Playing with Shrinky Dinks

Today I picked my Granddaughter's up from school. On Fridays they get off early at 1:00 and I was trying to decide what to do with them. I finally decide against swimming because I didn't want to be exhausted for the rest of the evening (lol!). What we did do was play with a package of Shrinky Dinks I had purchased a while back at JoAnne's Fabric store. I'm on a Yahoo Group called Stitchmap and some of the girls had used them and enjoyed them. I certainly didn't expect how this turned out though! I took a sheet of Shrinky Dink and laid it on an old wood plaque my Aunt gifted me with. I traced the design and colored them in with colored pencils. The picture is 3"x4" and the Shrinky Dink is about 1' x 1.5" after baking for a minute. Isn't it cute! I recommend you sit at a table while doing this. I was on my knees and after a long while tracing I realized my feet and ankles had fallen asleep -- not a good feeling. What a cute embellishment for a crazy quilt! I am anxious to try more. My granddaughters drew some cute little charms that they put on a chain.

First of Eight

I am doing a swap with my neighbor, Laurie, from "Indulge your Shelf" blogging fame. She is involved with a group that is doing a Valentine's inchie swap and she invited me to participate. The swap involves making 3-inch fabric embellished blocks in a Valentine theme. Since there are 8 swappers, I have to make 7 blocks for trade and one that I'll make for myself to keep the block numbers such that I'll be able to make a finished project more easily. The blocks I receive won't necessarily be crazy quilted, but since that's what I do...

On these blocks I tried a new technique of printing on ribbons that I learned from a book called Fabric Embellishing, The Basics and Beyond by Ruth Chandler, Lis Kettle, Heather Thomas, and Lauren Vlcek. The book is rich with ideas for embellishing with great instructions, and practically, it is spiral bound. This ribbon may not be the best example of the technique because there is not enough contrast between the ribbon and the words. You will see better examples in the remaining seven blocks. I can see a tremendous application of these ribbons for my memory quilt.

Decoupaged buttons and tiles

When I was at the CQI retreat, Kerry taught us how to do decoupaged buttons. Recently I found Annie Howe's Keepsake's (a blog) that teaches you how to do nearly the same thing with scrabble tiles. (http://anniehoweskeepsakes.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-make-gorgeous-scrabble-tile.html)

I decided to try using the scrabble tiles since I knew just where to find some at my local antique store, and had also found some old flat wooden beads that I also wanted to experiment with (aren't these the coolest!). All I needed was the tiles/beads, some images printed on paper, Mod Podge, and some diamond glaze. I decided to burn the edges of some of my pictures so I also had a candle and a wet rag handy. Let me tell you that I needed the wet rag. It was easy for these little images to burst into flame, so be careful if you try it!

First, I placed the image on the tile/bead and held it up to the light so I could find the right placement. Holding it in place I cut around the image with a scissors. Then I brushed some mod podge (like a glue) on the tile/bead and placed the image on the mod podge pressing it so it would lay flat. Then I took an exacto knife to further trim the image; well I really used a scissors, but an exacto knife would have been better. lol! Brush with the mod podge and let dry 15 minutes. Then brush the crystal glaze over the mod podge and let dry 24 hours. You can put another coat on after about 5 minutes and then let it dry for the 24 hours if you want. The crystal glaze makes a really thick shiny (like glass) coating on the tile/bead.

These tiles/beads are so cute and you can sew them onto fabric by glueing felt on the bottom and then sewing the felt to your fabric (thanks to Gerry K. which is where I first got this idea) and/or you can bead them on using the peyote stitch.

I am making a memory quilt so I also tried to print some family photos in miniature and put them on the tiles/beads and they turning out really well! Just make sure your image is not too small.

Inktense Pencils

I got a pack of Inktense pencils for Christmas and decided to try them out. All it requires is the pencils, some fabric to paint on and some textile medium. I used a paper backed black and white silkie for the fabric and Golden textile medium as the medium http://www.dickblick.com/products/golden-gac-900-fabric-medium/. This is a liquid that you can use in one of three ways. You can wet the fabric first (didn't work so hot for me), use on a brush after you've colored the item (works good), or dip your pencil into it (worked the best for the detail work I was doing. The biggest problem I ran into was the colors spreading outside the lines I was working within. The pencil basically turns into a paint when wet with the medium. The colors are really vibrant and when you use a brush to paint the golden over the colored area, the colors will blend a bit if you brush from one color to another.

I found a couple of websites that illustrated how to use them: http://hugsnkisses.typepad.com/hugsfromhelen/inktense-colourque-r-tutorial.html , and http://painting.about.com/od/fabricpainting/ss/fabric_painting_Inktense.htm, and http://creativity.amblique.net/files/files/Project%20Sheets/Quilt%20hints%20and%20tips.pdf were ones I looked at.