Suggested Notions Collection

My entry to this week's Sewing Notions Spoonflower challenge is my Suggested Notions fabric. It is a compilation of the designs in my Suggested Notions collection, which are Seamstress Fruit

Buttons

Spools

and Dress Pattern!

Tigerprint Floral Wrap Patterns

Considering my obsession with flowers, it's hard to imagine a better theme for my first entry to the Tigerprint Design Competition. This month's challenge is to create a floral design for wrapping paper, and the winning entry may be used for Marks and Spencer goods. Here are all the contenders; these are the two florals I entered. Fruity Floral, above, was inspired by a page I saw in a recent Martha Stewart Living magazine, and Piece of Matisse, below, was inspired by the loose style and colors of Henri Matisse's artwork. 

Flower Crown Bust Vase

I love the elegance of classical busts so I made one out of clay, except this bust is also a vase. 

After I hollowed out the head I added braids with strategically placed holes. Flower stems can be slipped in the holes to make it look like the bust is wearing a flower crown...to take it from elegant to whimsical.

I glazed the inside of the fired bust with clear glaze and the outside with snow white glaze.

Once it was fired again I filled it with flowers for an unexpectedly pretty display!

DIY Golden Laurel Frame

Materials:
Glue gun
Paintbrush
Gold acrylic paint
Round picture frame
Dry bay leaves of increasing size (I used 16 in total--8 pairs of similarly sized leaves. Obviously the bigger the frame, the more leaves you will need)

Step 1: Paint the bay leaves gold. I did two coats per side.

Step 2: If your frame is varnished you may need to sand it a bit first. Then give it a couple coats of gold acrylic.

Step 3: Starting with the largest size, glue the pairs of leaves with a slight overlap on opposite sides of the frame to create the laurel crown shape.

Step 4: Continue gluing the leaves all the way around the frame.

Strawberry Buttons

I painted strawberries on white knit using red and white fabric paint. Then I used a fabric covered button making kit to create these cheery buttons. They are 3/4'' in size.

They will likely get sewn onto a summer garment.

Born Again Collage

 My Born Again collage is an illustration of the very hopeful Isaiah 40:31. Here's the behind the scenes look at the creation process!

I made the mask out of papier mâché and painted it gold when it was dry.

The background of the collage is a canvas board I covered in tissue paper and painted with acrylic.

I cut out various butterfly shapes from plastic, cardstock, decorative paper, and magazine clippings, as well as the words in the quotation from cardstock painted metallic. I glued them on surrounding the mask.

There you have it!

Fabrications

Shadow boxes are great art and decor pieces. I love how I can gather various items that fit a theme and arrange them in a frame to create multidimensional, mixed media art. As you can see here, I used some spools of brightly colored thread, thimbles, pins, and a swatch of my Fabulous '50s fabric. I turned wire into clothes hangers and a spool into a dress form. I embroidered some tulle and crisscrossed thread around the objects. Anything goes!

Kaleidoscope

My weekend consisted of eating rhubarb crisp and taking pictures of lush, vibrant flowers. There are such striking color combos in bloom right now!