Quilted Accessories

Another packing marathon coming up this afternoon so I thought I better get something posted this morning. Yesterday was so busy I didn’t even think about posting anything.

My sister is moving and she likes bright, colourful accessories so I decided to make her a new kitchen set as a house warming gift. A friend of mine quit sewing and gave me a box of material and this fabric was part of that lot. Bette saw the fabric at the time and loved it so I kept that in mind and, luckily, remembered I had it in the stash. Here’s what she’s getting.

I made four round quilted placemats, four quilted mug rugs, two quilted pot holders and that extra fabric which is on the back of each article, is going to drape over her small chest freezer to make it look more like furniture and to keep it from being scratched if something sits on it. She loved the set and I was happy to make them for her. Here's a close-up of some of them.

 

 

 

That’s all for a cool Friday, March-11-16. Have a great and creative weekend everyone.

Cheers

Violet

 

Before and After

Rain, rain, go away and come back after birding season!!! Oh wait, that’s pretty much over so never mind! This was a dismal bird watching season for us but we did have quite a flurry of activity in our back yard today. Besides the usual sparrows, northern cardinals and purple finches we had a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak, a male American Goldfinch, a hummingbird and a Baltimore oriole. The Oriole was feeding mostly from the shelled peanut feeder and sometimes at the Safflower feeder and then to the sugar water feeder. I can’t remember ever having an oriole eating peanuts before but I guess he needed the protein more than the sugar water.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we were so tired of a white vase with dried flowers that has sat in our living room (wasted space we don’t use it, we just clean it – blah). Anyway, we finally found some new dried flowers we liked at our last trip to Hobby Lobby in Port Huron, MI and I finally finished it. Here are the before and after pictures.

 

The vase is no longer white but has been sponged with brown, bronze, yellow and gold patio paint leaving it mostly brown in colour. Then I arranged the new flowers we bought, plus a few extras I had on hand. Joe really likes it too. He couldn’t believe the difference when I showed him the before and after picture. This was more fun and less expensive than buying something new.

Cheers

Violet

 

 

Snow People Card Box

I finally ventured out of the house today. First Joe and I went for about an hour's walk "around the block"! Yeah, it's obviously not your standard city block but it's what we call it when we just want a short walk. After lunch I had to go to the library and to the scrapbook store, The Paper Pickle (which is only open Wed, Thurs. and Sat. now) and on the way home I decided to go over to the Value Village for a quick walk thru. So glad I did. Someone decided to give up card making and I scored big time. I picked up about 5 bundles of 12x12 paper and two 81/2x11 bundles, each one was $5.99 except one of the smaller ones was $2.99. And I'm talking about BIG bundles. One of them had two complete packs of Christmas papers that sell for at least $24.99.
Whoot! Whoot! Cha Ching! Cha Ching! This made my day!..and week!

So, now I'm in the process of sorting it all out. Yes, I'm a Virgo and I cannot have my paper all mixed up. So, first I separated the Seasons and theme paper and now I'm sorting the rest into colour groups. The next thing is to find storage for it all! When all piled on top of each other it likely measured about 15" or more - like I said, BIG bundles of paper! This one problem I am happy to deal with.

I love snow people. I love painting them too. This is a box to put Christmas cards in that I made. I made one for each of the girls and a couple of extra ones and this is the left over one. I like to give them choices so I make extras.

                       This is just the regular acrylic paint for tole painting.

Here is a different angle. And the colour is much better (different camera used). Still playing with getting the colour right on my older camera. After painting the bottom red I used white paint on snowflake stamps and stamped them around the edge. Not sure what to do with this one but hubby gets after me to take some of extra stuff to a craft sale so I may do that. I wonder if any one would pay me $5.00 for it? I think I worry that no one will buy anything so I shy away from trying to sell my items.

Before and After Candle Holder

Today is hubby's birthday. Bad news, good news x 2. Bad news - he's a year older, good news, he's pretty much over the flu. Second bad news, good news. I woke up with a lot of pressure in my head and very, very weird speech so hard to have a conversation with me. Good news, I sang happy birthday to him and it cracks him up every time. I should tape it some day. Some words I repeat over and over and the word birthday had about 20 syllables in it today. It's hilarious...and trust me people, I cannot sing normally. It was so funny today he asked me later on if I would sing to him again! That's a first! The only thing special he wanted for his birthday was a piece of cheesecake so yes, the vegetarian healthy eater bought a very small cheesecake for him. It's once a year so I guess we can work it off. He got his present early - tickets to see Michelle Wright live at the Capital Theatre.

Anyway, while he was sick over the weekend I had lots of time to play in the lower studio (aka the basement) and did some scrapbooking, card making, painting and finished up two mixed media pieces, one will be posted tomorrow, the other one later on. I also did some magic on a very scruffy blah looking candle holder that I picked up in a mixed bag of stuff at a garage sale years ago and never used it. Here is the before shot.

It's a little fuzzy but you can see that it is a large cube with stars cut out but very blah.

Here's the after.

This picture does not even come close to doing it justice either. It is beautiful. I simply sponged on 5 colours of red and wine alcohol inks and gold alcohol mixative. It is really shiny in real life and much brighter. I love it now! I will put a sealer on it so it doesn't get scratched and I'll likely use battery operated candles in it too. Not sure an open flame around alcohol ink is a good idea!

So, got something old? Don't toss it in the landfill. Give it a face lift!

Frightful Night House

Something very different to post today! I was doing the blog check the other day and came across a wonderfully talented mixed media artist, www.dianesalter.blogspot.ca, and fell in love with these little wooden houses she made. Well, wouldn't you know it but the very next day my hubby's cousin stopped in for a visit (and brought some squash from his garden for us) and he happens to be a carpenter. I asked him if he had some left over pieces of wood, say 4" by 7" or 10" or 12" etc that he could cut into a point at the top like a house roof and he assured me he did. His wife, bless her soul, piped up and told him it would be even better if he routed the edges instead of leaving them sharp. Now, I kept telling him, scraps of wood, any type but the guy is a carpenter and his scraps were maple. Nice..and yet he didn't charge me much for them...even nicer! He had no idea what I was going to do with them and, like my husband, doesn't ask anymore but he dropped them off Tuesday morning (along with more squash and some cabbages and homemade tomato juice - delish!). I couldn't wait to get at them but I didn't feel well Tuesday so I let them sit...and while I sat, I plotted a course of action!  Once he sees what I did to his beautiful piece of maple he'll probably think "I should have given her plywood!"...which would work too.

By all means, pop over to Diane's site and check out her work. Incredible!! Now, her's are professionally completed and lovely and whimsical with birds and butterflies, etc. but mine is a wee bit different. Here's what I came up with.

Hey, Halloween is fast approaching so I just had to make a fright house. The house is 4" wide and about 12" before the peak starts. This cannot be hung outdoors though because it has a lot of paper on it. I didn't have any wood parts for the peak so its paper too. (I'll have to come up with a plan for this bit for the next house) The paper is all from a Tim Holtz mini pack. After adhering the paper down with Mod Podge I used some paint and ink and stamps and stencils to add some dimension.

The raven, tombstone and owl were die cut and assembled using some Sizzix dies and they have a piece of thin meat tray liner behind them to make them stand out a bit. (I know a meat tray liner in a vegetarian house - my friend gave them to me because it is one thing that never comes into this house) 

The skull and spider webs came from the fabric store and they are actually heat set type but I just glued them down. Lots of shading and bit and pieces added. The strip at the bottom is a piece of transparency that I stamped some skulls on (on the rough side) and then Mod Podged it down.

The sides had a coat of white Gesso first and then black acrylic paint that I wiped down while wet so they look streaky and weathered. Not sure what I'll do with the other five houses but stay tuned!



Snow Angel in a Jar - Mixed Media Project

Yesterday I mentioned that I just had to have a new printer when ours died. Well, this is why I just had to have a new printer - so I could print off this vintage angel picture so I could make this snow angel in a jar. I saw one of these on another blog earlier this month and thought it looked like a cool project.

I'm not sure how they did theirs but I printed off the image on photo paper so it was strong enough to stand up on its own by bending over the bottom and gluing it down. I just cut it out, inked the edges, and added lots of stickles and then more glitter to the wings. I didn't have any artificial snow that it looked like they had in their jar, but I did have some white doll curly hair so I just cut it up into sections, pulled it to fluff it and dropped it in. The wire and pearls came from a roll I picked up from Fabricland on sale - had no idea what I was going to do with it at the time but it was one of those things that was just oozing with potential. It needed some colour so I dropped in three red tiny pompoms left over from when I made elves. The sign is popped off her with pop dots. The top has a piece of lace from an old lace dickey that I won from Avon, never wore but kept anyway and then the fancy lace was glued around the top, then a gold ribbon and some feathers were glued on. She is a snow angel so she needed snowflakes so I had some peel and stick ones and I stuck them onto the inside of the glass.

It was hard to photograph because of the reflection off the glass. Here's a shot from a different angle.

Mixed Media Canvas

What a hoot last night was! I finally got to take my first mixed media class. Linda Heavens taught it at the Paper Pickle and we had fun....and ended up with very colourful fingers, which I, personally, am used to. I love to dip my fingers into paint and glue and spread it around. Luckily for me and the others around the table I did not come down with a cold yesterday. I think I just had a severe allergy (likely allergic to getting up early??) or sinus attack which my Netti Pot cleared up.

So, here's what we made:

 

This is a 6 inch canvas. I love doing this. It won't become my one and only thing though because I just need several different hobbies going..but this is fun and rather therapeutic really. Nothing is precise and if you don't like something, cover it with gesso and put something else down. Nice not to have to measure and cut precisely. When I was putting on the rub-ons, some others on the sheet came off where I didn't want them - Oh well! That's the fun part - just let them stay there!

Hens recipe holder

This is another older painting I did on a recipe holder box. Unfortunatley my printer at that time died and I had to replace it only to find out it didn't print anything smaller then 4x6 index cards and most of my recipes were on 4x6 cards anyway so I use it for "stuff", you know, Canadian Tire money, receipts, pens, etc. Everyone needs someplace to put "stuff".

rooster on a cutting board

Today I'm posting another painting but one I did when I had a better idea of what I was doing. A sample of this was hanging up at Shelley's Painted Treasurers and she was having a class teaching it so I signed up. I encourage any new painters out there to take classes from various teachers if possible. Every one has their own way of doing things and it's such a good way to develop what works for you.

We obviously don't use this to cut on! It hangs in the kitchen.

Garden Angel Painting

I thought I'd switch things up a bit and post an old painting I did when I first started tole painting. I only took a couple of lessons at Shelley's Painted Treasures and then just worked on my own. This is definitely tole painting and not fine art!

I sort of shudder when I look at this - so "I'm new at this" look to it....but I post these in case someone else is just starting out and is discouraged. I got better at this painting bit and so will anyone else who sticks with it.

Donna Dewberry roses on a mailbox

My sister-in-law wanted roses and dragonflies and/or butterflies on a wooden mailbox she had made. She liked the Donna Dewberry roses so this is what I came up with.

I painted this a few years ago and it was the first time I made roses using Donna Dewberry's method.

Lighthouse Welcome sign on slate

Wow, what a hot, hot week this has been. It's been in the 30's all week (90 F) and tomorrow it's predicted to be the hottest day ever recorded - over 100F. Yikes. Thank goodness we put A/C in a few years ago when we had to replace the furnace.

So, seeing that it's just too hot to be posting Christmas layouts I'm posting the current welcome sign hanging by our door. I had our neighbour install special screws into the brick by the door to hang my welcome signs on. Hubby wasn't too keen on having anything drilled into the brick but we just had new doors installed and he didn't want them scratched so this was the compromise.

Hibiscus Welcome Sign

Decided today to switch from cards to a painting. This is a door sign I painted on a piece of broken slate. Painted it with just regular craft paint.

Mammoth Foot Stool

Today I'm posting a foot stool that I painted to match our living room/dining room drapes. I made one foot stool myself up at the Senior Centre with the guys "help" but their "help" wasn't much good and the foot stool was too weak to actually sit on. In fact, if one of the grand babies sat on it would collapse so I use it to hold our telephone. A friend's hubby is a gifted carpenter and I ended up buying a foot stool for him that is very sturdy. He chuckled at the one I made and agreed with me that the guys at the senior centre weren't much help at all. So, after getting the stool I stained it and then painted a woolly mammoth on it to match the drapes. Hard to picture the drapes I know but they are really beautiful - very earthy with prehistoric animals on it.

Here's the stool.

The other stool is painted with the same image. It's just done with regular craft paint - likely DecoArt or Creamcoat and then varnished.

Frustrations and an Easter Bunny

I don’t know about you but 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning, or any morning actually, is way to early to be up and had breakfast and be ready to go – no where! That’s right, woke up way too early and was lying in bed staring at the ceiling at 5:30 and decided I may as well get up. Gonna be a long day!

Yesterday was a bit of a frustrating day. Last summer we bought a JVC HD camcorder and I thought I’d take it bird watching this May to try to get some pictures of the birds that refuse to sit still so I can get a good shot with my Canon. We also decided it was imperative that we have a spare, fully charged battery with us at all times. So, off we went to Staples where we bought the camcorder. No battery in stock and it’s not even on their list so they cannot order one in. Odd! So we went to the Battery Boy thinking for sure they would have one, or could get one. These guys have every battery you can think of – except the one we need!

OK, back home lets try JVC’s own site. Nope, no batteries so I emailed them. Must admit I was surprised to receive an answer within an hour advising me they don’t sell batteries (which I knew) but they gave me a reference to where I should be able to get one. Went thru 17 pages of batteries on that site without seeing the one I need. So, I emailed them but it was close to 5:00 by then and I don’t except to hear back until next week now.

Always something!

But I do have something to show you. This is my Easter Bunny.

It is cut out of thick wood. The carrot, hands and feet were cut separately and then glued on so it is really a 3-D piece - and you don't need glasses to see it! My daughter's mother-in-law and her sister-in-law are also tole painters so they invited me and some other friends to have a painting get-together. Such fun.

Happy Easter Rabbit

There is still snow on the ground but the sun is out so hopefully it will warm up later today. Easter is late this year but I still wanted my Easter sign up so up it is! This is definitely tole painting, not fine art but I like it.

It is painted on a piece of slate. A friend gave me a huge box of slate so I switched from painting on wood to slate.

Irish Angels and more

Aren't these cute. I painted these many, many years ago when I first started tole painting. I hung them in my office cubicle every March back when I was a working girl. Now they just hang in my "lower studio" (aka the basement) and mostly forgotten as they are more or less behind a line of scrapbooking books. I happened to see them yesterday and decided to move them over to where I could see them.

Then, even further behind the books, were the Valentine angels that I had also totally forgotten about. I brought them out for a picture and then put them back....but I hope to remember to bring them out next February.  Not sure which ones I painted first but both are the same pattern but different colours.

The hair on both of them is that wild, curly doll hair that comes in a small package. Something a little different.

St. Patrick's Day Welcome sign

What a morning. I was all set to hit the sewing room and work on my leprechaun wall-hanging when hubby asked if we should watch Amazing Race while we have a coffee. I tape everything on a PVR so we can skip the commercials. Wouldn't you know it - it froze. This is the second time it has done this in the last 10 days. After another phone call to the support dept (this could be an oxymoron) they finally decided to send someone out to the house (free of charge) to check connections to the house. We ended up watching the episode on the computer which was better then missing it but not much.

So, the leprechaun wall-hanging has not seen a stitch yet again today and I expect this afternoon, like all afternoons right now, will be spent at the hospital visiting and helping the sister-in-law.  So, in the mean time, here is a leprechaun I painted on slate that is currently hanging at the front door.

The Wharf and The Lighthouse on the Beach

Today was such a nice day. The weather is getting warmer and the barometer is rising so I'm having a better day. I spent the day making charity quilts for most of the day.

I thought I'd switch things up today and post two painting I did a few years ago. We needed two small pictures to hang in the family room and couldn't find any that we liked. Hubby finally said "Why don't you just paint us two"? Mmmmhhh I don't usually do actual paintings but why not.  Of course, he picked nautical scenes, what else!!! 

Here is the first one: The Wharf

The companion one is a lighthouse (of course) on a beach.



Monarch on an Emu Egg

Wow, was it cold today in Chatham. I was going to go to the Y this morning to Aqua-fit but when the alarm went off I heard "it will feel like -24" -CLICK! Forget it. No way was I going to swimming, even indoors, when it's -24 degrees outside. I did have to go out later on and I didn't think it was much warmer but the sister-in-law is still in the hospital so a visit was in order. Well, actually, this is Wednesday and a bunch of us have lunch together every Wednesday so it was lunch and then a visit at the hospital.

Before I show you my Monarch on an Emu egg I want to tell you about one smart bird we have around our house. We have 4 bird feeders out so we have a huge selection of birds- cardinals, juncos, sparrows, nuthatches, woodpeckers, morning doves, purple finches, chickadees, house wrens and goldfinches (oh, and "that hawk" as Joe calls him). There can be as many as 75 birds in the back yard at one time. Last summer the robins built a nest in the corner of our car port and Joe never got around to taking it down. He noticed a couple of weeks ago that it looked like a bird was in there at night so we started watching more closely. Sure enough, of all the birds that visit our back yard, one Junco found the abandoned nest and he snuggles in every night about 5:30 and gets up about 8:00 in the morning.

OK, back to the emu egg. Several years ago I was browsing thru Shelly's Painted Treasurers (formerly past Wall-Mart now in Dresden) and saw a Emu egg with a monarch butterfly painted on it. I love Monarchs so I signed up for the course. Shelly is an excellent tole painter and teacher. I was pretty happy how it turned out. Sorry about the glare from the camera. This was taken on my old camera and it's not the best picture.