Having New Eyes

Whirlwind education in my jammies!

As I know I've mentioned before - online "school" is awesome awesome awesome!  No starting time - no deadlines (at least in the classes I'm taking) - lots and lots of one on one help and feedback.  In learning how to design my banner, and the navigation bar, I finally, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, recognized a need for algebra, and used it!  YYAAYY!  I know for a fact that I took at least 16 months worth of algebra in various schools, and never did it make the sense it made yesterday in the Web Design 2.0 workshop I'm taking, as presented by Elise Blaha Cripe.  (I wonder if that's her real name?)  I have to admit, though, that there have been a few nights when the html choo choo train chugging around in my head has kept me up, even when really really tired.  (doncha just get so mad when that happens, and then THAT wakes you up even more?!?)

The other class I'm in, that started on Feb 1, is called Letter Love with Joanne Sharpe.  I'm using the "other" side of my brain for this one (so's I don't wear out my out-of-shape left brain) and get to paint and glue and design with markers, paints, crayons, fabric scraps, and whatever else I can find that's glue-able!  There are 150 (!) people signed up for this one, from ALL OVER the world, and most of us are still working on our 1st day's assignment, which is to decorate a composition pad to use in learning how to...LETTER!  I'd recently seen something in a magazine that I wanted to try, adapting the materials to incorporate fabric scraps instead of paper scraps, and decided that this 1st assignment is the perfect time to try it out.  Here are the pictures of my new LETTER LOVE notebook..  1st up is an in progress picture, gluing fabric scraps using matte medium:

Next is the finished composition book:

I'd been aching to try this technique I'd seen "somewhere", using glue and fabric scraps and then using the fabric cover as a background for white and black paint.  I LOVE this technique!

 

Some other ladies who're in the class "with me":

Laurie at lauriescharmingdesigns.blogspot

and Lludria at http://miaticomismundos.blogspot.com/

The Alaska Quilt is finished and hanging on the wall!

Wow, it seems like such a long time since I posted something, ANYTHING, here on "Having New Eyes"!  It's not all because of the holidays...It's been a really difficult fall/winter so far for my husband, healthwise, with lots of trips to doctors, hospitals, and ERs.  The upside is that, though finishing the AK quilt at home took longer than expected, I have had lots of handwork time in waiting rooms!  Can't wait to start sharing some of that with you.

The big news, though, is that I finished the Alaska quilt the night before Christmas, when all through the house.... well, you know the lyrics.  Chuck was touched beyond any gift he received this year, and there were quite a few that touched him.  This quilt contains all the wildlife and scenery that he enjoyed on his month long travels in Alaska, and while it ended up being bigger than I'd planned, it fits perfectly on the wall in front of his leatherworking workbench and he often stops tooling to sit and look.

This last picture is of the one patch border I decided to finish with, using pieces from all the fat quarters Chuck brought back for me from his trip.  The imagery in the quilt comes from multiple sources.  Some are actual photographs from his trip, printed on fabric and fused into the scenery.  Others are stock photos, similarly printed and fused.  Two images are my own paintings on fabric that I cut out and fused.  The water of the river was such fun, so abstract!  Lots of applique, plus plenty of decorative threads and lace.

Alright Already! Let's get moving!

Since I returned from visiting family in Texas, I have found my schedule so full that I haven't "felt" like being creative.  More accurately, I've wanted to be creative - to paint, to sew, to glue, to decorate - but haven't had the energy to get started on a project!  My yard, garden, living room, piano studio all look tidy.  My bed's not made - but that's nothing new! My laundry is done, the dishes washed, tomorrow's piano recital and cookout is nearly here and I'm "mostly" prepared, Saturday's garage sale is nearly all tagged and ready for sale, I've caught up on Chuck's Alaska blog, I've paid the bills (though I've failed miserably at recording everything in the "budget".  

Well, I'm fed up!!  It's not that hard to spend an hour on a project, and I believe that without that creative time, I'll just wither up and blow away on one of our crazy, windy midwestern days!  Just me and the cicadas, clacking, shrieking, and tumbling to wherever!  I did get moving forward on a new wall quilt last Friday.  I had made an acrylic print, last fall, of some roadside weeds I found, on a scrap piece of muslin.  It's actually been hanging on the design wall for months, because the scrap of muslin I happened to use was a true scrap, with a huge chunk of corner missing!  I liked the print so much, though, that I just HAD to find a way to use it!  So, I've played around with some curved piecing, and some painting, and some embellishing - now what?????

(paint's still wet in this pic - it faded beautifully as it dried, pics later when I decide what to do next)

With the juices flowing again, and with at least THREE ideas I want to try, NOW, I am now faced with the other side of the creativity coin - how to fit in the stuff I HAVE to do.  LOL.  My hair is growing and I haven't the time to do anything with it, so I'm starting to look like Beethoven (aacckkk!) - JJ's so antsy she MUST go for a walk today, and would you believe it, more bills came in the mail!  How does that happen?!

Pray for me - I'm being tossed around in the turbulent sea of "have to's" and "want to's" ! 

New Creativity Cards

These are for you to save and print for your own creativity card jar.  Remember my post a little while back on using a jar with cards in it for those days when you just can't think of what to do creatively speaking?  Here are 2 more cards you can print out and put in your jar.

A Jar of cards

I mentioned a while back that I'm now keeping a jar of "creativity cards" handy for those times when I'm free to create but can't get myself started.  I like the cards so much that I've designed some cards for you to print out.  I'll post cards now and then which you can right click and save for yourself.  Here are the first 2:

Marvelous Memory Book and Giveaway!

While I continue to walk in the woods and enjoy the winter scenery with JJ....

I continue to stumble upon really neat websites.  This most recent discovery will interest anyone interested in an easy project for putting those photos from a special event into a hand made, mixed media memory book.  A GREAT project for a snowy winter day!    Judy Gula invited Liz Kettle to post this great tutorial on her blog, and to offer a giveaway at the same time!!  You can use actual photos in the project, or print them out on fabric - both ways work.

Christmas Crafts

I purchased the most recent issue of Cloth Paper Scissors, mostly because there were too many articles in it that I HAD to try and couldn't bear to try writing all the directions down in my tiny pursebook.  That's what I usually do every Monday when I go to Borders and buy a naked juice, I read the magazines and enjoy my juice and then leave the magazines back on the rack.  This particular issue had a lot of ideas, pictures, and links that I had to have.

These are the results of two things: 1st, I needed to make some small artsy things for my students, and 2nd, I wanted to try the folded paper ornament project.

Basically - fold some decorative papers, add a photo, and embellish your brains out!  Tons of fun, not a lot of mess left after, and I got to use some of my sparkly stuff.  What's really cool is that I acquired a bunch or really old fashioned hair pins, that look like a U with really long twisty arms, and they were perfect for gluing in the tops for the hanging loops!  And since JJ always attends piano lessons, her picture needed to be included in each ornament.

There are dogs, and then there are DOGS!

Found a picture of a dalmatian in a magazine, and just had to try a doggy paintover!  (did you know that my very first dog was a Dalmatian named Louis XVIII?)

My son, Mark, with Louis XVIII:

 

 

The digitally enhanced paintover:

Louis XVIII is long gone, having been replaced by 2 successive Boxers, but what a pretty dog he was!

First I paintover, then I fidget in photoshop...

This art is the result of a fairly bad quality, color vintage photo of my Dad as a young, unmarried man. His posture, the cigarette in his hand (that doesn't really show in the final piece), the flashy car, all jive with the Daddy I remember when I was very very little.  He was a playboy, a flyboy in the Air Force, who knew how to tend his own bar and had cocktail parties frequently for his crew.  All the women dressed like Jackie Kennedy, and the men still wore hats.  I was actually disappointed in my original paintover, and considered throwing it away, but....

 

 

The details of his clothing, his facial features, even his hands, aren't really clear in the original photo, so they aren't very clear in my paintover either.  What IS clear is that car!  What a car!  Here, in the final piece, the man remains slightly obscured, while the car stands out as the focus of the picture.

 

That's my dad!

MORE Mod Podge Madness

Have you seen the fancy tea that, when steeped in hot water, unfolds into a flower?  A while back, a dear friend of mine gave me a variety container of these teas, as many of them were green and too caffeinated for her.  The canister they came in, while it was cardboard, was a very sturdy, reusable kind of cardboard.  I just couldn't throw it away once I'd finished the teas, and it sat in my large box of "Empty Containers the Must Have a Re-Use" until recently when I started brainstormi  
ng my Mod Podge.  I've already posted about the cigar box I repurposed, and now I'll share my tea canister which has become a nice little gift package.

I primed the canister and lid with gesso, having unthreaded the satin-y cord that holds the lid to the canister.  Collecting, once again, a pile of vibrant batik fabrics, and getting out my Mod Podge and large, soft brush, I began generously coating everything with MP and layering fabrics on the canister and lid.

Once dried, I re-poked the holes for the cord and reassembled my canister.

add a few scrapbooking stickers with collage glue for super hold, and voila!