March Birthday ATC completed

YEAH! Now I've completed the ATC, the card and the envelope for the one and only March birthday! Time to clean up the island and get started on something else for a month or so. Here are the final pictures.

Here is a close-up of the ATC itself. The "wind" blowing an umbrella topsy-turvy.

The front of the card. I used two different green sharpies to make the "windy" marks.

The inside of the card

The front of the envelope

The envelope back. I used the image to make the return label

March Birthday ATCs

I know, I'm getting ahead but I have a big project to start on and I wanted to not get behind on this swap! The color for March is green but I didn't want to do a St. Patrick thing. BUT, March is officially Umbrella month! Who know???!!! And it is also the "windy" month.

The background is one of the gorgeous paper towels I have from snow dyeing clean-up (nothing is wasted in mixed media, right?) I used some fancy yarn to make the "wind" and some umbrella charms I got from e-bay and cut the little loops off the top. It is the wind blowing the umbrella topsy turvy.

In keeping with my Nurturing Creativity concept for this week.....it doesn't matter which way they are turned!!



Now, I hope I'm enough ahead to have a breather to begin the other project!

Hi..It's me yet again! - Fractured Flower!!

Gosh I'm chatty today!! I think part of it is that I'm so excited to be back in my studio on a more regular basis and doing creative things and completing some projects. YEAH!!

Today, being between projects and almost brain dead I'm so tired, (stayed up late watching football.........and crying because we lost and shouldn't have!!) I decided I had the wherewithal to at least sew together the four pieces of the Fractured Flower! AWESOME!! Oh and the 1/2 inch wiggle room seam allowance is absolutely necessary BTW! I got it all set up like I wanted it, stitched it together and Voila! Here it is!

Now I'm leaving it on my design wall for a bit and let it tell me just what it needs/wants. Then I get to do the fun part of making it into a quilt wall hanging and embellishing!!!

Nurturing Creativity - Week 4

I had mentioned the Nurturing Creativity card choice in a previous post this morning. (Stand on Your Head - get a new prespective and angle on your work.) But I had neglected to mention in another post that the Purple Fire ATC had always been developed with the cheesecloth hanging down from the top. It was one of the things I turned upside down to practice my "assignment" for this week. And it was amazing that the fire was just there then. Previous to that it had been one that was giving me some difficulty in naming! Sometimes things just DO change when seen from a different perspective!!!

Some more ATCs completed today

Just finishing up some ATCs so I can put all my bits and pieces away for a while and work on something else for a time. These are not for anything special....just playing with some of my stuff that was in a box from other projects!

Two for the Money - a test piece from my quilt for ADAPTATION. The coin I have in my "stuff to play with" stash!

Caviar Dreams - there are seed beads in a couple of places (caviar - fish eggs) and the leaves are like seaweed. This is scrap fabric I purchases somewhere and had zapped out a lot of the sheer fabric between the leaves and the background is the dark green film that wraps the package of teas I had purchases some time ago (water). Unfortunately, the seed beads do not show up as well in the photo as they do in person.

Arabian Night - Both the top and bottom pieces are left over from the little boxes project some time ago in another group. I thought the bottom looked like a sand dune or sometimes a Bedoin tent.

Red Sail in the Sunset - Watercolor paper painted with fabric dyes left over from snow dyeing. The sail is Tyvek painted dark red and melted.

Last Two Purple ATCs

Below are the final two Purple Swap ATCs I just completed.

And Purple Runs Through It - Inspired by my favorite Brad Pitt movie - A River Runs Through It. The background is more of the watercolor paper painted with purple dyes. I then used more of the dark and light paper towels from the purple snow dye clean-up. The center is made with seed beads mixed with white glue and spread on with a popsicle stick.

Purple Fire - More of the watercolor background. Left over purple cheesecloth. Flame highlights are Jacquard Lumiere Gold paint dabbed on with a stencil brush. It is also therapy for me this one. Since our Minnesota Vikings (whose colors are purple and gold) crashed and burned (get it - burned....fire??) Anyway, they fell apart and lost the championship game. I'm in mourning..........

Lots of things today!

First, I didn't quite complete the Studio Clean-Up but plan to just continue clearing out stuff and putting stuff away (translate - finding a place to put stuff!) until it is all done. Of course, it is never totally done but I'll know when it is where it should be.

Then, you gotta love FreeCycle! I just picked up 20 hospital meal trays and 20 loaf pan looking containers (but they're plastic) from FreeCycle! GREAT tool for when I'm dyeing, painting, you name it!! AND the person said they have a continuing access to a supply of these used items! YEAH!! Believe me, I'm keeping her e-mail address!

Next, I'm participating in a couple of ATC swaps. The ATCs below are for a purple swap.

Purple Mountains Majesty - The background is watercolor paper painted with purple dye left over from my recent snow dyeing day. The mountain on the left is purple cheesecloth from a project last year. The middle mountain is left over from when in another group we made little gift boxes. The right mountain is a purple candy wrapper I've been saving for ages. One of those "you just never know...." things.

Purple Haze - The background for this one is one of the darker paper towels from the clean-up of my snow dyeing day. I wrinkled it up and ironed the wrinkles in. Painted it with Gel Matte Medium. The tore strips from a lighter purple clean-up paper towel and put those on in wisps. Covered the whole thing with pink netting to make it "haze-y" and then used a stitch on my machine to do the wavey stitching across it.

Now......last but now least............my Creativity Card for the coming week.....I can hardly stand the suspense!!!!

Stand On Your Head

The concept is to look at your work from a different perspective. Like upside down. Only I think I'll just turn the work upside down. This body isn't up to standing on my head.....at least and not living to tell about it! LOL! My plan today is working on a couple of ATCs anyway so I'll give it a try. I think it would be fun to try that with the Fractured Flower pieces now on my design wall to see how it looks upside down....or sideways!!! But that will be later in the week.

So now I'm off to play in the studio for the morning!