Sunday, December 26, 2010

2010 ESD Enchanted Challenge: Fairy Treasure - Left Side of Piece

WOW there is a lot to explain!!! I'll start from the top, in the left top corner I created a bead embroidery vine. The vine stem is made with a metallic thread stem stitched on and then I added seed bead leaves with short bugle beads in the centers of the leaves. Then I added some little treasured items hanging from the vine! There are a couple keys, a piece from a necklace, and a couple of earrings! The Cameo earring is very special to me. I bought it in Italy with my allowance money when I was a kid(I think I was about 10 at the time)! I loved earrings when I was younger but now I never wear any at all! LOL I'm more a necklace girl now! LOL So I put this special memory onto this piece since it will be hung as art in my home!!!
I added a bit more to this motif since the last you saw it! I added some necklace parts and beads! You can also see the button cluster I added over the top of the hand dyed lace I incorporated around the piece to act as moss along with another key!
I like how in this photo you can see the path your eye travels up the metal flower motif to the green silk ribbon and bead flower motif, then up the button cluster to the beaded vine!
Now we are to the middle left of the piece!
I LOVE this metal flower motif!!! I knew I needed something there but at the time I didn't know what would be just right, when I saw a necklace I had that one of the rhinestones had fallen out of one of the flowers and I hadn't yet fixed it! I grabbed up the necklace and brought it over for tryouts...sure enough I loved the idea of it there! BUT it didn't work as is so what I did was take apart all the components of the necklace and place them how I thought looked best! I also added other metal bits and leaves that I have in my stash to complete the motif! It took a lot of stitching using invisible thread to get ALL the little parts sewn down into place!!!
I found a beautiful set of keyholes with keys and this keyhole was one of my faves! I sewed it on with a little bit of silk velvet behind the hole.
You can see a gorgeous green gem that I tucked in on top of the silk velvet patch just below that is a cretan stitch seam treatment in another of the challenge packet's threads which is a gold silk thread! Over the top is part of a bellflower vine motif!
For the bellflower vine I used a vine trim that I sewed down using a running stitch in a gold metal thread along the stem. Then I added bellflower bead-caps with crystal beads in the centers.
Now we are to the lower left of the piece! You can see a good view of the bellflower vine wandering in this section!
I added rhinestones to the center of the little flower motif I blogged about here. I think they added a touch of that extra sparkle I love! I also added one of my favorite little bee beads!
I also added some extra green feather stitching to this bottom patch along with a set of pearl earrings! I got a whole set of pearls (necklace, bracelet, earrings) for Christmas one year but I don't wear earrings anymore so these found the perfect home on Fairy Treasure!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Follow Me on Facebook

Hi everyone, I noticed that lately I've been updating facebook more often than my blog and I enjoy that part of everyday updates, little tid bits of what I'm doing or thinking and I thought why not merge the two by creating a facebook fan page for my blog! The benefit of a fan page is that I can give updates and chat on the wall but not having to add everyone in the world as a friend to do so. So I created one! Now I can do little blog updates that won't clutter my blog with chatter, but give you a little more personal insight into what I'm working on everyday! So if you enjoy that type of update become my "fan"! I think it will help encourage me to do more too! I need motivation!!! LOL ***recently facebook changed it from "become a fan" to "like" so LIKE my page to get updates LOL ;)
My Facebook Fan Page

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Christmas Gift: SRE Embellished Family Portrait-Finished

Yay!!! I finally got it finished just in time for our gift exchange! Here it is all framed!
Now let me show you the progress from where I left off last!
I added vines in! I created them by drawing them freehand with an air-erasable fabric pen and then stem stitched them in using 1 strand DMC floss! Next I used 4mm green silk ribbon and added ribbon stitch leaves. To get nice looking leaves I start at the tip and work backwards trying to keep them evenly spaced as I go.
Next I added more ribbon stitch leaves to the floral frames. Also I added some flower buds in yellow to fill in any extra gaps left open. I used yellow 4mm silk ribbon in a 3 wrap French knot for the buds.
After all that the very last thing I added was some green seed beads to the vines to give it the perfect finishing touch!
Here is what it looks like with the matting around it!
I attached it to the backing of the frame which was a normal store bought frame you add photos to. I didn't do anything special just took large zig-zag stitches across the back to pull the fabric tight into place on the backing.
Usually I like to cover the back with a wrapping paper to make it look prettier but since the hanging wire was on the backing instead of the frame part I just left it as it...which doesn't look too bad to me this time.
After all that I printed up a label with my name, signature, and date with a special word "Cherished". I also enhanced it a bit by adding a touch of glitter to the word Cherished, the bird, and the heart on the letter!

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Christmas Gift: SRE Embellished Family Portrait-Progress

I started on this Christmas Gift and took photos of my progression of silk ribbon embroidery around the photos!
First I started with some Sweetheart Roses done in 7mm light pink silk ribbon.
Then I started adding yellow 4mm Sweetheart Roses in clusters of three.
Next I started adding random Sweetheart Roses in a 4mm dark pink silk ribbon.
After that I started adding in a medium pink 4mm silk ribbon Sweetheart Roses also in random places. I wanted the feel of a picked bouquet.
Here is a photo of all the Sweetheart Roses all around in all the colors!
I changed my plan from adding little blue silk ribbon flowers to adding little blue beaded flowers instead! I created tiny forget-me-nots in size 15 seed beads in a lovely blue with gold centers.
That was a lot of work to get done but I'm still not finished!!! I still need vines coming out of the center and leaves etc.