The Last of the Charms for Now

Polymer Clay Hearts

Fabric Beads

Bottlecap Charms

Here are the last of the charms that I am doing for the swap on the Mixed Media Art Friends group. There are a couple more sets that I forgot to get pictures of. There were 14 different sets total, 5 in each set, so that's 70 charms! I am *almost* charmed-out for awhile.

Paper Flower Book

This is the paper version of the Flower Book Exchange, like in the previous post. Here are pictures of the 4 fronts, 4 backs, and the bound book. I began with paper bases, and added other papers, fabrics, and embellishments. Even though I used paper, I sewed almost everything down just as though it were fabric.

Fabric Flower Book

This is a book that I made for a one-on-one exchange on Mixed Media Art Friends. It is made out of little 2-sided 4 x 6 inch fabric "quilts". The bases are all fabric, and there are paper embellishments on some.

It was a lot of fun to make, but fairly labor intensive doing 8 different little quilties. I punched holes in the sides and set eyelets in with my Crop-o-Dile, which really worked out well. I took pictures of the 4 fronts and the 4 backs, but forgot to take a picture of the final bound book--oops--but the binding is the same as the paper book.

Paste Papers

My latest experiments have been with paste papers. I made them originally to use in my fabric/ paper journal books, but have also cut them out and used them in collages (that I will post when they are done). These are so much fun and very addictive. These pics are from the first few sets--I have some others that I made with rubber stamps and foam stamps, but haven't taken pics yet.

Another Fat Book and Recycling

I am participating in another 120 Fat Book (4 x 4 inch pages) swap on Art Techniques. It is just a technique swap with the theme of using cheap or recycled materials. I chose to make hand made stamps out of sticky backed fun foam. I used white Gesso to stamp the image onto upcycled "chip board" that I saved from cereal boxes, coke 12 packs, used Priority mail envelopes, etc. It absolutely amazed me how quickly the recycleables added up. We have been recycling aluminum cans and plastics for years, but saving all of this extra food packaging was new to me.

After the Gessoed stamp dried, I painted the entire piece with a liquid watercolor wash. The Gesso resists the watercolor, while the background absorbs it. I really like the rich tones that I got from painting on the brown chip board base. I added some accent dots using the eraser end of a pencil and some acrylic paint. I'm ready to send these babies off, and can't wait to see the other 119 techniques!

Collage Mini Books

These are a set of books that started off as paper towel collage. I did a swap with Collage UnLeashed last month, and traded some of my dyed, painted and stamped paper towels. I had to trim the paper towels down to 8 x 10 for the swap, so I had lots of little strips left over, and decided to make a couple of collages. The original piece was maybe 12 x 15 inches. I glued the paper towels down to a fabric base, then layered with a batik backing and cotton batting, just like a quilt. I added zig-zag quilting lines with a shiny variegated thread.

I then cut it down to make 4 little books measuring about 3 x 4 1/2 inches. I used several of my hand painted papers for the signatures inside.



These were just too much fun--they are going to go to a private swap that some friends and I are doing. I think that they would make great little Art Journals.

Happy Dancing Pig Postcard and More

I've been playing around with fabric postcards again. A friend of mine gave me this pink pig fabric, and it was just screaming to be made into a fabric postcard!


I had this cool giant bumblebee fabric too, and so I combined it with several of my hand dyed fabrics to make this postcard--I also hand stitched the little "bee tracks" and sewed on a little copper bee bead:


And on the jewelry track, I made some earrings out of my favorite hand carved bone skull beads--you might remember these from a Halloween charm swap I did last fall.


These earrings were made with little "Chinese Coin" charms. I hand coiled brass wire, and made a loop for the coins to thread through. Kind of fun, and they have a neat movement when you wear them.


What am I going to do with this stuff? I don't know, that's why I put it in my Etsy store.