Home at last

So the lost & found exhibition at PS2 has come to an end during a rather full-on weekend.

On Saturday I held a vintage jumble sale and parted ways with some of the items from the show. Only some mind!

A large proportion of my collection of holy pictures will soon be gracing the new refurb of the upstairs in the Spaniard bar in Belfast.

I've kept the best ones and have a renewed resolve to buy only the best items I find from now on. I don't want to become a hoarder. Tell me it's not too late?

Then on Sunday I led a cake stand class at the Crescent Arts Centre and later enlisted some big strong men to help me transport the entire installation home in one fell swoop. And they did me proud! Thanks Bob, Jim and Dan.

Now I'm relishing the opportunity to redesign our home and our living room is slowly transforming from an ugly duck pile of stuff into a swan. A very higgledy-piggledy, overcrowded and colourful swan but hopefully a swan nonetheless!

Magic

My mind is officially blown.

Ever heard of moss paint? Me neither. But today I came across this phenomenon via my current favourite website craftgawker and you can find the instructions here on instructables but essentially all you need to make a masterpiece like this is some buttermilk, sugar and a few lumps of moss. Put them into a blender, mix into a paste and then just paint it on to a wall to whatever design pleases your good self.

The hulking great concrete wall in our back yard is just screaming out for this treatment but I'm not sure what our landlady would make of it. If you own a house or business, please go out and do this immediately and let me see the results!

a bit of bees knees

Lost & Found workshop

The lost and found exhibition at PS2 will be finished this Saturday and after then I promise to blog about something, ANYTHING else, but for now, here is a post about the free papercraft workshop we had there on Saturday.

About 10 people squeezed into the space to learn how to make newspaper pompoms and some origami designs. It was great to actually get people using the space. Afterwards a few of us hung out for a drink and a natter. How I wish this were my permanent home in the city.

Thanks to all the lovely people who came down - to the old friends and the new friends I made.

My journey to work

This is the view I get three mornings a week on the train to jordanstown.

Belfast is quite a pretty city really.

Read all about it.

Here is some shameless self-promotion! On the morning of the opening of the lost & found show, a photographer from local newspaper 'The Irish News' called round to take a picture of the exhibition. So here I am pretending to look through some records.

This is what the blurb says:

LOST AND FOUND:

Photographer Maeve Henry relaxes in the PS2 gallery space which she has
 turned into an overcrowded living room full of things she collects from

charity shops, skips, derelict houses and other places where

people might not think to look. Her project entitled ‘Lost and

Found’ will be on display until April 28. Members of the public

are invited to bring their own collectables to be part of the

exhibition. Visit www.lostandfoundbymaeve.blogspot.co.uk or

www.pssquared.org for more information

DIY lampshades

Here are a couple of ideas for upcycling those cheap paper globe lampshades you find everywhere, and they each only cost a few pounds to make!

 

I decided that I would put the lost & found exhibition space to good use and get my craft on there. So armed with just some lampshades, paint, tissue paper and glue I came up with these two designs, and I have a whole load more ideas I still want to try out.

The star lampshade is simply a matter of cutting shapes from tissue paper and sticking them on using PVA glue. Simples.

For the paint drip lampshade you just mix some coloured paints with a little water and then use a plastic cup to drip them all over the shade. Then let it dry before then turning it upside down and repeat!

Here they are lit up:

How would you decorate yours?

Lost & found exhibition opening.

And straight on to the opening! It was such a great night and really busy with lots of friends and family there as well as both of the late night art tours visiting the show. The room certainly felt cosy then!

There was even spontaneous dancing to Otis on the record player.

Thanks to everyone who came down. It's open all month and I'm planning a craft workshop and a couple of intimate get togethers down there. Stay tuned for details.

A home from home.

All done! I finished the last few bits and bobs down in the space and generally enjoyed it all day. Here are pictures for your perusal.

On the home stretch

It's been quite a day. We made great progress in the space today though there are still a couple of little bits and pieces to do before the clamouring hoards arrive tomorrow evening. It feels nice and cosy though.

BUT this morning I moved a ladder, forgetting that there was a hammer on top if it and it fell, pointy end down onto my head. And THEN I closed my finger in a car door and I now have a half blue nail. I'd show you photographic evidence but I'm concerned you may be eating at the moment.

One has to suffer for one's Art, doesn't one?

Name in lights

I mentioned in a post yesterday about the uber-cool writing made from fairy lights that I came across so today I had a go at doing it. It's still held in place with electrical tape and any normal person would wait until it was finished before posting pictures of it but oh no, not me. I know patience is a virtue but it's a virtue which I've always lacked.

The writing is a little wonky and I'll have to find a more attractive way of holding the lights in place but I rather like it! I'm already planning what I want to write on the walls of my living room. Here are a couple more pictures of the space as it is evolving:

Also, on a completely unrelated note, WHAT is the deal with the weather?! I got burnt sunbathing last week and today it snowed! Madness.

I mean business.

This lost and found show has finally forced me to pull my finger out and get some new business cards printed as the only ones I have are from my degree show back in 2003 complete with an old phone number. Not very professional.

So I excitedly collected these cute cards from the post office this morning which I organised online through Moo Cards. They may be a little more expensive than vista or some other companies but there are loads of design choices and you can have as many different pictures as you want.

Yay!

Stencilling

Here's yet another update on the exhibition progress. I wanted to make the space feel homely but wallpapering seemed a tall order in the time I have so I decided to stencil a design on the walls instead.

I found a free downloadable design online, printed it out, enlarged it to A3 with a photocopier, and traced it onto card. In the end I had to simplify the design in places and change it so that it would be a little sturdier. Here is the finished article:

I probably should have used slightly thicker card as the stencil was falling to pieces by the time I finished but it just about held it together for the last stencil. The end results are a little fuzzy round the edges but the overall effect will look fine I think once all my pictures are hung on top of them.

I found a perfectly lovely table outside a derelict house on my street the other day and I brought it down to the space and painted it the same colour blue as the stencil. (not pictured) I love finding abandoned furniture and this one really fits in with the 'lost and found' theme of the exhibition. There will be many, many more pictures of the table and all other parts of the show to come. Lucky you.

Exhibition progress

Things are moving along down at PS2. I arrived down there on Friday to find my name and the exhibition details on the window - famous at last!

Danny and I set about masking off the walls and painting them, clothed in fetching overalls.

On Sunday I led a paper party deco class at the Crescent Arts Centre and then loaded up lots of furniture into a hire van to bring down to the space. It's all happening!

 

A good idea!

I just came across this amazing idea on http://www.offbeathome.com/

It went straight into my 'ideas to copy' inspiration folder.

I'm thinking I might even attempt to write 'lost & found' in lights on the wall of the exhibition. watch this space. Also very cool: