CELEBRATE LIFE

It is the beginning of August already!!  They say time FLIES  when you are having fun.   As I was going through my photos this morning, I thought about all the events that have happened in my life this year.   It has made me realize more than ever that we need to CELEBRATE LIFE.

A gift I made for my Sister.

THE GATHERING

A very good friend was visiting and said that she was going to have a cookout and was going to call it The Gathering.  I immediately liked the theme.  The Gathering brings to mind so many fun memories with family and friends.  I immediately starting thinking about creating a mini quilt.

The Gathering is today and I still have not made the mini quilt.  I started flipping through my stencils.   I decide to use the Alpha Doodle stencil from Stencil Girls to create the word GATHERING.  I pull out the paints and got to work.  I decided to use a orphan block that I had hanging on my wall as my background and base.

LUGGAGE TAGS

My daughter is having a destination wedding next week.  I thought that I should have a small gift for the friends and family that will be joining us.  I wanted the gift to be something that they could use after the wedding.  Because we are traveling to the destination I thought it should have a travel theme.  I decided to make fabric luggage tags.

I painted the fabric using Carolyn Dube's time stencil as the background.  I also stenciled each tag with the luggage stencil from Sue Pelletier.  I then found stamps and continue to add words and date and destination of the wedding.

I don't know if any of you shop at Tuesday Morning,  but I find the coolest gifts .  It has also become my goto craft shop before I go to the traditional hobby store.  They have fabric paints and rubber stamps,  and unique gift boxes.  I found this suitcase to display the luggage tags on the Thank You Table.  The insert in the luggage tag is a thank you from the bride and groom and on the flip side is a place for them to add their own name and address info.

Quilt for Sophia

Last weekend the baby shower for our new Grand Daughter was cancelled because of the snow storm but this weekend we visited my daughter-in-law and son and I was able to deliver my gifts.  Of course I made a Quilt.

I saw the Loose Girl Stencil from Stencil Girls  knew this was what I wanted to use to make the quilt for our new baby girl.  My daughter -in- law wanted to decorate the baby's room with pink and gray.  These are not my colors and selecting from my fabric stash for her color scheme was going to be a challenge.

I found  pink kona fabric at a local fabric store and decided to use it as a base.  I went on Etsy and found a jelly roll of pink and gray prints.   I did not have any idea of how I was going to put this together but my New Years Theme  that keeps going through my head is " DON'T THINK,  JUST DO".

I first started out with testing the stencil on fabric using different types of fabric paint.  I ended up making my own gray paint by mixing black and white fabric paints together.  I then decided to use the Love stencil with the heart because the white and gray fabric has swirls of hearts.  I backed each dress block with batting and stitched with variegated thread.

I decided to try a different process of quilting the dresses as blocks and then stitch the quilted blocks together.  I then attached the backing fabric and then quilted all three layers,

The backing fabric was not what I had in mind,  but it was pink with shades of gray.  The fabric is of girls dancing .  This gave me the idea of sharing inspirations with my new granddaughter "  I HOPE YOU DANCE!"  I thought about stitching this saying around each dress but thought better of it and will put that sentiment on the label.

Stencil, Fabric, Paint

Two months ago I joined The Stencil Club.  This group of creative individuals have given me the courage to expand and experiment.  It seems that most of the group work on canvas and have art journals and I like to work with fabrics so I am experimenting with my stash of fabrics.    

I have found that I am always adding words to my work.  I purchased two stencils from Stencil Girls that have motivational words and began to test how to use this stencil with fabrics.  My first experiments using fabric scraps and a quilted block and white fabric paint.  

I first took a scrap of colorful fabric to see if the words would show up.  I backed the fabric with freezer paper, taped the stencil to the fabric with painters tape, and began using a makeup sponge to apply the white paint to the fabric.  

I next took the quilted block and followed the same procedure.  

Next using other fabric paints and a make up sponge I applied paint to additional scraps of fabric.

I then decided to try artist acrylic inks.  I had these misters so I filled them with ink.  I laid the stencil on top of the  scraps of fabric and then misted the fabric.  

I ended up making a gift for my daughter a quilted wall hanging form one of my scraps.