Simple can Help .................

Sometime early last week, I came across a neat Tutorial for making Beaded Christmas Ornaments using trash and left over bits of jewelry and beads.  The tutorial is available here and I must thank Jenny at  Jenniebellie Studio for her wonderful blog and terrific artistic spirit.  I watched her video tutorial and then set out to make this technique more my own.  For the interior of each ball, I used wadded up plastic grocery bags for the first and then moved on to wadded up used drier sheets wrapped in a plastic bag for the second.  After wrapping the bags the held it all in place with lots of scotch tape, as Jenny suggests, and then covered that with white tissue held on with white glue. This first ornament I did according to Jenny's instructions.

You can see that I used some vintage buttons and some bits of old jewelry along with seed beads and larger beads from my stash of left over beady bits. For the next ornament, after drying, I added some of my own fabric/paper scraps in various patterns. Jenny showed her "Baubles" as she calls them, done entirely in beads and jewelry, I wanted to speed up the beading process and also to add more of my own style to each ornament.  I am now calling these creations, my Mosaic Beaded Ornaments.

Here is the first ornament done with my fabric/paper and beads.

Ornament #1 and #2.

With the horrific and heart-wrenching news of last Friday, I turned to my art to calm my nerves and force me to concentrate on something other than the huge flood of pain that is washing over us all. This process of creating from "trash" and gluing on beads and bits in a haphazard mosaic fashion was, and is, very soothing and gratifying. The repetitive and quiet process of adding beads and bits was extremely soothing and peaceful for me. With each sparkling crystal I place, I think of a child's laughter and the joy that was brought into the lives of parents and their teachers despite the life being taken far far too early.  that laughter and joy can Never be erased from the hearts of the loved ones who are left behind.  As the ornaments hang sparkling and twinkling on our tree, I look at each twinkle as representing the precious smile of a child.  These ornaments are gifts for other's and those that receive them will know that they were created to help me walk out of the darkness through the power of Art!  I have quite a few of these ornaments planned and it will be an activity that I look forward to after a busy day, for quite awhile.

We must all work hard to overcome the strangle hold that the gun lobby has on our society. We MUST be able to honestly tell our children that we are doing everything in our power to keep them safe and secure.

For the next Mosaic Beaded Ornament, I started thinking about combining fiber with the beads and bits. So after the tissue paper drying bit was done, I glued on bits and snips of vintage lace and trim and then filled in the spaces with crystals and old pearls and flat backed crystals.  ( A great place to find inexpensive, very sparkly flat backed crystals is in the Scrap booking area of your local craft store!! If they have adhesive backs, be sure to add some glue as the sticky back will probably not hold up well over time.)

I also added some strips of muslin that I had written on.  these bits were left over from an old project and I am pleased with the vintage text effect that the scraps add to this ornament.

There are so many directions that this tutorial can be taken, be sure to stop by Jenny's blog and check out all of the fabulous projects and inspiration that she has to offer!!!

Sun Prints, Resin and Fabric/Paper

Here are a few shots of some jewelry that i created in time for this weeks First Friday Opening at Artful Dimensions Gallery.  I have been thinking about this piece for a long time.  I love the shape of hearts, the symbol, what it represents and the universality of that symbol.  I created these hearts with fabric/paper collage and then rimmed each heart with a golden edge, backed each with my own sun printed red fabric and encased each one in Ice Resin.  I added some of my fabric/paper rolled beads that were also dipped in Ice Resin and combined them with glass beads and bits of vintage copper chains.

The second piece that is ready for display is called Blue Bee.  This wonderful brass bee is mounted in a square black bezel that contains a piece of my gold/green/blue fabric paper all held in place by Ice Resin  .  Hanging from the Bee's antenna are a collection of tiny gold chains, a tiny vintage glass prism and some glue and green glass beads.

I am having some wonderful success with experiments using my sun printed linen textiles in combination with the Ice Resin.  They are not quite ready for prime time, but I will share them with you very soon!

Newly Published in Crazy Quilt Gatherings

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!!!