Friendship warms the heart

I find so much inspiration from all my friends that are online. I love each and everyone of you and find you to all be extremely talented and your friendship means the most to me! So I created a small friendship journal in honor of you!

One of the things that I love to do with a stamp, ( like the sun from the Fly Away stamp set ), is to see how I can use them in a different way than they were intended to be used. 

So I masked off the little ribbon on the stamp and turned the sun upside down and made it into a nice big sunny balloon because sometimes we just have to bring our own sunshine to the party! I gave my sun a nice glittery coating of DecoArts Glamour Dust Glitter Paint to make it extra sparkly against the background of the Color Burst paper.

I also created a cute little bookmark to add to the journal with some Live in Color paper by folding it in ½ and adhering it with Helmar's 450 to make it nice and strong. 

I then hand sewed some charms to it along with a friendship quote to make it extra special. I always find that adding a little bit of hand sewing adds just a touch of love to my gifts.

♥ I hope you feel inspired to make a friendship journal book for your bestie ♥

waving hi from the hills of North Carolina,
sandee - Design Team member

Fly Away stamp - sun


Grandma's Needlepoint - little girl, stitching



Color Burst


Live in Color

"Dreaming of Spring" - mixed media on canvas

Hello friends - long time no see! This is JJ Sobey here, returning for a visit with you this month.   I was delighted to find that this month's theme was mixed media, as I love playing with different products and seeing how they work together.

My project started out as just a piece of raw canvas, to which I added stamps from the "At Ground Level" set.   Then I stitched over many of the lines with my sewing machine:

I added clouds from the "Create Your Day" stamp set, and some colour using Inktense pencils & water.  I also stamped some background texture using a stamp from the "Abc-123-Washi" set, and the "In Circle Me" stamp.

I decided the colours didn't 'pop' as much as I would like, so I added india inks, and a little more Inktense (but using the blocks this time):

The final steps were adding a few touches of colour with Smooch inks:

and a bit more sewing (and fraying the edges):

Here's a close-up of some of the stitching:

 

And the final project, again.   I was originally planning to put this on a card, but my daughter has laid claim to it, and it will be mounted in a shadowbox for her bedroom, instead.  :)

Thanks for visiting!

JJ Sobey, Susan K Weckesser Guest Design Team
http://1-goodthing.blogspot.com


Susan K Weckesser Supplies:
Stamps by Unity - At Ground Level,  Abc-123-Washi, Create Your Day, In Circle Me

Other supplies:
Colorsnap Smooch inks
Derwent Inktense pencils & block
Dr Ph Martins India Inks
Ranger Archival Ink
unbleached raw canvas, sewing machine thread

Simple Bag

Hello, Allie here to share a little project I created using the Celebration of Simple stamp set designed by Susan for Unity Stamp Company.

I had some dyed fabric scraps left over from a recent project and I thought it would be fun to make a simple bag. I love to have bags and boxes on hand, because I'm always getting a simple little something for a friend.

So, this project is truly a Celebration of Simple!

I stamped the pennants on to scraps and cut them out with pinking shears, then sewed the top of each pennant to a square of fabric that I had hemmed at the top. I stamped the sentiment on the same piece. I then sewed two squares together (back to back) and turned them right side out.

I thought it was a little plain, so I added some fun buttons at the top with embroidery thread.

Supplies:

• Fabric - Moda 
• Buttons - Buttons Galore
• Stamps - Susan K Weckesser for Unity
• Ink - Tsukineko/Imagine Crafts "Stazon" Inks
• Embroidery Thread and Sewing Thread - Coats & Clark
• Dye - Rit Dye
• Shears - Fiskars

Now, I have a fun little bag for gift giving. It's all about the presentation, right? What would you use a fun little bag for?

Thanks for joining me, I've really enjoyed guest designing for Susan and friends!