croque-choux

Last of the redhot postcards

Well the last of the post cards went out the door yesterday, but I was 4 days past the mail out deadline. I hope the other people in this exchange won't mind too much and will let me play again in Round 3 :o) I am so relieved to be done with these cards even though I love doing them, because now I can get to work on other projects. I probably won't be able to walk into my neighborhood post office ever again without at least one handmade card on me though. No more going in there to pay boring bills. Oh No. Because now they are expecting me to come in there with something CREATIVE. The same nice person always sells me stamps, oohs and aahs over the cards I send and the ones I receive, and hand cancels the cards. She is so nice that she even licks the stamps and glues them on the cards for me sometimes! Now that blew me away. When was the last time you got service like that in a Post Office?? But I digress... (trots off to add more postcards in the gallery).

Kawaii Kaeru- I want one!

Searching the web late at night takes me some unexpected places. Last night I ended up at a Japanese design portal I think. I say "I think" because unfortunately I cannot read Japanese. And at http://9brand.com I found these over-cool frog bags. I want one! The only reason I'm mentioning this of course is because they are made of fabric, and unusual & cute, and because I love Japanese art and design (the fact that I must have one and that Valentine's Day is coming up is utterly beside the point). This company makes a lot of great stuff like this frog mobile phone pouch and I also saw some interesting stuffed animals while going through their site. Kyu-to! Okay, now where's my currency converter?

International Desk Day

Did I miss "International Desk Day"? By the way, this fun idea was started here: http://tania.blogs.com/tania/ ...Knowing me, I missed it (hey,I put the "L" in late), but for what it's worth here's what my desk looks like today. It's a good thing that there is no such thing as International Sewing Table Day because mine is embarrassingly messy! Well, nothing like a good mess to get the ol' creative juices flowing, eh? Unless of course you have to spend 45 minutes just trying to unearth the rotary cutter...

Needle felted Bear (sans iPod)

Finishing a project, no matter how small, always feels great. So here's the little needle felted teddy bear I made, in all his finished glory. He looks a little bored though sitting in this comfy little arm chair I made a few years ago, but I think I will resist the temptation to make him accessories. Yeah, I know, I know, he would look really cute with a tiny knitted scarf, a miniature tea cup, a felted iPod, or a quilted Austin Mini One (hardtop, please), but I don't want to go there... Anyway this was my first needle felted creature and he's 5 inches tall sitting down. For more details, check my earlier post "Time for Fuzzies"!

Fiber card and Website of the Day

Today's fabric postcard was inspired by art nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha. I love art nouveau. If you're looking for inspiration or are in need of a mental vacation, why not make a virtual visit to a museum online? You can even take your cup of coffee with you! A museum I'm particularly fond of is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I grew up in L.A. and have many of fond memories of my visits to LACMA. Well, call me homesick, but I went back to their website today and remembered just what a good site this is for viewing art online. Paste their url in your browser: http://collectionsonline/lacma.org -They have over half their collection online for your viewing pleasure: 58,507 artworks to date! Visit the Costume & Textiles section where you can browse by Techinique (i.e. needlework), and check out the "Storeroom Treasures" section. Wherever you end up wandering on this site, I hope you'll find something there to inspire YOUR next piece of art.
I found a new paint to try out on this postcard by the way. I say "try out" because it wasn't exactly fabric paint, but the results were very pearly and pretty. I used a little Pentel Poster Color in Pearl Silver. It looks like this is made in Japan. Anyway, on the bottle it says "for use on porous surfaces" so I figured that fabric was fair game :o) I don't know if you can find Sennelier fabric paints wherever you are, my dear reader, but I just remembered that they have a product called Texticolor that also comes in iridescent colors like the Silver White just found in my paint box.These are really good and they come in well over 40 splendid colors.
I didn't mean for today's post to be so long! I'll shut up now, so that you can get your coffee and nibbles on and go to the art museum...

Fabric Journal Page

I think I could use a color fix, and a little turquoise should do the trick. It's cold, foggy, and grey here- I think that Winter is finally getting to me! I thought I would post a fabric book page that I made last Summer for the "journaling with friends" theme. I sunprinted this one with Pebeo transparent fabric paints, and added a real miniature journal with little pages. A journal within a journal... I especially love how the hand came out. I bought a couple of them at the art store last Summer and wish I had bought more. They are like stencils or decals that you peel off when the fabric is dry, and they are reusable. This Summer I'll be sure to do a lot of sunprinting. That way I can use the resulting fabric during the long Winter months! I still can't post links correctly here, thanks to my ancient browser and operating system, but you can surf over to the Pebeo website and look for more info on Setacolor paints and sunprinting. Funny thing about journals... my teenage daughter just got ticked off at me because I wouldn't let her browse the journal I started recently. I was reluctant but when she insisted I said: "Okay, if you show me yours, I'll show you mine". End of discussion. Strange...

More fabric postcards

I'm almost done! The mailing deadline for the fabric postcard exchange is the 15th and I'm busy getting the last 6 or 7 cards ready for mailing. Tomorrow I'm off to the post office! I will try and make another update on this blog in a little while, but for now here are some pictures of my lastest fabric cards. Check the gallery of postcards from time to time, because I will be adding to it even after this current fiber card exchange is over. I'm sitting out the next round, but I hear that Round 3 will start this Spring! Maybe I need a short break from sewing these things... I forgot to mention that these cards are 4 by 6 inches big. After working in this size over the past 3 months, I think one of two things can happen: either I'll work even smaller, let's say ATC or trading card size- or else I'll making something really huge!

Make your own shi-sha mirrors

Necessity is the mother of invention they say... DIY shi-sha mirrors! How? Hang on, and I'll tell you. I always wanted to embroider shi-sha mirrors onto something, but could never find the little things in France nor did I want to spend a lot of money ordering them somewhere. One day I had a brain movement, and decided to make some out of an old CD. This worked really well as you can see by the fabric book page I'm posting today. But before you try this, a few words of caution: Be careful when cutting apart one of those freebie CDs you have lying around. I used old but still relatively sharp scissors, and I was wearing glasses to protect my eyes. Cut slowly, while turning the CD with your free hand. Also, make sure you get rid of any little plastic splinters you make while doing this, especially if you have toddlers or pets or if you like going barefoot at home :o) If I haven't scared you off, let me tell you that this was easy! The little circles you make may not seem perfectly round to you, and their edges may seem a little ragged, but once you embroider around them you can't tell. By the way, these little faux shi-shas being made of plastic, I hope that I don't have to tell you NOT to iron over them when you're done embroidering. On this particular block I was REAL careful not to do this, which didn't stop me from ironing over the bottom portion of this fabric page and burning away part of the sheer green fabric. Duh! I thought I was going to pass out with the iron still smoking in my hand, but then I noticed that it actually looked really interesting. Whew! A good thing for Margie who received this block. Her theme was Journaling with Friends. Anyway, perhaps you're wondering how to do shi-sha embroidery after reading this. I found a good tutorial here:
http://www.classicstitches.com/know_how/know_how.cfm?how_to_id=200&how_to_cat=Techniques
Have fun, and let me know if you try this!

Thought of the Day

I thought that this fabric page was appropriate to post today; its theme was "Words of Wisdom" I believe. I'm just getting over a migraine and a tummy bug, my e-mail hasn't been working since the 5th and I can't fix it, but things could be worse, hence the proverb. For now, I think I'll just go back to bed. Demain est un autre jour...

A Last Minute Gift

I'm very happy about this little dragonfly pin, because I made myself finish it before going to bed! It's a present for one of my daughter's best friends (Hi Sandra!) and it had to be ready Friday morning before school. Okay, so what if I went to bed at 2 am and so what if I'll need an extra cup of coffee to keep me propped up today... it was worth it! After all, 15th birthdays only come once, and anything and everything is possible at 15. I would have beaded the dragonfly's wings too, but it was late and I couldn't find my glasses, so I made some wings out of Tyvek and Angelina fibers. It came out really cute so I think I'll make more! But maybe not after midnight next time...