 Hey everybody, we are back with my year 2017 for July and this month we are celebrating our loved ones. Now I have been collecting different pieces and parts from loved ones who have passed away for a long time. Actually I've kind of always done that and sometimes when they're alive I try to get them to let me scan things like photographs. That being said I have a large collection of things mostly from my Italian grandmother and I am going to share a few of those things with you here in just a second. We're going to thread this needle because we're going to need it and I'm going to use green thread. Why? I don't know, I just felt like green. It's my friend Jerry Bellini's favorite color and my grandmother who we're going to sort of celebrate right now loved her garden. So green is kind of an appropriate color. Thread it through and then double knot it. There we go. Got my scissors. Now I made some of these little patches on canvas with messy sewing and I'm not sure if at the time you're seeing this you have seen the video for this yet or not if it's aired on my YouTube channel. It will be airing on the YouTube channel but as of right now it may not be out yet but never fear it will come out but if you know how to sew I think you can figure it out. They're pretty easy right? They're literally scraps of fabric. So we're going to I have a drawer full of them and ones that I've doodled on with sharpies and stuff like that. So but I think I want to take one of these plain ones and I kind of like this one and we're going to use it. I've got a couple pieces of clear plastic packaging again that I've doodled on with sharpies and alcohol. This was in another video that I did for my year 2017. If you want to know the exact video on the link you really should be part of the group because I do think it actually was a live broadcast in the group only. The link for the group is in the video description here so on YouTube so check it out along with my other group. If you want to support my channel by shopping in the Etsy shop or just sending me a tip, send me happy mail. All that stuff is in the description so check it out. Alright that being said I think that I might want to use a piece of this. When my grandmother passed we found all kinds of kooky stuff. Evidently she never threw anything away. One of the things that I found and I just kept and it's just been on my desk for a while are these four aces plastic party picks and it originally had 130 in it and it's pretty full. I don't think it has 130 for cocktails or derbs. Washer pull reusable. It's very possible knowing my grandmother that she washed them but I have the original container right and I have a couple of these actually so we're gonna I think use one of these. I'm going to pick this one right here. Am I? There's some in here that have hearts on them because you know it's a playing card set. Let's do the pink one. Let's see if we do use this. How does that look? There's a turquoise one. Let's use a turquoise one. Alright I'm going to zoom in because you're gonna need to see this in just a second. Okay so the other thing that I have is my grandmother. Evidently she's very Catholic and evidently she used to make rosaries which I did not know until after she passed away. At least I don't remember knowing that and I have two very full boxes of rosary making supplies that came out of her stash of stuff including medallions and beads and all sorts of things so we are going to go through here and let's pick a few things and some of her boxes that I got this stuff in they had all sorts of random things like this is actually a keychain with a cross on the front and on the back it says travel prayerfully carefully and that was in with all of her Christian medallions and everything as she just I don't know there was kind of no rhyme or reason for the way she had things organized. My aunt says that's because towards the end of her life she had some dementia and there were some issues there but I want to make a little remembrance piece. I kind of like this one. I'm actually going to need my wire cutters. I'm going to grab my thing. I grabbed everything except the wire cutters. So maybe you have a stash of old jewelry. It doesn't have to be somebody who's passed maybe it's somebody who's living and there's a stash of their old jewelry or she's got some things or he that they're just getting rid of or they don't care for anymore. See what they have I just found this this is like a ring thing it's meant for praying with I don't know actually how you use it but ooh that might be interesting on there. Yeah that might be interesting on there. There's all these little booklets that have or had medallions in them. That one actually is missing its medallion. This one has it though. I have another rule box that's just box one. This is a box two. You know we always thought my grandmother's house was so neat and clean and it was. She had everything hidden in the closet. Bob Lover but yeah it was just hiding. That's kind of cute actually. And I don't know what that little pin is from but it's it's in here. So we're going to gather a few bits and pieces and I think I've got enough to choose from now. I think we're gonna go with this and we're gonna actually I could glue them and staple them. You all know that I've done that in the past. We're gonna actually sew them on. So this is the part we're gonna where are we there we are. So I'm gonna grab my needle and thread. You could glue it you could staple it you don't have to sew it on. My grandmother loved to sew and she knew how to knit and crochet and all of that stuff actually both my grandmothers could sew. Although I don't think my mom's mom really enjoyed it very much and I'm going to oops I'm gonna do a few stitches around in a few places at least twice. This is simple stitches. I'm not doing anything complicated. Okay these pliers are making me crazy. Let's put them over there. And I don't care if the back of it is messy. My grandmother would have a heart attack if she heard me say that. As I'm saying it I'm thinking of her. I don't care though if it's messy because I'm going to glue it down into my journal. So or you know you could make these as little I have a stash of little I call them halfway art little halfway art embellishments that I just keep them around and I attach them to journal covers tags is anything like that so you could make a stash of these and just have them around knowing that you're going to glue it down to something so it doesn't really matter what the back what looks like. If you're a proper seamstress though and you're like my grandmother you're having a conniption fit about that. So I do kind of like the idea of putting some of this clear plastic on here. Maybe I was initially going to put some of the clear plastic on there. I was going to trim it and now I'm like kind of wondering if I don't even want to trim it because maybe I want to just leave it like that. I think I do. I do think I'm going to staple the plastic on because it's easier to do. So I do have my Tim Holtz tiny attacher. The only question is do I put it on top of the little finger ring thing or on the bottom. Do I have another one of those finger ring things? You know anything is possible. Let's dig around. More medallions then you know you could shake a stick out. It doesn't look like there's another one in here. There are some of these little plastic beads so I do want to get some of these out. We're still trying to decide on this, right? So I'm going to put it above. I'm going to staple it on and we're going to take the toothpick and I'm going to poke a hole with everything like with the other part to do it at least twice. So then I'm going to come up here just below where I just stitched it. Oops, there we go. And I'm going to grab one of my little beads and hold it straight so you could take maybe you have their old earrings or you have old brooches or you know maybe it's your grandfather and you have a bunch of old tie pins or cuff links. Think about taking them apart and seeing how you can use them to make some little pieces of halfway art to use in your journal or use on your artwork somehow on tags or something. Okay so then I'm going to come back up. I was going to put five but I think I like the idea of three. I'm going to secure the bottom part of this toothpick. Pushing through the plastic is challenging just FYI. But I really want to sew it so. Okay I do think now I'm going to tie this off. My grandmother would be horrified how messy the back of this looks. She would just be beside herself. Sorry grandma. Sorry Nana. Alright, put those back. So we have this little weird pin thing. I think I want to stick on here. It has a straight pin. It evidently used to pin into garments or something. It's weird. But I think I want to just, I think we're going to just glue it on. So let's grab some glue. The Aileen's Turbo Tacky should not only work well but it should dry pretty quickly. So let's put a healthy dollop of that on the back and stick it down. There we go. We're going to set that kind of aside for just a minute. And I'm going to zoom back out and I'm going to share something else with you all that I have from the same grandmother. These are two of her sewing boxes or miscellaneous boxes. So I want to find a little piece of something to put in the back of that. She used to do a lot of crocheting and handmade lace. Look at this little precious little small teeny tiny Bible that was in her stuff. And it's your prayer book. I have one of her handkerchiefs. She never went anywhere without a handkerchief. I have this weird, I think it's a scapular actually. I shouldn't say it's weird because I do think it's a scapular. But it's only part of one. I think what I want is a knot box and I think it's in this bigger one. Yep. Of course there's some things I've been adding to the box. So the kids, I love Minions. The kids got me a couple of Christmases ago. Some Minion cards that are in here. And I have little pieces of her. Now I don't know if she made these or if my great grandmother did. They both handmade lace and it honestly could have come from either one. I like this one. How precious is that going to be on there? Put this back. These live on my desk and every now and then I use a piece of them or add something to them. What precious is that going to look in my journal? I love it. Okay. Stable it. I think I want to just stitch it on. I might do both. I can't see what I'm doing because I took my glasses off. Let's zoom it. Okay. Seeing is helpful. I don't want it wrapped around the cross. So it's definitely wrapped around. So let's unwrap it, shall we? You know why it's being so persnickety. That's a work, right? Persnickety. There we go. We might need to just stable it because it's not wanting to be sewn. That's interesting. It's not going to work. A big piece of thread back there. That's okay. Oops. All right. So let's just staple it because that's going to be easier. How cute is that going to be? If you're going to staple it together, just put a couple staples. Half it be intentionally messy. So how cute is that little piece of halfway art? So I really want you to keep doing these little pieces of halfway art. I want you to expand what you're doing and I want you to put random various bits together and make these cute little pieces. Whether you're using pieces of family and member and loved ones that you want to remember. Maybe your favorite pets passed away but you have their dog tags and you want to add... Do one of these little pieces with their tags on it. That would be a really cute piece of remembrance art. And you can add it to your journal. You can add it to the front of a canvas. You can add it to a photo album. Anything like that. So have fun with this. I am going to add mine to my journal. I'm going to put it right in the front here. Right there. And we're going to use that. Where's that turbo tacky? And I'm going to put it under some heavy weight so that it really sticks down really well and doesn't come off. So the other tip I want to tell you guys is when you're working on pieces like that and you need to have it weigh them down while they dry. So I use these and these are leftover ends of old barbells that my sister actually was getting rid of. And I said, can I have those? And they work great for this. Let's zoom out just a little bit so you can see. They work great for this. So I have a whole bunch of them. So that's one way to celebrate your loved ones in your art this month. I hope you have fun with it. I hope it gives you some ideas of what you can do. Don't forget to go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. Maybe join the My Year 2017 Facebook group so you can see more art like this and see what the other teachers are doing. Alright, that's it everybody. Have a great day. Bye.