my friend, Hannah

At The Creative Quest, I am privileged to work with Hannah. She's young, cute, funny, and into fashion. I LOVE working with Hannah! She recently started a fashion blog. Her sense of humor really comes out in her writing and she has a funky sense of style... and a major shoe obsession. Go visit her here.

Upcoming class

I have a class coming up at The Creative Quest on June 11 and still have some openings. I'd love to have you join me and create your own Travel Bundle. This journal is the perfect size to hold travel brochures in the vinyl pockets. It is a double sided journal, as you can see. It feels so great in your hands for on-the-go journaling. We'll be designing on unstretched canvas for our covers and then binding all the pages together to create your own, unique journal! Hope to see you there!

Here is a picture of the kits I made for my classes at CREATE. I just found the photo and realized I never posted it! I made them from wallpaper!

Also, this was a commissioned project I did just before going to CREATE. This box was done for a friend's college graduation. The inside flowers were for others to write 5 affirmations, one per petal.... I think that was what was done with them. I wasn't at the party... just commissioned to make the box and flowers! I have a few more I need to make too. Studio is almost functional so I can get to work. I refuse to pull collage materials out to the dining room table again.

One thing I have to say about doing these boxes... working around the metal hardware is a pain in the you know what. But they do turn out so pretty!

more dying results

Here are a couple of my rust pieces as well as a couple of other spice dyed pieces. So far, I've rinsed them and have them drying. I will then run them through the wash to see how the hold up. I have no doubts about the rust. That stuff doesn't go anywhere and oh, how I love it! The spice stuff... well, we'll see. I'm waiting for my neighbor to come home to get some Eucalyptus leaves off his tree. I'm too short to reach. I'm also going to the grocery store to see if they'll give me the onion skins out of the red onion bin! I've got some new fabrics in the rust bin now.. over-dying some pieces I wasn't thrilled about.

Results

Well, sadly, the pink fabric with the coolest pattern ever, did not work. I have to find something that will set the beet dye. Vinegar did not work in this instance. However, at least I know how to create that particular pattern so I'll try it with something else.

Here is the shirt I did last night with soft scrub, stamped with broccoli stems! I think it will look better on. I really like it! :)

And this is another project I'm in the middle of:
These are Sam's new shoes. He has a very hard to fit foot and this is one brand we've had good luck with for him. They only had the white shoes in his size, which actually fit me now too... and he didn't like all the white. He wanted the black ones but no such luck. So, I am using alcohol inks and painting in the graffiti in fire colors, his favorites! I like how they are turning out! I need to hurry up with them so he can actually wear them!

More food dying

Here are the results of my onion skin fabric dying. The yellow onions produced a beautiful buttery yellow dye.

Here's more rust dyed fabric, which I LOVE. Even Max said, "Mom, you should do a shirt. It would look really good on you!" Yep, I need a white t-shirt to rust.

Then there is this gorgeous pink fabric. I love how the pattern is forming.
And the blending of the two.

This top piece is recycled raw silk. First, dyed with onion skins, then redyed.

I tried to create a pattern with the over-dying in the piece above.

And then there is some pieces in process. I'll unwind them tomorrow and see what happened with all my little kitchen ingredients! :)

Right now, I have a shirt "brewing"... I stamped on it with cut broccoli dipped in Soft Scrub with bleach. Anxious to see how it turns out! It's fun playing with all this stuff and experimenting!

Quitting for the day

Well, I'm tired and stopping for the day with all this clean out. Here's where I'm at this evening.
I've made pretty good progress today but still have a lot to do. It takes a lot of thinking trying to figure out the best "home"for various things. Then there's the deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. I have a ton of stuff to go through but, maybe tomorrow afternoon, I can at least get the table surfaces cleaned off. Then I'll have a place to sort items as I go through drawers. Once I am confident with where things are put, I will label all drawers and containers.

Now to go clean up the kitchen from my onion skin dying experiment! My boys were suppose to be brought home at 6 from the weekend with their dad. Still waiting... have no idea when they will actually show up. I miss them! Anxious to veg on the couch with them watching Gilligan!

Progress report

Well, it's almost 4 in the afternoon and I've been cleaning stuff out in the studio all day. I've stopped for a snack and thought I'd post a progress photo. In the back left, you see the big basket? That's stuff I'm not keeping. And in the chair just behind that are all empty plastic bins!!!!!! I still have a LONG way to go. I want to go through everything, reorganize, label, etc...Then I can maximize my creative time knowing what I have and where it is. And, going through stuff sparks new ideas!

Also, here is my first piece of rust fabric! In my cleaning out process, I found a bag of onion skins and decided to experiment with dying with those so I'll show results of that later. I need to collect some purple skins.

My boys have been with their dad all weekend and are due home at 6. I will be hanging out with them watching Gilligan's Island. We just got another disc in the mail from Netflix! We've also been watching Green Acres! Funny... when I watched it as a kid, I never questioned why Oliver insisted on wearing his attorney clothes to farm. Why didn't he get overalls?