Today I am getting ready to go to NY! So waiting for laundry to dry I decided to collect a few things to do on the airplane. This was like trying to figure out that old question of what you would take if you were on a deserted island. So I packed up my watercolor crayons, pencils, chalks, markers, an art journal, eraser ....etc., well before I knew it my little satchel was way too full and I reasoned with myself that the plane ride wasn't that long! I am going to see my sister and my daughter who live miles apart - and my sister has lots of way cool art stuff she will let me play with, BUT ... I will be at my daughters house too, and she is not into anything resembling artsy crafty or painting and doodling etc., so she won't have any of these things on hand. Well I will have to just make room in my suitcase.

In the mean time I got discouraged and started drawing and before I knew it I was in full fledged doodle mode, which lead to the colored pencils, markers, watercolor crayons, chalks and ohhhhhhhhhhhh the Twinkling H2O's! my personal favorite! Well that is until I get my hands on the pan pastels that I am lusting after.

This is what happened...



Unfortunately the luminescence of the TWH2O's can't be seen in the photo and these picture were taken with my phone so they aren't the best. Hmmmm....laundry! packing! right I better get back on task!

Vintage Hankie Birdie

So I was thinking........I have a ton of vintage hankies and buttons so perhaps I could make a bird out of something like that. This is the result of that random thought.





First I had to iron the delicate hankie to some batting to give it strength because this hankie was so think and fragile feeling, then I quilted some of the flowers and the eye area.



I added a bead for the eyes, naturally my bird has long eyelashes too. I used floral wire for his legs and feet, attached the wings, stuffed him, sewed him shut and then I realised I forgot to add the comb and tail feathers!


So it took me a little while but decided to add the silver beads with the feathers instead of all the tiny little size 15 beads that I painstakingly strung on wire a few days ago. I will just use them on another project because believe me size 15 glass beads is enough to make a person blind.


This is a view from the top because I wanted to show the edge of the hankie I had to stitch to another section of hankie to make it all work the way I wanted it to. After it was all said and done I added a little bit of very fine glitter to the posies to give some glitz! Oh how I love glitter!

My photography isn't that great but I do try to capture what I see that is why to different angles and backgrounds.

For the Birds!

I haven't created much in such a long time! I am not really sure why, other than I have been kind of busy both mentally and physically and really don't want to go into the details. Most of my stuff is packed in boxes because I was suppose to move across the land and now I am staying my stuff is still packed!... and that my friends is for the birds! So I made a what else? Bird!


Isn't she colorful?


A close up of her face...she has false eyelashes of course.






A view from the top, I used some recycled copper wire and beads for the tail and comb.


I laid her down so you could see her belly! How embarrassed she must be! I am not big on sewing anything that actually makes something so this I guess I would have to label more of a craft project (like my dolls) instead of quilting or sewing. I do admire those that do all that quilting and sewing but the truth is I have to get my hands dirty.


Anyway I have a lot of plans for this bird pattern that I got from Nellies Needles Blog and she has patterns and tutorials of other way cool stuff for the crafty chick who thinks out of the box or in as the case may be.

I have plans of making this bird out of grunge board paper and so really cool ranger products that go with grunge board. I wanted to try it with fabric first though to make sure it was what I wanted and it is close enough.

This really all started back when my sister took a Wendy Vechi class as seen an earlier post in May called "Just Charming". I was trying to find the darn birds along with a half million others and came close to carving my own but just never got around to it. Well this little bird doesn't even come close but I see a lot of possibilities and it was easy peasy to make. The whole thing from start to finish took me about 8 hours and that was with so much procrastination thinking "should I do this? or....that?" The hardest part was the legs that I made from and old hanger - let me just say I am not as strong as I once was!

I can also envision it made out of a few vintage embroidered and laced hankies of which I have many. That would be more delicate and I have a Mother who would probably love that for Mother's Day this year.

If you make one I would love love love to see it! Just leave a comment with your link and I will go take a looksee!