What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

Concrete Garden Sculptures

Rhu, the original cement lady, made by my sister Kathy, watches over a garden in Churchs Ferry, North Dakota.

See Kathy's other garden art here. I liked them so much I wanted to make one with her.


In September 2009, I travelled to Wolford, North Dakota, where Kathy lives to make a cement lady.


Step 1 - Prepare the molds. These are plastic lingerie mannequins bought on ebay. We greased the inside with vaseline.




Step 2 - Look for treasures to line the molds. I wanted rusty stuff and we found rusty farm equipment parts, rusty screen, rusted wire and rusted metal.




Step 3 - Choose what to line the molds with. In addition to the rusty metal stuff we found we added dried leaves and a bit of dirt.




Step 4 - Get the Mortar and the Concrete. This is my sister Kathy bringing the bags of mortar and concrete.




Step 5 - Measure and Mix the Mortar. Since we didn't need a lot of mortar we mixed it in a bowl. If I remember correctly the consistency of the mixed mortar should be similar to sour cream.




Step 6 - The Mortar goes in first to hold the treasures in place. Mortar is smoother than concrete (who knew?), so Kathy recommends the ladies have a first layer of mortar before the concrete.




Step 7 - Mix the Concrete in the Mixer. I suppose the concrete could be mixed by hand in a bowl too, but if you or your sister has your own cement mixer, you may as well use it.




Step 8 - Add the cement to the mold. Although I wanted to call them poured concrete sculptures, we didn't really pour the concrete - we spooned it into the molds with a wooden paddle.




Step 9 - Let the mold sit and set. Smaller molds may take 24 hours to set. This size should take 48 hours.





Step 10 - Turn the mold upside down to slip the sculpture out. The cement had set quickly - probably because it was quite hot. We turned out the sculpture about 36 hours after filling.




Step 11 - Scrape into some of the objects and add a bit more rusty wire. The surprise was that rusted screen reacted to the mortar and was cleaned by it - coming out as silver rather than rusty - it's ok it will rust again. Also a nice surprise were a few dandelions that made their way into the dead leaves. We added a rusted chicken wire bodice and secured it with rusty wire.



Step 12 - Let the sculpture set. In seven days Kathy will apply a sealant and then the Rusty Lady will set for 30 days. After which she can be moved to where she will stand - in front of a tower in my sister's front yard.

The KARAOKE CHannel ONLINE Video Demo Tour

Burning Love in the style of Elvis - karaoke recording

These are my buddies Keeron and Charles singing Burning Love in the style of Elvis... aren't they great?

Still drinking coffee

more coffee prints

recent coffee prints

J'te l'dis quand meme / Patrick Bruel

One of my goals of singing karaoke is to add to my repertoire of French songs. Here is a song I "discovered" recently in the catalog, that I really like. Even if it is a bit sad. Hope you enjoy it!

Karaoke, I've Been Everywhere, in the style of Hank Snow

This is for my friend Glen who has been everywhere. Happy Birthday Glen!

The KARAOKE Channel Download Store

Hey friends,

For those of you who don't want to sing karaoke online you can now download your favorite karaoke tracks at The KARAOKE Channel Download Store.

So many songs to sing, so little time!

Hope to hear your voice soon.

Teresa

A look back at 2008 - every day of it

one picture every day ...



Here's to 2009.