Heart Swell...or puff...

I've decided to do a series of small pieces using my hand dyed fabric and various techniques, all incorporating hand stitch.

This piece is starting with a heart stencil designed by Margaret Applin.

Using a palette knife, I applied a nice thick coating of Pebeo Expandable Paint through the stencil.  Be sure to keep the stencil firmly held onto the fabric so that you don't get any paint under it.  I used a temporary spray adhesive to achieve this.

Let dry according to paint directions and then 'puff' using a heat gun.

I'll show you more once I get to the hand stitching. Have a great day!

Meet Yoshi...

Here she is!  My new little Future Dog Guide foster puppy, Yoshi.  My friend Leslie put this water bottle beside her so you could get an idea of just how tiny she was when she first came home!

Last weekend we participated in the Ride for Dog Guides, where the foster puppies visited and cuddled with many of the motorcycle riders that participated in the fundraiser.*

Yoshi enjoyed playing with some of the older puppies when we first arrived. Then it was time to put on their jackets and wait for the motorcycles to complete the ride.



Yoshi had the opportunity to meet Nettle, a diabetic alert dog guide who started working about a year ago.

Once the rides arrived at the end of the route, Yoshi was able to check out some of the side cars and saddle bags on the motorcycles.  She's hoping next year she can get her paws on a helmet so she can ride along!

 

How cool is this vintage side car?!

But the cosiest ride was Johnny's saddle bag. It was just my size!












*Dog Guides are provided at no cost to eligible Canadians from coast to coast despite costing $25,000 to raise, train and place.  The Lion's Foundation relies on donations from individuals, service clubs, foundations and corporations and does not receive any government funding. 
Dog Guides are trained in one of six programs: Canine Vision, Hearing Ear, Diabetic Alert, Serivce, Autism Assistance and Seizure Response.  To learn more about the program and how you can help, visit Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides.

Thanks for your visit today.

StencilGirl Blog Hop...Introducing Designs By Orly Avineri

June has been a great month for blog hops, and today I'm excited to be back to launch the wonderful new designs by Orly Avineri.  I used Orly's Sticks and Bones stencil to create this page in my journal. The page was inspired by something I overheard while in a restaurant recently.

 

I started by randomly painting my page with three different colours. Then, using Orly's stencil, I stenciled the skeleton using black paint and various elements from the stencil. To create the spine between the ribs and pelvis I simply isolated the spine part of the rib element. I off set the stencil slightly and over stencilled it with white paint. I like the suggestion of dimension that this overlay produced.


Using some rub on lettering I had in my stash, I added the main text, which was the comment I overheard a very anorexic looking young teenage girl saying to her mother..."Why is everyone always trying to get me to eat?"

To emphasize the word 'eat' I tore it out of magazine lettering.

I used a white pen to journal some thoughts about the sad statement the girl was making, and about healthy body image and the portrayal of young women in media.

Using some 'found objects' and more acrylic paint I made some marks to fill in some of the empty space and to sort of echo the general shape and feel of the spine.

We will have a giveaway on StencilGirl Talk. 

All comments on the hop are eligible for the giveaway. 

The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to win. 

Giveaway will close on Sunday, June 29th at 11:59PM Central Time. 

PRIZE: 5 lucky winners will each get one of Orly's new releases.

Blog Hop Order

StencilGirl Talk

Orly Avineri

Mary Beth Shaw

Seth Apter

Carolyn Dube

Mary C. Nasser

Kirsten Reed

Gwen Lafleur

Linda Kittmer-you are here

Janet Joehlin-next stop on the hop

Maria McGuire

StencilGirl and Craft Hoarders Blog Hop...

It's time for another blog hop.  Actually, this one's going on all week so if you missed the start of it, head on over to StencilGirl Talk or Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge Blog and you can catch up on the other stops.

Challenge #10 Spray It! Ink It! Paint It! Smear It! Emboss It!

Show us your inner mixed media diva! Use spray mists, inks, paints, modeling paste, embossing powder, pastels, chalk, and whatever messy media you can find! Let's dig into that hoard, pull out some of that "messy stuff," and use it up! There is a mess-maker hiding in all of you! Let her/him out to play!

I'm not sure how messy I got...messy stuff is my usual for art journalling, but I pulled out gesso, Dylusions Spray Inks, Pebeo Expandable Paint, acrylic paint, permanent pens in black and white and some Kroma Crackle.

Since this was about messy, I thought what better page to use than one that had Copic markers that had bled through from the other side as my starting point.  I used a knife to cover it with gesso, mostly to protect the journal page on the other side from having anything bleed through.  The extra colour in the background was good texture as far as I was concerned.

 I had a little collection of some circles and a piece of a non-slip mat which I cut into a couple of diamonds and a rectangle. These became masks which I sprayed the Dylusions inks through.

 

Using Terri Stegmiller's Tall Birds stencil, I traced one of the birds on to each of the circles, flipping the stencil as required to get the orientation I wanted.  I did a bit of journalling within the shape of the bird before using translucent acrylic paint to paint over what I had written. The paint allows the text to still show through.

Using a fine paintbrush, I added some paint to the legs of the birds. And because I still had paint on my palette, I doodled some random circles down the left side of the page with the brush.

Black and white pen doodles were added, particularly those the circles.  I also drew in some larger words and added white highlights to those.

Using the expandable paint, I added some drops here and there, letting the wet paint activate the ink under it, before using a heat gun to activate it and let it 'puff' up.

A thick layer of Kroma crackle was added to each of the birds (it's hard to see, but it goes on clear and then dries and crackles over a couple of days).

Once the crackle was completely dried I added a bit of a metallic paint rub (using my finger) over each bird. 

What would a Blog Hop be without a GIVEAWAY??!!!

StencilGirl Products will be picking FIVE winners this week--one from each day!

Take your time and visit each blog showcased every day this week and leave a comment. 

The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to WIN! 

One comment per blog please.

You will have until Sunday, June 22nd at 11:59PM Central Time to leave your comments. The winners will be announced on the StencilGirl Facebook on Tuesday, June 24th.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Have fun checking out all of the other stops on this week long hop!

Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge Blog

Ginny Nemchak

Glenda Brooks

StencilGirl Talk Blog

Gwen Lafleur

Linda Kittmer

The Difference A Few Stitches Make...

A while back I showed you this new piece I started. Today I wanted to share with you the difference that a few hand stitches make in finishing off this row of fused squared.

I hadn't thought to do this post until I had already completed some of it, so it's not a true before and after, but you can see just how much more interest and texture the contrasting stitching gives to those squares and rectangles. (The colour in the top shot is truer to the actual piece...the two other shots are too green/lime)

I haven't touched this piece for a couple of weeks, but I do plan to work on it more once I'm up at the cottage.  It'll be a great piece to stitch away at and I won't have to bring along a whole truck load of supplies! My thought for this summer is to have a lot of hand work ready to work on so I can leave my sewing machine and fabric stash at home and limit my art packing to a couple of bags containing fibre art needing stitch and some very basic art journalling supplies (journal, Koi watercolour set, and a couple of black and white pens).

New Beginnings...

The next few days will bring some important new beginnings for my foster puppies. 

Dime will be leaving our home on Monday to go off to 'Puppy University'.  He's been chosen to 'major' in autism assistance. I'm so proud of the amazing dog he's growing up to be, and I know he's going to do a great job helping his special person!  

He'll spend the next 4-6 months in training to learn how to do his important life work. While at school he'll also have down time to play with his classmates and get lots of loving from the people working with him too!

And this little cutie, Yoshi, will be coming into our home for the first stage of her training tomorrow.

In this photo she's only 4 wks old, but when she comes home to us she'll be almost 7 wks.

I'm excited that Dime will be able to help her make the transition, and give her snuggles, as she adjusts to her new home.

I'm sure the two of them will have a great weekend together before we take Dime off to school on Monday.

Have I mentioned how much I love this wonderful opportunity to give back by fostering these amazing puppies.  What they do for their eventual partner is life changing, and I'm so happy to be able to be a part of this process!

Writing On The Train...

A couple of weeks ago I saw this great quote while I was in Toronto and I thought this page in my Walls Notebook was perfect for it.

In spite of doing all of the text in pencil first, it wasn't until I had traced the words that I noticed a problem...

Fortunately with a bit of problem solving and some fun tape I was able to cover it up. LOL

After adding the colour and highlights I realized that the message was maybe getting a bit confused since reading straight across made it seem I was saying, "leadership is not laying the track".



Add a simple arrow to direct the reader and I'm happy:

Art Journal Calendar...

I'm continuing on with Joanne Sharpe's Draw Your Awesome Year online class. Although I'm behind in a lot of the lesson pages, my May calendar is filled in and June's spread is done. I'm doing my best to keep up with my daily entries...this picture was actually taken on Tuesday, so I'm up-to-date so far!

Banners of Hope...

I spent a fun day on Saturday at the Art House Studio in Cambridge, making Banners of Hope which will be donated to the Children's Wish Foundation.

Its always fun spending a day 'playing' in Karen's studio, and there were a number of banners made for the cause!  I was having so much fun that I managed to make six myself!  What a fun way to use up scraps of fabric and other 'bits' while enjoying the company of others and at the same time knowing that you'll brighten someone else's day and hopefully make their struggles a little easier to bare!

Thank you Karen for organizing this event!

You can find out more about Banners of Hope, click here (Canadian) or here (USA).