New tin and 1st bamboo tile pendant

Ok finished my 1st pendant. Grandson Trevin, 3, was trying to help too much so just did one today. I just love these tiles. Also finshed the Altoids tin I started yesterday. Fannie's post gave me my theme about friends. "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other gold." I have made many friends over the year and I treasure everyone of them, even the ones I have not yet met in person. That just amazes my hubby, lol. The cover is muslin stained with chalk ink, cheese cloth stained with chalk ink, bird sticker, page pebble with word from dictionary, friends rub on and a viola from my yard that I pressed. The purple silk cord around the edge is what was wrapped around my lovely card from KiwiCarole. Inside ismore stained muslion, stamped and embossed with silver lined glass beads, a gold dragonfly bead and swirl, another viola on the orange paper Carole sent with imagine stamped on it and a gold folied butterfly sticker. Around the outside I stitched a single line running stitch. I am disappointed with the scan, The orange didn't show up very bright.

Altered Tins

I made a few altered tins with some Altoids tins my daughter in Oregon found me at a rummage sale. She gave me a paper bag full. What a sweetie. I wish I would have taken a picture of the seashell tin I made for her for her bath room, darn it. Anyhow The domino ornament is stuck in with a glue dot so you can take it out and hang it.

I ran across a picture of an altered tin on the internet and started searching for more. That's how I found altered books, I am working on one , trying different techniques. And that is how I found paper ATC's at artchix and then Sanna from FabricATCsOnetoOne invited me to her yahoo group and I started making fabric ATC's, altered cabinet cards, then fabric postcards. I love that group. It's almost like a family. Anyhow, Kiwicarole altered a beautiful tin and I thought I would share a few of mine.

Bamboo Tile pendants beginning

I got some gorgeous black bamboo tiles from Lisa at TenTwoStudios and also her Asian collage sheet that is sized to fit them. This is how they start and with the front pictures added. They are double drilled( I love that after drilling dominos for ornaments at Christmas). She also has a tutorial on how she made hers on that site. Mine are drying now. Will post after I add the backs, the beads and cord.

Can you say "Fabulous"?

I got a lovely gift today in the mail from Kiwi Carole, her blog link is to the right>. She is from New Zealand. I won this fabulous pink Fabric ATC(Artist Trading Card) with the coolest clay face on it, from leaving a comment on her blog. Actually someone else won but didn't respond to her for mailing instructions, so I won. The ATC came wrapped in this yummy orange interfacingish? like material wrapped in some purple cording that feels like chennille almost. Not sure what either of them are for sure but I adore the colors and will definitely be using them in future art projects. It's the first thing I have won from a blog and I am so thrilled. Besides I made a new blog friend half ways across the world. Can't be luckier than that I figure. SO thank you so much Carole. I appreciate it more than you know. Hugz, Scary

Step 3 Postcard

ok, stuck here. Not sure what else to do. Does it need buttons? Blue ones on the yellow swirls? This is way more beading than I have ever done on fabric and I am kind of happy with the way it turned out so far. Just saw a class on Encrusted Crazy Quilting at Joggles. $60 but I would love to take it. I am going to ask around and see if the people who have taken online classes are satisfied with what they learned and do a little research on Sharon Boggon, the gal giving the class. We'll see how money looks closer to the class I guess. I want to take a class on something so bad. Anyhow this is how far I got.

Fabric Post cards Swap

We just had a fabulous swap at the FabricATCsOnetoOne yahoo group I am in. These are the wonderful cards I recieved. Aren't they gorgeous? The pieced card is from Helen in England. I had thought it was a crazy quilt but it is called paper piecing. Helen does such beautiful art. Her quilts are outstanding.

The umbrella card is from Judi in the UK. You can't see the shimmery fibers around the redge but it is truely a work of art.

The one with the dress pattern is from CindyB in Minnesota, USA. Don't you just love that dress maker form and that gold needle? How wonderful it is to come home and find art like this in my mailbox.

step 2

ok step 2 was to do the hand stitching. I highly recommend using floss that shows up better than the yellow I used in the middle. I haven't decided if I am ripping that out and trying something new there. Not real happy with the fern stitch done in blue either now that I look at it, lol. Also it is a good idea to baste the fabric down to the muslin backing or your stitches will pucker something terrible. That's what all the purple threads are. I think I will machine stitch the edges now before I add any beading or buttons. But here is step 2 of the post card.

The start of..

ok this is the first crazy quilt that I actually planned out the design and fabrics before beginning. I am almost sure that you should do it this way but I don't, lol. This is post card sized and I will post as I embellish it with my attempt at stitching. I am going to try different kinds. I just found out that a true CQ is stitched along each seam so going to try it. Hopefully that's how you get better right? lol. We'll see.

I am also thinking about joining a book swap in Lostartcreations with Terrie Lightfoot. There are some very talented artists that I admire greatly and am scared that mine wouldn't even be close to theirs and they will be disappointed. I wonder how long a person feels this way? Lol. !0 pages due by August which should be doable but with trucking I hate to commit to projects of that size but would love to have a collaborative book once. I hope someone talks me into it, lol. Anyhow I am going to the bar to watch hubby and daughter play poker and visit for a bit and then go get Arianna and Trevin again if they are still up and let them spend the night again maybe. Didn't make it to the park today because the wind was just too crazy so I owe them a park day tomorrow for sure. Can't renig when you're a Nanna Cheri right? bye

Home again, home again, jiggity jog

AHHhhhhhhh. Home again. Got a house full of noise this morning. Trevin and Arianna are here in the kitchen building a fort with chjairs and barstools and blankets and clothes pins, lol. I remember doing that growing up. We are also watching ET, which they had never heard of. Also got a disc set of oldies, with Heidi(with Shirley Temple), jack and the beanstalk(with Abbott and Costello), The Borrowers (with Eddie Albert), and just bunches more. Those are going on after ET. I watched a couple of them last night while Arianna was falling asleep. Ahh the memories. I still remember Heidi from when I was little. I hope Arianna will like it as much as I did. She also brought home tons of papers to play school this summer. I used to love doing that also. She thinks I should get an old school desk for my yard. We used to have some. I will have to check around and find some.

We are having a flower ATC swap over at FabricATCsOnetoOne yahoo group I am in. Got home in time to get at least one done to swap. That's the one posted here. Haven't done much stitching in my life other that cross stitch and plastic canvas but googled crazy quilts and found some really awesome stitch directions. I can only dream of doing the work I see on some of them. Those girls talk of fiber cleasses they have taken. Well ,someday I hope to take some too but for now I am just practicing. It was fun once I got the feather stitch figured out. I really like that one and am working on a post card right now. More room than an ATC so will hopefully finger it out, lol. Working on a couple more flower ATC's and the deadline was extended so might be able to get them done in spite of having the grandkids over.

We have to go visit Hubby's Dad at the nursing home. He likes showing off Baby J to all the old ladies up there. They flock around him when we bring the little kids up. Baby J is 6 months old and a very happy baby. One gal had been eating Cheetos and had to pinch his little cheeks so needless to say by the time we got done visiting with Alice, Baby J had a very orange face, lol. Oh well babies wash up so nicely don't they? lol. Ok off to play with the Little People castle and watch cartoons. Later Arianna wants to make Auntie Sally a birthday card with some of my new embellishments she saw me digging through.

ARTchix group itty bitty's

these are paper itty bitty's which are 3 inch by 3 inch collages for a swap in Artchix yahoo group. I got 6 from other artists in return. I have to mount those too but here are the ones I did for the swap.

more itty bitties

there I think that is all of them. As you can see there was a variety of themes. It was great fun. Next I will post the pictures of the paper itty bitty's we did for a swap at ARTCHIX yahoo group.

itty bitty swap

we did an itty bitty swap in our fabric group and I am in the process of making a display of the ones I recieved. My theme was anything natural. I will post that as soon as I get it done but for now, these are the ones I sent to the artists swappping. They are 3 inch by 3 inch fabric collages basically. We each picked a theme and then the artists participating made 2 for each person.

Free pictures

Not sure if anyone else knows about this great site. Lisa is so sweet to share pictures on most every holiday I can think of. Also if you need colllage sheets or ideas even her sites are the bomb. Here is the link for Mother's Day pictures. http://countdown.tentwostudios.com/ Have fun.

another postcard

Since I hadn't read the rules on the fabric postcard swap I thought I had better do an embellished one since we got home this week. After I scanned this I did add some blanket stitching to the edges as I felt it needed a bit more something. The colors in person are really bright teal blue but you can't see it here. I also added one of my fabric beads, some of my dyed batting and everything else in the ktchen sink, lol Hugz