Emerson and Arabesque Art Journal Page

A fun way to use up your small paper scraps is to make yourself a template for a shape you find pleasing (in this case, arabesque)  and when you have free spots in your day, process your scraps down into your shape.

When they're all put together the effect is quite lovely and your template can be stored away for future projects. 

Queen of the Night Sky

Lately I've been practicing ideas in my sketchbook and then trying them again on watercolor paper or canvas. This is a big change for me as I always fear I'll never be able to repeat something I've done.

While I like the sketchbook drawing, I'm bothered by a few details:

1. The thick brown lines in her hair

2. The crayon lines in her dress and how the middle lacks texture

3. How the crown is sitting on her head - looks like it's sliding right off.

4. The handwriting was an afterthought and it's irregular.

Here is the new and improved version on thick watercolor paper:

Repeating your work is a great way to get better and to take another crack at those trouble spots. It's also a terrific refresher on how my supplies react to different substrates. For example, my watercolor markers that I use practically everyday don't exactly rock on canvas.

Here's a close-up of her dress detail.

And a side-by-side comparison. Click to see it up close.

Turquoise Tag

I made this tag for a dear friend. 

The images are had drawn and the fabric is hand-dyed as well as the ribbon :-)

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I bake a lot, but this cake was over-the-top even for me. 

The inside was a four layer green tea cake with buttercream and pistachios. Yum!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Throw Pillows!

The other day I shared my first paper pieced quilt blocks and then my modification of turning them into circles. And I promised I would show you what they ended up as.

Since I hate repeating myself, doing a whole quilt of paper piecing wouldn't be very fun. But we never have enough pillows on our couches so...

I used this amazing (saucy) Alexander Henry fabric on the back which I think is a nice foil to the orderly, conservative vibe of quilt blocks.

Paper Pieced Quilt Blocks

I've always been curious about paper pieced quilt blocks so when the Creative Bug block of the month was this  Whippper Snapper (paper pieced) block by Anna Marie Horner I couldn't resist trying it.

Fun stuff. I really like not having to fret about lining things up as I just put my fabric on the lines I drew on the paper. Drawing lines on paper is very much my jam... lining up fabric... not so much.

I always try to do something new at least twice so I can commit the process to memory. So I made this one. Much faster and far more confidently. Yay

And being me, not knowing the first thing about leaving well enough alone, I decided to convert the blocks into circles. Because... why not?

Stay tuned as I actually have a plan for these cuties.