Wonderland Doll Event

http://artdollsonly.blogspot.com/2010/07/wonderland-blog-event-participants-abi.html

Started yesterday. My head seems to be unscrewed.

I finished my doll and here it is. It's made using air dry clay, glue and tissue paper.

Please leave a comment!

http://artdollsonly.blogspot.com/

ADO (Artdolls only) Challenge

"Alice in Wonderland", any character. I saw a cool picture of the Cheshire cat on the internet. here is my work in progress.

Anyone can participate, come follow us down the rabbit hole and join us, follow the link to find out how.

I used air dry clay, this is a first time for me. The top picture is a rough work and the next 2 bottom pictures show where I applied slip to the creature. (slip is a mixture of clay and water to make a thin almost sludge consistency)
Wire was used on the ears and tail, the tail is a little loose ( sewsawing back and forth) but I will probably have to glue it in place after the piece dries. I will give it 1 week for drying.
I think maybe wings on it's back would make this creature look even cooler.

Wedding or Prom?

Bling,bling! Sparkle, shine, bling!

Wow these Swarovski bracelets would look great for a wedding or the prom.

Highly bling as all Swarovski is only more so with it being aurora borealis. Swarivski crystal ab sliders matched with 4mm bicones ab with very feminine box clasp, sterling silver victorian butterfly clasp or a fold over magnetic clasp.

Wear 1, 2 or 3, mix or match to make a cuff.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/DebiDesigns?section_id=5106950

Antiquing Copper

The other day I went bead shopping, I picked up 4 strands of Blue Impression Jasper in varying sizes at Bead Dreams. I went to Bead by Design and got some liver of sulfur. After wire wrapping my beads I noticed a lot of scuffing on the stones and don't think I will be using the stones unless i can wire wrap without scratching them. I beleive the wire was a larger grade than the ones I have been using which makes it harder to work with in bending and wrapping.

I tried the sulfur on the copper and the color is outstounding. I am loving how it antiqued the copper. Here are the results.

Art Bird Poem

we are to make a poem with these 5 words to go with our Art Birds and their Shrine:
small, bird, cozy, space,home

Art Bird Poem

Oopsy Birds came from out of time,

not much bigger than a dime.

Held together with glue and spit,
they was created with discarded pieces
and rejected tiny bits.

From Whoopsy land,
right into my hand.

Weird little creatures,
that became searchers.

To finaly find a home,
with this old crone.

They took over this cozy little space,
in this decorated aspirin bottle case.

Finished this with much sighing,
as I'm not great at ryhming.

Debbie Smith April 12, 2010

Freeform Copper Wire Wrap

So 4 days ago I started on this free form wire wrapped cuff. I cut and shaped the copper to size, I seperately wire wrapped a bead and then a attched it to the frame. This is what I designed and created.

Shrine with Art Bird

I have finished a home for my leetle friends.

I have to stop before I add more and make it really tacky looking. I am obsessed with wire wrapping right now so I will probably be adding it to a great many things as I work on them.

Art Bird Shrine

This past week we had a technique week in our FAT (Fiber Art Traders) Yahoo group. The technique was Art Bird Shrine, Sharon taught us this one and her quote on Monday was "The word for today---in fact for all this week---is SMALL" So I took her word on this and did what she instructed and these teeny tiny Art Birds came into creation. I call them the "OOpsy Birds" as I had fun using strips of this and discards of that, I love these little ones and right now I am making their nest of yarns and shiny metallic threads intertwined. They will roost in their little aspirin bottle that I making their shrine from.
They measure, the larger of the two: 2 inches which include the copper crown and stand by 1 1/2 inches,
the smallest one measures: 1 1/2 inches by 3/4 inches not including the head crown.

(I see a little bit of Alice in Wonderland influence in them, what do you think?)

Wire Wrapping with Copper

So I have been experimenting with wire wrapping, it's nothing new to me as I have wire wrapped a little bit in 2004 with the wire dolls I have made even sold one on Ebay at the time. Now I have some copper wire I aquired from my stepson and a copper tube from my husband out of his garage. I hammer the tube to flatten it, added a semi precious stone of Snakeskin Jasper and do some wire wrapping and this is what I made:

I got anew book from Hobby Lobby named Contemporary Copper Jewelry and I made this from it:

Crepes

Saturday that just passed I made crepes for breakfast (plus the sausage and eggs with toast). This is the first time I made them and they was delicious (even tho there was flour lumps in the batter)! The recipe i used was from Cooks.com http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1813,158169-240194,00.html

minus the strawberry jam, as I made my own.

I made the cream cheese filling from this recipe

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1913,152173-242195,00.html

So this is what I have:

1 pint of fresh strawberry's and sugar

To make the crepes-

1 cup of flour

1 tbsp sugar( or more)

pinch of salt

3 eggs well beaten

1 cup of milk

melted butter (for brushing the pan with)

To make the filling-

16 oz of cream cheese 

3/4 cup of powdered sugar

and whip cream for topping and powdered sugar for sprinkling

Wash and hull fresh strawberries, slice into 4ths and crush with pastry blender, put into pan and fill to top of strawberries with water and 1/2 cup of sugar, boil. Stir and taste and add sugar to taste (seems really sweet with 1 whole cup), I will thicken it with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and water, I can make this as thick as I want. Set aside.

Combine the soften cream cheese and powdered sugar and mix it good, you can leave as is or put a couple of tablespoons of the strawberry mix with it which makes it really yummy.

It is best to sift the flour into the liquids and mix with a whisk or mixer, put a little bit of butter in the hot pan on medium heat. Pour a little bit of the batter in the pan and tip the pan to spread the batter over the bottom of the pan. Let underside brown just a little bit and turn over to brown on the other side a little bit, dont over cook as the edges will be crunchy.

Spread the cream cheese in the middle of the crepe,wrap over itself, sift powdered sugar on the wrapped crepes, spoon strawberry's over the crepes and put a dollop of whip cream on top of all.

Yummy, enjoy!

Cali saga continues....

I mentioned the windmills yesterday but didnt load any picutres of them. So my vague memory tells me it started in Texas when we first saw the windmills, lines and lines of them in the background and some closer.
These are out of sequence. I still have La Vegas, Death Valley, Sierra mountains and Yosetime Park. These were taken before San Franscico and the Golden Gate Bridge.

California

We took a trip out to California last year on June 2009. Driving along the coastline starting from San Fransisco up to Oregan then back home again. The first thing we noticed is the alternative energy with the huge giant windmills to harness wind power. They was everywhere! Well almost everywhere not occupied by humans or their dwellings, mostly out on the interstate or animal pastures.

I will try to give an account of our trip, as it is unbelieveable to grasp how men and women on horseback and wagon trains traveled this rocky road across the Sierra's. Driving in a vehicle on paved highways and roads is a vacation compared to the trailblazers of yesteryears.

Along the way we stopped at Hoover Dam Arizona/Nevada to snap some pictures.

FAT Pocket Exchange

I did a exchange with my FiberArtTraders group at Yahoo! This is what I received, thank you ladies and thanks for all the extra goodies.

I sent these FAT pockets out, I hope they are well received and liked.

Being in the Etsy Blog

How exciting to be in the Etsy Blog! I had no idea until one of my friends sent me a convo informing me it was there. The Branched choker was sold a couple of weeks ago and probably with its owner now.

http://www.etsy.com/storque/etsy-news/etsy-at-the-design-triennial-why-design-now-7049/

Paper Fabric

Hi I used Beryl Taylor's making fabric paper technique that was in the Quilting Arts gifts magazine, Holiday issue winter 2008 to make this paper fabric. I went a little further by using organza as my fabric choice and a blank white tissue. To get the crinkly look to this I heat set it with the heat embossing gun, in doing so I melted the organza enough for it to crinkle, this made some great looking homemade fabric with valleys and ridges. Another little thing I have done on this piece is lay wax paper on top and iron it onto the paper part and it give it a waxy sheen. I do this about 4 or 5 times and between freezer paper, parchment paper might be better as it doesn't stick to too many mediums.

New ACEO's

Ok. I so liked the new look of the ACEO's I have been making, I made some and offer them to those who like to collect little works of art for their own. In my Etsy shop now, listed seperately

http://www.etsy.com/shop/DebiDesigns

Artist Trading Cards: Threads for Soldiers

This batch has 9 cards, that make's a total of 28 trading cards for soldiers.

Background is made using a copy of my postcard fiberart on a 8" by 10" cotton sheet printed from my computer, craft ribbon is laid on then tulle with free motion stitching. The hearts are felt that I hand dyed.

contact me if you want to join us creating Art from the Heart for our wounded soldiers in our Threads for Soldiers. mom99x@aol.com

Artist Cards: Threads for Soldiers

Hello! Just finished 8 more artist cards for the soldiers.

These I made using a print of one of my artworks that have been digitaly manipulated then layered with organza and tulle and free motioned stitched. The heart was made using Beryl Taylor's making fabric paper technique that was in the Quilting Arts gifts magazine, Holiday issue winter 2008. hand dyed tissue paper glued onto organza, cool huh?

Threads for Soldiers

Artist Cards for our wounded soldiers. I have some others in the works and they will all be sent at one time when finished.

Threads For Soldiers:ATC's

I am working on new ATC's. I made these for Threads For Soldiers : http://threadsforsoldiers.blogspot.com/

This is our way to let our wounded warriors know that people at home do care about them and for them to have a little piece of inspiration to carry with them.

Finished FAT Pockets

Here are all 3 of the FAT pockets: I used blocks I made in the late 1990's. snip snip and theyr'e good to go. metallics, fancy fabrics and copies of orginal ATC's I made years ago. tulle layered on top with lots of small free motion stitching with (gulp) silver metallic thread. Even tho the silver metallic thread kept breaking I used it to finish all 3 of the FAT pockets, what I did was added invisible thread to the metallic thread and it seemed to help it not to break. These measure 5 inches by 3 inches.

FAT Pockets

I am doing a trade with my FAT group at Yahoo. I'm making 3 FAT pockets for the exchange. I finsihed 1 and just had to show it off to everyone.

When I finish the other 2 I will update this post.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FiberArtTraders/