I have a very dear friend, Patti Gramza, who lives in Wisconsin. We communicate every day and we love to share our passion for art. I recently sent her a little "starter kit" so she can play with the needle felting. Well; just as I thought; she took off with it! This is a picture of her first felting project! It's a gorgeous ATC on felt and she beautifully needle felted some gorgeous selections of wool roving into the piece. WOWZER!

Thank you Sweet Patti!

These are pictures of notecards I created for a friend of mine who will be celebrating a birthday soon. These cards are going into a paper mache box that I am working on. Further down on my Blog, is a picture of my latest felt piece. This felt piece is the top of the box. I thought it would be nice to make notecards to make this gift useful for my friend. I used the latest images from Paperbag Studio; one of my favorite stamp lines! The two on the bottom, are kind of my "shabby chic" line as I've incorporated some fabric for background and sewn the stamped images on top. I then sewed the whole piece to the cards. I used background pieces from what I had left over from yesterday at the Create It and Take It at Art Connection. Below are samples of the backgrounds.

The two cards on the top: - the tree image has been stamped on a background that was done with shaving cream and Lumieres.

I'm having a love affair........................

with Gesso! These are two pictures of backgrounds that were part of our Create It and Take It at Art Connection yesterday. I just LOVE Gesso and am probably using it as it was not originally intended. But; these samples were done beginning with coated cardstock, scribbling or creating designs using the Lyra Aqua Color Crayons, then spreading Gesso over to blend in the colors and shapes. I love stamping over this with those cheap foam stamps and then over-stamping images using Jet Black Staz On. This technique is also great on canvas and I even have done it on wood.

Well; more felting! I just cannot stop with this activity and I am finding needle felting can be combined with so many other mediums. It's wonderful and one of the most relaxing things for me. I remember trying to knit a long time ago - ya know; knit one, pearl two - well NOT! I just couldn't get it and concentrate on it. Needle felting is such a release and there's no counting, you can interrupt the process, get right back to it at any time.

This is a piece that I'm working on for a friend's birthday. It will actually become the top for a paper mache box! I am going to add fabric and handmade papers to the box and include some handmade notecards inside. I really love the "shabby chic" look of things; the spontaneous sewing around it, the colors and torn fabric inclusions. This needle felting really allows me that joy.

I took advantage of some time I had, this morning, to work on a little art. I always feel better if I could just create one thing. :)

This is a picture of an ATC for our next Art Connection ATC Exchange program. The theme for the next round is "Out of this World". We usually exchange 3 for 3 and my other two are exactly the same as this one. I usually don't create the same but I liked this stamp, so much, I decided "why not?"

The background is created using black cardstock, crinkling it up and then spritzing with refresher spray then adding spontaneous brushes of Perfect Pearls. I heat set, and added some star glitz w/ Diamond Glaze. I stamped the crescent moon face over this yellowish holographic paper I've had for years and added a little star charm dangling from the moon; hard to see in the picture. I glued a metal star to the ATC, added some alcohol inks over it and computer generated the saying.

I got a little art time in today so I thought I'd work on a Deco page for a friend of mine's Deco book. This is part of a round robin I'm in with some very special friends :) Our books are made out of altered vintage cabinet cards.

More felting........................ I can't stop! This is a picture of another needle felting project I'm working on. It's a work in progress. This is a felt purse that I am having fun with. I "felt painted" the background, created some flowers and some circular shapes. I just love the wispiness of including silk fibers with the wool roving. I added a transferred image onto muslin. I originally pictured blanket stitching around the image to adhere to the purse but it didn't work out very well. So; I tried needle felting silk fibers right into the muslin piece and it worked. I am going to add some silk flowers, ribbons, beads and some very small leaf embellishments. I'll post the final piece when it's done.