Fabric Paper Projects

A few weeks ago, my friend asked if I’d make some funky little books for 2 guys retiring from her workplace.  She liked the style & idea of this book I had gotten from Kelli Perkins.

I customized the fabric paper layers for these 2 that were in business.  I used stock market reports and some pages from the college catalog, the Business Department.

I gave each cover a masculine glaze.

The inside of the covers is dyed interfacing.

I added 2 signatures (sets of pages) of 8 pages each.

(some pages get a paint wash and some have glimmer mist)

The front has a large capital letter and then the rest of their nickname written out.

Dear Friend and her Boss were pleased when I delivered these the beginning of the month.

Tuesday evening, her Boss called and ordered another book like this for his daughter’s Sweet 16th birthday and could I deliver it on Friday?    🙂     So that is where I’ve been since!  (not really!)

(I didn’t mean for her favorite American Idol star’s name to hit right there on the front…. *sigh*  Once I saw this… it was too late. )

This is Sarah’s book with an emphasis on the American Idol show & the local town.

~~~~

And while I had out the purple paint, I continued and made extra purple fabric paper for a dear SL friend’s daughter.  Eliz’s daughter, Megan has Down Syndrome and was just diagnosed with early stage leukemia.

We are sending cards for Megan and knowing my guts, I had to make something.  Megan is soon-to-be 5 and is a girly-girl.  So purple and pink and girls and fairies seem to be up her alley.

This is like a tri-fold brochure,  lined with dyed interfacing, edged in some knobby yarn.

The 3 pockets hold the 3 ATCs.    The ATCs are fabric paper with an image printed onto muslin stitched on top.  The fairy girl has beads sewn on the flowers in her hair.  The backs are pink fabric.  They are edged in yarn.

I was delighted to find bright pink velvet ribbon to tie this all closed.

Please pray for Megan (she is being a real trooper with her treatments and hospital stay) and her mom & dad and 2 big brothers.

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Blogger Breakfast

My IRL friend, Lori, hosted a Blogger Breakfast yesterday at a nearby state park.  I was so excited to have a girls day of fun.  🙂

Lori invited those whose blogs she follows and that were in the general area.    To add to the fun of the day, Shelly & I met at Lori’s at 9 and then headed to the lodge for the breakfast.   More time for chatting in the car… what could be better?    🙂

At the lodge, we were joined by Michelle, Suzanne, Debbie, & Angela.  A group of 7!!

There was no delay or worry about conversation as we all were happy to meet and share blogging together.

Lori had potted flowers for all of us!!   🙂  They made a lovely table, too!

(L – R: Shelly, me, Suzanne, Michelle, Lori, Debbie, & Angela)

Suzanne brought each of a us a wallet she had made from leftovers from her apron projects.   Mine is white with pink embroidery!  Imagine that!!  And just by potluck of her passing them out to us wrapped in tissue.    🙂

Michelle is quick with graphics and used her blog background to print coordinating cards with her info for us.   Cute!!

I made altered mixed media tags to share.

The image is printed on fabric I ran through the printer, the lettering is Typewriter Keys then colored with acrylic paint & glaze, I stitched some lines with my sewing machine, and added some fun fibers for the string to the coffee-dyed shipping tags.

Thankfully we don’t have to use manual typewriters anymore!

Lori asked everyone to wear a nametag and include our blog address as well as show on the nametag something about us & our blog.  I am so mixed so showed a variety of areas that are ME.    🙂

First I paper-pieced this tiny quilt.  Each block finishes to 1 1/2″ so this whole thing is 3″ square.  The pink fabric and the green fabric are from my snow-dyeing adventure.

If you want to make one, I have my paper piecing patterns here you can borrow.    😉

I layered and quilted the little quilt but chose to leave the edges raw and tore the backing fabric, again from the snow-dyed fabric stash.

I used another coffee-dyed shipping tag and added the quilt, some stitches, recycled buttons, and my name & blog address printed on white paper but colored with a light touch of blue fluid acrylic.

I feel like it is a bit big for a name tag.  I had really planned to make the quilt 2″ square using 1″ blocks but I chickened out.  I didn’t realize just that change would make the name tag so obtrusive!!   Plus I had a headache that day and didn’t want to have smoke come out my brain with overuse!   🙂

We all sat for about 2 hours enjoying the time to visit.   We wandered in the gift shop a bit before parting ways and heading back to our homes.   Some drove over 2 hrs for breakfast!!

Angela took a picture of me, Shelly, & Lori.  She has a KNOCK-OUT camera!!!  🙂  Thanks!!  (Debbie took a pix with my camera but it isn’t so great… someone (me) wasn’t smiling yet!)

I really enjoyed meeting new friends and it is so nice to have voices & real life faces with their blogs.    🙂

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Mixed Media ATCs 2

I have my second set of ATCs completed and I plan to head to the PO to get all of them shipped off this afternoon.

I had the burst of thought of using some of my leftover jacket fabrics…. and I liked adding the flower to postcards awhile ago…

I stopped by some type of dollar store and found orange daisies… enough on the bunch for my $1.    🙂

Once  I was home and did a few trial measurements, one flower per ATC was TOO much so the flowers will share 4 ATCs.

Quilting on the background layered with timtex and muslin on the back

The back shows where I guessed left spaces for the flowers.

I cut the stems off the flowers and pitched that awful center they had.

Free motion stitching down the flower petals.  This first pass anchored everything.  I found an orange variegated Mettler thread in the stash.  When else will I need orange??

Then I added another round of stitching out every petal or in between the petals just for more thread color & depth.

Then I put down the center part of the flower with more stitching.  One time around to anchor, then another time for more detail.

My whole piece, I’m planning on 6 ATCs (5 to swap) and 1 postcard at the end will have 1/2 a flower.   As I stitch, I think of those I could send the postcard to.  After hitting 8 that I could share with, I quit thinking!!  🙂   And now 10 days later, the postcard is still here.    🙂   (When I shared this at quilt guild, a few more volunteered to be receivers!! ha!)

And after I cut them this much….

I had an “Oh, CARP!!!” moment….

too small…. :tears:  and a screaming text to my dear, K.

I started over

with another piece of fabric and more flowers (good thing they were sharing themselves with several cards!)…

and this time I added gold glitter thread (by Superior of course) in the centers.

This time I cut them right for the ATCs

and then RIGHT THROUGH the last section to be the postcard!!  haha!!

I edged the ATCs with some knobby green yarn & pink yarn twisted together.  (top row)  But I ran out of green yarn and still had edges for the extras so found this lumpy varigated yarn in the bin.  I love it better than my first choice!

This would be a great bookmark.  Need to find a book!!   🙂

I love adding flowers like this!!  The store had pink flowers so I think I’ll have to go back to the store!

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Mixed Media Create Board

I started my canvas board using mixed media at THE sleepover. 🙂

I finally finished it and it is hanging in my sewing room.  (As JP commented, “Why there?  No one comes here.”)

Here is how it looked after the sleepover:

Shelly, our instructor, sent me some great ideas of adding to this.  I wanted to add a dress form and found some great choices HERE.

It is a site called “The Graphics Fairy” and the vintage sewing items were just up my alley!  However, getting the image on the board… that was the question!

I have read about image transfers using gel medium and toner-based copies but I didn’t really want the image black.  So once again, Shelly came to the rescue.  She sent me this link for making a transfer with my ink-jet printer.

First I did a practice image on a scrap of wood Phil donated to my cause.

I layered on scraps of paper with mod podge and let it dry so it would be about like my canvas board. Then I followed the instructions for doing the ink-jet transfer.  Basically, I put a layer of Elmer’s glue on a piece of cardstock, let dry, and then printed my image onto the cardstock.  I covered the image with mod podge and adhered it face down to the block of wood.   I let it dry overnight, misted it with water, and started rubbing off the paper with my finger.

I was so excited to see some of the image showing through!!

One just keeps rubbing off the paper until the image is left.  As you can see in my first photo of this, that I lost a bit of the transfer image.  I’m not sure what happened but sure didn’t want that look for the final  one!!

I decided maybe more elmer’s glue on the cardstock so added an additional layer to the remainging piece of cardstock.  When I tried to run that piece through my printer it jammed and ruined the image.  Ugh!!

So I treated another piece of cardstock with elmer’s glue but did a heavier one time coat this time.  Not that it was heavy and gloppy but a smooth layer but fully covered the cardstock.  (I knew my image wasn’t the full width of the paper so I only did the middle section.)

This time I made sure to set my printer to heavier paper and babysat it as it started through.  It coughed a little but then fed all right.  Before applying to my canvas, I trimmed it within 1/4″ of the image.

You can see the very top didn’t color correctly and that was where it didn’t feed right when getting started.  It is also mirror-imaged.

This time I rubbed off the paper a bit more carefully and only lost one little spot.

I was pleased but the board still needed help.

Next I added a zipper flower.  I used one of the old zippers taken from one of the myriad of sweatshirt jacket zippers I replace each year.   *sigh*

Here is one of the tutorials I used.  It took 3 tries but I was pretty satisfied with the result.  I added used buttons around the zipper flower and the top of the dress form.

Finally, I dusted in the sewing room >cue much laughter!< and decided where to hang it.

(yes, those snowmen & women stay out year round showing off their quilted garments!)

I feel like it is missing something still but don’t know what else to do.  Maybe I shouldn’t have added the zipper & buttons.  ???

(Phil says the blank areas allow his mind to create.  >roll your eyes here<  )

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Sleepover + Craft Days

Makes for one happy blogger!  Me! 🙂

Friday night I packed and headed to Lori’s.   We moved in and when most had arrived (about 6:30 p.m.) we had supper.  Lori had 4 large pizzas and a yummy salad and the rest of us had brought snacks.  There was a ton of food!!

Along with Lori,  there was Shelly, Lucinda, Ami, Stephanie, Becky, and me.   After supper we popped in The Proposal to start our night of chick-flicks.  Shelly was working on a wreath… paper circles cut w/ a scalloped edge, hot glued onto a foam wreath (pipe insulation).  She’ll add bright butterflies when it is done.  Stephanie worked on crafts for Kidz Link and Lori worked on photo editing.  I had the binding to sew around the tshirt quilt.

After the movie, a few headed home and Lori, Ami, Shelly, and I headed to our own rooms (!!!) to spend the night.   :yawn:  it was 11:45!

I was thankful to sleep great on the granddaughter’s airbed. 🙂

In the morning, the house started to fill up as Sue, Stephanie, Becky, Marsha, Pam, and Amy joined the 4 of us.  After a yummy breakfast that Lori made, we started crafting.  Shelly was our leader and we started with metal punching for necklaces.

There were 2 stations.  At the kitchen island, we’d get the center marked on our disc and put our pearl on the metal wire.  Of course, Shelly made that part look oh.so.easy. but we fiddled and managed to get ours acceptable.

The other work area was in the garage/man cave.  🙂  Here Shelly helped us with our chosen word or phrase to hammer into the metal.  This is my piece getting set up.

The black sticks are the letter punches.  We lined them up from our center dot and hammered to punch/dent the metal.

{Dad, I was given bonus points for holding the hammer correctly! 😉 }

This is my finished necklace.  I laid them out like this but the 3 pieces all move around on the chain.   I’m quite pleased!! 🙂

Our next project was a mixed media wall hanging using a stretch canvas frame for our base.   Shelly had given us suggestions for lettering at small group on Wednesday so there was a large variety of verses or words that we used.  We brought our own scrapbook papers and paints.

This is my board with just the papers mod podged onto the canvas.  And my pile of leftover pieces on the floor. 🙂

I gave it a layer of pink (everyone said blech! pepto bismol), a layer of burnt sienna (everyone said blech!#$*&), and then a wash of a titan buff Golden fluid acrylic (I love them!) (everyone gasped with bliss!)  Ha!!  They just needed to be patient and trust my layering process! 🙂   Here I also added a bit of a tan wash (really cheap craft paint that doesn’t cover) and added some additional texture with bubble wrap.  🙂

Above, Stephanie is holding one of Shelly’s previous paintings she brought as an example while I am painting my lettering.  (nice necklace!)

My canvas so far is in the front and Sue is transferring her lettering in the back.

I love Sue’s background!

Ami is adding her paint layers.

Lori transfers her lettering.

The one on the left is adding a verse about the forest and the one on the right has added in a big font “Sing” in the middle space.

Sue already finished her lettering at home and posted this on Facebook.  I just love this too!

Mine isn’t done yet.  I want to add a vintage image (have to decide on the method), some buttons, and maybe a used zipper for embellishments.  I’ll keep you posted!  🙂

I headed home about 4 p.m. so I could get changed and Phil & I headed to early service.  The sleepover + craft day was a super mid-winter retreat!!  We hope to do this again even if just for a day of crafting.

Thanks to Lori for her terrific hostessing, Shelly for the great projects, and the others for being great companions!

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Mixed Media Tags

First off I’ll tell you that I really don’t like wrapping presents.

So when my quilting friend extradonaire said she was wrapping presents – doing mixed media work – that was something I could be happy about!  I think Mickey was still “just” wrapping presents but I’m sure her gift wrappings were lovely!!

I took it a step further.  IF I needed to wrap a lot of presents, why not make it more fun!

So I decided to make mixed media tags for the gifts.  🙂

I started with some of the tags I bought at the office supply store back in April!  (It is a BIG box and really… I have no other use but to alter them.)  I have also bought coffee for the sole purpose of dyeing tags & such!  LOL!!  I have no other use for coffee either…

So I mixed up some coffee and dunked the tags.  Laid them out on paper towels to dry and sprinkled them with a bit more coffee grounds.  (this is instant coffee, btw.)

Next I printed off a page of vintage Christmas images I’ve been saving on the computer.

I embossed the tags.  I love this step!!  I only had clear embossing powder so that just gives a hint of another layer.

Then I applied the image, some stamping, some Christmas music, and whatever else hit my trigger.

It was fun!

Soon I was out of images but wanted to make more.  I knew I had some perfect “vintage” images in another folder on the computer.  🙂 Family pictures of Christmases past from Phil’s mom.

I printed another sheet and now added a little more fun.  (Phil is in the Santa suit! 😉 )

At the end, I added buttons or snaps or various trims and an assortment of fibers through the hole.

I couldn’t resist the picture of Grandma, Deb, & Phil so made one for each of them.

Wrapping day was much more fun as I planned out which tag went where!  🙂

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New Badge & I Won!

Have you noticed my new 7 Gypsies badge?  I love their product lines and have been following their blog.  Last week they made these badges for us to put on our blogs.

I found the new scrapbook store via their site while I was looking for their products in my area.

Today they announced I won their drawing! 🙂

Here is where I entered and pictures of my “big box of inspiration”.  🙂 🙂 🙂

I’m so excited!  I love their new Venice line of papers. Yummy!!

Thank you to 7 Gyspies!

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Fabric Paper 1

I joined a yahoo group & their book study which started the first weekend of October.  But… October was TOO busy to get going on it.   So I just have started this past week.

We are following the book, Stitch Alchemy by Kelli Perkins.  I had already bought the book and loved it but hadn’t taken the time to play.  Great inspiration and motivation from the group.

Here are some of my first sheets:

These need ironed yet….

Still on my work table – no color added yet:

All of these will get paint or glaze or stamps or ink or alcohol inks or ?.

It is a layer of muslin, a layer of torn paper, and a layer of tissue all held together with a glue/water wash.  They can be painted, stitched, ironed and used a zillion ways of which I’ll try a few with the study group.

I did my first try at fabric paper with the tags on K’s book back in June.   I just love the fun & feel of it and will be glad to have play time with this again.   Not just now… as it is a lotion making week but again sometime.  🙂

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