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Thank you for all of the wonderful comments about our daughter’s bottle cap mural “Starry Nights” mural!
Yes, we are very proud of her and by the end of the construction of the mural, we were also very tired! Have you ever tried to maneuver a 6’ x 4’ panel of plywood covered in bottle caps and screws (very heavy) through library doors that are only 3 ½’ wide? Well, it was a challenge and a test of marital harmony as I was on one end guiding my darling husband who was on the other end walking backwards! Dear daughter, could not lift an end as she is a bit vertically challenged compared to the two of us. She was manning the doors. LOL!
I’ve posted another picture of the mural as MN Stitcher wanted to see a close up photo. Hopefully you can see a little bit better in this picture.
Beth, there aren’t any larger pictures online but you can tell your library about bottle cap art by sharing with them the link to Michele’s Stitzlein’s site at;
http://www.artgrange.com/LittleBottlecap.html
You can also see close-ups of other projects here and on the cover of her book and another version of the “Starry Nights” mural at the bottom of the page.
Edy, all of the bottle caps were plastic as she needed to be able to screw them onto the plywood so that they were not easily removed.
The mural has been mounted at the library and is in one of the conference rooms. The library plans on taking school and youth groups through the room as part of their education activities. In addition, the library has printed the information pamphlet written by our daughter and they have also printed the game that our daughter created to share with students and the library patrons.
What is the game that our daughter created? The mural contains one clear bottle cap in addition to the ones used for the initials. The game is to find the one clear bottle cap. This is a bit harder than it sounds as it’s not easy to find the one clear bottle cap, especially with all of the white bottle caps! :-)
Thanks for stopping by and I have some needlepoint pictures and progress to share with my next post!
Cynthia
Windy Meadow
I can finally share with everyone what we have been up to this summer and why I have been missing from my blog. No, I haven't been stitching. :-)
Our daughter spent the summer working on her last big service project before heading off for college. Early in the summer she met with our local library staff to develop a large service project. After reviewing several different ideas, she volunteered to make a 6' x 12' mural of Vincent van Gogh's Starry Nights out of bottle caps. Yep, bottle caps! The library thought this would be a great example of recyclable art to share with the community and our daughter loved the idea.
The inspiration for this project was a book written by Michelle Stitzlein called "Bottlecap little Bottlecap". Ms. Stitzlein was very supportive of the project and gave the library and our daughter some very helpful suggestions.
While our daughter was waiting for final approval of her project, the library began collecting bottle caps.
My mother works part-time at another county's public library. When she told them about the project, they decided that they wanted to support our library and they began a bottle collection campaign of their own for this project.
As word spread, family and friends began collecting bottle caps. She also received bottle cap from the volunteers at a local Day Camp where she volunteers
After receiving approval of her project, our daughter began the planning and construction phase of the project. With the help of family and volunteers, the base of the mural was made from three 6' x 4' plywood panels with 2" x 2" supporting rails on the top and on the bottom of the back of each panel. The rails were pre-drilled prior to attaching to the plywood so that they could be used to hang the mural. Once the rails were added, each panel was painted with a white primer. Once this was dry, each panel was then framed with molding that had been stained a dark walnut. The molding was added to the top and bottom of the center section and to three sides on the two end pieces.
Meanwhile, the bottle caps started pouring in and she had a lot of bottle caps to sort and clean. After some trial and error she discovered that the easiest way to clean that many bottle caps was in the washing machine. Yes, our washing machine! After collecting the bottle caps she sorted them in the garage by removing any that could not be used. She then placed the bottle caps in lingerie bags, zipped the bags, and then used rubber bands to tie the tops of the lingerie bags. The rubber bands kept the zippers from coming loose and spilling all of the bottle caps into the washer. You can imagine how we found out that this can happen, and DH was not pleased. LOL!
The bottle caps in the lingerie bags were then placed in the washing machine with several towels as the challenge with washing the bottle caps was to make sure that the load was balanced. Though, several times one of us would have to go running to "save" the washing machine as it started walking across the floor. :-)
Once the bottle caps were washed, they were then sorted again by removing those that could not be cleaned or could not be used. They were then placed on paper towels in several layers to dry. Once the bottle caps were dry, they were then sorted again by color into shopping bags.
With the help of family and volunteers, our daughter began designing the mural. The library had asked for some additions to "Starry Nights" that would reflect the local community so with their approval our daughter added a raven, a barn, and a wagon with a horse. Let me tell you, designing the horse took a while and the raven wasn't easy either! LOL! With the help of a volunteer who is an artist and with lot's of other helpful and sometimes not so helpful suggestions we finally had a recognizable horse and raven. :-)
As each motif was designed, the bottle caps were temporarily attached to the mural using glue dots. Then each bottle cap was screwed down. Once all of the motifs were designed and attached, she started filling in the background
Our daughter found that the best way to attach the bottle caps was to have one person hold the bottle cap in place using a needle nose pliers while the other person used the drill to attach the bottle cap.
Okay, this sounds easy and we thought that she could work on the mural every day when she came home from her summer college class with the help of her brother. Yes, easy until you realize that some of those bottle caps are really thick and our daughter and our son did not have the leverage or upper arm strength to do many bottle caps at a time. So with lots of help from family and friends, and after many, many, hours of work, all of the bottle caps were finally attached.
We cleaned out our local big box hardware store and several not so local big box hardware stores of the screws that were needed. We also bought out our local craft stores of glue dots several times. We were wondering what the inventory/ordering people were thinking! LOL!!!
After several weeks of hard work the mural was completed. Now the next challenge was how was she going to deliver the mural to the library? She measured the back of our van and each panel would fit. Thank goodness, as she did not have the cost of hiring a moving van in her project budget. :-)
It took three trips but finally all three pieces of the mural were delivered. It took several weeks for the library staff to figure out the best way to hang it as it is fairly heavy. The mural is now on permanent display!
Our daughter also made a smaller mural which contains the symbol of the library (a stylized light bulb) on a much smaller piece of plywood (2' x 18"). The smaller mural can be easily carried by one person for when the library staff visits schools and day cares. She also created an informational pamphlet for the library.
The library staff were thrilled with their new mural!
This was a lot of fun and a lot of work for everyone especially our daughter. She was amazed at how absolutely wonderful everyone was and how many bottle caps were donated. She was concerned that they might not be able to collect enough bottle caps. The library had people mailing bottle caps to them from across the state!
Hope you enjoy seeing our summer project and thanks for stopping by to visit!
Cynthia
Windy Meadow
I’ve received several comments and emails asking where I’ve been and if everything was okay. Thanks for your concern! It’s a nice feeling to know that if I don’t comment for a while that you all are thinking of me! :-)
Everything is fine here in Windy Meadow except for Dear Daughter’s severe cold. She’s in day 5 and still pretty miserable. :-(
I spent last weekend with Dear Daughter (before she came down sick) visiting one of her college choices. This is her number 1 choice and since she’s already been accepted, we went for another visit to see if it was still number 1 on her list. We stayed down for the weekend to visit the college and to explore the local area.
The family is always laughing that wherever I go I collect people. In other words, I enjoy talking to people and hearing their stories so of course I hear lot’s of stories. For those of you who met me at the 2007 ANG Seminar, I was not at my best that week due to illness! :-(
The family also jokes that if you put Mom on a park bench, within 1 hour someone will be telling her their life story and that Mom will enjoy hearing the story! LOL!
Well, on Sunday before returning home we stopped in at the local visitor center and there we met two very lovely ladies, Maryanne and Melba. By the time we were done, we knew all about the local area and my daughter has two leads for fun jobs if she decides to attend this university and a possible date candidate! We had a great time and then we were off to visit more of the area before driving home.
Why is it as stitchers, before we go on a trip, we pack our stitching supplies and projects first??? Before heading out for our trip, I packed several projects as I thought I would have time to stitch during the two nights that we spent in the hotel. Well, actually I didn’t have time so I didn’t make any progress on my projects, but we still had lots of fun. :-)
I’ve been mainly working on stitching basketweave around several projects when I have had time to stitch, so I haven’t had too much to show in the past several weeks. Hopefully, I will have something to share soon. In the meanwhile, I think we’ll stroll down memory lane again with some of my completed projects.
I took a moment to update my blog header with a recent winter picture of Windy Meadow. This is how it usually looks during the winter. Many and varied shades of brown with a blue or gray sky! On several of the discussion lists in recent months, there have been discussions as to what colors do you think of when you think of winter. Ummm, for me it’s brown with some blue! LOL!
Yes, I do think of whites, clear blues, silvers, and other “normal” winter colors but at Windy Meadow this is what I usually see when I look out the window. :-)
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you and your loved ones are warm and healthy!
Cynthia
Windy Meadow
Welcome to my new blog!
I’m glad that you could join me. I’ve copied all of my old entries from my Yahoo blog to my new blog with the comments that everyone has made.
I’ve spent the last several weeks rebuilding my blog but I have been stitching. So I have lots of new pictures that I will be sharing with everyone.
Please comment and let me know that you’ve found my new blog!
Cynthia
Windy Meadow
Dear Blog,
I know that I have neglected you but it's been a very busy year.
Am I forgiven?
I have lot's of new pictures and projects and news to post which I'm excited to share with everyone!!!
Cynthia
Windy Meadow
Original Comments:
- Welcome back! Glad to know you are still out there. Now, where are those pictures, projects and news that you promised!!!
Kelly W.
- Okay, girl, start coughing up the goods! LOL
NC Pat
Originally Posted: March 6, 2007
I’m Back!!!
Well the last few weeks have been very busy but I have lots to share!
We spent a lot of time since I last updated having fun with the kids. We had a wonderful time on vacation and we’ve been taking the kids to various camps and then picking them up again...
I was finally ready to start updating the blog to share what I’ve been working on with everyone and we decided to update the computer that’s attached to the Internet. Sigh...
Well that computer was not upgraded but rather replaced and everything is back up and running. Yeah!
By the way, did you notice that I said the computer attached to the Internet? Yes, we do have more than one. Please don’t ask us how many as we do have more computers in the house than we have members of the family… Funny how that happens when both parents are computer professionals!
More info and pictures later...
I’m so excited to share these with you
Cynthia
Windy Meadow
Original Comments:
- Kelly sent me the following note;
"WOOHOO, she is back in action. I want pictures!"
LOL! I've taken lot's and I just need to move them from one computer to the other. More tonight... CynthiaWindy Meadow
Originally Posted: August 15, 2006
