more vintage buttons

I strung some beads and used more of the vintage buttons to make a necklace.

The glass buttons are hard to find. They are my favorites.  There is a tiny sweet pink button attached to the end by the key. And two tiny ivory buttons, the old threads still atached.

I love making stuff with these charming old buttons.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Judy  chose the first theme word for the Fiberactions challenge. Go on over and read what she had to say. Then remember to check back on 1/15/10 for the 13 reveals!

Visiting Mulligan Lake

I worked on this yesterday and pieced the squares into the background. I don't love it, but I'm going with it. It'll be covered with trees anyway. I think eventually it will look better. I need to get the swans painted and the reeds made, that will give the foreground life and make me stop looking at the background.

Creative Prompt Responses---

Jaye's creative prompt for this past week was wish.

I think it's safe to say we all wish for a little more of this---

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Awhile ago the prompt was feather.

I like to see how many different ways I can doodle out a feather. This is one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On 10/23 the prompt was glimmer.

The glimmer or glow from a burning candle can be relaxing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And on 10/16 the prompt was gracious.

Gosh, this was a hard one.

Thank you to our gracious hostess Jaye for pushing our creativity by posting challenging prompts each week....

Vintage button pin..

Using beading thread, vintage buttons were stitched to a scrap of pleather.

(I can't get the top photo to load vertically....)



I knotted the threads to the back and left the tails attached.

Taking some of the smaller buttons, a silver heart and using beading wire, I made a charm.

For stability I used a piece of cardboard on the back. The charm was looped through beading wire and glued between the cardboard and the front piece.

Over the cardboard I glued a piece of red, fake suede. The pin is a little heavy for the pin closures I have, so I will get a larger pin closure to glue to the back.



Once the pin closure is glued in place, the pin will be ready for gifting. I loved making this simple pin.

A new journey...

I was invited to participate in a fiber art journey with 12 other creative, talented women. Our group is called Fiberactions, you can connect to our new blog with the badge above or in the side bar to the right. From there you will find the list of members and their sites. This shall prove to be an exciting journey which I'm looking forward to.

Every other month a member will select a theme word. Each member will create a quilt based on the theme. The quilts will measure 16 x 20, utilize any technique, but must have three layers. We've made a two year commitment and should end up with 12 quilts each. You may follow along by checking our progress on the Fiberactions blog. Our first theme will be introduced on November 15th.

how lucky am I?

Really. Just for admiring the Quilt Rat's talents she sent me a package full of treasures. She is our friendly neighbor from Canada and if you haven't already - I hope you go visit her page. She is multi talented and always has tid bits to share about her fiber art and quilting. Recently, she had a great recipe for treating fabric before printing. So go check her out here.....

On to the treasures---

Inside my package were these lovely painted pieces of fabric....

...inside each piece of fabric was a matching dryer sheet. Can you see the delicate, beautiful color?

Then came the post card.

Quilt Rat has been participating in the CPP and has turned some of her doodles into post cards.

Burried in all of that came came the original doodle.
I love it. It looks like an antique pair of scissors, I plan to frame it and hang it in my sewing space.

Thank you Jill, I'm honored to have your work in my collection.

finished quiltlet

This quiltlet is the creative response to- Source. If you haven't been following along, click the cow in the right sidebar and join in with the Creative Prompt Project. I've been trying to keep up with the prompts and for something extra- I've challenged myself to come up with a 12 x 12 quiltlet using my responses. Part of my personal challenge has been to use only found or recycled items from around the house and sewing room.The photos are copied on to organza. I stuck the organza to printer labels with the method mentioned here, then I sent it through the printer. Below is the response as it looks in my sketch book.
And here it has been run through the printer and color was added with inks.

The little plastic pieces are made from meat packaging trays. After washing thoroughly- you can stamp onto the meat tray, cut out a shape and put in a low oven. The plastic will shrink. Once cooled color can be added. I had forgotten about these until I went digging in the treasure chest of 'stuff'.

I used family with my source prompt as family can be the source of many things depending on the day.....

Gourds are weird and a pin....

Have you ever looked closely at a gourd? Weird looking, but fascinating.

And somewhere along the years I acquired this pin. I'm not a huge fan of Halloween, but I love the detail of this. When I turned it over there was a website printed on the back. I don't know anything about it, but if you are into pins.... check it out....lucinda.com

Creative Prompt Doodles

-balance-

and

-summer-

Pencil Kit

One of the finished pencil kits

This pencil kit has slots for pencils and pens only and no pocket. The zippered pocket is shown here.

The material on the outside of this kit is recycled grocery bag. I saw a similar technique used here. Above you see what the bag looked like when the paints were drying. And below is a close up.

I'm not sure how this will hold up over time, but it was neat to try. I used fusible interfacing on the opposite side of the painted grocery bag. I think this gave it some additional stability and allowed the paper to be sewn without too much perforation on the edges.

Below are two more pencil kit covers. I'll post the directions for the kit- one with a pocket and one without.