Category : Creativity

622 posts

T Tuesday: worst quilt ever edition

You know what that means…I’m linking up with Elizabeth and the gang to share a bit about my week…or weeks as the case may be.

Worst quilt ever

I’ll just rip the bandage off quickly…this is the worst quilt I have ever made. At first glance it’s not terrible but if you keep looking you begin to see all the issues. And boy are there a lot of them.

The one thing that I do love is the no holds barred scrappiness of the quilt. No negative space or even plain solid to let your eye rest.  That was my intention. It’s the back that set the multitude of issues into play.

Oh it’s like a trainwreck…so many things went wrong. But I just wanted to finish this dang thing. I was like Dory from Finding Nemo…

Except it was just keep sewing, just keep sewing…

It’s not beautiful but it will still keep me warm and snuggly on the couch so it does have a bit of a redeeming quality.

I had to share the clever display case at school welcoming the kids back. So fun. There are signs all over the school letting the kids know how happy we are to have them back. I think they are really happy too! Today we welcomed back the second group of students as we are still in a hybrid learning model. So fun to see all those kids!  We did not get to go snowshoeing yet but I am still hopeful

My COVID vaccine that was scheduled for Saturday was delayed until next weekend due to weather affecting the supply chain. The weather has been absolutely insane everywhere it seems.

I leave you with my Bulldog mom mug. My bulldog is not coming home for Spring break. They only have two days off instead of a week. I’m not sure I’ll see him until he moves back home. *sniff*

I just realized I’m going to need a new mug next fall… That one will make me a cougar mom. Hmmm…that sounds a little funny. LOL

T stands for Tuesday
What are you doing today?

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A tale of two pages

After day in which my ADD was in high gear, I settled down to create late in the evening. Past my bedtime, for sure. Evidently I was still cruising from the whirlwind of activity earlier…Mini-me even commented on the fact that I had half a dozen things going at once and I was jumping between them in crazy succession. Not sure what’s up with that but I’m not here for therapy.

wonky junky journal page

This journal had not seen any love for quite some time. I grabbed the wood grain papers without any plan and glued them down to the flimsy pages underneath.  Then added  a chunk of equally flimsy black paper to the left side. It was way to dark so I smeared some peachy, flesh tone with my fingers. Over the top I added floral washi sticker. This side was now starting to inspire me.

I used a previously made paper cluster meant for a greeting card to break up the wood grain. While digging through a small bin of saved bits I put together a little collage of punches and a yogi tea tag. After adding a bit of stamping to each side I completed the page with the words love yourself first

I was so happy with how this page turned out that I grabbed another journal to create a bit more.

Ivanhoe journal page

Layering papers has been a go-to of mine lately. I am finally convincing myself that I need to tear into those papers instead of hoarding them because they are so pretty. It’s a work in progress.

On the right side of the spread I placed this tag I have had in my stash for a while. I thought the colors complemented that page very well. I love that there is a tag on the tag.

I decided to use a wide variety of paper patterns for this spread. Things you likely wouldn’t see together, The jumble of colors and styles along with variety of textures inspired the words… everything has beauty

 

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T Tuesday: on my workspace edition

Two weeks in a row…can you believe it?!?! I really shouldn’t be that excited about that accomplishment.

I thought I’d jump in right away and show my crazy bad embroidery skill on my quilt label. Let me preface by saying this was completely freehand. I didn’t even draw with a pencil…just winged it…and frankly, it shows.

I decided to embroider directly on the backing piece so it was imperative that I did it before the putting the “quilt sandwich” together and quilting. Every time I get the backing, batting and quilt top out to square up on the floor and baste, my least helpful resident has to come be a pest. Needless to say I have not gotten it put together yet. Good thing I love that cat because he’s kind of a jerk sometimes.

My secondary workspace is beginning to be more cluttered, I need to work on that. You can see a small stack of fabrics that have been cut 2 x 3.5 inches. I’m still thinking that is too small to want to deal with. Time will tell. I have seen a couple really cute scrappy patterns using that size pieces. Maybe it’s just the cutting that is driving me crazy. So small…such a pain but I think it definitely could be worth the effort in the end.

Using my tea set pincushion as my drink reference for the day.

You may also notice another stack of cards…

I am still plugging away at my paper scraps as well. I did sort through and toss some junk though. I really thought I’d have made a bigger dent in it by now. I guess the takeaway there is I have a lot of stuff.

This week has us in a polar vortex. The week is packed with nose hair freezing, the air hurts my face, ice on the wall, tell me again why I live here kind of weather. The following week should be better. I’m looking forward to going snowshoeing in PE with the kids when they return to in-person learning. I’m probably more excited than they are. I love snowshoeing! So yeah…I guess I know why I live here…I love the seasons…all of them!

T stands for Tuesday
What are you doing today?

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T Tuesday: I’m still here edition

Hey there…glad you stopped by today. It has, once again, been quite some time since my last post. I had good intentions of posting more but the motivation to sit in front of another screen after doing it all day just wasn’t there.

I’m all about sitting  in front of my sewing machine though.

Now that all staff will be back in the building, my home office area can become a sewing station.

I pulled the quilt top I had previously completed out of the closet and have been working on revamping it a bit and creating a quilt back complete with a signature in a block. I’ll show my terrible embroidery skills when I get the quilting done.

This is what kicked me back into sewing mode…a big bag of scraps from a coworker. Her and her girls started a small business/side hustle sewing scrunchies then masks and now they have added aprons. She saves her off cuts and scraps  for me. So many fun bits of fabrics! I ironed every scrap and began cutting pieces for a scrappy quilt pattern I saw on Pinterest. The pieces are so small…I am having a bit of regret. I may just set that stack aside and use it for something else.

Speaking of Pinterest…this was really weird. I was scrolling through Pinterest on my phone during my lunch. For those not familiar with how Pinterest works, if you don’t specifically search for something the site picks things it thinks you’d be interested in based on previous things you’ve looked at and things people you follow have posted. So like I said I’m scrolling along in my “for you” pins and I see these…

Those are my own projects. Things I had blogged about and pinned forever ago. So weird seeing your own creations like that. “hey we think you’d like this…” ah yeah I would, I made it.

So what else is new…hmmm… J is back up at college for Spring semester. He is happy to be back even though he has different roommates and a different apartment(a nicer one in my opinion). Even though most of his classes and his tutoring job are online, he has one course with a lab component so he had to be there in person. Unlike Mini-me who got a lab kit to bring home.

She extracted DNA from blueberries right in our kitchen. It’s actually a really fun lab that I do with my 7th graders.

Speaking of Mini-me…she was invited to participate in a competitive scholarship by the University will be attending in the fall. She got 2nd place which is basically half of her tuition paid each year plus a one time stipend to be used for approved study abroad, supplies or research. We are so incredibly proud of her…she works so hard and now all of that hard work is playing off in a very big way! I could continue to gush about her recent accomplishments but I really don’t want to be that mom.

All staff went back to school today. This is my new look when working in person with kids…super fun. I am on the list to get my first COVID-19 vaccine. I had to pass up my first opportunity since I had just gotten my Tdap vaccine. Of course, getting the COVID vaccine will not make the mask and shield go away this year. I was actually surprised once I had it on my face and starting working, it didn’t bother me like I thought it would. My only real issue is the need to push up my glasses regularly….not easy.

T stands for Tuesday
What are you doing today?

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Card making frenzy

In my ongoing effort to get rid of things, I decided to challenge myself to use up scraps to create a bunch of greeting cards. Most of these, if not all, will be donated to Cards for Kindness.

I sent in a couple dozen cards a while back but recently saw they have a need for some specific categories. With that in mind, I set my creations in that direction.

I still have a couple pounds of scraps…it’s a serious problem. I’ll keep plugging away at them. I’m sure some scraps will make their way into some journal pages and master boards as well.

Until next time…stay safe and go create something!

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T Tuesday: Christmas and catching up edition

It’s certainly been a while since I have joined in on T stands for Tuesday. So much, yet so little has happened.

This doodle is from before Winter break. Since I have had the same class over and over, I tend to doodle while waiting  for my small group time to begin. I never realized how often I doodle until distance learning began.

Winter break started a bit early for me…similar to last year. My back was giving me trouble from all the sitting. UGH! At least we found out that we are going to back to hybrid in-person learning mid-Feb. Since all the sitting is really hard on me I tackled making a new table for the treadmill.

It still needs a bit of work as it now tilts backward a bit which is kind of uncomfortable to type. But now I have the ability to slowly walk or just stand when I need to and still work. I’ve been working from school some days as well to change things up.

Christmas was a quiet one. We had a blizzard on the 23rd that lasted into Christmas Eve. Not a big deal when you aren’t going any where. The drifts were crazy in places…these were just cool!

We had fondue and played a couple board games…a nice and peaceful day.

Marvin always enjoys posing in front of the tree for me. He’s kind of a diva.

And what self-respecting cat wouldn’t crawl into a present box. Of course he’s huge and didn’t completely fit.

Since I hadn’t been creative at all for what seemed like weeks I did a page in an art journal to start off the new year. I don’t love it but that ok. Just trying to start the year off right.

Speaking of starting off the year right…I have chosen the word Strength for my Word of the Year.

You can check out the post by clicking on the image in the sidebar.

And if you were curious how I did with last years word: Mindful…be sure to check out that post as well.

I’ll leave you with a my breakfast and my fortune from last evening.

T stands for Tuesday
Today has me working from home.
What are you doing today?

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A second look: Wishes and Dreams

I thought I’d play along today with Second on the 2nd and share a second look at an art journal page I had a lot of fun creating.

Take a look….

Wishes and Dreams – 11/7/2015

I’ve been very drawn to the multi layered look of journal pages, collage and mixed media of all sorts lately. The more textural, the better. As I sat down to create, I had two things in mind…texture and spray mist color.

wishes and dreams art journal page | Halle's Hobbies

I placed masking tape down the spine then layered joint tape randomly in opposite corners of the pages. Next I gave the whole thing a thin coat of gesso.  Even with the thin coat of gesso, I got impatient waiting for it to dry so I started spraying sooner than I likely should have.

wishes and dreams art journal page | Halle's Hobbies

At this point everything was so wet I had to walk away.

After it was thoroughly dry, I began laying down some texture.  I used foreign text from a Brothers Grimm fairy tales book, leftover burlap from my monogram wreath, rusted fabric, a clothing tag and a bit of calico fabric for my layers.

wishes and dreams art journal page | Halle's Hobbies

In addition I used a punched square from an old greeting card as a focal image on the left hand page. A sweet little girl blowing a dandelion seed head making a wish.

wishes and dreams art journal page | Halle's Hobbies

Which ties into the words I used on the clothing tag. The words are from a Tim Holtz sticker pack.  I cut the phrase apart to place on the clothing tag.

I watered down some black craft paint to make splatters but was unhappy with the result so I attempted to soak them up with a cloth.

wishes and dreams art journal page | Halle's Hobbies

Lastly I used vintage photo distress ink to stamp a floral vine in opposite corners to give balance to the pages.

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Hope you had a happy and safe New Year! Wishing you all the best in 2021!

 

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