Stonescape Lamps

Here are a couple lamps I was commissioned to make in the past for a investigator where I work. The one on the left is one I did for them. He and his wife have researched and published a few books in the past - Knights Of The Whip: Stagecoach Days In Oregon is one of their books. They have been working on a new one. They liked the rustic look of my lamps too.

My Best Furniture Find Of 2013

About 2 months ago I found a great end table at St. Vinnies and I got a 25% discount on the sticker price. The wood being solid oak and the legs shape are what really attracted me to it. I don't usually like glass top tables but this table only cost me $11.23 - I can live with the glass. I really liked the look of the table after getting it in my apartment, it looks like it's Cat approved too. I set Sam up on it - she sniffed around and then moved to the edge and sat down on the wood. She isn't stupid - not going to sit on what "looks like" mostly nothing and the glass was probably cold on her butt. Now I just need to figure out where to put it. After a little sanding to just the top and some lemon oil it turned out pretty good.

Ed's Movie Pick - Oblivion

I saw the movie Oblivion in it's first run at the theaters and have since seen it a few more times on the big screen and when it went to the local 2 buck Cinemark theater - buck fiddy - economy hours. I love this movie, great story with some good twists and turns. Oblivion is very entertaining! It has stark stunning visuals, fun tech and some real good action and non verbal acting.

Even though most alien take over movies have similar themes now - try to kill us all off, take our resources and then how we take them out - the more I see this movie the more I want to see it on the big screen again!!! The tech used in the movie is great fun. The "Tower" home is cool and the cabin is awesome
plus the cycle and other tech too...we should all have a personal earth/space transport like he had. Tom Cruise always puts great effort into his characters and his interactions with the cast and scenescapes is great. I am a big fan of his hard work in movies...some of my favorites of his are The Last Samurai, Collateral and more recently Jack Reacher (movie better than the books (which is unusual) and I finally saw then purchased Knight and Day - a really fun movie and check out the dvd extras when Mr. Cruise jumps off a building....ouch! I should say about Oblivion the rest of the cast did a stellar job too - Andrea Riseborough - not just because of her awesome pool scene - so much more, Olga Kurylenko and Morgan Freeman tops too - just right for this movie.

Joseph Kosinski directed/wrote,Karl& Gajdusek and Michael Arndt with the screenplay, cinematography by Claudio Miranda, production design by Darren Gilford and the original music by composers Anthony Gonzalez - M83, Joseph Trapenese and the rest of the cast and crew brought a great idea/story to life for us to see and hear on the big screen. I hope Mr. Kosinski does more sci fi and soon!!!! I am looking foreword to seeing what Oblivion looks like on my small screen - not really - dang, I need to save up someday and get a big flat screen! I call the movie Oblivion a definite see/buy!!!! Heck, see it at the big screen if you still can!!!! It is a testament to it's value that it is still in the 2 buck theater - movies are usually out of there pretty quick if they're not still bringing in the people. Enjoy!

Stone Lamp

Here is another Stonescape Lamp made with a piece of driftwood.  On this one I sanded the driftwood  and gave it a light finish - it definately gave it a different look than the first driftwood lamp. 26 inches tall. Click on the picures to get a little closer look.  

Stonescape Lamp

Stone Lamp

Rest In Peace Tabitha

Spring 2002 - Summer 2011  Tab you are so missed.  I hope you get all the "Outside" time you want and need in heaven.

Stonescape Lamp

"oh great....he's gonna move things around and take a picture of another stone lamp....swell."

I found a neat LED bulb that will show 16 different colors - it comes with a remote to set different patterns or individual colors. I really like the Fade button - it moves the colors slowly and smoothly from one to another. Along with the Fade button there is a Flash, Strobe and Smooth (super slow fade). You have to use the remote close to the lamp and the bulb is not super bright even on the White setting but it makes a great Accent lamp. I made and sold this lamp to someone who wanted a one of a kind lamp for his sisters birthday.



UFO - Nazca Lines

I picked up another great original ACEO Painting on ebay. I love the blue sky and mountains....and the rest is perrrrfect too. This fun one is by an artist in Bulgaria....Katya Bajlekova.

Ring Box And Jewelry Drawers Or Kindling....

Still need to do some sanding/shaping.  Maybe a little beeswax for a finish.....then some felt in the bottoms....or maybe just leave everything natural. Some don't like the smell of Juniper but I like it. The drawers are about 5 inches long and the ring box is about 2.5 inches in diameter. I bought the trunk/branches from Seth from Urban Lumber Company here in Springfield.

"Snow Leopard Climbing Higher"

Here is a picture of the original ACEO (Artists Cards, Editions and Originals - 2.5 by 3.5 inches in size) that I just received this weekend from the very talented artist Tasha Riojas. The above picture is her "Snow Leopard Climbing Higher". Sorry, the picture doesn't do it justice but I'm lucky, I get to appreciate it in person.  I love so much about this painting/drawing - the blue background makes the beautiful detail of the Snow Leopard come alive. I am not eloquent in speach enough to say what I feel about this amazing artwork. I just love it. I can't believe it's the first feline she has done....and I was lucky enough to aquire it. Thank you so much Tasha!

Stone Lamp

                                                                                   

I finished the new Stonescape Lamp for my brother but forgot to take a picture at mom and dads with the Northwest Salmon Shade and a trout pullchain I had purchased.  The pictures above I took at my place before I picked up the salmon shade on the way up north - they are of the lamp with an elk shade I brought up too - just in case he didn't like the salmon shade.  I had made a pull chain out of a crawdad lure but he still liked the trout pull better with the lamp - hey, I even removed the hooks - huh, go figure.  He said he liked the lamp and also said it would go good with the glass salmons he has on his mantel that he had bought at Portland's Saturday Market - I haven't seen those yet.  I asked him to take a picture of both and send them down.

It was great seeing everyone. With all the people in the house - it was roasting. Dad is turning 80 on the 30th and he is never warm enough anymore.  I decided to get out of the house to cool down and go to 7-11 and get a slurpee. My youngest neice yelled out she wanted to go too. On the way there she hinted - not too subtly - that she wanted to try driving a stick shift car - which, coincidentally I was driving at the time. (Her older sister got a car financed for her for Christmas). We got a couple slurpees and some zotts for her and on the way back I stopped in a big empty parking lot off of TV Hwy and she got to drive a stick shift car for the first time, she's twelve. I remember trying my first stick shift on a truck in the middle of a field on the Fanno's farm - she did better than me.  I held her slurpee and she was laughing after a while - she noticed I had sucked down most of her slurpee. I must have been a little nervous. We had some good laughs. Thinking back it did taste funny. She mixes cherry and coke - what do twelve year olds know (actually, I did that too when I was younger).

Original Watercolor

I bought a Beautiful Original Watercolor on ebay (this picture doesn't do it justice) -  A Plein ACEO Air Sketch Painting named "2 Pines" painted in the Rocky Mountain National Park by a wonderful artist by the name of Wendy Armfield. I just got it yesterday and need to make a rustic frame for it. Check out Wendy's new website for her Windy Trees Gallery - http://www.windytreesgallery.weebly.com/

Oh, and by the way if you don't know ( I had to look them up) ACEO's (Artists Cards, Editions and Originals) are works of art 2.5 by 3.5 inches - the size of playing cards - Wendy's site has a section about them. Plein is a french word for the act of painting outdoors. I'm going to enjoy this little jewel till my eyes give out but hopefully my memory will still be around. I bet I can find a place to hang it. Thanks Wendy!

Pottery....

The first 3 pictures are of some beautiful Navajo Pottery I purchased about 11 or more years ago on Ebay.  The shape of the pots, the etched designs, the colors and the obvious skill of the artists drew me enough towards those specific pieces to buy them and want them around.  The taller ones are about 4.5 inches tall.

Every once in a while I stop by Goodwill and Saint Vincent DePaul resale shops in the area to see if there are any interesting lamps or lamps for parts or lamp shades - although I've only found one shade that I liked enough to buy in the past from those stores.  While I am there I usually take a quick look around the rest of the store just to see if anything catches my eye.  At Saint Vincent DePaul about a month ago I saw the small (7 inches tall) - beautiful blue stoneware jug with 6 matching cups - all in perfect condition - pictured above listed for $9.99 and the two Oriental looking cups with bamboo decoration also pictured above - also in perfect condition - for .49 cents each. Like I said they caught my eye and the name on the bottom of the jug seemed familiar - Rudi Stahl.  Got home and did a little hunt and peck on the computer and looks like it is from Rudi Stahl West German Studio Potters and made maybe around 60's or 70's - not sure but looks like worth more than $7.99 - that's right $7.99 - I got 2 bucks off because the color of the price tag was the one discounted that day - so there.  Dang - the price tags on the little Oriental cups weren't on discount - I guess I can live with .98 cents total on those. 

I like the sizes of the pottery - they don't take up a lot of space and are beautiful and interesting in many ways - to me.  Nice to have a little beauty around the eye of the beholder. Or given the size of the jug and cups maybe I'll just take up drinking Sake.

Driftwood Lamp 101 ( Ha - Coast Hwy Reference)....

First and second pictures show the threaded tube epoxied in place. I usually use a full length tube that goes from the bottom of lamp through to the top of whatever middle piece I use for most of my lamps (sometimes easier said than done) but with this piece of driftwood I had to use two shorter threaded tubes - one for each end.  This piece of driftwood has a lot of character - aka split/cracked/twisted - making drilling full length not easy.  I will probably put some dowels in a couple spots to strengthen the wood further even though the wood is well seasoned and stable but I still prefer to pin it in a couple places.

The second and third picture are of the top threaded tube that will have the lamp socket and harp added on the end that shows. 3 inches of the tube - unseen - is down the drilled hole and will be epoxied in.

In the 2nd to last picture the smaller hole shown drilled in the side of the driftwood is the exit hole from my attempt to drill a hole all the way through from top to bottom with a 1/4" diameter 18" long drill bit. With the twist in the wood and the drill bit being not the thickest to start with I got a good "bit" of the way through but not all the way.  A 1/4" hole will be enough for the lamp cord to get through but I then needed to drill cross holes to meet another 1/4 hole drilled from the inner end of the 3/8" hole I had drilled in the bottom. This is the first time I've used this technique so I drilled more holes than I wanted (only 3 in the side) but I will make some plugs out of some other driftwood. The side holes were made to be able to fish the lamp cord to and thru to the 1/4" hole.

Among other hand tools - I use a cordless drill, hand saws and a dremel tool.

Well Seasoned Driftwood

June 23, 2009 I posted about a beach trip to my Brother's place outside Florence on the Oregon Coast where I met up with him, his wife and our mom who they had brought down. Later in the day my Mom and I went down to the beach - I wanted to find some driftwood for possible projects.  The driftwood is definitely ready by now for a transformation....A lamp for my Brother. I finally found a stone I like to go with the driftwood - it's a Whiskey River Flagstone. I don't make shades but he will get his pick of two different Elk shades I know about or a Salmon shade and he'll get his pick of Pull Chains too - if I go the Salmon shade route - I was thinking of  making a pull chain out of an old Salmon/Trout plug lure. From the the picture above you can get the gist of what the lamp will look like.... a little more than firewood I hope - it has a way to go still....

A Warm Place On A Rainy Day....

Yes....I do mix my colors but I don't remember wearing or drying myself off with a cat this week?

After dropping my still warm "clean" laundry on the bed I had gone to check on the game....

About 25 years ago....

We stayed at Sunriver and went skiing at Mt. Bachelor. Owned almost everything (red boots included) - the skis I rented. A fun but spendy sport. I've skied that mountain a bunch of times and when the weather is clear it is a sight to behold from up top. Central Oregon and Century Drive - Beautiful Views!

Vintage Batman Begins....About 44 years ago

I remember I was really into the utility belt....I really don't remember the gun....maybe the 40's Batman?

A Fun Time....

A little over 10 years ago while traveling to Cove Oregon with a girlfriend and her little boy we stopped in La Grande Oregon for lunch.  After lunch I noticed a guy had set up a good sized oval track marked out with some old tires in a parking lot next door and had some Go Karts he was renting out. Business was slow - no one else was there so we had the track all to ourselves. The Go Kart we took for a spin looked just like the one pictured above - at least structurally - but ours did have a seat pad.

I asked Nick if he wanted to go for a ride - at that point in his young life we had played Diddy Kong Racing a bunch on Nintendo so I think he felt like it might be fun but he wasn't quite sure since it was the real thing. Anyway, he was seven but couldn't reach the pedals so I told him I would go with him and work the pedals and he would steer.  After we got on the Kart I showed him where to put both his hands and what each of the pedals was for.

I started out slow so he could get the feel of turning the wheel and seeing what it did to the Kart then I sped up and we were moving around the track at a good clip. I told him he was doing a great job....then when we went by his mom again she waived....he took his right hand off the wheel to wave back....which wasn't the best thing....it made the Kart move in not such a good way....I grabbed the wheel and told him to keep both hands on it....he grabbed the wheel again and the concentration from then on was something to see in his little face.  If I tried -  I don't think I could have pried those little hands off that wheel....one of the best times I've ever had....and I think Nick had fun too.

If I ever get some land....

....will need a barn/tool shed/shop....or maybe get two of them and with one add some insulation, basement and big windows in front looking out on a good view....and call it home?

Competition Steel Shoot Pistol?

Looking to find a Ruger MK I or II and then get a Volquartsen drop in accurizing kit or Clark Custom kit - then add a 5.5 or 4.5 or 4 inch Match Bull Barrel - possibly a Walther and maybe a fiber optic front sight and a target rear sight - if it didn't have one - then call it good....well -  maybe a Speed Strip Kit from Majestic Arms too.  

It would look similar to the Ruger MK I  (Volquartsen modified)  pistol with the 3.5 inch barrel pictured above -  after having a new Clark Custom or Volquartsen short barrel added. But don't need the what looks like added on mag release on/under the grip panel.