Happy Birthday Ebony

Today the 31st March is Ebony's 9th birthday---
I can't believe just how fast she has grown up--it seems like only yesterday that I was holding this tiny cuddly beautiful little girl who had entered into our lives.
Her Dad gave her a new bike and we gave her the helmet among other things and she is so happy with her presents.
Did she want a birthday party ?--no--she wanted to go for a walk around the lake in Canberra with her family.
On Saturday we are taking her horse riding and the only problem with that is we have to brace ourselves for the "I want a horse" badgering that is going to follow.




Here is her birthday photo.

Quink Ink and Bleach

Last week I had a play day with my friend Anne--this is the first time this year we have had a day together.
Last year we met once a month and experimented with different mixed media techniques but this is our first opportunity this year.
Each month we take turns in demonstrating something new that we have learned.
This time it was Annes turn to demonstrate and we worked with Quink ink and bleach.
Here is a piece of printed paper that has had black quink ink painted on it then sprayed with bleach and then when dry it was lightly sprayed with pearlescent ink.




This is the same process but on brown craft paper.

I like the look of these papers.

More Goodies

At the beginning of the week we went to Sydney for a few days just to give ourselves a treat.
When we returned my PO box was chockers with goodies.
First there were these serviettes that came from Maureen.
Both Maureen and I were in Dale's Ratty Tatty Papers class and we decided to swap a few spares that we had.
Now Maureen reckons that she has enough serviettes at present to cater for a wedding and I now have over 200 different themed serviettes in my collection.
I may have to paper one of the walls in my sewing room to use them all up.





She also included these two ATC's---I love the cat one.

Then there was this bundle of beautiful papers that I had won in a giveaway from Janet.

Well I have never won anything before in anyones giveaways and now I have won two in a week.

Earlier Carole advised me that I had also won something.

Yikes I think I am on a roll.

Monthly Challenge Swaps

I belong to two online groups that I do monthly swaps with--the first one is the Calendar Girls Group.
This is the postcard that I received from Val for March.
Val has taken the right hand portion of the calendar and used that as the inspiration for her postcard.
It is a beautiful card with lots of texture in it.



This is the calendar page used for the inspiration---------

The other group is Fibre Fever and we are making a 6" square fabric book page for our swap partner in the theme of their choice.

My page is for Helina and her choice of theme is "A walk in the woods"

In the beginning I wrote down what each persons theme was and for Helina I wrote trees -to remind me of the woods.

But I forgot the woods part when I found this tree fabric in my stash and I put apples on some of the trees to give them colour.

I suppose you can find apple trees in the woods.

I know Barbara likes it so that's what really counts isn't it.

My theme is Butterflies and my page was made by Barbara.

The butterfly is 3D with lovely hand stitching on it and the background is painted vliesofix ironed onto the base fabric.
I really love the texture that Barbara has achieved in the background.

Some beautiful work is being produced in both groups.

More photos from yesterday

Here are some more of the photos that I took yesterday on our picnic outing.
The first one is of the old church--if you click on the photo you can get a better look at the rusted bell and peeling paint.




Next is the old gate outside the church--the chicken wire was just there for no apparent reason-but then there may have been a reason at one time.

The peeling paint on the window sills of the church.

I said in the previous post that there was an old brick wall but actually it is a stone wall.

This was an old shed--probably stables in the past.

Finally this rusted can which actually had a tree in it struggling to survive.

Now if I could just wrap some fabric around it and leave it for a few days -----------

I should get some inspiration from some of these photos.

A picnic in the sun

Today Suzanne and I went for a drive to take some photos and have a picnic.
It was a warm sunny day-- no wind--just perfect for some girl time together.
As a lot of you know Australia is in the midst of a terrible drought and we in the cities feel hard done by when we can't water our gardens (well not me because I don't have a garden as such) but just 1 hour out of Canberra this is what greeted us.
Dry grassland with big gaping soil eroded furrows.
It is heartbreaking to see our beautiful country in this condition but without water what chance does it have.
Lots of clouds but no rain in sight.




Anyway we had a wonderful day -taking photos of old rusty cans-broken fences-brick walls weathered with age and the most wonderful old church with its rusted bell hanging motionless like it hadn't been rung in a long time with paint peeling off the window sills and a big old gate but no fence to hold it up.
It really does make you aware of what is around you when you have a camera in your hand.

March Calendar Girls Postcard

The March Calendar page was chosen by Carol T and I have shown the picture of it below.
When I was doing the Ratty Tatty Papers workshop recently I had painted some tissue paper and Val had suggested to me that it would be good for this months challenge.
Now not being one who ignores helpful suggestions I took her advice and used the paper for this P/C.
I tore the paper up and collaged it onto some vliesofixed felt and then added some machine stitching.




Here is the painted tissue paper that I used----------------

This is the original calendar page ----------------

My paper is more teal than green but I am happy with the way it has turned out and I hope Sandy will be too.

Stitch Explorer Trellis Stitch

The stitch for February in the Stitch Explorer challenge run by Sharon B over on Pin Tangle is Trellis Stitch.

I GIVE UP------

I have been trying for 2 weeks to do Trellis Stitch .
I have enough samples to build a trellis fence around the barbecue area.
This is the best I can do.
The square is ok (just)
The upright circle is ok (just)
The Spiral Trellis sample ----well all I can say is that I have got something that is spiralling-sort of.
I have done it just in the nick of time and if I never do it again it will be too soon.




Here is a side view of the upright one showing the best section (don't ask to see the rest of it).




Do you get the feeling that this is my favourite stitch -I don't think so.

Blue Postcards

I mentioned earlier that I belong to a Yagoo group called Fabric Postcards for Stitchers.
The theme for January was the colour blue.

Here is Wendy's postcard to me which has been on a tour of the world for a while but it finally arrived today.
It is made up of layers of cotton fabrics that have metallic patterns on them and organza and fiber.
Thank you Wendy it was worth the wait.

**********

The card below is the one that I sent to Wendy.
The base is felt with foil fused to it and then I added strips of organza and ran it under the embellisher.
Next fibers were embellished over this and lastly a blue flower with a yellow button for the centre was added.

Tasty Tomatoes

Ebony wanted a vegetable garden this Summer-but seeing as we don't really have a garden we purchased her two big pots and planted some tomatoes.
She has watered and weeded these two plants all through the summer heat and she has finally picked 5 red tomatoes.
There are more green ones on the bushes waiting to ripen.
We had a salad for dinner with her tomatoes being the centre of attention surrounded by lettuce and cucumber.
Here you can see her tomatoes in all their glory.

And the flavour was amazing.

Bravo Ebony.

Postcard Swap

I belong to an online Yahoo group called "Fabric Postcards for Stitchers" and each month we swap postcards using a different theme.
This month the theme was a free choice --and my swap partner was Kathy who lives in Minnesota USA.
Her postcard has a background of threads on top of plain fabric and then covered with tulle which has then been stitched all over.
Kathy has then free machined flower petals onto this and the centres are made with french knots.
A beautiful postcard Kathy.




I decided to use one of my many hand embroidered doileys to make my postcard.
I have been collecting old doileys to use in my Crazy Patchwork and this one had a hole in the middle of it so it was perfect to make this postcard.



This is a fun group of very talented ladies and I am enjoying sharing my work with them.

Cards received

I received these ATC's this week --the top ones are from Anne in France-one is for Ebony and one for me.
I love the way that Anne does her cross stitch ATC's- they are so precise and each time I swap with her I am amazed at the designs that she embroiders.




This ATC comes from Heather in the UK .
Heather is new to trading ATC and I saw on her blog that she had made some and asked her to trade with me.





Heather also included this beautiful hand made card.

And guess what--it wasn't until I was uploading these photos that I realised that I hadn't taken a photo of any of the ATC's that I had posted out to these ladies--sorry about that.

Fabric Book Page

Before Christmas I was invited to join a Fabric book page swap by Ati and as this was a first for me( being asked to join a page swap that is) I thought that I would give it a go.
The theme that I chose was Butterflies and my first page came from Cobi who lives in the Netherlands.
It was very hard to take a photo of the page that would do it justice because of the reflections so this is the best that I could manage.
The butterflies are in 3D effect that also doesn't show up in the photo.





I managed to take a horizontal view which shows them standing up but the colours are wrong.
Anyway the effect is great.




This is the Page that I sent to Helga who lives in Germany.
Helga's them is Angels and my page has a piece of fabric with angels in the top right hand corner.
I added the laces and was going to do embroidery stitches on the page but I removed them because I felt it looked better without them.
I think this is going to be fun.