Texture Ingredients swap

I'm back! What a busy weekend we had moving my Dad. Yesterday evening after work I had planned to start catching up with all my internet groups and reading some blogs but I was too shattered to do anything so today the catch up begins. I think it will take me a few days to get caught up with all the blogs I like to look at.

I thought I shouldn't neglect my blog for too long either so here is a postcard that I have made for Joanna, as part of the FAF textured ingredients swap. These are the ingredients she sent.And this is what I came up with. Joanna sent so many wonderful ingredients I hardly scratched the surface. I hope she likes the card when it arrives!
Joanna was keen for me to use a particular fabric that she sent which was a piece of silk scarf. It had an abstract design which I used to build layers of texture on top. I think it came out quite celestial which wasn't necessarily my intention more like a happy accident.

Nothing to declare

Well I have been working on a couple of things this evening but nothing I can share pictures of yet. I've finally finished up a meme item for AliKat, it's been so long since I had the meme I bet she has forgotten she even signed it. Of course I won't share a picture until I know she has it as if Ali drops in anytime over the next few days I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise.

I have also started on Joanna's textured postcard but am nowhere near done yet. I don't think I will be around much now until the start of next week as this weekend I am off to help my Dad move into a new flat, that means that all the housework that I usually cram into the weekend will have to be done over the next few evenings instead so that I don't get too behind.

As you know I hate to post without a picture so here is a wonderful postcard that I recently purchased on Ebay. It's painted by a talented artist called Francesca Burras, you can check out some more of her work here.

Back in the saddle

Well we never did get to Brecon yesterday we were just too darn lazy to get out of bed early enough to make a decent day of it. We did go for a lovely walk in the woods though. After the sea the woods are definitely my next favourite place to be I just love trees.

After recharging my batteries this weekend (what a great way to label my laziness, thanks
Helen!) I was ready to get stuck in again this evening. I have had these postcards sitting on the table for a while so I got my butt in gear and went ahead and finished them this evening.The theme is Eggs for another Artsnthemail swap. My nest got a bit squished in the scanner but I think you can get the idea. Basically I have layered up lots of different yarns, ribbons and fabric strips, along with some dyed cheesecloth to make a nest. The added some eggs which I watercoloured onto muslin use my yummy InkTense pencils.

I have already had a couple of cards arrive from this swap, and Easter egg and a yummy plate of fired eggs. I am really enjoying this theme as there are just so many different ways to interpret it.

Restless

I don't know what is wrong with me today I have been feeling very unsettled. I just haven't been able to sit and get on with any one thing. The day is almost over and I've let it drift by in nothingness what a waste. Nevermind I guess we all have days like this from time to time.

I wanted to say a big thank you to all who have left nice comments about my water colour kitty. Yes cats, and creating things with their images have been a passion of mine for sometime. Probably my favourite cat creation is a large cross stitch picture that I made sometime ago. I will share a picture sometime if I remember to charge my camera battery.

For today though I've been encouraged by everyone's kind comments about yesterday's post so I have another watercolour to share, again painted back in 1999. Possibly not quite as cute as yesterdays kitten but I think he has a certain charm about him nonetheless.
Tomorrow Mark and I plan to get our butts out of bed early and take ourselves off to the Brecon Beacons for some fresh air and walking. Hopefully a nice day out will improve my mood.

Watercolour kitty

I don't have any new fiber creations to share at the moment. I have a couple of things in progress but I just don't seem to have had much time to work on them over the last few evenings.

Just for fun and to keep my blogging going I thought I'd share a picture that I painted a while ago. I've never been very talented at drawing and painting but for a while I experimented with watercolours. I never really got the hang of using them and I became quickly frustrated with my lack of drawing talent but here is a picture that I am quite proud of.
I came across it while sorting through some old papers yesterday. When I turned it over I saw I had dated it July 1999. I can remember the day I spent painting it like it was yesterday. Doesn't time fly.

Easter Bunnies

Ok so I know I am way ahead of time for Easter Bunnies, but later in the year we are having an Easter bunny postcard swap at Artsnthemail. This cutesy idea popped into my head for how I wanted to make my cards and it just kept eating away at me so in the end I gave in and made them way ahead of schedule.
For the background I used some more of the batch of fabric I dyed the other day. I cut the bunny heads from felt and hand stitched on the face detail. I added a few embellishments to liven the background up a bit and voila all done. Let's hope the recipients think they are cute!

Creating texture with raw seam edges

I have been working on yet more postcards for swaps and am at the point of having two or three sets at the almost finished stage so hopefully will have a few things to share over the coming days.

Here is something that I did get finished. For the FAF texture challenge I decided to experiment with trying to create textured fabric using raw seams. I took some of the fabric that I dyed the other day and this is what I ended up with.I cut lots of 3/4" strips from the fabric and rejoined them, Leaving all of the seams showing I then layered on a couple of pieces of tulle, some beads, ribbon, sequins and a few french knots.

I ended up with two very similar postcards which I have decided to call 'Springtime I & II' as the colours just remind me so much of spring.

Arryanna

I spent a little bit of time beading yesterday. Not one to do things by half I signed up for not one but two beaded doll round robins at the end of last year. I really enjoyed making and sending my forms on their merry way but ever since this rounds dolls arrived with me I have been wondering why oh why did I ever sign up.

Apart from the lovely beaded tree spirit tutorial that I took with Ronda Kivett I have no beading experience whatsoever. I've been feeling totally daunted by the prospect of starting off on these wonderful little forms. As the end of the month deadline for this first round is fast approaching I just decided I had to sit down and get on with it.

Here is Sue's little Mermaid Arryanna before I started on her.Here she is after a little work by me. I'm fairly please with what I did to her and actually once I decided exactly what it was that I wanted to do it wasn't as bad as I imagined. I just hope that the fact that I am a beading beginner doesn't show my work up too much against what everyone else will do on this lovely little mermaid form.
Today I plan on finishing up a couple of birthday postcards, making a couple more fabric charms (I am slowly working on my little stitched hearts a few at a time), and thinking about how I am going to start beading the doll for the second round robin that I am in.

The Frog Prince

Yesterday and this morning I have been working on my pages for the last round of the meandering book swap that has been taking place over on Fabric-olics. I have really enjoyed taking part in this swap and am sad that it is coming to an end.

On the flip side I am excited to think that my book will be on it's way back to me sometime in the next few weeks and as I didn't get time to make my own page in my book before sending it off I still have some work to do to complete the swap.

This time round I have had Ingrid's beautiful book to work on. The theme is fairy tales. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do, but somehow my mind got more focused as the deadline loomed, lol.

I decided to go with the Frog Prince. Here is my front page.I know it's immodest, but, I am just so pleased with the way this turned out. I almost don't want to give it away. My drawing skills are pitiful so I got Mark to sketch the picture onto muslin for me. I then painted both the frog and the background with my Inktense pencils. After letting it all dry I stitched round the frog to make him stand out a bit more.

I decided to go with the FiberArt Friends monthly theme of texture for building the background. So added a couple of layers of dyed cheesecloth and then got merry with buttons, ribbon, sequins and beads.I decided to keep the back page pretty simple. It's made from green satin overlayed with a gem covered organza. It's so light and shiny it was difficult to get a decent picture. I think the pages look great layed out together. I hope Ingrid likes what I have done!

Hearts

I have been working on quite a few things today, but only managed to get one totally finished. These are the cards I made for a hearts swap over at Artsnthemail. Usually for a postcard swap I tend to come up with one design and run with it for the whole swap sometime varying colours slightly. This time round I decided to go with totally different designs all round.

The only thing I had decided on before I started was that my colour was going to be red. I decided to make the backgrounds from my own dyed fabric which is what started me off playing with the microwave yesterday. A while back I sorted most of my stash of embellishments into boxes by colour so I grabbed the red box went rummaging and these are the results. When I sit down and think about it it really is quite scary the amount of stuff that I have managed to accumulate in such a short time, I probably have enough stuff to keep me going for a couple of years without ever needing to buy another thing. Still there is always some new 'must have' out there tempting me to buy, lol.Some of these cards I like better than others but on the whole I think they have turned out quite well considering I didn't have any set ideas when I started out and just went with whatever appealed to me as I came across it in the 'box of red'.I'm feeling a bit better today than I have been so I might venture out and about to get some fresh air for the first time since Wednesday. Hopefully I will get time to finish up some of the other things I started today. I'm particularly excited about the pages I have been working on for the last round of the fabric book swap that I have been taking part in and hope to them finished up tomorrow.

Dyeing for some colour

After the bride postcards and the snow I thought it was time for a splash of colour on my blog. So here are some pieces of fabric I microwave dyed yesterday.
It started with me wanting some red for the backgrounds of some postcards that I want to make for an Artsnthemail swap. Of course once I started I found it difficult to stop. I haven't done any dyeing for a while and had forgotten how much fun it was to see how each piece of fabric would turn out.

More snow and a new Blog

Yesterday afternoon the sun came out and melted all that lovely snow we had. However when I got up again this morning it had started again, there were lots of lovely big flakes drifting past the window. I tried to get a photo but this was the best I could do.I think you can just about get that it's snowing from this, particularly if you look at the red post van.

Yesterday I also decided to start a new blog. Really this one is for me more than anything else. Sadly I don't have the room to permanently display all of the wonderful art works that I have received through my internet swaps so this year I thought I would start myself a virtual photo album. If anyone would like to check it out it's called Angelcat's Treasures.

More textured backgrounds

Here are the pictures of the other cheesecloth ATCs that I made the other day. Being at home today has meant that I can take some pictures in the daylight which show up what is going on on these little white cards.The idea behind this one was to try and create some texture using just flat embellishments. I'm not sure if I've quite achieved the effect that I was after but it almost works. I covered a piece of Timtex with some cheesecloth and then added two different types of flower embellishments. The flowers down the side are almost a lace type trim and the bunch of flowers in the middle are cut from a long piece of satin trim. I think you can just about make out the different textures in this picture. To add a little bit of dimension I gathered a couple of the flower centres with some running stitch to make some of the petals stand up from the background a bit. I have been itching to add some beads or something just to finish it off but that wouldn't fit in with the whole idea of using using flat things.
This second study in white uses just a cheesecloth background with some fluffy yarn couched over the top. In some weird optical illusion I think that the yarn looks like it is sinking into the cheesecloth but in reality it is sat on top. I really like this card but to me the reality doesn't look anything like the picture. As it is at the moment even though I like it I think it's just a bit too simple to be a finished piece so I might add a few beads or maybe even some more yarn perhaps in a different colour. I'll have a play and see what takes my fancy.

Snow

My cold developed nicely overnight to the point where I found it very difficult to sleep so I've decided to take the day off work as I really don't think I could concentrate on doing a decent job at the office today. As I was awake most of the night it did mean I got to sit and watch some of the snow fall which was lovely. A few minutes after my Mum passed away it started to snow, only a little flurry but I'll always think of her each time it snows now.

I really wanted to go out and run around in the fresh snow but it was way to cold and dark and if any of the neighbours saw me that would have just confirmed their suspicions that I'm off my trolley! Here is the view from the front bedroom window of our little close after the sun had come up.Predictably the snow seems to have caused lots of travel problems, I guess it must have been a lot worse in other parts of the country, maybe it's as good a day as any to feel ill and be staying at home.

Something Beginning with B

Yuck I am full of the lurgy again. It seems that I have managed to pick up another cold. It feels like I only just managed to get rid of the last one but I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes.

It seems typical though as after a few days without my machine I managed to get out of creative mode and just as I was starting to pick up again this bug comes and catches up with me. Hopefully it won't hang around for too long.

The last few evenings have been spent making cards for the Something Beginning with B swap on Artsnthemail. First off I want to thank everyone that left such great suggestions for me after I did the A card. There were so many great ideas to choose from that it took me a while to mull all the ideas over. In the end though in honour of my sister's announcement that she is to be married next year I decided to go with B is for Bride.I haven't been able to get a great scan because of the button embellishment and the evenings aren't light enough for me to use my camera yet but you get the idea. I've used a cream Satin for the background and some stamped images. Finishing off by adding some net under the dress image and a button embellishment. These are definately going out in clear envelopes as they are so light I've no doubt that if I sent them nude they wouldn't make it to there destinations looking as bright and white!

Textured backgrounds

I just got back from a weekend at Dad's it was nice to catch up with everyone. I also got to see the dress that my sister has in mind for us bridesmaid's to wear and it's not as bad as I imagined it might be.

My sewing machine came back on Friday and touch wood it seems to be fixed. Apparently there was a problem with the switch. As I have been away I haven't had much of a chance to test it out properly but this evening I stitched the edges of a few more heart charms and it seems to be ok.

I haven't had much of a chance to get creative this weekend but I have made a sort of start on the Fiber Art Friends February challenge which is creating texture. I decided to play with making some textured backgrounds using layered cheesecloth. I've made 3 ATCs altogether but can only show one for the time being as the other two are white and are not getting picked up well on my scanner so I will have to wait until it is light enough for me to try taking some photos instead.
Yes another cat. I seem to have refound my love for all things feline, and this motif was from another scrap that I just couldn't bring myself to throw away. Basically I layered some cheesecloth on top of my ATC size piece of timtex and fused the cat over this background. Usually I satin stitch the edges of my ATcs just as I would a postcard but I like the organic look that this has ended up with so will leave it as is.