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http://www.theresamartin.com

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Horse Hair Pin Commission to Honor a Horse Named Guy

A fellow Corcoran alum commissioned these horse pins using hair from her horse, Guy. It was wonderful to work with the coarse, wiry and beautiful tail hair. It made these pins special.

A Gypsy Wagon Tutorial

 I made a Gypsy Caravan using two cardboard pennants. Here are  photos showing the different sides of my Caravan followed by a tutorial in pictures. 

FORTUNE - Gypsy Caravan

Interior View Through Side Window

Interior View Through Door

Interior View From End

TUTORIAL

While it may look complex when finished it is not difficult to make. The caravan consists of two Pennant panels, two side panels, a roof and the wheels. More about the wheels later.

Side Panels, Pennants and Roof

BEGIN

Gypsy Sisters 6 x6 Paper Pad  

To begin I sewed together a collage on my sewing machine using Gypsy Sisters papers until I had enough to cover my four panels. This can also be done with glue if you prefer regular collage over sewing. 

Cut two 5" x 7.5" side panels out of the paper collage.

Side panel made from sewn, collaged paper - 5" x 7.5"
Folded about a half inch on each end.

Four panels covered with collage

I made a door on one of the pennants, then covered both pennants with the collaged paper.   The fancy window in one of the side panels was made by using a Martha Stewart punch.

Collage options for end Pennants

Gluing side panel with punched window and end panel pennant together.

Photo showing door

Glue an image to one side - this is what you'll
see through the window on the opposite side.

Photo showing cut door. If you wish, this can be done after 
the collage is glued on. I'm showing it this way as it's
easier to see how it's done without the paper. 

Cut out door covered with collage papers.

I glued paper on the inside.  Three panels are now glued together.

Put your inside collage sheet image on the panel that is opposite your window.

View through the window. I later changed to an image I felt worked
better which you can see below.

Embellished side panels

I used the several different elements to embellish the side panes.

Glue together all four panels.

Measure and cut a piece to fit over the top for the roof. The edging on the roof
paper is a Martha Stewart punch.

Glue on the roof.  The top of the pennants make the roof into a lovely shape.

WHEELS

For the wheels, I used die cast wagon wheels - the type that model makers use. They are held together with a thin metal rod and are glued onto the side of the caravan. I painted them with a primer and gave them a patina with Metal Effects paints.


Have fun! I hope you make one (or two) too.  Please let me know if you do as I would love to see your work.

Black and Silver Beaded Crochet Wire Bracelet

Black and Silver Bracelet

Click photos to embiggen.

Detail

This is the second crochet wire bracelet I've made. I learned how to secure the clasp better with this one. I may take the first one apart and do it over now that I've got the hang of it.  The first one doesn't wear as comfortable as the silver and black one. I learned, also, how to crochet in a tighter fashion during this one. It doesn't take much time to make one of these. I will make some more.  I wonder what else besides beads there is that one can crochet onto wire. Any suggestions?

My Bead Adventure - Crochet Wire Glass Bead Bracelet

This bead bracelet is made with crocheted wire and glass beads. Watching a woman on a TV show make one brought back the memory of crocheting as a teen and I decided to make a couple for myself. The next one will be in black and silver beads. Lot's of fun to make and whimsical to wear.

Sun Infused Color

Remember this row of Mason Jars from yesterday filled with fabric and dye baking in the 100 sun?
Watch what happened! I can't believe the variety of color that came out of the mixes. 

The hot weather (100+) has been wiping us out around here but I've found a good use for it.  It's perfect for baking sun infused color into fabric with dye. Using the summer's heat was one of the things I learned at Judy Gula's  dye day and I placed my filled mason jars out in the sun for a day. I kept checking on them outside and loved the feeling of the hot glass with the promise of liquid color inside turning to gold like alchemy. Some of the results were quite surprising. Judy's method is from the book titled "Color by Accident" and there were many happy accidents. The distressed pieces are especially surprising and I am planning on a dye session mainly using cloths that will fray. Burlap and a particular type of cotton did this well.

These pieces  tangled up a lot in the wash, but they are worth it.
I carefully pulled and cut them apart. It was the best surprise of the lot
as I love the disintegrated effect they have. Of course, I had to
 save the tangled cut off pieces too because they were pretty too.

It was a fair amount of work rinsing out the dye and running the fabric through the wash twice, untangling the pieces and ironing them out. It gave me time to imagine what I might do with the fabric. Lot's of ideas are forming for collage work and I am toying with the idea of putting some of the pieces up for sale because I know I'll end up with more than I can use. For now, they hang on a rack, full of possibilities, reminding me of the feeling of this summer sun.

Which is your favorite? 

 

This is a piece of Jacquard Cotton that I printed numbers. I used an
inkjet printer and they held up surprisingly well. I thought for sure the
inkjet would run and muddy, but it didn't.

An old piece of lace.

I used many different textures.

The velveteen on the left is great but the purple/green floral piece
is not my favorite. I will definitely dye more white cotton velveteen.

The old chenille bedspread was found in a thrift store.

A purple/green combo that works better than the one above.
The blue cheesecloth on the right is heavenly.

Dye Day at Artistic Artifacts

Judy Gula, fabric artist and owner of Artitist Artifacts, occasionally holds a Dye Day workshop. I've wanted to go for a long time and saved up hoarded some great fabric to use. At the moment the fabric is waiting in jars in the sun for 24 hours.

We used Procion Dyes and dyed inside wide mouthed mason jars. The dyes are available online at Dharma Trading or Pro Chemical.

Some of them look muddy and some look awesome already. I can't wait until tomorrow to see what I've done.  It's a mystery.

Row of Mason Jars with Fabric and Dye

Looks like a nice purple.

Hot!

This might be my favorite in the jars. I wonder what it will look like when it's dry?
I'll show you soon.

The Night Circus and Paperwhimsy Reader's Group

 The Paperwhimsy Group has a Readers Group inside the forum. As a book is read and discussed we make pages for a group art book. The first project I participated in was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and now The Night Circus. These are my pages showing Poppet in the Labyrinth with one of her trained kittens and the key that was used to free her from the cage.

Pages in progress

Pages in Progress

Finished page with folds open

Finished page with folds closed