12 Tags of 2015 - March

 

 Tim's beautiful tag is above.

If you click on the pic it should take you to

his blog where he shows and describes how he made it. 

As usual I didn't have many of the products used,

so made do with what I had

I did have plenty of different tissue tape,

but only three colours of Distress Paint.

For the next stage I didn't have the texture paste

so used a Golden product 'Coarse Pumice Gel',

but unfortunately that didn't work well at all and

at this stage I was ready to throw the tag away!

However, I scraped the gel off and quite liked

what was left - a shadowy stencilled effect.

I finished it off with a sari ribbon branch

and some scruffy machine stitching around the edge.

Not forgetting the little fragment -

coloured with alcohol inks - FLY stamped on a

piece of white copy paper and glued on underneath

with Glossy Accents.

(The bird is from 'Artful Flight CMS069' from

Stampers Anonymous.)

I'm glad I didn't throw it away now.

Thanks for looking :)

Fabric Prim-cesses!

My little Prim..cesses!

I think the style of these little dolls is 'Prim' as in

primitive?  If I'm wrong, please correct me.

The other day over on Pintrest, I saw the picture below

                            

It is made by Viv at Hens Teeth Art

and I immediately fell in love with the style of it

and decided to have a go at making some of my own.

Here's my process -

 

 The first thing I needed was to get to grips with trying

to do some 'free machine embroidery' for the hair.

The closest I could find in the instruction book for my old

sewing machine was the 'darning' technique and I think

it worked quite well.  It really is a loose and free action

 and quite difficult to control but I'm glad I 'mastered' it!

   The faces were simply done with a few marks

with a pen for the eyes and mouth and a little

chalk blusher for the rosy cheeks.

I always enjoy choosing fabrics and trims to dress dolls.

Machine stitch the fabrics on, then cut the shapes out.

Stuff them loosely, machine stitch the bottom

and attach some lace and a button.

 

           Finally, attach ribbon at the back to display them.

Or alternatively a pin to make a lovely brooch.

How easy was that, and how lovely they all are,

even if I do say so myself.

Thanks for looking :)

PaperArtsy Blog Challenge No. 5 - Deconstruction

The new challenge on the PaperArtsy blog is 'Deconstruction' -

I've taken that literally as you can see from my photo above,

but there are lots of other interpretations - 

all the details may be found here.

So, why have I cut my jeans up?

Firstly, they no longer fit me (yay, the diet's working!!)

and for sometime I've been wanting to turn jeans

into a bag and I recently found a link to some video tutorials

which explains just how to do that.

When I saw the 'deconstruction' theme and watched Leandra's

YouTube video and she mentioned using fabric - that was my

nudge to get on and do it! 

I won't describe in too many words step by step how I turned

my jeans into a bag, but have taken a few photos

along the way - and here are the links to the YouTube videos,

by the very talented Izzy MEIMsaab -

DIY Fashion Jeans Bag 

Recycled Jeans Bag 

DIY Jeans Bag (with zip)

Once the jeans were cut up and stitched along the bottom

I needed to find some lining fabric.

In amongst my fabric stash, I found this actual bag

 which I'd bought on holiday a few years ago and decided I'd never use

 - it's a silky soft fabric and perfect for the lining -

 and it already has a zip in - result!

I cut the handles off the holiday bag, cut into strips

and then stitched onto some of the denim (from the legs of the jeans).

In the videos the handles were left unfinished - for a trendy look,

but I couldn't bring myself to leave them so messy -

I just folded them in half - they're still a bit scruffy, but that's ok for me.

(How lucky the colours in the holiday bag match the 

embroidery on the pockets of the jeans)

I used more of the fabric from the holiday bag to thread

through the belt loops.

 

I made the handles quite long as I like to

wear my bags over my shoulder.

So that was the bag finished, but I hadn't used any

PaperArtsy products - I know that isn't a requirement of the

challenge, but still it didn't seem right not to.

Here's what I used - Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics

Lilac and Sherbet

...and from another holiday, a couple of old drink coasters

and some of the left over fabric 

I used a Sizzix Bigz Die - 'Artist Trading Card' to

change the shape of the coasters.

Painted and rubber stamped the inside of what

had become a little post in note holder

with some paperArtsy products

 

For the outside covers, I stitched more of the fabric

directly onto the coasters - the denim heart is another

Sizzix die cut shape.

(I overlooked the fact the top of the covers were rounded

so when I punched holes with the Bind it All machine,

the holes only partially punched out - doh!)

Ta-da!!

I think I'll try the bag out tomorrow

when I go shopping :)

 

Thanks for looking.

Let's Get Arty - with Lily in the Garden!

There's a new challenge blog which I heard about on Jan's blog

which looked interesting so I thought I'd join in with.

You can find all the details at

Let's Get Arty

This is a 'Colour Swatch Challenge' and

the first thing to do was choose one of my photos

- here's Lily in the garden taken last year.

The colour swatches on the right have been generated

by a website called 'Chip It' 

and has turned my photo into a palette - how cool!

The challenge is to create a project using

at least 4 of the colours from the swatches.

I printed off the swatches and found some sari ribbon

which seemed to fit the bill.

(I only ended up using two of them though - along with some

other bits and pieces for the other colours).

A paper doll came to mind, I haven't made one for a while.

Using old packaging, I cut the body shape using

the above Sizzix die.

I rubber stamped one of the lovely faces from Clare Lloyd's

new set as show above - and glued it onto the die cut head.

I dressed the body with strips of the sari ribbon.

I gave her some hair using embroidery thread.

 

Did you notice her jewellery - a necklace and

matching bracelet of Rose Quartz.

So what colours did I use?

As close as I could get them anyway -

Nankeen - for the dress

Honorable Blue - also for the dress

Reverie Pink - the jewellery and legs

 (although you can't see the colour in the photos)

Tricorn Black & Porpoise - for the hair.

What a fun challenge!

Thanks for looking :)