adventures of a quilting diva

It’s true, I’ve been taking a vacation from blogging, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about my blog. I’ve been busy collecting new inspirations and ideas to share with you!

Here’s a peek at one of the most exciting things I’ve been doing recently: taping some episodes for the Creative Living with Sheryl Borden Show.

I thought it would be a breeze, since I’m used to teaching quilting and crafting techniques, but there are a few significant differences between TV and the live classroom. For one, your time limit is minutes, not hours. And two, if you mess up, you have to start all over from the very beginning. But Sheryl made the taping easy and fun, so I wasn’t stressed at all. I’m so excited to share my fabric cover-button techniques in hi-def!

dressing your coffee cup in style

blooming button jewelry to embellish clothes & quilts

vintage fabric fabric cover-button crafts

fun fabric appliques for card making & scrapbooking

These segments will air on Creative Living in 2011, but I’ll give you a YouTube preview soon!

More CHA fun! … Without further ado, here’s #1-5 of my top ten cool stuff at CHA 2010:

#5. Grungepaper Coat: Great patchwork coat made from scrapbooking Grungepaper. Check out the fab flowers on the detail photo!

#4. Petaloo Color Me Crazy: Fun paper, cotton, velvet and mulberry flowers to color and decorate for all your creative projects!

Take a closer look at some of what you can do with these flowers. I’d love to embellish some wearable art with Color Me Crazy flowers. What would you do with them?

#3. C&T Publishing’s Liquitex Soft Body Acrylic & Canvas Books: These are the terrific paints I did my CHA demo projects with. (Get the tutorials here: fabric painting | fabric ribbon rosettes.)

Lots of pigment, brilliant colors, and permanent with no heat setting required. Can be used for many different techniques.

Want a fun surface to paint on? Try these nifty canvas books! They’re ready for your creative touch.

#2. Rabinowitz Design Workshop’s Waxmelter Electric Batik Pen: How fun is this? Melt crayon bits or batik wax to make fabulous fiber art or scrapbook pages.

Drum roll, please … The most wonderful thing I found at CHA, the best thing ever for applique-quilters since fusible web …

hands and scissor free applique!

#1. Making Memories‘ Slice Craft Cutter: Why should scrapbookers have all the fun? Now the fantastic Slice craft cutter can cut fusible fabric appliques!

Place fusible-backed fabric and the Slice cutter onto the magnetic board, select your design, size, press the button and …

Voila! Fusible applique piece ready to be ironed to your background fabric. (Note: The Slice cutter does not dye your appliques and change their color for you. Two different fabrics are shown in these two photos.)And here’s a tea towel to show off the quick and easy Slice applique project. Want to see the Slice in action? (you know you do!) Check out this video from the Making Memories blog.)

That’s all for CHA 2010! Thanks for joining me! ^_^

What’s more fun than Disneyland and crafty too? The CHA (Craft & Hobby Association) Craft SuperShow and Winter Convention & Trade Show at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Quilters know quilt shows, but in case you’ve never been to a CHA show, here’s my Top Ten List of Cool Stuff you’ll find at CHA:

#10. Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Pencils: Fabulous oil-based colored pencils: Strong, smooth, sharp, gorgeous colors, great for blending, plus no fading or waxy buildup. Need I say more?

#9. Soft Flex’s Trios: Love color? Love to make jewelry? Soft Flex colored beading wire now comes in fabulous variety packs. Here are two of my favorites from the new 2010 collection: Egg Hunt and Be My Valentine.

#8. Halina Tepper, Button Sculptor: Halina make amazing sculptures from buttons and recycled materials.

20,000 buttons are sewn onto this lion!

The cute mouse pincushion has slightly fewer buttons than the lion, but would make a fun addition to any sewing room.

These little kangaroos give you a peek at how the button sculptures are made. The buttons on the finished kangaroo are made from the same used glue bottles that form the base.

#7. Provo Craft’s Cricut Cake: Use scrapbooking Cricut cartridges in the Cricut Cake machine (specially made to be food-safe, don’t try this at home with your Cricut Expression!) to make sugar gum paste cutouts to decorate cakes with. These super cute animals look like “cake appliques” to me. Peel and stick. How cool is that? Now anybody can be a cake decorator! (Available April 2010)

#6. Epiphany Crafts‘ Button Studio & Shape Studio: As easy and fun as paper punches, make paper- or photo-backed epoxy scrapbooking charms and buttons. (Available April 2010)

Come back tomorrow to find out #1-5!

I was cleaning and reorganizing my studio this morning when I stumbled across a package of papercuts that I bought in China in 1994. It was the very last set of many that I brought back home where I gave most away as gifts or used in making handmade cards. I thought I’d given them all away. What a wonderful surprise! I just had to share some with you (the images, that is). Aren’t they amazing? They’re hand-painted with dye and cut from very thin tissue paper. Enjoy!

The Chinese character above (and in the others too) means “double happiness” and is most often used for weddings. The phoenix is featured prominently in Chinese mythology.

This papercut has a lotus plant.

The dragon and phoenix are often used together to wish a happy marriage.

Hello Sunshine! is my project spectrum for April. I loved working with yellow and orange on this page. It made me feel sunny and happy even when it was cloudy outside. There is still some room for journaling when I can properly date the photos.

I resisted scrapbooking for many years. It seemed expensive and time-consuming, and I already had more than enough trouble simply getting photos into regular albums. Then I compromised by starting a birthday book for my daughter, with the reasoning I could certainly handle scrapbooking one event a year. After that it was all over. I was hooked and am now working my way back through all my photos.

I just love scrapbooking! It’s almost like quilting with photos, paper and tape. Maybe someday I’ll try a scrapbook quilt or a quilt scrapbook!

happy scrapbooking!

Here it is–my very first hand-embroidered crazy quilt project. It is my own variation of an ATC (artist trading card), a not quite 2×3 inch gift tag. I am quite tickled pink over it. What’s more, I started and finished it today!

For the very first time I tried out my very cool new scrapbooking tag punch, hand-dyed the daisy lace, experimented with hand embroidery (including my oh-so-delicious hand-dyed pearl cotton I purchased at the 2006 Road to California show in January. It is the zig zag-looking stitch on the dark pink), and applied the mini eyelet. There is a marbled pink cardstock fused to the back, and 2 mm hot fix crystals in the centers of the daisies (I still lose several of those tiny crystals every time I use them, and my eyes are not that bad!) Believe it or not, I also did most of my usual daily routine.

I will definitely make more tags in the future and also experiment lots more with hand-dying lace (I have a whole drawer full of cotton and rayon lace just waiting to be colorized). If I make enough tags, I may be able to actually part with some of them and use them on actual gifts.

Well, it happened. I was minding my own business in the Campus Store, when all of a sudden–kaboom! I was ambushed by Angelina fibers at 50% off. Use-what-you-have month or not, how could I let that bargain pass me by? I have never even seen Angelina fibers in any store for any price before. So I caved in and bought a pink and a purple, plus a paper doll template (also 50% off) that I’d been admiring for months, and some stickers for my daughter’s scrapbook. At least I’m still using what I have as far as fabric and thread goes, and while I’m not buying any more fabric (for the time being) it’s giving me a chance to tidy up my shelves, making it easier for me to find what I need in what I already have.

Now for those Angelina fibers . . .