Felted Wool Toddler Sweaters

Oooh, these are just too cute, if I do say so myself. And incredibly fun to make.

These will be for sale at the boutique next Saturday. The first is a size 4 and the second a size 3 toddler.

Freeform Knit Bag in Neutrals

I've been working on this bag for quite a while and am thrilled to have it completed. It will be for sale at the holiday boutique on November 10 (see link at left). I'm very pleased with how it turned out, but I would probably make the strap narrower if I had it to do over again.

I have no idea what to charge for this baby! If you have an opinion, please leave a comment for me.

Swaps Amid Boutique Mania

I've managed to finish a couple of swaps in between all the work I've been doing for the crafts boutique in a couple of weeks. I hadn't realized when I signed up for the boutique that a lot of work would have to go into non-salable items, such as business cards, tags, bags, booth planning, etc. Of course, I can't just do plain old business cards, mine have to be hand-embossed or collaged on the back, so I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself, as usual!

Anyway, here's my October postcard swap. The colors are orange and indigo. I received this image in a supplies swap, and she just looked like a witch in training to me. I made extras of these to sell at the boutique, too. I have no idea whether people will buy original art postcards, but I'm going to find out!



And here's a page in Red Dog's black, light blue, and silver True Colors journal. This is much simpler than my usual work, but when I thought of various things I could add to it, nothing seemed to work and I just kind of liked it the way it is.

New Handmade Journals

This week I completed four journals for the boutique. I used some paintings I had done with texture and acrylics for the covers, and I think they turned out pretty cool! The painting techniques are from Mary Todd Beam's book Celebrate Your Creative Self, which is a LOT of fun. The beads on the book marker cords are my handmade papers beads, and the end papers inside are my metallic papers, both of which are shown in previous posts.

Here are the fronts and backs of all four journals.

September Postcards

This month's postcards were a bit of a challenge. The colors were royal colors: blues, purples and gold. I saw this really cool technique on someone else's blog using bubble wrap, and I though, oooh, bubble wrap is sort of symbolic of how royalty is insulated from the masses.

Well, it took me forever just to pop all the little bubbles, first squishing and twisting, then rolling with a brayer, stomping on it, you name it. Then layers of gesso, acrylic paint, spray colorwash, and gold leaf that each had to dry before I could move on.

So here's what it ended up looking like:



After all that, I didn't want to cover up the bubble wrap to much, so I kept the postcards simple but tried to go with the royalty theme:







Next month's colors are orange and indigo. Hmmm . . .

Tutorial: Distressed Metallic Paper

I stumbled upon this technique while using up leftover paint, but it's so cool (and easy!) I thought I'd share it here.

I started by painting dioxazine purple fluid acrylic onto a piece of white cardstock. Oh,and from here on, assume all fluid acrylics are mixed about 50/50 with acrylic glazing liquid.



After it was dry, I sprayed it with several colors of Ranger Adirondack Colorwash until it was pretty wet. It ends up pretty dark, and it's hard to get a good photo of it.



Here are the colors I used, but you could probably use whatever you have, as they mix together to form varying shades of brown.



Then I clipped the papers to let them drip and dry:





Once this layer was dry, I sponged on fluid acrylic in irridescent gold:



After that, while the gold was still a bit wet, I added Quinacridone Crimson to the gold and sponged that on, giving it a coppery look:



Here are the exact paints I used:



And here is the result. The first two photos are taken in my studio, and the last is a scan of one of the pages, which really doesn't show the metallic quality of the paper. I apologize for the quality of these photos!

SIX New Recycled Sweater Book Bags

I've been a busy beaver the past week and managed to turn out six new book bags for the boutique. For more information on the Ojai Handcrafts Boutique, click here.

The first bag uses a blue patterned sweater with a pair of off-white pants for the lining and pockets.







The next bag is made from a blue and purple patterned sweater and a pair of army green pants:





This one would be appropriate for a guy, with it's dark, patterned sweater and army green pants pockets and hardware-ish trim:





This one is made from an awesome bright orange and chocolate brown ski sweater and pockets from another pair of army green pants. The photo of the inside lining and pockets was too blurry to show here.



This one is one of my favorites. The front of the sweater had such a pretty pattern and great colors, but it wasn't enough for the bag flap, unless I just buttoned it up and used the placket too! And the women's pants I used for the lining and pockets had some wonderful embroidery down the leg that made an interesting lining.





The last one is made from a gorgeous red and gray and off-white sweater and a red women's skort that had drawstrings below the pockets.





So that's it for the book bags for now. I'm going to start on baby sweaters next.