Kids & Animals – Hidreley – boredpanda.com
Monthly Archives: October 2021
More Kids and Animals
Filed under Animals and Kids, Awe-Inspiring Photography
Still Kindness in the World
Filed under kindness
The Topiary Cat
Richard Saunders lives in the U.K. He created the topiary cat on his own property. From there, he got the idea to put The Topiary Cat in places all over the world using PhotoShop and a lot of creativity and imagination. Here is some of his work.
The Topiary Cat
Celebrating Halloween 2
Creating ‘Wonder Wart-Hog’
This is Wonder Wart-Hog. We cut the design out with our CNC set-up plus computer-guided torch from fairly heavy sheet metal. My husband used angle iron to make the piece along the bottom that attaches the design to the mailbox. We hang the piece from an iron stake on an old wheel base so that we can mark it for painting.
If you’ll look carefully, you can see his ears at the top. Wonder Wart-Hog is sitting on big boulder. You can see a knee.
Using our overhead projector, I marked key areas as best I could with magic marker front and back. I will try to refine this using a color printout.
This will be a difficult piece for me to paint. There is a lot of detail, most of which is done with paint, rather than cut out on the machine. It’s one of my husband’s favorite comic book characters. He overcame some problems in trying to do the creation and welding of the attachment piece.
I’ll do the very best I can to make his character come to life.
Filed under Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox Decorations, metal art
Incredible Embroidery
This lady takes the idea of traditional embroidery and stands it on its ear. I can’t say enough about the creativity and skill shown here. There are no ‘patterns’ available for things like this. The fact that she can make the shirt ‘denim’ and the hair highlighted and simply gorgeous blows me away.
The creativity extends to the locations of the backgrounds and the poses of the girls.
Jolly Hoops – Pumora Embroidery
Filed under Embroidery/Sewing Art
Mondays are Motivating
I used to dread Mondays. They meant back to work, loss of freedom, etc. Now I wish there were more. For some reason Mondays are motivating to me – a chance to start with a clean slate – refreshed goals, new determination.
I’m kind of frustrated right now with my efforts to lose the lard, so I am signing up with cronometer, a calorie counting website recommended by our son awhile back. I’m going to start fresh, log what I’m eating, log my exercising, etc. to give myself a fresh look. Then, based on what I’m seeing, I’ll make tweaks in what I’m doing and see if I can get back on track again and make some serious progress.
Filed under DIET!, exercise, motivators
Choices
We went to bed at around our normal time – about midnight. We were both up again, downstairs reading at about 1am.
That is the worst time for me to NOT eat. I could eat a house at that hour. I found this cartoon yesterday and thought if our fridge were like this, it would help a lot. It would remind me that I’m not REALLY hungry at that hour, just needing comfort, and maybe some water, as well as my book…
Delightful Spoon and Fork Art
Filed under metal art, spoon - cutlery - art
For the Love of a Shoebill
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography
Stunning Sculpture
Filed under sculpture
Thoughts on a Sunday 10-3-2021
We received some much welcome rain the past couple of days. My husband is muttering because the rain means our grass will grow and he’ll have to mow again. :0) It was nice. We opened front and back doors, enjoying a beautiful breeze and nice, fresh air throughout. I’m very happy the worst of the summer hot and humid is behind us now.
It was a fight, but we got the “Wonder Wart-Hog” mailbox decoration outline cut out on the CNC table last night. I don’t have a copy of the image we’re using, but I’ll take pics as we progress. We hadn’t done a new decoration for a long time. My husband had to figure out again how to make the program work that converts an image to G-Code, the language the computer can follow. We then had problems because the image was WAAAY too large. We came back in, changed the dimensions, and went back out to the shop, but the computer out there wasn’t seeing the changes. After several times back and forth, he figured out that while he saved the changes, he hadn’t run the “G-code” part of the program again. He did that, saved it, and we went back out. This time things looked good.
We ran the program without the torch turned on to make sure the torch wouldn’t run off the edge of the sheet metal anywhere. We had only part of one 4×8 sheet to use, so if we made a mistake, that would be the end of the project until we were able to go to Ft. Smith to buy more. Happily, it looked like we had a good amount for the image.
We changed the torch tips, then turned on the air compressor and the torch. I’m always fascinated to watch the torch move on its own, moving in a mysterious ‘dance’ over the sheet metal in a magical way, cutting a line trough the metal. We’ve had problems in the past with the torch acting up, but this time everything went well. The torch was going exactly the right speed to cut through the metal like butter.
The next step will be for my husband to make the metal attachment that we use to attach the piece to the mailbox. His hands shake now, so this may be a real challenge – one of the reasons we haven’t made many decorations lately. We are not in a hurry, so I’m encouraging him to do the welding in really short sessions, waiting for a less-shaky day or part of the day. If we can get this done, the next step will be marking the design on the cut out metal.
A young lady showed up at the door last night, asking if we had seen her dog. I’m not sure what kind of dog she had, but the picture showed a medium-to-larger sized dog with brindle coloring. She said her name is Bella. We hadn’t seen her. She left me her phone number. I will text her later to see if she has found her sweet dog.
I hope you’re having a good Sunday.
Amazing Metal Art
Filed under metal art
More Beautiful Squirrel Photos
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography
Mind – Life
I have felt a bit beaten down by events in the world today plus attitudes. I’m kind of a news-aholic and realized that THAT is part of what has me down. I’ve decided to read and listen in much smaller doses until further notice, just trying to keep up with the highlights, and concentrate on what is RIGHT and BEAUTIFUL in the world.
I’ve found a LOT of beauty on Pinterest. I have to admit that I’m spending a lot of time listening to “Britain’s (and other countries) Got Talent” auditions there. There is SO much talent. I’m hoping that many of these people go on to enjoy new careers because they had the courage to stand up there and give it all they have. I’ve been searching YouTube to see if I can find any of the people I particularly liked.
I’ve also found many stunning artists creating beauty in many different media. I’m trying to share them with you.
Sometimes I fantasize about ‘what I would do if I had power.” I have no illusions. The world is fractured to the point where no one could be a popular leader anymore, but I would CLEAN HOUSE and make lots of changes before I was assassinated. :0)
Since I have no power, I’m escaping a bit.
- I’m writing on my blog
- looking at Pinterest and other websites
- listening to music
- exercising
- working in the yard
- cleaning things
- getting ready to play in my art room again
- reading
- talking to friends
- hugging my husband and pets
- talking to our son online
- trying to see the humor in things
Stay safe and happy.
Filed under Attitude, Dreams, Encouragement
Ah, Glorious Rain!
I’m SO happy. I was sitting in my chair, re-reading a book and sipping coffee, front and back doors open to a nice breeze and suddenly heard the rain. Ah, glorious rain! We really need it.
We went out on the screened back porch (my dog Amber and I) so we could hear it better and smile at each other.
The forecast is for a ‘good chance’ of rain today and an even better chance tomorrow. Hooray!
Filed under Mother Nature
New Month – Different Mailbox Decoration
It was my husband’s turn to choose the mailbox decoration. He chose Fritz the Cat.
Fritz the Cat is a comic strip created by Robert Crumb. Set in a “supercity” of anthropomorphic animals, the strip focused on Fritz, a feline con artist who frequently went on wild adventures that sometimes involved sexual escapades. Crumb began drawing this character in homemade comic books when he was a child. Fritz became one of his best known characters, thanks largely to the motion picture adaptation by Ralph Bakshi. ~ Wikipedia
Since it is harder for us to get the decorations down from their hangars in the shop these days, we are changing the decorations less frequently. We are focusing on cartoon characters in the hope that they will make kids on the bus smile and maybe bring some nice memories as drivers pass our driveway.
Filed under Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox Decorations, metal art
Split Down the Middle
Today was the first Lunch Bunch since our waitress, Susan, retired. We are all happy for Susan, giving her a good send-off last Friday, her last day, before she started taking care of her grandchildren. She has spent many years working hard, getting up early to go to work, do the prep necessary before opening the restaurant, making pizza dough, cutting up veggies, all the things that need to be done to have the place run smoothly. She’s still getting up early every day, but now will fill her days with life flowing from the plans of the grandkids. She grinned from ear to ear last Friday, clearly relishing the change of focus for her life.
So today we gathered once again. Mikey, our other treasured waitress, took our orders. We talked about the fact that SHE kept feeling that Susan was “just on vacation,” and would be back at work soon. WE kept thinking she would come out from the back, drying hands on her apron, smiling and joking with us.
Things change and we must change with them. Susan has our permanent invitation to join us at the table for Lunch Bunch. We HOPE she’ll take us up on that some Friday very soon. Happy for her, sad for us, resistant to change…
Filed under Challenges, Changes, Friendship
NICE Sculpture
Filed under sculpture
Happy October – Halloween Season 2021
I have such wonderful memories of Halloween when I was a child, back in 1492…
It was before the world changed. Back when I was free to walk by myself half a mile to my friend’s house to play for the day. Back when we actually Trick-or-Treated, dressed up in handmade costumes and going out at night with a group of friends – no parents – to spend a couple of hours gathering as many goodies as possible before we wound our way back home, half sick from eating our ‘spoils.’ :0)
I never wore a costume bought from a store. One of my favorite memories was figuring out what I ‘would go as” (meaning what type of person or character I would emulate) and then figuring out how I could make a costume. My friends did the same.
I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma on one of two streets that ran parallel to each other and were one mile long, called Johannson Acres. Each house sat on an acre and a quarter. Some of my friends had horses, though I never learned to ride.
My friends would meet on Halloween evening and walk to the neighborhood behind us, where the houses were closer together with lots and lots of porch lights on, welcoming us. My favorite treat was a mini-chocolate bar, like Snickers. A close second was anything baked by a wonderful mom.
We would come home laden with goodies, legs tired from all of the walking, grinning from ear to ear, full of stories about our adventures. I was shocked one year to hear that we needed to cut apples in half before eating to make sure there weren’t any razor blades hidden in them – the first memory that the world as I knew it was changing.
Since we now live on top of a ridge line, up a steep driving outside the town, we don’t get any trick-or-treaters. Churches have get-togethers for the kids, or create scary houses for kids and their parents to tour. If you go to town during the festivities, you might see a small group of children, but they are closely followed by a mom in a vehicle. Everyone seems to be in a costume bought from the store. Kids are taught to wait to eat any goodies so that parents can go through everything, throwing out anything baked, or anything that might be suspect before the children get their goodies back.
My ‘celebration’ of Halloween nowadays is search the Net to find the absolutely fantastic job people do on pumpkins and decorations. I am in awe of the creativity and talent shown and will share what I find with you. I’ll also look for children’s costumes that I find clever and creative.
Filed under holidays
A Little Bit of “Awww” to Brighten Your Day
Filed under Embroidery/Sewing Art
Driftwood Art
Article by Laura Caseley – LittleThings.com
Filed under Driftwood Art, vicarious enjoyment, When Wood Comes Alive
Wonderful Baby Elephant Photos
Filed under Uncategorized
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