Stamp Carving

Snatched a bit of time today to do a little more stamp carving.

This circular one inspired by Terri Stegmiller.

30 Days of lists in March

I'm doing 30 days of lists next month. Did it last year and enjoyed having a snapshot of life in 2012. 
This year I've decided to use this journal

Have just added a couple of extra page flaps and I'm good to go with 30 pages.

When I get to March I will show you the pages before and after the lists.
Care to join me? Register here
Off to do more stitching this week. See you again soon.

Creating, Sharing, Reading

This was my favourite lesson from Letter Love this week

The Good Negative

And I made progress on another page in the FTB journal. Looked like this last time you saw it

and now

Loving my new fern stencil - thinking that will get lots and lots of future use.

Have a few things in my head that I thought you might like to hear about.

If you missed signing up for creative jumpstarts, all the videos are now available at Nathalie's Studio until June 2013. Mouse over CJS 2013 in the top right, slide down to highlight The JumpStarters 2013 and they will all magically appear :-)

Roben-Marie Smith has a new class called Ripped and Stitched : "Rip, stitch, paint and bind your way through this workshop where we will create a beautiful bound book complete with pockets, pages, tags and embellishments"
I loved her mixed media mayhem class and this one looks cool too. Check out this lovely cover from one of her students.
And it's been a while since I recommended new Fiction. Most recently I've been enjoying this

And this lovely pile from the library is my arty inspiration for the weekend

See you next week

Indian Wall-hanging

Last week my focus was on stitch and I spent my arting time adding to my Indian Wall-Hanging. My base was created in the online Mixed Media Melange workshop with Julie Prichard & Chris Cozen - highly recommended.

One of my friends mentioned it looked like a base for a Beryl Taylor-inspired piece...so that's where I've gone with it, but in bright indian colours and themes. I shared some of the initial play here. After a week it now looks like this (click on the picture to see it larger)

Love that I have been able to include lots of pieces from previous playdays.

Metal here

Fabric paper here

Tyvek beads here

Wax here

Enjoying the mix of stitches and materials

Cardboard and seed beads on Sari Ribbon on Felt

The pieces below were made with black sculpey - oven bake clay

In a playday inspired by Laurie Mika and this book

Click here for a peek inside via amazon

Looking forward to gathering more ideas and adding to this again next week.

Happy Monday

Lots to share from last week - so much that I think I'll share my stitching progress from last week in my next post...

I helped at Cecile Whatman's Unique Stitching stand from Thursday - Sunday at the Craft and Quilt Fair here in Palmerston North. This is me fondling some of her gorgeous dyed cotton scrim.

Had a ball - so cool to meet so many lovely like-minded people and of course I made some purchases...
Cecile has very cool stencils - 6 came home with me

I also found some cheap lace cardstocks at The Craft Spot which I will also use as stencils

And at the same booth, a fantastic buy on these scrapbooks

They have 10, 30x30cm clear pockets, and are perfect cheap storage for my stencils.

I love Sew Somerset magazine but don't usually treat myself. This older issue was on 1/2 price sale.

I love Priscilla Jones' work and found you an online copy of the article if you don't have this issue.
And I also got a wonderful deal on my very own Gelli Plate

Will be interesting to see how it goes compared to my homemade plate experiments.

Here I am looking at the gorgeous cotton scrim bundles. Below are what I succumbed to.

Then I found these hand dyed wrapped muslin cords from Felted and Stitched. You can use them as cords, or pull them out wider.

The variegations are lovely.
There were some very cool quilt exhibitions. You might recognise some of these quilts on display from Rose City Quilters.

I have been an admirer of the Twelve by Twelve group for ages and have had their book for a while.

It was so lovely to see their Colorplay quilts up close.

Go here to see all of those quilts.
And a group new to me was AQUA - Art Quilters Uniquely Australian with their exhibition "Essence of Australia".



Read more about them and see other examples of their quilts here.
The good news is there will be another Craft & Quilt show in Palmerston North next year.
I look forward to showing you what I do with my new supplies. Have a lovely week.

Happy Valentines Day

With love from me to you. I appreciate your visits and comments so much.
Hope you'll be inspired by these cool valentines posts ::
Roben-Marie Smith's Tag & Cardboard Valentine tutorial
Rebecca Sower has done a sweet post long live love and last year she did a love series - start here with session 1.
Sweet tags and treat bags made by Kristen Robinson here.
Valentines Postcard tutorial by Terri Stegmiller
And on the weekend I updated my flickr photo sets - there's a new link to my flickr account in my sidebar, or click here to go straight to my heart art.

Stitching again

One more lesson from Letter Love 2 done yesterday.

Word Play Collage

Stitching focus this week so I'm getting back to my indian themed wall hanging. I shared my metal play for this piece here. And this was my initial play with layout (love my busy messy studio table)

I've basted felt to the back and have started stitching some elements down.

Metal playday here

Embossed velvet here

Will share as the week progresses.
From Thursday I'm helping out at the craft and quilt fair

Palmerston North Feb 14-17th

 

I wonder what will come home with me.....