Great Weekend

Last weekend was pretty great, I started Sat morning with a little weeding, not my favourite activity, but it makes the yard look better. When I came in I decided to search in boxes for a piece of denim fabric I had, didn't find the denim, but opened another box and found to my great delight the shuttle for my knitting machine. It went missing during our move and I probably would have used the knitting machine last year to make the felted journal wraps instead of hand knitting 13 of these in such a short time. Oh well, I'm sure everyone who received the journals appreciate them being hand knit instead of by machine. Sat afternoon I went to Cherish The Thought scrapbooking store in Port Moody for the demo of the Quick Kutz Squeeze die cut machine and make and take. We made these cute cards using the dress die and an embossing folder and an alpha die set.

Then I decided I liked the Moxie alphabet and used it to put a title on my Sewn Illusion journal. I liked the cover the way it was, so didn't do much to it besides the die cut letters and I borrowed the ribbon and sewing bobbin idea from Penelope that she used for the Tea Book.

Some ATCs

Earlier this week I played with rubber stamping some ATCs and colouring the image after stamping. The first ATC on the left is coloured with blending chalks and sprayed with workable fixative. The other 2 are coloured with Distress Inks. The "Dance of the Butterflys Collage" stamp is from Paper Inspirations and the "Memories" stamp is from Laundry Line. The Dance was stamped with pigment ink and heat embossed with Pearl lustre Hematite and Memories was stamped with Fired Brick Distress Ink. The final touch was a rinestone on each butterfly wing. I haven't tried colouring in rubber stamped images before, but I am happy with the results.

Tea Book

Last Sunday June 21 was the regular ATC Vancouver swap at the Grind and despite just getting home late the previous Thru. I really wanted to go so I managed to get a few of these ATCs done and with some leftovers from previous swaps I came away with a nice group to add to my growing collection. The book on the left is a single sheet folded book and the one on the right is a pamphlet stitch book with the same photos from my garden in Vancouver before moving.

The day started with these packages beautifully wrapped by Penelope for those of us who had participated in the Tea Fat Book collaborative project.



Opening the package revealed the beautiful covers also created by the very talented Penelope, thanks Pen. Isn't it pretty, she made all the covers and bound the books for the 20 participants and we're lucky she keeps coming up with wonderful ideas. Later Sun. was spent going over every page and marvelling at the variety created by all and reading all the tips and links Penelope assembled on pages at the back of the book.



My page is paper napkin applique using a tea themed napkin, a lavender napkin and rubber stamping.

Holiday Activities

I have been missing from blog posts because of a three week visit in the Okanagan with family and friends, and it's taken me awhile to get caught up with things at home. The bus trip home was quite an experience with a 2 hour delay waiting for an accident to be cleared. No knitting handy, so reading was the activity of choice while waiting, but I did get some knitting done in quiet moments in between visiting and shopping.
Here are some projects just waiting for a trip to the washer for felting and finishing so I'll post the completed projects when that is done.
The shopping involved a visit to a quilt store in Armstrong, Scrapbooking stores in Vernon and Kelowna, a bead store, secondhand book store and a yarn shop with treasures found in each. The yarn store revealed some odd balls of yarn and a Louisa Harding drawstring bag pattern, which was finished knitting in a couple of days and now is just waiting for the drawstring cord to be completed.

Sewn Illusions Page 2

For the second page in this journal I rubbed gold gel paint on the edge of the page with my finger. The sewn part is a bunch of various scraps stitched with straight and zig zag stitches. I used an alpha set of rubber stamps and white pigment ink for the word colours and embossed with pearl embossing powder and Quietfire design stamp "Art" stamped with white pigment ink embossed with Hemetite embossing powder.

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.

"Tea" Fat Book Page

I recently finished my contribution to a collaberative book project with members of the Vancouver ATC Group on the theme of tea. For my pages I used tea dyed Distress ink on the paper, then glued images from paper napkins with matt medium. I added a bit of rubber stamping and a small piece of knit lace. There is also a few beads glued to the Lavender napkin image. I made an extra copy just in case so I was able to use it to tip into my assorted paper Zutter Journal. The holes were pre-punched so I wove some ribbon and used brads to hold the page to a cardstock tab in my journal.


This is the back of the page with more rubber stamping and an old coupon from coffee and tea products. The page forms a pocket for a "tea bag" tag with the other "T" technique used.
You can see this journal in my Flickr Photos.

Sewn Illusions 1

Sewn Illusions 1
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

I got this wire bound journal with black pages at a real big discount without knowing what I would do with it, then the I saw this project in Sew Somerset winter 2009 and thought it would be perfect. I used the leftover piece from the paper napkin dryer sheet and stacked several fabric sample pieces together. These were stitched together with black thread in straight and zigzag stitches. The black page was stamped with flower stamps in sage and white pigment ink and the sewn piece was glued down, The buttons and the label from a fabric sample were glued on to finish the 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.

May 2009 ATC Swap at The Grind

Sunday was the latest round of swapping at The Grind and I managed to make 11 new ATCs and along with some leftovers I had plenty to swap, which was a good thing because we had a great turn-out despite it being a long weekend. I did a few alcohol ink backgrounds and then scanned them in order to have enough ready in the time I was able to create. I used various sections of a block stamp to create these, in some cases heat embossing. Some are edged with gold and silver leafing pen and some are mounted on black cardstock.
Two of this group use tile stamps from Quietfire Design.

First Try With Encaustic Wax

I went to a make and take demo at Cherish The Thought in Port Moody on Sat and was taught this one technique taught for making a photo mat background. This first sample is 4"X5.25" I am hooked on learning more about encaustic wax.

This is the photo I used the encaustic wax mat for.


Later Saturday night I grabbed some ATC sized shiny cardstock and made these using the 2 colours of wax I bought to get started and my small travel iron. Later I will add something to these and turn them into ATCs.

May ATC Swap

"At The Beach"
The first ATC is an alcohol ink background and the rest are scans printed on cardstock. All have been rubber stamped and embellished with shell beads and computer text. The first 2 have a border of gold leafing pen and the last 2 are silver leafing pen.

"Dangerous Waters"
Again the first ATC is alcohol ink on shiny cardstock and the last is scanned and printed on cardstock. I glued clear beads on for bubbles and the text is computer generated. Sorry the background is blurry but the thickness of the stingray toy makes the background go blurry.

Some Triptych ATCs

These are cards I made from a scan of a photocopy of an old photo. I digitally altered the photo from black and white to sepia and printed on HP double-sided matt photo scrapbooking paper, this paper is cotton and has a nice feel to it. The other is printed on acrylic paper. The backs are either painted watercolour paper or alcohol inks on shiny cardstock. The quote stamp is from Quietfire Design and is stamped with sage pigment ink or green Stazon ink. By the way, since at least one person wants to know the one on the right is me.

More ATCs for The Grind Swap

Here are the rest of the needle felted ATCs for today's swap in Vancouver. The first set is two free standing needle felted flowers, embellished with beads and stitched onto striped fabric. The other two are needle felted with a template onto the fabric.


The last group are needle felted stripes embellished with buttons and a piece of knotted torn fabric, some of which are coloured with Distress Inks.
My needle felting kit is ready for my demo today, now I better go get me ready, it takes about 90 min. to get into Vancouver by transit.

ATCs For The April Swap at The Grind

The theme for this months swap is stripes so for this set I used a striped ribbon and applied 2 or 3 pieces with double stick tape and added an image layered on cardstock. I added buttons, gold or silver border punch and baby rick rack. The title for this set is "Ribbon Stripes"


This next set doesn't follow the theme, but I did some more needle felting. These are called "Penny Rug Revisit" and are made to resemble the old penny rugs. I am working on more ATCs and will post them later.

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.

Bead Soup Journal

For this little 4"X4" journal I started with coasters and painted out the centre logo, but left the fruit image around the edge. On the back cover I stamped a lime slice and covered the inside of the covers with scrapbook paper. The front cover has another piece of bead soup, taking the colours from the fruit image on the coaster. The pages are watercolour paper coloured with distress inks and the journal is bound with the Zutter Bind-It-All,

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.

Blog Candy Winners

OK here it is, and the winners of my Blog Candy, as selected by a random number generator are:
first prize for the felted bag and journal is lindart.
The second prize winner for the felted bag is Anne.
The third prize journal goes to Karen.
Thanks to everyone who commented and entered, I have enjoyed a quick peek at some of your blogs and will be going back over the next while to check out more. I hope I see all of you back here again and good luck on future blog candy that I will offer.
I will need your snail mail so please let me know by Thur April 2 2009. If I have't heard by then I will draw a new winner.

Beeswax Collage

Beeswax Collage
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

Here are more Bee Tags for my Bee Tag Book. The tag on the left is regular collage with some flowers and the bee added with foam tape for extra dimension. The tag on the right is my first beeswax collage project. I used beeswax to add the background and then added extra layers of flowers and a leaf. This tag was then added to a black cardstock for extra strength. I thought it might make a nice cover, but I think I'll try again and improve my beeswax collage technique. Both tags are made from gift bag paper.

Journal Spread

Journal Spread
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

I had some plus size inchies for ATCs and decided to save some to create a page in my journal. I had 5 of these fabric inchies and made the purple and green bead soup square which is 1.5 inches. I coloured the page with Portfollio Pastels and then blended and moved the colour with a wet paint brush. The squares are glued to the page. This is the journal that I made for the 12 Days of Christmas gift swap.

March Swap at the Grind

Yesterday was the regular monthly swap at the Grind and the first time I went to the new later start time, and I was still late. I stepped out of the house to a heavy, wet downpour of snow, not what one would expect this time of year. I had to stop and buy a new umbrella and the transit was a little slow and of course I just had to stop and check out the dollar store since I don't get into Vancouver very often. Being late I still received more wonderful ATCs to add to my collection. These are the new ones I made for the swap and took along with some previous ATC.



This set is the first needle felt ATCs I made for swapping and are numbers 6, 7 and 8 of the group of 8 I made and they are titled "Nature "FELT". They are all done on craft felt with leftover wool yarn, except for the yellow which is from wool roving.

These are Series 2 Pink Plus Size Inchies made from small pieces of fabric stitched together on craft felt, decorative stitches added then cut into 1.5 inch squares stitched onto gift bag paper which has been embossed with a Cuttlebug folder.


This last set is Green Plus Size Inchies on green embossed gift bag paper.

Mar 10, 2009 Created Byhand Challenge

Mar 10, 2009 Created Byhand Challenge
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

The challenge this week is to make art using the colours green and blue. For my entry I made these 3 ATCs with paper from a gift bag which I misted with water and crumpled then smoothed out and dried. I tore this paper into 2in. by 3 in. pieces and mounted them to blue cardstock. Then the fun began by selecting the blue and green buttons and sewing them on to the ATC. The final step was to mount this on green cardstock.

Another Blog Giveaway

I just discovered an interesting blog, colorfulartgirl and she is giving a nice package of fabric scraps. Visit her blog and enter if you love fabric and quilts. The post for the giveaway is Scrap Saturday

Created Byhand Challenge March 2

This weeks challenge is to create art using the word "Believe" and since I was already making this little journal for my blog candy it was perfect for the challenge. For the covers I used scrapbook cardstock and the front cover includes the word BELIEVE. I glued the cardstock to 4X4 in. coasters for the front and back covers, distressed with a sanding block and Vintage Photo Distressed Ink and rubbed the edges with Spun Gold acrylic paint.
The first page is a mono-print background I made awhile ago using watercolour paper and gel paints. I cut it to size, stamped the word believe with an alphabet stamp and Sage pigment ink pad. Next I stamped my favourite quote, which Suzanne at Quietfire Design has made into a beautiful rubber stamp, with Timber Brown StazOn ink. The rest of the other 11 pages are blank watercolour paper and the journal is bound with the Zutter BindItAll. This journal is part of the blog candy in the previous post so you might want to check that out.

100th Blog Post and Blog Candy

Post has been edited and the rest of the blog candy photos added.





Before I get started, just a reminder that Lisa Volrath at Ten Two Studio is running a St. Patrick's Day countdown so do go check out the free images there after you finish reading my post.
Well this is finally it, my 100th post, well part of it anyway. I've had to keep quiet here for awhile because I wanted the 100th post to be about my latest prizes and they are not quite ready yet but I just can't keep quiet any more and I just can't wait to show you the third place blog candy. I will edit and add the first and 2nd. prize in a day or two. Now how's that for putting pressure or motivation on myself? In the meantime go ahead and post a comment on this post to be in the draw if you don't mind risking what first and 2nd prize will be.
This journal for third place is the third assignment for my course. The project was to use old book paper and a chipboard flower or other shape and paint with stamp pad ink and a wet paint brush. The ink is stamped onto freezer paper used as a palette and then painted on the book paper which is glued to the chipboard;, but instead of a flower, I decided to do the journal covers. This little Zutter bound journal is 4.25 inches by 5 inches with 12 blank watercolour pages just waiting for your art to be added. For the inside covers, I added some green cardstock that I had mono-printed with gold and pearl gel paint. The chipboard and wires are small pieces leftover from the 12 Days of Christmas Gift Journals. I used brads to add a decorated chipboard shape stamped with "Friends" in green Stazon ink. There is also a Quietfire Design quote stamp which was stamped on the blank white sheet from a paper napkin and glued over the old book paper and a bunch of ribbons tied onto the wires. This was a fun project, I hope you like it.

Well the pressure I put on myself worked, the prizes were finished in a few days. It has just taken me more time to get online to post them. Well here they are. Second prize is a 5X5.5 inch knit felted bag. It is bias knit in garter stitch with a self striping wool and soy yarn and then machine felted. This little bag will arrive empty just waiting for you to fill with tresures.
Now for the first prize, a 5.5X6 inch felt bag which I designed with a diaganal flap. This is again bias knit garter stitch from a 100% wool yarn and machine felted. Next I needed just the right button, so I checked out my collection and could not find just the right one, so I went to a jar of vintage buttons my Mom had given me and this one seemed perfect. This little bag comes with a 4X4 inch journal tucked inside and you can read more about it in my next post. Of course you could remove the jouranal and fill the bag with whatever treasures you would like. Now to win one of these prizes leave a comment on this post by March 28, 2009 and I'll draw 3 names on March 29, 2009. Please check back after Mar. 29 to see if you are a winner, I will then have instructions for claiming your prize. Good luck to all of you, I hope you have as much fun as I did.