Happy Birthday Ebony

Today 31st March is Ebony's 8th Birthday and yesterday we took her and 5 of her special friends out to the Pancake Parlour for lunch and then we went to see the Dr Seuss movie "Horton Hears A Who".
What a great kids movie it is-the girls all thought it was fantastic and the adults loved it as well.
Ebony had to get all poshed up with her own idea of fashion including her Mum's earings and lipstick.




And of course Nanny had to make her a cake--it had to be a sponge cake with cream and icing.
Looked more like a wedding cake really but she thought it was fantastic and more to the point it tasted good as well.

Book Workshop

I went to a workshop on Friday and I made this little book.
I love creating these little gems --they are full of unusual sized pages and pockets with ribbons and fibres to finish them off.
This is the cover but I am not sure about the papers we were given in the kit--not my taste really.



The inside cover front and back had a pocket in it which held several tags with fibres and ribbons.

Inside were odd shaped pages that were covered in different papers -- rub ons were used to embellish as well as metal tags.

There are more pages but it was difficult to photograph them--so I took a photo from above to give you an idea.

A great work shop with plenty of ideas to use in future projects.

Postcards and ATC's

I can't believe that I haven't posted for a week--I have been busy but I don't have anything that I can show you that I have done................but I do have my March Calendar Girls postcard from Lynda.
Lynda has printed the words onto watercolour paper and then she has printed the vase and flower onto acetate and stitched it down only along the top edge so that the acetate can be lifted up to reveal the words.
When I was trying to take a photo I kept getting a pink look to it and I was getting cranky until I realised that Lynda had printed a pink background on the acetate along with the flower.
If you want to know how she did the postcard you can go here to find out.
Thank you Lynda as usual it is beautiful.
If you want to see all the other wonderful postcards that the team have created go take a look on the blog here




Then there are these 2 ATC's that Ebony has received from her swap recently--she is so pleased with them.
The one on the left is from a friend of mine who lives in Canberra and has asked Ebony to do a swap every month with her--how fantastic is that.
The one on the right is from Robin in Queensland who is a new blogger and she is doing wonderful things as well--drop over and visit her and see for yourself.

Easter Thoughts

Just a quick note to wish everyone a happy Easter---
If you have family visiting enjoy their company---
If you are driving to visit family please take care on the roads which get very busy at this time of the year---
But most of all remember just what this time of the year is really about and why we celebrate Easter.
Happy Easter everyone.

Ebony's finished ATC's

Ebony finished the stitching on her ATC over the weekend and they are ready to be sent out to her swap partners.
I must let you know that I tried to influence her in the stitching but was told in no uncertain manner "Nanny I know what I am doing I am going to put flowers on them" so I left her to it.
I had also given her some beads for the centre of the flowers and I could hear her complaining in no uncertain terms about not wanting to do it because it wasn't working.
When I checked she was trying to stitch the beads on with the chenille needle that she had used to stitch the flowers with.
After giving her the correct needle and thread she was happy again and finished the beading.
These are going to ------------

Mary Anne
Dianne
Anne L in France
Jacqueline
Jan
Lise

And they will be in the mail tomorrow ladies.

She now has to make more for 3 other ladies who also asked to trade with her.

March Calendar Girls

After much deliberation I have finally finished my March postcard for the Calendar Girls challenge.
My first attempt was with wet felting but that was a disaster-then I attempted one with card stock- another disaster then Tissuetex you've guessed it -another disaster.
So I finally decided to do fabric again and that was heading in the same direction but then while searching through the stash a piece of fabric fell out onto the floor and lo and behold it was just what I was after.
I think it had been sent to me by some wonderful blogger with a card that we had swapped but I can't remember who it was.
There were flower designs appearing amongst the different colours so I stitched around them and FME some leaves and stems
It wasn't wide enough for the base of the card so I centered the panel on another piece of fabric and zig zag stitched around the edge and then attached the vase with ziz zag stitch and FME the blue circles like on the vase in the picture.
My card is for Carol T this month---I hope she will be happy with it.



Each month I have also made a postcard for myself which is a replica of the one I have made for my swap partner but this time I didn't have enough of the fabric with the flower designs on it so I just made this one for me.
I have just noticed that I have a floating leaf---it has no stem to attach it to anything
Maybe I can call that creative licence.

Ins and Outs

This week I received a beautiful postcard from Beate in a one on one swap.
I have sent mine to her and I hope that she likes it because I really love this one from her.
Thanks Beate.





And here is the ATC that I made for Anna.
Anna issued a challenge to use these buttons in a project and also to make an ATC to send to her as well.
The background is needlefelted and I have added hand stitching also I hope you like it Anna.

March TIF finished

My Crazy patchwork block for the March TIF challenge is now finished and again I am pleased with how it has turned out.

I usually try to stay within the colours that Sharon has given us but this time I had to use some brighter colours to give the block life.

This time I have added a spider and it's web and also a lot more silk ribbon embroidery.

I am glad that I decided to do the crazy blocks each month because I am enjoying the stitching very much even though my right thumb isn't very happy about it.

Now to get on with all my other challenges that have to be finished this month.

March TIF

Progress report...........................the seams have been embroidered -now for all the decorative work..beads-buttons-motifs -charms and whatever else I can find in the stash.




While on the business of the stash--I am still only using from the stash but the problem is because of the fact that I am only using "small things" on my CQ block the stash doesn't get much smaller--but I am enjoying it just the same.

Felting with Ebony

Yesterday was a public holiday here in Canberra so Ebony and I did some felting.
She loves felting but I think it's mainly about the mess than anything else.
To begin with she had to put a piece of terylene fabric down on the table --Fiona Wright who taught me this method calls it "Granma's curtains".
A piece of thin white silk chiffon 55cm X 35cm was then put on the curtain.
Then she placed the wool tops out in the design that she wanted on top of this.




Next there was a layer of this crappy scarfe over the top ..................

She then had to place the "grandma's curtain" over the top of this and it was then placed on some thin plastic (like you get over your clothes when you get them back from the cleaners) and rolled up in a towel and then rolled and rolled turning the plastic wad 4 times so that it was rolled in each direction once.

Then the piece was removed from the towel-plastic-curtain and placed in a plastic bag and put in the microwave for 40 seconds and removed and the fulling process begins.

To do this the plastic bag was smacked onto the table a few times until the bag burst and then she had to throw the felt wad onto the table.

This process makes the piece felt together ..the more you do it the more it felts.

I had to help at this stage because her arm was hurting.

I made a piece as well and they can be seen below..Ebony's is on the right .

They were both the same size when we started but I felted mine a bit longer than she did.

This is the back view and you will notice that the dye has run out of the wool and the piece of silk is now apricot.

I didn't use the silk on mine because I wanted to show her how it would look without it.

Ebony's felt is now 28cm x 21 cm.

I think she is going to make ATC's with hers because she wants to make some "fabric" ATC's instead of card ones.
So in a few weeks she will have 6 ATC's to trade---anyone interested?

All in all we had a good time.

March TIF Block

My block is pieced for this months TIF challenge and now for the stitching and embellishing.
It's a public holiday here today so I can stitch all day and hopefullyI will get all the seams done and I should have it finished by the end of the week.........hopefully.

TIF Challenge March

After a lot of procrastinating I have finally come up with the colours that I am going to use for this months TIF challenge.
I have noticed that some people have chosen different colours to what I have but I suppose it all depends on your computers interpretation of the colours.
I finally decided that these colours went well together so I am sticking with this.
Now to get on with making the block.

More Good Mail

Ebony and I are so lucky with the art that we have been receiving lately.
So many people are sharing their art with Ebony and encouraging her by swapping ATC's with her.
We received these two Button Angels from Jan in England and they are so beautiful--mine is the one on the right.
Ebony has sent Jan an ATC as her part in the swap.





I received this lovely Postcard from Lise inNorway--it has a small dreamcatcher in the top left hand corner.

Lise also sent Ebony 2 ATC's and Ebony has sent hers to Lise as well.

And here is the Crazy patchwork block I received from Maureen -----which I have to embellish as part of a swap that I am doing with her.

When I have finished all the stitching I will return it to Maureen and she will send me mine---which means that I am going to be a busy girl over the next few months as I will have to do one for Mary Anne one for Maureen and also my TIF block as well.

Enough of this blogging and now to get stitching.

March Calendar Girls

Here is the March picture for the Calendar Girls Challenge---if you would like to view all the cards for the January and February challenge you can see them here.

Now to start on this months challenge---will I use paper this time --or needle felting or--------questions--questions--questions

You Make My Day Award.

I am a naughty Girl--earlier this week Debbi nominated me for a "You Make My Day Award" and I completly forgot to put it on my blog --so better late than never here it is.
I am supposed to nominate 10 people who make my day and then notifiy them.
There are so many bloggers who make my day ---like my fellow Calendar Girls Group--and then there are the blogs that I lurk around sometimes leaving a comment but more than often not--I admire their work and I should leave a comment but for some reason I don't.
So I am taking the easy way out and I will just say if you wan't to play then by all means do so and I will leave it at that.

Leap Day Activities

What did I do on the extra day of this year?
What else ---- I went to a workshop.
I took a 2 hour trip with a friend to a small village down on the South Coast of NSW called Mogo.
Mogo is one of those lovely little places that are craft dedicated and you can spend hours just wandering in and out of shops and the food is fantastic (well what we had was)
We had a 3 hour class in Japanese techniques for dyeing papers.
Even though I had done some of the things before it was nice to sit in a small classroom (it could only take 6 students) doing something that was so relaxing (and messy) on a beautiful Autumn day in pleasant company.
One of the techniques was called Orizomegami ---the art of paper folding and dipping in inks to form patterns.
I am always amazed at what you see when you unfold the papers.
The first 3 pages are in this technique...and we used rice paper and writing inks.

The next technique is Paper Batik....

We brushed wax on the paper first in strokes and then gave the page a wash in yellow watercolours.

Then we brushed on more wax and applied more colours after the wax dried.

When the papers were dry we ironed them between paper to get rid of the wax.

I rather liked doing this and in the comort of my own home I will do lots more .

This last piece of paper was used to clean out the ink containers .....

What a great day......