Verdigris ATC - Year of the Snake

I thought this color idea paired nicely with the Chinese New Year. This is the year of the Water Snake. I did something a little different this time. I took pictures of my process in creating this ATC. Why? I have no idea but I have had quite a few questions on how they were created so this will give you a visual step by step.

This is step 1. I fused pink fabric to peltex and used puffy paint to create a snake.

Step 2 is puffing up the paint and then painting over the whole piece with copper paint.

This was step 3. I painted the verdigris color over the top in a mottled kind of way to recreate the patina.

I didn't take pictures of the process after this. I used chinese stamps for prosperity and double happiness using red and gold inks. Then hand painted in the Chinese symbol for the snake (I love the internet!) and Year of the Snake.

Here are the final finished pieces:

The group shot

There was too much black so I used orange glitter glue over the top for a little extra punch.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Gustavo, Georgie and Fib

I finally finished this piece and named it after my daughters three African fighting frogs. This piece has been in the works for over two years. I would get excited about it, work diligently and then hate it. So it would be put away until I would find it again while looking for something else. Up on the design wall, critique and then figure out what was going wrong with it. The last round was the fact I needed something in my underwater landscape. Enter the frogs.

Closeup of one frog

Here is another closeup

Final finished piece

I really love how this finally turned out. There are so many design techniques and materials that went into this that my hand would go numb typing them up for this post. Let's just say I am extremely happy with the results! Maybe I will enter it into the Celebrate Spring call for entries.

On to my next adventures. My one goal for 2013 is to finally put together a website. Another goal is to start entering my pieces into shows. I need to get back to art again.

Celebration! - Tiger Lily ATC

Happy New Year! 2012 was a series of highs and lows for me this year and I celebrate them all. Adversity makes us grow while the wonderful events give us pause to celebrate and the momentum to keep moving forward.

Tiger Lily was the color for December and in keeping with my celebratory mood, I used the center of the flower as inspiration. If you look closely, the center looks a little like a fireworks display from an airplane! My other inspiration was the commercial fabric I used for my background fabric. I bought this fabric and quite a bit of it. It seems to find its way into my work now and again. I think it must be the color combination. I reminds me of fall, water and sunlight hitting water. Aqua and orange just vibrate against one another.

I drew in the center using a dye pen in black. To create more explosion and keep with the colors of the flower itself, I painted the centers with poppy red ink using a thin brush. I had to put those black spots in there which reminded me of looking down at people on the ground. They look like little ants! Black puffy paint was used for the spots. The yellow represents the fireworks as they shoot into the sky and right before they explode into beautiful colors. I used a yellow puffy velvet pen for those. Once they were dry, I hit it with a heat gun to puff up the black and yellow. Very cool texture. Instead of using my sewing machine to finish off the edges, I decided to paint them black using textile paint.

This marks the end of our second year of trading ATCs in our group. Please check out the rest of my groups interpretations at www.artsinthecards.blogspot.com

My Sons 8th Grade Play

Patrick is the "Greaser" on the left

Closeup of Patrick as the Pirate

Mummy costume

Patrick is captaining his ship

September and October 2012 were filled with work and helping with my sons 8th grade play. I signed up to volunteer on costumes and stage. I had never done anything like this before and it seemed like it would be a fun experience. Every year the middle school and the eighth grade class put on a play. It is completely voluntary but most of the class gets involved. If you don't want to be in the play, you can help with props and stage. I had a blast! Little did I know but costumes would be the main focal point of this play. It involved going through many time periods. It was a cross between Teds Excellent Adventure and Back to the Future. My son wanted to participate and told me that he would be doing a small part with one line. They thought better. He had a small role as a Greaser from the 1950's and a more involved role as a Pirate, complete with dance scenes. I think he is a natural!

One of the moms is involved with Mario Triccoci's beauty school and asked students to come and volunteer to do hair and makeup! The play was also video taped and parents ordered copies. I am enjoying mine more frequently than I care to admit to!

All the costumes were recycled from our prop and costume closet. The challenge was to create costumes out of ones we already had on hand. I had to make the mummy costume and used a pair of white cotton draw string pants and one of my husbands shirt put on backwards. I ripped up old pillow cases and sewed them on with my sewing machine. The headpiece was a white baseball cap placed on backwards and more strips of fabric sewn on.  I worked with a terrific group of moms and we had only 6 weeks start to finish to make this happen. Throw in soccer practice, soccer games, a bar mitzvah for his best friend, swim practice and life was real interesting for a while!

Stormy Lake ATC

Wow! This is embarrassing. I haven't posted anything since August. My sincere apologies. My kids, work and life took over. I didn't even participate in two months of ATC trades because of all the events in my life, but I am back on track. I did manage some creative endeavors though and the Lake trade was one of them.

As you know, we have been using colors as our prompts this year. Lake was one I was looking forward to doing. I love all the colors and reflections that are involved in lake.

The base fabric was a commercial brown material that had swirls and spots that reminded me of the bottom of a lake. I took a shimmery dark blue sheer fabric and scrunched it, pinned it in place then sewed it with dark blue thread. I did the same with a light turquoise sheer to finish off the top part. The lake has these colors when a storm is blowing in. I brushed interference blue paint across the tops for a wave like action. The final part was Glossy Accents to add the shine of water on sand and a few seed beads dropped in for texture. This turned out to be one of my favorites that I have done.

Maybe a larger version of this piece would be nice and donate to the swim team for fundraisers!

Sneak Peek

Not sure what is going on with me this week, but frogs have definitely been a mainstay in my creations this week. They are rather cute. This guy was from a pattern I bought a long time ago, started but never finished. It was supposed to be a present for my sister who is crazy for frogs. So if she wants this guy, she is going to have to come for a visit to get it! Ha ha!

He has a mate which is started. Should be another 10 years before I finish her though! Well maybe I can get it done by Christmas.

As a participant in a quilt art blog hop, I am submitting my current work in progress. To check out everyone else participating hop on over to Nina Marie's site


My last frog is actually a set of frogs. I pulled out a piece I had been working and and was in love with. Suddenly, after viewing it hanging up, I hated it. I pulled it off the design wall and buried it like I always do. When I get stuck on a project, I find that stepping away from it for a while will help me gain some perspective. This time it worked. I realized I did not have enough contrast and set about adding in more colors along with the contrast. I was happy when done but it was still missing something. Walking by my daughters african fighting frogs made me realize that was what was needed.
In second grade they learned about the life cycle of a frog and grew them into tiny little frogs. Once the unit was done, the kids were allowed to take some home. They were the size of a thumbnail. We took three which she promptly named Georgie, Gustavo and Fib. They are now the size of a large fist and need a bigger tank!

I spent an evening sketching the little guys. (I say evening because they move around quite a bit.) Once satisfied with the sketches, I traced them on some heavy vellum, cut them out and used it as a template to trace onto a greenish batik. The frogs have spots all over and I wanted a dimensional look, so I put a piece of batting underneath the frogs and free motion quilted around to create the patterning. Colors for the spots where done with fabric markers. The final part was to applique it onto the quilt. Just before sewing it closed, I added some stuffing inside to really pop them off the quilt.
I am loving this piece. I am finally ready to square up and finish it off! It feels so good to create something I love again!

Cucumber ATC trade - Cool As . . .

I decided on this little guy because the theme being cucumber meant that you could use all the colors in a cucumber which includes the orange flower! This project started with a sketch of the frog. I used acrylic paint to add color but it was too flat and needed some dimension and texture. I added details using colored pencils. Still kind of flat looking.

Referring back to pictures of the frog, I realized he was kind of shiny. Light bulb moment meant time for the glossy accent! I am glad I bought another bottle. I really love playing with this product! Looking good but still lacking the skin texture. That was solved while digging through my fabric markers for another project (which also includes frogs!) and I found my Puffy Velvet Pen! I haven't used this in a long time and it is supposed to be for fabric. Well rules are for breaking sometimes and I colored in the top half of mr. frog with it. It dried quickly. I love not having to wait. Hit it with a heat gun and wow! I nice rubbery type of texture. But what about the bumpy texture. So I added some dots all over the top and hit it with the heat gun again. Oh yeah!

Here is a side view to help explain what it looked like. Bet you want to reach out and touch it!
It rained all day yesterday so my cards bowed. Sigh.