Christmas cards

The blog has been a bit quiet lately as I have been frantically making things, firstly for my fundraising effort at church (with crochet flowers and embroidered bags) and then as I had a table at a local craft fair. I've been sewing so much that I have just finished my second 1000m reel of cotton in about a month.

I made a selection of cards for the craft fair, with the idea that I could use the ones that didn't sell as my own Christmas cards to send out this year. I'm pleased to say that the fair went really well and I did have a to make a few more cards, as I did sell some.

Here are some of my cards...

This has a watercolour background with a star stitched on, with a stamp of the kings.

The background on this card was made with paint over a gesso background (for texture) with book text clouds.

This is one of my favourite Christmas stamps, which I added some sequins to for a little added sparkle.

Art Saves

Time has passed so quickly lately and I've had lots of ideas which haven't made it on here yet. I'm hoping to catch up a little when everything slows down a bit in a couple of weeks. At the moment we are in a whirl of Christmas parties, plays and preparations.

I have managed to squeeze in some reading time recently and I really enjoyed this book "Art Saves". It has lots of different contributors including Jenny Doh, Melody Ross, Suzi Blu, Rebecca Sower, Kelly Rae Roberts and many more. It's a fabulous book combining great projects with thoughtful words. I've already sent my copy onto a friend but I'm thinking maybe I should buy another one as I can think of so many people who would enjoy it.

I'm continuing my journey finding out who I am in relation to my artwork and I'm beginning to love the title "Maker" rather than "Artist" or "Crafter".

A banner group visit

This week has marked a step forward in my journey towards making church art. I submitted a proposal to start a new banner group at our Ecumenical Church Council and it was given the go-ahead. So it's all official now.

I spent Tuesday afternoon with the talented ladies at the banner group at our sister church in the town. I found it quite overwhelming to look through their catalogue of banners which have been produced over the last twenty years. Each banner had a story behind it and there was such thought and consideration put into each one. The ladies of the group were lovely and very generous with their valuable advice about things they have learnt over the years.

They started the group with a Bible reading and a prayer time as well as their Banner group prayer. It was great to start with that focus on why we were there.

Things I learnt from them about producing banners were...

• Artwork has to be clear and bold to be seen across such a large space.
• White backgrounds and cream backgrounds on white or cream walls don't work.
• Graduated colours can be achieved layering coloured net.
• Using italic text can be tricky , as each letter has to have the right angle.
• Black outlines can add definition if the background and image are similar in tone.

This is their banner group prayer...

"Oh Lord, who has created all,

each leaf and blossom great and small,

look down and bless our work today,

guide our eyes and hands we pray,

that we within you church may make,

a worthy offering for your sake."

Quilted ATCs

Earlier this year I took a fantastic online class with an extremely talented artist Julie Fei-fan Balzer. I love Julie's bright colourful work which has this amazing freedom about it. The class was called "It's Sew Easy" and had lots of mixed media and stitching projects.

One of the projects was to make some fabric ATCs (Artists Trading Cards) using image transfer techniques, painting, stamping and free motion stitching. I really enjoyed making these and some of my friends have asked me to make some for them too. I've stitched Bible verses onto the pieces and I think these would make a lovely way of presenting encouragement verses.

Here's a closer look...

Crochet flower brooches

I have another little fundraising endeavour going on at church at the moment and I have been using my new newly acquired skill of crochet to make some flower corsage brooches. They have been very well received and I am taking orders for Christmas presents.

The great thing about these is the wool I've been using. It's called "Wash and Filz it" and it's a washing machine felting wool. So I make a wobbly flower with my novice crocheting and then pop it in the washing machine and it tightens up and becomes all neat - hurray!

The larger flower comes from a pattern from the Mollie Makes magazine, with a covered button in the centre. I have been pinning the brooches onto a piece of card as it seems to make them look a bit more finished, and I think it will help to look like a nicer present to give someone.

I'm afraid I can't really link to the pattern I'm using for the roses as I'm fairly sure I've been doing it badly - it's all to do with the difference between American and English crochet patterns. However it seems to work and look quite nice so I'm sticking with it!

Shopping around

I am looking into starting up a new creative group at my church and so I wanted to start with a little fundraising. I looked into printed T-towels and cotton shopping bags but our church isn't big enough to support the numbers required and it would have been a big outlay for a tiny profit. I got thinking and I was particularly inspired by a pattern for a shopping bag in an issue Mollie Makes.

I have been loving free machine embroidery and I re-watched a tutorial that appeared on Kirstie's Homemade Home about sewing through tracing paper and I came up with this design for a church bag to sell. One thing I like about this is I only have to make one to start with and I'm going to take orders if other people would like to buy one.

You can see the stitching a bit closer up here. I finished the design with a little fabric paint and I printed our church logo onto some special fabric that can be run through the printer and is then washable from Crafty Computer Paper.

It folds up so nicely too...

A mustard seed

I've had this image floating around in my head for months and I've finally got it down into my sketchbook. I used my Neocolour II crayons again. I love their vibrant colours.

This was another image from my sketchbook where I was experimenting with a resist technique. The stars/suns in the background are made with oil pastels and the writing is an embossed stamped image. I then added colour over the top with spray inks.

I was so inspired by a wonderful post this week on the Owl City blog. You may have heard of Owl city's music and I recommend a look at the blog. Owl City is a guy called Adam Young who writes the most beautiful, poetic, though provoking blog posts. The one which moved me this week is called "The Lighted Carriage and the Starlit night".