Experimentation

So I went to IQA and bought a few things to play with in regards to fabric. The one thing I have actually had time to use was tannin. I bought it from Lois Jarvis of RustTex fame. After you start rust dyeing your fabric, you add the tannin to get the grays into the fabric. I didn't let my fabric rust dye as long as I usually do as the weather has been crazy? 25 degree temperature swings, rain and sunshine. So I let it rust for the afternoon and then added the tannin. I let it sit overnight because I forgot about it and it was raining again! Anyway, here are the results:






And of course I had to add an update of the puppy who is already 12 weeks old! He is quite content to hang out on my son Patrick. Aren't they cute?

Creative Prompts Project-Spring and Air

Still working to catch up. I have two more done.
First is for 3/20 which was Spring.
I had painted in my sketchbook a few months back. I just did a bunch of pages so that when I needed a little creative boost, all I had to do was pick a page and start sketching or doodling. I found this page in my book - I love those trees! So I sketched in a tree that was suggested by the painting. Colors are red and green which to me symbolize the energy of new growth.



This one is for 3/27 which was Air.
I love the sky! One of these days I am going to ram into someone with my car if I am not careful. I am always checking out the clouds and birds. I just couldn't do a sketch of air - I had to paint it! I really am looking to try painting sky fabric with dyes when the weather finally does break!

Charms that missed the swap!

As usual, I didn't get something in on time. Partly because I didn't think they were good enough and partly because my life runs on a hamster wheel! So here they are:


Had to do a peacock

This was done on Stambord with embossed black ink. My sister carved the stamp for me and it is way too cool! So I stamped it and then hit it with the heat gun to emboss. When cool, I painted it with Twinkling H20's. Really cute.



Purple and green fairy or angel.



Pink fairy or angel




Definitely an angel


These were goddess type beads made out of fimo clay but they had a little kick to the side for a sassy look. After they were baked, I wrapped them in eyelash yarns and added wings. The purple wings were made out of ribbon and the other two were made from angelina film.

Creative Prompts Project-Kindness 3/13

Boy am I behind on this! I needed to get a bunch of things off my camera in order to take a pic of this prompt and now it's almost a month later! Sorry about that. I will work to get caught up!
Meanwhile here is my prompt for week of 3/13. The word was kindness and I had been playing around with doodles.




First I started with a sketchbook page that had been painted in reds and yellows with acrylic paint. Then I started doodling and this design came out using black fine line markers. I used Twinkling H2O's to add colors and definition to the hearts. I wrote around the heart but screwed up so you can't read the word heart at the beginning. Sorry about that. It says A Heart grows with love.

Our new dachshund

I have not been able to get a lot done lately. First it was because the kids were off for spring break. At the end of the break, we drove down to Poplar Bluff, Missouri to buy a puppy. My daughter found him on the internet. She is only 7 so how she managed to find this little guy is beyond me. My husband did a search for dachshunds and she took it from there. Once Madelyn picked out the puppy, my husband started emailing for information. Joyce was wonderful about answering questions and even sent pictures!




So on Friday of their spring break, we piled into the van and drove 450 miles to get him. We rented a room at one of the local hotels and dropped by Joyce and George's the next morning to pick up our little guy. What a wonderful puppy! He was great for the 8 hour drive back home during storms. Slept on the kids laps for most of the trip. He has taken to our family like a duck to water. Potty training has been going well too! Whew! Now that we are in tune with his schedule, we are having real success getting him outside in time to go. After a week, we have let him sleep with us and no accidents! He sleeps straight through the night! Wow! How cool is that??!!!



Here is a sneak peek of what I have been working on. It is a small part of a much larger piece that will be about 30" x 50". I started this about 15 years ago but couldn't get it to work out the way I imagined. I tried several different mediums and then when I found fiber art, I knew this was the way to go. I sketched the whole thing out about two years ago and then stopped again. I picked it back up a few months ago and have been working on it a little every night. I am determined to finish it and put it in some shows.