Another Christmas Bauble

My new Christmas bauble finally finished.

This Christmas bauble was started back in November in my local sewing group, the Georges Hall Sew'n'Sews. We had decided to cancel our December meeting due to the proximity of Christmas, and instead made our Christmas decorations in November.

This decoration is based on a polystyrene ball, available from places like Spotlight and Lincraft. It is divided into sections, cut with a stanley knife, then fabric is pushed into the cuts. I have made plenty of these over the years, so this year I took the basic idea to another level.

I first had to divide my polystyrene ball to obtain a pattern. From there I scanned my pattern into my digitising program to get the correct size to digitise my words. Once done, I could then play with the shapes of the letters to get them into the shape to fit the bauble.

My first attempt at stitching them out showed that I needed more of a border around the letters to accentuate them more, so back to the file I went to fix it up. Once fixed, I was happy with the stitch outs.

My ball is divided into six, three sections are my digitised words, and the alternate three sections are the same green fabric that has been over-layed with a red glittery mesh fabric. The ball has been finished of with red ribbon.

It's probably my favourite bauble on my tree this year, thought I do have other decorations that are not baubles that I like much better. Most of my tree decorations are hand made, this just adds another one to the mix.

Christmas Hearts

Wishing everyone reading a very Merry Christmas, and may the day bring you all peace, joy, love and great times with your family.

These little Christmas hearts have been made with love and given to close friends and special family members. I started them back in August, using a free pattern I found here.

I used scraps of even weave fabric that I had in my stash, as well a scraps of thread. They are backed in red felt to bring out the colour, and I even had that in my stash. The only thing I purchased was the ribbon to hang them.

They are made using the Hardanger technique, combined with some surface stitching which has been counted.

They should all be with their prospective new owners by now, and I know they will be treasured by one and all.

Art Journal Pg 5

Page five of my numbered art journal is finished. I experimented with a few different things this time.

After the last two pages (where I washed them with a tea/coffee colour wash) bucked under the wetness and crinkled my pages, I purchased something called "Mod Podge" which was supposed to be a water based sealer/glue/finish.

 So page number five has been firstly sealed with Mod Podge, then wet sponged with an aqua colour paint. After letting it dry, I worked with my trusty ball point pen and drew my number five. Mmmmm........ I could hardly see the line on the coloured background, so I went over it with a wedge tipped black marker.

From there I continued with the wedge tipped marker, and added in some basic shapes that continued on from the number five.

By this stage I felt that the page was getting very heavy and needed some lightness, so changed to a fine felt tipped pen to add in further patterning.

I quite like the page, it is a bit different for me using a wedge tipped marker on such a small scale. I usually like fine work in anything. Wedge tipped markers in this house are reserved for marking food items in the freezer . This time though I think it has added some dimension with the use of two different tipped markers as well as paint, and the page has certainly given me some inspiration for stitching.