Prima flowers and Wax Art

I was about to mail out my wax art when I saw some of my prima flowers on some 2x2 pieces of fabric. I thought that they needed some wax doodling on them. That would really punch them up. I think of the oddest things at the drop of a hat. Yes, the Kandi Corp wax cubes with the calligraphy tip works great with the Prima flowers. Gotta love the Prima flowers. It took me less than 10 minutes to do all this doodling. I would be doing this all day if I didn't have to go for allergy shots, go to the post office, drop my daughter off at cheerleading, and work on 3 other projects by Sunday. Whew. Gotta go.

Quiltie RR - green for June and yellow for July

Yeah, I messed up June because my dimensions were off. I just redid it and did the yellow one at the same time. I just finished doing the embellishments late last night. You might think that I put a lot of thought into these quiltie squares. I have to tell you that I have no idea what I will do until I am actually about to do it. I have not planned for any of the squares. I just know what color it will be ahead of time. I rummage through my fabric stash to find the right color. I just start machine sewing. I do the sandwich thing. I cut out the right size. Yes, I checked this time. I zigzag the edges so that people can sew the squares together later. I think about what will go on top right when I am doing it. Yes, it does seem like I have the eyelet and flower combo going on right now. I cannot guarantee that theme will be there throughout the RR.

I finally got the Big Bite to work properly without it smashing my eyelets. I am not able to do placement with it as well as the handheld crop-a-dile. Not complaining though, it really gets in there in the middle of whatever so I can punch a hole through it or do an eyelet.

I hope my RR partners like it.

Grid Ribbon

http://cgi.ebay.com/Set-of-31-MESH-GRID-ribbon-Fibers-Pastels-Primary_W0QQitemZ320115251738QQihZ011QQcategoryZ31733QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247

http://tinyurl.com/58nmmz link to eBay store in case top link is broken

I was surfing on eBay looking for I can't remember what and I came across this grid ribbon. I bought a sampler pack and then some other colors. I got this great color - copper! My favorite metallic color. I brought it on vacation with me to have something to do while watching TV in the room. You can click on the link to make the pictures larger. Yeah, my grid ribbon the right is not straight. When am I ever straight any way? Don't you love the little face peeking out from the middle of the flower? I did not want to put a button over her little face. The little quilties are for a project that I am working on. No rush though because I need to get stuff done for the infomercial this week. Leaving Friday afternoon. Triple EEEKS!!!

I thought I would share because this is a fun and very cheap way of embellishing. You could probably paint them, too.

Sale coupon for Prima Flowers

No, I don't do anything to get them for free or anything. I get them just like you would. I get mine from this website: http://cutabovescrappin.com/

I first heard about these flowers from Tim Holtz's blog. I got a couple of the tubes and love them!

They are currently having a sale on the website. Thought I would pass it on to all of you.


Get 15% off your entire purchase with coupon code summer15. Or, spend $100 or more and use coupon code summer25 to get 25% off your order!
One coupon per customer, may not be combined with other coupons, including free shipping coupon.
Offer Expires: July 31, 2008

Frames for Dremel

Here are my samples that I made up for Dremel on Monday. I brought them up with me when I went to see them in Racine, WI. I went up there to show the Dremel ladies how I did my frame so they would know what we needed to do while at CHA. I like these frames a lot more than my original samples. We did a mini workshop while I was there.

They are a lot more scrapbook-y than my usual stuff. I had to think of something that would make a good make 'n take. I wanted to use stuff that people might carry in their store. I also had to consider my audience. There are a lot of scrapbook type retailers at CHA. Of course, any mixed media artists that did the make 'n take could change it to what they wanted. That is the beauty of having a lot of embellishments.

The top frame is meant to be more male - no flowers. There are a lot of men who go to CHA and do the make 'n takes. I had quite a few men do the mah jong pendants at the last two CHA shows.

Basically, this make 'n take is Lumiere paint, drilling, using the new Dremel Driver (screws nails and screws into things), and embellishing with the Dremel glue gun. I have to tell you that the Dremel Driver is a lot of fun and very easy to use. You might have seen the battery powered screwdrivers. This is the same idea but I think easier to use. We had a Black and Decker one for a long time. It worked okay but it did not keep a charge very long. This Driver had a good charger. It's design makes it easy for me to hold in my hand. It is more like holding a gun rather than a long tube. It has a convenient button so you can go into reverse - which I do a lot. DH loves this one as well. Hey, Phil, mine!

Can you tell that I am so loving the Prima flowers? I usually don't like the paper flowers but I love these. They have the text, different pictures, and little collages on them. I don't use the pink ones that much. Beth, you can have all of those. They are amazingly durable. The words were made with the mixed mini grungeboard letters. You can buy that at skybluepink.com. I have a link in the right column.

BTW, the Dremel hot glue gun has a fine point tip for detailing and for smaller items. I used mostly found objects on these sample frames but there will be a lot of fun smaller things like Scrabble tiles, bingo tiles, little metal objects, etc...at CHA. I don't know what booth we will be at. Look for me. Come and say hi to me. You can even do the make 'n take. Hope to see you there!

RR quilt squares

I just finished the green quilt squares for my color quiltie RR. It is the only RR I am doing this year. I have not been in an RR for awhile now. The color for this month is green. It our first month. I had a little trouble with the Big Bite crop-a-dile. I will need to write them about it. It smashed some of the eyelet heads or the backs did not flower very well. I had to throw out a lot of smashed eyelets.

One will go to my RR partner for this month. I will keep one for my own quilt. I have not decided if I will make one big quilt or two different ones - one with RR squares and the other one the ones I did myself.

I am quite happy with the results. I did not do any binding except a zig zag stitch so that the person binding the squares together could bind at the end. I thought it might look odd if I did the binding and it was a middle square. No matter really. I did not specify binding. Some people might do it. No big.

One thing I have started doing is ironing on some heat bond to adhere my sandwich layers together before doing any sewing. That has really minimized movement and has saved me a lot of time and aggravation.

Comments welcome. Click on the picts for a larger view. Don't tell me about the loose threads, I know they are there. I will trim them later on.

Fabric 2x2

Well, they are all done. I sat and finished hand sewing on the flowers and buttons last nite while watch CSI Miami and Food TV. I even punched holes in them and put on the eyelets for the binding ring. I am so groovin' on the Prima Flowers. Some of these on here are not Prima. I got them as a RAK from someone and thought I could put them to good use.

Hope the swappers like them.

postcards to Kelli

Bandanna Flowers
Bandanna Buttons
Taking my own path

These are the fabric paper postcards that I just made for Kelli. One of the things that I had to get used to when going from paper to fabric is that the focal points can be so vastly different. In a lot of art quilts, the focal point is not obvious to me. It may not be there at all. It seems to be more about patterns, colors, and textures than anything else. Maybe, that is just what I see.

I figure that the design composition with fabric may be different or the artist's viewpoint is different. I find that I no longer use collage images much except for maybe ATCs and inchies. I use them once in awhile with fabric but that is more of a muse than anything else. I find myself more drawn now to fibers, buttons, and other more "raw" objects than commercial. As said before, it is a preference. It is not a "diss" to people who use commercial images. I still have them and use them - just not as much.

I am happy right now because what I am doing allows me to use found objects and re-purposed things a lot in many different ways. I get to use my beloved metals as much as before. Even though I have slowed down, I am still experimenting. I am in love with my sewing machine and fabric. Yeah, it might change, but I am happy with it right now. It might just be that I am happy that I am on summer vacation. Yes, kids, teachers love summer vacation even more than you do! We love all of you but we need a break, too.

2x2 fabric samples

So, here are my 2x2 fabric samples for the swap. Swap in the Mixed Media Art Friends group. I think sign-ups are until 6/1. Not sure.

This tutorial is more for fabric newbies.Experienced fabric artists can skip this.

You are better off starting off with a larger piece of fabric than the 2x2. I used a larger piece of fabric that I tore from a yard that I had. I sandwiched a piece of batting between the two fabric layers and cut the batting using the fabric as a guide. It does not have to be exact.

I started in the middle of the fabric sandwich and I went up and down in one direction with my sewing machine. Does not matter if you go length or width-wise. Just start in the middle and go outwards to your left or right and then outwards in the other direction. This is so the fabric does not pucker too much. You also want to have less tension than more so the stitches do not cause the sandwich to curl. I used longer rather than short stitches. Personal preference as to straight or zigzag stitch. I used both.

Once you are done with sewing one length, do it the other way so you have pretty much checkerboard. That means that if you were sewing length-wise, then sew width-wise in rows. Your rows can be pretty random. Do not do the rows too close together and far apart. That will cause curling, too. You just want to do enough sewing to hold the fabric sandwich together. I zig zagged and went in a diagonal in some rows.

Once you are done, use a sharp pair of scissors or rotary cutter and straighten out your edges. I then used a piece of card stock and paper cutter to cut a 2x2 template. Keep reading to see if you should use a 2 and 1/4" template or not. Either using a rotary cutter or very sharp pair of scissors, cut out your 2x2 squares using the paper template. If this is one of your first times sewing, you might want to make your template 2 and 1/4 inches square, so you can sew about 1/8 inch from the edge (easier that way). Once you are done sewing, you can trim the edges and it will be pretty close to 2". Sometimes, the fabric might bunch up on the edges and expose the batting. It you go in just a tad, then you will not have that problem. You can trim the excess when you are done.

I chose a close zigzag stitch to do the edges of each square. Try to get as close to the edge as possible without catching the edges. Do all 4 edges. Trim excess with very sharp scissors.

Embellish any way you like. I used the collaged flowers from Prima that I got from cutabovescrappin.com. I put a brad through one and sewed on a button in the other. It is okay if your square is not exactly 2" all around, most of mine are probably not. If you want to do embroidery or more sewing inside the square, then knock your socks off. It is okay if parts of the squares are a little puffy. I like that.

BTW, the square on the left was sewn inside out. The outside pattern is facing the inside of the fabric sandwich.

That's it. Hope you are playing in the swap. Email me if you have any questions about my instructions.