Clowning Around

Ever thought about clowning around? Laughter is important to life and how we deal with. What better way then to clown around?

Years ago, I attended a weekend workshop on clowning and got hooked. I ended up doing a 4-H project on clowning and the importance of humor, which led to more clowning opportunities at camps, pre-schools, a couple church events, and even at the Ohio State Fair as a 4-H representative. The costume I have used through most of this was one I got to design and build as I continue to get use out of it with volunteering and working with kids of all ages.

The original costume pattern was for a "Hippy" costume that I adapted. I added green triangles to bottom of the pant's original pattern as well patches of green. The pants are purple with flowers with green accented fabric with little bees The vest is made from matching purple flowered fabric. The shirt has a small opening on on the top back made from white fabric with images of smiley faces, word "love," and swirls. The accenting scarf (originally used to cover my hair before I found the right wigs) is from the green with bees.

The hat was a plain black rimmed hat I found and added silk flowers and a bird nest with hot glue. At one time there was a little yellow bird perched on the nest and plain black shoes I added silk flowers to as well. (The shoes and bird have disappeared over the years.)

In later years purple and black stripped tights were added underneath in place of socks (Love post-Halloween sales!) with a bright pink straw bag to hold my toys and twisty balloon supplies and a green and white wig.

Camp Tales - A Rustic Life

Five Girls - One Shower

Camp is a different world and if you have never gone, it's hard to understand. When you live and work there for an entire summer it is a VERY different world. There is a rawness that seeps from and through every aspect. AT one camp my craft hall consisted of a pavilion with a storage space on the end I shared with the naturalists, at another I had a real room, but it was still on the rustic side. Showers, meals, cabins... everything tends to favor the rustic side of life, even the staff. For many kids, it is their first time away from home and their parents. It is not uncommon for counselors to have to strongly remind campers to shower or brush their teeth. Admittedly, the staff often looks a little different than they do in real life as well, adapting to life in the middle of now where. It's not surprise that camp life often a attracts people that tend to favor what many might consider among the hippy variety. While we showered and I know of no staff that let personal hygiene lack, I admit that it was no uncommon that my one roommate and I had a tendency to wait to brush our hair AFTER breakfast. As staff we couldn't get away with pajamas in the dining hall (dress codes), but we highly valued our time sleep time in the morning, choosing to make our tea and pulling hair into pony tails or loose knots over taking the time to actually do something with it. We brushed it, after breakfast when we had more time.

Even when we weren't pulling our hair into a knot for breakfast, camp brings out a different part of a person and their appearance. My long hair was usually pulled back into a variety of pony tails, braids, and pig tails. While the staffs I lived and worked with embraced the more natural and rustic life, we also looked forward to dressing up a bit. One summer on one of our first visits off site our excitement evolved from a heading into town for dinner to being able to wear the things we couldn't on site (tank tops & halter tops not going with our working dress code) to actually going through the process of doing our hair and even applying some make-up. The guys we lived with shook their heads, but later that evening many of the campers we spent our days and meals with didn't recognize us. I would find surprise later with campers and counselors that I ran into after camp was done and we all went back to our regular lives.

Yes, camp life is different. It's special and allows a bit of rawness that the rest of the world doesn't always have a place for. For some people it's just a summer, for others it gets into their blood.

Seashells by the Seashore

Beached Curtain with Shells

With thoughts of summer, my thoughts have turned to sun, sand, and beaches... with the thoughts of the beach and sand I think of seashells. (Between my trips to beaches and trips of friends, I have a fairly large collection tucked away.) Bring on the sun!

The beaded curtains were made years ago from a sturdy hemp chord (which I seem to usually have on hand), medium-sized wooden beads, and various seashells with naturally occurring  holes and places to string the chord. They were first made for a bedroom I had in the attic and followed me a new house and even to a cabin doorway I had. I love the natural look of the wooden beads with shells and a few scattered gold beads. A bit of a hippy-inspired 60s flashback, but that is one of the reasons I love having them and decorating with them.

The little seashell covered boxes were made from tiny plain boxes and decorated with a sturdy glue and tiny colored shells to create a design. (I have a bunch of these little shells, some dyed different colors.) They are great to sit with my some of my mermaid stuff (which I seem to have at least a  few things).

I am so ready for summer.

Handmade Incense Burners

 After I made the Hippy Chess Set I was inspired to try some new projects with hand sculpting clay into things. I had been considering a way top make incense burners for some time and settled on a design that had a cup or saucer like bottom to catch the ashes with the incense sticking up from a central like place.

Using some of the clay (More Information on Sculpey Clay)I had left over from the chess set, I formed the base first, making a kind of basin to catch the dropping ashes and to serve as a base for whatever went on top. Then building on what I did with the chess set I started with three designs... a hippy mama holding a rose in one hand and a place for the incense stick in the other, a hippy shaman standing under a mushroom, and a rose. (I learned how to make roses for this: check out making a clay rose.) I baked all of them as per the directions on the clay.

When everything was hardened and cool I brought out the paints and started the the decorating process. (You could use the colored sculpting clay, but I had bought all white so I could play with colors.) The color really made them come to life.

I've played with a couple other designs since these pictures were taken, including a couple of fish for a friend.

Check my incense burners here too: http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/handmade-clay-incense-burners

Hippy Themed Chess Set

A Hippy Themed Chess Set

There is something that sometimes happens when one is working and living at a camp, depending on living arrangements... a lot of quiet time. This was especially true one summer when I was living at a camp in which I had a cabin to myself and my little dog (much of the staff actually had dogs that lives with them on site). I was living in the middle on nowhere, surrounded by an on-site staff that had a lot of range in ages, with no cable, no Internet, and limited cell reception (which usually resembled me on a hill trying to find the right spot to get the best service and resembling a cell phone commercial). I wrote, I watched moved on my portable DVD player, I cooked, I took walks, I hung out with staff, and I found ways to keep my hands busy (I'm the type of person who usually can;t just watch tv, I have to have my hands busy doing something). Over this summer I took various crafting projects, including designing and creating my own themed chess set.

King, Queen, Bishop

I grew up playing chess as a kid and over the years have seen a ton of themed chess sets from King Arthur to 'Gone With the Wind' to 'The Simpsons.' What I had never seen was a 60's Hippy theme. (Maybe there is another one out there, but I hadn't seen it.) I thought about carving the pieces, but my limited carving background includes a nativity scene I carved one year out of bards of soap and pretty much nothing else. I'm not afraid of new challenged, but that is a big one to take on involving a knife and limits on how to fix ut ohs. I decided on sculpting it. While I didn't have a lot of experience here either, I knew if something wasn't turning out the way I liked I could always smash it back into a ball and start over. 

For more on these board: http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/handmade-clay-hippy-themed-chess-set

I brainstormed tons of ideas for the pieces, including making a few phone calls to friends for ideas. I had some interesting feedback, but some seemed way too complicated for my limited sculpting background (Like Paul McCartney as a knight or a gun with daisy hanging out the end) & I still wanted to keep this accessible to my abilities. After a few trial attempts with clay I decided on the pieces and set out with some white Sculpty Clay to create the entire set over a few evenings in my cabin. (While I did not have a full kitchen, preparing most meals in a communal kitchen across the way, I did have a toaster oven in my cabin that I could bake the pieces.) Each piece was hand sculpted, baked, and painted. Instead of going with a tradition black/white theme I chose a fire/water theme with a marbled/tie dye appearance with flesh tones as needed. The board was made from a scrap of something leftover from some house renovation and painted with the same color theme. Once painted (acrylic paint was used for this project) and dry the pieces where sprayed with an acrylic sealer and let dry again.



The finished set got a lot of attention from some of the staff who had seen them drying or being worked on and a few campers. There was a teen girl who wanted to learn how to play chess after seeing them and I was ready to teach her, unfortunately schedules just did not work before she headed home. Hopefully, her desire to learn led her to someone else who could teach her.

For interested parties the pieces were as follows:
King - A long haired hippy male complete with head band, outstretched arms, bell bottoms, a beard, and a peace sign on his shirt.
Queen - a long haired hippy mama with flowing hair, a long flowing dress, headband, and outstretched arms.
Bishop - A shaman themed old man with long flowing beard and hair. (I fought the urge to put a joint hanging out of his mouth.)
Knight - My version of a VW bug. (This was really probably one of the hardest pieces for me to make.)
Rook - A psychedelic mushroom. (These probably turned out the coolest.)
Pawn - a dove (and boy did I make a lot of these).

For More Information About Chess


For instructions on how to play:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess
http://www.chessguru.net/
-OR- find do a simple internet search
-OR- find a friend or relative who can teach you.

Peace Sign Ornaments

In the last few years I started to make new ornaments for Christmas, for myself and often for friends & family. This past year I chose a Peace Sign ornament (time to promote 'peace on earth' anyway we can).

I started with a simple salt dough recipe, which you can find all over the web. (Check out these for some recipe ideas - http://giftideacenter.com/Holiday/Christmas/dough_ornaments.php
  http://www.artsncrafts-ideas.com/salt-dough-recipe.php.) Of course, you could use any clay you prefer (I often use a Sculpty for projects). I formed the dough into various peace sign designs free form with the aid of a narrow knife in some cases. All the peace signs were baked until a light brown and baked thoroughly (check out the directions for the salt dough or other clay and follow drying instructions).

When cool, the peace signs where painted with a multitude of mixed rainbow, tie dye themed marbled colors. (Retro Rocks!)  I used a green marbling (greens, yellows, white), orange marbling (orange, yellow, red, white), pink marbling (pinks, white, a touch of red). I wanted a nice rainbow of colors to go with my mix of shapes, sizes, and designs. I painted one side, let dry, them painted the other.

When all the peace signs were dry I used hemp cord attach as hangers. Now they are ready to hang.

You can check out this also on http://www.cutoutandkeep.net at http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/peace-sign-christmas-tree-ornament.)

Maybe it's time to set up that hippy themed tree.