Parade of the Daylillies

I have not bored you with my garden for awhile now, but these glorious flowers are too much to keep to myself!!! I won't take up time with chatter, just photos of my flowers! I wish that we had computers that were capable of transmiting scents, as many of these flowers are amazingly fragrant!!

I hope that you have enjoyed my little garden tour!! I have several varieties of lillies that have not even started to bloom yet so I will have many more shots to share with you. I am also going to start selling my photo stationary (all florals) on my Etsy site soon. Don't fret! I will be sure to let you know when I am ready to put it up for sale!

Have a wonderful weekend, all!!!

Fabric Collage Commission

A week ago last Saturday I drove my son and two of his friends to a Miniatures Gaming Convention in Baltimore. I was not overly enthused about the 1.5 hour trip to Baltimore but as none of the other parents were willing to help out, I drove anyway. This convention is put on by a British company named Games Workshop and I must take my hat off to them, as they had the forethought to set up a very nice, quiet Parents Lounge so the parents would have a safe haven to hide out from the noise and frenzied atmosphere. They know how to take care of the folks who pay the bills!! This helped my mood immensly, as I traveled armed with supplies for at least 5 different projects. (Better to take too many things to do, than to run out of things to do!!! ) I dropped off the boys and ran for cover!!!! I secured a table and set up my work area- I had taken beading projects and hand sewing work so I didn't occupy too much space. I had several nice conversations with several different parents and even ran into a few fellow artists! Many folks stopped by to investigate what I was doing. One very nice father, from New Jersey, was interested in the purse that I was working on. This piece is a commission for a gal who lives in Fredericksburg. That piece is almost identical to the collage purse that was the subject of a blog post of several weeks ago. Bruce asked if I could make an eye glass case using the same colors as the purse that I was currently working on. We settled on a price, exchanged e-mail and contact info, he paid me and went off to locate his kids!!!!! Think of what I would have missed if I had not driven the kids to the event. My ego was very well fed and I had been given inspiration for a new design as well as money for a piece of my very own work!!! (HAPPY DANCE TIME!!!)

So here is the piece that I created. I put it in the mail today after I sent pictures to Bruce for his approval. He is very pleased with it and feels that the recipient will be thrilled! ( More Happiness!!)

This is the front.

And the back.

A close up of the top, there is a tab of velcro sewn under the Butterfly bead.

And finally, the interior. The pocket portion is lined with a lavendar silk.

I am planning on creating more glass case to have on hand for holiday sales and hopefully I will get some over to my Etsy Shop as well. I just wish that I had a few more hours in my day!!!

Reshuffled book parts-in other words, A COLLAGE!

I have just finished this piece for a good friend who lives in New York. We are doing a personal exchange. SHHHHH don't tell her that it is here!!!

The ""canvas" for this piece is the back cover of an old green cloth covered book. It measures about 11x14. I used another crumbling (literally) old book cover from an old Thesaurus ( the brown piece,) a journal entry from an old journal from 1926, an image of a bluebird from a vintage book with watercolor illustrations, some bits of my own hand made papers, a BlueJay feather, a piece of clam shell with worm holes in it, a frame from a vintage cabinet card phtot album and some of my handpainted fabric, a Vintage skeleton key and some pearl cotton to create the reat of the collage. Each piece is mounted on different elements to vary the height of each surface. I also rubbed various colors of Lumiere paints around the edges of the green book cover and the edges of the cabinet card frame.

I am planning on working on more pieces like this one as I had a great time creating this one. It was actually hard for me to part with this piece and that does not happen very often!!!!!

Banners and Paper Birds

You may remember from several posts back that I was taking part in a Paper Bird Tota swap. The word TOTA refers to the line or string of birds and animals that are hung with an ornament or bell at the bottom of the string. I received the birds in the mail the other day and I hope to get around to stringing them all together soon. In the meantime, here they are.

For some irritating reason , Blogger is insisting on uploading several of these pictures in the wrong orientation. ARGHHHHH!! You can still see how wonderful they all are however! these birds are alll made from paper with added embellishments of all sorts. Tis particular bird reminds me of colorful POP Art!!

I love all of the layers on this little birdie!

Maria made this little chick with all sort of vintage paper bits and a vintage photo!! Just love it!!!

Gaye made this little sweet wren with all sorts of wonderful stamped textures. Wren's were one of my grandmother's favorite birds, so this one is special!

This beautiful turquoise and blue bird has wonderful metal embellishments on her wings!

This is how I plan to string them. The bird at the bottom is one of the birds that I made for the swap. I will share one final time once the tota is strung!!

Now I have some Banner Penants to share. On one of my groups we are having a Banner swap. The banner when complete will spell out the word "INSPIRATION". So there are 11 of us participating , one artist per word and we must each make 11 penants with our chosen letter on it. Each artist also chose a color theme or color combo for their particiular banner. So I have completed 11 banner penants with the letter N in various color combo's. I chose for my color combination "Artists Choice" as I wanted each artist to let their own colors out, so to speak.

I apologize for these pictures being so dark! I did not check the pictures after taking them and now the banners are on their way to the swap hostess in Oregon!!

The gals who these banners are for chose green cream and brown,lime green turquoise and brown, shabby chic-any colors, and the bottom one was to be in red, pink and orange.

For these banners the artists chose Artists' Choice (that one will be in my banner), colors of the SEA and Celelstial colors. Now once the hostess gets banners from all 11 artists, she will sort them all by name and send us back our penants spelling "Inspiration". We are all very excited about this swap as we have been posting pictures of our penants as we have finished them. The completed piece is going to be glorious!!!

I have several more projects to finish up, several of which are commissions, so I will be back to check in later!

Sunprint Fabric Dyeing

Today several friends joined me on our deck to dye some fabrics. I had agreed to teach them how to use the Setacolor Dyes by Pebo- not that there is anything to teach. All that is necessary is to dilute the dyes with water, paint it on the fabrics of choice and then mask off areas of fabric that will appear lighter in color once the fabric dries in the sun. We have had beautiful clear dry weather for the last couple of days so once the dye was applied and the masks were on , it only took about a half hour in the sun to dry everything.!!

Here you see a portion of our projects laid out on the lawn in the sun. The areas that are covered by foliage or stencils or cutouts or doillies will end up being lighter in color than the surrounding areas.

On this piece I used grassey weeds and Creeping Jenny groundcover for the maks. Then blow, you can see the dried piece with the foliage (masks) removed.

This piece was covered with a large stencil.


On the left you can see a piece that was covered with a letter stencil, a shapes stencil and a plastic doillie. On the right is a piece that still has the leaves (masks) and salt on top of the damp fabric.

This was an old pulled thread napkin that is now adorned with Olde English script letters from a quilting stencil!!!
And my favorite shot of a pile of dried fabrics stacked up and ready to take inside. I thought that the impromptu collage was very colorful and fun!!
Now we all have lots of creating to do!! (You should see my shirt- it is now beautifully decorated with splatters from the leftover drops of dye!!)

Iressistable Wax Rubbings

Wax rubbings combined with paint techniques is the subject of the Latest Crusade from Michelle Ward and the Street Team. Way back, somewhere in my past I have memories of doing some gravestone rubbings in Orleans, Ma, on Cape Cod. that was probably back in the early 70's when "It Was The thing To Do". We were never quite sure what to do with the rubbings when we were done!


This technique has sparked some fun memories and I have definate ideas of what "To Do" with these samples and future attempts!!


Lately I have been working with lots of fabric- old lines doilies and such no matter what condition. I have been dying them using various methods and next I will be using the bits in fabric collages and dolls and some Art Quilts. this piece was on my table to be dyed and as it has wonderful texture in the hand done lace, I decided to try using it for a rubbing.


Here is the linen piece:

(For some reason, Blogger is insisting on posting this shot vertically, and after 3 tries to correct the orientation , this is how it stays!!! ARGHHHH!!!)

Here is the rubbing done with a purple crayon and then painted with Lettuce acylic paint from Ranger.

Next I did a rubbing of a simple stencil, nothing too daring.

This was done with a green crayon and a blue wash with the same typw of acrylic paint.

Next I did a stencil placed on top of my precious piece of star sequin waste. ( I only have this one piece and it is getting so paint encrusted itself , it makes a great surface for rubbings. I would love to find more of this stuff. Any Ideas, anyone????)

I did this one with the purple crayon/Lettuce paint combo.

this is yet another technique that I know that I will revisit when I emerge from dyeing vats and fabric fluff and obsession!!

What a week!!

Has it really been a week since my last post??? I guess so! So much for posting every day!!

Well, the kids are both done with school. Matthew will be a Junior in High School next year- (read College Search Begins!!!) Becca will be entering 6th grade as a Middle Schooler.

We celebrated 5th Grade Recognition Night last night and Becca wond several awards. She recieved the presidentila Award for Academic Excellence and an Award for "Broadcasting Excellence" for the local in school TV station. Needless to say we are quite proud of her and pleased for her!

To top it all off Becca's class won the 5th grade Kick Ball tournament and beat the teachers in the End of the Year Game. Mrs. Baker , their classroom teacher was on the kid's team , as part of the class , and pulled a Ham string rounding the bases!! She told me that she had run track in High School and has always figured that she could do it forever (her class has won the kid's tournament 5 years in a row, she is a grandmother of 4 and is 62 years old- she looka about 40!! And Oh My Goodness What a wonderful teacher!!!)The reward for winning the final game was a run thru the halls of the school, while WE WILL ROCK YOU by the group Queen was being played over the loud speaker. As Running in the Halls is something that IS JUST NEVER DONE, this is quite a big deal and a huge tradition. All of the other classes ,K-5 line the halls and high-5 the kids as they jog by! the pride and exhilaration on the kids faces just forces huge smiles and tears to all eyes!!

Becca with her 5th grade teacher Mrs. Baker.

Becca nda I after the festivities. Becca was shocked when I came downstaris in a dress! She is definately becoming a teenager!!! Here we go!!!

The Birdies!!

I am sorry that I have been late with the posting of the winners of my Birthday Birdies Drawing!! We have just gotten power restored on the computers after terrible storms (including Tornado touchdown 5 miles south) on Wednesday night. We did take the list of comments and the hat to the basement with us on the night of the storms to figure out who had won. When storms come up I need to come up with anything that I can to distract my poor Becca. She really is a wreck during any kind of stormy weather. We really thought that we had left this kind of weather behind us when we moved from Oklahoma!!!!!

So enough suspense!!

The winners are : Barb B., Susan S,. Ariel F, and Sequana.

Your birdies will be in the mail on monday along with some colorful tassels that I have just finished.

You may , if you wish, hang the tassel from the bottom of the bird or do something else with it entirely!!

For those who did not get drawn from the hat this time, I will be having more drawings so please stop by every once in awhile to see what I am up to. I really enjoyed this event; you all really helped to get me through this last 40's b-day!!!!

At this time of year I can hardly do a single post without sharing what is blooming in my garden!!

The garden is going to be quite something this year as we have had a lot of rain with all of these storms and the perrenisals have been in the ground now for a full 3 years!

I am working on a collection of Japanese Iris- I just love them!!

This is a new Coneflower called Sundowner- arent the colors on the petals wonderful?? These flowers are also magnets for butterflies and hummingbirds!

My edible pod pease which I usually eat up before I even manage to get inside!!!

And my beautiful lettuce! ( that I stole from the slugs by picking the little slim balls off by hand!!!)

I hope thta everyone has a happy and artful weekend! I will be at a big quilt Show tomorrow helping a friend who will be a vendor at the show. It is suppossed to be a dangerously hot day here in VA so it will be a good place to be!!!!

Fountains, A Bird Quiltie and Family Photos!!

Well, I got thru my birthday and was alot less shakey about the whole thing on June 1st- the morning after! I did have a very nice weekend! Becca won her softball game, we had a nice rain with No Tornados, I got some art time in and we bought a water fountain bird bath for the garden as my birthday present. I have always wanted to have the sound of water in the garden. i also love having the birds around as they are so important for the biological health of the environment. This little fountain sits right off the front porch and Tom will eventually hard wire it into the light post so we can do away with the lovely orange extension cord!

Almost as soon as we got the pump running and water flowing, a big fat Robin came along and took a bath, displacing 2/3 of the water!! It was such fun to sit up on the porch and watch! I am really going to have to keep an eye on the water level to avoid ruining the pump!!

My Birthday was also a wonderful mail day! I got a terrific package from my wonderful friend Jacky form OZ! It was stuffed full of wonderful art goodies, everything from gel pens to wonderful paper napkins, rhinestones and ribbons and crowned with the most wonderful Bird Quiltie ever!! I have long admired Jacky's whimsical style and her handstitching and color combos are just divine!! I have found the perfect piece of Rappahanock River driftwood to hang it from and it will be part of the new art display that I am arranging in the family room.

The Quiltie is about 8x8 and this picture just does not do all of the colors justice!! I just adore this piece ! I love the legs on the bird!! Speaking of long legged birds, one of the things that I requested for my birthday were some family pictures. So on Sunday before it got to hot and before teenagers got crabby, I gathered my birds out in the side yard for a photo shoot.

Note that the Dad is standing on the high side of the slope as Matthew the 16 year old is going to pass Dad by any minute!! Tom, the Dad, is 6ft 3in. Becca, the other long legged bird, is 11 and is going to be passing the Mom very soon!! As I am the photographer in the family I don't have many pictures of me with my kids so this was my chance!!

We will end with a shot of the biggest bird in the family, also known as the biggest kid! You can now appreciate what I put up with around here!!! ( And I wouldn't have it any other way!!!!)

We certainly are not Brad and Angelina, but who cares!! I am so blessed with a marvelous family and wonderful friends!!!

Now I am off to work on finishing up some tassels for the birdie Birthday Giveaway that will be taking place tomorrow! If you have not left a comment for the drawing, now may be your last chance. Scroll down to the post titled "The Last One in the Forties" and say hi and you will be included in the drawing for one of 4 brids, to take place on June 4!!

I'll be back tomorrow to post the results, after Becca Bird draws the four names out of the proverbial hat!!