Paper Doll Postcards

I have been intrigued by the idea of fabric postcards. One day a few weeks ago when I was surfing I found a yahoo group called Fabicards and I promptly joined. These are my cards for my first swap, Paperdolls. I found Polly free on the internet and printed her on to cotton, stem stitched around her and punch needled her hair. I had to experiment with the thread colors, so some Polly's are brunettes and some are blonde. I used fabric tack glue to put her on to the pink fabric I glued a thin magnet behind Polly, then I started worrying that it might not hold so I basted her down too. I added another thin magnet to the back of her new dress and stuck it in the pocket on the "backside" of the card, then I tacked the pocket closed with blue thread. Here's a picture of her with and without her new dress on and a picture of the back of the card before I addressed it. There are five people in my swap group, so I made six cards, lucky too as I screwed one up! I have received 3 cards so far.

My Tea Cosy

My Tea Cosy came home! It is absouletly beautiful. The ladies in the Round Robin have done excellent work on it. I am so impressed with it.

Side One

Side Two

Hand dyes lace and beads embroidered by Rita B.

Hand embroidered by Judy

Seams by Judith and Lita. Judith also added the shell dove in memory of her son, it is very hard to see in the picture because of the reflection, but in real life it is lovely.

Lovely graphic and work by Jules!

Teapot by Joceyln, seam under it by Lita, and cameo by Judith

Basket of flowers by Carol

Tea Cup by Jocelyn

Trim, beads, leaves and flowers by Jean!



Rose and herringbone seam by Kathleen, charms from Jules



"Scrolly-thing" by Jocelyn, I love it!

Thanks to all you wonderful Ladies, my tea cozy is beautiful!

Last Block in the Tea Party RR

The Tea Party Round Robin is finished for me this is the last block I worked on and I have sent it home. I added the print of the sleeping angel surrounded by lace, roses and beading. This was Lita's block and I know Lita loves angels so she will be delighted.

Silk Ribbon Cards

I am a book junkie. I found this book on silk ribbon cards at Joanns. I made 5 of the rose card in an evening. Why 5 do you ask? Well, the first rose didn't turn out too good, (it's the bright pink one) the second one worked up great but then I caught the back of the ribbon when I did the leaves and pulled some stitches flat, and you know no matter how you try you can never get them the same. The fourth one I got glue on the outside of the card and had to add a rose bud, and the fifth turned out great, I sent it to my MIL as a birthday card before I took the pictures.




















Here is the cover of the book and the picture of what the card looks like. I didn't have any red cardstock at home and I refuse to buy any more paper until I use up the thousand of sheets I have. After I finshed them I went to put them somewhere safe, and found these cards that I quilled. I started these as thank you cards for my house warming last summer.... well quilling took longer than I planned and I finshed them three months after the house warming. I could of sent my MIL one of these for her birthday if I had remembered where they were.

















I did finish the last block in the tea party RR, Lita's block. I'll try to post a picture tomorrow.

Almost done with the Victorian Tea Party RR

Here is Carol's Tea Party Block, I only have one block left to go in this round robin and that is Lita's block.

I love the porcelain disks that Flights of Fancy sells, and have been pondering them, attempting to make something similar in the designs I wanted. In the past I have found porcelain blanks at my local bead store and have made some disks or cabochons using a color copier transfer method. And this was good, but the size was limited to what I disks I could find.

I was getting ready for work one day and had on the Jewelry making show on the DIY channel. They made a brooch using a polymer transfer and it looked fairly easy to do. So I just had to try it. This uses pictures I print off my ink jet printer so no trip to the copy center! I have been fairly satisfied with my first results although there are some problem areas. I needed to press harder with my brayer to get all the air bubbles out of my transfer. I probably could of baked the clay a little longer and I need to experiment with different finishes and edge treatments. I finished this one with Diamond Glaze used in scrapbooking for a shiny finish. It worked well, the problem was the clay was a little soft due to underbaking and the disk developed fine hairlike fractures on it, similar to the crazing you find on old china. And it might be a tad too thick. The benefit will be that I can make them any size or shape I want and they will be light enough to put on CQ.

Anyway here is the rose lady. I added tea dyed lace motifs to frame her and some ribbon flowers, leaves and beads. Only one block left in this RR it has been fun.

Beary Comfortable

This is my block for CQMagOnline's 2006 Project, Making Juvenile Diabetes A Little More Bearable . This is a 6 inch finished block. For the bear, I used a pattern from Gail Rogers book "The wool Embroidery Collection" The bear is felt and slightly padded and the flowers are all wool. This was a fun block to make and if I have time I would like to make a few more. I hope it inspires you to check out the CQMag online project and make one for this worthy cause.

Sequin Flowers

I added sequin flowers to Rita's tea party block. Since I sell women's clothing for a living, I see all types of embellishments and designs. I have been intrigue by the popular use of sequins on the clothes we get in stock. I am constantly looking at how well or how poorly (which is usually the case) these sequins, beads and embroidery are attached. I had some antique black - smokey colored cup sequins in my stash, and when I saw the sequin flowers in an issue of Australian Embroidery and Cross Stitch I had to try them. The only problem I had was with my stems, they either were to many beads which made them bumpy or too few and they looked scarce. The sequin flowers were very fun to do and fast!

Jean's Tea Party Block

This is some of the lace I painted to look like baskets. I added flowers in bullion stitch with ed-mar threads, silk ribbon french knots and the three gold dragonflies. Jean's Tea Party block is very pretty, soft pinks and mauve, a delight to work on.