Bird in Tree Towel

So my friend Matt Doubek is this awesome artist that I knew from high school. I recently got back in touch with him & his lovely wife, when Shawnna was in town this summer. I talked to her about Matt's awesome paintings & I decided to use one as an embroidery pattern.
I actually took things that stood out to me in 2 different paintings and combined them. I found out that some things are easier to transfer to thread than others.

I used 2 different colored threads on the outer orange part of the tree to match the shading idea in the painting and also in the brown threads for the trunk.

I just LOVE these trees, I think these would look great embroidered on a long skinny piece of fabric, framed and hung up on my wall.

They actually took a really long time to embroider because they are open tree trunks and not just one skinny line as I typically do.

This is the painting where I got the Birdie from, I just love that little spinner hat.

This is the print that I got the trees from. I thought about doing the umbrella, but the dingle balls just said "French Knots" to me & mine never turn out too well, so I decided against it and added the sweet bird instead.

I sent this one to him because I just enjoy having different patterns and ideas to try to embroider and hoped he could enjoy my interpretation of it.

You can find Matthew's work

Charming Wall

Matt's myspace

joyengine

Fall Towel

I thought it was about time to take down the 4th of July towel I had hanging on the stove and switch to a fall one. I did a search for fall clip art online and found a pattern that I liked. I then enlarged it on the copier to the size I wanted and traced it onto my towel.

I ended up filling in the moon because I thought it would look really cool, like it was "glowing". I debated filling in the Bat and the leaves but decided I like it the way it is.

This is my first real try at filling in a space, I know there are other stitches that you can use, so I may try those down the line. I decided to add the stars for added effect.

Sketch Challenge

I had some time to work on a card the other day & I finally finished it. It is based off of a sketch by Jen over at iheart2stamp. She does awesome stuff and has new layouts all of the time. I think this one was from July.
The cardstock is some brown stuff from Archiver's, the cream is slightly textured cardstock I had in my stash, the blue was a scrap, the ribbon is velvet from a swap I did. The funky blue & green paper is by We R Memory Keepers. The coffee stamp is by Heart Art Studios, Inc. and the "Seriously" stamp is by BC Dzyns.

Because I seriously need coffee!

Here is the sketch that I went off of. It is a pretty literal version of it, but I was just happy to find time to make a card again.

New Boring Shelf

This is how the shelf looked when I bought it at the thrift store. I really thought it was unique with the clip board clips on it and thought it could be more attractive with a little spray paint.

I removed the clip things, then spray painted the whole thing in a black matte paint that I had in the basement. After it dried I took some sand paper to all of the edges and rubbed until I could see some of the natural wood show through the paint. I rubbed until it looked as "aged" as I thought looked good. I wiped off the dust and then sprayed on some matte clear coat to finish it off.

As you can see in the photo on the right it looks shiny. I had a can of shiny clear coat that I was going to use and it ran out after about 3 squirts. So I had to buy a new can, which I just sprayed over the shiny stuff & I think it still looks great. It is hard to mess this up.

Now I just have to find the perfect place to hang it. In the craft room? To display my favorite projects, or maybe the things that are inspiring me. Maybe in my daughter's room to display the latest master pieces from school. I will post photos after I figure it out.

Final Product

I have been busy working on real work & haven't had as much time to "play" as I would like to have. This is the photo after I finished this groovy & CHEAP shelf from the thrift store. I think I paid less than $1 and Now it looks like a Pottery Barn shelf.

I will post the before photos and the steps I took to create it when I can find the media card that they are on :)