Re-Grouping and Prioritizing

Spending the last two days painting fabric with the grandgirls and trying out a couple of new techniques has been fun. But by the end of the day yesterday I was frazzled and needed to re-think some of my objectives. I have a lot and I mean a lot of new ideas in my head for purses, journals and art quilts. Yesterday I was getting myself confused on what my objective and priorities are.

So, today I'm going to spend it re-grouping and organize my thoughts and projects. This will be good. I have a busy month coming up with our daughter, her husband and their twins coming in town in two weeks, along with the SIL's family. Since they are going to be in town, we planned a family reunion for my husband's side of the family.

Okay, with all that said, I'm off to find all my different note pads, post it notes and journal pads of ideas and sketches....

Painting Fabric with the Grandgirls

Yesterday my daughter-in-law, Amanda, and I painted t-shirts in my studio with my grandgirls. Nickola and Betty had a lot of fun, well Betty lost interest after one shirt and was ready for a nap. Nickola could have painted and painted and painted.

Amanda is a great artist, I love the shirt she painted. After we shut down the studio last night and the kids were asleep, she headed back to my studio and started painting some onsies for Husdon and the grandtwins in California.
It is so much fun to introduce being creative and free thinking with the girls. Nickola is very creative. She had done the hand print method at Pre-School this year, so she had fun with that. I think I'll let her do some more again today, but I need to get busy and prep the fabric for her.
I was up early this morning and I'm painting some PFD (Fabric Ready to Dye) scraps to make purses and journal covers with. Right now the rock salt is curing on the paint. I'm also painting some ladies hankies. Their looking pretty sweet!
I'm trying some different techniques today with the paints. I'll let you know later what I did and how they turned out. Till then, have a sunshine day!

Fabric Beads - I'm Having Too Much Fun!

I'm making bookmarks to put out in my ArtFire Studio. I'm also going through some of the techniques in "Fabric Art Workshop" by Susan Stein. One of the techniques is making Fabric Beads. So much fun! And a great way to use up some of the scraps in my Scrap Bin. I hate throwing away fabric and thread when I'm working on a project and this gives me a great way to "Be Green"! The first picture shows some netting that is leftover from a project with varigated threads laid on it. The next pictures are of the beads after I have heat set them. I'm going to dust them with a light spray of polyurethane to seal them and give them a little bit of shine. After I get that done, my bookmarks will be complete and those pictures will be in my next blog post.
Until next time, have a Fabtastic Day!

One of My Finds in Santa Fe

While we were in Santa Fe, walking around and looking in Antique Stores and such, I found this great looking leaves on a "Clearance Rack". I thought they would make great rubbings with my Artist's PaintStik's. So yesterday I pulled out some of my left over hand painted fabric and started rubbing. I love it! You can see the veining in the pictures. I'm going to use this sample on some bookmarks that I'm making to add to my ArtFire Studio.

Studio Jules Grand Opening!

Studio Jules is open for business on ArtFire! Just got back from Santa Fe, NM yesterday and have been working fast and furious this afternoon to post Fabric by the Yard, Measuring Tapes and Fat Quarter Bundles into my Studio. Take a peek and let me know what you think!

Last Day in Santa Fe!

Today is our last day in Santa Fe! Yesterday we went to Taos, we took the scenic drive up and I took several pictures of the snow that was on top of the mountains. Can you believe snow in June! Being from Texas, it's unheard of! Anyway, I wanted to go to LaLana Wool in Taos. What a wonderful shop! They had great purses and clothing that were hand dyed and woven. What I was really excited about was the raw wool, wool blends and silk they have, raw and dyed. I bought some of both! I was amazed with the colors and varieties of wool and silk. Some of the skeins were not just dyed once, some had multiple color blends. I bought one that is a yellow/green and indigo blend. It is gorgeous and totally different from what I usually buy color wise. They even had wool straight off the sheep! I could still smell the sheep! I have been around sheep before when I was very young; I forgot how soft and oily the wool can be. It brought back wonderful memories of being at a friend’s house and going out to see the sheep. One of the finds I bought there were these little snippets of dyed wool that you can buy by the ounce. I bought several colors and can’t wait to use them!

Anyway, back to my finds in Taos. This wonderful little shop also carries flower deadheads to use for creating your own dyes. The sales lady told me of the wonderful bookstore in the Plaza and so I ventured there next and bought several books on creating my own home dyes with flowers and plants. After I read through them some more I give you a review of the books.

So, go to their website and see what they have. I haven’t even touched the surface on telling you about the wonderful inventory they have. The Saleswoman that helped me was wonderful and wrote in detail on my sales ticket what I bought so I will know what to reorder from home!

Off to site see some more!!!!
Jules

Georgia O'Keeffe

Today we went to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, NM. I'm inspired! I left saying, okay, I'm ready to go home, go to my studio and paint. I stood there reading her quotes, looking at her paintings, oil and watercolor, and telling my husband "That's how I feel. That's how I want to paint." So after I kick off the Grand Opening of Studio Jules, on Artfire, June 15th, watch for my paintings on cotton and silk. I've got ideas bouncing around in my head that are just eager to jump out on to some type fabric!!!

As I mentioned above, Studio Jules will have its Grand Opening on June 15th! As a Grand Opening Special there will be Free Shipping! Right now all I have in my Studio are fabrics and notions. I have some Handmade items in the wings ready to complete before I can put them in the Studio. Going through all of the art galleries in Santa Fe, I've journaled several ideas of items I want to start making, so keep on the watch of new arrivals in Studio Jules! Well, okay, I'm sure I'll be telling you all about them here on the blog as they are being created...you got me there!

Sorting and Organizing

Today I'm sorting through fabric, notions, trim....whatever else I find in my studio. I'm getting ready to post items on ArtFire. As soon as "Studio Jules" is up and running I'll put my link out for you to follow. The reason I'm sorting and organizing is because I'm in the midst of remodeling my Studio. It used to be a media room and I desperately need a window. Since the window is going where I have all of my thread racks (and I have a lot of thread!), I need to a new home for my thread. I also have fabric and trim that I brought home from cleaning out Aunt Marie’s house and need to organize all of these treasures. With all of this remodeling and cleaning out I decided to open an Artfire account and sell some of the fabric and trim I’m not going to use. So watch my Blog for the Grand Opening of "Studio Jules" on ArtFire!

Journal Complete

For some reason I forgot to post the picture of the completed Journal. I love it! I'm using this journal to keep track of things I want/need to accomplish in the Studio, plus any art quilt ideas I have. I'll call this my "Traveling Journal".
Hey, the sun is out, it's a beautiful day, I hope you are going to get out an enjoy the day that God made!