KimberBell Embroidery Event

I spent Thursday and Friday at the Denton Sewing Center attending a KimberBell Tea Party Event which is an embroidery class. I've had my Janome Memory Craft 15000 for about three years. I've used it for sewing but I've never done a stitch of embroidery on it so this was my first time. (Note: The Janome Memory Craft link above is for the newest model.)

 I didn't know anyone in the

class but I met some nice ladies.

This is Terry and Debbie sitting behind me.

The rest of the class (mostly).

Camaraderie occurred.

Debbie, the shop owner, and her 

daughter-in-law Brooke having some fun.

Debbie told me that the step-by-step instructions as well as the fact that you leave with finished projects are what make the KimberBell events very popular. 

I scoped out the Kimberbell website and was amazed at the amount of KimberBell events taking place across the country. 

To see a list of events, click here. 

Embroidering a card.

My completed projects are below:

"You're My Cup of Tea" Tea Towel

"You're Tea-rrific Mug Rug"

Love You to Pieces Zipper Pouch

Love is in the Air Embroidered Card

Sew Sweet Cinch Bag

And...

I didn't finish this last project but I'm showing it to you anyway because it's almost done and I think it'll give you a good idea of what it will look like when it's completed. I opted to complete it at home which I will do in the next few days.

Tumbling Hearts Candle Mat

The class was a total joy and I learned a lot! 

I can't wait to take more classes, and 

the Denton Sewing Center offers many. 

To see their calendar of classes, click here.

See you soon!

May Your Day Be

Creative & Bright!

D~~~~

Devotional Journal

I mentioned in a previous post that I received this Beautiful Word Journaling Devotional for Christmas.

It measures 8" x 6". 

I love it for various reasons, such as: 

• The content is interesting and inspiring,
• The pages are all formatted with decorative inspiration on the left border and open space to journal on the right border (see below),
• It's arranged so that I will be journaling every other day instead of every day which I really love, and 
• The pages are fairly thick and sturdy.

I may not get these pages done in a timely manner and that's quite alright. If I'm behind (which I am), I'll either wait for the dates I missed to roll around next year and journal on those pages then, or I'll continue journaling them in sequence even though it's not the current date. I think I'll do a little bit of both. 

I started journaling on the pages the 10th of January, and I have completed three so far.

Here they are:

Wisdom is my word for the year.

Page close-up.

Supplies used:

Diamond-shaped sequins, 

Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens, 

MozArt Watercolor Brush Pen, 

Artist Loft watercolors

My favorite page of the three.

The wonky house and roof are made of commercial fabric scraps leftover from past projects and they had been previously backed with Misty Fuse. They were cut out with an Olfa rotary cutter using a scallop blade. The round window was a leftover as well as the small door. All elements were ironed in place. 

Page close up.

Supplies used:

Artist Loft Pearlescent Watercolors, 

fabric scraps, Misty fuse, 
rotary cutter with scallop blade, 
Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens.

The third page.

After drawing the heart, I scanned it into the

Brother Scan N Cut SDX225 

 and cut it out of white, sparkly fabric on the 

Brother Scan N Cut.

This fabric had also been previously 

backed with Misty Fuse so it too  
was ironed onto the page.

Page close up.

Supplies used:

Brother Scan N Cut SDX225, Twinkling H20's, 

Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens, 

commercial fabric scrap, Misty Fuse, 

Copic Sketch Marker.

Quick! 

Get me a Band-Aid!

I see bleeding on the left

and bleeding on the right

of the next pages!

It's literally a bleeding heart!

Tee-hee-hee!

Looks like it's time to try a different marker!

See y'all soon!

May Your Day Be Creative & Bright,

D~~~~

Gifts for Dear Friends

In addition to making gifts for grands in December, I also made four art quilt wall hangings for a Christmas get together/slumber party with girlfriends. 

Several of us created handmade gifts and another friend bought handmade. Of course, gifts were not required or expected. Sharing time together is more cherished than anything else!

Faye made fun Boho bags.
We all loved them!

Cindi gave cool jewelry travel bags.
They were a hit as well!

Suzette made pretty necklaces.
Everyone loved them too! 

And, as I said earlier, I made four art quilts.
Here they are in progress.

Auditioning the placement of various 

elements before ironing them down.

The finished pieces.

(Commercial fabric, Misty Fuse, Glide embroidery thread, 
Go! Cutter & dies, plastic eyes, Mod Podge)

I had ordered some fabric from Amazon which didn't work out. As a result, I got a late start on the project. Other than the time crunch, they were great fun to make, and I learned some things along the way which is always a good thing! 

Due to time, I wasn't able to quilt them as much as I would have liked nor could I add some embellishments that I thought up during the creative process. I was disappointed about that but that's the way it goes sometimes! 

They all loved them anyway and 

that's the most important thing!

Faye, Suzette & Cindi (l-r)

(One of our friends wasn't able to
make it at the last minute so she 
will receive hers at a later date.)

I couldn't decide who to give what so I 
put them in bags and let them pick a bag! 

We all had an extra special good time!

Lots of laughing occured...

...as you might be able to tell!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Several firsts occurred for me during this project. 

They include:

• First time working in a series.
• First time making four art quilts in one day. (Heck, I can't recall that I've ever made ONE quilt in a day!)
• First time doing this much machine appliqué around the elements. (I'll try using more contrasting colors next time). 
• First time creating with my Go! cutter. 

Go! Cutter (left), dies (right).

This Go! Cutter is pretty cool 
but oh my...  
hubby gave me a 

Brother Scan N Cut SDX225 for Christmas!

This machine cuts everything from 

fabric to felt to vinyl to balsa wood.

 It cuts pretty much anything up to  

3.3 mm thick but that's another post. 

Or two.

Or three.

Or many!

See you very soon!

D~~~~

Gifts for Grands

Gift making was afoot 

around here in December!

I made wall decor for our

two teenage grandsons, 
Preston & Triston.

It started with wooden letters and
 metal embellishments from the
Tim Holitz Idea-ology line.
 More specifically, the  
Gadget Gears,
Sprocket Gears
Arrows
and
Metal corners.

The gears were auditioned on the letters.

"P" for Preston. 

"T" for Triston.

Paint is a must so a color chart was

created showing the metallic craft 

paints that I had on hand. 

On Thanksgiving, I asked Preston & Triston 
to pick a color for me to use on a project
that I was making for them which they did.

Triston picked the DecoArt Festive Red.

Preston picked the DecoArt ICE Blue.

Master's Touch Wood Painting Panels
were used for the substrate and all of the 
metal embellishments were auditioned here.

The letters were painted with a coordinating color (silver for Preston & black for Triston) and adhered to the paint panels with matte Mod Podge. The metal embellishments were adhered with the same. 

An element that represents an activity they each enjoy was attached as well. For Preston, it was a circuit board because he's into gaming. 

Triston loves basketball so a basketball was collaged onto a small painted canvas which was then adhered to the paint panel. 

To finish, metal corners were attached and the entire piece was sealed with Mod Podge Clear Acrylic Sealer Spray in Matte. 

THE FINISHED PIECES

Preston's Gift

The silver color on the "P" doesn't

show up very well in this pic though.

Triston's Gift

Preston's silver "P" shows up much better in the photo below but the metal embellishments don't show up very well here. Some of it is the photo but some is not.

I wondered if I should paint them 

silver and decided against it. 

Oh well, I learned something! 

That's always a good thing, isn't it?

Preston is reading my message on the

back while Triston admires the basketball!

Hubby Geo assisted me with some of this project like measuring the placement of certain metal embellishments and some of the Mod Podge application especially the finishing.

Making these gifts seemed to be a 
slam dunk which warmed my heart!

Up next, gifts for girlfriends.

Happy New Year Y'all!

D~~~

2018~~Going, Going, Gone...

Happy 2019 Y'all!

I was surprised to see that I hadn't posted here since November 1st! I didn't realize that it'd been that long. Time can so easily sneak by especially at the end of the year. In any event, it's time to get back to creating but to start the new year, I'll be sharing some tidbits from 2018 in these first few posts. 

A couple more pages from

November in my journaling Bible.

This leaf was found in the

Red Lobster parking lot, Denton, Texas.

Pages created with acrylic paints, washi tape

Malatow acrylic Marker, Pitt Pens

The above leaf reminded me of the 

"Memories of Daisy State Park" 

art quilt (below). I picked up  

the leaf for it in 2013 during  

our maiden RV voyage to 
Daisy State Park in Kirby, Arkansas.

For Christmas, I received  

The Beautiful Word Journaling Devotional 

from my son and his girlfriend. 

I love it!

All the pages are set up the same with

an artful scripture on the left border, 

and journaling lines on the right border. 

I love the thickness of the paper's pages! 

I believe they will work nicely for 

watercolor and mixed media. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Much to my delight, the Christmas  

cactus on the right started blooming like 

crazy in November. Her name is Faye 

because my friend Faye gave her to me.

Faye was a lonely Christmas cactus 

but right after she started blooming, 

I spotted another beauty with abundant 

buds at Walmart so I grabbed her  

up and brought her home! (left) 

Faye has a friend now! 

Let's call her LulaBelle.

Within a week, LulaBelle's 

buds were bloomin' pretty! 

After putting on a good show, both of these 

gals ceased blooming in mid-December.  

But was it over?

Oh no, no, no!

About a week later, Faye started 

blooming once again, and she's still 
blooming as I write this post!

They will both be transplanted in the spring. 
In fact, I wondered if LulaBelle would have 
bloomed again if she were released 
from the confines of her original pot.
(I stuck her pot into another pot for now). 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

This is another painted rock from when 

Linda and I painted rocks in Colorado.

That post can be found here.

I'll stop here for now.

Next up, handmade gifts.

See you soon.

Tootle Loo,

D~~~~