Mother's Day - Belated!

Well, first off, I'm the one late on a Mother's Day blog post!  My son and our DIL had their mom's (along with our better halves!) over for a wonderful Mother's Day dinner.  My son smoked the most wonderful tenderloin!  You could cut it with a knife!  I felt bad Kris had to cook but she purchased some prepared foods and some she made herself.  As usual, it was a delicious meal!!!  But I forgot to take pictures of Kris (DIL), her mom and myself!  I am getting so bad about forgetting to take pictures!!!  Other than pictures of food!!!  On this day, I only got a picture of the cakes!  HA

Kris' mom made the larger malted milk cake, which was sooooooooo good.  Kris bought the Cannoli cake and it too was delicious!!!!  Oh yum.  I was just too busy filling my plate to remember to take pictures of the other food.  Kris even sauteed mushrooms, which are Bob and my favorite!!!   Darrin packaged up some pieces of tenderloin for us and Kris gave us some cake to take home!!!  YUM...

And look at the really cool Lavender plant Kris gave me!  The green leaves smell so good!!!  I'll have to read more about them as this is my first Lavender plant!  It looks so pretty on the deck!  It's suppose to attract butterfly's...we'll see!













Next, last weekend, my daughter had  all of us over to celebrate a belated Mother's Day.  Dawn was out of town Mother's Day weekend so she had us over for a fantastic brunch.  Here's her menu!

I at least took a picture of my daughter's table setting!  That's right...no pictures of us, AGAIN!  UGH...

And look at the beautiful flowers I got from Dawn...they are so pretty and so many different flowers!  I love them!

Dawn's brunch was delicious, as usual,  and we even got some leftovers to take home from her too!    We're so lucky that my kids love to cook, entertain and invite us old folks over for meals!  HA  Love all those kids!!!!

Some success...some not!

We're still printing with the Gelli plate in our MIP online class.  So what to do with all these papers you ask!  Well, we're working on making some little books. 

First up was an accordion book, which I did finish.  I used some of my older papers that I printed on  lighter weight paper. 

I have to say at times it hard working with the light papers or deli papers.  They wrinkle, even though I iron before/after printing, before/after dyeing and before/after waxing. 

 I'm now using a heavier weight paper that appears to be perfect and doesn't wrinkle.  We're now working on using heaver weight card stock for our next book.  I finished printing and over dyeing papers this past weekend so hope to get a book made next week.   I'm very happy with some of the papers as they are lighter colors than what I've been making. 

Now on a 'not a success' note!  I was very happy with some of my latest papers so decided I wanted to do a larger collage piece.  We use Heat 'n Bond light on the back of our papers to attach to our base, so I got busy and started to iron  fusible on my papers...WAIT!   Remember you are suppose to iron fusible on the BACK of your paper!  Well, guess what I did...hard to see in this picture but that's fusible on the FRONT of my paper!!!

Well, dang...this was another favorite paper I wanted to use.  I immediately went to our FaceBook page for our MIP group and mentioned what I had done.  Well, to the rescue was Hilary!  She suggested I use the shiny side of the Heat 'n Bond paper and iron several times while lifting up.  Great idea and it did work!  Well, it would have worked totally but I was so excited while I was getting rid of the fusible....I took time out to reply on FB to tell  Hilary her suggestion was working....BUT wait again!!

Because I took the time out to comment,  I forgot to remove a small section of the paper and guess what!  It stuck!  That's ok...Hilary suggested I just over dye the piece again!  HA

Live and learn, right!!!!  Now to the next lesson and project!

Book Review and MIP Book (journal!)

First off, I'm listening to a very funny book by Lisa Scottoline!   And Ms Scottoline is  also the reader and so easy to listen to. I have to say I'm not always fond of women readers and have ended up not listening to a book because of that.  But Ms. Scottoline is great to listen to and the book is a hoot!!!  And so much of it is true!!!  I have read almost all of her mystery books and I've enjoyed them all.  I didn't realize she had written other humorous non fiction books!  I'm going to order some from our library to upload on my Ipod! If you're looking for a non serious/humorous book, check this one or her other books out at your local library!!!









Now about my other book!  Well, actually, it one of 3 of my journals I'm keeping as part of Hilary's online MIP workshop!  Yes, 3 journals...so far...really I could have 4 or 5 of them ongoing but I'm just working on 3!   One I use just for note taking when Hilary is doing her video's!  I have a small journal my bud, Susan, gave me for my BD this year and it's perfect for note taking!

This is what I refer to as my color and work book.  I just attached some of my over dyed papers on the cover. 


Depending on the type of 'homework' we are working on I may or may not include them in this book.  Obviously, just the smaller practice collages or paint work would be in this journal.


 

We've done some different exercises on using color - this is an example of one page in this book.

This is a page that we are to match the color in the middle to the picture.  It's a good exercise on mixing colors.  As you can see, I haven't done this exercise yet!!!  But I will...I'm actually looking forward to it!

Also inside are some of my collages I made from the printed papers.  These are just two examples of my paper collages that are included in this journal.

This is my other journal that is used for our 'collections', which can be shapes, colors...anything that we are attracted to. 

These are just some of my pages of different shapes (yes, that's the same picture that I'm beading!)

We're to color, stamp, draw, whatever we want to do on  our pages (or not!).  I took these pictures before I started to color some of them.    Usually we have dye or paint left over from our printing papers so this is a good use for those leftovers materials.

Yes, this is a similar page to the one above in my 'color book'.  I just like the colors together.   By us putting colors or patterns we like in our book, it should help us as we choose paints and/or dyes when creating our papers. 

So that's some of what we are doing in our workshop!  Learning so much and certainly providing us the inspiration we all need. 

We're working with our Gelli plate again this week.  I finished my lesson today and hope to over dye the papers in the next few days.  It's so busy now that we are back home... I'm working on a project that has a due date the end of this month!!!  I'm at the quilting phase on that project but I forgot how difficult it is to plan your quilting designs!  Yikes!  But it's coming along!!! 

So in the future, I hope to reshow these pages and journals to see what all I've done to them and what else I've added to the journal(s)!!!  Now I'm off to listen to Lisa's book!!

Flash Back Time

At the first Lacrosse game I attended with the kids when we got back from Florida, my daughter had one of the old quilts I made with her to keep us warm from the wind and cold.   Actually, it was a quilt I made for her!  Well, it had seen better days and Dawn said she was afraid to wash it for fear it would fall apart.  I took the quilt home with me and said I would repair it! 

This is a picture of the binding and the backing (pic below), which I think is just muslin.

I added on top of the original binding a larger double fold binding!  I know I should have ripped out the old binding but I just didn't have the heart to rip it out!  Now it's sealed under this blue fabric, which I machine stitched on!

 

AND THIS IS THE QUILT ALL REPAIRED

I made this in 1987, so fabric choices were limited as you can tell by the solid pink and blue!  HA  I hand pieced and hand quilted this entire bugger so I wasn't surprised it didn't hold up...but the funny part is the front piecing held up!  It was the backing that had rips in it!!  Go figure!  Anyway, my daughter gave me some Creative Memory books years ago to document all the quilts I made.   I kept the books up to date with pictures and documenting until the late 90's.  I knew I kept the original pattern for this quilt and I was excited to see I had it in my book!  Thanks to my daughter for giving me the books and inspiration to document my work!   Now I have my blog!!  HA

This is the original pattern I designed!  See, I got bored even back in the 80's using patterns!  HA


This is the documentation on the quilt itself I put in my book with a picture. 

I'll be seeing my daughter this weekend and her quilt is all repaired and washed...so it's ready to take to more Lacrosse games next season!!!  It will be fun to sit under it again with her!!!

Gelli Prints

First off, it's really been busy around here.  Not sure what all we're doing but it seems like we are on the go every day. The end of the month I'm off to attend our grand daughter's baby shower.  Bob's ex and I will take off on a Friday and return on Sunday.  We did this for Kayla's wedding three years ago and I'm sure we'll have another good time with the drive (6 hours!) and the weekend.

Our online class this week was using our Gelli plates.  I've used the gelli plate before with so so results.  Had a few senior moments...like "Robbie, make sure you cover the gelli plate with paint!  Not painting your stamp and stamping on the plate"...duh...I kept forgetting this and thought why would I stamp on the gelli plate and just stamp on my fabric/paper!  Geeezzzzz...sometimes I just have to slow down!  HA

So here are my before  and after results...I used the gelli plate to create backgrounds, then I stamped using some old leaf rubber stamps I had and then overdyed with Procion dye!   Just havin fun!!

Collage Time!

First off, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all those mom's, step-mom's and fur mom's!  Hope you each have a wonderful day!  My son is cooking for his wife, his MIL and  myself later this afternoon.  Should be a nice time with the kids.  Dawn and Jeff won't be there as they are up north celebrating their 20th anniversary! 

Friday and Saturday afternoon I played with my MIP online class.  We're working on design and composition!  Not my strong suit but I did have fun playing with Hilary's instruction(s)!  She makes it so easy and makes you feel free to try anything with regards to your art work. 

Hilary had us start off using bits and pieces of our scrap papers and make a block in a repeating fashion.  I decided I wanted to keep my original block as reference so I made two blocks the same.  I glued them in our workbook and used the 2nd block to add elements or shapes to make it better!  Now that's a stretch for me!  Yikes...but it was fun!

Here are some of my 'rejects'.  This was such an interesting task.  I took pictures after each 'attempt' at adding shapes or elements to my block. 

Reject 1

Reject 2

Reject 3

Reject 4

Finished

And here is my finished block.  I was pleased with the end results....but there was more fun to be had!!

Our next assignment was to create a collage using the "rule of thirds"....I have to say I don't think my piece is actually using "rule of thirds"...and I didn't mean to use 3 fish in this collage!!!!  But it is what it is!  All of these pieces are made just with the papers we've stamped/stenciled and over dyed. 

I'll look forward to Hilary's feedback.  I am happy with the colors and can't wait to start stitching on this....I'm going to add some hand stitching as well. 

Finished design 

So good to be back at it!

I am one happy camper to be back working in my dye/work room!  I can make a mess if I want or just play with different techniques and have the space for all of it!  HA

I was lucky we had last week off from the MIP online class with Hilary!  Certainly gave me time to do some cleaning, get roots dyed, see the dentist (ugh...that's a whole other post!), etc. I've still not worked on our lesson/homework from this past Monday but I will by the weekend.  Today I finally got to play.

First off, I applied the wax/medium coating to some papers I stamped and dyed when we were in Florida.   I love seeing all the colors and prints on the papers!!!  And so much better hanging papers to dry on my drying rack!

These are papers that I stamped today.  I was trying to arrange for a 'focal' point  which I need for this week's lesson, but I really didn't do a good job.


BUT I know they'll get used somewhere!  HA




 Since it was raining out but warm, I thought I might as well over dye the papers to have that job out of the way.  Have to say I did have fun doing both of these techniques!  And I decided I like working with blues/oranges!  Go figure!

I purchased a wooden fish stamp several, several years ago while in Florida and decided to use it today.   I stamped with a Setacolor coral paint to stamp the fish on the papers.  I also purchased the pot wooden stamp from Hilary, which is on the blue sheets.  I also used just the ferns/leaves from the pot stamp to print on the fish papers above and on the right.

Well, I've come to the conclusion that I don't have the right stamps for a focal point and I wasn't in the mood to do any lino cutting...so hopefully, I can find a small focal point in previous papers or in the ones I did today!







And I am so happy to have my dye/work space back.  Here are some before and after pics...not a whole lot of difference except lots of the boxes are gone and everything put away.

These are the before pictures...yep, that's my Kalee girl at the door.  We have a walk out which is perfect for the dogs and for me dragging wet fabrics and paints outside!  HA

And my table all cleared off...well, doesn't look like it but it is.  I have items along the back that I use often (baby wipes, rubber gloves, scissors, etc.).  Middle pic is my padded surface that gets used a lot!  The last picture on the right holds a cutting board, small drawers for pens, tapes, etc. as well as a place for my Neocolor crayons, oil pastels and other crayon type items.

Bob's work room is directly behind my table so we can both be working on our little 'tasks'...HA  He built a partition between us which kinda separates our areas.

This cupboard holds most of my paints, utensils, dye supplies, etc.

Another cupboard which holds my stencils, thermo screens, stamps, towels, plastic, etc.   More of the standard items we dyers need.  And some we don't!  HA


I am so fortunate to have this space downstairs that I can mess up!   We have a large utility tub in this same area that is quite stained with dyes but functions just great.  It's also a good place for the dogs when they come in full of mud!  HA  Easy to wash them!

Sewing Room Finished!

I finally got all my sewing supplies put away on Sunday!  So glad to have my sewing work space ready for my next project!  Who knows what that will be....we've had the week off from Hilary's MIP online class, which worked out great so I'm not behind.  You can see boxes/etc. all over as we would just place the golfing, sewing or painting/dyeing boxes in their respective rooms.  The dye/work room is next on the to do list! 

Here are some before and after pictures of what my sewing room looked like and what it looks like now.!  

                       BEFORE                                                                                  AFTER

This is a baby chest my daughter and I hauled home one day from Pottery Barn.  It's all wood (very heavy!) but works great to cut on, plus the drawers hold lots of stuff!!  I took several pieces of my art work with me so you'll see new quilts hung in different areas. 

 

This is coming into the room, moving from left to right.  Again, before on the left and 'after' on the right.  

Moving right along....boxes and bags were all over.....that's a very old steamer chest, which holds lots of items from the kids when they were younger.  Works good to hold my rulers and, of course, just another flat surface, which can get filled with projects! 

This is my sewing table...well, actually, it's a place where the girls lay.  I put a large dog bed on that empty spot so they can look out the window while I sew or work on projects!  It's Kalee's favorite place and Gigi is getting to be very fond of it as well.  

Looks busy when I see pictures this way but I actually know where everything is at and everything is right where I need it when sewing!  I use this chest top to iron fabrics or blocks when sewing.

This is the door which leads to the living room area straight ahead and to the right our computer room and then on the left a full bath.   The room is 11'x11' and works perfect for me.  My dye room is where I can make a mess....that cleanup will be coming up in another post this week!