Dad's Air Force Quilt

I was able to fly out to Ohio for my dad's retirement ceremony. He's been serving his country for fifty years--twenty years active duty Air Force, and thirty years in civil service. My sister Barb had the idea to make this quilt for him. There wasn't time to piece it, so she called me up and told me what she had in mind, and asked if I could design something digitally and we could get it printed. I put the background together with gelli prints, and created the plane silhouettes in Adobe Illustrator. These are the three main airplanes that he worked on--the T-6, C-17, and F-35.



Barb wanted fifty stars around the border, and I thought they would look good on a background of smaller stars. I made some gelli prints and scanned them.



I made a large star stamp and stamped it with acrylic paint on fabric to get the texture I wanted.



I scanned the stars and made them into Photoshop brushes to put around the border.



Barb and I went back and forth with the image a few times to make sure everything was just right, and then I sent the completed file to Pattern Jam. They printed it out on fabric and sent it to Barb.



Barb put it together and quilted it on her longarm machine. The printing turned out great (the red came out a little more orange than I was expecting), and Barb did a fabulous job with the quilting.



Barb is a longarm artiste!



Presenting the quilt to Dad.



Barb said, "It will keep you warm while you take naps."

It was a really lovely ceremony. Peter sang the national anthem (first and fourth verses, by request), and did a great job. Everyone had lots of nice things to say about Dad.



After the ceremony we had a receiving line. Kirsten sat out most of it. The rest of us thought it would be funny to line up by height.



Betsey and Barb were up late the night before making fudge. I did the labels. I hear it was quite tasty. I think they're still eating that cake.

Barb was the only one who came out with her whole family--Peter and I left ours at home. Our Cousin Mark came from Indiana, and we all had a fun couple of days together. We played some games and ate Korean food and made inappropriate jokes about making fudge.

Congratulations, Dad!

The Valentine Project

In the midst of all the opera painting, I was also working on Valentines. I was asked to help out with a Relief Society activity, and also helped Kate make some for her class.



I got some gelli printing and stamp carving done ahead of time, but no actual Valentine-assembly happened until Wednesday night. I was thinking Kate's class party was gong to be on Friday, but she came home and told me it was on Thursday, so we had a late night Valentine-making session.  As it happened, I'd been super tired for the first few days after theater load-in, but on Wednesday I suddenly got this great productive burst of energy (still trying to figure out where that came from and how I can make it happen again!) so we just buckled down and got it done.  I did the front sides of the cards and she added a personalized message and drawing on the back of each one. 



Kate brought home a bag from school to decorate.  She cut out some paper pieces, and I did some gelli printing on the bag before she glued them on.

I've been watching mixed media tutorials on YouTube,  and I have a lot of things that I want to try.  I did play with stencils and molding  paste a little (which we ended up using on the cards for Kate's teachers, but I didn't get a picture), and I got some Tim Holtz distress ink and a blending tool.  Cool toys!  I need to experiment with that a bit more.  I have this problem--I have tons of ideas and things that I want to try, but when I'm feeling most productive is usually when I'm busy doing other things.  Isn't that always the way? 

Stamped Skirt (보리밭 치마)

My first attempt at painting and stamping on a skirt!  I've had this in mind for quite a while, but it took some time to figure out exactly how I was going to do it. 

I used Jacquard Textile Colors on a white skirt from Dharma Trading Co.  (this one is unfortunately discontinued--I snagged two before they were gone!)

I learned some interesting things while working on this project:  (1) It's almost impossible to get a precise placement and a good print with an already-put-together garment on a gelli plate. (2) Jacquard Textile Paints will wash out pretty well, if you do it right away. I went through a couple of false starts before I got something I was happy with. I did use the gelli plate for the background--rolled out a thin layer of paint and just pressed the fabric randomly onto it for a blotchy, distressed look, which was pretty much what I was going for.



The text is the lyrics of 보리밭 (a song about walking through a barley field). At first I made a big forward-facing stamp (so I could use it on the gelli plate) using puff paint on craft foam, but I just couldn't get the print placed correctly on the skirt. I realized that only way I was going to get a good print and be able to position it just the way I wanted was by direct stamping. So my project went on hold while I made another stamp.



It's hand-cut craft foam glued onto a clear background.  (This took a very long time, and I'll probably never do it again!)  I split it into two narrower stamps, rather than one big one, so I could spread out the gathers on a small amount of fabric and position the stamp. This is still tricky.  Stamping fabric and then making it into a skirt seems like an obvious solution, but I have to wonder if the paint would gum things up. It does get a little stiff.  Worth a try, maybe. 



The middle tier is all text, and then it dips down into the bottom tier in places. I kept that part more indistinct by rolling the paint on the stamp unevenly and then not pressing down on the whole stamp.  I like the look. 



The big stamp is adapted from a Dancheong pattern. I got eight spaced more-or-less evenly around the bottom.





The apple green color is really bright.  I mixed it with some other colors, but it's still pretty bright. It's a good Korean color, though.  And it came out pretty close to what I'd pictured, so I'm happy with it! Now I have a couple of skirts and some ideas for Kate!

The Paper Lantern Experiment

I've been drooling over papercut lanterns on Pinterest. I've also seen some cool things done with gelli printing on deli paper. Combining the two seemed like a logical progression. I'd been tossing ideas around in my head and decided that the occasion of our book club white elephant gift exchange would be the ideal time to attempt to throw something together. I did not quite get it done in time, what with nativity painting and Cub Scout meeting and whipping up a batch of pretzels, so I brought it home afterwards to finish up.



Kate and I spent Sunday morning before church sitting across the kitchen table from each other, working on our projects. (She's been making Sculpey dragons.) My favorite part was choosing which part of the gelli print to use for each shape. I discovered that it worked better to cut out all the pieces and then glue them in place, to avoid getting glue on the papers while choosing.



I had a battery-powered tea light that I'd picked up at the dollar store. The deli paper is thin but the light turned out to be a lot dimmer and more yellow than what I was wanting. I'll have to see if I can find something that will work better. It does look pretty cool!

Brahms' Lullaby Papercut

I made this for a new friend's baby shower. She's a classical cellist and music teacher, having her first baby, so I had the idea to use Brahms' Lullaby and design a papercut around it. I don't think I've ever done anything with this many thin lines. It was a little tricky!



I spent about a day messing around with the design--deciding what I wanted to use and how to fit everything together. This is an early thumbnail sketch (about 2" wide in real life!).  I usually end up doing this sort of thing at my computer desk, so I can look things up easily, but then of course I keep bouncing back and forth between my project and other distractions. That's why it took all day.  (Ah, the internet... such a fabulous help and such a deep sucking pit of hindrance!)



This is nearly how I want it but still pretty loose. I scanned this and put a straighter frame on it in Photoshop, then printed it out again (lowering the opacity to make it light gray) and then went back over everything more more precisely, finalizing things like the spacing of the notes.  Then I printed that backwards (flipped horizontally) and did a graphite transfer to trace it onto white cardstock. 

I started cutting Friday night (after we got back from the fair) and had about three hours to finish it up this morning. I finished ten minutes before the shower started.  Whew! (My fingers are still feeling it!)

I'm going to re-create this one in Illustrator and make a cutting file.  That will be some good Illustrator practice!

Kid Shirts!

I made shirts yesterday!  It was a spur-of-the moment thing.  I thought they turned out really cute.  The kids were, perhaps, somewhat less enthused, but they were willing to pose for me. (Conveniently, both of our kids have four-letter names!  Isn't that lucky?)



The idea popped into my head in the morning while I was puttering around, and  I got to work on the stamps right away.  I cut the letters out of craft foam and glued them to another layer of foam. (That's the 5mm Silly Winks from Hobby Lobby--last time I was there they didn't have white so I got pink.)  I think it took me about an hour to do both Kate's and Andy's names. 



I got some Versatex Printing Ink that I have plans for. This was a good dry run. I started out rolling the ink out in a tray and pressing the stamp in it, but then realized that I could get better coverage by brayering it right onto the stamp.



Yes, I'm living dangerously here--didn't put down the drop cloth. No mishaps!



The stamping part was super easy. The hardest part was running downstairs between each color to wash out the brayer in the "work" sink. The orange is a bit brighter than I was thinking.  All the colors are really bright.  It works well here, but I might try to mix them and tone them down a bit for other projects.

That was fun!  What else can I stamp?

Portrait Attempt (Acrylic)

Dawn, who got two pencil drawings last year, asked if I could paint her. I told her I wasn't sure how it would come out, but I was willing to give it a shot. I've been doing pencil drawings for years, and I've painted a few things (giraffes, Hogwarts....) but my non-pencil portrait experience has been pretty limited.

I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out. I'd say the hardest thing was trying to match the skin tones. And then just deciding how much attention to pay to the background. (I do like the flowers on the left. Those came out nicely.) Also, no one should ever have to paint teeth on their first attempt. So, all in all, not fabulous, but I'm not completely put off portrait painting for eternity. I'd like to give it a try again sometime, with a better photo. Something with higher resolution and more interesting lighting. After all those other projects on my list.

Teacher Papercuts

Spring Squares

Quick papercut this morning.

Stamping Wrapping Paper

Since I've been making stamps to use with my gelli plate, it occurred to me that I could also use them for making wrapping paper. I got a big roll of white paper and a roll of kraft brown paper, and I've been having fun stamping them.



Kate's friend Kael had a Pokemon-themed party, so I made this wrapping paper for his present. I cut the shapes out of craft foam (Doug helped me get Pikachu's ears right), and glued them onto flooring scraps.



This was for a white elephant gift exchange.

(There were a few others--one where I used potato stamps--but I didn't get pictures.)



So, I ambitiously decided to make all our wrapping paper for Christmas. I started this well enough in advance that I had some time to find shapes and cut out all the fiddly bits. 



Doug cut some plywood blocks for me to mount the stamps on. (I used PVA glue and let it dry overnight.)



I use my brayer to roll out a layer of paint on a piece of plexiglass, and load up the stamp. Or sometimes I turn the stamp over and roll the brayer right on it. That works too. Since the stamps are unfinished wood I can't get them too wet when washing them off, but wiping them with a baby wipe seems to work well enough.



 I thought the Christmas tree stamp worked really well--probably because it's kind of triangular, and they fit together nicely in patterns.



Well, after that I had to do birthday paper too. These were a lot faster--mostly pretty basic shapes. (The cat was adapted from a tattoo I found online.)



I used some other stamps that I had already made up, too. I'm not sure how long all the stamping took me--maybe an hour or a little more. When you've got this much paper you have to have enough room to spread out all the pieces to let them dry, but overall it's not that much of a hassle, as long as you're not trying to do it at the last minute the day of the party. I'm sure I'll be making more in the future!

Painted Clothes (dragon hoodie and Pete the Cat shirt)

These are the painted clothes that I made for Kate and Andy for Christmas.   I'd read on the Gelli Arts Blog about how you can iron freezer paper to fabric to stabilize it for painting, and thought, "I must try this!" It didn't take long to come up with the perfect project. Kate has a really cute style of dragons that she draws, and she wears a hoodie almost every day at school, so I decided to put a dragon on a hoodie for her.

I already had some Golden brand textile medium to mix with my acrylic paints, and I got a blank purple hoodie from JiffyShirts.com.  I roughed out the basic shape in chalk first, but I was still a little nervous about that moment of committing paint to fabric.  Once I got started, though, it all flowed out just fine.  I like the way the dark background works as shading for the scales. 



I put the hoodie over the back of a chair so I could get at both sides. (This worked really well.) Cory helped.



My other assistant.



Completed hoodie, front and back.



I managed to do all of this without Kate seeing, so it was a complete surprise!



I also made a Pete the Cat shirt for Andy. I got a picture of the ironing of the freezer paper.  Turn shirt inside out, put freezer paper shiny-side down, apply hot iron. 



I used Derwent Inktense pencils for the whiskers. (Another recent purchase inspired by the Gelli Arts Blog--they are costing me money!) I dipped the pencil point in water before each stroke, and got a nice thick line.



"I love my red shoes!"



I got the kids to model their new clothes after they opened presents. Kate loves her hoodie!



Andy's a bit less demonstrative, but I think he likes the shirt!



I wasn't overly swamped with stressful Christmas preparations, and these didn't take too long, so it was a fun creative project and it worked out great!  I must do more!  I think next time I will try fabric paint--even with the addition of the textile medium, the acrylic is a bit stiff.