Little things and spring not here yet blues....

Hello there people..
I am sorry about the long time in between posts. I hope that this one finds you all well!
It has been really weird with the weather here..a few days of really good nice warm weather ( well warm for Idaho..lol) and a fell for it. Planted some flowers and the next day I woke up with snow on them. Needless to tell you what happened with the flowers.
Its seems that around this time of the year I get the "spring is here..now you see it and now you don't ' blues..lol. Lots of inspiration but no work done...am I the only one with this????
Today I am posting my beaded mermaid that has no face...yet. Just do not seem to get it on her..pfff. But she will get one, promise! Hubby thinks she should get arms too, not willing to go that far..lol. It seems that embellishing with beads has my attention lately, maybe it is because I have never done a lot of that.


This next pictures is my try of making a wool (old sweater), beaded flower, what do you think?
Sewing on beads the right way is not as easy as I thought....let me know if you see anything that I can improve..please!?




Seems that I am into making little things right now does it not?LOL
Wanted to use some fabric scraps, so made these little fabric charms. They are about 1inch small. Think they would look cute on a bracelet or neckless ....
This is really all I have to show for now, sorry! I promise I will get more work done to share with you!
Let me know what you think all you wonderful inspiring people out there that back me up with your awesome comments, really.....did I say really....appreciate you guys!!!
Well lets go and create and have spite of the nasty weather a wonderful day??!!
BIG HUG,
Andrea.

Pictures for you...

Hello there people!
I hope this post finds you all well.
Today I would like to share some pictures that were taken in Yellowstone two years ago. Just now found them again..lol.
They speak for themselves...I think...well any way, you can download them if you want. These are my pics, so you do not have to worry about copy rights. I hope that they will inspire you!
XOXO
Andrea.

Spring...maybe???

Hello there folks, how are you all doing today?
Hope this post finds you all well.
We finally got rid of the white stuff here, it has turned into the wet stuff. RAIN!!
The temperatures have gone up a bit, but is is still kind of chilly in the mornings. The daytime temp is going over forty now...Yippee! I know for some of you it does not seem that "warm" but for around here its a sign of spring, at least that's what we tell our selves here..lol.
I should be honest we had a couple of days in the fifties, then they went..pff..
For today's posting, a butterfly applique that's hand and machine needle felted. Then stitched on to the background fabric. The rest is apart from no binding finished like a regular quilt. My thought on the binding was...why?? Ehum..apart from that I do not like to do bindings..lol.
In my opinion, its not always necessary to have a binding on a wall hanging, I know that some of you quilters out there 'shiver' at these words...sorry...lol.
I am stubborn....I do it my way..lol...did I mention that I was stubborn????
Ok...I would, if somebody wanted to buy it and requested it, put a binding on it, see I am flexible....right???
I was wondering if I should leave it like this or put leaves with the flowers? Any suggestions my friends?
Well will have to leave you for now, have to prepare for a class I am teaching tomorrow...
Wishing everyone a wonderful great day! And go and create!
XO Andrea.

Good morning..... for you..

Good morning everyone. I hope you are all doing great!
Just now found this great blog:http://quiltingranny.blogspot.com
She is having a yummy give away, because of her 500th post coming up.
Go check her blog and get inspired and enter of course!
May the "lucky" one win..lol.
Lilla is also having a give away on her blog:http://justlilla.blogspot.com
She makes the most wonderful things, go and check her blog out too!!
Talk to you guys later.....have a great one and go and create!!!!
Andrea.

I won something...for real!!!!

Hello there friends...how are you doing today?
Hope this post finds you all well!
Have to share this with you. I actually won something ....Marlyn from http://honeysucklebreeze.blogspot.com , had a give away on her blog. I stumbled in there cruising the web. You really should check out her blog, there is some really amazing inspiration there!
This is what a won...and I know that I am really going to enjoy this!!!
Love,
Andrea.

The record bowls!!

You guys are keeping me busy..lol.
Ok...the record bowls....preheat oven to the 200F . If you do have convect bake, really use it. It is a lot more effective.
Put your record on top of an upside down glass or metal bowl. Put it in the oven and wait for about three minutes. You will see the record starting to droop. Put on oven gloves..not kidding here...put them on!
Take out the record when soft. And shape. If you want holes in your bowl...soften the record flat first and punch holes. Then you can proceed to the bowl part. You can also put the record when soft into another bowl that's sitting upright. Push the record into that bowl and use your bowl shape to shape your bowl......confused???...I have been like that for years..lol.
That's actually all there is to it folks. Remember when embellishing, if you plan to reshape in any form you will have the reheat the bowl. Which means use only things that can withstand the temperature used. Like with glue ..USE NON-FLAMMABLE GLUE!!!

Record recycling tutorial!!!

Ok folks here it is.....
Preheat your oven too about 200F degrees, if you have convect bake on it, I suggest you use that.
Take an old record that nobody will miss. Not your hubby's collection..lol. Make sure you are ventilating the room you are working in very well, there will be some fumes!
Put it on a pizza stone or cookie sheet. Both need to be big enough for the record to lay flat. That's right we are starting with the bracelets first.
DO NOT THROW AWAY THE ALBUM COVER!!!! I am working on recycling those too....I will share some ideas about recycling album covers with you. ( next week)
Ok back to the record..have some oven gloves ready, it will be HOT,...did I mention the record will be hot?
Check on it after about three minutes, if it is soft, cut it into strips like this...some need more time. Its more fun if you cut different sizes!



You might have to put it back in the oven several trips to soften it up again, so keep the oven on till we are done cutting.
Then cut round edges on the strips like this......



After all the cutting, put the strips in one more time. All together if possible, when they are soft, roll over them with something like an old can . This is to flatten them well enough to work with.
Note here, that if you want to punch holes or such in them you will have to reheat them. You cannot punch holes when they are hardened, they will for sure crack..trust me on this.
Once they are flat enough and hardened up again, you will need to sand the edges really well.( the edges can be very sharp) If you sand on the side that will be the top that's going to show when you wear it, it will give you a sort of leather look. I soak the strips with label on them in warm water and scratch the labels of and then I sand the labels of with my sander, if you try this make sure you are holding on to the strip really well and USE PROTECTIVE EYE WEAR!!! You can start embellishing them. BUT WAIT..IMPORTANT...anything you will use on them needs to be able to resist the heat you are using to soften them. Why? Well you will have to soften them to shape them...aha?
For that you can use the can...ehh vegetable can or such of course..lol. There are different sizes of cans, so make sure you choose one that will give you the fit you need. If you happen on the wrong size..well no panic...grab a different one and reheat the bracelet. When I made my bracelets, I let the ends overlap. This way they will have the expanding space to put them on...which is a good thing right?
I have lined mine with wool from a recycled wool skirt. its nice and soft plus it can stand the heat that's used. The wool was glued with E6000, please make sure you ventilate the room you are working in very well. Read the instructions on the glue...USE NON-FLAMMABLE GLUE!!!
Go crazy my friends and show me what you have made...pretty please???

Yes...the water is purple!

Good morning everybody...how are we doing today? Hope all of you are having or are going to have the most wonderful day ever! With lots of creating of course!
Today I am showing a project that I have been working on in between projects. For those who want to read between the lines...yes that means it is taking me a while to finish it..lol.
All commercial fabrics with lots of free motion stitching. The fish were cut out from the commercial fabric to suit at my will ..lol. I then free motion stitched tiny little scales on them with metallic thread, boy was that #%&*... had to go thru all kinds of experiments to keep this thread from breaking. The thread itself was a very expensive brand ( not sure if I am allowed to use brand names in here..lol), so I thought that the problem was coming from somewhere else and it did. USE METALLIC NEEDLES FOR METALLIC THREAD is all I can tell you and slow down on your sewing speed.
This project was one of those design as you go things and I am not sure if I want to embellish it or put more fabric embellishments on it or what..(suggestions welcome here).
That's why..as you can see, its not finished yet.
Any way dear friends, I wanted to share this with you. Now I will get ready to start making the promised tutorials for the recycling projects.
Take care all of you and have that wonderful day that I wished you before and go and create!!!
Andrea.