Woo hoo!

Well, I've been getting some things finished up, packaged and posted on Etsy. I've been making barrettes as I've found they are a great way to use up small bits to make something useful. I've posted 1 pair and 2 individual barrettes in my shop and sold one within a few minutes of listing it. If you are interested in purchasing ... look for them at shelleyann.etsy.com and, if you mention that you saw them here in the comments section or by using the contact seller button, I will refund the shipping for you as a little perk!

I'm attempting my hand at making large ceramic buttons for use as quilt embellishments. I'll post those when they are done. (They still have to dry and then be fired, glazed and fired again. So that may take a week, or so.)


Okay -- off to bed, I have to go to work tomorrow. (Drat!)

I'm nearly there!

My computer is running great and I bought a new digital camera today. I'm nearly there! I still have to introduce the camera to my computer but, once that's done, I'll be back to posting more pictures. And pictures are worth 1000 words!

I'm ready to be back in the studio. I've spent this weekend getting my front yard in shape. Splitting and replanting lilies, mulching, stringing pretty tree lights, putting out decorative bird houses, etc. So, even though I was not able to be in my studio, I was productive.

Etsy's giving me a bit of a headache. It was down for a few days being "fixed" or "updated" or something like that. It's all done and back online but now pictures/graphics are either taking a terribly long time to load or not loading at all. No one is going to buy artwork based on a description. I hope they get that bug fixed soon. Until then I won't post anything. I don't want to pay for the posting and have the front page "new posting" feature go to waste because the graphics aren't working. I count on that free publicity to get people to view my other artwork, too!

Well - I guess that's it for today. Now to have my new camera say hello to my newly reformatted computer. This should be fun...

Crash!

This has not been a good 2 weeks. My computer went completely AWOL on me and my dear, sweet, oh-so-patient husband is in the process of reformatting the whole thing and, as long as he's at it, he's souping it up with some DVD reader/writer which also does some other cool stuff. (I know because there were a lot of acronyms in the description!) Anyway - I am not up and running properly, yet. He should be done fiddling with it in a day or two. The other thing that has set me back a bit is that, when I was in CA visiting my lovely daughter ... who is 20 today so "Happy Birthday Little Dolly" ... I lost my camera the 2nd day I was there. Now I cannot take pictures of my work in progress or post anything for sale until I get another one. In the meantime, I am working in my studio, trying to lose a few pounds before Cheekie's open house (she's my 2nd daughter), my surrogate daughter Amanda's wedding, the Dahl family reunion and the Perron family reunion all coming in the next 2 months. If I had that camera I'd've taken a before picture ... okay, maybe not. It's easy to make statements about what I would do if I could when I know that I can't. (Did you get all that?) The picture at the top of this post is my little Ashley when we visited her last fall. This picture was taken at The Taste of Monterey where we go for wine tastings whenever we're there. (Check it out if you ever find yourself in Monterey California. It's a nice relaxing atmosphere to taste in and they have a nice variety of wine and gifts.) Anyway - When things improve with my computer and I obtain a camera I will post some new pictures. In the meantime ... God bless you!

Happy Easter!

My computer went on strike when I tried to load some music onto my iPod and I couldn't use it for a coupla days. Now I am trying to load my iPod using my kids' computer. (Bad Mammy!) My computer just came back from it's vacation and I'm just getting ready to go on mine.

I am packing tonight so that the kids and I can leave for the airport tomorrow after I get home from work. We are heading to California for a long weekend for them and a week long stay for me. My oldest, Ashley, is in Montery at the DLI learning Arabic for the MN National Guard. We will be celebrating Easter with her and then on Thursday her fiancee, Tim, graduates from Russian school at DLI, so I will be staying there to see him graduate. I will also be meeting my daughters future in-laws. I hope they like me.

I will post California pictures when I return in about 9 days.

I am working on a coupla small things that I will post when I finish. Probably not until the 3rd week of April.

Until then, Easter blessing!
Shelley Ann

This is what it looks like with fabric stretched and pinned to the frame.

Making and using a stretcher frame

I created a frame using easy to find elements that required no special tools and would be easy to disassemble, reassemle and would be easy to adjust for different sizes of fabric.

What you need:
1: ready made stretcher strips found at Jo Ann Fabrics, Micheal's, etc. You can vary the size of your frame as long as the opposite two strips are the same size. These strips just fit together at the corners.

2: a box of cup hooks which can be found anywhere you buy neils and screws. These are nice because you can screw them in by hand very easily.

3: a large elastic band for hair. You will want the giant ones that are used as a headband, not a ponytail holder! Or, for a larger frame, you will have to find or make a longer elastic loop to make it around the inside of your frame.

4: safety pins to hold the fabric to the elastic.


How to stretch your fabric:
Cut your fabric about 2" smaller than the inside dimension of your frame. Put the pin through the middle of one side of your fabric piece and put the center side section of an elastic inside of the pin without pining through the elastic and then do the same for the opposite side. Next pin the top and bottom centers of your fabric. After all four sides are pinned from the center, do opposite corners and complete the pinning until all sections of elastic between the hooks are pinned to a corresponding section of the fabric.

This will hold your fabric tight and keep it off the table surface.

Working with Resist

Well, I've been working on 2 different pieces. One with gel glue resist and one with a maunfactured resist that was professionally made and packages. So far my results are very much the same. If I apply so much dye that the fabric is WET, or I wet the fabric before applying the dye, it bleeds to the neighboring section. If I apply dye with a brush and do not have a moisture saturated fabric, it works much better. Ive also found that when I use my heat gun to do a quick dry on the day sections it help prevent the bleeding of one section to another.

These are the two pieces I did. The "door" was done with gel glue and the feehand diamond grid was done with the color block resist I purchased. It's somewhat difficult to compair with the pictures simply because of the different techniques used so you'll have to just "trust me" with my observations of how the different formulas reacted during the dye application.