wet felt, leaves and another paper bowl

I spent some time at the Creativ Festival (large stitch and crafting type show) a couple of weeks back and was absolutely facinated by a demo from one of the Swarovski Ambassadors, Pat Reisenburger. Pat had some fabulous samples to show, including felted flowers and crystal cabochons that she had felted into pendants and cuff bracelets. Well, I didn't have any crystals, but did have Ice Resin cabs that I had made and forgot to post about. A day or so after the show, I broke out the box of wool rovings and had a go at Pat's techniques. It was a lot of fun and I'm quite happy with the results. If you're interested in learning more, please click on the link above and check out Pat's blog. She has some great video tutorials! My first photo shows three different pieces. The felted flower, felted cabochon and I've thrown in a bead embroidered piece for good measure.

I have absolutely no idea what I'll do with the felted pieces, but the bead embroidered one is a class sample. Any ideas?

Of course I couldn't stay away from paper bowls for long!! As the last couple of bowls I made were a little flimsy, I decided to toughen this one up with crepe paper, dried leaves, vintage tulle and old book pages. I was trying very hard to make an all white one (except for the leaves), but thought it was a little flat, so added some watered down, Golden Interference paint in Gold. I simply love the result! Do you? More bowls, beads and felt to come........I've even been thinking about, 'gasp', taking out the machine and stitching a little something. Perhaps if I close my eyes, the urge will go away. LOL!

beads and a paper bowl

I'm developing an intuitive bead embroidery class, so thought that I could combine it with my totally neglected 2013 BJP series. I loved the process and the original intent, but life and work got in the way this year. Now that I've been gifted with more time (I'm no longer working), I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to dust off my original plan. I wanted to make 12 leaves of the same size and shape and turn them into a necklace. Well, now I've got a new plan! The necklace would have been weighty, just a bit distracting and impractical to wear. Now I'm more attracted to the idea of making different leaf shapes and turning them into individual pendants (that I'm more likely to wear). I'm not sure how many I will make, so will only commit to the last three of the 2013 series. I don't want to work backwards, so I say onwards and upwards!! The backing is Lacey's Stiff Stuff and the piece contains a lovely stone cabochon (some type of turquoise), a mix of beads, crystals and pearls, old jewelry findings, button, watch parts and a copper spring (that I wound myself on a very small knitting needle). This leaf is 1 1/2" wide and 3 1/2" long, so you can see that I could not go as wild as I like to with my embellishments. Stitches used are back , peyote, stacked, flower and bocce/boucle. I'm very happy to be back in the game again and cannot wait to start my second leaf. I have not had any journal type thoughts yet, but if I continue for a while, I'm sure that the leaves will start whispering.

Now on to the second part. I made another bowl a couple of weeks ago, but never got around to posting. It's made from Gelli Printed tissue paper, teabags (on the inside) and skeleton leaves (craft store ones). The tissue was too thin and left the bowl a little unstable, so I needed to strengthen it with varnish. I'm not sure that I like the shiny look, but I do like the bowl and love the marks that were made with the Gelli print. In addition, I find the colour scheme to be quite soothing.

The chicken is in the pot and the sun is shining. I think it's time to play for a while........