Yet another puzzle piece arrived

I got another puzzle piece in the mail earlier this week. Now only have 3 more to complete my puzzle. This one is from Danette. The picture is a little fuzzy but the piece is really beautiful.

Christmas Quilts, Sally Collins and the Big Chicken

This is a quilt I made for Christmas in July at Tiny Stitches, my local quilt shop. The pattern came from Quick Quilts - Jan 06. There are a lot of good patterns in that magazine.

I have been really busy over the last couple of weeks getting ready for Christmas in July so haven't posted here. I made 2 quilts and quilted a few others for the shop and now I am behind on customer quilts so I need to get busy with that right away.

My local quilt guild, East Cobb Quilter's Guild, had Sally Collins http://www.sallycollins.org/. She is a wonderful quilter and teacher and author and we had a great 3 days. I am program chairman for the guild so spent a lot of time on her visit and loved every minute of it. The workshops filled up quickly so I did not actually attend them but monitored them to make sure everything went well. Fortunately, everything was great and didn't require much from me at all. Yesterday, after our morning guild meeting, we even did a mini shop hop of the three quilt shops here in Marietta and of course, had to show her the Big Chicken http://roadsidegeorgia.com/site/bigchicken.html. It is a local landmark that all directions seem to be related to. You always hear things like "just West of the Big Chicken". You have to be from here to understnad.

June Rolodex Swap

The June rolodex swap came yesterday but I forgot to pick up the mail until today. I worked at the quilt shop on Friday, Saturday and then again today. I was so tired yesterday I forgot all about the mail.

The Diva's are so talented - the monthly theme for June was "June is busting out" and we got a great variety of cards, including a couple with busts on them. Mine is the boring one with flowers - third down on the right. I did have flower sequins on them to liven them up a little but I really liked some of the others, especially the one on the lower left.

My rolodex is really looking great after several months of doing this swap.

The theme for July is Hot Dogs and Apple Pie!

July Calendar Spread

This is the July calendar spread for the calendar RR. This calendar belongs to Karyn and is smaller than most of them have been. Each page is about 4 x 8 inches. There have been some beautiful spreads done so far.

Since it is summer and the travel season, I decided to use travel stuff that I have stuck away. The boarding pass and baggage tags are from my last trip to San Francisco. I started by painted the pages lime green, then glued on some scraps of a map. Used a passport from a hotel, part of a ticket envelope and a small picture of San Francisco. I used another boarding pass receipt and then the top off a USPS stamp selection about American advances in Aviation.

Covered everything with bronze glaze and wiped it off. Got out my stamps and stamped some travel stamps on the right page and a face on the left boarding pass - also used my favorite DIVA stamp. Ready to mail to Christine!

Quilt Guild Brown Bag Exchange

We had a brown bag exchange at Quilt Guild today. Two months ago, we put 3 pieces of fabric, along with our name in a brown bag and exchanged them. The goal was to take those 3 pieces, add any other fabrics we wanted to and make a small item for the person who selected the fabrics. The guidelines said that the pieces needed to be at least 8" square.

I got Ruth's brown bag and she had put in 3 8" squares of fabrics that did not really coordinate with each other. I looked at them for several weeks. There was the problem of them not going together but they were also so small that it was difficult to make anything out of them or find other fabrics to use with them.

I finally decided to make a sewing tote. I used pink Sandcastle for the actual project but did a small English paper pieced flower on the front, using two of the fabrics that Ruth gave me.

The third one was used for one of the pockets in the tote. It holds a small cutting mat and has pockets for cutter, scissors, etc. She seemed to like it!

The creativity of the group is amazing. The completed projects included a teddy bear, small wallhangings, tea cozy, pot holders, table runner, a doll, larger wallhangings and others that I can't remember.

I got the best one of the day - made by Lisa.

The above is a close up of the top of the calendar holder and the bottom one shows me holding it. I put 3 fat quarters in my brown bag and I am sure they were a challenge for Lisa. Mine were the bright lime green she used as the background, the multi-color she used as trim and bound with and the purple that she made the letters with.

It is beautiful and colorful and wonderful. Lisa put hanging tabs on the top and included a great Maxine calendar so I can use it forever by getting a new calendar each year. I am so lucky to get this wonderful gift.

The whole guild loved the projects and it made for a wonderful program. If we do it again next year (and most want to), we will change the rules slightly to have you put in 3 coordinating fat quarters as a starting point. This will make it easier to choose projects to make.

Puzzle pieces again

This piece is for Sherry. She wanted an Art Deco piece.
This is the last piece I finished and it is for Michelle. Her theme was mermaids and the sea. I used the same clipart of a mermaid for another mermaid theme. Added some trim from the sewing room on the bottom and a glass marble on the top.
From Katherine - this makes 11 pieces that I have received so far. My puzzle is getting close to being completed. Still waiting on only 4 more.

Deco - In the Eye of the Beholder

Vanessa's deco was a challenge. The theme was In The Eye Of The Beholder. I finally found some pictures that I used as starting points and had fun from there. The writing on the bottom of the right pages is supposed to say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" - I hope that is correct and that it isn't something rude.

Mama Always Said Deco

This is my deco for our 14th group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DivaDecoSwappers/. The theme for this one is Mama Always said. The cover is above. The picture of my Mother is from 2001 when she was 87 years old. It was taken at my sister's house at a Sunday dinner - one of my Mother's favorite things to look forward to all week.
Here is the sign in page - I have provided tags for everyone to decorate.
Here are some of the things I can remember my Mother saying - I can still hear her voice saying "Clean your plate - there are starving children in China". Didn't make any sense then and it still doesn't now.

My favorite thing my Mother said is on the cover - I love you!

Deco's on the move

I have been trying to get caught up on my decos. I have several here and I spent time last night trying to identify what group they were from, who the owner is and then worked on two of them. The above spread is for a Day of the Dead deco. I did one of these earlier for my daughter who loves the Day of the Dead holiday. In fact, I even made her a Day of the Dead purse a few years ago.
The second one that I completed is for a Children's Literature deco. The Dr. Seuss is from a Barnes and Noble gift card holder that I got for Christmas last year. I mounted it on a thin cork background and then stamped swirls on it. On the other side, I started with corregated paper and other paper scraps. I had some cute stickers of Peter the Rabbit and friends that I used for this deco.

I have several more to work on - hopefully will be all caught up by the end of the week.

Puzzle pieces I have received - part 2

From Sherry
From Saundra
From Syliva
From Vanessa

They are all so different and so wonderful. The average size of my pieces is about 2 1/2 by 2 1/2. The other ranged from very small (about 1 x 1) to quite large (4x4). The smaller ones are hard to do - it is hard to decorate something that small - can't find images that look good that small.

Puzzle pieces I have received

This piece is from Marysia
From Gayle S
From Marilyn
From Brittney
From Gayle C
From Carol.

I have 4 more pieces that blogger wouldn't let me upload. I will try again tomorrow. So far I have received a total of 10 out of 15. My theme was sewing/quilting and everyone has been so creative with my theme. The puzzle I used has a small border around it and I think it will cover it with buttons after I get all the pieces back.

This is the second puzzle swap I have done - both with the same theme. Unfortunately, the last one is missing a piece. I think I can make a new piece out of balsa wood and decorate it but just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Still More Puzzle Pieces

I managed to finish 5 more pieces today, only 2 more to go. This one is for Sylvia. Her only theme was vintage or blue so I tried to do both. First covered the piece with my trusty dictionary pages. Then brushed on blue paint and wiped it off. Put the word harmony on with a rub-on, glued on some crumpled tissue paper and a small embroidery piece. Finally glued on some cute flower sequins to finish it.
This piece belonged to Brittney and again had no theme. It is hard to work on them with no theme. I loved the size and shape of this piece. I painted it with the green and then stamped the face and crown on. Added jewels to the crown and then used an ink pad around the edge of the piece. Lastly I used glitter glue to make designs on the piece.
Finally one with a theme - Faerie. I used the last of the dictionary page to cover this one. I found a good faerie picture to add to the center and a jeweled flower to put on the upper right. I then put on letter beads to spell out faerie and some paint around the edges to finish it off.
Another theme - this was a fairly large piece. I painted it with the same green paint and then covered it with a picture of fruits. I then stamped a peach on it (Georgia is the peach state) and some swirls. I then used my label buddy to print out eat your vegies. Highlighted it with a silver ink pad to finish it.
Last piece for today. I have wanted to use a bottle cap. I punched out a picture of a rose and then filled the cap with Diamond Glaze - it looks much better in person than the picture shows. This is a very small piece that belongs to Gayle C. Her only theme was vibrant. I started by painting it red, highlighted with silver, glued on the bottle cap, a little fabric stuffed star and some glitter to finish it off.

More Puzzle Pieces

I finished up two more puzzle pieces last night and they are in the mail today. One goes to Australia and the other to Scotland. Hope I put enough postage on them. These look much better in person than they do in the photo. The one on the left was for Karen and she did not have a theme. I covered the piece with dictionary pages and then stamped ART all over it. Added some jewels to finish it off.

The second was is for Marysia and was a much larger piece. Here theme was Pink. I started by painting it with pink acrylic paint. I added part of a paper doily to it while it was wet. I added a button, a small butterfly made from sequins, a couple of tiny tags, a silver fabric star, and lastly the domino. I then took a silver ink pad and highlighted areas around the objects.

I also completed the start of my Elvis deco but forgot to take pictures of it before I put it in the mail.

I still have 5 more puzzle pieces to work on. I have two preped on my worktable and hope to finish them today and the rest tomorrow.

Third Round of Collage RR and Puzzle Swap

The above collage belongs to Anne. It was already beautiful when it arrived at my house for round 3 of 6. I got out my stamps and stamp pads to start with and added the swirl design in the center. I then added the oriental lettering - according to the stamp, it means happiness. I then crumpled up tissue paper and applied it with gel medium. It needed a little more so I took an old dictionary page and tore out a couple of pieces and put them on. The last paper I added was an interesting picture of colored eggs that I cut out of a newspaper and found in my stack of papers to be filed.

I then stamped a few dragonflies in various areas and stamped the words create and art in gold - very light and hard to see. Lastly, I put a couple of pieces of yarn on the upper left, again using gel medium. Since 3 more people have to add to it, I figured I better stop.
Next project on my list is overdue. We are doing a puzzle swap on CPS http://groups.yahoo.com/group/clothpaperstudio/. Each person sent out a piece to work on to 15 other people (each puzzle has 15 pieces). When they came they were all different sized and shapes. Most people had a theme but a few just said to do anything - that is harder than working on a theme. The above piece is a mermaid for Carol who wanted anything related to the sea.

The above piece is for Bonnie and her theme is purple. I found a number of purple things and just put them together for her.