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MayEbony

Trying to be back here at last
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Craft Faves

11 min read
Hello Everyone :wave:

My life is still enjoying some peace and I'm *loving* it!!!  We've had a lovely warm day today, and warmer still forecast for tomorrow.  Spring is here, and I'm spring cleaning my house, tidying and sorting as well as cleaning top to bottom.  I've always loved everything clean and tidy, but that was all out the window this past year; I only had time for damage control cleaning LOL  Now my windows are sparkling :iconstars-plz: I still have a long way to go on the sorting out though :work:

Today I tried fasting for the first time.  It's not true fasting because I was drinking coffee, to which I add a little coconut milk, so I had some calories, but no actual food until 5pm.  I really enjoyed it and plan on doing that 3 days a week for a while.

And here we are... please enjoy time for some incredible work created by the patience and skill of human hands...

Flowers in Bottles - 3 minis by SmallCreationsByMel Crabby Patty Earrings by TheBittiestBaubles Bounty earrings by laydiKroft  The scent of lilac by tishaia Dress Me Bunny by sojala Fuzzy Penguin Needle Felt! by StarlitCutesies  Cream and Rainbow Confetti Mermaid Bead Dress by pinkythepink  Needle Felted Chipmunk by CVDart1990 Miniature polymer clay strawberry shortcake by MeganHess Witches Book Pedestal by Minifanaticus  ID 6 by KisaragiChiyo white kitten by Karo1987 Spring that never goes away by LenaHandmadeJewelry  Quilling Flower Shop by SpiralArtisan Handmade miniature goldfish in a bag necklace. by MiniSweetx Goldfish vase by TigRaido   Princess Moon Lolita Doll by MadameWario <da:thumb id="180422298"/> As Small As I Can Make It by SmallCreationsByMel  Strawberry hat. Fragment by Hitrinka Summer Trifle by FlabnBone Creating the Dragon Blanket by jetsmillion  Crochet Dragon blanket by jetsmillion Handmade Miniature Calico Kitten Sleeping by ReveMiniatures Polymer clay cake rings by Talty by Talty Sculptober: Games by DragonsAndBeasties Love birds by sabrinapina 1:12 miniature sandwiches from polymer clay by Tristatin Oakdruids Pentacle - handsculpted Pendant by Ganjamira Sunflower Ballerina BeadDress by pinkythepink  polymer clay can by Ladybird18 Need a nifty idea for mini pet carrier? by ReveMiniatures Miniature Chipmunk * Handmade Sculpture * by ReveMiniatures Snowdrop polymer clay and labradorite pendant by Krinna  3D Ladybugs And Freehand leaves by Ithfifi Owl in brances from polymer clay by Krinna  Enchanted forest mirror from polymer clay by Krinna  Pink Dragon by ilinea Baby Dragon and Spirit Bunny Friends by Ithfifi Piggie Family by insanable Elven Bridal Gown by Firefly-Path SOLD  HANDMADE Poseable Baby Panda! Glummy-Bear! by Wood-Splitter-Lee Acrylic S by Ithfifi  Sculptober: Best Friends by DragonsAndBeasties Miniature Singing Canary sculpture... by Pajutee Fox Cake Topper by DragonsAndBeasties 

That's all for now.  Thank you for looking and please go give the artists some praise, love, comments and faves.

Love
May

Skin by JassysART
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Beautiful Art

8 min read
Hello dear Friends,

My life is returning to some form of peace after a frantic time over the past year.  The crazy pace stopped suddenly, with the weekend of 15th Aug holding an 80th birthday surprise party that I threw for my mother, my granddaughter's 10th birthday (blacklight disco) and the annual miniaturists show.  After that I finished crocheting a necklace for my daughter-in-law and a scarf for myself.  And suddenly found myself with no miniature project on the go, no parties to plan for, and just a small crochet project - a 2D bouquet of flowers that will go on a garment - but what garment?  Instead of being happy at being free (at last) I found that I felt lost!  It took me about a week to come through that, but now I'm happy and excited to have completed the story about our recent holiday and uploaded it to the web www.mayl.id.au/?page_id=3466

Necklace for Amie by MayEbony  < Ha ha - same top >   Rose Scarf by MayEbony 

And now it is definitely time to share some of my latest faves :squee:

Girly Gladiola for MayEbony by Scooby777

love from passion by MT-Photografien  Riding the Rails by StephGabler 

<da:thumb id="446178634"/>  Orchids galore by 1001G  Flower Crown Penguin by B-Keks 

Happy Birthday Maya by 1001G dreamy by loreeshell  Cold II by Toni-R 

Happy New Year by 1001G  Een lente groet by Lentekriebel <da:thumb id="494094907"/>

9 Ibis in flight by GrumpySnapper <da:thumb id="496431110"/>  Winter Sunset by lica20

<da:thumb id="432739784"/>  Homeward Bound by darkallegiance666  July is blue 11 by martaraff 

Blue by Toni-R  Flower Gift by TheGalleryOfEve  Air dancers by arefin03 

Picturesque Romania by AlecsPS   

That's all for now.  The next feature will be craft, and then back to more photography, drawing, painting and other 2D art.

It feels lovely to be back :iconflyingheartsplz:
May

Skin by JassysART and Stars by LouiseAndMacky
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:iconflyingheartsplz: Hello dear Friends and Watchers :iconflyingheartsplz:

Well, as you are all probably too well aware, my recent big project was a Gazebo Garden, set during Springtime in England. For my own sake as much as anything else, and because my YouTube video failed in the sound department about half way through (their fault, not mine - the original film is fine), I thought I'd assemble some photos and include some chat about methods and equipment used - if anyone cares a jot ;)

The gazebo began as a 'flat pack' kit in plain wood. I actually bought it from our one 'minis' shop, which is of course far, far away from home :giggle:

But I bought it with the $50 voucher that I won at the 2014 show in the novice category. I'd only been doing minis for around 9 months and won the prize for this garden in a frozen yogurt tub...
My Miniature Garden - WAMA Beginners 1st Prize by MayEbony
The flowers were made with chopped up kitchen sponges of various colours and the water is glue from a glue gun.

THE BUILDING AND BASE

So onwards to 2015 and finally, in mid-June I began by painting the gazebo pieces. It took 3 coats of white to get good coverage and there are one heck of a lot of nooks and crannies in the trellis work, both top and bottom. I was so keen to get going on the real garden, and the preliminary stages seemed to go on forever! I also dabbled in creating the pond during these early stages, just to allow me to feel I was actually *gardening* ;) Finally, the painting was complete and I could assemble the gazebo and design the base board.

I had a great deal of help with this from David :icongrumpysnapper: who operates the power tools in our house. In some places there are multiple layers of matt board over the base hardboard to create contours in the grass. They really don't show, and the entire board slowly curled upwards at the edges as I was completing the garden. We don't know what caused it and, as long as it's stopped now, it really doesn't matter. Cutting the hole to perfectly accommodate the pond was the hardest part.

Early pictures are far and few between so this is the first one I have to show...
WIP Gazebo and Garden by MayEbony
The roof is silver so please excuse the crazy lighting in my dining room. I did not attach the roof for a very very long time so that I could reach inside the gazebo easily. So things that were complete at this stage were
:bulletblue: Grass. I made this by carefully collecting sawdust while David was working with the power tools. I picked out any large chunks of wood, put the sawdust in a plastic disposable cup, then poured in a good quantity of green acrylic paint. I stirred it well, and stirred occasionally to prevent lumps until the mixture was completely dry. Then plenty of white glue on the board, sprinkle well with 'grass' and let dry before tapping the excess away.
:bulletblue: Paving Bricks. These were made from the lid of an egg carton. I cut one piece until I was happy with the size and then used it to cut a whole pile. The natural dimply texture of the carton gave realism to the bricks. I wrapped my cutting mat with 'sticky side out' masking tape so that I could place the bricks along the tape and have it all hold still while I painted. The painting involved several layers of colours, browns, reds, yellows and a tiny bit of black. All but the first layer were dry brushed, and left to dry. I was thrilled with them! David 'helped' to lay them in place, which in all honesty meant that I could barely get my hands in there because he loved doing it so much :iconhardlaughplz: Horror of horrors I was about 8 bricks short after the edge cutting was done and I had to try to re-create the colours to paint more. Oh my goodness!!!
:bulletblue: Topiary Trees. These didn't remain, but they are made with polystyrene balls covered in 'grass' (with a different colour paint), bamboo skewers and 2 tube lids for pots.

THE FLOWERS AND TREES

Miniature Bonsai Trees by MayEbony  Bonsai Macro 1 by MayEbony  Bonsai Macro 2 by MayEbony  Bonsai Macro 3 by MayEbony  Bonsai Macro 4 by MayEbony  Bonsai Macro 5 by MayEbony
:bulletblue: Bonsai Trees. At my fortnightly miniatures group we had a tutorial and I made the one shown here second from the right. It's trunk is a small piece of stick with additional branches added with wire. This was then covered with brown florist's tape and the leaves were 'green fluff' that you can buy from model railway shops. I have no idea what the 'soil' is made of, nor where the tiny tiny feature stones were purchased from - they were both supplied. The dish is a self-cover button and it was first filled with dry oasis (florist's foam) before gluing the soil over it. I loved making it so much that I came home and made 5 more. Trunks vary from grape stems (the tiny bits of wood each grape is attached to) to the tree on the left, which I made with wire and then covered with paper clay and painted it. The 2 outer tree leaves are made with purchased dry moss, the other 3 with railway foam. David made the wooden stands for each one, and the 'sand pit' which is matt board edged with bamboo cooking skewers. The stepping stones are painted card adorned with real gold leaf, and the sand is actually sand :jawdrop: we got from a local beach.

WIP Gazebo and Garden V2 by MayEbony
:bulletblue: Gazebo paving. I dry brushed a piece of ordinary copy paper with off-white and cream, very roughly done. Then mixed together some white glue and brown acrylic paint, about 50/50 and dabbed this onto the paper in random stone patterns as I pleased. Once it was all dry it was shiny, which I didn't like, so I painted each 'stone' with a matte nail polish top coat.
:bulletblue: Willow tree. The trunk is a piece of stick that I found with several bits sticking out, perfect to attach branches to. The leaves, obviously are seed beads, threaded onto wire. A few people, in real life, have commented that they don't like this much because the rest of the garden looks real, and this doesn't. But I love the way the leaves catch the light, and differing opinions are what makes the world go round :relax:
:bulletblue: Roses. I didn't make the roses. I wish I knew how because they are absolutely perfect in every way. David won them in our minis club raffle so we have no idea who made them. I made the vine for them out of moss and added some punched leaves to add realism to the vine as a whole and make it look more 'rosey'.

And then time passed and I got my head stuck into making flowers by the truck load. Almost every petal and leaf is hand-painted and this is something I never dreamed, in a million years that I could be bothered doing. But I :iconloveloveplz: every moment of it. Rather than go in date order I'll start at the front and travel around the gazebo in an anti-clockwise direction, saying a little about the creation of each species of flower. Before we start that, the garden beds are made with coffee grounds to look like soil.
Lavender and Daffodils by MayEbony 
:bulletblue: Lavender. Flowers were made by dipping wire in glue, then chia seeds. Once very dry I gently painted them lilac. I made the bushes with unravelled sisal (rough string), glue and yet more painted sawdust - perhaps I need to do a tutorial? Once I made the third (centre) lavender I got game and made this one with the 2 little 'wings' on the top. These were a 5-petal punch of lilac tissue paper and I cut them into pairs of petals, glued them in place and bent them to the right shape.
:bulletblue: Tulips. These were my first flower and I don't like them much any more, but it shows the process of my skills improving so I guess I should leave them. Other than the lavender and grape hyacinths, all flowers were made with paper punches for the shape. The leaves for the tulips were painted bag ties, and turned out to be an absolute nightmare to keep glued in place. The dark centres of the flowers are tiny snippets of black knitting wool.
:bulletblue: Daffodils. Other than the rockery plant, these were my last flowers and I'm thrilled with them. Punched outer petals and a tiny strip of orange quilling paper rolled for the trumpet part. Trumpet glued into place and allowed to thoroughly dry, then gripped firmly with one pair of fine-tipped tweezers whilst roughly pulling outwards to form the fluted shape with another pair of fine-tipped tweezers. I became very adept at working with a pair of tweezers in each hand. I was an old hand at it by the time I did the daffodils.
:bulletblue: Daisy. Can't see this terribly well behind the sign, but the stems are a bundle of unravelled sisal held together with a big blob of glue at the base. Flowers are a double layer of daisy-punch silvery-shimmery paper, with poppy seeds glued in the centre and then painted yellow.
Poppies and Clematis by MayEbony
:bulletblue: Are they poppies or are they anemonies? Intended to be poppies, despite those not being a spring flower. But I wanted my happy and beautiful memories of English flowers so poppies had to be included ;) I tried this with tissue paper so the petals were 'floaty' but punches and tissue paper are not friends and I found it impossible to work with, so I stuck to real paper. Double layer of my 5-petal punch. Tiny few fibres of black knitting wool, and the centres were wire dipped, 2 or 3 times with drying time between, into yellow paint. Leaves were bent into shape using tweezers.
:bulletblue: Clematis. Oh how thrilled I was, and still am, with the clematis. Hand painted lilac paper, punched, then dark purple painted down the centre of each petal with a 10/0 (barely visible!) brush. Centres are those bundles of imitation stamens you can buy from craft shops, and the greenery is dried, purchased moss.
:bulletblue: Mother-in-laws-tongue. There are 4? of these around the garden. A bit bright in this shot, but it's made with lengths of floral wire sandwiched between 2 layers of masking tape. Cut to shape and then painted. Easy huh?
Hollyhock Landscape by MayEbony
:bulletblue: Hollyhock. Another 'not Spring' flower, but the garden definitely needed something tall at the back so that it could be seen from the front view. And we had hollyhocks in my childhood (up to age 11) garden so they were a must. Really enjoyed making these because they felt so big compared to the other flowers. I used a 5-flower corner punch that had 3 different sizes of flower, plus another matching punch that was a tiny bit larger. All the paper hand-painted. Once punched I placed each flower on the back of an old mouse mat (foam) and pushed the centre hard with a dotting/ball tool to shape them. All of the flowers were shaped this way, but the hollyhock really got a good hard poke :fork: Then painted the different colour in the centre of each, again with the 10/0 brush. The hard poke into the mouse mat meant that each flower (mostly) stayed still while I painted the centres, which was a brilliant bonus and saved picking each one up with tweezers to paint :squee: Floral wire stems are covered in floral tape.
Tulips Mother In Laws Tongue by MayEbony
Nothing new here to comment on - aren't you lucky? Just here to continue the journey around the outside of the gazebo.
Daffodils and Hydrangea by MayEbony
More daffodils and another clematis, and rear view of the willow.
:bulletblue: Hydrangea. These were made with the same 5-flower punch as the hollyhocks. It's amazing how different things can look according to the way they are painted and displayed. The wooden parts of this bush were grape stalks. The flowers were from hand-painted paper. I brushed blue and lilac paint over normal copy paper, ensuring I kept it rather streaky, and then punched the flowers randomly so that some had both colours and/or a little white on them. Mouse mat poke, paint centres, and then glue each flower onto a wonderful circular 'nut thing' from a native Australian tree. If you want hard, 'nut things' for craft, Australia is the country to be in! Leave them to dry thoroughly and then assemble the bush. Then make a heap more flower clusters because I hadn't done enough to start with :sprint:
Hydrangea by MayEbony
Front view of the hydrangea. I made some daffodil buds that you can just make out in either of the last 2 photos. Punched from a pale-brown bag I'd bought some stamps in and I felt they were realistic, but somehow didn't add anything much to the garden.

THE ANIMALS OF THE GARDEN

As you can see above, there's a hedgehog. There are 3 of those actually. All of the animals/birds/fish are made with polymer clay. I love poly clay - the world is at your hands to create almost anything you wish. At the back of the pond is a little duck, who is my favourite of the animals. And there is a squirrel who makes me laugh because I don't think I did terribly well with him, and 2 robins and a tiny, tiny nest with a real feather and 3 blue seed-bead eggs that nobody will ever notice I expect.
Squirrel Macro by MayEbony  Robins Macro by MayEbony

THE POND

At one stage I dropped a piece of something, and in the split second that it was falling I thought "Oh nooooo, it's fallen in the water!" :iconteheplz: Fooled by my own creation. :iconteheplz:

Water Lily Macro by MayEbony
:bulletblue: Container. One of the children's toys at Christmas came in a shaped, hard plastic wrapper that I had kept and this proved to be the perfect size for my garden pond.
:bulletblue: Rocks. Purchased from our big hardware store in a 5kg bag that will last me several lifetimes I suspect :granny:
:bulletblue: Moss. A substance named 'Flower Soft' that is just gorgeous for such purposes. It's expensive for what it is but does a great job.
:bulletblue: Bullrushes. Slender sticks dipped repeatedly in brown acrylic paint until it built up to the thickness I wanted. I should have made more :(
:bulletblue: Fish. Polymer clay, as stated above. The fish on the right was silvery white and gold and I much prefer him to the one on the left (partially hidden by light and shadow) who is matte white and gold.
:bulletblue: Water lilies. Hand painted paper, with yellow flower soft in the middle. Leaves are polymer clay.
:bulletblue: 'Snow in summer'. This white flower (horribly blown out in this shot) was the absolute last thing I made for the garden, just to fill a hole in the rocks.
:bulletblue: 'Pea plant'. These are about twice (or thrice) the size they should be and are still in danger of being snipped away ;) Made with polymer clay threaded onto sewing cotton. The threading mis-shaped the balls horribly and they were surprisingly awkward to make. If they were to-scale I'd be happier.
:bulletblue: Water. 2-part epoxy resin in several layers. First layer to hold down the gravel and give something for the fish to sit on so they're not on the bottom. You can't tell that so it was a waste of time. They could have been higher in the water but I was afraid they would be too high :iconafraidmonkeyplz:
Pond from Above by MayEbony

And then I very carefully and completely covered the pond with a tissue held down with some spare 'rocks' and took the garden outside and sprayed it all with fixative, partially to protect it for the journeys it will make to shows.

I *think* that's everything. Please tell me if you can see anything I forgot to mention and please ask any questions you may have, I'm very happy to help anyone who wants advice - or to receive advice if anyone has comments and help to share.

Oh, and the 2 things I said most during the whole creative process? To my tweezers, carefully lowering flowers etc into place... "LET. GOOOooooo!" and to my glue?... 
:iconshakestickplz: or :iconikillitplz:

If you'd rather hear me talk about it rather than read, here's a brief overview


Thank you so much for getting this far with me, I really appreciate it. And now I'm going to sit at the craft table and plan out my next project, thanks to the poll on my homepage.

Heaps of :iconttaasst:
May



Skin by JassysART and Stars by LouiseAndMacky
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Birthday Gifts

3 min read
Hello to all my dear, dear friends here on dA
<da:thumb id="482237093"/>
I have been the most awful friend, and it's pretty much a year now since I dropped out of my full dA life.  I have neglected you all so badly.  And yet for my recent birthday the greetings and gifts of friendship and photographs poured in.  You are all, truly, The Absolute Best.  I truly don't feel that I deserved for anyone here to remember me, and it just goes to show how amazing you all are.
Thank you so very, very much!

These were my beautiful birthday gifts.  Thank you all for the beauty of your giving hearts and the time you took in creating and uploading the gifts for me, it means such a lot :iconttaasst:

...and a very happy birthday to you May by 1001G



Birthday wishes May by kayaksailor

Happy Birthday May by BlueIvyViolet



Run by maiarcita

Happy Birthday May by Applemac12

Happy birthday May Ebony by ingeline-art
If I've missed one, please, please tell me, I would hate to accidentally hurt anyone's feelings!

Until later :wave:
Love
May


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Hi Everyone,

As you know, I only get to be on here briefly a few days a week.  I still love to visit and have a quick look through the deviations in my message centre.  I've now given up *all* of my commitments here, other than my little puzzle-photos group, :iconwhatthehecksthat: which doesn't take much time.  I've even given up being a Gangsta (journal producer) for the Angels Without Wings project.  I put a lot of time into that for longer than I should have.  It became really burdensome over the past year and is a large part of why I felt so exhausted with dA as a whole.  I finally plucked up the 'unkindness' to retire completely from that and now feel free, fully, to come here for pleasure and friendship alone.

I've been concentrating on my health this year and have lost 7 kgs (about 15 lbs).  Still have another 9 kgs to go, but I'm enjoying the process; which is just as well.  Post menopausal women have the hardest time of any demographic to lose weight.  Just my luck to be just that ha har!

There are so many Faves - because it's so long since I had a chance to do a Faves Journal.  I'll have to do several journals to catch up.  We'll see how I go with that LOL  And without further ado, here are a selection of my latest Craft Faves.  Please give the artists some love and appreciation for their incredible talents.

SOME MINIATURE THINGS
Candles On The Walls by AtriellMe  MOUSE BLOSSOM TEA CUP OOAK by WEE-OOAK-MINIATURES  Chihuahua Teddy bear. Adopted by SulizStudio

Ukki the Grandfather Mushroom by sojala  Bird's House Earrings by Aztilen-chan  Needle Felted Baby Duck by ZadaCreations 

Granny's cottage by geekySquirrel  Commission: Large Altoids Turtle Pond by PepperTreeArt

Tiny Needle Felted Bulldog Puppy Dog in a nutshell by amber-rose-creations  Miniature Cottontail Rabbit * Handmade Sculpture * by ReveMiniatures  Cake Under Construction by CakeUpStudio

Treetop Creature Shop interior details 3 by Minifanaticus 

AND SOME NAIL ART
Blue Flower by Gorgeousnails 

Nail Art White Flowers on Gold Tips by Gorgeousnails  Spring Flower Nail Design by Gorgeousnails

 

blue mermaid 2 by Tartofraises  Africa Nail Design by AnyRainbow

Poisonous spider halloween nail art by sugarcharmshop
And one of my own.  A toy train which I painted for the miniature railway show we went to recently.
Toy Train by MayEbony

:iconflyingheartsplz: Bye for now :iconflyingheartsplz:
Love
:iconflyingheartsplz: May :iconflyingheartsplz:

Thank you dA (not!!!) it won't show me a preview of this in st.ash.  Says it can't log in - repeatedly.  And now I daren't click 'Publish' in case it disappears and all my work is gone :(


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Featured

Craft Faves by MayEbony, journal

Beautiful Art by MayEbony, journal

Gazebo Show and Tell by MayEbony, journal

Birthday Gifts by MayEbony, journal

I Love Sharing Faves by MayEbony, journal