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Sunday, December 31, 2006

For Sale: Custom Fobs


Just created these Fobs tonight. They can be used to decorate your cell phone or, if you are a fiber artist like I am, attach them to your scissors or rotary cutter so that when you're having fiber play dates at your doll club, quilt guild, or with your friends, no one will go home with your tools. I will take orders for these if you would like to have one custom made for your cell/scissors/rotary cutter ($5.00 + shipping). Just drop me an email (BecauseILikeIt@aol.com) with Custom Fobs in the subject line and include your favorite color/s. I do accept pay pal...but we'll get to that when the time comes.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Something fun!

You Are 25% Left Brained, 75% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning.
Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others.
If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic.
Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet.

The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility.
Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way.
If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art.
Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Ladybug, Ladybug!




This is the ladybug block that I had created for my friend and Listmom of the FairieGoddessMother's group, Linda M. Poole's birthday back in October. Linda has created a wonderful monthly block exchange within the FGM group called "Wonderous Wings". Each month she announces a new winged creature for us to create and we exchange blocks in groups of 4-5 people. Ladybugs happen to be the theme for November. I thought I'd show this one off since it is the basis for the ones I'm creating for my swap partners. I hope they like what I had dreamed up in my own little mind! lol



Sunday, November 12, 2006

A Pillow for Shari


I just finished this pillow for my friend Shari as a birthday present. Since we both just totally LOVE Jeffrey Dean Morgan (he played Denny on Grey's Anatomy last season, he also plays the father, John Winchester on the tv show Supernatural as well as had a recurring role in Showtime's "Weeds".), I thought that I just needed to do something centered around JDM for her for her birthday. She also loves Taylor Hicks and will be getting a few pieces of memorabilia on him too. lol
I created the photo transfer by printing it onto photo fabric. It's a specially treated fabric that won't run or bleed and can be washed with mild detergent. The picture I used was actually made as a computer wallpaper by our friend Rebecca. (Thank you Rebecca for creating this!.) This will be going in the mail within a day or two and I hope that Shari squeels with delight when she opens the package! lol

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Halloween Fairie Goddess


Hi all!

I created this Fairie Goddess for a challenge on the FairieGoddessMother's group, but it had gotten overlooked and wasn't put on the site for the challenge so I thought I'd post it here to share. I am now officially a G.G. +1 with the FGM's. lol That means I've made one monthly fairie goddess as well as one challenge fairie goddess. These challenges are so much fun!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

My Latest Happenings

WOW! I can't believe it's been almost a month since I posted to my blog! Lots of stuff has been happening. I had written a letter to the editor of Fiber Arts Magazine early in the year and was contacted by the editor, Sunita Patterson, who asked me if she could include my letter in the magazine. I had totally forgotten about this since it has been months and months since I had written it. The other day I received my next issue of Fiber Arts Magazine and was leaping through it when I saw my letter published!!! Boy was I excited! This was great news because they included the URL to my fiber arts group, Fiber Art Traders! So of course I was running around the house yelling "Oh My God! Oh My God!!!" - my poor guy thought I was yelling at him and the cat was looking at me like I was nuts! lol I guess I was because it's not every day that you see your name in print! If you haven't checked out Fiber Arts Magazine it's really a great magazine. If you love fiber arts then hop on over to my links and check out Fiber Art Traders - it's one of the most creative places on the web!

Back in August I met with 6 local women and we decided to form our own Doll Crafting Club. I've been interested in learning to make dolls for quite a while - ever since I became friends with doll maker Deb McKenzie. Her work is awesome and I can say that I am a proud owner of one of her beautiful dolls, a Goddess of Fertility which she made just for me! We named our new doll club using true Pittsburgh slang - "Yinz Dollz n'at". I'm sure we'll have to explain our name to all that live outside "The Burg", but that's ok. Unique name = unique group! We've met 3 times so far, and at this last meeting we had two workshops going on. I learned how to needle sculpt a cloth doll face! It was awesome! We also had another member teach us the basics of working with paper clay. Next month I am going to teach the girls how to create some fun and flashy fabric with Angelina Fibers. I really look forward to the "doll club Saturdays"!

Here's a pic of the latest trade I'm hosting at Fiber Art Traders. The trade is themed "Up Close and Personal". I call these Post Cards "Ant Picnic". From the magnifying glass on each post card you'll get the idea pretty fast. lol Enjoy!!!

Monday, September 18, 2006

A new pin!


This is my latest little Goddess Doll Pin. I had a request from one of my FiberArtTraders listmates to make her a Goddess Doll Pin. So even though it took me a while to catch up on projects to get started on this one, I finally got it done! lol She got popped in the mail today. Hopefully Jean will like her. I tried to use the colors that Jean told me she liked so we'll just have to wait and see. I took her to my Dollmakers group on Saturday morning and the girls there loved her. They are so used to making the big dolls and were fascinated at such a small piece of art. I will be teaching a class on pin dolls at one of our future meetings. I love doing these little gems! lol Every new one that I receive in trades and wear to work get such rave reviews by my work mates! lol It's so much fun and I recommend to just take a stab at it to anyone who has never made one before. You'll get addicted!

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

A little buzzzzz!!!


This is a picture of one of the bumble bee blocks that I did for the monthly block exchange for the Fairie Goddess Mother's group. I was having trouble finding black and yellow striped fabric and short of piecing my own strips together I decided that I wanted to be a little bit different. I loved the honeycomb fabric and then found this print with little bumble bees all over it and knew I just had to make my bumble bees bodies out of this fabric. The wings are only attached at the body of each bumble bee so that it almost looks like they're flying off the block. SWEET!!! lol

Saturday, August 26, 2006

A little bit of humor

I just had to share some pictures of my latest post cards. These were done for the Tartan trade on Fiber Art Traders. I had to put a little humorous spin on my cards, and happily they have given a smile to those who've seen them. So with out further adu (did I spell that right? lol) here they are. So have you ever wondered what a Scotsman wears under his kilt? lol




Saturday, August 19, 2006

One of my first post cards


I have been so busy lately that I haven't posted here lately. For those of you who know me you know that I LOVE fairies! I found this picture on my old computer and was smart enough to pop it onto a disk before it went to computer heaven. lol This was the second post card that I had ever made and it was my very first fairie postcard. Unfortunately I did not make one just like it to keep for myself so one of the gals from the Fairie Goddess mother's group (Barbara C.) was the one to receive it for the fairie postcard swap. I didn't have much experience couching the fun yarn with my borrowed sewing machine so I hand basted them on to the post card first before zig-zagging with the sewing machine. The fairie and thistle are actually from a photo that I doctored up with the computer and printed on photo paper. They are only sewn on at the bottom and the wings are knotched so that they give a whole 3D effect (that you can't really tell because the image was scanned on the scanner so it kinda got flattened out lol). I'm glad that I found this so that I could show my family and friends some of my earlier work. Now I'm really tempted to create another one just for me the next time I have a spare moment. Hmmmmm.......I wonder when that will be?! lol

Friday, July 14, 2006

Blue Toes for Blue Monday!

I had the best time making this card! It is my latest challenge winner in one of my FAVORITE yahoo groups too! I couldn't believe that I won the challenge either cause there was this adorable blue elephant that I thought for sure would win. It was for the Fairie Goddess Mother's group latest challenge put together by Alikat!

The theme was Blue Monday. Gosh did I have a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do for Blue Monday because at first to me it sounded so sad. Then the more I thought about it the more I wanted my Blue Monday to reflect happiness! I just happened to be looking for a fun color of nail polish in my big ole' manicure box and came across one that I'd bought a few years ago (that probaby should have been tossed in the garbage after that long! lol) and it was this cool shade of metallic blue! My idea was born! Who doesn't love the memory of being a young adult, sitting in your room on a beautiful spring or summer day polishing your toes a funky shade of blue then propping your tootsies up on the window sill and admiring your work? That was what I thought of when creating this card.

I want to thank all of the girls and guy (BlueRose, Leni, Sharon, CJ, Jodi and Leafy Dude - Love and hugs to you all!) from Fairie Goddess Mothers who took this challenge. I was in great company with talent abound! Everyone did such a wonderful job with this challenge so we are all winners because we let our imaginations take us into a beautiful Blue Monday!

Sunday, July 02, 2006

An Evening In Paris!

Well no, I'm not going to Paris, BUT, I did happen to create a postcard that just might take you there in your mind! lol Fiber Art Traders has been invited to do a display for The Hygienic Art Gallery in New London, Connecticut. The theme is - An Evening In Paris! The girls in my FAT group have been busting butt creating some really great cards to be displayed. These will be sold to generate funds to keep The Hygienic open for artists of all media. My card is called Musee de Louvre. It depicts the beautifully modern Pyramid lit at night in front of the Louvre's lovely architectured building. It took me almost 3 days to decide and a few more days to get it exactly how I wanted and I finally completed it last night and remembered to take a photo of it. It is 3 dimensional and I guess you could say interactive (since the pyramid can be lit with an on/off switch), and most likely not a mailable post card. I will be mailing it off tomorrow in hopes that the USPS doesn't disappoint me and it gets there by the deadline on July 7th. Keep your fingers crossed. Please feel free to leave a comment - I need feedback since it's my first "Interactive" post card! If all goes right I should have a copyright on it soon.


Wednesday, June 28, 2006

The Get Well CAT! lol

Most of you know that pretty much within 2 weeks of finally having a doctor diagnose me with gall bladder trouble I had surgery and voila! I'm recovering nicely. Thanks to all of you who wished me well before and after the surgery. It really helped me get through it with out being overly nervous. I went into the surgery from pre op to recovery smiling and making the nurses laugh and was told I was the best patient they'd had in a long time.

I had to post this picture of a card that Ann F. from the FairieGoddessMother's group sent me that I received in the mail today. It was just too cute and funny. Lifted me up from a hectic 2nd day back to work. Ann picked out this card because it reminded her of our cat Snowball - and yep - she's right. If the cat had gold eyes it would definitely be Snowball! lol I've seen that look on his face quite a few times (when the word B-A-T-H is mentioned - had to spell it out because he's sitting right next to me! lol). Thanks Ann!!!!!

Saturday, June 17, 2006

My Back Yard

It was a beautiful sunny day here so I thought I'd share some pictures of the things growing in our backyard. We have a beautiful hydrangea bush - yes I say bush because it's HUGE - growing at the corner of our back porch, as well as some wild strawberries that I have growing along the back of the porch in my flower bed.






Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Butterfly Garden 3D ATC

Butterfly Garden was the last ATC that I created for QA's blog swap. I really had fun with this one because of it's truely 3D effect. Unfortunately I can't post it at this time because I have to figure out how to change the size of the pics for blogging here. I love working with beads and though I'm not an expert at it yet, I gave it a good go. I am very happy with the end result and will try to post pics later. I need to thank my friends Normajean and Darma from the Fiber Art Traders group for giving me that big ole nudge that I needed to submit my art! Love you both!!!

Melted Dreams


I tried a new technique on this ATC. I had only played one other time with Tyvek and decided that I needed to branch out and take a chance. I painted the tyvek with some acryllic paints and let it dry, then hit the Tyvek with some heat from my iron and this is what happened to the background. I loved it! So then I added a polymer clay face and gave it a little bit of distortion, put some fabric to it and Melted Dreams was born! You can see in my excitement to take a picture of it that I didn't let the glue dry completely! lol

Shake It Up!

I call this one Shake It Up! It's my version of a shaker card.
Made with tulle gathered to trap and release the sequins inside. Love the sparklies! lol

In The Tall Grass


This is the second ATC for QA magazine. I used a fun ribbon embellishment from my friend Angela in the UK for this one.

Exciting News!

Some exciting news happened to me a few weeks ago but I haven't been able to post anything for some reason. I'm going to try today though! Anyway...I entered some Artist Trading Cards (ATC's) in Quilting Arts Magazine's Blog Swap. I made 5 of them (5 was the max you could enter) and a week or so later I received a notification that my ATC's were being considered for their "coffee table" book that they are putting out. I'm the 4th person from the Fiber Art Traders group that has been notified of this and it is really exciting! I'm hoping that the blog will let me post pics of the cards for you to see. My parents, siblings and my darling boyfriend are very proud of me and I think it surprised them because I'm not one to do the "hey look what I made! Isn't it fabulous???" thing about my art. I show them what I'm creating and then sit in a quiet corner at family gatherings to "work" on the piece that I've brought with me. Then it's most often given away as a gift. The tell me I'm breaking out of my shell! lol Well here hopefully is a pic of one of the ATC's being considered. I call it "Out of the Swirls". As you can see my penchant for Fairies was used. It is thread embellished.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

The Goddess of Dreams


I made this Goddess Doll for my good friend Normajean. I was the trade mistress of the Goddess Doll Trade at Fiber Art Traders and she and I decided to to a private trade as well as the one with the group. I designed her image myself, found some awesome orange and coral patterned fabric (Nj's favorite color is orange! lol) and then beaded her. So here she is. I hope you like her.

Friday, May 12, 2006

A FairieGoddessMothers Honor!

The FairieGoddessMother's group announced a post card challenge about 2 weeks ago. We were to create a post card based on the theme "Wish You Were Here". Once our postcard was complete we were to email it to Alikat and she would post our pics on the blog anonymously then the group would vote on their favorite. I wasn't sure that I would have time to enter this challenge but luckily I had a creative day and next thing I knew I got my idea from my head and onto fabric and I was sending my picture off for the challenge!


I am proud to say that my entry was declaired the winner - much to my surprise! Talk about "Holy Cow"! I was in shock because I really didn't think that I would win. The luck was with me though and I am so thankful. I was honored to be in such good company with the other girls who entered the challenge. Everyone did such a beautiful job and I'm still in shock that I won! I feel that I have come so far since last August 3rd when I found this wonderful group - their constant inspiration and support really help lift you up in so many ways. It's such a good place to be.

~Vix~

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Got Goddess?

I am getting addicted to creating these girls! The Goddess Doll Swap on Fiber Art Traders that I'm "trade mistress" of has a limit of making 2 Goddess dolls so I had to make one more. I had a few other ideas but for some reason The Goddess of Chocolate just stuck in my head and I JUST HAD TO create her! lol I wanted her simple yet sophistocated....the way I think of a delicious piece of dark chocolate as it melts in my mouth. I couldn't quite find the fabric I wanted but then came across a piece that reminded me of the color of milk chocolate and it had little gold flecks in it. I drew out my pattern and just let her flow. I gave her some "white chocolate" leaf wings and a little gold parcel of REAL Sarris Chocolate (for those of you local to Pittsburgh, you know what that is!) so that she can fly to those in desperate need of a chocolate fix! So here she is...sit back, grab a glass of milk and take a look. lol She is dedicated to all of my chocolate loving friends, the gals at Fiber Art Traders and my fellow Fairie Goddess Mothers!!!

Friday, April 14, 2006

Oh My Goddess!

I wanted to post a picture of one of the Goddess Dolls that I have created for a trade I'm hostessing at Fiber Art Traders. I have named her the Goddess of Dragonflies. I love dragonflies almost as much as I love fairies and pelicans! This is my very first attempt at making a doll of any kind (I'm not counting the pin cushion that I attempted and fell apart. lol).


I'm very proud that she turned out as nice as she did - it took me a while to get the pattern from my head and into the fabric. I used a commercial pattern for her body but designed her wings all by myself - another first for me! lol Her wings are poseable - I sewed some pipe cleaners into them and, well, nearly broke a needle on the first try because I wasn't paying close enough attention. lol I fixed the broken pipe cleaner and sewed them up. I hope you enjoy her as much as I did creating her. I've got a few more Goddess Dolls cut out from patterns that I took a stab at designing, so I am sure that I will post more pictures soon. I'm addicted to these gals! lol

Monday, April 10, 2006

Finally Time to Blog!



Well I haven't actually had much time to blog over the last few months due to work. We had a major inspection and review that happened near the end of March so we had all been busy little bees trying to make sure that everything was ready! We should be finding out near the end of April whether we passed and will keep our status as an accredited cancer center. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

So now that I have that behind me I've been trying to keep busy and keep my fingers nimble by making some fiber art post cards and building up my stash. I've really been enjoying the Fairie Goddess Mother's monthly charm swaps! I know I will be making a lovely quilt with these 6 inch charm squares that I've been receiving! Each month there are new colors and themes - really keeps you on your toes!

As for the fiber art post cards I posted a picture of one that I did for the latest swap on Fiber Art Traders. The theme was Fairies and Gnomes - right up my alley of course! lol So now you see one of my little gnomes sleeping among the clover and my butterfly fairy post card. The Fairy on the Butterfly card is actually the one that I use as my logo for my soap making. I used to sell my soaps and sundries during the big craft fair months but with work these days I don't get to do it as often as I'd like. I don't have a huge stock of soaps anymore but will hopefully get back into it one of these days.

I hope you enjoyed my first entry in a few months! Leave a comment or two if you'd like.

Hugs to you all!
Vix

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Things I've been up to lately



I'm posting a few pictures of things I've created for a fundraiser I'm co-chairing in one of the yahoo groups I belong to, Fiber Art Traders, to raise money for the American Heart Association. The AHA is something that I hold dear to my heart because my father, who is now 63 and healthier than he's ever been, had his first heart attack at age 40 and just about 7 years ago he had a quintuple (5) by-pass. Did you know that heart disease is the #1 killer of women in the United States? I want to keep raising awareness about this killer.

We are holding an online auction on February 21, 2006. The theme is You Gotta Have He"ART" and the concept was to create what we call Heart ART and auction it off to the highest bidder. 100% of these proceeds will be donated to the American Heart Association. These auction items were created by various members of Fiber Art Traders and what we have so far have turned out beautifully.

If anyone reading this blog would like to donate to a wonderful cause you can visit our auction site and watch it as it progresses and then bid on a piece of Heart ART! The instructions for bidding are on the site and it is quite simple. http://heartartauction.tripod.com/you_gotta_have_heart_auction/
Forgive the pop ups - this site is a free site so hopefully you will have a pop up blocker so that they don't bother you too much.

I hope you enjoy my Heart ART - remember it will be available to bid on when our auction takes place on February 21, 2006.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

A Journey to Create


I think this title to my first entry is pretty appropriate. Within the last year I have taken steps to get back into being my creative self by picking up my pen and writing again, learning how to quilt, and joining a two wonderful online quilting/writing/fiber art groups that are helping me along that path. I have also decided that the voice of motherhood is calling to me and I am beginning that journey now as well with the wonderful man in my life. 2006 is going to be an amazing time for me...for us. I think there is nothing like changing your life for the better by creating life.

So here goes.....