Posted by: trishbee on: November 10, 2009
Getting very much colder here, so bad I have done anything creative in over a week, my fingers are now severly restricted, glad I got all my swaps and commitments made early! Spend my nights sitting under my blanket with microwaveable heat packs on my joints to keep me warm, drinking hot ribena! Homemade soup is on the menu most days – it hurts like crazy cutting the vegetables up to make the soup but its worth it once its made as it warms you right up!
Just as well theres lots of interested programs on tv at the moment to amuse me – flash forward, house, true blood, sanctuary, defying gravity, stargate universe, fringe plus all the usual soaps tv land has to offer….
Posted by: trishbee on: November 10, 2009
Posted by: trishbee on: November 10, 2009
Just added some new uploads to my flickr, they have been on my camera for a while and I forgot to upload them!
You can see them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/trishbeedesign/
Posted by: trishbee on: October 31, 2009
Ive just finished reading Triptych by Karin Slaughter. Im a huge fan of her books, especially the grant county series, but I fell out with Karin earlier this year after reading the shock ending in Skin Privaledge! I finally managed to bring myself to read another one of her books this week, Triptych isnt part of the Grant County series but I need to read this and Shattered before I can read the latest instalment of the Grant County series so I can find out how Sara and Lena are getting on…
Triptych was a great book, I really like the character Will Trent and cant wait to start Shattered next.
Posted by: trishbee on: October 25, 2009
I posted earlier about the altered cd swap Im in, you can see the first post here:
http://trishbee.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/altered-cd-swap/
For my next step for this project I took a tube of outliner paste normally used for glass painting, and I applied dots on one side of the snowflake and let it dry.
Next I coated both sides of the cd and snowflake with a layer of black gesso and let it dry.
Once dry I painted the entire thing on both sides using navy blue acrylic paint.
To add some distressing and texture for my next step I heated the cd and snowflake using my embossing gun, this make the paint bead up a little bit and also the liquid outliner bubbled too but I wanted it to do that
Once the cd was cool, I dipped my finger tips in metallic blue acrylic paint and smudged it over the snowflake to add highlights, I also repeated this step using a pearl turqouise paint and silver rub n buff. I just kept going till I liked how the snowflake looked.
I did this step on both sides of the cd.
Then I got my mini drill and drilled a little hole through the cd so I could make a hanger on it.
I then applied silver rub n buff to one side of the cd only and left the other side navy blue for contrast.
Once all the paint was dry I sprayed over the top using acrylic glaze to varnish it and then finally added some gold thread to act as a hanger.
Heres the pictures below of the final piece:
Posted by: trishbee on: October 25, 2009
Posted by: trishbee on: October 25, 2009
Ive been playing with my new toy
Ive discovered that organza goes lovely and texturous with the embellisher machine as you can see below, I decorated it using different colours of wool rovings and some silk fibers were added to make the dots and the border:
I get a real kick out of seeing the backs of the felted pieces for some reason
Posted by: trishbee on: October 25, 2009
Posted by: trishbee on: October 25, 2009
Posted by: trishbee on: October 25, 2009
Posted by: trishbee on: October 25, 2009
Ive been absence from blogging lately – suffering with the usual complaints so I wont bother moaning about them as Im fed up of listening to myself moan all the time
And I bet you do too
Anyways in my absence online Ive been playing with my new purchase and my toy – a felting machine otherwise known as an embellisher!
Ive had so much fun just playing and learning how to use the machine and the best thing about it is that it doesnt require any physical strength on my part! Result! I can now dabble with a bit of arts and crafts even on my bad days
I gave myself a bit of a shock the other day just how weak I am as I wanted to finish off some bookmarks for a swap, I wanted to punch single holes into the bookmarks so that I could set eyelets into the holes. I used one of those office style silver single hole punchers for the job because it is usually the easiest and quickest tool for the job. But I couldn’t physically move the punch at all!!! No matter how much I pressed and pressed the puncher just wouldn’t budge!! That shocked me!
Back to playing with fabric and fibers methinks as it doesnt require any muscles!
Posted by: trishbee on: October 10, 2009
This is my last lot of ebaying for 2009, I may list more in 2010 if I find more stamps I dont use or want, heres the link to my ebay stuff:
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/pennylessartist/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=
Posted by: trishbee on: October 10, 2009
Posted by: trishbee on: October 10, 2009
Its that time of year again where I make my obligatory art calenders for Christmas swaps and gifts!
Spoiler Warning – do not peek if your in Xmas swaps with me!
These calendars where all made using different handmade backgrounds, the houses you can see on each calendar was made using recycled felix cat food boxes cut into house shapes. I added corrugated card and fun foam to make a recess to the front of the house and painted it with burgundy acrylic paint. I added highlights to the ridges of the corrugate with copper acrylic and then made some fabric paper and painted it red and cut it into hearts to make the hearts inside the houses.
See below, click on any pics for larger images:
Close up of one of the houses:
Posted by: trishbee on: October 10, 2009
I think Im in serious danger of getting hooked!
This is a piece I was working on last week, Im going to make it into a Christmas gift for a swap, I havent finished it yet as it needs a lining on it.
This is a felted bookmark Im working on:
Below is a purse I made using my first felting attempt which I blogged earlier:
front with open flap:
front closed flap (isnt finished yet)
back of purse:
Posted by: trishbee on: October 2, 2009
This is my very first attempt at needle felting. Im surprised how easy it is to accomplish with so very little tools and very little energy too. I needed to make some art using a technique beginning with the letter F for Carols challenge, naturally I decided on Felting because Ive wanted to give it a whirl for some time
To make this felt piece I used various colours of wool roving which I had got in a textile collage pack which I bought from ebay. I also used a sheet of black felt as my felting base, a polystyrene block as my felting mat and a couple of felting needles.
I was surprised how quickly and easy it is to make the felt art, simple puching movements with the felting needles fuses the wool fibres to the felt piece and makes them join together.
Once I was happy with how the felting looked I highlighted it using gold glitter thread with a back stitch.
Im really pleased with how this turned out and with how easy it is to do. I must do more felting!
I wonder if this is the start of a new obsession?
Posted by: trishbee on: September 12, 2009
I made this piece of artwork for Carols challenge on her blog. Details of her challenge along with a link to her blog can be found here: www.squidoo.com/ABCsofTechniques
To make this piece I first used a gold oil pastel to make a background rubbing using a background rubber stamp I had. I then used a piece of tissue paper to make the gold blend into the lutradur so that it wasnt quite so vibrant.
Next I tool a white oil pastel and made a rubbing from a large rubber stamp of a tulip, I then tool a red and green oil pastel and coloured inside the rubbing I had made.
To finish off I then coloured over the gold background I had previously made using a purple oil pastel.
The lutradur was then left overnight to dry out.
Once the lutradur was dry, I used gold rush white metallic glitter embroidery thread to sew along the white stamped outline with a backstitch to embellish it.
Next I sewed the lutradur piece onto a sheet of watercolour sprayed background using random stitches and then added a blanket stitch border all around the edges to finish off.
Heres the completed piece:
Posted by: trishbee on: September 12, 2009
This is a purse I made using one half of the melted oil pastels background sheet I blogged earlier, the lutradur I used was the 100g variety which is pretty thick and because of its thickness it can take the weight of the oil pastels melted onto it.
Surprisingly the oil pastels didnt flake off when I sewed the purse together, I half expected them to, I had planned on adding a coat of gel medium over the top of the purse once Id sewed it to protect the oil pastels if they had become fragile but as luck would have it, I didnt need to!
I love the texture and feel of this background and cant stop touching it..
Posted by: trishbee on: September 12, 2009
Ive been experimenting with a pack of black lutradur sheets I had in my stash for a swap I signed up for, Ive been meaning to use my lutradur for ages but never got round to it. Adrienne announced a lutradur swap on UKArtSwaps which caught my eye – I now had an excuse to dig out my lutradur and actually USE it for a change
Heres a couple of backgrounds I did with the lutradur, havent made anything with most of them yet though! My next step with the background is to experiment with distressing them with my heat tool!
Dont forget to click all the pictures you see if you want to see bigger images!
Lutradur Metallic Rubbings:
I made this background using a sheet of black lutradur and a stamping mat to make a rubbing using metallic oil pastels. I love how the pastels pop out on the dark background
Lutradur Squirty Painted Background:
Various paints and colours where brushed and squirted directly onto the lutradur to make a painterly background, I then placed another sheet of lutradur on top of the painted sheet and pressed them together, then pulled them apart to make a print of the background. Both backgrounds are below (click for bigger)
Lutradur Resist Background:
I made this background by first stamping a repeat pattern all over the sheet with metallic paint, once it was dry I rubbed over the top with another colour to make a kind of resist effect.
Lutradur Oil Pastel Background:
I used metallic oil pastels gently rubbed over the black lutradur to bring out the patterns of the fibers. I love the feel of this background
Lutradur Melted Oil Pastels Background:
This is one of my favourite backgrounds, I used various colours of both metallic and regular oil pastels to make this background, I used a hot encaustic wax iron to smear hot wax across the lutradur and added little droplets of wax to add accents.
Posted by: trishbee on: September 12, 2009
To make this cover for the paper bag book I joined together two different pieces of fabric paper together using hand stitching. I decided to embellish the fabric paper using random stitches across the paper to add further interest. Then I sewed it directly onto the paper bag book to finish.
Pictures below (click for bigger)
Cover Opened Up:
Front Cover:
Back Cover: