Feeling very productive...

I had such a lovely day yesterday - I had a lie-in, breakfast in bed (Joseph is exceedingly thoughtful!) and then spent a large portion of the day "making stuff'! I did manage to get several loads of washing done but that was about it on the domestic front. Needless to say the rest is about to be attacked when I finish this post.

I finished my Arch Shape Book cover (this has been a work in progress for quite a while because of all the layers involved) and also a page for the book. I can now post it off tomorrow so it can travel to the six other artists who will work in it before it gets back to me around Christmas!

The book cover is based on a texture paste layer on mat board that I cut into an arch shape. It has been painted with Lumiere paints and rubbed with black ink. I then glued in and sealed a photocopied image. I sanded it back a bit and then sprayed and rubbed the whole cover with Butterscotch Adirondak Color Wash to give a golden glow. When that was dry I coated the whole cover with a thick layer of the base coat of a Crackle Finish (Helmar's) and heated it with a heat gun until the underlying paint layers were bubbling (adds to the antique look). I applied the top coat of the Crackle Finish and when that was dry, I rubbed dark brown oil paint in the cracks. To finish I lightly swiped a few bits of Sunset Gold Lumiere Paint over the raised areas. I was going to use some Gold Leafing but decided it might look to bright so I used the paint instead. I was trying to get an old religious shrine type look and I am pleased with how it has worked out.

I also completed my Frida page - it is a bit dark in the scan but is quite bright in real life. I partially stitched a transparency to a piece of silk fusion paper that has some gold angelina in it. This was then attached to a piece of background paper that I stamped several swirls (from my new "Pollen Dust" stamps) and a few words on in a few colours of ink. The whole lot was then stitched to some lovely Fabriano paper. The large daisies are punched from fabric paper (a la Beryl Taylor) that I also made a while back. They were very very bright pink so I sprayed them on the back side (which is thin muslin) with Wild Plum Adirondak Colour Wash (can you tell I love these washes?) to tone them down a bit and then patted out a lot of the colour until I was happy with them.

Last night I decided to start my first set of Blue Fabric Inchies so after perusing a few sites to make sure I was on the right track, I layered fusible webbing to a bright blue piece of fabric and backed it with black felt. I then added a fine layer of angelina (mixed colours in blue shades and pink) and machine stitched a rough grid over the whole thing using gold thread. It is very pretty but a lot of the iridescence is lost in the scan below. Once it is cut up into inchies I'm planning on doing some seed beading on this set. I can't decide what to do about the backing or the edges as it is likely the black felt will show too much if I leave them unfinished, but I am thinking they might be too hard to machine stitch once they are beaded. I suppose I could hand stitch them.

I also worked on the beading and quilting of another item but it isn't finished so no photo of that yet! So now I am off to do some house-work (and I am practising the gratitude approach by repeating the following mantra " I am very lucky to have a house to clean"...).