Fay's CQ

As promised when I posted the picture of my CQ ornament, here's the 7" square mini-quiltlet that Fay in South Africa sent to me. It happened when she joined the CQ email group I belong to. Someone else was talking about "squishies", and she wrote in asking what a squishie is. (A baggie full of fabrics and embellishments that crazy quilters sometimes send each other.) Since she was new to the group, I emailed her privately and offered to send her a squishie. She's such a sweetie, because after I sent the package to her, she sent one back to me. There were some awesome African fabrics and beads, laces, the above CQ, and a CD of pictures of the animal reserve she lives near.

Vive le France ATCs

Anna with Christian Paper Artists is hosting another ATC swap; this one is "Vive le France." I was so excited when I first read about it, but then I didn't kow what to do. Mike and I visited France two and a half years ago, on the first trip we chaperoned through his high school. I fell in love with France: Paris, the countryside, the Cote d'Azur. How to translate that into an ATC? I decided to concentrate on Paris, using some pictures I took of some of my favorite Paris places. Going clockwise from the top right is Notre Dame Cathedral, Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, and Arc de Triomphe. I printed the photos in sepia tone to give them continuity and to make them look a little older, like memories.



I apologize for the slightly fuzzy picture; the brad in the left corner (from JoAnn) sticks out, so the ATC wasn't laying flat when I scanned it. I'm having issues with my digital camera, so I can't just take a photo and upload it.



For the base of the ATC, I painted a thin wash of Liquitex "Iridescent Rich Gold" acrylic paint over a page from a French book I picked up at the used bookstore in town.

I made five of the same ATC for this swap. Can't wait to get some from other artists.

CQ Christmas Ornament

I made this crazy quilted ornament for a swap Lisa D. is hosting through the Quiltropolis Crazy Quilt email list. The ornament is about 4 1/2 inches in diameter.



The center gold fabric is a piece of silk that I got from Fay in South Africa. (I'll have to post a picture of the crazy quilted mini-quilt that she also sent me). The top red is cotton velveteen. I had bought a few yards about 8 years ago, planning to make a Christmas dress for my daughter Kendra ~ she was 3 at the time. However, I was so exhausted due to being pregnant with my 3rd child that I never got around to making it. When I started crazy quilting 2 years ago, I started cutting into that velveteen, since there's not enough of it to make Kendra a dress now that she's grown into an 11 year old. It was just sitting in my armoire, begging to be used! The other red fabric and the greens are poly satins that I've collected.



On the left side, I attached a button cluster with some gold beads. The seam treatment is a piece of ribbon I got at Hobby Lobby. The top red has a small lace motif which I painted using my (favorite) Liquitex "Iridescent Rich Gold" acrylic paint. I attached it to the velveteen using an iridescent-type white bead. The feather seam treatment has yellow-ish clear beads. On the right green fabric, I stitched a swirl motif out of Carole Samples' wonderful book, Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches, then I added a few red and gold beads. The bottom seam has green buttonhole and lazy daisy stitches to look like flower stems and leaves, and gold bead flowers.

I added a pretty, sparkly gold braid to hang the ornament, but it got cut off in the picture.

It was such fun to make a small CQ project. In fact, I've started making one similar to this one, so I can keep it. One of these days, I also need to take some pictures of the big crazy quilt that I finished in January.

Give Thanks

These ATCs are serving two purposes. I made them for the "Give Thanks" ATC swap that Donna is hosting at Christian Paper Artists. Then I saw that the current theme at SaltFaith Challenge is also "Give Thanks."

It's so easy to forget the wonderful gifts God has given us through His Son Jesus: eternal life, an abundant life here on earth, the Holy Spirit. I've loved this verse from the Psalms for a long time. God's unfailing love is what makes everything worth while. When I start to get bogged down with the things of this life, these verses help remind me of all the good things that I do have.

For this swap, we are each making 9 ATCs. Donna had said that if less than 9 people sign up, we would get more than 1 ATC from some people, so we might want to make some of the ATCs different. I made 4 of the first version, and 5 of the second.

I live in the midwest and we are in the middle of all the leaves changing into their glorious autumn colors. So I naturally associate leaves with the Thanksgiving holiday.

For the background, I mixed Lumiere in metallic russet and halo blue-gold to get the brown color. The text was printed on cardstock which I painted Irish Mist Twinkling H2o (gotta get some sparkle in there). For the leaves, I first painted a piece of watercolor paper with a wash of yellow, orange, and red watercolors. Then I used a small leaf punch to punch out the leaves. Finally, I added a "trail" of microdot stickers by a.muse, to look like the leaves are falling.

I'm back...and Going Green ATCs

We finally moved into our new house two weeks ago!!! We thought we would only live in our temporary house for about a month, but construction delays kept us out of the new house for three months. Actually, the new house still isn't finished, but it's far enough along to move into.

Since we didn't have internet at our temporary house, I've been unable to post in all this time.

While I was gone, I received these gorgeous ATCs from the Going Green swap that I participated in back in August:




This was my first swap, and I really enjoyed seeing the different techniques the other women used. I'm working on ATCs for my next swap with this group, Christian Paper Artists. I'll get those posted when I finish them.

I'm not sure how to get my pictures to expand when you double-click on them. If you know, please share the secret.

Going Green ATCs part 2

Last night I finished up my last 3 ATCs for the "Going Green" ATC swap through Christian Paper Artists yahoo group. Although they're not due until the middle of August, with our move next week, I don't anticipate having a lot of time for fun in the next few weeks.

For this first one, I painted the background with Mustard Green Twinkling H2O watercolor, then stamped over it with that new Tapestry stamp from Stampabilities (I told you I love that stamp!). All images are from ArtChixStudio. The girl originally had the words "Spoil me" on her forehead, but I thought that "dream" was more appropriate to the theme of recycling. I'm not sure if I like how her dreams are depicted, with the little dots going up to the nature pictures, but I don't know how else I'd do them. Text is all computer-generated.
For this second ATC, I used a photo that I took a few years ago of one of my home-grown roses (I can't remember if it was "Peace" or "Diana, Princess of Wales"). Either way, it's a beautiful hybrid-tea, cream colored with pink on the edges. I printed the photo on a transparency. Then I used another technique from Carol Murphy's "Tempting Techniques" online class through Joggles to use Therm-O-Web to adhere the transparency to cardstock, with glitter in between. The ribbon is 4 mm silk ribbon from my stash. I printed up "sweetest flower" on cardstock, and placed it in a label holder from making memories.The third ATC has a vellum pocket to hold a tag.

I used the same rose stamp (unknown maker) as the red marbled paper ATC I posted yesterday. For this one, though, I painted the whole ATC with Twinkling H2Os in Irish Mist, Blue Flame, and Cranberry. I used brads to attach the vellum pocket. I pianted the tag in Irish Mist, then printed the quote off the computer. As an added touch, I adhered a real rose thorn from my garden onto the tag. A brad and a small piece of silk ribbon finished this off.

It may be obvious that I love roses and quotes! In fact, I'm contemplating a project about the storms of life, so if anyone has a good quote about that which you want to leave in the comments section, I'd appreciate it!

These ATCs have been such a fun way to experiment with different techniques. I can't take all the credit for the ATC designs. A few weeks ago, I checked out a book from the library called Rubber Stamping Artist Trading Cards, which is chock full of examples (sorry, I don't remember the author). I've added my own spin - and my own stamps - to some of their ATCs. It was a great jumping-off point, though.

I'll probably be taking a few weeks off of blogging. Final packing, doing work at the new house, and unpacking will be taking up most of my time and energy for a few weeks. If you leave a comment that doesn't appear on here, that's the most likely reason why.

By the way, I am not affiliated with any of the companies I've mentioned in this or any other post.

Going Green ATCs

I've recently joined a Yahoo group called Christian Paper Artists (CPA). They seem like a great group of very talented ladies. Anna is hosting a swap of ATCs called "Going Green." To participate, you make 6 ATCs and will get 6 back. Each ATC must have green on it somewhere, and it must either have something recycled or have a nature theme. For the back of each of my ATCs, I'm going to use an empty toilet paper roll which I've flattened. I'll write my name and contact info on that.

I think this first ATC is my favorite of the three I've finished so far. The base is made of green fused Angelina. It looks SO MUCH PRETTIER in person ~ the sparkle and shimmer just doesn't show up on the screen. I saw this quote on a tag that Ros made. Hers looks like it's a stamp, but I printed it out on vellum. I do need to find a better way to adhere vellum. I used Diamond Glaze, but I don't like how, even after it's dried, you can still see the dark marks. The gold border and butterfly are both German scrap papers from ArtChixStudio.

For this ATC, I first painted cardstock with iridescent rich gold acrylic paint (Liquitex), then stamped over it with Colorbox gold pigment. I LOVE this new stamp I got from Hobby Lobby: Tapestry Pattern by Stampabilities. For this ATC, it adds just the right texture to the background. I used my ever-handy Susan Branch ABC letters to stamp the quote, and hand-wrote "Ralph Waldo Emerson." The mini flowers are by making memories.

For my 3rd ATC, I painted a piece of cardstock using Twinkling H2O "mustard green." I marbled a separate piece of cardstock using a shaving cream technique I learned about in Carol Murphy's online "Tempting Techniques" class through Joggles. I added drops of three different red nailpolishes to get the marble look. The stamp is an old one; there's no label indicating what company made it. Lace is from my stash.

That's it for now. I'd better get packing some more boxes, since we only have 9 days til the big move.