Something About Nothing

A young friend is getting married in May and I decided to make her and her fiancé some coordinating aprons as a shower gift.  Their kitchen colors are black, white and red.  I had the fun Alexander Henry Cog Wheel dot in my stash and so I ran down to my local quilt shop and found some  Riley Blake polka dot and Shades of Black stripe by Me and My Sister for Moda  as coordinates.  I LOVE the black and grey stripe!  Don't they look so cute!?! I think maybe I should have made his bow tie a little bigger.   He's a bigger boy than I remembered! What is your favorite gift to give newlyweds?

I've been a bit scatter brained as of late. "What?  Only lately?" True, I am a scatter brain most of the time but more so lately. Family Stuff mostly. It happens. Throws off my game. But I am trying to reorganize and get busy. I decided it was time to go through some fabrics and destash.  Too much clutter makes me crazier than usual.  I've listed some fabrics in my Etsy store .  I'm going to make some scrap bags too and list them there as well.  I have a lot of fabrics that I just won't use anymore because I am printing and dyeing my own now.  I know there is someone out there who will have a good use for them! And while I am trying hard to organize and get rid of things I have several books that are calling my name!  Life stresses sometimes call for some retail therapy. My friend, Lynn Krawczyk , has written this book that is getting rave reviews! My friend, Lesley Riley , has this book coming out soon!   I love Transfer Ar

I've found an affiliate program that gives great deals to blog readers.  I've shared some of these deals when I've felt they were appropriate for my readership, however there have been A LOT of other great deals that I haven't shared here because I don't like bombarding people with ads.  We get enough of that in our lives.  However some of these deals are just so fantastic I want people to know about them and so I have started a new blog just for these great deals.  You can find it here:   somekindofdeal.blogspot.com Hop on over to the blog and subscribe if you would like to receive updates of the deals I find.  I do receive a very small compensation for my posts and sometimes a commission if you purchase things.  It's another way for me to support my arting habit. ;)  And if you aren't interested - that's great too! Now, let's get back to ARTING!

 I finally finished washing, drying and ironing my fabrics from the Dye Party. A few of them I want to overdye. . .  . . . but overall I like what I got!  This is the piece I used to show how the Color Magnet Pen works. What does it look like to you? I really like how these one yard pieces came out.  Especially this one! A very satisfying dye session! Don't forget to hop over to Craftsy by clicking here to enter in my giveaway of Jane Dunnewold's The Art of Cloth Dyeing class.

I came back from retreating and this is what greeted me in my front yard. I had to post a photo to give hope to those who are still suffering from cold days and snow on the ground.  Spring is coming!!!  The weather was great at the retreat too, especially on the day I taught Dyeing. The ladies at the Super Spring Retreat  were great! We had a little bit of wind but the temperature was perfect. I was able to do a little dyeing too but still need to get my fabrics washed, dried, and ironed before I can take some photos of them. I had a lot of fun, and I think the ladies did too. I love dyeing fabric, and I love helping others get addicted to dyeing too. One of the best classes I've ever taken on Dyeing  was from Jane Dunnewold on Craftsy . I learned so much from Jane's class and I would love for YOU to be able to learn from her too, so I have paired with Craftsy to giveaway her class to one lucky blog reader!  All you need to do is click

What is Gazelle and Why Would I Use Their Services? Gazelle is an online trade in service for used consumer electronics like iPhones, iPads, Macbooks, Samsung Galaxy devices, and many other smartphones and tablets. Gazelle pays you cash for your used gadgets when you're ready to get new ones - cash you can use to pay for your upgrade, pay a bill, or buy anything you want. In essence, Gazelle rewards people for approaching consumption in a smart, environmentally responsible way. Rather than discard a device you no longer value or use, Gazelle provides original owners with an opportunity to exchange it for cash. The device is then given new life and value elsewhere. Since 2008,  Gazelle  has paid out more than $150 million for unwanted technology and kept millions of gadgets out of the landfill. It truly is a win-win-win business.  Gazelle  buys high-end, used consumer electronics, and sell it to those who otherwise couldn’t afford buying new. It’s called reCommerce, and

After all the craziness around here I've hit a wall.   Time to RETREAT! Time to laugh with friends. Time to make some projects. Time to teach some dyeing. Time to be creative. And when I come back I will have a great big giveaway! See you next week!

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We've got spirit, yes we do, we've got spirit, how 'bout you?!? I have a daughter involved in student government at her high school and she has spent months working with her fellow officers getting everything ready for this week: Spirit Week.  One of the main activities is a hall decorating contest between the four grades.  Each grade is assigned a color scheme - same one every year - and the Juniors get Yellow.  They can also use gold, white and silver, but predominately it has to be YELLOW.  Let me just say that the Junior hall is VERY bright!  So for the past few month's my daughter and a few others have been spending hours after school, projecting, tracing and finally painting.  This past weekend they were given two days to get it all hung.  Their theme is Jailbreak Juniors and Thursday night I was informed that they needed 250 sets of paper handcuffs and 250 skull and crossbones die cuts.  Fortunately I know someone with a Silhouette electronic cutter.  *wink wi

 The Printed Fabric Bee Queen for February was Lesley Riley.   Her theme was Mosaic. It was a challenging theme for everyone in the Bee it seems. I did NOT like my first attempts: First I stenciled  Color Magnet   through a stencil I created with my Silhouette and dyed the fabric. I thought I would stamp over this background with these simple foam stamps. . .  . . . but after one stamp. . .umm, absolutely NOT. Maybe a more transparent paint but. . .well I just wasn't feeling it. I started over with a piece of snow dyed fabric. . . . . .and painted squares through another stencil I made. . . . . .it was pretty but I didn't think it looked very mosaic-y. Not to mention that Mister didn't approve at all. He is very critical! I created a new stencil of a flower and tried again with the Jacquard textile paint. . .  . . . and I liked it!  Here is the full piece I completed. I cut off a 12" square for  Lesley  and a