Cool Technique

Wow! It is a giveaway on this site! http://www.nancymalay.blogspot.com/ . Take a look at her work, she is a super talented lady indeed!

And another giveaway at this site: www.cmscanlon.blogspot.com. Love her work... and now she is giving away 2 copies of her book, Art from the Heart.

This is a page from a book I made for my sis...she too is so talented in so many things, swimming, knitting, music and more. The colorful piece on the right side is a bit of Tyvek, painted and ironed until it bubbled. Be careful with your iron, once it starts to bubble, it goes lickety split! Protect your iron and ironing board. I use a teflon sheet below and parchment paper above the Tyvek. Any acrylic paint( I used neopaque, lumiere, and Golden), permanent or heatset ink will work. I also like to add some sparkle with metallic waxes or mica powder, even glitter will work. Try this technique if you haven't discovered it yet... it will become a favorite, I am sure.

This piece was alot of fun to do. The phototransfer is my favorite type, done with matte medium. The fabric was painted with a watered down pebeo in cobalt. The child is a freebie sent to me via Artella. The beads are a tiny leftover bit from trim we no longer sell at G Street (but we have lots of others). The words at the left are "she had great hope for the future", and the word hope is a rubber stamp I carved by hand. Enjoy! (I surely did.)

Many things...

Well, it has been a busy few days. I got to see my sister, which I don't get to do too often. It was a wonderful day, and by the time I got home I didn't want to do anything but rest. She too, I would bet. But I did take the time to complete a small piece for the Gothic Arches Challenge, whose theme is music or lyrics. Today, I did my piece for the Skinny Saturday challenge on friendship. Now my next task is to figure out how to add link lists to my site. If I figure it out, you'll know!

Outside Your Box Saturday Rusty Things

Here is my rusty things piece... I used steel wool and vinegar to make a wonderfully fine, tightly woven cotton fabric very colorful with lovely swirls of rust! I then attached a map fragment and a piece of shrinkfilm stamped with a map along the top and side. In the lower corner, I glued a pic of Madonna & child ontop of a card atop a domino. As a final touch, I added a tiny stamped celtic bee onto the map. What fun!

Just a tiny...

This little book was so fun to make! It uses alot of paper, but is pretty easy to make. Kind of an origami plus sewn binding thing. It is supposed to hold ATCs, or whatever. I haven't found the perfect things to put in there yet, but I will.

The best kind of art day

Today was a lazy but fun day. I did what I wanted to, and it included sewing and collage. I have started a book for a swap with the amazing Heather of Creative Solace. I am psyched! I did another book a while ago, so here are pics of that, just to get my creative juices going. I haven't yet decided on the theme for the book, I am just doing backgrounds now, and I probably won't use all of them. A little hint... I have made some rusty cloth. A little cotton fabric, a little steel wool, a little water with vinegar in it, and poof! Colorful cloth. Kinda the color of my cats, maybe a little darker. Tomorrow I will clean and scrub, today has been very good.

It is Winter!

Yippee! We had an early snow in November, it it barely lasted a day. Todays may not last longer, but it is a real snow. Wahoo! The little bandits have come around to get their extra peanuts, and the cats, for once, didn't want to go outside. Looks like I will be sewing tonight. There were hardly any customers at the store, but no sign of closing early. I decided not to go the 15 miles after dark, so I get a couple hour reprieve. Now, if only the roads are dry tomorrow out Blacksburg way... I will go see my sis.

My First Challenge

Well, I did it, with over an hour before midnight! I used a card from a deck of zodiac illustrations, cut it into an arch, and covered it with bright tangerine nylon organza. I found a picture of a gypsy, made a photo transfer with matte medium (thank you Lesley Riley!) added some fibers, a ribbon, some trim and a sun button. Thanks Patty for inspiring me to try a challenge... I can tell I will love them from now on. A little intimidating at first, but, by golly, I can do this! And thank you Gothic Arches for the challenge!

The simple little woven paper heart is a wonderful project, possible even for youngsters as long as they can wield blunt scissors. It was far and away the favorite Sunday School activity. With a little planning, they can get really intricate, so can hold the interest of adults too.

The next pic is a little wallhanging I am making. The handsome Marine is my son. With the announcement of an additional 3000+ Marines being sent to Afghanistan, I imagine he will be assigned to on of the units going, but who knows. As soon as this one is bound, I have everything for a hanging with my daughter's mementos, except the background fabric.

The last pic is of a Dhali Fetish doll, made from a series of patterns by Debbie Tong Gray. If you are out there Debbie, I love it!

Now, the only thing I have left to do this week is to make my Theme Thursday Challenge piece... it will be my first! I meet my sister this weekend to exchange Christmas gifts... yes I know what day it is. But it is so much nicer to meet than to ship, and the actual day is arbitrary. Hope she and her hubby like them.

Finished with Christmas

I have packed everything away, but not stored it yet, because I wanted to go through everything in all my boxes. I did that tonight, whew! I got 1 1/2 bags of trash and donations, and have only to store everything to be done. I made the Father Christmas years ago, but really like him, so I thought I would share him. Even if it is past twelth night! The other is a box I did to hold all my pins. I sometimes raid it to get just the right piece for a collage or book. I figure it is better than sitting in a box... or even getting worn occasionally! As you can see, I have help from a kitty... this one is Crosby, and it usually takes me no more than twice as long to do anything! Now I really have to get a couple pins completed to fill the box up. I have been working on woven hearts... I never knew there were so many variations. Since I am a weaver, the various renditions of overshot patterns are fascinating... I will take pictures tomorrow. I am not long out of bed tonight...

Motto

Catiean has a great giveaway! Two in fact! Check out her whole site here, it is lovely. Wow, I just made my first link!!! I may not be hopeless after all;) Today I cleaned out my car... amazing what you can find! I am cleaning my studio too, it takes so long. I must have too much stuff. But giving it away is such a wrench...gotta use it up before I buy more. Then I will have good stuff to give away! Make Art Daily. My new motto.

A High Energy Day

I had a delightful class today with 15( highschool students and 3 adult students... That is more than I usually teach. The first part of the day was fiber identification, including appearence, burn testing, and accepting dyes. The second part of the class was dyeing! After doing a set of 7 fabrics to see how various fabric take dyes, I showed them a couple of ways to fold a long scarf to get cool patterns... it was a flash back to the 60's and 70's! I don't plan on moving the rest of the day, but it was great fun. The pic is where the class was held (though not in the aisles) and where I work, G Street Fabrics, in the DC area. Isn't it a heaven for us fabric lovers? This is just a bit of the home decorating side, theres so much more. Lots of very talented people around here, customers and staff both. Well, I now have more fabric than I can use, and I am pretty prolific in my use of it. It'll be my retirement!

Loom Cats

My 2 cats are both rescues whose early life was anything but cushy, but they both seem to have made the transition to luxe digs rather well. They especially love to help me when I make art, and most especially when I weave. I don't thing they even remember their living in the ditch days! Gotta love those little critters...

Today I have been aching to make art, but can't seem to get past the background. Maybe just making backgrounds will be enough. I have a thousand ideas, until I get to the table. I have been listening not to music recently, but to a favorite story on CD, the Dark is Rising sequence, by Susan Cooper. It is a classic Good v Evil story, but the fact that many have told it before detracts not a whit from its eloquence. I think the dark/light may be my next art theme, I am not sure. I have also been reading up on volcanism, a perennial interest of mine. Nature is amazingly beautiful, and amazingly brutal. Without volcanoes we could not be supported by our planet, but still they wreak havok. Man too. We do great good and great evil. Sigh. Too late to contemplate the rest, a nice cuppa tea will send me off to sleep from where, eventually, my next art will emerge.

Studio work

I finally have gotten my studio organized enough to know where things are... but then I had to search for fabric (you would think I have enough, but believe it or not, I haven't any white wool or white linen) and had to get to the bottom of my boxes, so I had to pile things up on the cutting table. Then I had to unpile it all. Sigh. I need a better storage system. But I did take some pics of the altered book I made my sister. Hope she likes it! Kris, if you read this, don't look!

She is a wonderful musician, having taken up music in her 50's, and playing the piano is her creative journey. Her husband bought her a baby grand, then built on a room so everything fit! Lucky Kris. Well, lucky Don too!

Guess I had better finish up the cleanup so I can have fun messing it all up again, this time, to play with paint and fabric and paper. That will be more fun!

My Son

Today my husband drove my son back to Georgia, and to satellite communications school. He has only about three weeks left, and then we will find out where he is going. He wants Okinawa... but we really have no idea. He will surely go to Iraq, we just don't know when, or with which unit. All I want is a safe return.

This should be a good art filled weekend for me, I have some samples to prepare for next weeks class on fabric id and dyeing, and finishing up some sewing and altered books. I look forward to getting glue and paint under my nails! My next goal is to get my studio organized and empty enough to get my loom out. Realistically I think it will be mid Feb before that happens. So here are a couple pages of my journal...

Happy New Year

I wish I could have stayed home today and enjoyed a day off, but retail is retail. I do work in a fabulous fabric shop, and enjoy my work, but it was dreadfully slow today, boring.

I am missing my dog today, this was the first Christmas without a dog since , well, I can't remember one without a dog. My 16 year old border collie died in March, and I am not ready to replace her yet. I have the two blonde monsters to keep me amused, but even though Trouble thinks he is a collie, it isn't really the same. Ever see a CAT try to strong eye someone? He is a hoot! She was his role model growing up, and has taken on many of her roles. He even sits at the table and begs, though it is more for attention than food. She was special, but aren't they all.

May we all have health and prosperity, good luck and increased skills in the coming year, but also lots of ART!