Welcome!

Thank you for visiting artful embellishments. This is the third year for this blog and I am so happy to keep publishing. I started in 2011 and began with a quilt of the week, this lead to the leaf of the week for my newly designed paper tree that is located on the wall of my garage in 2012.......2013 is going to bring a lot of excitement and positive change. As a personal challenge for 2013, I plan on designing a artist trading card each week to be featured on the blog.
With so many interests, there will be quilting, art quilting, leaves (and more leaves), as well as experiments in thermofax screen printing, fabric dying, and tons of DIY recycle projects. I may even enter that altered fashion scene. To a happy and healthy 2013, may we all find happiness in those things we create....thank you for stoping by artful embellishments.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Week 30 Mackinac Island

Week 30 is a photo quilt of mackinac island. This photo was taken while leaving the island on the ferry. It was the perfect day. The photo was printed out on photo fabric. The flowers were cut from fabric from an upholstery book using the Tim Holtz Vagabond cutter. They were sewn on with a button in the center. The Mackinac was stamped on fabric and sewn on. The word "august" was taken from a calendar from 1961. A fun photo quilt commemorating one of the best days of summer.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Week 29 Sunflower


This quilt square originated from a picture taken in northern michigan. A farmer planted approximately 40 acres of sunflowers. This little two lane road turned into a complete traffic jam the first two weeks of august both years. I used fabric from upholstery books that I found a second hand shop. I used photoshop to convert the photograph into a sketch. I then traced the image onto fusible webbing. The pieces were ironed onto the appropriate colors of fabric and then stitched with various threads. The beads were hand sewn on for the sunflower seeds. The quilt was finished with a large red lady bug button.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Week 28 Busy as a Bee

Week 28 is titled busy as a bee. This fabric was also part of the Cloth Paper Scissors fabric swap. It was so much fun to see what Gina Lehman of Selma, Texas created with her hand painted fabric. She has a background rich in mosaics. Recently she was introduced to quilting, and has fallen in love with fabric. Gina says, "It has opened my eyes to a whole new world of art." She hand painted the fabric with acrylics that were mixed with fabric medium. I added the daisy chain ribbon. The word "fly" was created from precut wood letters that were painted with fabric pain and glimmer mist. The border was finished with a vintage green shag trim. Finally, I was able to add one of my favorite buttons, a brass bee.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Week 27 Dream


This weeks quilt design used fabric from the cloth paper scissors challenge.
I received this fabric from Lorie Garver of Phoenix Arizona. She considers
her self a self-taught late-blooming dabbler who is having a ball. You can
see that happiness shine through in this fabric. I tend to use more muted
tones, so I was thrilled to see this bright orange fabric with yellow
circles that were stamped with acrylic paint using lids. She then used a
"dream" stamp with coca-cola colored ink. This was a great addition, and
used one of my all time favorite words. I took the fabric and used thread
painting to highlight the flowers. This was done using a variegated rayon
thread. I then had the "dream" chipboard piece from a scrap booking set.
That was added as a final embellishment. The edges were finished with a
bright organ polka dot ribbon. Lorie thanks so much for sharing and allowing me to use your fabric in my quilt square and blog! Much continued success.
May everyone have sweet dreams.....