Elizabeth Creates

Wire and Beads !

2012-01-29T09:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I taught my first Wire and Beads Bracelet Class at Artistic Artifacts in Alexandria. We had a wonderful time and my students made some amazing pieces of jewelry!!

Once I got them past the fear of making an error when bending the wire and we discussed some design and structural points, they were all off and bending and adding beads!

Below you can see the works in progress. We had a marvelous time catching up and sharing bead stash and helping each other make design decisions. All three left, after shopping in Judy's amazing shop of artistic must have 's and delectable and enticing creative supplies , with their beads and wire and plans to go home and complete their masterpieces. I will definitely be offering this class again soon, as many shop patrons came by to see what all the hub-bub was about .

This is Jackie's piece using antiqued bronze wire.

Kathy used silver wire and primary colored beads for her striking piece.

Janice went with purple beads and black wire to add her special style to her bracelet!

Artistic Artifacts has a wonderful roster of classes and we are adding new classes and dates on a regular basis. Prices for our classes are incredibly reasonable and we are always anxious to work with individuals who have new class ideas and a group who wants to learn. Bring us a small group and we will design a class to meet your specific needs and desires. it does not get better than that!!!
Art On everyone!!!

http://www.artisticartifacts.com/annex.htmhttp://www.artisticartifacts.com/annex.htm

Studio 7- Artful Dimensions- A New Art Home!

2012-01-11T14:51:00.001-08:00

It has been a long stretch since my last post. I was on track to change this habit for 2012 but then something came about that put all of my Art Spaces in a Dither!!! Art Spaces?? Plural??? "What is she talking about?", you may be saying to yourself. I know that I would be if I were you! Well the bottom line and big news is, I am now the proud and delighted resident of Studio 7 at Artful Dimensions Gallery in Fredericksburg Va!! My fiber art was juried intot his unique gallery dedicated solely to 3-D works, back at the beginning of December and I was thrilled. This is a true artists cooperative with each member working at the front desk several times a month and sharing all of the duties for keeping such a concern running. We are also a Non- Profit organization and one of the top goals on our mission statement is to offer lots of community outreach in the arts. That means lots of classes at reasonable and affordable prices as well as free events . I have searching for a teaching venue and now I have one!! Artful Dimensions has a dedicated classroom space that will soon be buzzing with activity with all sorts of artistic exploration.!

I took my husband down to see the place on New Years Day as I had to drop off some new work. There we met our organizational President and ceramic sculptor extraordinaire, Christine Lush -Rodriguez. Tom was so impressed with all that had been done to renovate the warehouse/garage/wood workers/Rave site/space and so impressed with the atmosphere and the all that came with the organization, that as we were leaving he asked me when I was going to apply for a studio space!!! I was flabbergasted!! Now you all know that I have a large space in my basement and that it is in a constant state of use and upheaval and I thought that in no way would I even begin to consider renting a studio as I had all that I did already. He obviously thought other wise! it took him about 5 minutes to convince me that I NEEDED to be down at Artful Dimensions and a vital part of the community that was being created and that I could not afford not to rent a studio!! So I am now fully ensconced in Studio 7 with the beautiful purple transom over my door- Meant to be!!!

(At the time that I made my move in plans ,there were only Studio 7 and 8 free- The transom of Studio 7 would have been one of my favorites had all the studio's been available!!)

moving in

We made the decision on Thursday January 5, delivered the check on Friday January 6 and started to move tables form my basement studio down to Studio 7.

One corner of my space with a comfy chair waiting for visitors , next to one of my shelf units full of fiber books and some art samples.

(Bringing in a comfy chair started a bit of a ruckus in the gallery as several of my fellow studio artists scurried about to outfit their spaces with comfortable seating. It was either that or lock my door so my yellow chair did not up and leave the room!!:) )

My plans are to move my fiber arts work- Embellisher machine, felting, some sewing and book arts projects down to Studio 7 and leave everything else at my home studio. There were some added benefits to all of this moving. Much of the overflow clutter in our garage has now been sorted, purged and reassigned to spaces in the basement studio , freeing up lots of garage space.

In my next post I will have more pictures of my space but for now I want to share some of the artwork that is featured in our wonderful gallery and created by the 14 other artists members of our cooperative. ( I will provide links to web sites for those artists who have a web presence so be sure to check them out.)

Ceramic Sculpture by Christine Lush-Rodriguez

Fabulous wood sculpture by artists Brian Raynor (right) and Joe Wilkinson (left)

ceramic wall piece by Christine Lush- Rodriguez.

Amazing miniature polymer clay relief sculpture by artist Melissa Terlizzi. This piece measures 5 x 7 inches in total.

Sculptural work with found objects (racing bibs) by mixed media Sculptor Laura Allen.

The stunning silk weavings of weaver Diane Kowalski, amazing to see all done is silk!!

Three of my sun printed and beaded art quilts.

Wonderful fiber wrapped cactus sculpture by fiber artist and painter Lynette Reed.

The delightful Mantis Praying by metal artist Bill Richardson.

Stunning glass work by glass artist Ben Childers.

Wonderful semi -precious stone and bead jewelry by artist Dee Antil.

These are just a few of the highlights o the artwork behind offered at this amazing new Gallery! I hope that any and all of you will drop by in person or virtually to see what is going on as we continue to grow!! We are on the hunt for at least 15 more Artist members so if you do 3-D work and live int he area and want more info, drop me a line and I will set you up with an application to begin the jury process!! This is going to be so much fun!!!!

I will be back very soon with more news about my new adventures, some new projects and processes and general info about my whirlwind art adventures!!

Big Book Project

2012-01-05T15:06:00.000-08:00

I have been holding off on sharing this commissioned book project till after the holidays. A good friend from my previous home in Stillwater, OK, asked me to create a Journal/Book for her cousin for Christmas. I am a friend of the cousin as our tow boys were in Scouts and school together. I was given a list of things that I might consider including and set on my task. The book was delivered and it drew raves!! I was so excited to get such a response. I have yet to hear how the gift was received but I trust that all is well- No News is Good News, after all!
I am going to post a bunch of pictures with very little chatter. The covers will be first and if anyone has any questions be sure to leave me a comment or shoot me an e-mail and I will be glad to share!!!

I used two covers from a discarded book for the supports and covered them with a first layer of denim form an old pair of jeans. Then I collaged the denim with various fabrics most of which I designed myself. (sun prints, clean up rags,) Any of the other fabrics used were reclaimed from my fabric scraps or repurposed thrift store finds.
I stitched int he fabric covered signatures with linen thread and secured them to the spine with my hand made beads.
Inside front cover.

random pocket page on the right

pocket made with security envelope (on the right)

I am gathering more materials daily and I plan to make several more of these journals in the near future! The biggest issue that I had with creating this piece was knowing when to stop adding special touches!! Oh yes, and then when it came time to send it out into the world, I really wanted to keep this one but convinced myself that I had plenty of supplies to make many more!!!

I hope that everyone is able to squeeze in a tiny bit of time to be creative every day in 2012~~~

Happy New Year!!

2012 Creativity Kick Off Winners!!!

2012-01-03T15:59:00.000-08:00

So sorry to be so tardy with the results of the Give Away. I have barely had time to sit at the computer over the past several days!!
I have just plugged the numbers assigned to each comment-or into the Random Numbers Generator and ............................. Drumroll, PLEASE

The winner of the BEADS is Wendy with #7!! Congrats to Wendy of Quilts by the Sea and it is delightful to meet you!!!

The winner of the Fabric is Penny of Back Valley Seasons with #4. And you said that you never win anything- can't make that claim any more!!!

Both of these creative ladies have wonderful blogs that I am just now discovering so be sure to stop by and pay them a visit. And if you would be so kind,leave them a quick comment , I am sure that they enjoy comments as much as I do!!!
So ladies, I need to get your snail mail addresses so I can get these little tokens on their way to you!!!
Thank you all for sharing your words for 2012 and your many comments and all of the support that you give me throughout the year!! Getting comments from my readers really means a lot to me.
Let the awesome creativeness that we all possess begin !!!! May your Muse feed you well all year through!!!

Welcome 2012 Give Away!!

2011-12-27T11:26:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to have a Give Away for a long time. I am so very grateful for all of you who visit my blog and extra thank full to those of you who leave comments and tell me that you have stopped by. It really means a lot to me that you take some of your time to say hello!!!!
Now that Christmas is over I am again rearranging things in my studio, in my never ending search fro efficient storage solutions for my methods of creating. Today the stamp wall is coming down with the narrow little stamp holding shelves being replaced by big functional hand me down wooden shelves from Tom's mother's kitchen reno. I have boxed and categorized the stamps that I wish to keep, in clear plastic bins. now all we have to do is locate the brackets that hold up the shelves. Then we will get to installation of the "new" old shelves and much more storage space!!!

In my efforts to FOCUS and SHARE ( my two words for 2012) this year, I plan to Focus on my textile collage art and share all that I learned about other media thru teaching classes and tutorials on my blog.

As big THANK YOU'S to all of my wonderful readers I am offering two small tokens of my appreciation.

A collection of my Sun Printed Cotton Fabrics.

#2 A Great Big Handful of my hand crafted Fabric/Paper resin coated beads in a range of sizes.

All that you have to do is leave a comment for me here, telling me which gift you would prefer and then share with me your words for 2012. I am always so interested to hear what everyone has chosen for their words to live by for the coming year. If you post to Facebook with a link to this giveaway, be sure to let me know as I will enter your name into the drawing TWICE.
I will draw a name from each pool (so don't forget to leave me your choice- beads or fabric) at 6pm EST on January 1, 2012!!
I hope that everyone had a very Happy Holiday Season and that 2012 brings Peace Sanity and Compassion back into the world and that you are all able to climb to new creative heights!!!
Happy NEW YEAR!!!

A Nice Surprise

2011-12-18T06:15:00.000-08:00

Early this month a wonderful magazine arrived in my mail box! I had not purchased the magazine but I knew what it meant! It meant that some of my artwork had been included in the current issue!! The thing is, I had totally forgotten that I had even submitted this piece!

This is a canvas piece that I hand painted and assembled at the same time that I created art quilts of my nieces, Mali and Kate.

I am very pleased to have it included in this issue of Sew Somerset and honored to be in the same issue with my friends Belinda Schneider (http://belindaschneider.wordpress.com/) and Caterina Giglio (http://caterinagiglio.blogspot.com/). The work that both of these gals create is beyond fabulous and I hope that all of you will take a few moments, with a nice cup of tea, and visit their fabulous art blogs.
For some reason Blogger is not letting me include links in the body of my posts and I am trying to figure out why so for now , you will have to cut and paste the above links into your browser to get to the ladies blogs - SIGH!!!

I will be back soon with another post a little Christmas Give Away!!

Warm Hands for A Hero

2011-12-15T08:51:00.000-08:00

It is that time of year again when everyone gets caught up in the holiday hub- bub and often forgets what else is going on in the world. As I get older I have found that I have less and less patience for the overindulgence and the commercialism and the downright greed of some many who feel that they must buy, buy, buy!! Don't get me wrong, I know that this is good of the economy and I create things to sell, but to buy and to get so caught up in the capitalism of the western world to the exclusion of all else, has gotten to be a bit much for me to stomach.

I love to create gifts for those that I love and to let even strangers know that other's care about their well being. It is the commercialism and the totally over the top excess that really gets to me . In our family we are truly blessed to have family members who are living in other parts of the world who are constantly teaching us about the greater planet and it's people and reminding us of how very very fortunate the rest of us are, even in very tough economic times. There are also far to many here on our own continent who are forgotten and marginalized at this time of year, more often than not.

My Sister in Law, Elise, is currently stationed in the wild west of Afghanistan, serving as the head of Women's Education and Health for the country, for USAID. She will not be with her family, who live in Tanzania, for the holidays. She will be working and spending what little down time she has with the troops- one woman among many men from all walks of live and form every experience set imaginable. We are all so very grateful for the group that keep her safe as she travels out into remote country to villages to meet with elders to encourage and advocate for the needs of the female popultion of the the country. Often she is not allowed to speak directly to any of the women but must speak through a male interpreter and negotiate for the education of the women of the village with the male elders. Her crew keep her safe, watch her back, clear out showers and bathroom facilities so she can shower etc. I have discovered that they are all big fans of Dunkin Donuts coffee so frequently, 4 lbs of freshly ground coffee get sent off to let them know, in an very small way, how much they are appreciated. She has been at this job for almost two years now. She was supposed to have a one year tour but decided that she was not ready to turn over her post so she re-uped for a second tour.

If you are a regular reader of my blog , you may remember reading about one of my other hero's, my brother Peter. Peter is Elise's husband and goodness knows her job in Afghanistan would not have been possible without the enthusiastic support and encouragement of her spouse and her two wonderful girls , my nieces Mali and Kate. You can read more about all that Peter is doing , here.

So as Christmas approaches, both of my Hero's, Elise and Peter, have been very much on my mind. I have gathered the Dunkin Donuts coffee, some favorite dark chocolate treats that Elise is partial to, a double pack of Burt's Bee's Lip Balm and a pair of felted wool and cashmere arm warmer fingerless mitts.

I want to sure that my hero has warm hands, even when she has to up late writing her daily reports!!! I am hoping that this meager little parcel will convey to Elise just how much we are thinking of her, praying for her safety, in total awe of the incredibly important work that she is doing and eagerly awaiting her next adventure when she will be reunited with her family for another tour with USAID. I am keeping my fingers crossed that she will be able to come state side during the summer so we can at least share a couple of glasses of wine on the deck before she must hustle off to take on her new duties in Ethiopia.

As you go about your Christmas preparations, please take some time to consider what we can each do to better the lives of other's near and far and perhaps investigate how you might involve your family and friends in sharing a percentage of money spent on stuff and looking into some charitable opportunities that can serve to make huge differences for a family living in a very different place and experiencing very different challenges. There are many ways to get involved with helping the families of our service men and women, a click of the mouse will take you to a slew of options. Some of the organizations that I like to support all year long are Oxfam International and Oxfam America, the Heifer Project and Kiva International.

I wish you all a very thoughtful and Merry Christmas and ask that you be ever mindful of those who work so very hard to make this world a better place for all of us and for those who are struggling desperately to attain a small fragment of security and peace in a very overwhelming and often out of control world!

More Swap Gifts and "Painting Around" Finished

2011-12-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

Day 3, 4, 5 and 6 of our 13 Days Swap!

I was the participant responsible for Day #3. I actually started planning my swap gift way back in October and set about creating the sun[printed fabric for the project then. that is a big first for me- planning that far in advance! I created these Giving Cones from my sun printed damask linen and plastic doilies. I lined the cones with vintage deep green velvet and trimmed them with vintage lace and old buttons and a few beads. I made each one just a bit different with the trims and beads and buttons, as I do not create multiples well!

Day 4 was the responsibility of the awesome and amazing artist and my dear friend Leslie Brier.

Leslie did a wonderful job with her packaging and a little bird told me that her talented daughter designed the bows out of left over holiday napkins!!! Too Cute!
this was the adorable ornament that was inside. Leslie used a condiment cup decorated with sewn and cut crepe paper to form a hot air balloon basket and outfitted the interior with a little bottle brush tree, some vintage trim made into trees and some wonderful vintage images. It looks so kitschy vintage on the tree, I just love it!!
Day 5 was created by my good friend and past On Line group art pal, Ms. Patti G!

Patti brilliantly wrapped her package in some muslin which I will immediately put to use making more sun prints!!

She made a glorious Victorian cone from layers of batting muslin sheet music, silk flowers and cheese cloth. Everywhere one looks you find anew little detail. She adorned the front of my cone with a wonderful black and white image of a little girl holding a doll. Just precious!!!

I just love cones and someday I would love to have a whole tree decorated in different varieties of cones. Patti's art work and style has always been a favorite of mine as it is so delicate and detailed and unlike my loud style! Thank you so much Patti!!

The package waiting for Day 6 was created by the talented artist and gifted teacher Ms Martha Brown. I first met Martha in the same on line group where I met Patti. We have exchanged art work many times and she and I are the ones who hatched the plan to get a Christmas Swap. You may remember seeing some of Martha's awesome sewn art work in magazines such as Sew Somerset.

MArtha always amazes. this time she started off with her wrapping being a recycled heavy duty bag of some sort that she stitched with red thread and then simply stamped with the red 6. Too cool!
Inside was this wonderful glass ornament with collaged paper message that she sealed and dotted with red paint.
On the tree the glass glitters with the lights behind it, so simply elegant and so Martha!!

We have 7 more days to go and I know that I am not alone when I say that it will be hard to have this wonderful exchange end. It has really made the season of giving and caring so much more personal for me. I am so grateful that all of these wonderful artists have agreed to play along with me!!

And now for something completely different!!

Several weeks ago three art friends and I gathered in my studio to try a Painting Around exercise that I wrote about here.

I had a few moments the other day to add some finishing touches and today Tom helped me hang it over the fire place in our family room. One of these days we must paint that end of the room as the walls surrounding the brick are a deep green- it makes the end of the room very dark and it has been this way since we moved in. If this wall were not two stories tall I would have painted it myself, but this is definitely one of those jobs that we need a pro for! This painting, which I ahve called "Painting Around", has definitely brightened up the spot and more over it makes me HAPPY!!!

Below you can see a detail shot.
Next weekend Karen, one of the other painters in this project, and I are going to introduce this idea to our art Group and see if we can give it all another go with a much larger group! That should be very interesting!!! Stay tuned!!

It Starts!!! our 13 Days of Christmas Swap

2011-12-06T15:41:00.000-08:00

13 Packages of Artful Christmas Happy!!!

This has been a long while in the making!! Several of my art pals and I have been wanting to do a Christmas Swap for a long time, we always seem to think of it when we see other artists unveiling their swaps around this time of year. This year we actually managed to get our acts together and plan a swap in time to share with each other at the First of December. Well, almost!! Almost for two reasons, Reason #1 being that we were in search of artists to join us who we knew and who we knew would follow thru . In so doing I managed to loose my list of those we had invited, as I had offered to organize the swap, and ended up having 13 fabulous Art Friends to join in. So it is officially the 13 Days of Christmas Swap!!!!! We DO like to be different after all!! Reason #2 for our different sort of swap was the fact that not all packages arrived to their destinations at the same time. So we waited till all packages were in hand before we opened our first Gift!

Initially each participant made 13 individual ornaments or small art gifts, wrapped them and marked each package with their assigned number. then each artist sent their set of 13 items to me to swap out, then I sent each artist back a box that contained one of each ornament/present from 1-13.

At this point I was sorting all the packages into each person's box! No interruptions allowed!!!

The tower of boxes grew and grew!!! I got help getting it all to the post office.

Then we all waited.

Martha's box finally arrived in Toronto and the Opening began!!

Yesterday was our First Day, so we opened Package #1 from the ever amazing Barbara Burkhard!!!

Dear Barb and I ahve known each other for several years and we became good friends as we were both members of a wonderful on line art Group for several years. I knew that I wanted to have Barb be a part of this swap as soon as Martha and I decided that we had to have one!! Fortunately for all of us , Barb said that she would love to partake. This was Barb's lovely package. Almost too pretty to open.... I said almost!!!

Nestled in that lovely box was this delicate glass ball filled with crystals with a transparency with a wonderful snowman image printed on it. the transparency fit perfectly in the glass globe and is the same image as the card atop the package- clever girl!!!! The ball was topped off by the gorgeous silver ribbon and a lovely little silver bell with the sweetest clear sound! The ball was nestled down into a wonderful felt and lace, snowflake encrusted cuff bracelet!! What an amazing package!

Barb has certainly set the bar quite high for this swap, but I am not at all surprised this is just how my dear friend Barb is- an amazing and generous and loving heart!!!!

Thank you so very much, Barb, for joining us in our swap. What a way to begin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is Barb's wonderful ornament hanging on our tree. This weekend I am going to make time to dig out my special tree that I use just for my art ornaments. After several years of being in several groups I have gotten quite an amazing collection and they all deserve a very special tree. In fact I might have to get a bigger tree!! I am also going to have to work at getting a better picture of this ornament- this one is a bit tricky to photograph.

So today, December 6 was day 2 in our 13 Days Swap. Package #2 was from my good friend Mary Zimany. Mary was another member of the art group that both Barb and I belonged to and she was also quite anxious to revive some of our wonderful art fun from years past.

As I knew she would, Mary apid attention to every possible little detail!! I just adore her packaging! She used a wonderful piece of sari silk yarn to tie the bag closed and i am sure that she knows that this scrap will be going into some fiber project soon!! :)

This was inside! (Please overlook the white dog hair on the red carpet, Buddy the dog just ran thru and left some of himself behind!)

I love the way Mary made use of this darling little glass topped tin to create this wonderful scene. She coated the outside of the tin with colorful alcohol inks and hung the tin from a soft green velvet ribbon and a lovely lace rose. Perfection!!! The two sweet little girls spreading their prayer for Peace On Earth is a very special addition to my collection. Thank you so very much, dear Mary!!

So tomorrow we will all open Package #3!! Stay tuned!!!

It has Been Way to long since my last post!!!!

2011-11-30T05:33:00.000-08:00

My fabric/paper birds at the FCCA Members Gallery holiday Show

Where has the time gone??? Thanksgiving was a blur with lots of pie's and yeast rolls flying in and out of the oven, a 12 Days of Christmas Swap gathered in and swapped out- with no errant left over packages- that is my biggest worry when doing a swap- and some very nice family time thrown in!! PHEW!!!!

So what has been up artistically???????????????????? Well, LOTS, to put it mildly!!!

A group of very wonderful volunteers helped me bedeck the Members Gallery at FCCA for our Annual Holiday Gift Sale that opens this Friday night at the Fredericksburg First Friday Event. We hung close to two hundred small works salon style,

in our small space and filled out the room with some lovely ornaments and jewelry, free form crochet scarves and felted neck wear.
The Holiday Members Gallery Show opened on Friday evening to rave reviews and quite a few sales!! Keep your fingers crossed that we will have many more sales this year. Something new that we are doing for this show is asking each member who submits work to this show to spend two hours over the month serving as a docent. This way when customers and show viewers come to visit, they are met by a friendly super knowledgeable person to assist them and answer any questions. I am sure that this will only help generate more sales as people really enjoy talking to artists about their work.

Some of my Resin coated fabric/paper jewelry for sale at the show.The Saturday following Thanksgiving I hosted an art play day for several good friends. We were going to experiment with a technique that friend Karen Scudder and I have been following on Ro Bruhn's blog, here and here. Karen and I have been trying to carve out time to play since last February and we finally found it, last Saturday. Friends Leslie Brier and Terry Pritzel joined us for a day of Painting Around!

Basically we took our 4 large stretched canvases put them all on one table pushed up tight one against the other and began to paint the canvases in circles as we circled around the canvases. it was sort of musical chairs with paints only using canvases rather than chairs. It was a blast and so very free and exciting. If we started a circle on one egde of a canvas we completed that circle on the canvas that was next to the first. If we liked a certain pattern or the way two colors looked when placed next to each other on one canvas we did the same on another canvas.
Very early in the paint around process.

Leslie and Karen working away!

The canvases after we each worked individually on our own pieces. We each plan to add many more touches to each of our pieces before we will consider them finished.

Leslie Brier with her great piece.

Terry Pitzel with her wonderful piece!

Karen Scudder and her fabulous work!

And a scowling moi with my piece. Not sure why such a serious face- I WAS having a great time- tired I guess! Since this picture was taken I have not had as much time as I would like to go back and add details in black and white paint. Soon I will have the time, I hope!!!

We were all channeling our inspiration form the awesome Ro Bruhn. Take a few moments to hop by her blog for a visit as there is no end to her enthusiasm and fabulous work. She lives in Australia but has a wonderfully infectious personality that makes me feel that we have met several times- SOMEDAY!! she will also be teaching in 2012 at the Upcoming Art IS YOU Australia Retreats!!!

All About the BEADS!!

2011-11-05T10:01:00.001-07:00

This week has been a very beady week!! I created this necklace using my fabric/paper beads that I coated with a layer of ice resin- love how this resin works in this sort of application!
I used the cutest little bronze colored birds as accent pieces along with several vintage chandelier prisms. This is for me to wear as advertising.
I finished my first wire work Ocean Treasures cuff and i love this technique!!! It goes together much more quickly than the bead embroidered cuff and once the beads are on the piece is finished!! the wonderful sand dollar bead in the center of this picture, was made especially for me by StargirlJoolz- you can see all of the beads that she creates here!

And this glorious bead was made by Juls at Studiojuls! I met both of these wonderful artists during the Bead Soup Challenge that I participated in recently!!

This is Flower Power, my latest beaded cuff! It has just been accepted into a national Show titled Fine Crafts. The show runs for the months of December and January at the Fredericksburg Center for teh Creative Arts.
I didn't use a zipper in this one- just lots and lots of flowers and leaves and vintage clip earrings that had flower motifs.
This is my Black and White Cuff that was recently in a National Show titled Texture and Pattern.
This cuff was not an easy one for me as It was so devoid of color! I just had to add the three red hearts to add a bit of pop!!
This week looks a bit less beady! I am on to work on a commission - a fabric paper journal for a Christmas gift. No doubt I will have to fit in a few beads somewhere!!!

A Benefit Auction

2011-10-29T08:19:00.001-07:00

This week I ahve been busily creating some pieces for an Art Auction to benefit a wonderful local artist who is in the middle of a massive battle against a very aggressive brain cancer. Tracey is in her mid forties and took herself to the Emergency Room this past early summer with what was thought to be a bad migraine. Instead it was determined that she had three tumors growing in her brain. She was taken to surgery and the tumors were removed- thank goodness they were able to get to them and disks saturated with chemotherapeutic drugs were placed at the tumor sites. Then the real battle began, 6 weeks of daily radiation treatments and daily doses of Chemo.

Tracey is incredibly fit and active and a very gifted artist and a wonderful person. She is married to a Marine and lives in Fredericksburg. Women Tracey's age are not supposed to be afflicted by this sort of Brain Cancer. Now Tracey is continuing her fight down at Duke University Medical School where she has been enrolled in the Brain Cancer Program for this specific type of Cancer. Tracey is very connected to the arts Community if Fredericksburg and several of her closest friends are arranging an Arts Auction to help the Clarks deal with the mounting costs associated with traveling back and forth to Duke for further tests and treatments. As Mr Clarke works for the US Marines, they are blessed with good health coverage.

I have met Tracey three times, but she made a large impact on my life as an artist and as a very open and caring woman. She was a featured artist at FCCA in the Members Gallery last June. As I am the Coordinator of events in the Members Gallery, it was my pleasure to meet with her during the hanging of her exhibit and to introduce her to my daughter as her work depicting animals is something that Becca is fascinated by. Tracey is completely self taught. She spent several moments talking with Becca and explaining how very important it is to stick with something and to constantly practive to achieve ones goals. to learn more about Tracey and to see her incredible art you can go to here blog, here.

This is a small example of the amazing work that Tracey does. this is one of the birds that was on for sale at Tracey's June Show at FCCA. She also had a Black Capped Chickadee that I was in love with but someone else beat me to it!

Now we are preparing for the Art Auction the will take place on Saturday November 5th from 4-6pm at Tracey's church New City Fellowship. I hope that I will see many of my local friends at the auction, artists or not!!

The hand felted and beaded Christmas Ornaments at the top of this post will also be included in the Auction but my major effort has been concentrated in creating this special piece. To create this collaged necklace, I have used a vintage name plate fitted with some of my fabric paper domed with resin, as a focal .

I have combined fresh water pearls, hand made Tyvek beads, tiny brass bird figures, a Brazilian opal, some lavender crystals, some hand dyed silk ribbons and a tiny charm printed with the word Hope. The chains that I use were gathered from vintage jewelry and a very old watch chain.

After finishing this piece I realized that it speaks strongly piece of the quote by Emily Dickinson about hope,.

“Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all"

I have just discovered that Tracey also maintains a blog about animals titled "Not One Sparrow". I have made this piece in honor of Tracey and all that she is going through and her immense compassion for all of God's creatures. I hope that someone will love it as much and be generous with their contributions to Tracey's fight for her life.

Tracey and her husband Craig ,and least importantly I, would ask that you all include Tracey in your thoughts and prayers for a strong and decisive victory against this insidious cancer.

Power Suit Challenge Quilts Part 2

2011-10-25T04:27:00.001-07:00

The Power Suit Challenge Quilt Show is an amazing compilation of 18 x18 inch Art Quilts done in a wonderful array of styles using both traditional and more Artsy methods of expression.

This amazing Owl was done by Kate from Fairfax City , VA. I really love this quilt! See I told you it was difficult to pick just one favorite!!!!

For this owl Kate used lots of the very textured suiting samples that she got in her challenge pack and she added many upholstery fabrics from her own stash! It was real pleasure to meet Kate at the show!!
When you look at these quilts remember that you can click on the picture and see an even larger version!!

This quilt was is an example of the lighter side of the Power Suit- a bathing beauty with her Blackberry.!!
The color and design in this Robot quilt made lots of people stop and take a long look!! Wonderful!

This is an example of a more traditional pattern with a great use of so many of the samples of both the shirt and suiting fabrics.

This wonderful piece is right up my alley in terms of thinking where the real power of the world should be centered. This quilt is by quilt artist Betsy Stone.

This quilt is a masterpiece of piecing techniques! The detail and use of the fabrics is amazing!!
This quilt also made me laugh at all the little cloned suits all tied together and walking in lock step- sad really!
I love the sentiment and colors in this quilt. this artist chose not to use the sample fabrics and that was totally ok!
I loved the detail and the use of tiny pieces in this tradionally designed quilt with lots of more modern flair. The artist sprinkled all sorts of clothing labels all over the wonderful red borders!

This story quilt was created by my good friend Barb Boatman. She used lots of the sample fabrics and added pictures of herself in various suits from through out her various careers. She is most comfortable, these days on her red Harley Motorcycle!!
This is another Wonder Woman depiction full of lots of great color!!
This quilt collaged almost all of the components of the Challenge pack in a very creative way.
This quilt was the subject of a very long conversation between two men who were spending lots of time discussing all the quilts and trying to figure out the point of view of each before reading the artist's statement. It was lots of fun to watch the men get so involved in studying each quilt- something that is not often seen at other quilt shows!!

This is just a small sampling of the 108 Quilts that are on Display at Artistic Artifacts in Alexandria thru the end of November. A special Show CD has been created and is available for Purchase thru Artistic Artifacts for just $10. The money from the cd will help defray the costs incurred when this show goes on the road!! For details about that little bit of news you will ahve to get in touch with Cyndi Souder and Judy Gula!!

Opening Night- The Power of The Flower

2011-10-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

Opening Night of the Power Suit Art Quilt Show was a smashing success!! Cyndi Souder of Moonlighting Quilts and Judy Gula ,proprietress of Artistic Artifacts did a fabulous job with this first challenge from start to finish!! It was such fun to be there to see all of the wonderful quilts and to see all of the artist's various takes on the concept of Power Suit. Each artist had the choice of using the sample books of shirt fabrics and suit fabrics that were a part of each challenge pack. Other fabrics could be added and it was not required that the sample fabrics be used at all.

The only thing that would have made the evening better was to have had all of the Art Quilt Artists in attendance! As it was we had about 50 of us artists there. The place was packed with visitors and artists. It was such fun!!

This is a picture of Judy, on the right and Cyndi, on the left, making announcements and introducing the next Challenge. Many of us almost did not recognize Judy the Glamorous!! We all know Judy the Artist. Last night she had a new , beautiful hair cut, had on make up and was wearing serious pumps!!!

There were 108 art quilts from 105 artists from all across America and Canada. 160 art packets were handed out and 108 were returned!!!!! Judy and Cyndi said that they would have been thrilled to get back 50- needless to say they are overwhelmed with the response and the beautiful quilts! Each quilt measures 18 inches by 18 inches.

So the quilts: I took lots of pictures and I am going to just post them for you now!!

Hear is Cyndi Souder standing by the portrait of her Dad. this is her very first Portrait quilt and it is a stunner!! the shading and the detail and use of fabrics is amazing! Such talent!!

Judy ended up creating two quilts. Her quilts were all about the Suffragettes that marched on Washington back in the 20's. Many of the women pictured here were imprisoned in Lorton Penitentiary. This prison has now been converted into a marvelous art center, called the Workhouse.

It was so fascinating to look at each of these art quilts and see where or if each artists had used the fabric samples that had been part of the Challenge Packs.

This is my quilt -Power of the Flower. In my piece I took all of the light colored shirting fabrics and sun printed them with a plastic doily used as a mask. I also used the doily to sun print the darker shirting fabrics with green paint to make the leaves. The leaves are double sided so I could attach them so as to allow them to have dimension. I used suiting samples to create the vases and the background is a sun printed piece of damask linen splashed with rock salt to achieve the mottling effect. I used all of the buttons in the challenge packet along with many of my own vintage buttons as the flower centers. Each of the flowers is represented by a Yo Yo - a very old quilting technique that was used for making wonderful scrap coverlets.

If you click on the above picture it will enlarge so you can read my artists statement. Basically I did not want to go with the literal representation of the Power Suit. As it is hard to have much respect for most of the men and women who wear suits and hold power in the world these days, I went with flower power because of all of the impact that gardening , growing and flowers have had in my own life. Agriculture has such power in our world, the power to feed and to purify water and hold back mountainsides. It has the potential for changing our world for the better in the future if we will only embrace the concept of climate change and act now to protect our environment. So Yah , I guess that if you really look in the weeds, I did get political! Who me?????

That would be me with my quilt.

This was one of my favorites. We were tasked with picking the quilt that made us Think, the quilt that made us Laugh and the quilt that was our Favorite. This was an impossible task- I really liked them all! I just loved the whole Birthday Suit Idea and the way it was accomplished!

I met the gal who made this quilt titled Cognition. She has a degree in Physics and works for NASA in Greenbelt Maryland. Amy was delightful and I really enjoyed her piece. She had drawn all sorts of numerical equations around the cogs that she made out of the wool suitings that she had felted. Clever Girl!! The bottom border piece is a piece of waistband from a pair of jeans. She said that her power suit- daily attire- was a pair of jeans so she had to include it!

This quilt titled Victorian Power Suit was made by my good friend Linda Morgan. Linda is a doll and a very talented collage artist who works primarily with paper. You would never know that she was not a textile artist after looking at this piece! I believe that this is her very first quilt!!!! This piece is amazing! She did all of the bead work and the back ground is layered with the suitings and all sorts of laces and then beads and buttons. The skirts of this gal are made from men's ties!! I just adore this piece!
Her is a picture of the artist herself standing below her wonderful quilt!! She had so much fun that she ahs signed on for the Arts and Old Lace Challenge!! Way to go Linda!!

this wonderful piece is titled Flower Power by renowned Art Quilt Artist Jamie Fingal!! It was so exciting to see Jamie's work in person. Her work has a very specific color and style and i knew instantly that this was her piece!!! Jamie is a wonderful gal and an awesome artist, click on her name and stop by her blog for a visit! Jamie described her power suit as being made of color and fun and flowers- Perfection!!

This quilt really caught my eye because of the unique construction of the arm with the hand doing the hand shaking. So cool!

This quilt made me chuckle!! i love the way the artist depicted the Evolution of the Power Suit! So clever!!!

this quilt really caught my eye because of the intricate work done to construct the 3-D figures of the Train Engineer and Conductor. I don't remember what the artists statement said but I am thinking that there must have been some railroad men in the artists family history!! Beautifully done!

This quilt was very eye catching and beautifully made!! The men's shirt fabrics were the back ground for this fabulous rendition of the Wonder Woman suit of Power!!

this was an unusual quilt for this topic. You can see that the pennants were made from the suiting fabrics. I loved the color in this quilt but again unfortunately, I don't remember the artist's statement.

I really love the graphic quality of this quilt. I have a very hard time doing monochromatic work and I always am drawn to it when I see it so beautifully crafted. The right hand side of this piece is actually made from an old tux complete with studs!

This quilt is full of family history and great collage techniques.

This is a beautiful quilt titled Pearls. the artist speaks of the power women in her life when she was growing up and their power suits were always finished off with a classic strand of pearls!! I love how she did the tiny patchwork background and then did the wonderful bead embroidery with the pearls .

The color and the concept of this piece really caught my eye. It is called Skin Deep. Being a scientist by training, I immediately got what the artists was saying here with her quilt. She said that" We are all born with our own Power Suit- our skin." this is her anatomical representation of the layers of our skin, our largest and super powerful and important organ!!! Love it!!

These portraits of four dogs are beautifully done to depict the artists version of a Power Suit!!

There were several quilts about the environment in and around Washington DC. One cannot live in this area and get far away from it for long. The frustration on all sides is palpable. This quilt made me chuckle because of the depiction of the Suits with their pants on Fire!! Clever!!! It really reflects the frustration that we all have with Congress!!

This beautiful piece was the only quilt in the show done in a Crazy Quilt style. This was made by Art Quilt artist Brian Haggard. Brain was the only man that entered a piece in the challenge. Maybe with the next challenge we will get submissions by a few more men. Art Quilts are not just for girls you know! this piece is beautifully done and I was really pleased to hear that Judy had just received Brian's new book ! the book is called Crazy Quilted Memories and it is a beautifully done, new take on crazy quilting!! I am pleased to have it to add to my textile book collection. Brian really comes at Crazy Quilts in a whole new way and the directions, samples and embroidery and embellishment ideas are very inspiring!!

Cat Woman in The Capital was a popular favorite!

As was this anime style character that was made by an artist who works in the comic book industry!! It was all so fascinating!!

I have several more quilts to share with you but it is getting very late and I am afraid that I am going to make a mistake and loose all of the work that I have done on the post thus far.

SOooo, I am going to say good Night and come back tomorrow and share the remaining quilts that I have pictures of. I hope that you have enjoyed the show so far, there is so much more to see than what I have shown you here!!

The Power Suit Art Quilt Challenge- A FREE Party!!!

2011-10-18T16:26:00.001-07:00

This weekend, Saturday evening to be exact, is the big Opening of the Power Suit Art Quilt Challenge at Artistic Artifacts in Alexandria VA.!! this is going to be quite the big event and has been about 8 months in the making!! This all began last winter when friend and wonderful teacher and quilter, Cyndi Souder of Moonlighting Quilts was asked if she had any use for some sample books of fabrics from a men's tailor in DC. Cyndi ,of course, said yes! A full truck load of sample books later, the Power Suit Challenge was cooked up with the help of quilt artist Judy Gula.

If you happened to be at the Cincinnati Quilt Show this Spring you might have heard all about this challenge. Many quilters from all over the US and Canada have sent in over 100, 18 in X 18 in quilts that reflect what they were inspired to create by the term Power Suit.

More details about the specifics of the challenge can be found here!

Basically Cyndi and Judy made up free packets containing a fabric sample book of shirt fabrics and a fabric sample book of suit fabrics, an old silk tie and several old buttons. We could use some all or none of the fabrics, but our quilt had to be 18 x 18 and had to be based on the phrase Power Suit in some way.

The Party to Reveal all of the Quilts is Saturday the 22nd of October at Artistic Artifacts in Alexandria from 4pm to 8 pm and it is open to the Public and Free!!!! A free Party with fabulous artwork, delightful artists and Nibbles!!! The show will be hanging throughout the month of November so if you MUST miss the party, you can come by and see the quilts later.

You may remember the picture at the top of this post as I posted a similar photo when I was hatching my plans for my quilt. As most plans do , my immediate thoughts on the quilt morphed into something very different but with some vague similarities. Judy and Cyndi have asked that we not reveal the designs of our quilts till after our Opening Gala, so this shot will have to do! I will be back with more pictures of the Opening and specifics on my quilt and lots of pictures of other quilts, next week!

Come on out and join us on Saturday in Alexandria for the Opening Gala of the Power Suits Art Quilt Challenge, if you can!! We would love to have each and every one of you there!

Sun Prints Follow Up

2011-10-12T12:21:00.001-07:00

After yesterdays post, and showing the prints as they were drying in the sun after all of the work of setting them up, I thought I should share the results!! Seems only fair, right???

This was the 'in the sun drying shot' that you saw in the last post. The following shots show the prints after the botanical elements have been removed.

This print is the results of the print with the yellow daisy like flowers. You can see that the pollen from the center of each flower leaves a stain on the fabric. I have tried to wash the pollen stain out but it refuses to budge. Another wonderful element added form sun printing with botanicals , as far as I am concerned!!! This print was done on a piece of vintage linen hand towel and you can see the open work stitching along the bottom edge.
The tiny little star like spots are actually floral prints from this flower.
This is the perennial form of verbena and I grow it as it is a favorite with the bees and the butterflies. It does seed itself quite vigorously so I do pull out many seedlings in the spring. To use these florets in the sun prints, I pull out each little stemmed flower and place it face down on the wet cloth. The stems stick straight up in the air and seal very nicely to the fabric leaving a nice crisp edge. It does take quite a bit of time to prep each blossom and carefully place it, but the results are worth it!!
The flowers also happen to be a very intense violet and sway and wave in the breeze so wonderfully with many butterflies and bees drinking away- such fun to have in the garden!!!

You also saw this shot in my last post. Here are the hydrangea blossoms all laid out for printing.

This is one of the prints from the above picture. I used a piece of white eyelet cotton to print on.
Here you can see a mix of blossoms and leaves with the verbena florets mixed in. It is always so interesting to see how the paint moves to blur the edges or leave sharp crisp edges. You never know what has happened till you remove the mask elements.

I have just posted several sets of Leafy greens sun prints to my Etsy Shop. You can see them here. They are all 5 X 7 panels of fine cotton that have been sun printed with leaves and foliage to accompany the blossom and lace sun prints that have been previously listed.

And now, here it is, a picture of 'Zelda' Woodford. Now anyone who knows Becca or if you are friends with her on Face Book, had better not breath a word of this posting!!!!!!! Don't You DARE!!!!! She will kill me!!!!

I did want to show you the results of our costuming efforts. She was so thrilled with it all and went off to High School excited and happy to see what kind of response was in store for her.

REMEMBER No Comments to Becca about this picture!!!!!

Life is a Button Jar!

2011-10-08T06:53:00.000-07:00

Upon returning home for the Montpelier VA Fiber Festival, I stopped at a wonderful sign covered cottage with a yard overflowing with salvaged wooden shutters, jars, planters, cans, iron garden ornaments and wonderful stuff. The outside spoke of wonderful treasure to be explored inside and I was not disappointed!

I found several bits and pieces of lace and some doilies and then this magnificent Blue canning jar stuffed full of buttons and bits. It was not as clean and pristine as you see it now but it was loaded with buttons all strung, by type, on cords to keep them organized. It was such fun to dump it out and go thru the contents and to think about the person who spent so much time and care to keep the buttons all sorted. After a good washing in a bowl of hot water and Dawn dish washing soap, I went thru the contents for a third time. below you can see pictures of some of the best cleaned treasure.

I would love to know what these red hook type things are. Any ideas??? They are made from sturdy red plastic have three holes in the round plate and have the rounded hook that sits on top of a stem. Are they for stockings to attach to girdles??? I am clueless! As you can see, they were all neatly strung together.

This is an enormous string of vintage cut crystal nail head beads. they are flat on one side and rounded and faceted on the other. the hole for attaching runs along the same plane as the flat back. There are so many that I am going to bag them up and offer them in groups of 12 in my Etsy shop.
I found all manner of Mother of Pearl beauties, with shanks and without and in every size from very large to tiniest of tiny!!! LOVE LOVE These!!!
There were also several varieties of vintage plastic buttons that will be added to other collections and may find their way to my Etsy shop as well!

I finished another chain maille piece in a new design. this piece has been sent off to my niece Mali who is now a sophomore at Colgate university. Her 20th (OMG< Cannot believe this) was in September but by now she has learned that Aunt Elizabeth is very rarely on time with Birthday gifts but they are usually worth waiting for !! This pattern is called Vertebrae and was taught to me by the amazing Carol at Beads on Parade in Fredericksburg. Carol's teaching abilities are amazing. She will sit down at the drop of a hat to teach any chain maille pattern that one wishes to learn!! I added the silver Magnatuma beads as I must add more beads to everything. the movement in this pattern is such fun. I hope Mali will enjoy wearing it!

As we finally saw the return of the sun I spent a good deal of time setting up for some new sun prints. This time I kept track of the time that it takes me to prepare my pieces for their sun exposure. In the pictures below you can see 6 panels with floral elements placed on the wet paint covered fabric, just after they were placed in the sun. It took 2 and a half hours to prep, place and arrange these panels for drying!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Each foliage or floral element is gathered, placed and secured either by straight pins or by a firm finger squish, tot he wet fabric. this is not done by simply sprinkling the elements over the fabric. I was very surprised to note the amount of time that this process took! No wonder my back hurt when I have done this standing and hunched over a low bench. In future I must set up a station where I can sit or stand comfortably, for this part of the process.!
These two panels were covered with individual hydrangea bracts and various leaves. the prints turned out very well and I hope to have them available very soon in my Etsy Shop!!

As if this were not enough, daughter dear let me know that she wanted to participate in some high school homecoming activities and she needed a Zelda costume by today. That request came on Friday. So with promises to help in all tasks, we set off for the fabric store with pictures of Princess Zelda- of video game fame, in hand. Becca painted fabric panels and crafted neck plates and jewels from polymer clay while I modified a dress pattern to become a top and skirt, in the EXACT color combo, to complete the ensemble. She has promised to let me take pictures as she heads out the door to Animation Day tomorrow. Her partner will be dressed up as Dark Link and they will join other teams of kids who have paired up for this School Spirit event. I promise to sneak a few pictures onto my next blog post, as long as you all promise not to tell her that I have done so!!!

Today, I hope to rearrange my sewing area and prepare for the next round of projects that have deadlines attached!!

I will try to keep my blogging duties more timely, but if you don't hear form me for a few days you know that I am very busy!!!!

Fungus Amoungus!!!!!

2011-09-30T05:35:00.001-07:00

Fantastical and amazing structures have been erupting all over our yard during the last 10 days of rain and damp. This particular fungus appeared in our back yard and is approximately the size of a dinner plate!!!! Fascinating!!

In the Central East Coast States we have been treated with about 10-12 days of rain damp, humidity and more rain- MUSHROOM weather to say the least!!!

It is finally looking like we are going to be freed from this weather pattern and move right on into Fall. I cannot say that I am upset by this . I love the Fall. I will be so very excited to have some crisp and SUNNY days with deep violet blue skies to enjoy!!! hopefully these days are fast approaching!!!!
These sweet little shrooms were around last week . I love all of the details of the structures in this particular variety!
Here is another of the dinner plate sized orange ones. this one was collecting water in the cup, perhaps a fairies bathtub???? .I would not have noticed it at the back of the yard unless I had seen a bird fly down and land on it's edge, for a drink!!!

This shot is a bit fuzzy , i know but I love this little mushroom standing off by itself!!

How many mushrooms have you got growing in your yard, these days.??????

Etched And Layered

2011-09-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I managed to squeeze in a class at Art Bliss, a small local to me, Art Retreat held in Sterling VA. This is a new and still small retreat with some great teachers and an intimate group of students. Sometimes small is really very nice and this was one of those times. I went to this retreat as a "Day Tripper" just to take a class in Etching Metal taught by artist Diane Cook. Diane just happens to have also been in the bead Soup Party with me and I found many others there that I recognized from that recent experience. Diane's class was titled Etched and Layered : a guide to guerrilla etching. The piece that you see above is one of the pieces that I created in the class. I etched two additional brass cuffs but they are in need of more work. I am considering adding a dangling bit to this piece as well, just not sure yet ! You all know how I feel about dangling bits- MORE is BETTER!!!
I am really thrilled with how this piece turned out!!
If you are curious about metal Etching and want to know a very simple and complete method, I would highly recommend a class with Diane Cook! She is a truly delightful Texan with a wonderful sense of humor and a true desire to share everything that she knows about this process with her students. She is the type of teacher that I like to model myself after. All but the Texas part- no offense to Texans- I just can' t take the heat!!! LOL!!!
I found the wonderful center piece in a jar of filthy dirty buttons in an antique mall in Oklahoma. It is a Victorian Crystal button with metal bezels encasing the crystals. A true find!! I have been saving it for a long time, for just the right project. I wanted this button to be used in something for myself and this was the perfect spot!!!
On another topic, last week I painted up some sheets of Tyvek and made some beads. I was going for a silk look with these beads and I think that this will work. This is a great way to get the look and super sturdy beads without using silk fabric and dealing with lots of fraying threads and delicate fabric!! More on this project to come soon!!

Soups On!!! My Bead Soup Creation- The Big Reveal!

2011-09-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

You may remember that I recently joined a group called Bead Soup. I exchanged a group, or "Soup" of Beads with a partner who had been matched with me by the amazing Lori Anderson, the moderator extraordinaire of this group. The next three pictures are reminders of the amazing hand made lamp work glass beads that my partner Christine Brandel, sent to me. The whole object of this exchange was to give our partners something that they might not normally pick for themselves, a combination of beads that would cause their partners to stretch outside their comfort zones.

I have to tell you that when I opened the wonderfully wrapped package from Christine, I was thrilled!!!! I was so in love with the colors and the shapes and so very flattered that these beads had been created just for this exchange and just for me!!!! Some times synchronicity just happens and this was one of those times. How was Christine to know that lately whenever I work with Red I always add a touch of turquoise or bright sky blue?? This is a new combo for me, so new in fact I was not sure that I had even blogged about it!!!

Now look at the clasp!!! Spectacular , don't you agree??!!

And here are her faux Milk Glass beads, also wonderful!! I adore the rounds with bumps!!
So after opening and thinking and running the beads thru my fingers and closely studying the beauty of each bead, blogging about the soup and thinking some more, it was time to come up with a plan! What was I going to do???

I was in love with the soup, but I am not a beader who strings beads. I love to do bead embroidery and bead free form weaving and what I call bead collage. Where was I going with this particular mix. This was the part that was challenging for me.!!

So my first step was to go through my stash and pull out anything that I thought might work with my soup. I went through the reds and got several different types, found some vintage white glass beads that I had forgotten that I had and found some blue lucite flowers and the perfect color of #8 sky blue seed beads.

On the left above is the soup from Christine and on the right is what I pulled from my stash.

By this time I had decided that I wanted the wonderful clasp to be in the front of the piece as it should have a major role in the design. One of my favorites from the soup are the ruffled disks that there were three of. So I used one of those to embellish the clasp. the clasp would close the necklace on the right hand front side to the piece. Then I set about stringing and fretting!!!

And here it is! First As I wear it and then for a full display of the entire piece.

I took these pictures in the late afternoon sunlight as it was the Only sunlight we had all day. it does throw some serious shadows but it really makes the beads sparkle and come to their full beauty so I had to include them!! You just had to get a small idea of how wonderful Christine's hand made beads are. She has an ETSY shop called A Hot Piece of Glass and I would be thrilled if you would pop in and take a look at her wonderful creations!!

I also created a pair of earrings to go along with the necklace. I usually don't wear sets of things but I felt that this necklace really called for a sassy pair of earrings to accompany it!! I wanted to highlight the wonderful white hobnail beads that resemble the vintage milk glass pieces. I added a blue Lucite blossom with a red drop center and a deep ruby sparkling crystal bead to top it all off. So all of the beads in the earrings are somewhere in the necklace.

I wore the necklace for the first time today and I had three people comment on it!!! I think that this is a piece that I will be wearing often! It is bold colorful and unusual enough to go with many of my outfits and such a fun piece to wear.
There were a total of approximately 362 participants in this exchange from all over the world (5 continents and 21 countries)!!!!. The entire process was beautifully orchestrated by the amazing artist Lori Anderson. For the full list of participants with all of their blogs showing all of the wonderful pieces created just for this reveal click here.

This was a huge labor of love done with great style and a huge commitment of time and vast quantities of energy and patience and I would like to personally thank and bless Lori for doing it ALL!!!

I am planning on visiting every blog on the list but I will probably do it in groups of 6-8 at a time. I know that it will take time as I love blogging and I adore beads and I love to be inspired! I know that I will be filled with ideas and notions to bead and there is only so much that one can absorb at one time , and I MUST absorb it ALL!!!! So SLOW and STEADY will get me through all of this beady luciousness!!!

My very first stop however, will be Christine's Blog to see what magic she ahs wrought with the soup that I sent to her. Just to jog your memory and to entice you to make that Blog Hop along with me, here is the soup that I sent to her!

Remember the full list of Participants and Partner Pairs HERE. So hop on in and enjoy the Soup!

Revealing a Sun Print- Sharing the Squeal of Delight!!!!!

2011-09-15T18:00:00.001-07:00

I am living in full blown surface design addiction at the moment!! the technique of choice is sun printing.

I simply cannot get enough!

I am constantly on the lookout for items, plants, leaves, stencils, whatever that will make good masks and therefore create interesting sun prints.

Yesterday, I had 5 foam boards loaded with different bits of cotton all painted and masked and sitting out on the lawn in the western sun. I know the neighbors must wonder what the heck I am doing now.! In fact I wish that they would ask, so I could share the Squeal of the Reveal with them.

It is that much fun!!!

I do guarantee that if you do this YOU WILL SQUEAL with delight when your peel off the masks to reveal the print, after the fabric has dried. It is an involuntary reaction not to be denied!!!

Above, you can see a painted piece of cotton covered by a very lacy plastic place mat that I found at some thrift store recently. Keep your eyes peeled for such jewels, they are out there!!!

I enlisted Becca's help for these pictures as one needs two hands to do this and I needed to capture the moment of the SQUEAL!!! I can hear you!!!
Look at the beauty that the peel of the place mat has revealed!!! I am really amazed at the detail that this fabric can pick up with this place mat as a mask. Even the tiniest hole is shown in the dried print!!!! LOVE ,LOVE, LOVE!!!!! Who would have imagined such wonders waited beneath that dark green plastic!!!??????????

These are several of the other prints that I did yesterday. When the prints done using the leaves and flowers are dry, the petals and leaves have shrunken and sometimes stuck to the fabric. The reveal is somewhat less dramatic with the smaller organic bits but the SQUEAL is no less delighted!!!!
My favorite of the day besides the plastic place mat has got to be the grape leaves at the top of the picture below!!
I have no idea how I managed to achieve the mottled look under the leaves- the leaves are stuck tightly down onto the wet fabric, but I certainly do like it!!!!! One of the only problems with this technique is repeat-ability- one can never count on it!! So each bit of printed fabric is a one of a kind unique individual. That result happens to be fine with me!!!

If you are interested in giving sun printing a go you will need Seta Color Fabric paints from Pebo. The best place to get them is here!!! If you do go for it, be sure to work with some friends , you will have a SQUEALLY GOOD TIME!!!!

The Feathers Have Flown!!

2011-09-13T05:55:00.000-07:00

These feathers should now be in the hands of Jude Hill for the Magic Feather Project. I think that I am going to stitch a few more to send along. Jude has posted many wonderful tutorials on her Magic Feathers Blog about how to stitch feathers. If you have not heard of the magic Feather Project, give yourself a treat and click on the above link to find out what it is all about!!! I stitched these feathers before I ahd watched any of her instruction and now after watching them , I feel that I could have done a much better job with these!! I wanted her to have a sun printed feather for her collection as well. The sun prints capture such amazing detail with the found feathers that I have used, and I did not think that she would get another one quite like this . I just love them!!

From Feathers I will move to birds and my Rust Printed Bird Fabric Fragment packs that I am now selling in my ETSY shop. If you want to take a peek and see all of the various prints available you can go here. I think that I will be listing three packs of feather sun prints soon!

I also have birds with a feather packs!!
You can find my Vintage Button Stack Earrings at my Etsy Site as well!!

Last week I learned a new chain maille pattern from the Chain Maille Wench at Beads on Parade in Fredricksburg. Carol calls herself the Chain maille wench so don't be offended!! Carol is an amazing artist. Many of the chain maille designs that she teaches are ones that she has created herself. She also designs incredible seed bead jewelry. Several of us are trying to encourage her to write a book but she says that as soon as she does that, it all becomes work and not fun!!! Hard to argue with that logic!! This bracelet is called Vertebrae and just to jazz it up a bit and make it chunkier, i added the small rigs with the magnatama beads on the edges. By adding two different colored beads in the same manner to each of the rings, I have created a piece that from one side looks mostly silver and when you flip it over it is mostly black ! I am planning to make a similar bracelet for my niece Mali's birthday (Ahhem her birthday is today- yes I am LATE, Again!!!) For Mali's bracelet I will use bright red rings for the large central rings and turquoise for the smaller rings and add silver beads for some extra BLING!!

Recently I was so inspired by my wonderfully talented and creative friend Ro Bruhn. If you have not visited Ro's wonderful blog and seen all of her luscious colorful work- You simply MUST DO IT NOW!!! JUST DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She had posted some foam tray stamps that she had made and was talking of holding a class to teach the technique. I would soo sooo love to visit Ro and to play with her but she lives in Australia!! One of my dreams once college tuition's are paid for and other bills are all gone, is to pop over the ocean for a nice long visit with all of my Aussie blogging buddies!! Yes A girl must dream!! Any way her post inspired me to have a go at foam carving for stamps and I wanted to attempt one as detailed as she had. mine are not nearly as well designed as hers but it was quick and they work beautifully and it was great fun and very relaxing!! Try it! All you need is some clean foam meat trays and a very dull pencil or a ball point pen that has run out of ink!! If you do try it, the best way to apply paint to these is with a brayer!

Well this post has been a bit of a hodge podge but I would not want anyone to think that I was stumbling about with nothing to do and nothing to show for my time!!!

happy Creating everyone!!

Colors in the Rain

2011-09-06T17:44:00.000-07:00

Last evening and most of the day today it has just rained buckets!! I love rainy days especially when I don't have to be out in it!! So after I got Becca up and off to her first day of High School, I decided to play for a bit. I put aside the Should Do's and the Must do's and just had some color play time!!

Lately I have been very drawn to the wonderful work of Roben Marie Smith. She has had several articles in some of my favorite magazines and she has wonderful tutorial videos on her blog. She plays and paints with abandon and I would love to be able to achieve the carefree sort of art attitude that she exudes. Her videos are delightful! I love her little finger tap routine- Now you HAVE to click on the link above to go to see what I mean!!!

So i dug out the paper and the acrylic paints and the acrylic inks, spray bottles and Gesso, brushes, glue sticks and paper bits, and went to town . The page above was my first attempt. The shot below shows the first of several mailing envelopes that I have begun to use to send off things to friends.
All that I can say is once you start working with Roben's techniques make sure that you have a big space cleared as you will not want to stop and you need lots of room to lay things out to dry!! such wonderful fun!!!

After a bit of lunch I decided I needed to get back to a few deadlines that will be coming up quickly . These pieces are all about color, so I was able to keep the color theme of the day going strong! Below you can see three small art quilts that I am working on all created from my sun printed and hand dyed fabrics. I have not decided yet whether these pieces will form a triptych or will hang alone. I suppose I don't have to figure that out till they are stitched and finished. For now I have plenty of stitching to do!

These two are still in the not sure still planning stages. It looks like we are in for a bit of soggy weather so I should be able to get these all done by the end of the week. Fingers crossed and the creek don't rise too too high!!!

Newly Published in Crazy Quilt Gatherings

2011-09-04T13:58:00.000-07:00

Pat Winter's wonderful Crazy Quilt magazine has just come out with the Fall issue. I am so excited to have an article published in this creative stitching journal. Pat does a fabulous job gathering articles about techniques, various artist's work and wonderful places to shop and build every Crazy Quilters Stash. The magazine, Crazy Quilt Gatherings, is available for order here. Several years ago I participated in a Crazy Quilters (CQ) Puzzle Piece Swap. I created my puzzle pieces using my version of fabric/paper. Pat was very complimentary of my technique and the results and inquired about specifics. When she began publishing her magazine and was looking for articles on interesting techniques, my tutorial came to mind.
I certainly don't expect anyone to read the article here!! If you are interested you cna order your own copy form Mag Cloud. Once ordered, the magazine will be printed and sent right to your door., It is a wonderful system and Pat is getting lots of orders and tons of wonderful feedback!! this is a lot of work!!!
My article was a two page spread. The end result was showing how one could use their own crafted fabric/paper in their Crazy quilting designs. Here you can see a piece that I have incorporated as the central piece of this bag flap. If you click on the picture and enlarge you can see the layers of text and illustration beneath the flowers and butterfly colored images. I stitched this piece into the bag front piece using my sewing machine and I have begun to embellish with trims ,beads and silk ribbon embroidery.

I hope to have the purse finished soon so I can carry some of my own work on my shoulder. If you have any interest in Crazy Quilting I urge you to run on over to Pat Winter's wonderful blog! You are in for a real treat!!!

Bijoux Noir in a National Show!

2011-08-30T05:01:00.000-07:00

Setting goals and seeking challenges is something that I have been working on for most of this year. I have felt a need to stretch my artistic intentions to find my artistic place among all of the different media that I am attracted to. My mind responds like a magpie towards shiny objects !!!

Is this just the way for me to express myself or is there a big pot of artistic media stew that will suit my style more appropriately? If there is, will I ever know what the ingredients are when I come upon them?? A bit too philosophical for what I need to accomplish today!! SO here it is the short and sweet version!

This summer I challenged myself to work in a very tight and constrained color palette and to submit one of my Beaded Collage Cuffs to a National Show.

The Show would be the Texture and Pattern Art Call from the Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts. (It is so wonderful to have a local venue that puts out National Calls for art and has Legitimate Professional Artists as jurors for the Shows. The only gallery in the Fredericksburg area that does this, I might add!)

Bijoux Noir is the black and white collage cuff that I created and dropped off for consideration , in late July. The juror seemed to like my submission and my piece will be for sale as a part of the texture and Pattern Show that opens this Friday September 2 at FCCA.!!
AS you can see, this piece has a multitude of components. Many of these pieces are one of a kind and make this cuff, like all that I create a totally unique individual! The square white piece in front above is a vintage mother of pearl button. there are other rhinestone and glass vintage buttons sprinkled about along with a vintage rhinestone earring, very old crystal sequins, lots of glass seed beads, a vintage cameo button, and three red glass hearts for a tiny pop of color.
This was not an easy task for me to accomplish. I found it quite difficult to hold to such a limited color palette. My hand and mind constantly needed to be reigned in from going for COLOR!!!

I am very pleased with the result however!! I am looking forward to this Friday evenings opening to see what sort of response the piece is given!!

Have your stretched your artistic mind lately?? I would love to hear what all of you are up to!!

Flowers On Wisdom Teeth Day!

2011-08-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

Becca had her Wisdom teeth extracted yesterday. Mom (as in me) did the duty and drove her up to the Dr. and held her hand and calmed her for as long as the Dr. and Nurse would let me. Then I went out to WAIT!!!

Who is this hard on?????

Becca had Laughing Gas, and a nice trip from it according to her, and then general Anesthesia and woke up 45 minutes later asking if it was over. I sat and waited and stitched in the waiting room and fretted about how it was going. That is my job as a mother and I embrace it, and am grateful for the opportunity to be there and be the first person she sees when she comes off her little trip!!

After she passed her sobriety test ,we were released and stopped to get a chocolate shake (with a spoon ) for the trip home. Then a stop for meds at our wonderful Independently owner pharmacy and arrived home 3 hours after leaving.

tom arrived home from doing some Pro-bonno work for Stafford County Fire (they were running around like crazy trying to inspect all of the buildings after the earthquake). With him he brought these gorgeous flowers!! I could understand the lovely bouquet of his Little girl but I was not sure what was going on with the Dozen Long Stem Reds for me???

He said that they were for me , of course. Because.... he loves me and because he wanted to thank me for doing all of the Dr. visits for shots and vaccinations and tooth extractions and the like for both kids!! He has a very hard time seeing his own kids cry and in pain. At that point I lost it and had a good little cry! How sweet IS THAT!!! How WONDERFUL IS HE!!!!!

One of the best decisions I ever made was saying Yes to this Man!!!!

Another New Project

2011-08-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

Early this summer I started a project just for myself. I wanted to have a project that I could pick up and work on at any time and that would be easy to transport on trips and to various appointments. I had found a wonderful white cotton jacket that is relatively unstructured at a Thrift shop for $1~~ I dyed it periwinkle, using the parfait method so it would not be solidly colored.

Then I started layering and stitching. I have been building up quite a stash of hand dyed linens and scraps of favorite sun prints and I simply started composing with them on the back of the jacket.
The sleeves were turned up and the cuffs and tacked back and were way to short of r my long arms. I un tacked them and added the orange-pink deep trim with a row of french knots and the sleeves were then perfect and extra special!! Above the cuffs you can see the left front of the jacket which has a central piece of one of my favorite sun prints from last fall.
Since I have taken this picture of the back I have added quite a few more stitches and several more bits of cloth, a few more raggedy roses and several more buttons. When I am not working on the jacket, I have worn it . It has caused a bit of discussion which is always such fun!!

I will post more in process photos soon!

I think that I will be on the lookout for more pieces of clothing like this. They just might start to show up in my ETSY shop as unique one of a kind art garments!!

My Bead Soup From My Partner

2011-08-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

I ma beyond excited about these wonderful beads!!! Christine has made these beauties just for me for this swap!!! HOW COOL IS THAT!!! If you follow my blog at all you may have noticed that I have been loving the Red/light blue or turquoise combo lately!!! Look who else noticed!!! the wonderful MS Christine!!! The name of the soup is delightful as well and I loved her labels and packaging. These so remind me of the 50's era table clothes that are all the rage among collectors these days. I have quite a few of those table cloths tucked away somewhere!!
Then look at these wonderful white ruffly beads that Christine calls her faux milk glass!!! Are they not divine??????? I actually have my Soup resting in a milk glass compote as I mull the myriad of possible design ideas that are streaking across my brain!! I just love the dots and ruffles!!!
She sent some sparkly clear and red #8s to fill in and some wonderful red and blue cord!!
And to hold it all together she made me a fabulous Blue enamel clasp!!! I am in love !!!! I cannot wait to set aside a few hours to play with this oh so special soup and create something for my self. i think that it will be a set of a necklace and at least one pair of companion earrings!!!

Thank you so very much Christine!!!!

In some other exciting beady news, Kristi Bowman over at Dream Some Designs is offering a wonderful 400th post giveaway of some of her amazing hand made jewelry components!! Pop on over to her blog and see what she creates and enter her give away, you will not be sorry that you did!!!! I am working with several of her wonderful ammonite pieces in my next Ocean Treasures beaded cuff.

One more thing to share!! My Ocean Treasures Beaded Cuff was chosen for an Etsy Treasury today!! This is so exciting and only the second treasury that I have ever had work included in!! it is such an honor. Here is the link to the treasury if you would like to check it out!!!

Bead Soup for My Partner Christine.

2011-08-18T17:59:00.000-07:00

Now that I know that my partner Christine has recieved her Bead Soup, I can reveal what I sent to her!! I had such fun putting this mix together for Christine and I do hope that she finds some things to kick her creativity up a notch!!! At first I thought that I should not send Christine a glass focal bead but then I read about her "likes" in the database and the first thing that she mentioned was her love of glass. She does make beautiful glass lamp work beads but no two beader's styles are exactly the same. When I came across this wonderful focal created by a local VA artist named Linda Campbell, I knew it had to be the main stone in this Stone Soup!! ( Do you Remember reading that book as a child- It is still one of my favorite books about faith and believing in oneself, that I know of!!)

So with the focal bead chosen I added some of my own fabric/paper beads, some wonderful big cream colored and smaller blue, fresh water pearls, some glass drops in both matte and ab finishes in various blues and greens, some wonderful glass rounds made by TB patients in Tanzania that come with an extra splash of good karma ( my brother brings me a bunch of these wonderful beauties almost every year when he comes for a home visit), and some found critter drilled Quahog shell fragments that have been tumbled in the cold Atlantic ocean.

From what I have heard, Christine is very excited and inspired by her soup. Hurrah!!! that makes me so very happy!!

Bead Soup Party!!!!

2011-08-14T08:47:00.000-07:00

Any excuse for a party and I can't think of a better one than BEADS ,at the moment !! this year I am so excited to a be a part of the Bead Soup Blog Party that is the brain child of the amazing Lori Anderson. the sign up took place in early August and there are over 300 of us form all parts of the globe participating!! We each have blogs and Lori has assigned each of us a partner who we will be mailing Bead Soups to . Then we are each to create a piece of jewelry form our soup and post the pictures and story on our blogs.

I have been paired with the lovely and talented Bead artist Christine Brandel. I have an extra bonus as Christine lives in Richmond , VA about an hour away from me!!! So the potential exists for us to meet in person at some point in our futures!!! How COOL is THAT??!!!???

Christine has a wonderful Blog and I hope that you will all take a moment to pop by and see some of her bead work that she combines with metal work and and her glorious lamp work beads!! It is amazing that I have been paired with another artist who has a metal smithing background!! I have not gone back to my metal smithing skills in along time, but I do work with wire much more often of late.

I have been rummaging thru my stash and seeking treasures to send off to Christine and plan to get her special soup in the mail tomorrow!! Our task is to send off Soups that will stretch each other out of our Comfort zones! I just hope that she is pleased with what a have chosen for her! I am trying not to fret about it too much!!!!

hen we all have till September 17 to create a work from our soups and blog about our creations and REVEAL those Creations on our blogs!!!

Bring on the BEAD PARTY!!!!!

Roasting Romas!!

2011-08-12T16:07:00.001-07:00

I was inspired to try this recipe after talking to a friend who was on a big canning kick!! These sounded so yummy I was almost drooling. !!

On Saturday i set off for the local Farmers Market, there is a smll market taking hold right here in Stafford which thrills me because I do not have to negotiate I-95 to get to the otherwise closest market. I plan on giving these wonderful local farmers all sorts of support so the market keeps going and possibly grows!! So I set off to buy Roma tomatoes. My tomatoes really pooped out- it just got too hot , too quickly and for too long a stretch, they got sun scald and are gone. SIGH!!

This pan above is about three pounds of roma's sliced in half and drizzled with Good Extra Virgin olive oil mixed with lots of crushed garlic (about 6 lg cloves), a teaspoon and a half of freshly cracked black pepper , a teaspoon and a half of kosher salt. I should have added Fresh Rosemary but I lost my plant last winter and I was not going to pay grocery store prices for a few old sprigs. (Note to self: Get a new Rosemary plant and put it in a different spot!!)

Once the 'maters were well slathered, I popped them in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 (yes!TEN) hours!!!! Once they cooled, I put them in covered container drizzled on a bit more fresh olive oil and popped them in the fridge.
These little jewels taste like candy to me!!! There is no strong garlic taste after the slow roast. The process brings out an intensely sweet tomato flavor that is just scrumptious!!! I have been eating them plain and also putting them atop a freshly toasted multi grain bagel covered with low fat Garlic and chive creamed cheese for lunch!! DELISH!!!!!

Well tomorrow is Saturday and I am heading back to the Farmers Market to get ..... you guessed it..... More Roma's!!!!

Playing with Color

2011-08-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

Today has truely been an amazing weather gift, here in Central VA!! The sky is clear blue with fluffy white clouds , a bit of a breeze and temps in the mid 80's. We don't get many days like this at this time of year!! After taking care of the neighbors dogs and cats, I spent an hour in the garden, dead heading Daisy's, Brown Eyed Susan's and roses while drinking my morning cup of coffee. The birds were keeping me company as I put fresh water in their bath and the hum of the Cicadas had not even begun!!

As I ahd started my day with color I decided to stick with the game plan. Out came the sunpaints and the fabric. I have finally chosen a theme and idea for a Quilt Challenge that I am participating in. This is for the Power Suit Challenge being run by Textile Artists Judy Gula and Cindy Souder . The 18 x 18 quilt is due at Artistic Artifacts by the end of August so my decisions are bordering on last minute!!! I will be using a sunprinted background and altering the shirting fabrics that were provided to create my piece. I am going to hold off on more details as we have been asked to not talk too much about this before the celebratory Reveal at Artistic Artifacts in October. But I will share a few crumbs here and there. (Yah, I thought that would make you all just so happy!!) Part of this finished sun print will become my quilts background.
In the top most picture you can see that I had golden rod, basil blossom spikes, verbeana, daisies, clover and grassy weeds covering the painted damask table cloth piece. I am really happy with the results so far. Now for the shirting.

All of these pieces are from a sample book that I took apart and painted with the paints. I used palstic doilies and a cut up onion bag to cover the fabric while it dried in the sun.
I used all sorts of samples here many have plaids and stripes that are so common in men's dress shirts. They all came out really well and, with the weather, they dried in about 20 minutes!!

Now on to the cutting and construction!!

I hope that wherever you are you are having wonderful weather as well!!

A Semi- Presentable Studio!!!

2011-08-06T11:01:00.001-07:00

I have decided to share some images of my art mess as I call my studio. This is as good as it has been for several months! I work on too many projects concurrently, for my s mess to ever achieve Capital S studio status, like those that appear in the magazines. It is MY space and I love it, and it inspires me !

The reason for the big sort and clean was my First Formal in Studio Class. A good friend who I has been a student of mine int he past was bringing her girls over for some collage jewelry fun. Long story short, the teenagers stayed at home and Ann and I had a lovely afternoon of creating!

I was able to open this chapter of my teaching experience with swept floors, a clean covered table top and plenty of leg room to accommodate 4 people at the first work table!

the second worktable is till under a small hill of supplies and fabric and stuff and the sewing area floor is still covered with fabrics and projects to be sorted , however there are now negotiable paths form here to there and a welcoming place to create !! This is a huge step for my space and my usual method of creating in the midst of clutter.

Beads and Bead storage area including found objects and stones.

The fabric storage and dye area still needs some work and larger sorting bins, but there is a clear path!!!

this one bench behind the table needs some attention and my stamp wall needs some serious weeding out. I just don't seem to use my stamps anymore and they take up a very large amount of space. I need to figure what to do with them- a need to pass many of them on to others who will use them, as I now use mostly those that I have carved myself! Perhaps They will find their way to my Etsy site??

Sea Treasures beaded collage 1 inch wide cuff.

Sea Foam Free form beaded bracelet.

Besides having a lovely afternoon working on a collage creation with my friend, she informed me that it was her intention to purchase two of my Beaded Ocean Themed pieces that were featured in my Etsy Shop. She left with both of the pieces that you see above!! banner day for my bead work and now I have a clean space to work in as I design and create more of my free form beaded collage jewelry. Perhaps it was a reward for finally getting the majority of my work space under control?? What ever, i am thrilled that the pieces are now owned by someone who treasures them and that they will find some wonderful new homes with my students dear friends!!!! It does not get better than that, for this artist anyway!!!

Last but not least I wanted to share some pictures of a small bit of the found object treasure that I gathered on my recent trip to Cape Cod.

I am planning on trying my hand a t drilling small holes in these lovely smooth stones so I can incorporate them into some of my new bead work designs.

I had lots of luck finding sea glass this year and I also found a very old piece of tumbled china (not Pictured) . I will be working on incorporating these bits either with wire wrapping or treating as components in some resin pieces. The clam shell bits with holes (Quahog shells) will be added into the free form beaded work.

Guess I need to get busy beading!!

I hope that everyone has a very creative couple of days !! Try to find a cool spot to follow your creative muse!

Back from the Beach

2011-07-31T14:06:00.000-07:00

We are back from the beach and trying to get reacclimated to life here in VA. Still plowing thru e-mails etc. I really enjoyed being totally "unplugged " for ten days! Now I am getting ready for a huge selection process of artists for shows for the Members Gallery at the Fredericksburg Center for the Arts. We had 43 submissions this year- double what we had last year. It is all very exciting but a ton of work. Fortunately, my wonderful dh, otherwise known as resident computer Guru, is helping me get the power point slide presentations put together for the jurors.

I will be back up for air, and a proper post, after Wednesday!!

Many Projects Up In The Air!!!

2011-07-08T15:02:00.000-07:00

It has been far too long since I have posted to my blog!! I have had so many things going on and lots of projects in various stages of done-ness. I only have a short bit of time as I have a big deadline ahead with company due to arrive and projects to finish before my lovely nieces arrive!!!
I am going to share a batch of pictures of projects with short descriptions and I will post longer discussions later. If you see something that you want to ask me about please do so!! I will answer any and all questions when I reply to your e-mails!! I hope that one and all are having a wonderful summer, winter so far!!!!

My brand new Business card!! I am very pleased with this version. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get this sort of thing to READ the way that you want it to! ( The picture is the front and the info is all on the back.)

On July 4th we were able to inhale our very first garden fresh tomatoes!!! It was a long winter without decent tomatoes!!!
My red Day Lilies look like burgundy velvet and they are blooming like this in the shade!!

This is a new cuff that I have just finished. I will be submitting it to a Call For Art with the theme of Texture and Pattern.

My youngest niece Kate loves to cook and always asks for relatives favorite recipes. She loves to spend time helping me in the kitchen whenever they visit. I amde this cookbook for her to serve as a place to collect all of her favorite recipes. I took a vintage Better Homes and Gardens Binder style book and recovered it. I used the same dividers from the original book and collaged over the text with images form other vintage cook books. Kate was thrilled with it.

Here you can see the dividers.

I took plain page protectors and stitched them smaller and then stitched on a fabric strip to cover the trimmed edge of the divider.

For Mali, my eldest niece I created this shoulder bag. I was very inspired by Pat Winter and her Bo-Ho Bags that she has been creating. Pat does lots of layering of textile trims and then does a vintage crazy quilt look on the front flap. Mali is not a vintage fabrics girl so I did a more modern take on Crazy Quilting and used some of my own hand dyed fabric and made some of my raggedy roses for embellishing. i am really thrilled with the result and so was Mali!!

Becca and I are off for our All Girls Road Trip to Cape Cod tomorrow . We will be back in 10 days. I am planning on taking my computer so I will try to check in between beach time and time spent with friends!!!
I will get back to my regular posting schedule when we get back!!

Finishing Up and Starting Again!!!!!

2011-06-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

Since my last post I ahve been working on another cuff, this time for SALE!!!! Later today I will be re-launching my new Etsy shop , Elizabeth Creates Art and this cuff will be the first item posted. I call this piece Ocean Spirits and I plan on making this the first of a series of Ocean Cuffs.

This cuff is a bit more slender than my usual size. It is 1 and 3/8 inches wide. I have tucked in all sorts of treasures including this little perfect piece of green sea glass. there are also vintage hand cut crystal beads, African Recycled glass beads, lots of Fresh water pearls and a wonderful bit of textured purple Quahog shell.

I am getting much quicker with my bead stitching and hope to ahve many other color ways available soon!!

So this is one of my latest finished projects.

Now for a new project, at the very beginnings.

This will be the back ground for a collae that is still floating around in my head. I ahve begun to make sketches and I am almost ready to begin cutting and stitching. I used a large piece of damask linen from an old table cloth that I rescued , painted it with Seta Color fabric paints and tossed on a large handful of Kosher salt. Here you can see the salt working it's amgic and drying on my deck.

I have also put the finishing touches on my Poppies Quilt. As I mentioned in a previous post, this quilt began it's life in a fabulous class taught by Laura Washilowski. I did some Free motion quilting and added some more hand stitching and backed the piece witha beautiful piece of batik fabric. I edged it with a rolled binding and hand stitched the edge with hand dyed perle cotton.

Here is a detail shot so you can see some of the background quilting. I added several rows of stitching around each blossom to give them a ruffling effect. You all know how I love adding layers of texture!!!
As a parting note I want to share an image of my wonderful hydrangea's. I have been cutting large bouquets of blossoms and sharing them with friends and bringing them inside. Every time I cut a blossom, the plants put out new, fresh blooms. In case anyone is interested, these hydrangeas are called Endless Summer. If you have a semi shady spot out of strong western sun, PLANT SOME!!!

Now I have some new projects of finish up and have no doubt, new ones to begin!!!

Happy Creating everyone!!!!

Getting Better Photos

2011-06-13T06:53:00.001-07:00

I am so excited to be able to get better close up pictures of my work!! For my Birthday, Tom and the kids gave me a photo taking box with special lights for diffuse lighting and less glare!! The picture you see here is Turquoise Oceans cuff that I made for my daughter's Counselor in Middle School. Outstanding teachers and mentors really do need to be recognized and appreciated, don't you think??

Every time I create one of these cuffs I learn something more about the process. I think that this might be my best work yet.

These Shaggy Loops earrings are for Becca's wonderful Language Arts Teacher, Ms. Scott.

This Shaggy Loops Bracelet is for Becca's phenomenal French I teacher, Ms. Johnson. This gal is one of the best teachers at the high School where Becca will be going next year. Becca traveled tot eh HS every morning to take French and had a wonderful and inspiring educational experience. The kids are very upset to have to say good bye to her today. Becca actually told me that she wanted to take French all summer just to be with Ms. Johnson! All of her students feel this way. Now that is a wonderful teacher!!

An Addendum , A Card and Some Hombre Dyeing!!

2011-06-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

One of my blog followers pointed out that I had forgotten yet again to post pictures of the hand dyed threads that I purchased from Laura Wasilowski!! So Sorry about that!! It seems that I can't get entirely thru a task these days without forgetting something!!!! SIGH!!
I bought two different sizes of the Perle cottons in the eggplant colorway- I simply cannot resist anything purple and green!! the other two hanks are both #8 perle cottons. Laura's threads are so beautiful because of their intense vibrancy and the wonderful color shifts that she is able to achieve without a hint of muddiness!! The multi-colored hank at the end is the group of threads that we were given as part of the class. They are long gone- stitched on my poppy quilt. There, I feel better, No more dangling pictures, so sorry to leave you hanging!!!
Laura sells 52 different color ways of threads in both cotton and silk and you can purchase them here!!
After my birthday, I had several thank you's to write so I stitched up a few more of my collage floral photo notes. I am really having fun with this little project as I am using up old duplicate prints of floral shots form a time before the era of the digital camera. this card went to a very dear friend who actually gave me the seeds to this flower that you see here. This is an old fashioned columbine, a true pass-along plant, that would bloom it's fool head off in the heat in my Oklahoma garden. I am pleased to have found a way to combine collage, stitch and old left over photos to create unique cards for any number of occasions.

I also fooled around with my Procion MX dyes to see if I could achieve some color gradations of my own. I had such fun working with the fabric in the class and I wanted to see if I could do some of my own without turning everything to a muddy brown. I seem to have figured it out!!!

In these two pictures you can see that I got yellow -orange -pink-red colorway and then various blues ( I used PMX Ice Blue and Royal Blue) turquoise- green -yellow!!! I got nice mid range colors and very little white!!!! Here is how I did it- this was pure experimentation on my part!!!
1. I soaked the fabric strips (approx 15 inches wide) in soda ash solution.
2. wrung out fabric.
3.Hand pleated the fabric at both long ends and lay down the resulting fabric pleated strip along a long piece of saran wrap.
4. Using a foam brush I painted on the dye starting with lightest color first- Yellow- for about 5 inches.
5. Then went in with next color, either Cherry Blush or Turquoise and overlapped the yellow by about 2 inches. So the yellow and pink gave me the orange and the yellow and turquoise gave me green.
6. Next color was straight cherry Blush or Turquoise and then I overlapped those colors with Turkey Red and Royal , respectively.
7. When the fabric was saturated but not swimming in dye, I grabbed each end of the scrunch pleated fabric and twisted the pleated fabric nice and tight, rolled it up in the saran wrap and left the dye saran wrap sausage out in the heat and humidity to batch.
I think the saran wrap tube separator really helped with preventing any mixing of dye colors and gave me the results that I was after.

Every once in awhile blind experimentation based on a bit of fore thought works out!!
WHOOO HOOOO!!!!

Quilt Progress

2011-06-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

I have made a few additions and done some hand stitching and this is where I am with my fused quilt.
I am very happy with how the quilt looks now. It was at this stage when last I blogged. I really felt that the center was too open.

Here are a few of the hand stitching details. I really do love the hand stitching and bead work, surprise, surprise!!
I forgot to show you the marvelous ahnd dyed perle cotton and silk threads that I bought from Laura Wasilowski. They are simply glorious ! It was very hard to resist purchasing the whole basket full!!!!

On another dyeing note, I stopped by an Estate sale yesterday and picked up too decorative iron trivets. Now I do not use trivets for fancy dinners and all of my plants are living outside for the summer, I look for these little gems to use in rust dyeing!!! I came home , mixed up some vinegar and water, found my lunch trays and plastic sheeting, cut some fabric and put the whole deal out in the sun. Two hours later look at what I had!!! Circles, circles, Circles!!!! Such potential in these little pieces of rusted loveliness. I am quite pleased with the rust on the blue fabric!!
Happy Creating everyone!!

Object Lesson with Laura Wasilowski

2011-05-28T18:21:00.001-07:00

Many of you were anxious to see a picture of moi wearing the shirt that I blogged about here. Now you can't say that I never do what you ask!!! Here you can see the delightful Quilter, teacher,artist and Chief Administrator of the Chicago School of Fusing, Laura Wasilowski!! I was so fortunate to take a class with her last week at Artistic Artifacts in Alexandria VA.

Laura is a total delight!! She is a font of knowledge about so many things to do with fabric and art quilts and fusing. She dyes all of her fabrics and sells them along with glorious hand dyed threads and her books and her wonderful quilt patterns, HERE. Prior to taking this class I was not fond of using fusibles in my textile work because I was never really happy with the results. Here was my chance to learn from a Master.

And oh boy, did I LEARN!!!

And did we have fun learning!!!

Little did I know that Laura would teach us using interpretative dance routines and song!!!

What a riot!!! What FUN!!!

We were each given two large pieces of Laura's glorious hand dyed cotton. One was a gradation of pastels and the other a gradation of bright brights!!!

Thenw e learned that the only product to use for reliable results and a nice "hand" to the fabric, is paper backed Wonder Under. then we learned all of the ins and outs of using the Wonder Under-" Iron to the Edge and Beyond Everyone, To the Edge and BEYOND!!"
Did you know that if you live in a humid climate (that would be us here in Northern VA) that you might need to let your fused fabric sit for up to a half hour before removing the release paper backing?? Did you know that you should never throw out those sheets of release paper as they are the surface that you constantly create on, as you are working with your fused fabrics???? Well I certainly did not!!

Once we had our fusible attached to our fabric we did a few exercises. We each made several small collages using our fabrics.

This is a badly composed picture of the collages that I put together. Laura also warned up not to allow anything to become too Precious as we would need to be willing to cut up these patterned collages to use in future work.
After a quick break for lunch we were tasked with building a composition based on a single object. Surprise of surprises, I went with a floral element. I know, you are all Shocked!!!!

The wonderful "stripey-ness" of the green portion of the brights fabric really spoke to me as a field of grass. I have been wanting to make a Poppies quilt for my self ever since I made a Poppies quilt for a dear friend. Here. this was my quilt after all of the fusing was complete. I am still not sure if I am done with this portion however. I am contemplating adding two more blossoms somewhere towards the middle of the composition.

Is the center too bare of blossoms? Would adding two more make things too crowded????

I would love to know what you think! is it OK as is, or do I add several more blossoms to the center of the composition?

While you contemplate that question , take a look at the fabulous creation by my wonderful friend Jenn Walker! Isn't this fabulous??? i just adore Jenn's work and she has done it again here!!!

Below you can see how I have treated the poppy centers. I had decided early on in the process that I wanted to bead the flower centers. I know, I have SHOCKED you again!!!
I am so very pleased with the results!! I used a mix of matte finished seed beads and peacock luster coated black #8 beads to create the stacked stamens. They add that wonderful texture and dimension that I love to incorporate!!

This is far from done however. Aside from the Blossom count dilema, I will be adding lots of hand stitching with some of Laura's yummy hand dyed threads followed by some free motion machine stitching to quilt the background. This is not the last you will be seeing of this quilt!!

In the meantime, if you are not familiar with Laura's wonderful work, hop on over to her web site and BE INSPIRED!!!
And if you ever have a chance to hear her speak or to take a class with her, grab the opportunity!!!
You will NOT be disappointed!!!!!

Flower Power of a Different Sort !

2011-05-24T05:56:00.001-07:00

Every once in awhile I get a notion or an idea or hear a whisper from my muse telling me to try something or to do a certain something with some fabric or pictures. Often these ideas get filed away in my brain and now more often I am trying to capture them in my art journal. We will see how long I can keep up with that practice. :) Anyway last week I did some more fabric and linen dyeing and I threw in a long sleeved white Land's End T-shirt that I had picked up at Goodwill.

This is the back of the shirt after the dyeing. The front was very similar to this with a big swath of mostly white running diagonaly across the front. The sleeves were well covered with color. there was too much white across the front for my taste. So Cue the muse; "You could fill that space with color using different fabrics or paints or markers......"
Just last week I took a workshop at Artistic Artifacts with Quilt artist Cyndi Souder, on using the Tsukineko Inks to color fabric but the effects are much more subtle than what I was envisioning here. I love what can be done with the Japanese inks but this shirt was calling for big bold color.
So out came my Zig Markers from my scrap booking days in Oklahoma. I have a complete set that I had not touched in years and was not even sure that they were still liquid. They are still strong and juicy and ready to go. I was thrilled as this fits right in with my ongoing efforts to use what I already have!!
I Did not think to take photos till I was well involved in the project so you are going to have to use your imagination here.

So to start, I used my Superfine Faber-Castell black Pitt pen to doodle on the shirt. I put a plastic bag inside the shirt to stop any bleed through of color. In the picture above towards the bottom you can see some of the faint doodle markings that I then filled in with the ZIG markers.
All of these pens are waterproof, light fast, acid free and can be set with heat.

This quickly became a project that I found very relaxing and fun and I got to the point where I had to tell myself to stop adding more black doodles and fill in the ones that I had already drawn!!
Once I had filled in the color, I took the Brush PITT marker and outlined all of the doodles. As you can see I doodled on the left sleeve front,

and I added another doodle to the center back. Then I threw the shirt in the drier on the highest setting and today I will go over thew hole piece with a very hot iron.

I think I will wear this shirt to a quilting class that I have on Thursday with Laura Wasilewski, at Artistic Artifacts. Laura is a quilter who adores color so I think this will be appropriate!!

So if you have any scrap booking markers languishing in your art space , take a second look at them and see what you can transform!!! It is amazing what a bit of dye and some color strokes can do to Upcycle a thrift store find!!!!!
Happy Doodling!!!

Birdies, Berries and Classes!

2011-05-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

Before we had all of our rain last week, I noticed a piece of thin plastic waving about in the climbing rose bush. I figured the wind had deposited it there but when I went to pull it down, I found that it had been put there by Mr or Mrs Cardinal!! IT was firmly woven into the structure of the nest that was hidden in the thorny canes of the bush. So smart!!! I did cut out the bit that was flapping in the wind and free from the nest. If it had not been for the plastic tail, I would have never noticed the nest. Now Mrs is getting pretty used to me stopping by for a chat. If you click on the photo and enlarge it you can really see her sitting in on her nest. that orange beak really glows. I love all of the wildlife that makes our yard their home. another benefit of organic gardening. Last week as I planted the tomatoes, I was joined by a large Box Turtle- I shared a few worms with him just to let him know he was welcome any time:).

this is my first year to harvest the Rhubarb and I am thrilled with how my first batch of Strawberry Rhubarb Jam came out.

Yesterday I made a batch of bread and it seems that I have to make another batch tomorrow. Today Matthew ate 3/4 of a loaf of bread as toast, slathered with fresh jam. Strawberry Rhubarb jam is his favorite! I hope that I have enough for another batch!!!! He has been all grins for most of the day!!! YUM!!

Last Saturday I taught my second session of my Collage Jewelry Class. After my first go at teaching this class, I shook things up a bit and the class went much more smoothly! I am starting to have return students and new students who have come to class because they have heard about the classes form their friends! Validation is always so very rewarding!!! Julia did a fabulous job on the necklace that you see above and created a second one as well. Several folks were having trouble with breaking wire till we discovered that they were using pliers with teeth in them, i.e not jewelry grade pliers. Once we changed out the pliers, things went so much more smoothly!!!!

This is Julia's second piece.

this piece was made by a wonderful gal who had a huge collection of her Mom's costume jewelry. We repaired a few pieces and then put a group of them together in this lovely necklace. She was thrilled and so was I !! I love it when students leave classes happy and satisfied!!

Names are flying from my brain at the moment, I hate that, but I love this simple piece with the glorious red sari ribbon! The student wrapped the found stone without any help from me and added a few accent beads. This young gal is a natural!!! I can see a lot more jewelry in her creative future!!

I realized that I never posted the pieces made during my most recent Beaded Cuff class, so here they are.

Meg had some time constraints so she was not able to finish her bead work but she followed our finishing process and will complete her cuff on her own. What she has done was so very pretty and full of personal symbols. I love it when students make their pieces their own!!!

Kathi chose her palette of colors from the sea and did a fabulous job with her hand work!!

Gloria made this stunning Black and Gold creation and was almost done with a second piece!!

Jan used shells and turquoise to conjure thoughts of the ocean for her design. by the time class was over we had most of the beaded cuffs complete and all were excited to be starting on new pieces. They all purchased lots of supplies to keep themselves well stocked!!

I want to leave you with a few shots of my spectacular pink iris from before our week of rain and storms! the delicate blossoms really do not hold up well to rain and they are pretty much done for another year. While they were untouched they were simply stunning and soooo very fragrant!! The roses were not overly happy with the drenching either but at least Belinda's Dream will bloom hard for me all summer. Especially after I give her a banana skin coffee grounds egg shell cocktail to give herr a shot of energy!!!

The Siberian iris are such a stunning sapphire blue, almost purple color and the yellow iris hung in there long enough to give some wonderful contrasting color play in the garden bed. The rose in the background is just coming into her own and is super fragrant.

I hope that where ever you are the flowers are blooming or the leaves are turning to give you the wonderful colors of nature's gifts!!

A Special Birthday Card

2011-05-17T18:30:00.001-07:00

It is not everyday that one's fabulous and talented and creative Mother turns 80!! SHHHHHH don't tell her that I told you!!
I have had kind of a rough go of things creatively lately and i had to get a birthday package off in time for it to get to Mom on May 16th. ( I just found out that Mom and Madelaine Albright share the same birthday- Well Madelaine is in very good company!!) Anyway , the creative Mojo has been on a slow crawl lately but I needed to get a card thrown together quickly! then I remembered the fabulously lucious cards that my Australian fiber arts friend Suziqu has been creating lately and decided to give some of her techniques a whirl. ( You simply must go by her blog and see her fabulous work!!!)

Now Suzi uses mostly vintage fabrics and gorgeous laces in her work, but I wanted to put my own spin on things, so I used my hand dyed fabrics, a bit of lace, one of my own photos from my garden shots and a metal and glass embellishment. What you see above and below, is what I came up with.

I took the whole pile over to the sewing machine and started to stitch. With flowers come leaves, so leaves it was!

Then I realized that after gluing the piece down onto card stock, I would not have an envelope to fit. Out came the waxed paper and a paper printed pansy photo taken in this years garden and more stitch. Viola! An envie with an image to prolong the suspense of what was inside!

I had so much fun with this card, and the creative juices are definitely recovering to near normal levels!! I must thanks Suzi for her wonderful blog and all of the info that she provides. I must also thank my Mom for all of her support and creative drive that she instilled in me and for the most recent event that inspired me and got the Mojo flowing again!!!

Love You Mom!

Happy Birthday!!

Family Fieldtrip and Finding Inspiration

2011-05-10T05:11:00.000-07:00

The kids had an excruciatingly late Spring Break from school this year, but once we actually got some time off we embarked on several long put off excursions. Luray Caverns in the Beautiful Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia has been a destination on our list since we moved to Virginia almost 6 years ago. We had some beautiful Spring weather,packed some snacks and took off. It was well worth the two hour drive thru the Dogwood and Red Bud blossomed countryside. So much of Virginia is still forested and wild and so very lovely. It was wonderful to get out and away from the RT 95 corridor to see the natural beauty of our state.
Luray is a massive limestone cave system that has been named one of the most beautiful environments of it's type in the world, by the National Geographic Society. I found it an amazing source of artistic inspiration and incredible beauty . To think that all of these formations were created by slowly dripping water over millions of years, simply astounds the mind. (Have to wonder what the creationists have to say about these wonderful places- denial of existence probably!!)

One of my favorite formations are the Drapperies that hang from the ceiling of the caves and ripple and fold as if created from curtain fabric. This particular formation was back lit and is nicknamed the "Bacon Drape"- this IS Virgina after all, the home of Bacon!!! The folds of the Rock- yes this is rock, remember, were amazingly thin and delicate and hundreds of thousands of years old and still in the process of creation! The desire to reach out of touch the soft flowing folds was strong but not allowed. One easily forgot that what we were looking at was stone.

This cluster of stalagmites reminded me of a Seussian confection collection, resembling ice cream cones or stupendous cupcakes!

I thought this one appeared to be towers of broccoli stems standing one atop another. (Hmmm... seems to be a food theme running here, I must have been hungry!!!)

Here you can get a real sense of the folds in the Drapperies of stone!

I know that I drove Tom and Becca a bit nuts with all of my picture taking but I did manage to get them to stop and slow down a bit to grab a shot of the two of them. I hung back in many spots to take pictures and to try to really SEE what was there.

We all spent quite a bit of time at this spot, marveling at the quiet and stillness. This is called the Lake,although it is only 6 inches deep. It is a totally quiet reflection of stalactites hanging from the ceiling and offers a spectacular illusion of great depth . There is nto aripple nor a movement to disturb the illusion or break the spell- it is truly magical.

In the middle of this pool was a small stalagmite growing thru the surface and I see two figures here, sitting on a rock looking into the water or fishing. on the left I see the elder or larger figure with his left arm encircling the shoulders of the younger to the right. The larger figure holds the fishing pole. (Am I so hungry by this point that I am hallucinating- No , because I can still see it !!)

After about 1.5 hours I was reluctantly drug out of the cave and off to find some lunch. We all left with a renewed awe at the power of a drop of water and the beauty that lies beneath the earth.
As I write this post, the news headlines are full of the news of the power of water drops as they collect to roll down the Big Muddy Mississippi and the aftermath of the devastation wrought by the collection of droplets that became the tsunami in Japan.
The forces of nature and the power, both miniscule, painstakingly slow and overwhelmingly devastating, continue to fill me with awe and inspiration.

Learning Something New

2011-05-03T04:24:00.001-07:00

I find it so invigorating and exciting to stretch myself and learn a new skill. This Spring, as I have been unable to take advantage of several art retreats, I have been on the lookout for learning new techniques closer to home.
Beads On Parade is a wonderful bead shop in Fredericksburg where I will be teaching my Beaded Cuff class in the near future. Carol, who I have dubbed the Chain Maille Queen, works at the shop and is incredibly generous with her fabulous skills. Carol is a Chain Maille officianado and has designed many of her own patterns. Carol teaches many of the simpler techniques for FREE and displays an amazing array of Chain Maille patterns to entice we novices to plunge in with both feet!!!
About two weeks ago I sat down with Carol, a pile of beads and jump rings and tried my hand at a pattern called Shaggy Loops.

Besides beads and rings, one needs tow good pairs of pliers. My first creation was a pink shaggy loops bracelet for Becca. I used silver and rose gold colored links and two colors of pink beads. I put the entire piece together in about two hours!!! The bracelet is incredibly tactile and fun to wear along with being quite a nice bit of blingy color.

After finishing the bracelet, i went on to make several pairs of Shaggy Loops earrings. I was hooked!!!

For this pair I used wonderful matte finished peacock colored and purple beads and copper links.

Subtle and elegant, don't you think?

For this pair I used some of the fabulously colored rings that Beads on Parade has in stock. The color range is simply amazing and all are available on line!!

I started another set of earrings using the silver links from the bracelet but ran out after creating only one earring. Time to restock!!!!!

Needless to say, I will be spending more time with Carol the Chain Maille Queen to learn some of the more intricate chain maille techniques!!

Now I am off to spread mulch on my gardens before the rain rolls in! have a wonderful day!!

Throw Open the Doors.......

2011-04-25T07:43:00.001-07:00

The birds are singing, the sun is shining after last nights thunder and rain and the lilacs are in bloom!! I have thrown open the slider in my basement studio and intend to enjoy it all as I work. It is also way beyond time for a good clean up!!!

I am counting on the fabulous fragrance and the wonderful bird song to inspire massive clean up in record time!!! We shall see......... I wish that you could enjoy the fragrance with me!!

Tomorrow I am taking daughter Becca and friend Meagan to the National Zoo in DC. We will be carrying our sketch books and cameras. Daughter has mapped our trail complete with must see exhibits and Metro line changes. The Owls and Big Cats are at the top of the list.

(We got this shot of the owl that visited Grandma's house at Easter!!! He was way up in a very tall pine tree about 50 yards away. Magnificent creature!!! Becca was so very excited! She is a bit nuts for owls right now!!- She thinks that he may be a Spotted Owl.)

I will try to sketch and snap all that inspires!!!

For now, here are some luciouus lilacs and wild Dogwoods and Red Buds to share.

Happy Spring!!

This Spring time in Virginia has been spectacular, I think because of all of the rain. the Red Buds are bursting with brilliant purple and the Wild Dogwoods have been incredible.

Raggedy Roses!

2011-04-18T05:57:00.001-07:00

I know that I have shared my Raggedy Roses Brooches with you before but this time I have created Raggedy Roses Hair Clips and added in bits of vintage lace, crystals and pearls. I have been growning out my bangs (Fringe to some of you) and have had a great need for some hair clips for myself. I purchased the spring clip mechnaisms in two different sizes and started stitching.

I used my hand dyed damask linen tablecloth strips for the colored flowers, as you see above.

For the white clips I have used strips from a vintage silk hankie (the ecru rose buds), undyed white linen damask, vintage lace for the lace flower and then mounted the bouquet on a bit of a damaged vintage doily. Then I added vintage glass pearls, some sparling crystals and lots of seed beads. This has a three inch clip mechanism on the back.

Yesterday I took my bouquets with me for Show and Tell at my art group meeting and sold the clip that you see above!! I think this one was my favorite!! It does look fabulous in Linda's hair- she has nice long curly hair and this sits on the back of her head beautifully!!!

Detail shot of the larger white bouquet- sorry about the side ways posting!!
I did all of the work by hand and finshed off the back covering all of the messy bits with a piece of green felt!! these remaing clips will go down to the Gallery at Liberty Town and will hopefully entice some flower lovers as it is Garden Week here in Virginia!!!

Happy Spring Everyone!!

Spring is Here at #3 !!!

2011-04-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

The time of awakening gardens has arrived, and none too soon for me!! With all of the heartache, violence and anger in the world right now I have found myself yearning for the peace and realistic perspective that always comes to me when I am outside working in the garden. We have had a lovely amount of rain this spring and it is finally starting to warm up. Every day I see new signs of the return of old friends as they lift their heads above the soil and push the leaf cover aside to greet the sunshine. Many of my perrenials that have been limping along , have finally decided that they are happy in their homes and have spread and emerged newly invigorated. Above you can see my unfurling Bleeding Hearts. I love the intensity fo the ruby red of the still to open blossoms.

The Pink Impression Hybrid Tulips are back again and stronger in number and look so at home beneath the weeping Cherry tree.

Here are my absolute favorite garden treasure, a true pass-along plant. This is an English Primrose called Hose-On -Hose and each year each plant creates a sister plant. The clumps grow very quickly and love part shade. When it is cool and rainy, the blossoms last for a very long time. You would have had a good chuckle if you had seen the contortions that I went to in order to get these shots. Lets just say a change of clothes was in order!!

We have Gold Finches swarming our thisle feeders and filling the yard with birdsong.

As our winter was relatively mild, the Pansies that I planted in the fall have rebounded beautifully and are filling the yards with their wonderful scent. I love this combo of the orange Pansie with the bright pink Phlox.

Last fall, I planted a large number of Grecian Wind Flowers, or anemones, in clusters all over the garden. These bulbs will naturalize and spread and fill the beds with these glorious corn flower blue flowers. i just adore this color!!!

To end our little garden stroll I will leave you with more shots of these glorious Pink impression Tulips. It really does work to plant the bulbs extra deep, if you want them to return year after year!!!

I hope that the glories of spring are arriving in your part of the counrty. Goodness knows we all need a healthy dose of perspective and grace that one can only gain when one spends time amoung the glories of the garden!!

Nuno Felting Experiments

2011-03-29T14:43:00.001-07:00

I ahve been dreaming of playing with felting silk fabrics and silk fibers along with wool and mohair curls for some time now. It has all been coalecing in my brain and percolating down to a method tha I canapproach for some time now. I finally got it concentrated to an approachable form several weeks ago and gathered my bits and pieces and dove in. This scarf or shawl or wra above is the reult of all of my collecting and mental work and felting trials.

I collaged some vintage lace fabric from an Estate sale, a deconstructed silk gauze blouse found at Goodwill and some pink silk gauze fabric from Artistic Artifacts . I "glued it all together" using wool roving, mohair curls ans silk fibers. I overlapped the fibers with the fabrics , added soap and water and elbow grease and viola a cohesive whole of soft gauzy loveliness!!! I am so inspired to have another go with this method, but must gather more silk gauze!!!

, This NUNO experiement was much more straight forward. I hand dyed this 10 inch, two yard strip of silk gauze, and then felted wool roving mohair curls and silk fibers down the center 4 inches. this created a lovely loosely ruffled edge down both sides.

To increase the sparkle just a bit more I added some seed beads randomly wandering downt he length of the felted bit . So soft and floaty and luxureous!!!

This next piece is more of a small shawl rather than a scarf and has a curved wide area in the middle that tappers off to thinner ends with wool'silk tassles to finish it off. Again I used a wonderful length of hand dyed (by moi) silk gauze in purples and blues. I felted three narrow strips of fiber down the length of the silk with one strip of fiber capturing one long raw edge. By encasing the edge in fibers , the wool pulled the silk in in a ruffly fashion and thereby curved the bottom edge of the silk gathering it in. I love th lovely ruffling and ruching effect that can be achieved with the combination of strategically placed fibers.!!

I am now planning on purchasin some legths fo silk gauze fabric, setting up the dye vats and felting some more silky lovliness. I hope to have several of these creations posted to my revamped Etsy Shop soon!!

I hope that all of you can get out and enjoy some of the lovelySpring awakenings or Fall changes wherever you may be, this weekend!! I am off to dye some more silk!!!!!

My 500th POST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-03-26T19:49:00.000-07:00

I loaded these photos last night intending to write a post about a Collage Jewelry Class that I taught recently at Artistic Artifacts, Then I noticed the post counter!!! My 500th Post!! Can't quite believe it, but here it is!! I will be having a Blog Giveaway and I will be announcing it soon so watch for it!!! So back to the Collage Jewelry Class at Artistic Artifacts!! This was a first run for this class for me and as always happens ont he first time taught , I learned so many things. The first being to add time for everyone to look at each other's stash of treasures!!! Oh man did we have fun , and each treasure ahd a wonderful story to go along with it. As usual I had a fabulous bunch of gals who were anxious to dive in and learn about wire wrapping and link making.

In the class orphan earrings became charms, a pair of earrings became a wonderful pair of links with holes for more danglies, a wonderful piece of found coral became a focal piece and a beautiful twig became a large link and perch for a sterling lizard charm ! We had such fun!

We faced the challenges of figuring out the best way for each to hold their own set of pliers and how to hold things to get a nice wire wrap around items that have no holes.

It is so satisfying to put a jumble of bits and pieces of treasures and chain together to create a unique collection of personal jewelry. Each piece was so very different and spoke of the character of it's creator.

I will be teaching the class again on May 14th ( a Saturday) there are still one or two spaces left so if you are in the neighborhood come join us to create your own treasure necklace!!!

Finally Meeting Susan!!!!

2011-03-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

Monday arrived sunny and cold but the PLAN was on!! Monday was the day that I was going to finally meet Susan!!!! Susan lives in Maryland and I live just north of Fredericksburg in Virginia, so we met in the middle, at Woodlawn Plantation and the National Embroidery Show. I was so very excited. I have known Susan Elliott via her wonderful blog, Plays With Needles , for several years now.

But Monday was the day that we were going to meet each other in person, in the flesh , for real!!!

I first learned of Susan's amazing needlework, bead work and embroidery thru the Bead Journal Project, and artist Robin Atkins. You can see Susan's Bead Journal pieces here.
This was the first Plays With Needles blog post that I read. This was the post that told me that I would become great friends with Susan. Read this post and look at Susan's glorious photos, her wonderful beadwork and you will understand!! I got to see this exact piece in person, in the Bead, so to speak, at the Needlework Show at Woodlawn.
The personal stories that Susan tells are represented in the exquisite pieces that she creates. Her writing is amazing and her medium is beads ,stitch and textiles. Susan and I connected on many levels thru our blogs and knew that we would have the love of stitch and beadwork in common. But there are so many other things that we discovered that we have in common!
So, we met at Woodlawn Plantation to view the Needle Work Show. Susan had submitted seven of her Journal pieces and I was beyond thrilled to see them in person! Susan leads her readers thru the construction of many of the unique eleemnts of her Journal pieces on her blog- yet another delight!!! We viewed the show, and settled in for a wonderful lunch at the delightful tea room and then headed out to my favorite bead store in Alexandria.

I was delighted to be able to introduce Susan to this amazing jewel box of a bead store, owned and opperated by my dear friend Rosalie Lamana , or as we know her Ro! this truley is a hidden jewel of a bead store and MUST be added to your "To Visit" list if you are ever in the DC area and you love beads. Beads Limited!!!

Every surface of this shop is covered, draped and ladden with beads, many of them vintage and rare!

The back of the entrance is coverd with hanks of beads.

The windows are draped with hanks of beads.

Very quickly one decides that in order to see everything, one must crawl around on the floor and open every drawer that is filled with 20-30 compartments each holding treasure. There is NO other way!!!

And of course all of the walls are laden with rows of beads from the tip top to the very floor!!

Now let me introduceyou to our lovely hostess, the beautiful Ro. A wonderful treasure all on her own!!

Susan and I spent several hours in Ro's delightful company and left her clutching our wonderful satchels of beady luciousness. She won't have to worry about expenses for a couple of months! (Not quite, but close) If you go , remember to bring your checkbook or cash, Ro does not take credit cards!

We left each other to join the hordes leaving Washington on the long trip home, with plans to meet up again at the Maryland Sheep Show in May. I am going to work very hard to save my pennies! Perhaps we will carry each other purses so we can afford to drive home!!!!

I had the most delightful, inspiring and wonderful day and know that I will continue to be inspired by Susan's amazing prose, needle work and wonderful friendship for many many years to come. I am so very grateful to have found her!

Beads LTD

1801 Belle View Blvd, Suite A-1

Alexandria, VA 22307

hours: Sunday 1:30-6:30pm

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 11-6pm.

703-768-9499

Latest Cuff Class Creations !!!!

2011-03-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Teaching this class has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration and excitement!! I am always delighted to see a students creation take on it's own life and absorb the spirit and mood of each artist. The piece always becomes a mirror of it's makers artistic soul!!
I think that Many of you that know my wonderful friend and amazingly talented artist Leslie Brier, would have little trouble identifying this work in progress as Leslie's work!! You are so right!!

Here you see Leslie's incredible collage of found bits and beads all sewn down on to the ulta suede fabric , ready for attachment to the cuff form.

Yes, you Can see various gears, metal battleships from a vintage Monopoly set, an amazing tiny sparkplug charm that was an advertizing give away, way back when, old buttons, all surrounding a wonderful info label from a small motor!! Fantastic!!! Leslie shared that she has been known to buy small motors just to pry the labeling tags from the carcass!!! Brilliant and so LESLIE!!!

This next piece glows with wonderful soft colors and exudes the lovely, calm and beautiful spirit of it's maker , the lovely Liana! I would never have put this combination of colors together, but this cuff is so shimmeringly gorgeous, I sure do wish that I had!!!

You See, I learn so very much from my students!!

The lovely coral colored bits on this cuff were loving pryed from a vintage buckle that had lost several of it's parts. We are not sure if the lilies are real coral or fabulous Bakelite plastic. No matter, they are divine and became the centerpiece for Liana's fabulous work.

The liliies set the bar for a stunning 3 dimensional garden themed display of color and light play and resulted in a stunning cuff of Artistic beauty!!!
Remember, that the vast majority of my students have never done any work like this before and several have never worked with beads before.!! Yet each and every student that has enrolled in this class has departed with an incredibly unique piece of bead embroidered jewelry!!! It really is stunning and it is NOT all due to my teaching- this comes form inside each person who opens themselves up to the artistic possiblities. I pass on tips and a few simple techniques and several well learned pit falls to avoid, but everything else comes from the hand that passes the needle and thread thru the bead and the cloth!!

This is the cuff that I used as my teaching sample and that I finished off as we dove into the challenges of attaching the beaded cuffs to the cuff blanks. It serves as a reminder to always Laugh and to NEVER take ones self too seriously!!! (This cuff is now for sale at Sophia Street Studios in downtown Fredericksburg!!!)

Release your creative spirit and allow yourself to find the artistic well that flows in all of us-where ever you are-

Take A Class !!

From the Inside Out

2011-03-08T14:08:00.000-08:00

Quite a few of you have expressed an interest in seeing the Inside of my Make Do Journal that was recently published in Cloth Paper Scissors. I used buttons as decorative embellishment throughout the book and had held out a bit of hope that a spread might have been included but they left that to me, and that is fine. Now I can describe what I did and answer any questions that you might have. I would be happy to fill you in if there is something specific that you are interested in, so don't be shy!!

Here is the front cover. I tried to use lots of bits of fabrics that I ahd designed myself. On the cover you can see several pieces that I monoprinted from a gelatin plate.

This is the back cover. I added this sweet little partially finished needlepoint canvas that I ahd found in a thrift store. You all know how much I love anything floral!!

Inside front cover lined with a piece of a vintage linen tea towel that I hand stitched in with a button hole stitch.
The following pages are a small sampling of the kinds of bits that I included in the book. The book has three signatures presently with room to insert one more.

All of the pictures can be enlarged, with a right click , if you wish to see details.

I often include papers that had been work surface covers. They often have wonderful random color and pattern that I simply can't resist!!

This page was the surface protector for a bunch of papers that I decorated with gesso resist and acrylic paint washes.

These collaged pages are done with torn book pages, painted paper towel and napkin tops.

Several of the pages were connected to form a full spread with painted dryer sheets and some times lace.

Gesso resist and acrylic wash.

Large fabric pocket from the same fabric that I used on the inside front cover.

Inside back cover.
I thoroghly enjoyed making this book and I still ahve piles and piles of stuff to make several more. Now I just have to train myself to journal in them!!!!

New Teaching Venue!

2011-03-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

HEre is the delightful space where I will be teaching classes!! This is Sophia Street Studios owned by terrifically talented and generous potter, Trista Chapman.

Last Friday was our First Friday Celebration for March and I worked all week to prep for the reveal of the classes that I hope to teac in the classroom space that Trista will be providing. This is a very exciting turn of events for Fredericksburg as there are very very few venues that have dedicated teaching spaces. Other teachers will be sharing the space with me and we hope to grow this aspect of Sophia Street Studios to provide a dynamic roster of instuction opportunities for the community. Trista was incredibly generous in wanting to sell my work at the studio as well.This is such a wonderful complement and I am so grateful to have my work displayed along with the other wonderful artists work here.

The pottery that you see here is a wonderful example of Trista's delighful and colorful work!!

Sophia Street Studio's ona typical First Friday Night!!! The loft upstairs(at the top of the window) houses the studio's of painter Mirinda Reynolds, Karen Whepley and the pottery studio of Trista Chapman. The classroom space is in back behind the gallery area.

For the launch of the Classes , I set up two tables in the classroom area and displayed class samples of various areas of instruction along with class descriptions. I am gathering names and will start classes as soon as I can arrange convenient times for students. I will be offereing daytime classes during the week and also on the weekends. I am not going to be teaching in the evenings

I hung lots of textile art samples to Art Up the place as well and to show all of the wonderful possibilities for artistic expression.

I included my recent publications with the original pieces. I plan to teach Journal Making and Techniques for Altered Books.
Gelatin Monoprinting and Sun Printing are also on the list.

Making Mark Making Tools and Carving Rubber Stamps will also be on the Class Line-Up.

Trista also asked me to display some of my art work in the Gallery.

If you are in the area, do stop by Sophia Street Studios or contact me directly and we can get some personal art experiences arrainged for you!!!!

Newly Published!!

2011-02-25T04:52:00.000-08:00

I am madly racing about trying to meet several surprise dealines so this will be a very quick post. I just wanted to stop by and share that I have had a bit of artwork published in the latest edition of Cloth Paper Scissors!! HTis is the first time that my art work has been accepted by CPS so I am quite excited. I must also say that I think that Jenn Mason is doing a fabulous job as the new Editor in Chief and is working hard to bring in lots of new artists and their work to share with CPS readers. Way to go Jenn!! Also I must commend Barb Delaney of CPS for the wonderful job that she does in contacting we contributors and making sure that our art pieces are lovingly taken care of and safely ferried between home and the art studio. Bravo Barb!!!

I submitted my Denim Journal to the All Buttoned UP Challenge as I had used buttons as embellishments as well as functional tools throughout my book!!

In my efforts to meet my looming deadlines I did my First Solo Low Immersion dye batch. I would have prefered to wait till the weather got warmer as the Procion MX dyes are supposedly much more intense when the weather is warm and humid, but the time was NOW! I used the Quart Jar Parfait method and got results that I am absolutely thrilled with. You will have to wait a bit to see what will be created from all of these bits of linens that I have been rescuing from Thrift Shops and Antique Malls.

Here are some of the laces and trims that emerged from the dye baths. (I did batch them overnight to get the most intense color possible.)

Some of these pieces were real ugly ducklings with stains and some were stitched with several lots of cotton threads that had aged to different colors of biege and brown. The dye bath fixed all of those problems!!

On A trip tot he mailbox last week I did spot the first crocus of spring so if all of my dear friends in the midwest and northeast can hang on, know that spring actually is going to be here soon!! It seems that this year the groundhog may ahve been correct!!!

I promise that I will be back soon with news regarding these deadlines and all the activity that is turning my home into a full blown stitching studio complete with files of fabric and dyed bits, felted animals and spools of thread and yarns. A very colorful jumble to say the least!!!!

Happy Weekend All!!!

Today the topic is Food Security.

2011-02-19T11:39:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we get so caught up in local (I mean US here,) issues of politics and budget cuts that we forget that there is a huge worl out there where people ahve problems much more dire and grave than ours. Recently I have heard stories from both my brother, Peter Jensen and my sister in law, Elise Jensen, that have brought a bit of perspective to the table. My brother works in sustainable agriculture in Africa and now South East Asia. His home base for the moment is Dar Es Saalam Tanzania. His wife Elise is currently stationed in northern Afganistan with USAID. They have two beautiful daughters , my fabulous neices Mali and Kate who are students. Mali is a freshman at Colgate university and Kate is in the 8th grade at the Embassy School in Tanzania. Peter is just returning home from his first trip to Cambodia and Vietnam to develop sustainable food production programs for people who are HIV + and who are desperately in need of new staregies to feed themselves and their children. I have introduced you to Peter and his family here before, but I feel that this might be a really good time to catch you up on what my wonderful brother is up to.

He does not know that I am doing this post nor that I ahve copied his letter here or posted this wonderful picture of him eating Star Fruit with his Cambodian host the "Cambodian way-" sprinkled with hot pepper and salt to cut the sour!!!. He will know soon, but I don not think that he will mind a bit! Peter is on Face Book and if you would care to follow along on his travels ,you can friend him at Peter Jensen, Dar Es Saalam.

Now for a heavy dose of much needed global perspective!!!!

Hello ladies,

I'm ouit of Phnom Penh enjoying a way too expensive latte again here in Bangkok. PP was SOOOO much calmer and cheaper - we ate liek kings for $3 each most meals, and they were delicious...but it is good to be on my way home to Tanzania, Kate and Nala. It will take me the better part of 26 hours to get there what with 2, 6 hour flights and 2, 5 hour layovers like this one in Bangkok (the other in Dubai) but that is what I have to put up with to do the kind of work I do so its okay.

Getting to stomp around in remote villages, visiting at length with struggling women eager and gentle men and charming, shy children living in real poverty..yet surrounded by a richness many coudl only dream of. But the richness of natural beauty is lost on you when yuo have only enough rice to feed your children one meal a day. And yet...we drove through miles and miles of rice paddy - as far as you could see till they melted into the haze of the foothills that eventually become Laos or Thailand. But all that richness and food is beyond their reach. They may work in the paddies but tehy can not eat the food they grow - nearly all of which goes to feed the billion in China and India - the real owners of the land all around us. It all comes down to a question of availability - which it is - versus accessible - which it is not. The luxurious third qwuestion of food security - proper utilization or balanced nutrition - is all too often lost on people who simply want to fill their bellies and stop the grumbling.

The work we did was very exciting. I got to travel and think and write with two great minds in the world of community development and agricultural sustainability. Most of my trips I am the sole voice in these matters so this was a real treat let me tell you. We laughed till we cried each night over beer, eel, and stir fried pineapple with duck and any number of incredible asian greens. But the day swere sobering to say the least. WE saw some excellent examples of local knowledge and fortitude to buoy us in the face of the poverty otherwise. The 'beneficiaries' of this extension methodology we were developing armostly HIV+ women and children...the men for the most part having since passed away.

We were writing, researching and field testing a series of "garden dialogues" to help individuals, within regularly meeting village self help groups, begin to decipher the complex world of the many horticultural possibilities which surround them and which could they could exploit to feed themselves. Much of this they are already doing in small ways so this dialogue really is just a tool they can use to empower themselves that they have many of the answers already within the knowledge base of the community. This is a series of leadign question 'role plays' in a way. if you will, leading questions, that will guide people to descern how best to maximize the resources around them cheaply and iwthout a lot of extra labor or money. And - without having to wait for the once annual visit from the know it all extension agents from the ministry (or worse, the know it all, overpriced foreign ag consultants) to swoop in, dump out the information like super heroes and leave without a glimmer of thought for revisits and follow up in many cases. With these dialogues, hopefully, we have begun the process of working ourselves out of a job.

What with 50+ years of agricultural development (This year is the 50th anniversary of USAID and Peace Corps) and what is there to show for it? Sure the Green Revolution saved India from starvation in the 60's but it has lead to a complete dependency on dangerous, expensive and increasingly ineffective chemical pesticides and fertilizer. Its all so expensive that, guess what, the farmer who used to own her own rice paddy has had to sell it to Chinese companies, go to work for pennies on his former land, and have little food at the end of the day to fill her children's bellies. Did you know that It is actually cheaper to buy Thai/Cambodian rice in Tanzania than it is to buy Tanzanian rice in Tanzania.?? ..they grow THAT much over here. So world hunger really has little to do with actual production..its all about distribultion and money to buy it. Sad really.

Ah - but I go on and on...too much latte I guess.

These 'sustainable livelihood garden dialogues', if accepted and moved into the field with our new cambodian friends (the ones who shared the laughter and deep insight on our field trips last week) leading the way, could be quite something I think. And if all goes well, will lead to more similar work in SE Asia as well as TZ, Rwanda and Zambia in the year to come.

Well - its midnight - got 2 hours to go till I can board the plane and hunker down for a little shut eye. Think I'll opt for some of that lemon grass tea that the lovely french lady next to me opted for. That would be a better choice!

I'll drop you a line when I return to lovely dar..and lovely Kate...and nala the wonder dog.

Peace ... and Good Eats!

Peter

Needless to say I am very proud of my baby brother. My life and lives of my family have been so incredibly enriched by his and his wonderful familie's, experiences. I am very grateful!!

Prepping for Classes

2011-02-15T07:25:00.001-08:00

It has been far too long since my last post!! I do apologize!!! I am in the midst of prepartions for a Beaded Zipper Cuff Class that I will be teaching tomorrow at Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts!! This will be my first teaching experience at FCCA and it is very exciting as we are working very hard to get lots of unusual and sought after workshops going for the Fredericksburg arts community. (You might notice the chocolate hearts in the above picture. It is understood that every art instructor always provides chocolate for their students!!!!)

I am also in the midst of organizing and designing a whole curriculum of classes to be taught at a dedicated classroom venue in Fredericksburg!! I am so excited aobut this new venture and I will be sure to share it with you as soon as all of the T's are crossed and i's dotted!!!!

I hope that you are all well and finding lots of wonderful ways to be creative every day!!!

Art ON!!!!

Felted Rainforest Wall hangings

2011-02-03T06:09:00.000-08:00

My adventures with the 5th grade class at Fredericksburg Academy continue, as we work on completing two glorious wallhangings . We have decided to create two pieces as the kids are creating such spectacular flora and fauna to include in our compositions. Just wait to you see what these kids ahve done!!! i am amazed and thrilled with the excitment, energy and inspiration that we have got going on with this project.
Just to remind you , we have been creating felted batts of felted roving. The kids have done all of the work. From the greens felted pieces I have pieced together two background canvases that are approximately 4ft wide by 5 ft long.

We then decided what other colors would be needed to create the inhabitants of the rainforest and made felted batts of wool . Then the kids created sketches and then cut up the felted batts to create their critters and flowers.
The felting was fun but the creation of the critters and foliage was amazing!!! Witha few suggestions and a few how to's, they took off!!

One girl spent some time creating a wonderful Tapir.
(seen here in progress)

The orange was perfect for the Toucan's beak.

Once the kids had laid out their animals on a piece of tuille, I took them home and carefully stitched the pieces all down to secure the compositions. I absolutely adore this anteater!! Isn't he fabulous???
We had one group of boys learning how to use needle and thread to stitch leaves onto vines that they had felted. They were so excited that they were sewing!!! Whooo hooo!! We had another group that was creating flowers and beading stamens, another creating insects and snakes and yet another group working on Jaguars and Lizards!!!

Our class work for the day!!

Here are a few closeups of some of my new favorite critters. I have placed them on one of the backgrounds so you can begin to get an idea of how this will all be built!!

Along with our hand felted batts of colored roving I had added pieces of felted wool sweaters inot the mix of available textile supplies. This lovely little scarlet macaw was created with a piece of a pink cashmere sweater that the Principal had donated to our cause!! The girl who created this wonderful bird ,cut feathers from a yellow wool sweater and from a blue felted batt.

The dragonfly was an inspired creation by a girl who used a doily for the wings and then ourfelt for the rest. The chameleon was put together using a felted batt that was made using bits of a blue net tub scubby captured in amoung the wool roving fibers. The young imaginations at work was a joy to behold and I consider myself so lucky to be so enriched and inspred by these terrifically creative kids!!!

We are getting to the point where we will be placing our trees ,vines, waterfalls and animals on our backgrounds; backing the wool with a sturdy fabric support and adding our wooden vine hanger. Stay tuned for the final reveal of our fabulous Wallhangings. The tough part is going to be putting these creations up on the Auction table at the Fundraiser!!!