Just one day late but...

I welcome you with open arms AUTUMN!!

(Photo taken by me a few years ago at the Newport News Fall Festival)

I Never Know What is Going To Inspire Me

I have started swapping again on Swap-bot because I've gotten back into ATC's (Artist Trading Cards) and this website is a great arena for swapping these.  While on there, looking at other swap groups, I stumbled upon a lady who was asking artists to "decorate" a fishing bobber for her father-in-law's birthday in October.  He collects them and she thought it would be fun to see what people came up with.  I love a challenge so I e-mailed her and said I'd love to do it.  There were no restrictions as to size or theme so at my local store 2" bobbers came two to a pack.  I rushed right home and base coated them:

After base coating I painted one black then remembered to take a picture for this blog.

I decided to do one in a Halloween theme because it is September.  And the other one I decided to do an underwater theme because it is, after all, a bobber.

And then my underwater theme:

Since it is September and my brain is already thinking Christmas... wouldn't these make great Christmas ornaments!  This is why I love art, because I never know when or where I'm going to be inspired but when I am it's like a whole new world opens up for me and I LOVE it!

Quilling on ATC's

What better way to practice quilling techniques than on ATC's (Artist Trading Cards).  I have been a member of Swap-bot for a few years now and I love trading ATC's.  I'm always looking for new techniques to try and ATC's are the perfect little size (2 1/2" X 3 1/2") to experiment with.

Paper quilling is the technique of taking strips of paper and manipulating them or "twirling" them to create beautiful objects.  There are three books that I love and refer back to often:
I Can't Believe I'm Quilling By Jane Cleveland
Paper Quilling For the First Time  By Alli Bartkowski
Thrilling Quilling By Elizabeth Moad

This swap was called 100 Hearts.  I used scrapbooking paper for the background, quilled the hearts and the little black dots are puffy paint. 

For my next one I wanted to try a new flower technique.  For my background I used a paint chip you can get at your local hardware store (trimmed to size).  Fringed my paper.  Twirled it around my quilling tool then glued each flower in place. 

 The next morning I opened them up and LOVED how they turned out:

 This swap was called Flower ATC but my partner's profile stated that she loves green butterflies so I wanted to incorporate both:

Owl ATC.  Again, another paint chip and then I painted the tree with acrylics.

This swap is called Ladybug ATC.  Shhhhhh... I haven't sent this one yet so my partner doesn't know what it looks like.

And here are some more that I've done in the past:

Lollipop, Lollipop... Oh Lolly... Lolly Lolly..

It starts with an idea...

I find that I love working with bright, bold colors

And usually end up with something fun and cheerful

  And this is my finished piece in my art studio

More Fabric Bowls!

Wow have my boys been keeping me busy this summer!  So I'm trying to keep up with them plus I've started writing another blog AND we are going on vacation in three days, yikes!  This post will be short and sweet, my fabric bowls are a huge hit at the art gallery so I challenged myself to make six more before we go on vacation, I knocked out four but didn't reach my goal of six.  So here they are:

I don't work with the color purple that much but I absolutely love how this bowl turned out:

(The purple bowl sold five minutes after I walked in the door with it!)



Thanks for looking and I'll be back in three weeks!

I've started another blog!

A few years ago I wrote about my art retreat.  It was my time to get away and just create.  I have always been fascinated with the Amish culture so on these art retreats I would go to Lancaster, PA.  Over the years my art retreat has turned into a mommy's getaway and I now like to mingle with the Amish more than focus on my art.  A few weeks ago I got back from my annual mommy getaway and every time I sat down to write about it here I realized something.  I have way too much to say for just one post so I have created another blog.  I will solely focus on Amish life and my experiences among the Plain people.  It is still "under construction" but it is called My Fascination With The Amish Culture: Exploring The Plain People.

    

Another Felt and Fabric Applique Piece

Under The Sea felt and fabric applique and embroidery is finally finished, hooray!!

To remind you, this was a photo of it almost completed but I still had to finish the embroidery inside the seaweed plus add more beads and shells:

I added little red pearls to the red fabric coral (and black beads to the fishes eyes).

See if you can find five real seashells:

Give up???
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I also added more blue beads to the two blue waves at the top; and if you look closely I used green AND blue metallic thread for the seaweed embroidery.

This is now hanging in my studio space (and is for sale) at Olde Towne Art in Portsmouth, VA.  Under The Sea measures 20" X 24"

"Fixing Her Hair"

While on Pinterest I came across this absolutely beautiful watercolor of a ballerina.  I think what caught my eye was that it wasn't a normal ballerina pose.  The artist, Inslee Haynes, named it Tutu, Aerial View and I just fell in love!  This became my inspiration piece for my first art quilt. Please visit her blog The Sketch Book so you may learn more about this talented artist.

So the first thing I needed to do was to graph the image and enlarge it.

Next I traced the pattern and cut out the pieces:

From there I found fabric for the skirt and fused it onto a piece of light green flannel.  I thought about changing the colors to pinks but then decided that greens and blues (the original colors the artist used) were more interesting.

I then stitched green-with-gold-sparkle tulle into the center to make it look more like a tutu:

From there I decided that it now needed more blue so I cut strips of shimmery blue tulle and added them around the skirt:

It still needed more "bling" so I hand stitched blue and green beads onto the blue strips:

Her body was felt applique and her hair was "doll hair" found at my local craft store:

I picked my fabrics for my boarders:

And then quilted everything except her body and her tutu:

Fixing Her Hair is now hanging (and is for sale) at Olde Towne Art in Portsmouth, VA