Glue the pieces together and then tightly wrap and hot glue some rope around the break for extra stability (sisal twine would look cool).

Once there, use it for purely decorative purposes. Have a yard? Stand it up in the dirt and plant a cool vine at the base (or just use it as plain hardscape). Hang it on the wall next to or above a door. Print out some cool boating pictures of you and your loved ones and decoupage them onto the blade.

Alternatively, the blade alone would make a neat serving platter for sushi, cheese, or chocolates.

Return it to REI for a full refund or at least a store credit.

You could probably whittle something from the paddle's blade. Here's someone who carved a woodpecker from an oar. (Insert lame Portlandia joke here.)

I think they beat me to it, but I'd either criss-cross the pieces to form an "X-display" over your harth, OR, sort of "fix or glue" it back together as best you can...and rather than put it back into service with a boat, instead coat it with a good layer of polyurethane and mount it on the wall vertically upside down, or else horizontally above the fireplace.

Get an artist to paint a portrait of your boat on the blade and hang it or make a stand to display it. Maybe a great black line drawing (scrimshaw-esque) would be good (or just decoupage on a good photo). You could take a Sharpie and write a good story about the boat (and paddle) on the back.

You might want to sand it smooth and refinish it as per artist instructions for best surface for the painting and throw a light coat over the story once written (test a sample first so you don't smear the writing) to protect it.

Cut off the splintered end of the shaft and save the solid part in an umbrella stand (you have one, right?). There are always uses for a good sturdy stick (future projects may pop up later).

I'm pretty sure that if you wrote a piece about how it is symbolic of something or other and encapsulating your memories of it you could sell it on etsy for at least $250!

(Written by an adherent of regretsy...)

I can't come up with anything actually helpful, tho', sorry.

Because those are well crafted machines. You probably can't find them used for much cheaper because they last forever. If you want to check one out and see if you want to make en

I haven't taken a class there yet but Made, the new sewing studio in Greenwood, has a fancy panties class. And other classes too. Seems like a cool place.

http://www.madesewing.com/products-page/

Address: 8408 Greenwood Ave N

If you decide to go the route of oiling the river rocks, then I would suggest you use a mineral oil and not a vegetable oil for the task. Mineral oil is used in coating soapstone counters and such. Additionally I think that vegetable oils may be prone to darkening with time and possibly going rancid with exposure to air and bacteria (not a good prospect for a living space).

On the gold leaf - if you must coat it DON'T use a waterbased varnish/ acrylic clear coat. If the gold wasn't real ( there are alot of imitation leaves because 10 bucks is cheaper than 50 for a tiny bit of leaf) it will turn greenish if waterbased topcoats are used. Most people don't overcoat leaf because it's not the same luster and it takes away the delicacy of the leaf (while not the best if it's getting house wear and tear was probably the thing the artist was attracted to) if you have the persons name see if they have a web presence and contact them directly. They will know what kind of leaf was used. It could have been a " didn't have time" or " didn't have money" to coat them or it could have been a " that's how I want the work to be presented" issue. If the latter I'd leave them the way they are. Finishing is a major issue with some artists and I try and respect how they want their art to be finished. Aside from framing I wouldn't ever alter someones work. You are physically changing it. While you do own it you didn't make it. If they were in the earlier two categories then cool. But if it was my own work I'd be ticked to learn that someone was physically altering the work after the fact, but that's because I'm the kind of person who does tons of tests and versions of elements in each body of work to figure out what's the best format and presentation for that particular body of work. If I spent days figuring out the steps to getting it to where I wanted it to be I wouldn't want someone slapping on some shiny cuz they were wanting to put it on "something" stick with the rocks or making your own image to shine-ify. If you must start with some other stuff so you get the hang of it first

1. I would first try just a coat of vegetable oil. It's a nice matte finish but will darken the colors in your rocks, plus it's pretty reversible with soapy water and won't make nasty smells when warmed up as your stove will be.

2. You'll have to figure out what base sizing was used to adhere your gold leaf. There are a couple of brands and they don't play well with each other. I wouldn't recommend lacquering the whole thing either as it will eventually darken and go all pre-cleaning Sistine Chapel ceiling. If you really must protect them somehow, have them professionally framed under glass.

Depends on what you wanna do. You are just at the beginning. I have 12 years experience in both fine art ( installation, wallpapers, circuit boards, one offs, weird substrates) and commercial ( billboard, pop, large and short runs, press and hand work, books, garments). If you give me an idea of what material you wanna print on I can let you know what inks and special prep you need.

I'll be at Short Run, seattles small press festival tomorrow if you're around the VERA Project at the Seattle center from 10.40-4.30 you can pick my brain.

I also teach at the vera project silk screen lab so if you can't make it tomorrow I could help you out another time. I'm a real materials junkie so some more specifics than what should I try next are needed. If you let me know what you're after as far as look and content I can point you in an appropriate direction

You might try artist and craftsman in the u district or hardwicks Also flooring stores sometimes Cary cork in rolls and tiles

"Windows"

Allow me to suggest "Garg Bharat".

To add to Russ without knowing WHAT type of work were pretty in the dark. What fits for kitch won't for conceptual or abstraction. Ask the type of artists you wanna show as they're your demographic

I don't mean to be unhelpful, but questions similar to this have yielded some good thoughtful points, some sarcasm, and even some interesting names. The major point being that if you are creating a place that is meaningful to you, then you need to select a name that rings true to your vision and passion. It is so easy to reject the suggestions of strangers from the plethora of possibilities, that it becomes a fool's errand to try to impress you with just the right name when we know nothing about you or your vision.

http://questionland.com/questions/16193-do-you-know-a-good-punchy-name-for-an-art-gallery

http://questionland.com/questions/21597-suggest-me-good-name-for-art-gallery

Good but not always inexpensive -- Vintage Costumes on Roosevelt and 75th ish

cheap but hardly going to last more than a night -- Display and Costume on -well- roosevelt again (and 110th ish)

50 bucks an hour if it's good. up to 100/hour if it's Awesome.

Or, whatever I need to make Rent that month.

Whichever sells it.

There's What Not to Crochet http://whatnottocrochet.wordpress.com/ --some really scary stuff, no question, but just crocheted atrocities, not the other media.

Freecycle groups often have people giving away back issues of their magazines. I've also seen them on Craig's List under free. http://groups.freecycle.org/FreecycleSeattle/description

Try a doctor's or dentist's office- if the stack big and dated, you'll be doing them a favor to de-clutter.

I always just assumed they liked year-old magazines laying around but at least in the case of the pediatrician I worked for, she just rarely got around to clearing them out. I tossed them all in the recycling one day.

Champion party supplies on denny

Lots of public libraries sell magazines for a quarter or less.

Kinkos! Do not attempt to do this by using a copier or printer, just tell them what you are looking for and they will be able to make film for you. For multi-color, use "channels" in photoshop.

What is your exposure unit? Are you looking for quick and easy or pro films? If you go the transparency route use laser as the toner is much more opaque than ink jet unless you have one of the fancier double pass made for films inkjet printers which I'm gonna assume you don't cuz you're asking this. A toner based copy from a xerox machine will mostlikely be denser than anything you try do do on a ink jet. If you hold the transparency up to the light and you can see through the black areas it's probably not dense enough. Although you can double up transparencies. Depending on your exposure set up you can do some on thin paper printouts which means you can use the oversiZe printers at kinkos Your time jump will probably be around 4 times that of transparencies. don't oil the paper it's a mess and doesn't cut down on your time too much. If you're local check out the classes at the vera project. All this stuff is covered and you're able to use the lab for burning your own screens in the future

If it's for something regular letter-size, and if you're source image is in digital form, then you can use a regular inkjet - though you'll need to get special inkjet-friendly transparency sheets from OfficeMax or similar. (Inkjet ink won't stick to regular smooth transparency sheets.) It may be possible to use a laser printer to do similar - using laser-printer-friendly transparency sheets (the ones designed for overhead projectors will melt in laser printers and copiers, apparently).

When I was living in Philly there was a group of people who organized a city wide thing yearly. They got a school to donate a gym and people brought bags of stuff and they go distributed to the appropriate piles I think there was a 5 buck charge that covered advertising and incidentals and then you could take whatever you found in your liking in the gym which had piles of clothing (like around 5 feet wide so you could dig and get to the bottom from each side) tons of fabric/ trim / wallpaper etc. They would refresh the piles throughout the day with what people brought to donate (I think if you came without stuff it was pricier at the door). And if that wasn't cool enough the exterior of the gym was lined with tables with sewing machines and mini workshops so if you wanted to learn a quick an dirty way to hem someone could show you or if you wanted to stick around for the turn a T shirt into
a skirt demo you could grab the various materials and watch the Demo. It was super fun and there was fantastic stuff because it was all stuff that people never quite got around to using but had picked for some reason or other.

I'm assuming with it's size that it had been going on for at least five years. It was uber organized ( the makes in Philly are surprisingly organized and I think it was started by some of the original etsy peeps who didn't head to NYC but that said it would probably be pretty easy to start a smaller version here and in a few years have it grow to something people put on their calendars. I think the people organizing it were called craft uprising. You can probably find something online and contact them and see what mistakes they made early on if you feel like making a similar thing here and use their "business plan" as a template. They also got in with the weekly there for free advertising and etsy also did some stuff and they had some other local business donated time and stuff as well. In a city as obsessed with vintage stuff there are alot of places that would probably jump at the chance to get their name on the wall as a sponsor

I W A N T T O D O T H I S.

I know there are craft-ups at Metrix-space, plenty of sewers and Etsy types there.