Joy Prayer Flag

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  I hope that everyone is having a great week and celebrating life with your family.  I decided to make a bright and colorful prayer flag so that I would be reminded of the Joy of the holiday season all year long. I started with a piece of muslin on which I had printed a single layer mono-print. I used the Celestial Stencil to add some bright patterning to the flag. Over the top of that I add another texture layer using the Picasso stencil from the TEXTures 2 series. I folded over the top of the prayer flag and stitched it down with embroidery floss to make a hanging pocket.  I added the word joy by couching down some recycled silk fibers.  They add wonderful texture and a fun look.  I stitched around the word with white thread so that it stood out from the background more.  I added a few more stitches here and there for extra interest.  I added some ribbon that I dyed to the bottom of the flag to finish it off. Here is a photo that I took in better lighting.  Here are some prayer flags hanging above my desk.  I made some of them and some I received in a prayer flag exchange.  You can see more of my art at my website www.handsandharts.com Have a wonderful weekend. Janelle

Think Spring

I love winter and the snow, but I still look forward to spring too.  I decided to make a bright and cheery journal page this week.  It is nice to warm up by thinking about the flowers and dragonflies coming back to the cold north.

I started by spraying homade spray paint through the Bird and Gera stencils from the TEXTures 2 series. These stencils remind me of the warm spring that will come.  I used green, blue, and yellow sprays.  I used a Caran d'Ache Neocolor II Artists' Crayon in yellow to fill in some of the white areas.

I used the Dragonfly stencil to add dragonflies over the page in shades of blue.

I copied one of the dragonflies from the stencil and enlarged it.  I cut a stencil of the enlarged dragonfly out of chipboard and added it to the page with modeling paste. After the modeling paste was dry I colored the dragonfly with Viva Decor Inka Gold in steel blue.

I used the Gera stencil to add details to the dragonfly with green paint and I also added designs with the same stencil around the page. I added a shadow around the large dragonfly with a charcoal pencil.

I cut some bubble shapes from a sheet of music and also a banner for the top of the page. I glued these down with fluid matte medium.

I added yellow to the music paper with the same neocolor crayon that I used earlier.  I also added some sketchy lines around the bubbles and along the scallops.

I had some flowers punched out of my painted papers and a sheet of melted Glitterati fibers.  I added these flowers to the top border to give the page a pop of color. I added a hopeful message to the bubbles.

Think Spring, Don't Let The Winter Blahs Get You Down

I hope that this page reminds everyone living in the cold regions of the world that spring and warmth will return.
Janelle

You can see more of my art at my website www.handsandharts.com

Winter Woods

This quilt was inspired by views of the forest in the northern winters and the cardinals that I see outside of my window during the cold months.              I'm happy to get to play with Jill K. Berry's new stencils.  I love her TEXTures series and this TEXTures 2 series is just as fun.  At the end of this post I will let you know how you can enter to win a set of the TEXTures 2 stecils. I wanted to play with these stencils on fabric and see what I could come up with.  They work on fabric just as well as any other substrate and added a lot of atmosphere to the piece that I made. I started with a piece of white cotton that was 44" by 22".  I sprayed my fabric with water and applied color with a Derwent Inktense block in iris blue.  I used textile medium and more water to spread out the color over the whole piece of fabric. Then I got out the TEXTures stencils and using the Picasso and Miro stencil I began to spray my fabric through the stencils.  I used my homemade ink sprays, a mixture of water and  Daler-Rowney FW Acrylic Water-Resistant Artists Ink with a bit of paper glaze to fix the color.  I first used my process cyan spray because the color was just a bit different than the blue of my fabric.  I wanted to add subtle texture to my background.  Then I used my pearlescent black spray to spray through the other stencil.  This time I covered much more of the fabric because I wanted to create the feel of underbrush on a forest floor. Since I am making a wall hanging that isn't meant to be washed I didn't worry about using these ink sprays, but I did heat set the fabric after these layers were dry. Next I wanted to add texture to the black fabric that I was going to use for tree trunks.  I sprayed the fabric pieces, through the same two stencils, with a white pearlescent ink spray and a sepia ink spray that I mixed in gold fabric paint as well.  These didn't show up well, but I was just trying to add some more subtle texture. I added a Wonder Under fusible web to the back of both of the black fabric pieces, so that I could fuse the tree trunks to the quilt after I cut them out.  I cut out two layers of trees and fused the first layer to the quilt when I had them arranged the way that I wanted them. I used the black with the white spray in the background layer.  Then I painted lines on the trees for the bark using fabric paint in white and grays.  I also cut out some basic cardinal shapes from red fabric and fused them down too, after the paint was dry. Next I painted a bit of detail on the cardinals and I painted branches for the trees. After the paint was dry I put a layer of the fusible web over these trees and a layer of white tulle over the top of the fusible web.  I ironed these down so that they were all fused.  If you try this make sure that you follow the directions and have a pressing sheet between your iron and the fabric. Otherwise you get glue all over your iron that is a pain to clean off.  I added the white tulle so that these trees felt a bit misty and further away. I followed the same process for the foreground trees except I used the black fabric sprayed with the sepia spray and I used paints in shades of browns for the details. I stitched the cardinals down with some red thread to make sure that the fusible wouldn't come up and it added a nice touch to the quilt.  I love the texture that hand stitching gives to a textile piece. I added snow, with white fabric paint, to the ground and along the edges of the trees in the foreground. Next I added a batting and backing fabric and used free motion stitching to add bark lines and branches to the foreground trees.  I added white stitching to quilt the snowy ground as well.  I still have to add a faced binding to finish the quilt, but that is going to take me a bit longer to do.  I will share more pictures when I have the binding and the quilt sleeve added. I hope that you enjoyed my art quilt tutorial and come back next week to read about my new project. If you would like a chance to win these stencils go here to find out all the information.  You can see more of my art on my website.www.handsandharts.com Janelle

Gift Tags

I have been sharing ideas for gifts lately, now I want to give you an idea for making gift tags.  These tags will be unique to you and easy to personalize for any type of gift all year long.  They are a lot of fun to make too. I started by carving some stamps with a winter theme.  I have been wanting more stamps that have my own designs anyway.  I drew these on Adobe Illustrator, printed them out and then transferred the images to the speedy cut block.  I traced over the lines with a pencil and then put that side onto the block and rub the image until it is all transferred.  You can also draw directly onto the block.  I chose to carve three different snowflakes, a snowman, and a holly sprig. Then I carefully carved the images.  For all but one of the stamps I left a positive image.  The other stamp had smaller lines, so I choose to carve out the lines instead of the background.  I like the grungy imperfect look that you get when you make your own stamps. I made all of these stamps this week, except for the star stamp. I made that one earlier this year. The paint stained them, but they still work perfectly. I got out my gelatin plate and and used the stamps, some stencils, and found objects to make mono-prints on the tags.  I am using three different sizes of tags.  I usually choose between two to four colors that coordinate, and spread them on my plate with a brayer.  For this project I am using craft paints. I like to lay down stencils in the paint and then pick them up and add other designs around and over them.  This doesn’t give a really clear impression, but adds background texture to the tags.  I also press my hand carved stamps into the paint to leave the impression of the stamp behind.  Make sure that you wash your stamps thoroughly after using them with paint or the paint will dry in the grooves and ruin your stamps.  I use all kinds of objects like bubble wrap, punchinella, empty thread spools, string, and anything else that you can think of to make an interesting print.  I used the Celestial stencil and some of the words fromTam’s inspiration series too. On some of the tags I made one print and then went over that with another print after the first layer was dry.  I had a darker blue background and I used silver paint and laid thecelestial stencil onto the plate and then the tags, so that the stencil image was left behind on the tags.  I pulled up all the extra paint using copy paper and deli paper in between colors. When I have gotten as much of the paint pulled up as I can, I used a baby wipe to completely clean my plate. After I had all my tags printed and they were dry, I used my hand carved stamps to stamp images onto the tags.  I used a StazOn ink pad in jet black and a VersaMagic ink pad in cloud white.  I added coordinating yarn to each tag. These tags are quick and fun to make once you have your stamps carved.  I hope that you go and make some mono-printed tags to add to your gifts this holiday season.  You could add punched images, doodles, stick on jewels, or anything else you can think of to dress these up even more. I'll see you next week with another project. Janelle