Nov. ATC Swap At The Grind

Nov. 21 was the regular ATC Vancouver Swap and was also the 10th anniversary. We decided this year's special swap would be houses and they could be from matchbox size to ATC size. These are the 8 I managed to complete in time for the swap.

This is my Freedom House, made with printers cleanup paper and a bit of beads.

Corrugated Cottage is made from corrugated cardboard and the paper pealed from one surface is used for the roof. The walls are white washed with acrylic paint and the roof done with red and some white highlights.
One of my "Cozy House or House Cozy?" houses. I knit 3 houses and used embossed printers cleanup paper for the roof.
These little books with recycled pizza box covers were the little gift inside the house boxes.

The collection of houses I received in trade for my houses.

Asian Theme ATCs

Asian Theme ATCs
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

I have been working on some ATCs to submit to the Vernon Public Art Gallery ATC Exhibit and some of these along with some others will be going in the mail soon. I was playing with recycling and really liked the image on this Green Tea with ginger and honey tin. All of these ATCs are from one aluminum beverage tin. Four have a Dover Asian image and 3 of those have sugar beads added.On the top card the piece of aluminum was embossed with a Tim Holtz Sizzix folder and mounted on part of a Cuttlebug Cut and Emboss folder. The next 2 are full ATC size tin and the bottom two have a small strip down the left side.

ATC Book For The Swap at The Grind

Edit: A happy event for me is that this also fits the Byhand Challenge for this week.
Still keeping with the string theme for the ATC swap at the Grind I had some fun with this little book. The front cover is recycled cardboard with a piece of gift bag paper glued on. A small piece of branch from my yard is stitched on with linen thread.

Inside cover and first page and next pages are from a coffee advertising flyer and Kraft cardstock. assorted rubber stamps are used with Memento Potter's Clay ink.

More of the same papers and parchment cardstock with computer generated info.

More of the same papers and the back cover showing the orange waxed fibre used for binding.

Recycled Tag

Recycled Tag
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

I used a piece of corrugated pizza box cut with the Sizzex die for the base of this tag and peeled the printed layer off the top. The image is printed on watercolour paper and the word "April" is from a Recollections Flourish Months stamp set. The eyelet boarder is a Fiskars punch rubbed with Vintage Photo Distress ink. The stitching border is a Cuttlebug Embossing folder.The ribbon comes from a grab bag of notions.

December ATC Swap AT The Grind

The theme for this month is hands so I have done two series that are similar. The first set is "Creative Hands" and uses a digital background and digital text. The fun foam hand is heated and a rubber stamp pressed into it. The hands are painted with gold and silver craft acrylic paint. I finished with wrapping and tying jute cord around the cards.

The second set is "Mind and Hands" and used assorted recycled tissue box and other cardstock and tissue, text paper and 1 has rubber stamped flowers and another has sealing wax. I hope to do a few more tonight, but with the leftovers from previous swaps I should have enough for tomorrows swap.

52 Quilts Journal Week 15

52 Quilts Journal Week 15
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

The background is a fabric sample and the pendant is a piece from a metal steamer. This was painted with bright bronze and espresso metal paint. I glued the flat round bead on and then wrapped it with specialty yarn and maple coloured cotton. The fringe at the bottom has some odds and ends of black and white beads knotted on.

52 Quilts Journal Week 14

52 Quilts Journal Week 14
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

Another of my endless fabric samples, love this one, and glass leaf charms. I did a bit of machine stitching with rayon thread following the outline of some of the squares in the print.

52 Quilts Journal Week 12

52 Quilts Journal Week 12
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

Well the weeks are just flying by. What can I say? It's not a good plan to start a project like this when you're about to move and it's taken me awhile to get back into the project on a regular bases, but now I am really into it. This page was not even on my radar until this morning. I've had the idea to use old family photos at some point in the project and since the Created Byhand Tuesday Challenge is to create art with the theme of pets, so the time was right. This one is chenille fabric sample, the photo is an old black and white of my brother, edited to sepia and stitched with brown rayon machine embroidery thread. The photo is printed on regular copy paper and brushed with matt medium and allowed to dry before stitching. The quote and date are stamped on coffee stained cotton fabric. Oh this photos was taken in an orchard and that is a real honest-to-goodness wooden apple box that the boy and dog are siting on.

52 Quilts Journal Week 11

52 Quilts Journal Week 11
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

The background on this page is Silk Jacquard fabric sample. The center square is a small sample and the middle layer is off white cotton, again from my stash of fabric samples. I used bits of silk flower left over from other projects, some are cut apart and then all are stitched in place with odd bits of beads.

Sewn Illusion Journal Page 4

Sewn Illusion Journal 4
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

Page 4 of the Sewn Illusions Journal is scraps from the week 10 quilt, another small fabric sample and some strips of tea dyed cotton which was rubber stamped with funky flowers background stamp and "Spirit" with EK Success Retro ABC stamp set. There is a little strip of paper stitched on to this one as well.

52 Quilts Journal Week 10

52 Quilts Journal Week 10
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

I used a small velvet sample for the center of this quilt and sewed other fabric samples around Log Cabin style. The cross in the middle is another found object that I discovered several months ago while walking on the sidewalk along the Lougheed Highway in Port Coquitlam.

52 Quilts Journal Week 9

52 Quilts Journal Week 9
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

The background is cotton fabric sample, the coloured stuff with the heart cut out is a baby wipe I used to clean up previous projects, the Asian fabric behind the heart cut-out is from a fat quarter I bought in Armstrong when I visited my sister.I decided to fringe the fore edge of the page this time. Now you know that heart cut from the baby wipe just can't be wasted, so it will be seen in a future project.

52 Weeks Quilt Journal Week 8

52 Weeks Quilt Journal Week 8
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This page is more of the cloth-paper. The pear is a digitally altered copy of my pear photo and the border is scans of my dragonfly ATC edited to form the border. All these papers were glued to acrylic felt with matt medium and brushed with 2 more coats of matt medium. I outlined stitched the pear with rayon thread, used a decorative stitch around the pear block. The border is random stitched with black thread and the outer edge is zig-zag stitched with black thread.

52 Weeks Quilt Journal Week 7

52 Weeks Quilt Journal Week 7
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This page is a fabric sample background. The heart is torn watercolour paper brushed with Royal Coat sepia Decoupage Finish and torn rubber stamped papers applied then brushed over the top with more of the sepia decoupage finish.The lace ribbon and paper heart were stitched on the background and then the edge was machine stitched around.

52 Quilts Journal Week 6

52 Quilts Journal Week 6
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

The embellishment on the page has a bit of a story. Shortly after we moved in, my daughter was by the stove and we heard a clink. She said a spoon had fallen between the stove and counter. Well we retrieved the spoon, not one of ours and obviously already there and just finished falling. While we were getting the spoon out this pendant was also found under the stove. I used two sample fabrics and added the found pendant. This page was edged with gold gel paint after it was glued to the back of week 5 page.

52 Quilts Journal Week 5

52 Quilts Day 5
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

I was playing with dripping acrylic ink on to a used dryer sheet a while back, didn't turn out quite the way I wanted, most of the colour went right through to the baby wipe I had underneath. Of course it can't be wasted, so it went into the box of stuff for my 52 Quilts Journal project. I spread matt medium on the dryer sheet then placed scraps of paper napkin over the gel medium. I coated the whole thing with more gel medium and allowed to dry. I used a very pale purple craft felt under the dryer sheet and stitched with white and black thread, stitching on the ribbon as well. The leaves from the napkin image are roughly outlined with straight stitching with the black thread. I am pleased with the results.

52 Quilts Journal Week 4

52 Quilts Journal Week 4
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

I have again used fabric from my collection of fabric sample books and added rusty washers, a button, a flattened pop bottle lid and "antiqued" safety pins. The safety pins came from a dollar store, the washers were found around the property shortly after we moved in and the fattened bottle cap was found in the Coquitlam Center parking lot. The button was found on the street,obviously run over by a vehicle. I sure hope nobody was wearing the garment at the time.

52 Quilts Journal Week 3

Well I'm finally back to my weekly journal quilt project after doing only 2 pages and then having to move. I plan to keep up with 1 page a week for a total of 52 weeks and use something recycled on each page.
I tried out my first needle felting without using a fabric background and created this flower. Any resemblance to a living flower is accidental, but if you think it looks like a real flower let me know. I had fun with this, the petals are made from Bernat Felting wool yarn. I used a piece a little longer that double the size I wanted the petal to be, fluffed the yarn and folded it in half and needle felted from the fold, leaving a small area at the cut end unfelted. I made 7 petals, overlapped the unfelted ends and needle felted to join into a flower. For the centre I made a small ball of another colour of the yarn and needle felted it to the flower and stitched assorted size beads on. Size 10 seed beads are 3 bead back stitch which also sews the flower to the journal page.
The page back is fabric from a fabric sample book which was saved from being discarded. The background is part of a piece of felt I made many years ago for a long forgotten project. I used more of the Bernat yarn to couch around the brown areas of the felt with magenta nylon thread. The ends of the yarn are needle felted to add interest and prevent them from unravelling.

52 Quilts Journal Week 2

Since I was on a role I started the week 2 quilt on Sun. For this one I chose a dark blue and gold print from my sample stash and recycled a crochet sample motif. This is the first try at crochet since I broke my wrist and the sample turned out a little large for an ATC, so here it is on my mini quilt. I stitched it on with assorted brown and cream beads and then joined it to the back of quilt 1 to make a page for my journal. Later I will join this to 2 more quilts to make a signature and eventually decide how I will bind the journal.

52 Quilts Journal Week 1

I have decided to take the challenge of creating a 52 Quilts Journal, one a week for a year. I sure hope I can keep it up so here goes. The idea comes from the Feb/March 2008 issue of Quilting Arts magazine and the challenge is to use something recycled or found in each quilt. Since most of the fabric I will use is rescued from fabric sample books that were destined for the landfill, I have that covered, but I will try to incorporate something more is each quilt. I have chosen to make my quilts 6 in. X 6 in. My first quilt for the week ending July 12, 2008 is from my fabric sample stash and the recycled item I've used is a mesh vegetable bag stitched down with 2 sizes of blue and greenish yellow porcelain beads. I think I'm off to a good start and will likely try out different techniques I'd like to explore for future projects.