Creating to Exhaustion?

I'm not feeling very creative today - writing wise - as I'm tired. I've felt a bit tired the past few weeks but somehow managed to overcome. Today I'm just tired, but I need to update my blog and so I will write in a dull manner and load some pictures and be done with it! It will no longer be hanging over my head, lurking in the back of my mind saying, "Do it! Update your blog you lazy slob!" So I'll write and then go to bed, well, I can't. I need to run the bikes to the "Bike Guy" and then go to the bank and run some other errands. Sleep will have to wait.

I worked Friday and Saturday of last week at Whimsy and had a wonderful time as the shop was not very busy (we think because Quiltfest was going on). I had time to be create and play and have all of the supplies I could ever want right there in front of me. It really was like being a kid let loose in a toy store!

Nancy bought some stamps from Artgirlz which have some cute faces, and body parts and dresses you can use to create things. Nancy stamped them onto paper and then copied them onto photo fabric and then modge podged them so that I could cut them out without fear of the fabric unravelling. I decided I wanted to use them in a "doll" quilt I had seen in a book called Creative Beading for Quilts, but once the "doll" was made I decided that I like the Artgirlz charms on her better than the stamped faces, and so I needed to think of something else to use the stamped girls on. (See photos below)

I really had originally created my beach scene thinking that I would stick one of these girls into the water, but Nancy thought she would look out of place, and so I had to come up with a new idea. Somehow I came up with the idea of making a forest scene with witches and a fairy. I like to refer to the wall hanging as Fairy Hunting.

I painted the all the faces green, mostly because I didn't have any skin tones in my stencil paint set I had brought to work. I used purple and yellow for the clothing because I like those colors. After I painted the stamped images and the paint was dried I ironed the images to seal the paint. I used a paper towel on top of the images to keep the iron nice and soak up any extra paint. The color went dull because the modge podge had created a layer on the fabric which was difficult for the paint to stick to. In the future I will paint the images first and then modge podge them so that the color can soak into the fabric better, and then I could use about any material to paint with - colored pencils, markers, paints, whatever.

I didn't want my trees to be of just one fabric and so I went around the store and took various sized strips of different batiks. I lined the batiks up on the ironing board so that there were not any holes in between and then ironed a piece of wonder-under type stuff over the top creating a new piece of fabric. I then drew my trees on the paper side of the wonder-under, and proceeded to cut them out. Once I cut the trees out I peeled off the paper and placed my trees onto the background piece. I cut more branches of various pieces of my new batik "fabric" and laid them out where they looked best. I then cut out the faces and body parts and played around with where I wanted them to be. Once I had these in place I ironed the trees and branches down and then used the free motion foot to sew it all down to the background fabric. I really should have used some stabilizer before I "painted" the lines on the trees with thread, but I wasn't thinking properly. Despite the flubs, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. I know at lease two things I will change next time I do something like this: paint the stamped images before the modge podge is put on, and use a stabilizer before "painting with thread." The big issue now is how I want to quilt and embellish it. I'm too tired to think about that right now!

Close up of the Fairy the witches are hunting

(she's wearing sunglasses to disguise herself).

The color really doesn't show up well in this picture - ugh!

The wall hanging with the border is about 15" tall x 20" wide

I should have put close up's of the witches on here as well, as their faces are very funny looking.

The doll quilt I made using Artgirlz Charms, & wool balls,
as well as some of my stash of sequins and beads.
The doll in the book had images stamped on her as well,
and so I may have to add to her if I can find some stamps I love.



Close up of the Christmas Doll.

By the Sea art quilt.

I added three "star" sequins to the sky but it's difficult to tell.

I still think the sky is lacking some depth or something.

Close up of some of the embellishments in the ocean.

Oh, and next week my friend, Ali, is going to teach me how to spruce up the design of my blog. I've spent a few hours downloading fonts from this great website called Abstract Fonts. They have thousands of very fun fonts I can use on my blog as well as in some of the print things I do for church, and other projects.

Don't tell my Husband

Each year about a month or so before my husband's birthday, he starts to complain about how old he is getting. I always laugh at him. We have a video tape of our oldest daughter's first birthday party (she is now in college) in which he 'wisely' makes some sort of comment to a friend about "well, when you get to the third decade. . . ." I'm really not sure what he says after that because I am always on the floor laughing my head off. I like to tease him. When he was about to turn 40 he was complaining about how horrible it was that he was getting so old. He made these complaints to our friends who were in their early 80's. Again I laughed at him and told him to cut it out because our friends had turned 40 twice and they were doing just fine. Not long after his 40th, I had to laugh at him again when he found out he had to get bifocals, and then recently when he was told that he may even need trifocals. Poor baby. (Snicker, snicker)

Of course it has always been easy for me to laugh at his dread of getting old, because he always gets there a few years ahead of me. Besides if you ask my oldest daughter (who doesn't want to be mentioned in my blog so I'll try to keep her out of it) she will tell you that I am really only 13 years old and always will be. I rarely feel any effects of my birthdays. They are just a number. The gray hairs and wrinkles don't mean anything to me because I still feel so young inside. The aches from the arthritis and the fatigue from who know what don't mean anything because I still feel so young inside. I love to dance around and sing and embarrass my children because, well, I still feel so young and I like to make them laugh. Perhaps that isn't so much feeling young as it is just being immature. I like to tell myself that it is just feeling young so imagine my surprise when I recently saw something a little differently.
Is it just me, or can you see the holes in these beads? Is it time to laugh at me now because I might need reading glasses? Nah, of course not, how silly of me. Those holes are just absolutely minut that's all. I love denial. (Usually I make some kind of joke about living in Egypt at this point, but I'll skip it this time.)

I spent a few hours going cross eyed yesterday while putting these infinitesimally small beads on a mini quilt (about 9"x 11") and then took it in to work and forgot to take a picture of it.  The process of making the quilt was very enriching for me. It is a sea side scene made with hand dyed fabrics and faux batiks and lots of embellishments of yarn and beads. Fun, fun, fun, but I don't like how it turned out! It is still missing something. Maybe I will figure out what it's missing before I post the picture, maybe not, and if not then perhaps some of you will post comments on what you think it needs. Perhaps the problem really is that I can't see the silly thing as clearly as I could have a year ago! Where did my glasses go? Nope, it still needs something.

Well, the good news is, that if it is truly my eyes that are aging (body part aging, not me) then it's good that Whimsy has some of the cutest reading glasses I have ever seen, and I can look fashionable for once in my life.

A New Beginning

A number of months ago I went blog surfing and had a great time. Perhaps not as fun as water surfing (if I were in shape for it), but definately more fun than randomly surfing the internet. I started close to home at the blog of my boss, Nancy, at Whimsy Cottage and ended up half way around the world, but as the hour was late I decided it was time to come home and rest until I could find the time and energy to surf again. While on my journey I discovered many interesting things about people I have never met, as well as their families, animals and hobbies. I felt a bit like a peeping tom, or a stalker. But then I realized that I can't be a peeping tom when they are the ones exposing themselves to me and the entire internet. They are flashers, sharing little bits of their lives, and I was the happy victim. What a lovely image. Wow thats a lot of metaphors or similies or whatever it is that I forgot from English class.


Anyway, as I surfed I wondered about becoming a flasher myself. Exposing bits of my life to my friends and strangers alike. Should I display my deepest thoughts for others to read and dissect? Well. . . . Sure why not, I'll jump off the cliff with everybody else - well maybe not my deepest thoughts, not sure if I really have any of those, but I'll be a big girl and share with others. So here it is. I've taken the leap and we'll see what happens with a lot of nothing.