Art Journal Covers & Birthdays Galore!

I am so fortunate to be part of a group of ladies here in Colombia that meet weekly to do handwork. 

It's a rather traditional quilt group but they've accepted me and my wonky art with open arms!

We've celebrated three birthdays in the past few weeks so I've been making art journal covers as gifts...

for Bertha...

I made a stamp out of Styrofoam and block printed previously dyed-by-me fabric...

The beaded tie was plain when I cut it off the shirt it came on.


This piece - from way back when - is my first attempt at free motion stitching...straight out of Libby Lehman's book...

For the flaps I used more of my dyed / stamped / painted fabric and part of a piece of clean up cloth from when I was dyeing fabrics...

for Margie - but alas I have no pictures!

for Amelia...

I wonky cut fabric scraps to make them even smaller and then captured them under tulle to form the heart shape. I then free motion stitched the rest of the piece and accidentally on purpose burned the tulle with my iron...

Here I layered three pieces of fabric, free motion stitched heart shapes and cut away one or two layers to reveal fabrics...

The aqua fabric is the 'wrong' side of a piece of commercial fabric that i added acrylic paint to...

Here again is my 'spit-up' cloth...

for Carmen...

When I started with the pillow ticking - which my mother in law gave me around 30 years ago - I didn't see how it could EVER be pretty. I'd used it to blot up 
paint and it really needed something BAD. I started attaching sheers on top and pretty scraps to the sides and ended up really loving this piece. But it took persistence - and a lot of thread - to get it to this stage.

On the inside I used up more of my surface designed scraps...

and then from one of Davida's past birthdays...

I looked at this piece that I'd batiked and saw a fish...

and put it with some of my favorite sumptious fabrics...

I almost didn't make a journal cover out of it because the other side showed the stitching...

This one was a Christmas gift...

  

My friend, Dorothy, gave me a bag of gingham which I painted, and stamped and it became what it is...

and this one for a special thank you to a special Sandra...

The front cover was a piece I'd stamped previously and didn't know what in the world I'd ever do with it...since it was specific, but it turns out that Sandra is due to have her first baby in July and it just popped up out of the bin when I went searching for her book cover. I'd also foiled and painted this piece...

I had so much fun with the bird above - so I started sewing more scraps together without knowing what it would become.

Since it has the mommy and child, again, I thought it was meant for Sandra.

A piece of the back became a pen holder and a piece of the front became an inside pocket.

There have been many more, but the pictures are either hidden really well, or I didn't take any!