Jewelry for me

This is a New Year and I decided to make myself some necklaces. Lisa Peters is a wonderful friend of mine. She makes amazing raku buttons and pendants, and I have used her pieces in fiber art and mosaics as well. The focal raku on this necklace is from Lisa http://www.lisapetersart.com/
I also have a weakness for lampwork beads and have found some beautiful beads on etsy.
The two tab beads are from TidesofCreation http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5110139 they look beautiful with the raku button. The flowers and other components are stone beads, there are small glass beads, then braided yarns for the rest of the necklace.

This next necklace also uses lampwork beads from TidesofCreation, these beads are gorgeous, beautiful versions of the beach! The silver dangle is from TheIvyLeaf at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=25577
There are glass and silver beads, and the rest of the necklace is ribbon in shades of turqouise.

This last necklace has a mosaic pendant I made a few years ago with glass, plus cabochons of howlite and paua shell . Commercial glass and silver beads, and the rest of the necklace is crocheted purple yarn.

These necklaces are all photographed on the dresses I will be wearing them with.

Some projects

These are pillows I made for brother and sister in law, Dave and Anita. Mom and Dad got them a gorgeous brown comforter for Christmas.

The base for each was some microfiber suede. I had planned to use my embellisher to attach all sorts of fabric and yarns (ala the fancy pillow book), but the farbics I usede did NOT punch into the suede well so I ended up stitching and stitching and stitching (I used over 5 bobbins of thread).

This is an index card holder for my sister Sue, she loves to use sharpies and index cards for her notes. This holder is large enough for 4x6 cards (all I had was 3x5) and I got the mini sharpies.

I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas, my family and I had a fabulous time, and of course my nephews Sam and Max are the stars of my life.

This is pretty typical of their brotherly love-lol.

New comfort dolls

Finally I got some comfort angels made to send to Pat at http://www.comfortdolls.blogspot.com/. i personally think she is an angel for doing this project. Five of these are going to Pat and three to my aunt Bev in Florida.


The yellow/orange and multi colored angels started with embellished projects from earlier this year, see below, I was able to get several angels from each piece and backed them with batiks or other commercial prints.











The blue, green and purple angels are raw silk i painted with watered down acrylics, with some silver or gold streaks. then i stitched the silk to a piece of batting, cut the shapes and zig zagged to backs. For all these I hand stitched more yarns around the face and onto the bodies. the faces are stamped onto muslin circles then gathered around a flat backed marble and stitched to the bodies.
I have several more of these in various stages so I have lots of hand work thru the holidays. Was hoping to get some done and loaded to etsy but don't know if I will make it.

Busy, busy getting ready for Christmas, hopefully next year will be better for completing projects and posting them on this blog.

Comfort dolls

While visiting my brother and family for Thanksgiving, I was working on these to donate to the comfort doll project.

http://www.comfortdolls.blogspot.com/

I started with a raw silk piece I painted and stitched a long while ago. I removed most of the hand stitched yarns and embellishments and cut out nine shapes.

The good news is my sister in law and her mom bought all nine of them! So now I need to make more, but that is ok, they were fun and I have all sorts of ideas for different fabrics and embellishments.

I used a circle of muslin over a glass glob for the faces, gathered it around the back then stitched to the stuffed dolls. Was going to ask my nephew Sam to draw faces but they were pretty tiny. My SIL had the perfect face stamp! I added some tyvek and cheesecloth, crochet yarn strands, ribbon bead trims, little rolled fabric beads and my favorite hairy yarns. The triangle doll was a piece for the original whole piece with lots of hand stitching and I didn't want to cut thru it, so I kept the triangle shape.

I will post pics in a few days of the next batch I make, that truly will go to comfortdolls.

Mosaic Breadbox

I finished my breadbox for the Etsy Mosaic Artists Bitchen Kitchen contest. It is a wooden breadbox and my favorite theme, the sunset over the ocean.

It is 15.5 inches wide and 7.5 tall in the front and 9.5 inches tall in the back.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=7714336

Rusty parts and my brother "The Art Enabler"

I wrote earlier about my family and how they all humor me in my art.

They call my brother Dave my enabler, because when I want to try something weird or different (to those non-crafty folk) my brother is almost always willing to help me!

Even when I don't ask, he is keeping an eye out for me.

We visited them this weekend for Sam's play and Dave took me to a nearby park where people were allowed to dump off metal to be recycled, he had seen a sign and thought of me.

So we asked permission when we got there and I nabbed several very cool rusty pieces. The big disks are my favorite, I got four of them.

Copper crusted vessel

I am sure enjoying making vessels for the textile challenge group. This one started with a piece of fabric I dyed a year or more ago, I crinkled and tied it up as it dried to try and get wrinkles and has stitched it to a piece of felt.

I folded over the top three inches and stitched the side to form a tube, then stitched a piece of timtex to the bottom. I added pieces of silky copper, heated with the heat gun, painted tyvek, crocheted hairy yarns, some copper mesh and painted lace, and a couple of plastic rings covered with hand dyed ribbon yarn. Then I used some copper lumiere paint to drybrush some color all over the piece. I have a really cool silicon baster mom got me this summer, it works great for just adding a little paint.

I wanted the vessel to have a little bit squished shape, so I painted more timtex and made a tube for the inside, a little bit smaller than the outside. As I stitched the piece inside I drew in some of the shape with the thread, then added beads that pulled it in a little more, and added some felt beads too. I think I am done-lol.