A Journal for Michele

First of all I have to share with you that it's 102 degrees at my home today, YUCK!! Thank God for central air!! Where I live, our summer temps are generally in the highs of lower 80's (& that's bad enough), so this 100 degree weather is NASTY stuff, actually anything above 80 for us is just plain icky!!

I wanted to share with you a journal I made for Michele of EyEmbellishments. Her birthday was a couple of weekends ago, so I made this for her. It was made by using modeling paste & Golden Fluid Acrylics.

© 2009 Tracy Borders

I had seen other artists add beading to the spine to cover the thread from when the signatures were sewn into the journals, so I gave it a try......................it didn't really seem to do much for me, so I'm not sure that I'll try it again.

© 2009 Tracy Borders

© 2009 Tracy Borders

Got word from Michele, she loves it!! :)

Chips Anyone?

While we were on holiday in Croatia, we discovered these yummy potato chips that we think were seasoned with red bell peppers. Since everything was in Croatian there was no chance at figuring out the ingredients & since there were pictures of red bell peppers on the bags, we assumed that's what they were seasoned with. These were a wonderful snack while on our week long sail (we went through 4 big bags of these.)

The colors caught my eye right away (luckily) which made me think, "I wonder what I can do with these to make myself a cool souvenir from this trip?" (Of course my DH thought I was a nut for flying home with trash in my suitcase), but look how they turned out & he seemed to think that maybe it was a good idea that I brought them home after all :)

© 2009 Tracy Borders

© 2009 Tracy Borders

Finished, they are each 6" by 6". I used Peltex between the chip bag layer & the hand dyed cotton backing fabric to give the blocks more stability. I just love that I was able to take something that would have normally been tossed in the trash & make a wonderful souvenir from it!!

I still have two unused chip bags & am thinking of maybe designing a little clutch purse lined with hand dyed bamboo fabric? I'm a little concerned though about whether the chip bag "material" would be able to stand up to regular wear & tear. Can it be sealed with a polymer medium or will it just flake off? (Am going to have to consult with a friend of mine that uses the medium in a lot of her work & see what she says.) :)

ATC for Trade, ACEO for my Shop

Kath Loden (another new friend from the UK, yeah!) read my post before this one & through our conversations agreed upon an ATC swap.

The first card below, is the one I'm sending her (hope she likes it.)

© 2009 Tracy Borders

It's made from hand dyed bamboo poplin, black Misty Fuse & Turquoise Eyelash Yarn (LOVE those two colors together). This is so hard to see in the photo, but I then free motion quilted the card & added some Treasure Gold wax on the raised surfaces & added a few sequins with seed beads for embellishments.

The ACEO below, is in my Etsy shop.

© 2009 Tracy Borders

This ACEO was created in the same manner as the card above, except more stitching & less eyelash yarn.

I'll post Kath's ATC here when it arrives. It was asked in my last post what I sent Anne for the ATC swap......... I created an ATC like the card in my shop, which you can see here.

Beautfiul ATC Trade

I wanted to share with you a beautifully cross-stitched ATC I received from Anne Lugherini in a trade. Anne contacted me & said that she had ran across my blog & wondered if I'd be up for a trade. Of course I would!! My first piece of art from a French Artist!! :)

LOVE the little fishies!! You might have to click on the photo to see them better, but she added pearlescent white seed beads that suggest bubbles in the water.

I was honored to discover, I was her first US swap!! Beautiful card Anne, thank you for trading with me!!!

Karma Friends Award

Cheryl of Scrappy Cat generously sent this to me............

The wording for this award is as follows:

The Karma Award: These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kinds of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

Through my blog, I have met & made tons of friends in the States as well as Internationally. (Should we ever end up living in North Carolina or in the UK, I can happily say I have tons of artists friends to go visit) :)

Purple Missus

ArtMixter

Elizabeth Creates

Mags

Sherry in NC

Alis Clair

Michelle

Huckleberry Arts

My brain is in a funk.............

Ever since we got back from holiday in Rome & Croatia, my non-creative brain has been in a funk! One day, I was determined to try to attempt working in my studio & I ended up organizing & cleaning it instead (which was actually needed).

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon working on a single quilt block & didn't get ANYWHERE!! Maybe I'm trying to hard, maybe I'm not trying hard enough? But I'm finding this frustrating & a little depressing!!

I did, however manage to create a journal using Evolon & submitted it to hopefully be published in Marion Barnett's new book. Sorry no pics to share (yet), it was one of those things where my deadline was tight & the last 3 days before deadline, I put MANY hours into it, so by the time it was completed, I was tired of looking at it AND it was finished the night before the morning it was to be sent out, so I didn't have time to photograph. I also wasn't sure if my photography work would be able to pick up the play of light of the Evolon & Golden Acrylics & since Marion is having everything professionally photographed, I wasn't too worried. Sounds like my biggest worry should be getting my journal back. Marion says she's love it so much, she doesn't want to part with it :)

If anyone is interested, I've been slowly adding pics of our trip here to our Flickr account. We took over 1100 pictures & as you can see, I've only added about 1/5 of the photos to our site. All the deleting of the bad photos & putting names to the good ones & only doing about a handful each day, it's taking a little bit of time. Feel free to check back on the site, since I'm constantly adding new photos.

(Hopefully by next week, I'll have some art to post!!)