Needle Felting

Well I finally did it. I've been wanting to try needle felting for a very long time and I went in to Vancouver yesterday and got the tools to get started. I bought a holder that can hold up to 3 needles and it came with medium gauge needles, so I also bought some course and fine loose needles. For this, my very first piece of needle felting I used a piece of felt I made quite awhile ago for the background and used Bernat Felting wool for the flower, leaf and stem. I will incorporate this 6" X 6" piece into my felting journal. I am very pleased with how it turned out and I am definitely hooked on needle felting.
Next I tried a needle felt ATC. I used Bernat Felting wool yarn for the flower, leaf and stem on an acrylic felt background. It turned out quite well, but is much easier to get results with a wool background. Next I'll have to try the dyed wool silvers I bought. To start with I used some of the short ends I had leftover from the knit felting I did for the 12 Days of Christmas Gift swap I participated in on the Byhand Artists Yahoo group last December.
Now, since this is my 99th post and I have something planned to give away on my 100th post, I better go and hurry up finishing the item I'm planning to give. Keep checking it should be here soon.

Altered Tin

Altered Tin
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This is the second part of assignment 2 of the online course I am taking. I used a large tomato tin and painted with white craft acrylic paint with a little of African Violet paint mixed in. The centre band is a strip of coffee stained cotton fabric rubber stamped with a floral background stamp with purple dye based ink. A strip of green ribbon is added along the top and bottom of the cotton and silk daisies are glued on. The feet on the bottom of the tin are three sets of 3 buttons glued together and the handle on the lid is 2 buttons and a chipboard button glued on. You may like to see a previous altered tin I created for holding ATC blanks. I think this one will be a Note caddy for holding notes and quotes I collect.

Card Box and Some Cards

I have been working on an online class and the first project was to decorate a box to use for blank greating cards and fill it with cards cut from scrapbook cardstock. I used a plain craft storage box from Michaels, the kind that has index dividers for photos. For decorating my box I used matt medium to apply torn pieces of sheet music, other collage images and paper napkins. I finished with stamping several quote stamps from Quietfire Design. I haven't filled my box yet, but I have made a good start. The second assignment was to decorate one on the blank cards using stitching, well once I got started I had to do 3. Two of the cards are from a 2 sided pink cardstock. I used the lighter side for one of the cards and sponged pale pink paint on the darker side of the cardstock. The third card is made from another two-sided patterned scrapbook cardstock. Two patterned scapbook papers are cut or torn, edged with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, layered and stitched. These were applied to the card base and the Cherish stamp from Quietfire Design was stamped on silver cardstock tag or metal sticker.

What You've Been Waiting For

OK I know you've all been siting there holding your breath for this(grin). And the winner of the Created Byhand Challenge art from Jan. 13 is.......drum roll please, K.J. McLean. Now all of you are winners in my book, so if K.J. McLean and each of the rest of you will send me your snail mail to okanagan_spirit at yahoo dot ca (and change that back to proper format) I will start sending something to each of you next week. Thanks to all of you for taking part in my little draw and I hope to be back later today with some of what I've been doing for the last week or so.

Valentine Countdown

Starts today at Ten Two Studio so check every day for new images until Feb 14.