The second page-the niche

OK, so for my second page I was trying the niche and using the using the gel medium. Needless to say I learned a couple of lesson's. First, let me apologize for the photo, the gel medium I used was gloss and not matte, Now I see the difference. The niche was not so neat, I will have to work on that. The labels were cut out of a cocktail napkin and I really liked them. Nothing was planned, it just sort of came together as I worked and I like that about it.

My first journey into the world of Altered books

The first spread in my test book. I wanted to try the Olfa circle cutter to cut circles. I found that the cross bar of the circle cutter made it hard to cut the circle. I had to make sure the book was completely flat and that wasn't easy. I should have put the circles out closer to the edge. The circles on the right are cut out of two pages each glued together. The circles on the right are the cutouts.
I was glad that I cut the circles where I did since I ended up cutting the edges with a pair of those little scissors that makes a nice edging.
I kind of just did the painting on each page, let it sit a day. Then decided on the circles, let it sit another couple of days and so on. Nothing was planned. It all came together with the stamping last night.
I have so many different types of paint that I wanted to try a bit of all of them. I used an old Readers Digest condensed version book and found that the pages were a bit dry and when I painted on the gesso I got a fuzzy affect. Hopefully that was caused by the old pages. They are a bit yellowed and I noticed that they rip easily. From this point on I am only going to try base tests with this book and not waste time doing complete pages in it.
Next will be to test doing a front for the book.

Finished

So after all of that work I find that my free motion work leaves alot to be desired. You notice there are no close up of this one. I feel the need to do another one like this one....guess thats how series works are started. The outside border was just too plain to leave square so I cut them at angles to change the look. By the time I got done with the quilting I wasn't in the mood to put a traditional border on it so I just did a raggedy zig zag finish on it. I learned a valuable lesson there about the top thread I was using. Its an embroidery thread that is quite fine and continued to break. I changed the needle twice. Since I had one side done I was committed to the thread so I just kept rethreading it, growling as I went. So, onto the next stop in the journey.

Bottom line practice piece

All this just to test the new bottom line thread I got. You know how it starts. First you throw out some fabric, then you find a few that you like together, and finally you decided to put something on top of it. This one is called "Sticks and Stones". What started as a practice piece ended up being a complete top.


Now to test out the thread, a week later!

And Here comes the weekend

Unfortunately my wrist is acting up again and I won't be able to play with my newly dyed fabrics. Why is it that this happens on the weekends? I want to play and something comes along and tries to keep me from doing so. Luckily I use the rotary cutter in my left hand so I will be able to at least cut the fabric. Teeth are always an option. You would be amazed what you can do with one hand and your teeth. I know, there is a disturbing visual here but you will have to use your imagination.........