Art Day: Skulls

A shopping trip to Micheals to get one skein of yarn and into my bag hopped all these skulls, a couple paper mache hats and some new paint colors.  I knew this would be a project that called for glitter.  Lots and lots of glitter!

Selena picked out her colors and got a tray set up to paint in, complete with lots of colors of glitter. 

She ended up doing two skulls.  I didn't get pictures of them finished, but I'll try to get some yet and add them in here.  Or at least link them on facebook....

Chrissy's turn came a couple of days later, when it was her turn to stay at Grandma's house.  She picked out some very different colors and had fun filling her palette and getting ready to paint.

 Poor Chrissy got sick before she could add the sealer, but I did that part for her so that she could take her projects home.  She picked to do one skull and one hat. 

 I love the glitter down the side of this one and the colors are just great.  I added a bit of trim to the hat and they were ready to go home.

Art day two weeks ago was with Selena.  I had just read about this technique of using Sharpies and alcohol to make a tye  dye effect, so we got out my basket and my bin of markers, found a pillow case that had gotten dyed in the wrong load of laundry and set ourselves up to color and doodle all over the fabric.

We had fun filling as many of the spaces as we could, creating little swirls, dots, zigzags and curlicues of all sorts, and then we used a band to hold the fabric over a cup, and dropped little drops of rubbing alcohol on our doodles, watching the ink spread and turn into different colors.  What fun!

 Each one was a little bit different and a few of our shapes blended into each other, making designs of their own.  I really like how the circles and the layers of zig-zags bled and created blends that we hadn't used.  You can see the colors of ink that are used to make each color when you bleed them out like this and soon we were making more doodles, just to see what colors would show.

It didn't take long to cut this into a dress for Ruby.  We added gold ink at the bottom, spritzed some inks all over and tied orange ribbons at the shoulders. 

Another successful art day and a Ruby proud of her new dress!

experiment and have fun.  create something new today!

 I finally got pictures of Ruby in her "four generation" dress.  My grandmother bought this fabric for my mother to make a dress for me.  My mother gave me the pattern she was going to use when my first daughter was born. 

I had decided that, after i had cut it out, that I had no idea how to put it together because there are so few directions "back then".

But I knew that if I didn't make it for Ruby, it would never get made, so I dove in and with a little help from my friend Rachel, we figured it out.

 It is a little shorter than I would like, but it is so cut on her.  I found the perfect silver flower to dress up the sashing and Princess Ruby is as cute as can be.

 Ruby needed a few sun dresses, and so I dug thru my fabric to find pieces that were big enough to make into a dress.  This one is so pretty, scenes of a summer day in a village.  I actually used this fabric creating a duvat cover for one of Megan's quilts.

 I made a series of Vintage Pillow case dresses for my Etsy site, and when this pillow case was given to me because it had been washed with red that turned the pillow case shades of pink, Selena and I decided to play with Sharpies and alcohol, as well as several other inks and paints, and create a pillow case dress for Ruby. 

I'll have to show you pictures of the whole process on my Art Day post, but for now, you can see the end result of this one.


There are two more dresses to show off, and several other items I am actually getting done.  If feels so good to finish things, and use up fabric that would be otherwise taking up space!




MAKE DRESSES TO WEAR IN THE SUN!  IT WON'T BE SUMMER FOREVER.  CELEBRATE BEING CREATIVE AND HAVE FUN!  LET GO!

I only got two quick pictures of the order from hell, because I noticed a little part that I had missed the first time I went over it, and my customers were pulling up to the house as I was repairing and snapping pictures. 

You put this cover over an innertube and hook it up to your boat.  The riders, up to three at a time as I understand, hang on for dear life as the boat pulls them over the water.

I repaired two long rips, here you can see the white tape that I used.  I added the lime green fabric in the chaff resistant areas that had worn out, and repaired the six handles. 

It was a great project and worth all that I went through trying to get it together.  I learned a lot, including not taking an order like this again  unless I have a heavy duty machine, such as one that would sew through leather, and had a more open bed. 

Other than that.... it was a peice of cake.  Well, that and the glue that is still stuck to my fingers....


CELEBRATE CREATIVITY!

I've been working on this inner tube cover.... i think this one is called the Terminator or something like that.  It is about to terminate both me and my poor sewing machine.

The first step seemed to be to replace some of the chaff resistant fabric that had worn away.  I stitched the first piece down, and really had a hard time with it, so I thought on the second, and larger piece, I'd glue it first and then stitch around it edges to encourage it to stay in place. 
A trip to home depot told me it would be easier to just order the glue and so I picked the one that I thought was best and sent off for it.  What I got back was a tube that fits into a caulking gun, so away I went.  It took me a couple of hours, doing a bit at a time and then resting, but I used all the glue and sort of got the fabric in place.  I certainly was not happy with the job, but there it is, ready to be stitched.
And of course that is the problem.  That section is the furthest away from the opening in the cover. 
There were two long rips in the top of the cover so while I was waiting for the glue to arrive, I started the process of mending them.  I thing that was a mistake in the ability to stitch around the second section of fabric.  The long rip across was an easy repair,  that I was able to patch with layers of bonded patching fabric, sliding on layer under the tear and stitching down the upper layer.  I've taken part of this out tonight, hoping that it allows me to reach the section that I need to stitch yet and I can get some help holding this thing up and moving it tomorrow morning, because I'd really like to have this done an paid for. The good orders are out the door!


THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!  IT'S GOOD FOR YOUR CREATIVE SIDE.