Tiny Books

I recently signed up to participate in a Pay It Forward deal that Linda at Olde Baggs 'n Stuft Shirts posted on her Facebook page.  I agreed to post on my facebook page an offer to give something free to the first five people who signed up and agreed to do the same.  Last year I participated in this and it was fun so I was happy to do it again.  I made these little folded paper books to give away that Maggi at Hand Dyes taught me how to make.

They measure 3 by 3 and a half inches. They have all these little pockets in them that I try to put tiny treasures in.

The treasure might only be a poem or a feather.  I already gave one of the books away so I need to come up with two more things to give away.

Dooleybobber  #?
 
At the end of last year I made this on my needle felting machine.  I haven't made a dooleybobber in so long that I don't know what number this one is!  I stitched it by hand using hand dyed threads that I got from Maggi.  You might like to hop over and look at her luscious threads and fabrics and  indulge yourself and buy some, they are gorgeous.  Tell her Jan sent you.  Oh and do you see that gold colored rectangular thing in the upper right hand corner?  That was a piece of a plastic tray that held chocolates.  I put it on top of my wood stove on a safe metal tray and let it melt until it became mostly flat.  It didn't even stick to the safe metal tray, just came right off.  I stamped the word "Create" on it in Stazon ink.  I was just experimenting a bit.

I put that dooleybobber #? on the cover of a 3 ring notebook that I use as my desk calendar.  I have a folder for each month and can put in my writing and cards that I receive or whatever.  I'm liking this so far.  I have some wonderful calendar images that my friends in my Stitch 'n Bitch group made for me.  If you click on the link it will take you to our group blog.

More recently I have been playing with a gelli plate that my friend Anne at El Milagro Studio sent to me.  Above you can see the gelli plate and two texture plates I made from fun foam.  Wow, is this fun or what!?!  Thanks again, Anne!

Here are some of my favorite papers I have created so far.  I have the 6 inch square gelli plate.

Here are a few more.  The dark spiral that you see is a resist I created from Tyvek and used.  It was so pretty I want to use it on a card or in my journal or something.  Bonus!

I made these papers by cleaning my brayer off on them.  Cool, yes?  They remind me of Madras plaids.  I have lots of papers to use somewhere now and I've only played with the gelli plate for a couple of hours!  I made a card out of one of my pullings already.  Nice!  They have plenty of video tutorials available on their blog, check them out here.

Well that's about all for today.  I shall leave you with this self portrait.  Until next time,

Be well.

Needle felting machine arrived!!

It's here!  My new Janome needle felting machine!  Also called an embellishing machine.  It doesn't sew, the needles in it are felting needles which means they have little barbs on the ends that cause the fibers of whatever it is you are running them over to push down and stay down when the needles come back up.  This machine has 5 needles but there are others that have different numbers of needles.

Of course I have been playing with it today.  Above you can see a couple of samples.  The orange one on the left was a wet felted piece that I needle felted some rayon fabric pieces down, shaped a flower.  The red and green one I started with a piece of batting and began needle felting bits of roving down, then added some scrim and ribbons to form the circles.

Above is some work I did on the piece I wet felted and showed here in my last post.  I think I liked it better before.  I'm not liking the purplish bits I put on.  since I took the picture I also have done some bead work in it.  Not sure if I will continue with this one or not.

Here is a shot of my ironing board, covered with my bags of colored roving. My blogging friend Maggi sent me some suggestions at my request so I shall be trying them out.  Also I bought the Quilting Arts In Stitches emagazine and there is a good article in it by Jane LaFazio with video showing how she needle felts her pieces on her machine.  Maggi suggested I try putting a piece of organdy under the needles to see what kind of texture they provide after felting.  Oh Yeah!  Very cool, they turn into little caterpillar like bits.  Fun!  Okay, gotta go, I have a play date in the studio!

Be Well.