A Marble-lous Idea

Ah the Groupon, it can take you to unexpected places- like a tiny artist's studio in Somerville where in just a few hours flames and fingers can transform borosilicate glass tubes into whatever you can imagine (given the limits of being an absolute novice in the arts of glasscraft).  In our case, I imagined a pendant, and boyfriend imagined a marble.
Not just any marble, but this shiny specimen!

Worthy of admiration.

     Boyfriend realized that such an item required a place to be displayed, and commissioned me to create one.  Off I went, on an intra-apartment freestyle hunt, looking for suitable free things that would be just the right size....  Something would have to be deep enough so that the marble could sit inside, small enough to fit on a work desk, and sturdy enough that it could be decorated and still cushion the marble.

Solution: The red cap from a generic pain reliever bottle. 

Supplies: scissors, blue felt, glue, and a red plastic bottle top.

I took the cap from a non-childproof pill bottle and decided to cover it with some blue felt left over from another project.  The edges of the bottle top are wavy, probably to help people grip the cap.  I thought that  the wavy soft edges of the display against the crisp line of the marble would be a nice contrast.  Because of the odd shape I had to glue the felt down in stages, and hold it with string while drying since it didn't want to sit flat against the cap.  

Sort of like watching paint dry....

I tried to get the folds evenly spaced around the edges, and in that I did not quite succeed.  There are some lumpy bits.  It is homemade from found parts, I hope he likes it anyway.

Ready for the big debut

This unique marble is now snug as a bug on its felted throne. 

Happy freestyling!

Sail into the Land of Freegifting

Found: Black frame, small poster-size

Location: In front of the building next door (talk about an easy carry-home!)

Project Steps: 

1. Clean frame

2. Suggest to Creative Roommate that she should 'paint something nautical' as a graduation party gift for a mutual friend who just finished a graduate program and does lots of work on boats.

3. Wrap it up with some cool old National Geographic maps.

4. Bring to party, present!

Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main...

Note: We discussed the possible etiquette faux pas of gifting something that was partially composed of freestyle components, and we decided that it was acceptable in this case because of the following:
1. The painting was original, and made specifically for the recipient, thus outside of the social grey area of 'regifting.'
2. The recipient appreciates creativity, and being in an environmental-related program would likely be accepting of the 'reuse and repurpose' philosophy that is at the heart of freestyling.

A Flock of Frames Finds a Flock.

All the way back in April we came across this promising looking bag at le dump.  You can see a picture of the bag amongst the odds and ends that tend to accumulate at the give-and-take swap shelf.

It turned out to be a bag of 7 matching picture frames, all in fine condition, and likely from a furniture/decor superstore.  How to freestyle this in a way that is cohesive but not too regimented or repetitious?

Creative Roommate busted out her watercolors and took smaller snapshot-type scenes from a larger image of a flock of birds doing bird stuff.  She installed the final project on our porch, close to the real birds outside.

Birds of a feather

The picture birds have a pretty nice view off the back porch. They only get a bit splashed when it rains.

I'll be seeing ya!

There you have it, a solid solution for this neat little find of frames. Thank you mystery donor for not trashing these!

Flimsy Frame Find Fabulous Fish

Found: super flimsy frame from Scandinavian superstore.  

Location: Our our own street! Thanks to a friend for calling this one in as soon as he saw it. Yes, I WOULD want to go check out that pile of stuff on the sidewalk, right now!

Made of: cardboard 'backing,' thin flexible plastic front, and mystery materials (MDF?) frame with small flat metal points sticking out of the frame to hold it all together.  I would not recommend anyone buy this type of product, the metal parts fall out during normal handling, but since it was free.....

How did we freestyle it?

1. I cleaned off the frame and left it to dry.

2. Roommate trimmed this piece of goldfish-print decorative paper I had on hand. 

    (I heart Papersource, and I'm not afraid - or paid - to say it!)

3. Roommate re-assembled frame, and wrestled with it while trying to hang it on the wall.  She eventually managed to hang the frame, and get it to stay on the wall, by inserting the nail on the wall into the tiny gap between frame and cardboard backing.  Clever.

It might be a bit askew, or I could have been leaning when I took the picture....