Fabric Patches, etched glass and shadow boxes.

 It's been a busy month for projects.  I was in a patch swap a month ago, a few ladies that I've met while crafting decided to have a fabric patch swap.  You send in 5 home made fabric patches, and you'll receive 5 back  You can send in multiples of five, and get the same in return.I received five beautiful patches, everyone's patches are so different.  I made an extra for me, the big flower one  I figured I wouldn't actually use them for patches, so I put them in a shadow box.  Love how it looks!  Next swap is a tassle swap.  I have to figure out what to do on that one, and then figure out how to display them.  Too much fun!

 Phil's son Philip is on a Rugby team called the Griffins in Colorado.  So, I made him a cup with their logo etched on it.  really like how it turned out.  Now the scary part is shipping it to him.  I hate shipping glass items in the mail.  Hopefully it will get to him all in one piece

 Next project for the weekend were 2 shadow boxes for my friend.  She wants to give them to her great grandchildren.  I love how they came out, and I hope they like them!

Glass etching

 So I've finally helped to finish my niece's belt buckle case.  My nephew and his friend built this case out of reclaimed wood for my nephew's wife for this past Christmas.  She has participated in many horse shows, and won a lot of belt buckles.  So they made her this case.  At Christmas we were talking about glass etching and my silhouette cutter when they had a great idea to etch the glass on the case.  We came up with barbed wire around the sides and her name and performance horses on the bottom.  The barbed wire I found at the Silhouette design store.  And I used text that matched her logo.

 It was fun figuring out how to make everything line up.  Our big dilemma was that they already had attached the glass to the cabinet so we couldn't take it out.  Since he has a sand blaster at home, we masked everything off so he could sand blast it the next day.

 I think it turned out really well.  They should make more of these to sell!  And I think that he took pretty awesome photos too! 

Pinot's Palette visit 2.

Debi and I took another class at Pinot's Palette in Alameda.  This time it was a painting of two coffee mugs on a table with swirly steam coming from the mugs.  Below is what they wanted us to paint.

 

We started out painting the canvas black and red.  Then added some white to the top, kinda randomy to give it a chalky effect.  And painted the white line for the edge of the table.

 

 Then we added the checkers on the table cloth. The mechanical designer in me wasn't too keen on the checkers I painted, cause of course it wasn't even for me.  LOL  and I'd forgotten how to do perspectives when I paint, so this looked kinda funny to me.

 We then drew in the cups with chalk and then painted them with shading .  I didn't realize till we were almost done that I forgot to put in the shading between the mugs and under the mugs.

 This is my final painting.  I liked this one a lot better than the last one we did.  I would have liked to have been able to work on it a bit longer, and to not be so rushed.  But I think it came out pretty well.

The one below is Debi's painting.  I'm amazed at the differences in everyone's painting, especially since we're all doing the same thing.   I think hers came out really well too!

Boot Bag embroidery

Today's project was embroidering a set of boot bags for Phil's niece. She wanted her name on it, but since it is her logo too, I decided to use that.  After deciding to put it at the top of the bag, I appliqued her logo on the bag.  Much cooler than just her name I think.

Fabric Flowers

 I am in a fabric patch swap, and I saw these flowers from Embroidery Garden, and decided that these were going to be my patches.  Not a traditional patch, but something different.

 The fabric was brought back from Uganda by my sister.  She gives me some of her fabric scraps so I can make her things.  I think I'll have to make her some of these flowers.

 With this flower you'll layer fabric, batting, something called fabric magic, and fabric again.  The fabric magic is what gives these flowers a little texture with steam from a steam iron.

I really like how these came out, I think I'll have to make more.

More vinyl cutting

 This week I did some more vinyl cutting.  A lot of people love the glass blocks, and a friend of mine wanted one with praying hands.  I also decided to put her nephew's name on the block this time.  I think it turned out really nice. Better then I expected it to.

 

I also finally cut the Rebels decals.  I found a cool tutorial on how to cut copy into shapes.  The same friend coaches cheerleaders for the Rebels, so I was playing with the copy and came up with the below heart.  She loved it, so I had to make her some..

 One of my other friends owns a company called Fas Tuning Performance Parts.  He wanted some stickers made, so I cut him a few.  He really was pleased with how they turned out.

I bought the silhouette to cut fabric, but I'm having so much more fun cutting vinyl with it.  :)

Pinot's Palette

 My friend Debi and I went to one of those wine and painting classes last weekend.  It was such a great time.  I haven't painted in years, so it was good to get painting again, and of course, I want to paint more on top of all the other hobbies I have.

 

 We started off painting the canvas with black acrylic paint. 

 Then we made an aurora borealis sky.  I didn't like mine much cause as a painter friend of mine noticed, it was kinda window wipery.  LOL  But my friend's looked amazing!

 This is Debi's, hers was so cool!!

 Next we added trees, which I liked cause it kid some of my background.  LOL

 Then we added snow and stars.

Here's Debi's.  I think she did an amazing job!!

We're so excited, we're taking another class next weekend. Will post photos of that one too!  If you haven't taken one of those classes, you should do it, it's really fun, and you get a cool piece of art when you're done.

Vinyl cutting

I'm still having a lot of fun playing with my Silhouette Cameo.  Who knew I'd love playing with vinyl so much.  I really love the look of the lighted glass blocks that I've been seeing everywhere.  And a friend of mine lost her nephew a couple of weeks ago, so I decided to make her a block.   I just love this photo and saying. Her sisters loved it so much that I made them two more.  :)   I had to give them to her without the lights because of course, I made this after all the black Friday sales, so all the Christmas lights that would work are gone.  BUT luckily, I found that Hobby Lobby still carries short strands of lights that are plug in lights.  Yay!

 

I found blinky lights, colored blinky lights, but not the non-blinky ones.  Thank goodness for Hobby Lobby.  There was also a single big bulb light, I want to see what that is going to look like.

 Tonight's project was for two sets of Dog dog tags.  That sounds funny.  But another friend at work lost her dog last week, and she wanted me to make her grand kids these dog tags to remember him by.  They finally came in this week so I could finish them.  I don't like to make the dog tags as much as I do the pendants, the pendants have simpler lines and harder plastic "Bubbles".  But I think these came out not so badly.

 I found this really cute dish at Target, so I decided to put Ashley's name on it and give it to her for her pink glass collection. Technically it is not glass, but it's breakable?  LOL  I hope she likes it.

 I found these little dishes all over the place, and I found out that a  lot of people have been selling these on the internet.  So here's my versions.  I think they're a little too plain, so I have to find something else to put on it.

This cutting board was made for a woman who makes us so many goodies at work.  I thought since she would bake some really great things for us, I'd make her something.  So I found these glass cutting boards to put vinyl on.  The vinyl was put on second surface. I want to now try a large monogram one.

Vinyl Cutting

So, I finally bit the bullet and I decided to buy a new electronic cutting machine.  I had one of the original Cricut machines, you know, the small one that cut 6" across and only used cartridges.  And although I love using it, buying cartridges just to get new fonts or designs can get pretty spendy.  So I decided on Thanksgiving weekend to drive over to Hobby Lobby and purchase one with a gift card I had received from my sister's boyfriend.  And boy, do I wish I had bought one sooner.  After going to a class this past year given by Applique Corner at my local quilting store, I decided on buying a Silhouette Cameo machine.  They showed us in class how to use the machine to cut pieces from your applique designs so you don't have to cut them after tacking them down to your project. I know that I can't use my Cricut cartridges with this machine, so at some point I'll probably buy the new Cricut.  

I brought the machine home, and pretty much sat on it for a week.  I tend to do that with new things because I get intimidated by them.  I just think it's too hard, that I won't get it. etc.  But after watching videos of how to run the machine and the software, and my nephew asking me to cut some copy for their ranch, I decided that I had to get it over with and just cut some vinyl.  OMG, I haven't stopped since.  I started out with the text for the things he needed for the ranch:

 Then I decided that my friend's granddaughter needed a personalized Christmas gift, so I bought this really cool glass jewelry box and put her name on the lid.

 Then I decided it would be cool to give the sales staff at work personalized pint glasses.  So I made them glasses of their favorite things.  The marketing guy is really into VW's so he got a VW pint glass.

One of the salesmen is from Detroit, so he got a Lions Glass.  I'm not a Lions fan, but this glass came out so very cool!

 One of our salesmen has his own brand, I think it combines his and his wife's initials.  He had our company make him a big metal "brand" to hang up on his wall.  So I had our art department send me the file so I could make his own glass.

 At Christmas my niece gave to us her graduation photo.  So of course I had to fix it up a bit.  This was the first version I did before I decided it needed her school's name on it too.

 

 Then my step-son plays on a Rugby team in Colorado, so I just finished digitizing their logo to put on a glass and to make some car stickers.

I'm also going to etch a belt buckle case for our niece.  Hopefully it will come out really cool!  Will update the photos once it is done.

I'm learning more and more about vinyl, and now I want a sandblaster to do more glass and metal etching.  LOL  This is going to be so much fun!  And when I figure out how to send the files that I create from this program to my embroidery machine, things will be that much more cool! 

Embroidered name tag

 A friend of mine works at Verizon.  And Verizon had a mobile payment provider called Isis.  Now a couple of years ago, that was not an issue.  But with today's political climate, she was getting some weird looks and comments for having that on her shirt.  Even though it had nothing to do with that, people would still ask.  She tried to black it out with a sharpie, thinking it might not show on her shirt.  But it was like that blackout embroidery.  People still noticed.

So she asked me to help her cover that part up on her shirt.  I thought that I could just take out the embroidered part that she didn't want, and put in her name.  Well, problem with that was when I took the threads out, it had left holes where the curved part of the "s" was, and it would not work to embroider just her name.

So we came up with an idea to embroider right over it with a patch.  So I digitized this:

This worked out really well, it was a little bigger than the area we had to take out.  I had thought to embroider right over the old embroidery, but I figured it would make the patched area a little bumpy.  So I got to work taking out the stitches of the old logo.  This is the end result:

I think it turned out pretty well.  I was a little nervous cause I didn't want to ruin her shirts.  But it worked out!

The birth of an embroidered design

A friend asked me to work on an embroidery design for his daughter's soccer team.  I haven't worked on one in such a long time, I almost forgot how.  But this weekend I started to digitize the design and even got a sample made.

 Everything started out with a design.  People think that you can just take any design and plug it into the computer, and out comes your program.  They couldn't be more wrong, there are lots of steps that go into digitizing.  First I normally take a design like this one, and have a black and white line drawing made from AutoCAD or a similar program.

I take the black and white designed logo, and import it into my design program.  I happened to use and older program called Palette. This program will take artwork like the above black and white drawing, and turn it into a bunch of stitches that my machine can read.  Tells it where all the stitches are going to go to make up the design.  It seems like that would be simple, but when you load the program in, some of the lines will not import into the program very smoothly.  So I spend a few hours, moving each point to make the artwork smooth.

After cleaning up the artwork, you'll then send it to the stitching program. This is where it will program all of your stitches for you.  You think you would be done at this point?  Nope. Sometimes the lines are drawn too closely together, so, you have to go back, move lines, restitch, and back again.  This one design must have taken 4 or 5 different tries before I could get the lines right.

 

 It lets you preview what the stitching would look like when you finally stitch it out.  This is the way to check to see if you like it or not.  I think that the above design came out pretty well.  This time I tried to applique the design.  This way I didn't have to fill the background with all white stitches, saving some of the stitching time.  Since I only have figured out how to make an applique design using stock designs, I decided to try it out using the outline multiple times to show you where to put the applique fabric, stitch out the shape, then tack it down

 This is what the design looked like after it was stitched out.  My first actual applique design.  I think it came out pretty well, I still might want to tweak it a little bit so some of the lines are a bit smoother, and I might not stitch out the black lines, but we'll see what my friend thinks.

 This is an applique design I used from an embroidery design company.  Since my boyfriend's last name is Louisiana, we like using the state for various things.  These are towels I am stitching out for everyone. 

Using premade embroidery designs is easier for me only because it takes a long time to digitize, so it saves me a lot of time.  But if I can't find a good one, at some point I'll make my own.  Here is another one that I did this weekend.

This is another design that I purchased, the discobolus with the circle around it was purchased from embroiderydesigns.com.  I just added the copy to the bottom.

So when you go to an embroidery shop, and they want to charge you to create your design, remember how many hours the embroiderer puts into just digitizing your design, let alone stitching your design for you on whatever medium you want them to use.  It may look like an easy process, but it takes longer than you think.