera on a close-up setting.

The tutorial is simple.

1. Go to the dollar store (or your toy box)

2. Select toys

3. Set them up in silly situations

4. Adjust settings on camera

5. Lie on your stomach (if necessary)

6. Take picture (in fact take a zillion pictures as they won't all be good)

Pig Farming

Dinosaur Roundup

Are You Sure I'm the father?

Hiding Under the Toadstools

King Kong goes Country

Stranded in a Rowboat

Hi Mom!

Tilt-Shift Photography

Tilt-Shift photography had been in the news on the web quite a bit lately. The idea is to make your photographs look like they are of miniatures, perhaps on a model train layout. It usually involves an expensive lens, but I've figured out how to do it using Photoshop Elements.

Open your photo in Photoshop.

Go to HUE & SATURATION and increase the saturation until the colors in your photo are bright, like toys.

Using either the circular marquee tool or the lasso tool, make a loose selection around the area of your photograph you wish to emphasize.

Go to SELECT>INVERSE

Go to SELECT>FEATHER and put in an amount of 20 pixels.

Go To FILTER>BLUR>GAUSSIAN BLUR and move the slider until the background of the photo is out of focus.

Go to SELECT>DESELECT and admire your train layout photo.

See the difference? The excavator is in focus while the background is blurry and the colors are intense.

Safety First When You Celebrate

A friend showed up with one of these for the birthday girl recently. You can see her terrific artwork here. I purchased all my supplies at the dollar store but feel free to plunder your workshop (safety glasses), your broom closet (feather duster), scrapbooking supplies, gift wrap and children's toys. Obviously this is open to your interpretation. Imagine a bridal or baby shower version.

Materials

safety glasses

feathers

garland

small pinwheels

curly ribbon

letters

Tools

glue gun

black paint

silver permanent marker

Strip the feathers off the feather duster. Paint the letters with black paint then cover with silver marker. Cut the sticks off of the pinwheels and snip 6 inch lengths of garland. Spiral the tops of the garland pieces and cut the curly ribbon into equal lengths.

Using hot glue, attach the feathers across the top of the glasses; one at a time. Glue the ribbon curls to the sides and cover with pinwheels. Glue the garland spirals over the feathers then cover with the letters.

The hardest job was to take off all of the glue gun webs. Next time I will cover most of the glass area with saran wrap while I glue. It might save me 15 minutes of fussy clean up.
When they sing "Happy Birthday" at the restaurant, you can make her wear these and really cause unbearable embarrassment.

Not to be outdone, let's embarrass him too.