Sunday, June 12, 2011

Marie Antoinelephant

I'd like to introduce you to... Marie Antoinelephant! A very elegant regal Pachyderm who lived in the 1700's. She coined the term "Let them eat Peanuts!" Below, you can see she is ready for the grand Masquerade ball. 
She enjoys a bit of tea and crumpets in the afternoons with her lady friends. 
Although quite a beauty, she still has her insecurities and will be frequently overheard asking her ladies in waiting "Does this dress make my butt look big?"
Of course her Ladies-in-waiting assure her, no matter which direction she faces, she is beautiful!
I'm sorry that I can't take credit for this beautiful piece of artwork. It was made by my mini-me, Celia. My very special 10 year old partner-in-art. She got a paper mache elephant from the craft store and dug into my bin of Marie Antoinette "stuff" and created this piece of art. It's going to be represented by a New York Gallery and priced at $13,000. Haha. Not.


Celia says: 
:-)

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Cuff Love

This is the first cuff I ever made and I think I'm in love. Talk about a quick and easy project... and beautiful too! (I love instant gratification projects!) My base fabric was a strip of canvas and I just started layering laces and cheesecloth and more laces and ribbons and finally sewed on a row of buttons. It has a button and loop closure but I may change that because it's hard to put on by myself. Here's some more views:
Then I thought... hmm. What if I used some brighter fabric and some metal embellishments and made a funkier mixed media cuff? 
I sewed some black netting over some metal washers on some painted fabric squares. Then sewed those squares to some hand dyed fabric which was sewed to my canvas strip base.
To add some more metal goodness, I sneaked some metal Heishi Beads from my inventory at Artistcellar and hand sewed those on between the squares. To close the cuff, I added two metal snaps. 

I really like the way it turned out. So I made another one. They are like potato chips... can't have/make just one! This time I took step by step pictures. My focal point was a beautiful fabric ribbon flower my friend Sox sent me.
First, like with the rest, I started out with a plain canvas strip that I ripped to size. 
Next, I got out my Brocade Stencil and some Adirondack Color Wash Spray.
Gave it a good spritz with the Color Wash spray in Denim. Oh yeah, I'm real precise here. I just layed the stencil on top, just like you see in the picture. 
Next I auditioned some laces. I found some that was just the right width and transparent enough to let the painted base show through. 
And sewed it on top of the canvas base with a regular straight stitch on the sewing machine. 
Next I wanted a narrower ribbon to run up the center. I wanted it to stand out so I went with this heavier, opaque trim and stitched it up the center. 
Before adding the delicate flower, I needed to figure out a way to close it. I went with two white metal snaps, so easy to put on the ends. 
Last, I hand sewed the ribbon flower to the center of the cuff. Viola! A beautiful, delicate Flower Cuff! 
What do you think? You want to make one now don't you? I'm warning you... they're addicting. But if you do try it, send me a link in the comments section cause I wanna see too!