My advent garland

Good morning!  Remember I mentioned I was working on a piece of art for advent?  Well, my original piece included a canvas with cardstock on top, then pictures I drew and coloured with Copics.  I only had a couple of weeks to finish my piece, so I began straight away, and last week I was 95 percent finished when I needed another colour Copic.  I put my art on my desk, in front of my bedroom window for safe keeping, ready to finish after work at Chandon last Saturday.  Then the rains came, and absolutely poured for ages, and when I got home from work I found that my spout was blocked-and you can guess the rest.  My canvas was ruined, and I had a mess to clean up!

So what to do about no art for advent?  At first I was going to say I had nothing because of the flooding incident, but then I had a thought.  I remembered seeing a ‘vintage whatnot holiday garland’ on Dottie Angel’s inspirational blog and I also remembered a vintage tablecloth I bought a little while ago on one of my thrifting trips that just happened to be in Christmas colours.

So with the help of my scissors, an extra doily, some red seam binding, embroidery thread and my sewing machine (which was not harmed despite also sitting my desk!), I made my own advent garland.  I embroidered the words of advent; love, hope, peace and joy and sewed them on specifically for advent, but they are really for always, I think.

So there you have my first sewn garland, and I think it qualifies as ‘art ‘ too!  I took these pictures in the only place I could find to hang it at home, but now it’s hanging in church along with other art pieces for advent.  It was so easy to make, I think I want to make some more!

So now that I have finished my week of ‘getting everything done’ I’m looking to doing more Christmassy things, including; shopping, wrapping, tree decorating, baking…you get the idea.

Thankyou for listening to my story of my advent art, thankyou to Dottie Angel for the inspiration, and have a great week!

Anthea.

Some random stuff…

Good morning!  It’s the first day of December, which means Christmas is only a few weeks away…  I’ve been busy making lots of cards so I can re-stock my incube8r space next week, and get in for the Christmas rush!  Here’s another Christmas card I made:

I’ve used Echo Park and Kaisercraft paper, my typewriter for the tags, and my Cuttlebug for the little snowflakes.  I really like the dotty bird! 

I’m always looking for more inspiration, and I bought the new release ‘mook’ (magazine/book), by Frankie magazine -SPACES.  It’s just lovely to look through, and I found that a few of the people featured with their homes are people whose blogs I’ve been reading for ages!

Lastly, I took a picture of my latest re-purposing idea.  Mum was cleaning out the pantry so I grabbed these cool plastic baskets that have been in there for at least 20 years, cleaned them up, and now they hold my fabric:

Now I can see them so much more easily than when they were stored in a bag!  Ok, so thanks for reading my randoms for this morning, enjoy your day!

Anthea.

The skirt I made…

Hi there!  I have something a bit different to share with you today-a sewing project.   I borrowed the book Sewing Green by Betz White a couple of months and ago, and I was inspired to sew myself the wrap-around skirt.  I wore my new skirt today, so I took a few photos:

This was so easy to make-you just sew 7 panels together for each side, then sew the sides together.  I love this fabric-navy with little red, white and green flowers.  I was op-shopping one day when I saw it, and thought it would make a cool skirt-even better than that, it was $2.00.  Not only do I now have an original, but it cost me next to nothing!  I’ve got some more pretty fabric, so I think I’ll make another one for summer… Thanks for popping in!

Anthea.

Card Patterns Sketch 70

Thanks for stopping in!  I’ve got a couple of baby cards to show you tonight that I’ve made for the latest Card Patterns sketch:

I’ve used October Afternoon paper for these (more of the lovely Thrift Shop range), as well as some cute vintage pictures and buttons.  I sold a few baby cards last week, and my stash was very low, so I’ve been making some more.

Remember the picture I showed you I made for my first art comission?  I dropped it off and the lady who bought it loved it! (What a relief…!)  Here’s a picture of the finished product, inside the frame:

I mounted it on a piece of kraft cardstock, and sewed it on with yellow thread.  It was fun making this picture-it’s rather therapeutic doing all that embroidery of an evening.  Thanks for looking at my crafty odds and ends!

Anthea

My visit to the Wool Museum…

Hi people!  I’m sorry I’ve been somewhat absent this last week-the great news is that I’ve finished the picture I was commissioned to do, so I’ll be back to my usual card making ways…  I’m really excited about finishing my picture, but nervous too because I really hope my customer likes it…!  I think she will, I’m just hoping that my efforts are ok.  I’ve taken a few pictures of the piece before I put it in the frame, I’ll show you what it looks like in a frame too.

The lady this picture is for likes bright colours, so that’s what I’ve used!  The background is white linen I’ve upcycled, and the tree is also made from some recycled fabric.  I’ve also done lots of hand embroidery in various colours.  I made the yellow flowers from rickrack and sewed a fuchsia bead in the middle of each, and I punched the butterflies from paper and secured them with yellow beads.  It’s a bit of a mixed media piece, I guess.  I chose to make a tree because there’s something about trees I like-not just how they look, but what they represent as well.

In other crafty bits of interest, today Mum and I went to visit the Geelong National Wool Museum.  I’ve lived in Geelong all my life and I can’t believe that I’ve never visited this place!  It’s the sort of place that all the tourists go, and I guess it’s just always been there.  There are some specific exhibitions on at the moment, that I thought would be great sources of inspiration.  The first one was the Reflections Scarf Festival 2010.  The array of scarves on display here was amazing; I had no idea there were so many textile techniques that can be used to create the humble scarf!  There was knitting, crochet, felting, weaving, embroidery, mixed media, beading…and the fabulous colours!  Another cool thing is that all the fibre artists who made the scarves are from my local region-very talented people!  The other exhibit was Christmas Creations for Mr Johnston by Geelong Artisans.  These Christmas decorations were exquisite, including everything from lace making to quilting, embroidery, beading, cloth dolls, and painting.  It’s great to be able to see these beautiful things in person, and hopefully soak up some of the creativity!  If you live in my area, the National Wool Museum is definitely worth a look.  There is also all the information about how much wool production has shaped our industry and helped Australia’s wool exporting.  I had no idea how vital the wool industry was in our history…so I’m glad I went along.

Have a great week!

Anthea

There’s a chill in the air…

and I love it…the hot (and humid) weather has hung on for quite some time, but hopefully this colder weather means winter is nearly here…It’s Saturday night and my weekend has been good so far…I got my eyes tested this afternoon, and I’m glad I did because I need to get my glasses updated again, but I’m keeping the same frames because I still love my Prada ones .

I’ve also been making some cards using lots of my secondhand treasures-my op-shopping trips have been successful lately, and I’ve found some lovely bits and pieces for my work, which is always inspiring.  Here’s a card I just finished:

 

I’m loving this pink and navy colour combo at the moment. I’ve used papers from Basic Grey, Bella & Kaisercraft, as well as old book paper and an old bird picture.  I made the navy velvet flower, and sewed the pearl button in the middle.  The word and rose are vintage also.

I thought I would leave you with some close-up photos of the embroidery on a crazy patchwork cushion I made awhile ago:

That’s all for now, so thanks for stopping by!

Anthea

Look what I made…

I’ve collected alot of seam binding from op shop trips, in many different colours, and I decided to do something with it.  So I have begun to make flowers, and I think they turned out well.  Here’s what I’ve made so far:

I think they are going to become addictive-as I made all of these last night.  It’s so easy, because you use the same technique for all sizes, just vary how big you make it.  I love finding ways of making unique flowers, and it’s so much cheaper too!

I’ll leave you today with a couple more cards I’ve made using Pina Colada papers and rub-ons from Kaisercraft.  I just love these colours, and I’ve also used a  chipboard bird from Jenni Bowlin.  All the ribbons, buttons and lace I’ve found on Op Shop trips.  Thankyou for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Anthea

Basic Grey Challenges Week 13

Hi everyone!  I hope you’re having a great weekend so far.   Mine has been pretty good- last night was the first Sugar ‘n’ Spice for 2010 (the youth group I run at church), and it was great to catch up with everyone again.  We started our craft too, which means I have to come up with new ideas for things for the girls to make.  Last night we made felt brooches, inspired by the ones in my Meet Me At Mike’s book (I love this book!)  I’ve already got ideas for more projects, and it’s always great to see what the girls come up with-the idea isn’t to produce perfect craft, just have fun. 

Here’s my little felt brooch-cute isn’t he?  He’s only 4x3cm, and he has a brooch back so he can be worn.

This morning I went to a local car boot sale, which I love to do.  This time I got some great stuff-buttons, lace, fabric, etc. at ridiculously cheap prices!  I’ve already started planning what to do with it…

Moving right along, today being Saturday means it’s a new Basic Grey Challenge!  This one is a sketch challenge by Martine.  Here’s the sketch, and my cards:

I made two very similar cards for this challenge, the first one is for my Mum’s birthday which is coming up really soon.  I’ve used Basic Grey papers from the Origins and Nook & Pantry lines, as well as Heidi Swapp butterflies, Kaisercraft flowers & rub-ons, and chipboard flourishes from 7 Gypsies.  I love the green and fuschia pink colours here, and I also sewed lace behind the greetings.

Thanks for sticking with me, sorry about my rambling (!) Enjoy the rest of the weekend,

Anthea

The quilt is FINSIHED!

So I don’t know if you will remember, but months ago I blogged about the quilt I made myself when I was 16, using all my Mum’s fabric scraps for the patchwork top, and how I still have my quilt and love to snuggle up with it, especially when I’m sick?  Anyway, that’s what started my latest project-a funky, girly, bright quilt for my litle goddaughter (who just happens to be the daughter of my best friend, too .  Cherie wanted Heidi to have the same sort of thing, and so we’ve been meeting regularly the last few months to work on the quilt, with the aim of finishing it by Heidi’s first birthday (which is in 5 days!)    Well, I’m proud to say that today I finished it!  We used vintage fabric that Heidi’s grandma has been hoarding for over 30 years-it’s the coolest stuff, and combined it with some fabric I found in op shops.  I took some pictures to show as well. 

Here’s the quilt in the ‘planning’ stage, (which means laying out all the squares on my lounge room floor):

So you can see what I mean about bright and funky… Also, it did end up being rather large, but it will look great on a single bed.  Here’s some of the finished product:

The design is nothing fancy, just squares for the top, with some stitching along some of the seams of the rows to quilt everything together.  The fabrics look so cool that we didn’t need to do anything else.  Here’s a picture of the hot pink binding:

And this last one shows the red backing:

Pretty cool, huh?  It’s such a great feeling to finish a large project like this, especially when I’m used to working on the extreme opposite end of the scale, making my much smaller cards!  Hopefully I haven’t bored you too much with my ramblings, so thanks for stopping by

Anthea

Good Friday

I hope you’ve all been enjoying your Good Friday, whatever you’re doing.  It’s a public holiday for us in Australia, but I’m not sure if this is the case overseas (?).  This morning I went to church for a special service, then a quiet afternoon.

Sometimes I like to be surrounded by my ‘comfort’ things, (which doesn’t have to be food ).  One of these things is the quilt I made when I was about 16.  I remember raiding my Mum’s bag of fabric scraps, and the whole quilt is made from things at home.  I pieced the squares together for the front, made the bias binding, and used flanelette sheets for the batting.  It’s nothing special as far as precision stitching and quilting techniques go, but it’s cosy and warm and I still use it when I’m feeling sick.

Sorry if I’m boring you, but I have been making cards too .  Here’s a couple I finished today:

For these cards I’ve used mostly scraps, which is so much better than throwing them away…  The little kitten and butterfly pictures I got from vintage books, which I love looking for on my op-shopping trips.  I got some great ones this week, which I can’t wait to use.

I’ve also had another card accepted into the Basic Grey Gallery on their website.  You can see which one by going here.

Thanks for stopping by & reading my rambling! Happy Easter!

Anthea