Impromptu Art

The kids have been off school for the last few weeks. We recently took the dog to a local park for a walk around the lake. We spied this bit of impromptu art along the way. Someone took some discards and made this sculpture. We loved it! I hope you can see it, it is hard to capture the depth in a photo.
Spring is in full swing here in the Piedmont of North Carolina, but just two weeks ago the signs were just emerging. I loved these fallen logs. The life cycle at work.

And the first hint of maple leaves. Love how they are red and stand out so nicely against the gray. Yes, it is finally spring.

And how could you be any happier than a dog allowed to romp through the creek and then roll in the sand. What's a little dirt in the mouth when you've got spring fever to contend with???

I have been working on a few little things, which I hope to share with you shortly. I still need to do my taxes and when it is sunny and 75 outside it is difficult to accomplish much of anything! I hope you are seeing signs of the changing seasons where you are. We should learn to celebrate each one.

~Michelle

Matters of Art

This is a new piece I made recently and couldn't wait to share it with you. It will be on display at Eye of the Eagle Art in Clayton, NC, in August. The piece is 12 inches square and I call it "Matters of Art".

I challenged myself to create a piece using only recycled/trash materials. I largely succeeded in that there are around 40 distinct items that comprise the surface of this little quilt, and nearly all would have been destined for the bin. I think the only things I used that don't qualify are a few eyelets and brads, the mirror that is in the center of the bottom central piece, the interfacing, backing fabric, paint and thread.

Each of the 9 smaller vignettes are 3 inches square, created as separate, complete pieces, and stitched to the background (which happens to be covered with dryer sheets). In the one above, I used a brown paper bag, a puzzle piece covered by a napkin, part of a wrapper from chopsticks, some beads from a broken necklace, the metal center of a floppy disk, the calendar dial from an old watch, and the foil top from a bottle of wine.

This is the piece that inspired Jenny's turtle in my previous post. Cut up CD pieces on a piece from an old map.

How many things can you find? Take a close look! You might be surprised.

I haven't had much time in my studio due to the sudden death of my VAN. I have been car shopping for the past week. We are getting close to a decision. I hope we will have something by the weekend. But ... it is still early, no one is open for business yet, and I am going to go upstairs and DO something. ~ Michelle

All sweetness and such ...

I had hoped to post this yesterday and wish you all a Happy Valentines Day, so please accept the wishes a day late.
This is the postcard I submitted to Fiber Arts for their annual Valentines event. I sent it to myself! It travelled nicely through the mail and arrived right on time. Fiber Arts has their offices located in Loveland Colorado, and each year you can send them your Valentines postcards and they put a special Loveland cancellation stamp on them. Sometime soon they should have all the entries posted on their website. It is always fun to view the collection! A few even end up in their magazine.

We made Red Velvet cupcakes a few weeks ago. They were yummy. I wish I could send one to each and every one of you!

mmmmmm..... Happy Valentine's Day! ~ Michelle

Artists Unite for Haiti

I just realized yesterday was the three year anniversary of starting this blog. Wow. That's hard to believe!

This weekend is the "Artists Unite for Haiti" art sale at the LoDi Project here in Raleigh. I just got home from dropping off some artwork - mine, my daughter's, and a stack from my daughter's middle school (she share the info with the art teacher and it kind of took off).

It's an "anonymous" sale, in that the pieces are not to be signed on the front. If you purchase a piece, you won't know who the artist is until after the purchase. I am going to give you a sneak peek of our pieces! All art is $25 and all proceeds will be donated to the Mercy Corps to help in Haiti.

This first piece is 5x7. It is an older dryer sheet piece, matted to 8x10. I call it "me encanta".

This is a larger piece (12x16) and also made from recycled dryer sheets. The background is new, I made it this week. The three panels on top were made as one 8x10 piece a few years ago. I split it into three, and finished off the edges. I call it "harlequin triptych". A detail of the piece is below.

The next photo is a portion of a piece I completed last week. I can't share the whole thing just yet as I am waiting to hear if it is accepted into a show. My daughter saw this, though, and it inspired her idea for the piece that she donated to "Artists Unite for Haiti" ...

And here she is with "turtle love". I thought it was such a great idea ... I told her I wish I had thought of it!

The background is an acrylic wash, the turtle is built up layers of tissue paper, and the shell is made from recycled CDs. I just love it!

We are both hopeful that our pieces will sell, and that the sale is a great success. They had hundreds of pieces of artwork there when we dropped off our things. It was humbling to see such a tremendous outpouring from the artistic community throughout the world. If you are on facebook, you can become a fan of "Artists Unite for Haiti" and follow the progress!

Infusing Color

I am tired of brown, green, gray. No offense to those lovely colors, but the bleak winter landscape has been weighing on me. Maybe it was the cold spell we had, I don't really know. I decided what I needed was some color - bright, vibrant, and warm - to bring me some enthusiasm.
I hadn't painted dryer sheets in a while,so I decided this was a good place to start. Look at these beautiful colors! An instant mood lift.

But then, what to do? I decided to take a stab at making coffee cuffs ... you know, those cardboard sleeves you get with your hot beverage-of-choice so you don't burn your hand? I have a fabric one that my friend Carolyn made for me a couple of years ago and I use it every time.

This is actually the second one I made. The outside is painted dryer sheets, free motion quilting and some beads. The inside is hand dyed cotton. This one is laced up with yarn to keep it closed.

This next one is the first one I did. I had a little trouble with getting the shape right and had to re-do it a few times. Still, I think it came out nice. An unconventional nod to Valentine's Day...

I satin stitched this one closed, which was no easy feat on my machine. I love my machine, but it lacks a free arm ... and stitching inside a small circular shape without one is a trick!

Now I need to test them out ... coffee with a friend sounds like just the ticket! Then I will make more and put them in my etsy shop.

I wonder if maybe I am missing the Caribbean? Spring will be here soon! In the meantime I'll enjoy my soft sweaters and warm socks and get my color fix through paint.

A few finished projects

I got a new netbook ... it's so darn cute! But I haven't loaded my photo software yet, so I wasn't able to adjust the lighting on these photos. They are a bit washed out, but I wanted to share anyway.


This is a necklace I made (for myself!) from a piece of seashell that I picked up in Grand Cayman. It's my first real attempt at wire wrapping. I thought it turned out pretty well, though I've got a lot to learn in that department. It's a fun souvenier and means more than anything I could have bought in a gift shop.

This is a piece of complex cloth that started out as the striped piece in this post. I have worked with a group of three other fiber artists for the past year+ to create complex cloth. We passed our pieces around and each added something to it. This is my latest piece, and I love it.

I finished my second t-shirt quilt. This one is smaller than the last - throw size. Even so, it was more difficult because many of the "t-shirts" ended up being UnderArmour-type volleyball jerseys and they were a bear to work with. I have now added an exhorbitant extra charge for shirts of this type to my price list. I hope I never have to deal with one again.

And finally, these are on my kitchen window to remind me of warmer days ... sand collected, left to right, from Grand Cayman, Cozumel, and Cocoa Beach. I love the colors and how each one is so different. I might do some beading and wire wrapping on the jars. I haven't decided yet.

~Michelle

Christmas Card Ornament - TUTORIAL

Well, wow, I was surprised to find so much interest in this little project. Thanks to everyone who left a comment ... I hope you'll give it a try. Maybe start a new tradition!

I tend to err on the side of details, so don't be put off by the number of photos and wordiness of my explanation. It's not that hard. I'm including a lot of tips ... things I've learned through experience over the years. And no, I did not mislabel my ornament (first photo) - this is a closeup of the one I made in 2008, to show you how I label them. The rest of the photos follow my process for making the ornament for 2009.

So, here we go!

You will need:
*cards (at least 20 ... although if you have less than that, you can still make it work)
*compass and scissors
*ruler or straight edge
*pencil
*white glue
*small length of ribbon
*paper clips

Dust off your geometry caps! I do this the old fashioned way. Yes, you could use a paper punch and have nice exact circles, but I like the flexibility that making my own templates gives me, and it's much easier to get that pesky equilateral triangle if you use a compass. Read on!

I use the back of one of the cards. I set my compass to a 1" radius which gives me a nice 2" circle ... you can make them any size you want. A 2" circle will yield an ornament that is about 4.5" in diameter.

Step 1: Draw two circles.

Step 2: Without re-setting your compass (it's very important to keep the same measurement that you used to draw the circles!), place the point of the compass anywhere ON one of the circles. Make a mark, further along the circle, at the point where the pencil intersects the circle.

Step 3: Now move the point to the intersection of the circle, and this little line you just drew, and make a second mark like the first.

Continue around the circle in this manner. You should end up with 6 marks, and if you kept your compass at the same measurement, the last mark will line up with the first.

*TIP: Trust me, it's not as complicated as it sounds!

Here is what your marked circle will look like:














Step 4: Using your ruler or straight edge, connect every other mark, across the circle, to form an equilateral triangle. Use the photo as a reference ... you will only use three of the six marks that you made.








Step 5: Cut out the unmarked circle, and the triangle.

TIP: If you are good at keeping track of things, you can use these templates year after year and never have to make new ones! Somehow I always end up making new ones ...








Step 6: Using the circle, cut out images from your cards. You will need 20 circles to make one ornament. If you don't have 20 cards, you can cut more than one circle from each card.

TIP: I deliberately choose trendy images if I have them, because these are the ones that will represent the year and be fun to look back on. Imagine what the cards of decades past would look like now!

TIP: OK, this part is a little tricky to explain, but as you actually work through the project, it will be easier to understand...

In the next step you are going to use the triangle as a template to fold the edges of the circles. Half of the triangles will point UP and half will point DOWN (as seen in next two photos). Some cards will lend themselves to one or the other. The point is, you want the important part of the image to be inside the triangle. For example, the word "Joy" lends itself to the triangle pointing UP. If the triangle pointed down, the J and Y would get "lost" on the folded edges outside the triangle.

This photos shows Santa ... he lends himself to the triangle pointed DOWN because the widest part of the main image is across the top of the circle.

Some cards with all-over prints can be used either way.

I separate my cards into two groups of 10, based on whether I think they will be UP or DOWN. In the photo of the 20 circles, above, the top two rows are UPs and the bottom two rows are DOWNs.

As I start to make my pieces, I may change some around, but you need 10 of each, so it is helpful to start this way.

(that was a long TIP! stay with me here ...)

OK ... what step is this? 7???

So, you place the tringle on the circle. Each point should touch the edge. This is the santa card from above. Now fold the card inward, using the triangle as a hard edge to fold against. I fold all three sides down for a snug fit around the triangle, rather than one side at a time.

This is what the circle looks like after it is folded.

Fold ALL the circles ... remember you need 10 pointing UP and 10 pointing DOWN. Is it making more sense? Keep reading ... the hard part is over!

TIP: I always fold the all-over prints last. This way the cards that have a specific direction get folded appropriately and I can fill in with UPs or DOWNs as needed to get 10 of each.

Step 8: Arrange your pieces into the components of your ornament.

*choose 5 UPs and arrange them into a circle, top points to the center. (top of photo)

*choose 5 DOWNs and arrange them into a circle, points to the center (bottom of photo)

*take the remaining 10 pieces and arrange them in a straight line, alternating UPs and DOWNs.

TIP: I try to arrange them so that I don't end up with, say, three snowman together, or all the white pieces in one place.

Step 9: Glue each section together. Use white paper glue (Elmers, PVA, tacky glue ...). Spread a small amount of glue on one of the tabs (the part you folded around the triangle) and connect two pieces together. I use a couple of paper clips to hold them in place while the glue dries. Hopefully you can see what I mean by the photo.

IMPORTANT: Tie a piece of ribbon into a loop and insert it into the circle formed by the 5 UP pieces before you glue it closed. This is how you hang your ornament!!!

This is how the top of your ornament will look while it dries...

and here's the bottom ... now do you see the importance of the UPs and DOWNs? It keeps your images all facing in the proper direction when you assemble the ornament...

Step 10: I have to apologize because apparently I neglected to take photos of this step, but I think it will be pretty clear ...

The strip of 10 cards (alternating UPs and DOWNs) is glued, first to the last, to form a ring. This is the center of the ornament. Once the three pieces are dry, glue the top to the center ring, in the same manner, using paper clips while the glue dries. Then glue the bottom to the center ring.

When the glue has dried, remove the paper clips and you have an ornament!

If the gaps/holes where the cards all join bother you, you can use more glue and squeeze the points closed, using clips to hold it together. You could also glue gem stones over the holes for some sparkle. They don't bother me, so I just leave them there.

The last thing I do is write the year on one of the bottom edges of an UP along the center ring (see first photo).

I hope you will try one. I think that stitched, and stuffed, they would make a fun baby toy if they were made out of fabric. Maybe I'll try that one day!

~Michelle