Golden Years Remembered

Last November my lovely Mum & Dad celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary, something which, a few years ago we didn't think they would achieve as my dad was seriously ill. My sister and I gathered family and friends together for a surprise party to celebrate the occasion.

Since then I have been working on a book, filled with pictures of the evening and a poem that my sister and I wrote for mum & dad. Something that they can pick up and put down to remind them of the fantastic evening we all had!

Front cover of the book. This is mount board covered with hand made paper.

The inner pages were made using silk in various shades of gold and cream. Each Photo was mounted onto a tag made of decorative card with ribbon down the middle The picture was then mounted onto the ribbon. Each photo tag sits in its own little pocket made of parchment paper and edged with tea dyed rick-rack.

Each photo has a ribbon running from it to the top corner and is linked to the next one by a heart charm.

The poem is on deckle edged card which has a gold edge. The poem was read out on the evening and culminates in the toast to mum & dad, there was not a dry eye in the house!

It was an evening of love and laughter and Mum & Dad were 'toasted' with much cheering and handclapping. A memorable evening for everyone!

A Little Somthing for a Friend

Here is a little 'something' I made for a friends birthday. She always has loads of bits of paper around that the writes her shopping lists, to do lists etc on so I decided to make a her a book with laminated pages. That way she can keep her lists all in one place!


The cover was made by stamping a leaf and flower design onto some pale lilac fabric using fabric paints. It was then layered up and I quilted round the flowers and leaves and added some shadow quilted flowers.


The inner pages were made by laminating pretty notepaper, so are wipe clean. The pages were sewn onto fabric windows....very tricky as the laminated paper is very slippy!

There are four laminated pages in total.



The cover of the book with the finished stitching.



The inside of the front cover.

Lastly I made a tie with some very thin dusky pink and grey ribbon with added beads.

Happy Birthday My Friend x

Faerie Bag

I'm off to Ireland shortly to visit with my family. Whilst I'm there my cousins daughter will be celebrating her 6th birthday. Well you can't go to a party empty handed so I made her a faerie bag. Hopefully I will be able to find a little faerie book to put inside it too before I go.


The bags itself was made from a woolen blanket that I had felted and dyed, and is lined with cotton fabric. The faerie was taken from Jillian Sawyers book 'Faerie Lights'. The bottom of the bag has boxed corners to give it a square shape base.



The tag was made from felt, I made a silver cord to attach it to the bag and added some sparkly buttons, a star and a butterfly to the bottom before attaching it to the bag handle.

Creativity, Fun & Laughter

Have just had a fabulous fun filled weekend with Dot and two lovely ladies, Maggie & Linda that we meet at Beer Quilters Retreat earlier on in the year. On the menu was burning using a soldering iron and heat gun, free machine bowls, laughter and chit chat!

I made this book cover ( using Anette Emms technique ) by layering felt, a piece of rust dyed fabric, strips of lace, newspaper ( tea dyed) foils and old sheet music & covering the whole lot with a piece of sheer. I then free machined into it using tree bark as my inspiration. Once I was happy with the overall appearance I then burnt into it using a hot air gun. Finally I applied markel stick to the areas i had burnt away. Lastly I added a a silk band with free machined leaves on it so the book could be closed securely............what am I putting in it......my recipes!

I really enjoy building up 'fabrics' to use as the basis for this sort of project, may have to do a few more!

I also made a cover for next years diary......it is made using free hand cut curves ( Alicia Merritt) so I was able to show Linda & Maggie how to do this simple but effective technique. It has simple felt machine appliqued flowers on it.

Lastly we had a go at making bowls. This is a fab way to use up all those little scraps of fabric and thread that have been cut off. Chop all the bits up and sandwich between water soluble fabric. Free machine into it and then place it in water long enough for the fabric to dissolve away but not to wash out completely. You need the stickiness to give the bowl shape. Place the piece over a bowl or similar to give its shape and allow to dry.

Once dry beads, feet, silk rods etc can be added.

A WONDERFUL FUN FILLED WEEK

I have just spent a wonderful week in Devon with a very special like minded friend. We had a fab time making a mess ( me more than her) with screen printing, mono printing, laminating and printing using all sorts of blocks, both home made and bought. I am really pleased with the fruits of my labours!

I bought Ruth Issetts book Print, Pattern & Colour at the Birmingham Quilt Show and have been devouring it over breakfast for the past couple of weeks. These are my completed pieces. I really enjoyed this method of printing and adding colour and could have happily carried on for ever, or until I ran out of fabric!

This is the book cover I made to go over one of my sketchbooks with one of the pieces of fabric. I had quilted it previous to stamping and dying it so see what difference it made using Ruth's technique. It worked just as well either way.

We had a go at screen printing, something I had not tried before. I had found this image of a tree on an old Halloween decoration and loved it so photocopied it to use on a screen. The fabric above was mono printed using anaglypta wallpaper, then the flowers were printed on and finally the tree was screen printed over the top.

The tree on a piece of mono printed fabric donated by my friend!

We also had a go at laminating, new to me also.... from the book by Leslie Morgan, Claire Benn & Jane Dunnewold. I had chosen sunflowers as my theme.

The image on the left is in colour and the one on the right is also sunflowers but in black and white, both were torn collaged pieces of paper on sheer fabrics. I really like the black and white one as it is very soft to look at.


And finally, a couple more prints that I did!

This one is a freehand cut stamp made out of funky foam.


This on was made using commercially bought stamps.

And finally.................

One last screen print that is unfinished......................

Am really looking forward to our next week/weekend together.

Triptych Finished At Last

Well I have finally finished the three mixed media boards to go on the lounge wall. Just got to wait for hubby to get the drill out now!

More Silverclay

This is the other half of the Angel Wings that I made. One half was for me, and the other half was for a friend who is very special to me and without whom my life would be far less rich. She has now received it so I can post the picture of it.