Tag Archives: gothic rococo decorating

Room full of bug mirrors, finally finished! And why living in a Berlin altbau is very, very hard.

Wall of insect mirrors Feb 2024Wow it took a long time to realize this particular vision!

I saw a picture of a shop in France with a wall of insect mirrors a few years ago. The shop didn’t sell online, so basically I sourced all the mirrors they sold by individually tracking them down on the internet.

Wall of insect mirrors Feb 2024 cu editThis took some time, even though shopping is one of my great skills.

As several bug mirrors had to be shipped from the UK Post-Brexit, I also had to go slowly because of cost. The largest beetle mirror was actually the cheapest, from German home decor company Kare, the same place our Alice in Wonderland chandelier in the salon came from.

The smaller mirrored beetle and cicada came from the UK, and shipping plus VAT cost as much as they did. Brexit is so bad. These two smaller guys didn’t have any rings or hooks for mounting, so I did my usual combination of wire, drilling, epoxy clay and gilding to make them hangable. And secure! I still operate as if an earthquake could come any second, despite nine years next month of no earthquakes.

So this is the first post about our home decor in many years. A big part of why is that I have simply been too sick to do the last 5% of the decorating.

Another reason is that we got a couple of pieces of bad news about our building in 2021.

We had hoped to live here the rest of our lives, but the last few years have been rough. In December of 2020, we learned that the entire attic of the building was consumed by “wood mushroom” or dry rot, and that some long-delayed reconstruction we had not previously heard about would begin in 2021.

And so an elevator was bolted to the building outside our bedroom window, where it makes horrible screeching metal noises both going up and down, and the shouting workmen haul crashing metal carts into the courtyard below our window and load said elevator, at 7am. At ten minutes to eight, because 10pm to 8am are “quiet hours” in Germany, the sound of metal fatigue shears through the wall by our heads. In 2021-2022 this happened almost every day, six days a week, and as a person with DSPS who sleeps til noon on a good day, it really messes me up.

The construction has gone on for three years, with various periods of reprieve.

Nowadays the terrible elevator sound mostly comes without warning during a quiet interval, jolting us awake in fear. My precious Sadie got me Loop earplugs, which are the first ones I have ever been able to wear comfortably, and they help a lot. So now if I get woken up at least I can put them in and get back to sleeo.

However, there is a significant concern that the dry rot is all through the building and it will simply collapse, as happens sometimes with altbau buildings in Germany. So that’s fun. At least I got some of my art and clothing archives out of the building with the Takeaway!

And, there is Legionella!

Also in 2021, we got a letter saying our building water supply had Legionella, but not to worry, it’s not a concern for healthy people. There have been many letters since, many desperate emails sent by me, many attempts to report this to health agencies. No clarity has been achieved about whether there is still Legionella, and meanwhile the President of the EU Parliament died of Legionnaire’ Disease. So I take it fucking seriously, as an immune-compromised person, and we have spent hundreds of euros on filters for the taps.

What about the Mieterverein?

We are members in good standing of the wonderful Berlin Tenant’s Association, and we did pursue speaking to a lawyer there about all this stuff last year. But they sent us a letter requesting documentation that caused me to have absolute ADHD terror and paralysis. I could not organize the paperwork, last year while I was also horribly stressed by our tax preparers becoming unusable and having to make a spreadsheet and contact a hundred tax preparers to find a new one.

Tax preparers and lawyers in Germany SUCK. They are almost all extremely shady and hard to deal with. So, maybe we’ll do the Mieterverein process this year, and try to get the water tested again and the balcony inspected to see if it’s gonna fall off or only looks that way.

Things are dicey in our home, but I decided I might as well do a few tiny things around the house anyway!

 

September bricolage roundup- frames and framing!

creepy Halloween bug frames by Suzanne Forbes 2016Lots of frames!

postcard-back-editedI am always catching up on framing. I wanted to frame two of the lovely drawings of me made by young women artists this summer, as well as more creepy dollar store lenticulars I brought from the US for Halloween decor.

And I finally found a copper frame that was just right for this postcard from beloved friend-muse-Patron Audrey Penven‘s 2011 show.

Floating frames are perfect for postcards because you can look at the back as well. blue frames

For the drawings I bought frames that were blue to start with, since they would be going in the salon.

(I have a gallery of portraits of me drawn by other artists, because I really believe in portraiture for life documentation. “I’m not just the President, I’m also a client!”.)

I wanted the frames to be a little more special and integrate with the mostly silver and gold existing frames, so I silver-leafed them.

To give the glossy frame a little more tooth on its surface, I scuff-sanded it with a nail file.silver-leafingsilver-fingertipsThen I quickly glazed the frames with some clear polyurethane craft varnish (I was out of my other clear glazing mediums) and stuck bits of silver leaf all over them.

My VERY unorthodox method is to then tap and rub the leaf on the still-sticky frame, picking up bits of leaf with my tacky fingertips and tearing the pieces already attached.

Once I had a nice pattern of distressed leafing, I mixed up a little acrylic paint and used a sponge brush and my fingertips to roughly add some variegated color that partially obscured the leaf.

I found the blue plastic adhesive-backed curleques, made for scrapbooking, when I pulled out the leaf package, so I threw them on there too. More rococo!adding-curliques

safety-third-editedOnce I was done with the painting and the frames were dry, I gave them a thin coat of translucent pearly-gold craft acrylic.

Please note that as is the tradition of my people, I completely disregarded the safety instructions on the back of the large frame. Safety Third!

I’m pleased with the results and happy to have my students’ work hanging in the gallery. Viviane is impressed with my efforts as well, apparently.leafed-frames-edited

Meanwhile, I was also working on the Halloween projects.creepy Halloween bug frames by Suzanne Forbes 2016bug frame in progress by Suzanne Forbes

salt-and-watercolor-mat
rhinestone flourishesFor the frames, I used the last of the laser-cut wood frames I bought at Michael’s a couple years ago. 

I had painted them black in Oakland, so I just needed to add some black bugs and some of these pre-formed glass rhinestone motifs.

I find these “rhinestone flourishes” useful for Extreme Crafting situations, where you have multiple projects going and need to bust out some finished projects tonight.

creepy Halloween bug frame by Suzanne Forbes 2016creepy Halloween bug frames by Suzanne Forbes 2016I cut the designs up and move them around as needed, and supplement with actual glass hotfix rhinestones from my stash to finish the details.

I also take a brush and quickly paint black over the most obvious areas of the vinyl adhesive strip that the crystal “flourish” is on.

The greenish bugs had white undersides, so I dry-brushed them with black at the same time to help them integrate into the frame.

I painted the whole green bug frame with multiple coats of Plaid FolkArt “Extreme Glitter” (hey, that’s what it’s called) transparent acrylic glaze with glitter.

creepy Halloween bug frames by Suzanne Forbes 2016I’m not generally a fan of the “craft” acrylic paints that come in bottles for anything, but I make an exception for sheer glitter, metallic or pearl glazes.

They go on very smoothly, they’re buildable and the tough, rubbery finish stands up to household use. If I could paint my hair with them, I would.

Next month’s bricolage roundup will be all Halloween, all the time- I’m working on half a dozen other Halloween projects besides the beaded mantel scarf I’ll post tomorrow.