THING ONE – The spray container of the stuff I bought awhile back to kill mold/algae/fungus/elephants.
THING TWO – the actual gallon container for the rest of the magic stuff.
I bought this ‘stuff’ particularly to treat some of our yard art – and in particular, the “Greeter Robot” at the bottom of the driveway. He is much too big and heavy to bring in for any type of refurbishment, so cleaning and repainting will have to be done down there.
It would SEEM that a gallon container of something – anything – would be easy to find. ALSO easy would be the finding of a large spray container. And yet the ‘elves/gnomes/and other mysterious critters have made finding whatever you’re looking for a character-building exercise around here.
We came through our severe storm last night well. It’s truly gorgeous outside and I haven’t found any damage yet. It’s a PERFECT day to drive down to the bottom of our hill and hose down the robot -IF I could FIND the magic stuff….
I drove to the bottom of our driveway yesterday afternoon and started another refurbishment project on one of our yard critters. This will be a multi-process refurb –
He’s outside and as far away from supplies as possible while still being on our property
He weighs about 150 pounds and is chained to a tree.
He is almost buried in branches and weeds
He is covered with algae/mold/fungus/mystery.
I’ve been putting it off for quite awhile, but since our weather is finally cooling off, I decided to tackle it.
I took some branch loppers (large and small) and used both to try to cut back all the ‘greenery’ around the robot so that he is no longer buried. Here are some pictures of the sweet “Greeter Robot” (before refurbishment) –
The weather really does a number on our critters and this is no exception. Now that I have the greenery cut back around him, I’m going to try to find the spray container of algae/whatever spray I bought and start hosing him down and see if that does any good.
On the way to Lunch Bunch today my husband told me that while he was repairing the mailbox front yesterday, a nice lady started to drive past and then stopped. She told him that she and her sister live on down the road from us and that they look every day to see what we have up on the mailbox! This is what we have up now –
Wonder Wart-Hog
We hear very little about our ‘artwork.’ I like to think that the school bus kids enjoy our stuff, but that may be only wishful thinking.
This kind lady told my husband that they loved what we do and that they were so pleased each time we changed the decoration. Isn’t that amazing?
My husband and I have now resolved to do a better job of changing the decorations more often, now that everyone is getting out more. What a NICE lady!
We just went to do errands. It was NOT raining! Hooray!!!!!
We put up the new mailbox decoration as we left. Wonder Wart-Hog is one of my husband’s favorite comic book characters. This is NOT my favorite, and he was really beyond my painting capabilities, but my husband said it was, “Pretty good,” so I’m happy and relieved.
Yesterday on the way home from our errands, a white-tailed doe jumped across the road in front of our truck. She was absolutely beautiful. Amber was in the back seat – one of her favorite places, but Amber didn’t see her. This gives you an idea –
WDFW
I worked an hour and a half on side 2 of “Wonder Wart-Hog” yesterday. Right now he looks like a big green blob with a head. Hopefully, I can get that to change. :0) This is the front –
It rained while I was working on the mailbox decoration in the shop. We’re supposed to get more rain today, tomorrow, and Friday. We may need a boat! All this rain is bringing cooler temperatures, though, and for that I’m grateful. We have our doors open to get a nice breeze through the house.
Unsplash
I’m tearing my hair out trying to find a replacement for our phone carrier. We changed the credit card used to make our automatic payments. We got a late notice. I called and they told me, “It takes 6 to 8 WEEKS for our system to recognize a change like that.” I’m still having trouble believing that. Anyway, I asked them to take us off the family plan and the unlimited everything we’re on. Only one of our phones is smart and we basically use our phones for emergencies and some texting. After spending almost an hour on the phone with them, they told me the plan we’re on is the cheapest they have. Since we’re seeing ads for half the price, I’m trying to research the question.
joemarino.org
My scales confirmed that I am past the 30-pounds-off mark now and have begun to make progress toward the next goal. :0)
Raising Children NetworkThis is Wonder Wart-Hog, one of my husband’s favorite comic book characters, marked for painting. The piece is about 2-1/2 feet tall. The outline for cutting him out on the CNC set up with computer-guided torch, was pretty simple this time. The painting – front and back – is intimidating because of all the detail.
I’ve been doing a bit each day. I think I will finish one side of him today after we get back from Lunch Bunch and errands. I hope my husband is pleased with my efforts. If he is, I’ll try to get a pic when the paint is dry before I turn the piece over to paint the second side.
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.
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.
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.
I woke up crackling and popping this morning. Even my husband heard it!
I will do a longer yoga practice this afternoon to see if I can improve things. That and W-D40….
My husband found an image of Wonder Wart-Hog, one of his favorite comic book characters from his childhood, and wants us to do another mailbox decoration. “Wonder Wart-Hog (the “Hog of Steel”) is an underground comic book character, a porcine parody of Superman, created by Gilbert Shelton and first published in 1962.” (Wikipedia)
He worked on the computer much of the afternoon, coming up with a program he hopes will work as it should to translate the image to the computer out in the shop and allow us to use a computer-guided torch to cut the image out of sheet metal. Then he’ll make an attachment that allows us to bolt the decoration to our mailbox, welding it to the sheet metal. We’ll use an overhead projector to mark the key areas of the bare sheet metal front and back. Finally, I’ll paint both sides of the piece plus the attachment. I’ll post a picture when it’s finished. :0)
Right now we have Godzilla on the mailbox. We’ll be exchanging it for Fritz the Cat in another week.
(The above is NOT what I’m making for my friends, but the picture make me smile. What FUN this child has had, thinking of something and trying to make it come to life.)
Since our heat index here in Arkansas is forecast to be 110+F. this afternoon, , I decided to get my body moving earlier than usual this morning and get out to the shop to continue work on the refurbishment of the dragonfly plus working on my Christmas presents for friends.
I’m working on the eyes of the dragonfly now. I cut a black rubber ball with knobs on it in half and glued them on the dragonfly. Now I am using glitter glue paint to try to make the ‘eyes’ sparkle. I finished the main part of the work on the 6 Christmas presents out there. As soon as they dry, I’ll work on the accents and finishing touches. Upstairs in my art room, I think I’ll finish the 3 other Christmas presents I’m working on up there today. I love it when I figure out what I want to try to do early and have lots of time to work without feeling rushed. I find myself remembering lots of happy times with each of the people I’m making a present for, hoping they’ll enjoy the gift. :0)
Since today is the first day of September, and kids are in school here now, we will change the mailbox decoration, hoping to make the bus riders smile as they pass our driveway. Here is the decoration we’re putting out today –
This year I’m trying to make something for many of my friends for Christmas. I’m having a good time, going out to our shop each morning to work on some of the presents, plus repainting the dragonfly metal/glass critter that lives on the side of our house. It was down to the bare metal on a lot of the framework for the wings, so it’s taking many coats of paint to refurbish it. I think I have the underside done now, and I’ve started on the side that shows when it is hung up.
In the afternoons, I’m working on more presents up in my art room. I feel good, not feeling rushed, but making steady progress on everything.
The presents are coming along. At least my friends will know I spent a lot of time thinking of them and trying to do something unique for them. :o)
YARD – My sanity may be waning. I’m really trying to tackle the waist-high grass and weeds that have taken over behind the shop and beside the garden. When it’s not raining and dry enough to work, the heat index is 100+. ARRGGHHHH!
Yesterday morning I did get a start on it. The first part of the project is trying to ‘free’ the 250 gallon propane tank out there. It’s almost buried with all the high grass around it.
The reason that I have this project is that, due to the guy wire making one corner of the garden fence border secure being in the way, my husband can’t mow this area. (actually, he DID do it once, being hard-headed in the extreme. He got the grass cut, but had tears and rips in his arms and on the side of his head from forcing his way through the small opening while on the mower – and then back out again – while I was occupied elsewhere. I ripped him a new one while cleaning up his wounds, making him promise not to try this again. I told him that I would use the weed whacker on the area.
Since I’m a lazy, procrastinating person, I’ve let it get totally out of hand. My husband noticed it the other day, so I’ve redoubled my efforts to get this area under control before he decides to ‘handle’ it again.
It rained overnight, so things are too wet right now. We will go to Lunch Bunch in about an hour and then I’m hoping to be able to do a session or two when we return, though the forecast is egg-frying-outside this afternoon. Fingers crossed.
SHOP – I should be able to spend some time out in the shop this afternoon. I got a bit more done on the Christmas presents I’m making, plus am now ready to start re-painting the dragonfly after making sure the glass is secure on his wings and gluing new eyes on.
Isn’t this guy beautiful? – and the photograph is awe-inspiring.
We don’t have any outside errands today, so we’ll get our mail later and consider it done. :0)
Audrey Hepburn – Katiedaisy.com
As soon as I finish this, I’m going to fill up my two-gallon spray container with EIGHT and go out to the garden to spray it in the garden boxes, murdering any bugs there. (I’m still having to treat the ONE sting/bite a fire ant gave me the other day, though my arm is finally not swollen anymore). If the heat is not yet lethal (it’s supposed to FEEL LIKE 110 this afternoon) I’ll fill my other container with KillzAll and spray the boxes for weed roots I missed while cleaning out the boxes. Fingers crossed.
Clipart
I had an idea of what I would like to make for my friends for Christmas this year! I ordered some things and received them a couple of days ago. I started work on them yesterday in the shop and will turn on the a/c while I’m out spraying so I can continue working today on them – plus a dragonfly I’m refurbishing.
agirlandagluegun.com
We’re getting to the very last of the tomatoes now. We were delighted to find these yesterday right before dark.
When we got home from errands this morning, I brought the finished “peacock” out to his place in the yard.
This was a pain to re-paint, due to how wide and unwieldy he is. There are lots of angles that hide from you as you paint, and he doesn’t want to ‘sit’ quietly, making it easier to work on him. He also had lost most of his beads, so those had to be replaced.
He used to be high up on the tower above where we put the “Belly Vested Whapadoo,” –
but I thought he could enjoy a new view.
There are some other, smaller pieces we’ll have to take down from the side of the house, and some larger ones, like the robot at the end of the driveway, but we’re due for summer to come roaring back, so I’m going to take a bit of a break.
I’ve been using a new face cream. What do you think?
We just got back from doing errands and I’ll fix our lunch in a minute.
The scales are finally beginning to notice my efforts to lose the lard more. I’ve lost 2 pounds in the past 2 days. Re-losing – so no confetti thrown until I’m in new territory.
The new addition to my exercise regimen starts this week, too.
Monday – yoga stretching plus exercises with weights
Tuesday – yoga stretching plus 15-30 minutes on the elliptical trainer.
Wednesday – yoga stretching plus exercises with weights
Thursday – yoga stretching plus 15-30 minutes on the elliptical trainer
Friday – yoga stretching plus exercises with weights
Saturday – yoga stretching plus 15-30 minutes on the elliptical trainer
Sunday – yoga stretching
Yesterday I cleaned and started re-painting the “peacock” yard art critter in our shop. The biggest part of the refurb project on this one is gluing new beads on the ‘feathers’ and around his neck. I’ll show you when he goes back outside.
Yesterday I also cleaned off my drafting table in my art room. I gathered my supplies for my “acrylic pour” experimentation. I also watched several YouTube videos on various techniques several really talented people are using. Today I bought some Minwax Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner to add to my supplies. I will find a heat gun or grab my hair dryer. Later this afternoon I hope to gather my intimidation and throw it in the trash.
Mama & Baby Snail are refurbished and living on our front porch now. I finished repainting these yesterday and brought them out late yesterday afternoon.
Next will be cleaning and repainting our “peacock.”
We have Lunch Bunch this morning, so I don’t know whether I will start the peacock cleaning today or start earlier in the morning tomorrow.
I brought out the second finished shovel bird and put him in place last night before dark. He is at one edge of the top of our driveway, ready to greet all comers.
It feels good to be getting our yard critters cleaned up and re-painted. Things were beginning to look at bit sad around here.
Our “Dog with Bone” yard critter is back up and feeling frisky. With the rains we’ve had, he had been in three pieces in the shop for quite awhile. In fact, when I took our dog Amber out with me, she wasn’t used to seeing him and barked, running over to check him out.
I plan to start cleaning another “shovel bird” today.
One of the reasons I was outside with Amber was to check on our elephant ear plants. They seem to be happy.
We’ve been super busy since I wrote my first post today about 9am. It’s been a good day – full of errands. We got most things accomplished and made it home for a late lunch. It’s very hot, so it was wonderful to get back into the air conditioning. We had lunch and a nap.
Yesterday I finished the refurbishing of the 4 ’emu’ planters. They are ready to come out, but it’s WAAAY too hot now to do it. We’ve figured out where we want them to live, and maybe it will cool off enough before dark for us to get them out. We get gusty winds here, so we got some U-bolts we can use. I plan to put one over a ‘toe’ of each of the ’emus’ pounding the U-bolt into the ground to make them steadier. I’ll take pics when we get them back together outside.
My husband is having a bit of trouble welding now because of shaking hands. He got upset the other day, thinking he would have to give it up. Since his shaking varies from day to day, I reminded him of that and suggested he just wait until he’s have a ‘good’ day and weld then. Today we got a full cylindrical bottle of argon to replace the empty one we took in. He was able to finish making a brace to make a beautiful, specialized welding table yesterday. :0)
I have finished 10 yard critters so far, and we now have 3 more in the shop for me to clean and refurbish – a ‘peacock,’ a shovel bird, and a dog.
We’ve had SO much fun making these wacky critters!
I’m giving myself a hug and smiling right now. I just had two sales (one yesterday and the second this morning) from my HandmadeHavenbyLinda Etsy website! A really nice start to the day and a spirit-lifter, for sure. :0)
I’ve been having fun in our shop, refurbishing 4 “emu” planters this past week. I need to paint their legs, and then they can go back outside when they are dry.
I’m feeling very motivated on my weight loss and exercising goals. I’ll do two sessions with weights today – one with 5-pound weights, and a second with 3-pound weights, where I follow a short video online. Then I’ll do my regular session of yoga stretching and abdominal exercises later today. I’m trying to drink FOUR bottles of water daily (trying to ignore the fact that my eyeballs are floating as I get more movement in) – running to the bathroom. I’m eating some raw veggies and a bit of dip mid afternoon as a snack. Keepin’ on keepin’ on. (So far. 30.2 pounds down and 26.2 inches off).
I’m finding lots of wonderfully creative people on the net who have created artwork that makes my mouth water. I’m so grateful I live on the same planet and can enjoy their work and share it with you.
If you look carefully here, you can see 4 “emu” planters. (We actually have 2 more on our deck, but that will be a different project.) We have faux terra cotta flower pots that fit in the circle parts of the birds.
There is a combination of dirt, mold and ‘whatever all over them. It will take quite a bit of cleaning before I can even THINK of starting to repaint them.
There are detachable heads, necks, and then the legs come off the circular part that holds the pots. The wings and tail feathers are welded onto the circles. Googly eyes are glued onto the heads. Some of them have plain ‘head feathers,’ and others have beads glued onto them.
You can turn the heads so they “pose”. Usually we turn them so they all look toward the driveway – all looking at whoever is driving up to see us.
It will probably take several days to clean them. I’ll take pics of them when they are back in place beside the driveway.
This “refurbishment” (Is that a word?) took a lot of time and effort.
While I was cleaning him, his head fell off! My husband welded it back on, but that added to the difficulty of trying to refurbish him, with huge black ‘burns’ around his neck.
I managed to clean that up, as you can see here, and then I put styrofoam stuff in a gap between the two layers of his ‘neck” to discourage wasps from nesting in there. Finally, I added a bandana.
We used to have him wired to a tree. We moved him to this spot, putting his tail feather between the spokes of the tower. This should hold him nicely.
I’ve been working on the “Belly Vested Whapado” bird for several days now. He’s finally finished and will find his spot in the yard later today. We’ll have to tie him to something wherever he lives, because he needs the extra help, but I’ll take some pics and post them later.
Next up will be a set of 4 “emus’ we built to hold planter pots. There are actually 6 emus in the set. 4 live together to the side of the driveway and and there are 2 more that live on our deck. We haven’t brought the other 2 in yet. Pics to follow on these, as well.
There are some yard critters that I plan to refurbish in place. One is the robot who welcomes people to our home and holds our house numbers sign. He weighs 200+ pounds. I’ll do him in stages, first cutting the greenery away around him, then using a mold remover to get him clean, and then bringing a large can of white paint and a brush to the bottom of the driveway in our truck. I will also use rust preventing spray paint on him, masking areas carefully.
I noticed the ‘Mama and Baby Snail’ that live on one of the brick planters needs to be repainted, and a shovel bird that perches on the edge needs work, too. Right now I am refusing to even THINK about the ‘Flying Pig’ that hangs over the driveway. :0)
Our “cleaning robot” is finished and ready to be put back in place. We will do that later and I’ll take pics for share with you.
Meanwhile, I’m now working on TWO pieces simultaneously.
We call this the “Belly Vested Whapadoo”
As you can see, he needs a lot of work. My husband came out to give me moral support. He steadied the ‘bird’ as I started the cleaning. All of a sudden, his HEAD fell off!
While my husband reattached the head, I switched to another piece. It was a smaller “shovel bird” that we use as a bird feeder in the front flower planters. We also drilled some holes in the shovel for better drainage.
I got about half of the shovel bird piece painted yesterday. I’ll finish that today, and then get started again on cleaning the Whapadoo.
We call this yard critter our “Cleaning Robot.” He is ready to clean up any spill with his fireplace broom and shovel dust pan.
He has the usual fading or peeling paint, but he was also injured this past year, falling over and having his head break off. My husband did a quick repair, welding his head back on, but we didn’t take the time or effort to do anything cosmetic.
This morning I thoroughly cleaned him, threw away the completely faded and now brittle “red” bowtie, pulled off his discolored eyes, etc.
I painted the first coat, but am considering some color changes that might mask some f the weathering damage better.
Our humidity is still really high, making our rather moderate temperature of 88 right now feel like you’re swimming through pea soup as you walk around, so unless it rains, the robot will have to wait until tomorrow morning for more work.
Our turkey was just really dirty with all the paint fading or completely gone. I forgot to take a “before” pic before I started cleaning him up. I put him back in his spot beside the driveway last night.
My husband wants to change where the turkey lives, and I have no problem with that. He’ll probably move it today while I work on another critter.
It’ll be interesting to see where my husband decides he should live.
I’m leaving for Lunch Bunch in about an hour, looking forward to celebrating my friend’s birthday today, and hopefully it won’t be TOO hot to choose another critter, take a pic or two, and get started with the cleaning.
creativeartworksblog 
Nice Lady Made My Day
On the way to Lunch Bunch today my husband told me that while he was repairing the mailbox front yesterday, a nice lady started to drive past and then stopped. She told him that she and her sister live on down the road from us and that they look every day to see what we have up on the mailbox! This is what we have up now –
We hear very little about our ‘artwork.’ I like to think that the school bus kids enjoy our stuff, but that may be only wishful thinking.
This kind lady told my husband that they loved what we do and that they were so pleased each time we changed the decoration. Isn’t that amazing?
My husband and I have now resolved to do a better job of changing the decorations more often, now that everyone is getting out more. What a NICE lady!
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