Nearly two hours ago I got on the computer with the intention of doing a quick blog post about my little fairy slippers but I have managed to get totally distracted by blog reading instead! There are so many wonderful blogs out there and I especially love the ones where people share their art and creativity in various forms. I really need to update my favourite blogs sidebar as there are about a hundred missing! Thank goodness for Google Reader.
Anyway, these are my finished slippers - they are tiny - a fiddly exercise completely out of my comfort zone (which is why it was an "out of your comfort zone" exchange!). The original idea came from was an article in the UK "Stitch" magazine which Joanna has introduced me to. As my "fabric" I used tissue paper which was first fused to felt, then decorated with Adirondack colour washes and black webbing spray and finally sealed with diluted PVA. The result is quite leathery looking and relatively malleable. It machine stitched beautifully as a larger piece but was a bit delicate when it came to hand stitching and beading the cut edges. The insides are painted with gold fabric paint.
While I have always kept notebooks for ideas, thoughts, quotes etc I haven't previously kept an art journal. I always liked the idea and read lots of articles and books by people who did but this is the first year I have actually got around to it. I am only doing the occasional page but I am really enjoying it. The prompt for this page is Love (it being February). I have done an acrylic paint background that I have then scribbled into while wet with an embossing tool. The stamps are flea market stamps from the wonderful Ma Vinci (I have rather a lot of her fabulous alphabet stamps) and the hearts are cut from scraps of fabric paper left over from the August workshops I did with Beryl Taylor. I wouldn't hand sew into a journal again (or at least not so much) - it was too awkward and time-consuming with the whole book attached to the page! The splodges of blue and green come from sprays of Moon Spray Glitz. The page is a bit more vibrant than it looks in the scan. Lots of white gel pen and some glitter glue too!
