Repurposing repair on a patio tabletop

So like I said, I haven’t had much time for thrifting or repurposing for that matter, but I did find a used replacement patio tabletop to “fix” the one that I accidentally broke!

When I was putting a patio umbrella in the table outside a month ago, I “missed” and put a huge crack in the Plexiglas tabletop. Whoops. It actually turned out to be kind of a blessing in a strange way, because it was old (starting to yellow and develop spider veins), but still working, so I really couldn’t justify getting rid of it. Until the accident, that is.

I hate throwing things away and will do what I can to avoid buying new stuff, so I started looking for a replacement on Craigslist as soon as I could. This patio set is a former Craigslist find that has been repainted with a coat of spray paint and I can always replace the umbrella canopy through Amazon.com (the canvas only lasts a couple of years before it has to be trashed, but not until I go at it with spray paint first to clean up the color that is).

Anyhow, I was lucky enough to find, of all things, a replacement tabletop on Craigslist!!! It’s tempered glass and fits perfectly on our existing frame. I did think about spray painting the edge to match, and I could have, but decided not to, because the table edge can get hot and lighter colors don’t retain heat as much.

So what I did with the old tabletop was to get a pretty big pile of metal together and list it on Craigslist as a free scrap metal item. The entire pile was gone within a couple of hours! If I DIDN’T find the replacement piece on Craigslist (it was $35 by the way), I probably would have made a mosaic tabletop out of the frame and a piece of plywood.

That was really “it” in regards to repairing things, unfortunately. I do love to do things around the house, but like everyone else, there are priorities!

Art Docent work

I’m usually going on and on about things that I “get”, but today I’m going to discuss things that I GIVE!

So one of my off-and-on duties as a mom and a citizen 🙂 was volunteer art docent work for my daughter’s classroom last school year. Admittedly, I’m not a big fan of giving the kids a very minimal amount of time to learn technique or try to teach kids about the often complicated lives, techniques and other information about famous artists. In addition, the art cart at school is shared by thousands of little hands. This has been somewhat problematic with certain projects (one of the projects that we worked on was a portrait in oil pastel…the pastels were so grimy and broken by the time we used them that the kids were working with stubs and the colors weren’t exactly what I’d call colors anymore).

This results in a mad rush of some scale, because other volunteers want to get to the supplies before they get trashed.

This time around I’d had enough. I decided to work on my own art lesson (because, frankly, the art docent lessons aren’t all that interesting to me in regards to teaching first graders…they’re way too vague). I’m focusing on the basics, not trying to cram a bunch of learning into a 10-15 minute session. So for my last gig this school year, I’m going to teach color theory. Primaries, secondaries, and tertiary levels and color mixing.

This took some planning and bucks, I admit. It cost well over $300. This is way more than I’d usually spend, but I decided to just do it, because admittedly, I get really Type A when it comes to art, especially art supplies. I just can’t help it. Art in general gets put in the “cutesy crafts” category anyhow, which always freaks me out. Art to me is everything, it’s design, it’s emotion, it’s expression, creativity, the breath of life. When I see art materials that look like they’ve been through heck and back, it’s hard for me to deal with. It worries me that the kids will think of art as “second rate” if they’re given crappy art materials.

I bought from Dick Blick Art Supplies:

24 kid-friendly color wheels

24 white plastic water cups

24 watercolor paper pads

24 large Crayola Crayons in white for a quick color-resist project in class

One big color wheel that everyone can see when they’re working on their projects

24 water-soluble crayons in a set of 12 with included brush for finer work (this priced out nearly $70 less than buying smaller sets and brushes separately)

From Goodwill, I bought 24 reusable totes that were originally from Target, brand new. I was in one day, thinking that I could find some party supply type paper bags to put all of the “loot” in, as the kids get to take these home, and hopefully use over the summer. They were marked at .79 each, which would have been $18. I was able to talk to a manager, who seemed glad to get all of them off the “floor” at one time and he sold them to me for $11.

I also bought $24 worth of large bristle brushes from Michael’s. These are for putting in water and activating the watercolor crayons when the color’s on the paper  to mix colors…the kids color first and then mix the two together.

I also purchased a $10 transparency color mixer. This is to mix color acetate so that visually, the kids can see what we’re trying to achieve.

So I had an hour to teach, oversee and then clean up. The lesson: Colors (three levels). I went over (quickly!) colors and their meanings, what colors remind us of Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. I also spoke a bit about white and black (which is hard to do, because it seems like some say they’re either colors, or not, or combos or reflections of both, or for tinting and shading only). I didn’t want to confuse the kids so didn’t go into a bunch of different theories.

I found a photo of Darth Vader in pink, printed it out and asked the class how color affect how we perceive characters, particularly villains, showing them the picture of Darth Vader in black and then in pink! The kids were really laughing during that one!

After that, I had the kids work on a pre-printed sheet on mixed media weight paper that has 3 rectangles on top, three in the middle, and six on the bottom. This will be primaries, secondaries, and tertiary colors.

I also included a set of six illustrative color theory sheets featuring Bauhaus artists Kandinsky, Itten and Albers and also featuring Sir Issac Newton. I copied these at Kinkos (click on link to open).

three artists1

With volunteering at the school, I have learned that art and creative-based “fundamentals” are really being pushed on the back burner. In my opinion, it puts a kind of stigma on the arts, and it pushes art to a level of “fun” that isn’t taken seriously. I hate that hands-on creativity is getting this “cutesy craft” treatment. It makes me think about my role in future careers. This has made me more and more aware that our kids are being pushed towards better test skills, with other seemingly “optional” subjects like art and even cursive writing being shoved backwards into the curriculum. It really opened my eyes to the fact that art is so important and it might be up to the community to make sure that it stays that way.

 

Was it a lost summer?

Well, I had big hopes to get this blog done during the summer, but found a lot of distractions. Mainly with our daughter, because summer’s really for the kids if you have them.

There wasn’t much going on besides playdates unfortunately (for the grown-ups that is), but I think she really had a lot of fun, and school’s nearly here. I’m glad for school, because with a child like Sarah, she always wants to do something!

I really didn’t get too much done, repurposing-wise. I did buy and sell some stuff on Ebay and made some pocket money…two purses that were sitting in my closet for $70 and a pair of Frye boots that I picked up at Goodwill for $7 (they weren’t my size, but who can pass that up) and sold for $45.

I did a lot of canning and found if I do small-batch canning that it’s a lot more pleasant. I’ve got it down now. I made peach, strawberry, fig, cherry, and apricot jams. My mother-in-law even sent a jar to her sister in Kansas and it received rave reviews. I hate a lot of sugar in my preserves, so I tend to reduce it down to nearly nothing by compensating with fruit pectin and they taste fresh-picked that way. We have a really wonderful tomato and carrot garden this year and things are really coming in fast, so I’m going to be busy on the weekends, “putting up” (again, that never sounds right to me, hahah).

We had termite tenting done on our house and I was forced to go through the freezer and the cabinets (eek), tossed out some expired food and decided that the waste was enough that I’m going to run a tighter ship when it comes to stocking the pantry from now on. It wasn’t an exorbitant amount of waste, but it still signaled that I need to pay more attention to what I’m stocking up on.

I also decided to tackle the front lawn area, which is about 400 square feet. I was never quite satisfied with our lawn, so I told my husband I’m going to be the Lawn Ranger and get it really green and lovely. It’s pretty much a postage stamp but it’s a project and so far it’s coming along really well!

Well, other than that, I can’t say a whole lot was accomplished. I didn’t have much time for thrifting and tried to stay with my daughter as much as I could because she’s getting to be a big girl now and these days seem to go so much faster now. I will try to keep on with this blog during the school year, because my favorite seasons, fall and winter- are nearing us.

Bates Motel

Oh my god, I’m hooked on this show. It just gets weirder and weirder. And Freddie Highmore (of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Neverland”) is suitably creepy as the young Norman Bates, set in present time (he’s a high schooler). Wow -he has this crazy-ass look on his face when he goes into one of his psychotic delusional states that is almost shark-like -it’s blood-chilling. And he says, “Mother”, which is, without a doubt Norman Bates. His mother is a neurotic, paranoid, needy mess. Overall, great television, great story, great acting. I’m constantly floored by the unsettling vibe and storyline of this series. It looks like Norman is starting to act out some violent delusions now…can’t wait to see where it goes -it may or may not follow the original as it moves along -hopefully the season starts up again…

I tried watching “Hannibal”, but it lost me after 3 shows so I stopped.

My other favorite shows: “The Walking Dead”, “Hell on Wheels”, “Mad Men” (love the style of that show too), “Kitchen Nightmares”, “Project Runway”, and when they were on, “Project Accessory”, and “Work of Art”, but I’m pretty sure those two have been cancelled, since they don’t really run anymore and it’s been a while.

Oh, and I LOVE court, “World’s Worst/Dumbest/Wildest Videos” and “cop” shows. Guilty pleasures!

School’s out! Back to the blog!

This semester was a KILLER. It had its ups and downs. The ups were seeing a lot of “old” (haha) faces (the kids I see probably can say that about me) around campus, and a scholarship. The downs were being totally sick about 2/3 of the semester!

Today was the last day (finals). I wrote about 10 pages for the essay final and I just hope it somehow makes sense. Anything with a timer makes me go a little nuts, and I just rush through it.

So I’ll be posting throughout the summer. Can’t wait!