a new bag

 Hi friends.

I wanted to make a bag that was smaller than my purse, but that I could fit my phone in and maybe some cash and ID.  So I looked for some ideas and found a cute bag made from old jeans pockets.  I dug through my stash and found an old pair of jeans that had pockets I thought would work.  I cut the back pockets off along with the fabric behind them, which I trimmed close to the pockets except for the top edge, which I needed to attach closure flaps.  

I made flaps from some fabric I like.  Also, I made a long adjustable strap, so the bag could be a crossover.  I used some hardware from my stash as well.  The flaps close with velcro.  I sewed the two pockets together back to back, but I need to do a little hand stitching in a place that would not go through my machine.  

I decided that the bag needed a little bit of decoration, so  near the bottom edge (on both sides), I stamped a butterfly with archival ink.  Because I was stamping on fabric, some of the ink soaked into the fabric, and wasn't very dark.  

I used a tiny brush to paint the butterfly with acrylic paints, working in stages for the different colors and for both sides of the bag.  I used a stylus to put white dots on the wings.  When all the paint was dry, I went over the black outlines with a sharpie marker to darken them.  Then I gave the butterflies a coat of matte gel medium.  

I really love how the butterflies turned out.  And I'm happy with the bag. 

Thanks so much for taking time to visit today.  Have a wonderful day.  

another mug rug

Hi friends.  I apologize that this blog has been so neglected.  It's not that I haven't been creating, because I have. 

The last weekend of July and the first week of August was the Dare to Get Dirty Challenge scramble (haha, for want of a better description) on SCS.  The challenges are for SCS fan club members only as a special thank you for supporting the site.  This is an annual event, and this year there were a total of 42 challenges during that week.  There are random prizes drawn for participants, and some special prizes for those who create a separate card for each challenge, also called the challenge queens.  I qualified as a queen this year, so by the time the week was over, I was pretty exhausted.  I happened to win one of the prizes this year, which I think is pretty cool. It's a $25 gift certificate for Serendipity Stamps.  I'm going to have a hard time choosing. 

Here are a few of the cards I made that week.  For Dina's challenge:

For Alba's challenge: 

For Angie's challenge: 

For Sabrina's challenge - the flowers on this one were colored with milk & heated - a rather fun technique: 

For Robin's challenge: 

For Bev's challenge: 

For Nancy's challenge: 

I could add more, but maybe in another post. 

I also wanted to show you the special mug rug I made for Lydia's birthday, which is Wednesday.  She has a couple of rescue cats, and designed a cat image for some merchandise.  I wanted her mug rug to be meaningful to her, so I used her cat image as a starting point.  The cat is hand appliqued and the features are machine appliqued.  I did a lot of funky hand quilting in the background. 

I hope she loves it.   She should have received it, so I feel free to post this. 

Thank you so much for stopping by today. 

and then December happened

Hi friends.  I was going to try to blog a little more often... and then December happened.  I worked like crazy to get my Christmas cards all finished, addressed, and sent.  And I also volunteered to be a hostess for December's VSN on Splitcoast.  The theme was Around the World in 80 days.  For challenges, we picked a country and something pertaining to that country.  My challenge country was Indonesia and my challenge was to make a card using some type of batik technique or fabric. 

This card has a background created with the acrylic batik technique.  

This next card uses batik fabric.  A number of years ago, I was given a bunch of fabric pieces by a lady who was moving and didn't want all her quilting scraps.  Included were a lot of small scraps, but there were also some larger pieces.  This fabric was was part of that. 

I glued the fabric onto some cardstock and then die cut the circles. 

Along with having my own challenge, hostesses are asked to make samples of the other challenges if we have time, so I did that also. Here are a few of those samples. 

I'll share more of these soon.  Thanks for stopping by today. 

in my happy place

Hi friends.  I'm working on Christmas presents.  I just have a few to finish.  Right now I'm making a few mug rugs -- basically -- mini quilts. 

I dug into my stash and found a box filled with squares sewn from triangles.  I had to press the seams, and then I picked out a bunch that matched and arranged them into blocks. 

I have these sewn, with the binding attached, but I still need to stitch (by hand) the binding down to the back, and then I will hand quilt them.  I don't think that will take very long.  I use the clips to hold the binding in place as I stitch. 

Here they are a bit closer, so you can see some of the detail better.

Thank you so much for stopping by.

neglected

Hi friends.  I see that I have been very neglectful of my blog lately.  So I guess I should show you some of the things I have been working on. 

I've done a little bit of crocheting.  Here are some small doilies that I made.  I didn't have a pattern.  I was working from a completed piece, so I made changes as I went along.  I tend to crochet very loosely, so I sometimes need more or fewer stitches as I go, so I simply adjust.  That's why I don't crochet things that have to fit someone.  This first one went in the mail today to a friend that has been going through some rough times. 

I should have placed this last one on a darker background, so it would show up better. 

I've also been making some sonobe ornaments --- a lot of paper folding!  But the end result is pretty cool and actually quite sturdy.  Each one is made from 30 squares of paper.  I've made a few with 3" squares, one with 6" squares from brown grocery bags, and a couple of other sizes.  Mostly I've been using 2-1/2" squares.  The finished size is nice for a Christmas ornament, and the pieces aren't too awkward to work with.  I made one with 2" squares, but that was more difficult to put together.  The bigger ones are the easiest.  This is just one of many that I've made so far. 

 

I've been making with from glossy pages from some old SU mini catalogs and magazines.  I painted this one gold, but since the paint is translucent, you can still see words and images underneath.  

And, finally, I made my first mug rug.  I started it last night and finished it this morning.  

This one is pretty simple.  I used pieces left over from other projects.  My hand quilting stitches are rather crooked, so don't look too closely.  

Thanks so much for stopping by.

a new bag or two

Hi friends.  Have you missed me?  I think I've really been neglecting my blog.  But I really haven't been doing much creating lately.  This week I came across instructions for making a really quick bag from a t-shirt.  I had to try it.  I think it only took 10-15 minutes. 

I did one extra step.  After stitching across the bottom, I flattened the ends of the seam and stitched across to make a flat bottom on the bag.  Then I trimmed off the excess fabric triangles and overcast the edges.  Such an easy project that I couldn't stop at just one -- I made a second bag. 

it's finished!

Hi friends.  Remember that quilt I talked about in my last post?  Well, I've been working on it a little bit every day.  Today, I finished it.  What a wonderful feeling of accomplishment! 

This is called a scrap quilt, because each block uses different fabrics.  The flowers and background fabrics are all different.  I think I may have repeated a couple of the greens, because I didn't have enough different ones.  The continuity of the quilt is the same pattern for each block.  I love all the variety of fabrics and colors. 

When I started working on this last week, I already had the flowers quilted.  I just needed to quilt the edges of each square and bind the quilt. 

First, I quilted around the edges of all the internal blocks.  Then I sewed the binding to the front edge of the quilt and trimmed any excess fabric and batting.  Then I quilted around all the edge blocks.  You can see some of the quilting detail in this next photo, especially on the purple flower. 

Then it was time to stitch the binding onto the quilt back and add a label.  I print my label from my computer and then trace it onto muslin with the help of a light box.  I use a pigma pen and heat set it with an iron.  When I attached this label, I placed it under the binding, so it was a little bit less work stitching it on. 

This last picture is one of my favorite blocks from this quilt. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

quilting

Hi friends.  It has been quite awhile since I've worked on any quilting.  I checked back on previous posts to see when the last time was that I had worked on this quilt.  Seriously?  Over three years ago.  It has literally been sitting where I last worked on it.  It disturbs me that I have so many unfinished projects, so I've been pushing myself to complete some of them. 

I was in need of some quilt therapy, so I pulled it out.  I had been quilting without a frame, but decided it would be a little bit easier to use my circle frame, so I brought it up from the basement and cleaned it off (dust and cobwebs).  I set it up in my bedroom.  (No, the block isn't all crooked, even though it looks like it.  The quilt is just very loose in the frame.) 

I've been working on it just a little bit every day.  The flowers were all quilted previously, so what's left is quilting around the edges of each block.  I also still need to bind the edges, and will have to do that before I can complete the quilting of the outermost row of blocks. 

Because I don't have really good lighting, I really can't work on it at night, so I've just been quilting on it during daylight hours - anywhere from 30 minutes to a an hour or two at a time.  Today, the tips of my fingers are a little sore from pulling on the needle, so I guess I went a little longer than I should have. 

I don't think it'll take me too long to get this done as long as I work on it consistently. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.

you are a blessing

Hi friends.  Friday is the day for mixability challenges on SCS -- or mixed media.  I have intentions to do them all, but have not been very faithful.  Today's challenge was no paper.  In other words, your card base could be paper, but all other layers had to be something other than paper. 

I started with a piece of tan canvas, on which I put two coats of gesso.  I didn't want to  completely cover it, just enough to get a lighter background to work with. 

Then I got out one of my handmade stencils and used distress paints to make the flower.  I then sprayed some brown and blue spray paint (which also was DIY). 

I stamped the sentiment (alias smith & rowe) and the butterfly (hero arts) with jet black archival ink.  There were a couple of spots that didn't stamp well on the canvas, so I just used a pigma marker to fill in any missed lines.  Then I used a copic marker to color the butterfly.  I was really careful with that, because it was picking up some of the black ink, and I didn't want it to be all muddy.

I inked the edges with vintage photo distress ink. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

another dress

Hi friends.  I made another card today using the dress up dies from SU.  The ways to use it challenge on SCS was to use gingham, so I dug in my fabric stash to find a piece.  I don't think it's true woven gingham, just printed, but I figured it would work.  And it was just big enough to die cut one of the dresses from the dress up dies.  I cut the same dress from card stock to put behind the fabric for stability. 

The dress form was cut from a chipboard box and then stamped with wood grain cover-a-card stamp from Impression Obsession using vintage photo distress ink. 

My card base is mustard.  I embossed a piece of white with flourish and dots embossing folder and sponged mustard ink over the raised area.  I added faux stitching around the part that wasn't embossed. 

I added a strip of black card stock at the waist and a flower that is 4 blossoms punched with my Martha Stewart 3 in 1 hydrangea punch, with a black pearl in the center.  

The sentiment is from fanciful tags (Gina K Designs). 

Thanks so much for stopping by today. 

five challenges in one

Hello friends.  Tonight I checked out the inspiration challenge on SCS, and as I looked at the sample inspiration pictures, I realized that I could combine this challenge with some of the others for this week.  The inspiration sample that I chose to work with is a girl in a denim dress.  The other challenges are mix-ability (rip it, paste it, ink it), free for all (geometrically speaking), ways to use it (girls rule), and technique lovers (transform a map). 

I started with a white card base.  I had a photo copy of an old map, so I tore it into strips, inked the edges with vintage photo ink and glued the strips to my card base.  Then I inked over the whole thing with faded jeans ink. 

I traced around the insert from a used tape roll on some denim from an old pair of jeans and then cut out the circles.  I could have used a die and my cuttlebug, but was too lazy to pull them out. 

I chose a lady stamp from Stampendous.  I stamped her on white card stock with jet black archival ink, traced around a small container, and cut that out.  Then I sponged faded jeans all around the circle, just leaving her face uninked. 

The sentiment is from Cornish Heritage Farms.   Both the lady and sentiment circles are popped up on dimensional tape. 

I gave the card a bit of a frame by adding the fancy photo corner punches. 

Thanks for checking in. 

fabric flowers

Hello friends.  This week I made some flowers.  Tim Holtz is having a challenge on his blog to make something using his Tattered Florals die.  I thought I'd try making a hair clip or pin, so I pulled out some fabric and started cutting flowers with the die. 

The first one I made has a lot of layers of flowers.  I started with a circle for my base.  Then I used the large flower to build some layers.  I folded each flower into quarters and stitched across the folded corner with my sewing machine just to hold the folds. 

Then I used a glue gun and glued four flowers onto the circle.  I made three layers of the large flower, and two layers of the smaller flower.  Then I tucked another layer in between the large and small flowers, so there was a smoother transition from large to small.  In the center, I glued the smallest flower and a large flat back pearl.  I'm going to finish it off with a pin back, but need to dig in my stash and find one. 

The second flower I made is much simpler, just two layers of folded flowers and a single flower in the center with a button.  This one is all sewn together on my machine.  This one is a hair clip.

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

20 hearts - #7 & #8

Hello my friends.  DH and I had our taxes done today.  It's so nice to have that finished.  Then we had a nice lunch together.  I had a Cubana sandwich, which was very good.  Of course, since I only ate half of it, I get to have it again. 

I think if I'm going to get all 20 hearts finished for the February monthly challenge at Motley Soul Mixed-Media Art, I need to get busy.  I need to complete one every day. 

So very late tonight, I was putting things away and getting ready for tomorrow's class, when I came across a piece of cereal box with some fabric glued on.  I knew right away it was perfect for a heart for one of these cards.  Of course, I needed to pull a few things back out and work on it.  And then... what really happened... I cut out a heart, set it down and started working on a background.  I painted the card with buttermilk acrylic paint and then added several colors of paint through a brick stencil.  I loved it, but not for the fabric heart. 

I stamped another heart on tissue paper, ran a wet paint brush around it, and tore away the extra tissue.  Then I used a matte gel medium to glue it on my card.  This was a tip I learned on Creative Jump Start.  It gives a good stamped image even when your background has a rough texture, and the edges of the tissue blend right into the background so you can't see them.  I added a little color with colored pencils. 

Then I wrote the sentiment with a black Pitt pen. 

The fabric heart was still waiting.

I started by painting the background celery green.  Then I stenciled some butterflies (Red Lead stencil) with ivory paint.  And then I randomly added a few more colors with either a brush or sponge.

There was a small strip of canvas on my table left over from another project, so I cut a piece to fit my card, frayed the edges and wrote the sentiment on it.  I used Fabri-tac to adhere the canvas to the card.

Then I glued the heart down and another card was finished.  

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

21 cards - #31 and a new challenge

Happy Saturday, friends.  Yesterday was the first day for the NEW Mix-Ability challenge on Splitcoaststampers, all about mixed media.  Yay!  I know I'm going to love it. 

The first challenge is Yin Yang.  So I used this challenge to create another card for January's monthly challenge at Motley Soul Mixed-Media Art.  There is a new challenge for February, but I haven't started on that one yet.  It's all hearts - need to think on that for a bit. 

This post shows how I made the base for my cards with cereal box chipboard and coffee filters.

I started by painting my base with celery green acrylic paint.  Then I used a butterfly stencil, the solid part sponged with gesso, and the detailed part sponged with pearl turquoise and pearl blue lumiere paints for a bit of shimmer.  I also outlined the butterfly with a Pitt pen.  Since the body of the butterfly was white, I cut a new one from black card stock and glued that on. 

Nothing like going backwards, but then I decided to add some stamping to the background, so I carefully added some texture type images from Donna Salazar and Tim Holtz in jet black archival ink.  

While playing around with some additions, but not sure what to add, I decided to leave it overnight and look at it again this morning.  I knew right away that I wanted to change up the background some more, so I applied some buttermilk acrylic paint with my finger, so it just brings out the texture of the coffee filter without covering up the stamping. 

Then I added bits of torn card stock and pattern paper. 

The sentiment is from Nostalgics Attic Collection (Image Tree), punched out with a 1/2" circle punch and raised on dimensionals. 

Then I attached a piece of burlap, some raffia, a hand crocheted flower and a button. 

I love it!  How can I not?  It has lots of texture and lots of BLUE!  LOL

Thanks so much for spending some time with me today.  Enjoy your weekend.

21 cards - #22

Hello my friends.  It's another card for the monthly challenge at Motley Soul Mixed-Media Art.  Even though my title says card #22, this is actually a makeover of card #10.  I really didn't like that one, so I covered it completely with gesso and started over. 

My daughter wanted to draw words again from my inspiration jar, so the words are: happy, quilt, and background stamps.  I think she just wants to see if I'm up to the challenge. 

I went for my fabric and found some 2 inch squares, which worked perfectly.  I chose blue and brown and attached them to the card with matte Mod Podge.

I cut the house free hand and used a burlap background (Cornish Heritage Farms) with salty ocean distress ink, and a crackle background (Judikins) with jet black archival ink for the roof.  Then I sponged vintage photo distress ink over the roof and along the edges of both pieces.  The windows and door were cut from navy card stock.

I printed the sentiment on my computer, cut the words apart and edged the pieces with vintage photo.

I used a white gel pen and black Sharpie marker to add quilting stitches on the house and fabric squares.

Since quilts make me happy, I used all three words, and I really love this card.

Thank you so much for spending time here with me today.  Have a great weekend.

guest artist on OWSE

Hello, my friends.  Today, I'm excited to share with you that I am a guest artist on the OWSE blog, Crafting with OWSE.

I would love for you to go and check out my tutorial for making a torn fabric background for my art journal spread.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Have a blessed day.

art journal cover

Hello, my friends.  This week, Eclectic Paperie had a blog hop showing journal covers, which is just the beginning of monthly journal entries.  They invited us to play along and create our own journal cover.  I chose to make mine 6"x6".

I started by gluing three pieces of cereal box chipboard together to make a very sturdy chipboard.  Then I cut two pieces 6"x6" for the front and back cover.  I covered mine with some textured denim.  I added some gesso to make it look shabby.

I made a flower from a piece of hand crocheted lace.  I used alcohol inks to make it red.  The center is a tiny crocheted flower.  For the stem, I crocheted a piece of cording and dyed it with Ranger alcohol inks.  The leaves are cut from corrugated cardboard and dyed with alcohol inks.  I used a glue gun to attach all the parts of the flower.

The word art is die cut from designer paper with a retired Sizzix sizzlit alphabet called Block Party.  The letters are glued to navy lacy oval die cuts.  To raise them off the cover, I punched four layers of card stock ovals to glue behind the lacy ones.

The remaining words - "for the joy of creativity" - are those that I use as a subtitle on my blog.  That's why I create things in whatever medium, whether it's stamping, quilting, lace making, art journaling... I find joy in creating.  I printed the words on my computer, cut them apart, added an edge with a black marker and glued them down.

I'm really happy with how this turned out.  It makes me happy that I was able to use fabric, lace, die cuts, and also do some recycling to create something new and beautiful.

Thank you so much for stopping by for a visit.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Hexagons

Hello, my friends.  It's been a long time since I've shown you anything on my hexagon quilt, which I started two years ago.  To see some previous blog posts showing some of my progress, click here, here, and here.  Some time ago, I sewed the blocks into strips, but they've just been sitting waiting for me to press the seams and sew the strips together.  Well last night, I finally decided to jump in and do it.  Today, I finished sewing the strips together and pressed all the seams.

Looking back on my first post about this, I see that my original plan was to add sashing between the blocks.  But when I sewed them together, I changed my mind and didn't do that.  So, when I spread it out on a bed to take a picture, I realized that I had seriously misjudged how many hexagons I'd need to make a bed sized quilt.  It doesn't quite cover the bed from head to foot.  I'm about four rows too short, or 36 more hexagon blocks.  Oops!  That means I have two options.  I can either make more hexagons... or I can make a lap/snuggle quilt instead.  I'm leaning toward adding on.

So... I guess that means I'm going to have to dig into my fabric stash and make more hexagons.  And I thought my next step was determining what fabric to use as backing.  I guess not.  Hmmmm.... I wonder where I put that pattern. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.

quilts

Hello, my friends.  Over in the OWSE Yahoo Group, we have an art journaling club that meets in the chat room.  Last week Robyn asked for a volunteer to come up with a technique idea, and silly me... guess who volunteered.  Yup!  That's right.  ME!  Crazy me!  Especially considering how new I am to art journaling.  But, I figured since I teach a card technique class every month, I should be able to come up with something.  And no one else was raising their hand! lol

Well, needless to say, it wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be.  First I tried a spray starch resist, but that wasn't working as well on my gesso'd watercolor paper as it does on glossy card stock.  So, on to plan B.

I love texture and have a lot of thread, so I thought there must be a way to add thread to my page and get a fun texture.  My first attempt -- I used gel medium, which essentially worked, but took forever to dry.  I had to leave it overnight, and I wanted to work on it NOW - not tomorrow!  From that attempt, I also learned that less is better than more.  I put way too much thread on and it really didn't give me the look I wanted.  I also did one page with little snips of thread (1" or less), but I really didn't like the look of that either until I covered it with paint. 

My second attempt -- I used matte Mod Podge.  Much, much better.  So, here's what I did.

First, I cut a piece of tissue paper slightly larger than my page, crumbled it up, and then flattened it out, leaving some wrinkles, and set it aside.

Next, using a foam brush, I brushed the page with a light coat of Mod Podge.

Then I dropped pieces of thread, anywhere from 6" to 12" or so, onto the wet page.  Using both my fingers and the foam brush, I pressed the thread down onto the paper.

Then, I place the wrinkled tissue paper over the page and pressed it down really well with my hands (palms work best).

When I was satisfied, I brushed on another light coating of the Mod Podge and set it aside to dry.

You can leave it this way and build your page, allowing all the colors of thread to show through the tissue (which is a very fun look), OR... you can do what I did and brush a very thin coat of acrylic paint over it.  I can still see the threads, but the individual colors no longer stand out.

To complete my pages, I die cut letters from black card stock for the title.

The quilt is actually fabric, mod podged to card stock and then glued to the page.

I printed the sentiment on my computer, cut it apart and sponged the edges with pacific point ink, which I also used on the page edges.

The spools of thread are die cut with Tim Holtz dies.  I then inked them with tea dye distress ink by dragging the ink pad over the card stock.  Then I embossed with a woodgrain embossing folder, and inked the raised parts with vintage photo distress ink.  Because I really didn't want the texture, I put them back in my cuttlebug and ran them through again to flatten them out.  I used some embroidery floss wrapped around the spools for thread.  Because the floss actually adds thickness, I added some small pieces of cereal box chipboard on the back of the spools where there is no thread, so they would glue on better.

Finally, I added some faux stitching aroune the edges of the page and around the quilt.  I really, really love how this spread turned out.  I'm sure that's mostly because quilts are such an important part of my life and I put a part of me in each one I make.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  I hope you try my embedded thread technique and I hope you have some quilts in your life.

crunch time

Hi my friends.  Well, I must say that it's been awhile since I've posted.  I've been working on the Inspiration Showcase online class.  Today is the final day and I was way, way behind.  So I spent the day crunching out my samples & I finished.  Here's row one.

Here's row two.

Here's row three.

Here's row four.

And here's row five.

Since I don't have a canvas yet, these are just temporarily mounted on some card stock, so I could take pictures.  I had some trouble taking the photos, since there is embossing, glossy paper, and other shimmery stuff.  I am not entirely happy with all the samples, but I really wanted to get them done. 

Thanks for stopping.