Dress Up - April

Welcome to Dress Up in April!

We're still waiting on Spring so I've decided to go with the birds until the flowers arrive! My (still) unfinished wardrobe is filling up and I love how the dresses look together.

I tried to kept it simple this month and wanted to use my new found free motion skills. I whizzed around the top with random swirls then added the bars of the cage (drew them first!) with a regular stitch. I attached a little set of initials that I found at the local flea market.

I think these little birds are Goldcrests, I love their gentle colours

I glued a tiny gold ring to the top of the cage and threaded it with a plain red ribbon.

I've been back many times over the past month to admire your beautiful dresses! You are such a talented group of artists just buzzing with creativity, so many different ideas and techniques on display. Thank you once again for taking part in 'Dress Up'

Mind the gap

I made a sewn canvas yesterday and I like these

and this

and this

but as a whole?? hmm... I seem to have ended up with a gap in the middle, if I'd just put those gals a little bit closer together then all would've been well! I've decided to show it to you anyway as it'll probably take me another half a year before I find something, anything to fill it with!

Bunny Box

What's in the matchbox?

a bunny of course!

with a 1cm free motion fancy nest as centrepiece!

I seem incapable of doing my usual sized art at the moment and have settled for a smaller project instead. I really like the way it's turned out, with all the embellishments it's actually quite heavy and has a great feel to it.

Free motion fancies

Sewing on Alice and Camilla?? whatever next?? well, the thing is I can but I don't usually as my relationship with my machine could best be described as tense after my continued failure to read and follow instructions. However, after a bit of gentle guidance from afar (Linda) I actually put the feed dogs down (those little silver teeth that grip the fabric) and hey presto I can draw using my machine, who would've thought...

The flip side of Alice which I prefer as the face is clearer, a better mouth too. Of course by the time I'd bothered to turn it over to find the treasure underneath I'd already sewn all the other stuff on the front!

I had to seriously resist the urge to splash the whole thing with paint and settled for a button and lace embellishment instead.

My other free motion fancies include a wobbly bottomed chicken and a gal hoping to be Queen for a day. Quite where I'm going with all of this I don't know but what a fab tool I've discovered in my own cupboard.

You can see some wonderful machine stitchery here, what a great inspiration!

Cold and colder

Just when we thought the snow had all gone and it was safe to get the Spring things out, the flurry of all flurries arrived, 9cm of snow within a couple of hours. Collective sighing ensued as we dusted off the snow gear AGAIN, I mean really, enough is enough!!

Ye Olde Snow Pyramids of Zurich

Boxed part 2

I'm on a bit of a roll with the box altering at the moment. I'm quite enjoying this size and format and once I get started the ideas just start to flow. Nathalie sent me an old sheet of newspaper a while ago and I've only just now plucked up the courage to cut into it!

I added a piece of lace to cover up the hole I made in the paper!

the whole box is wrapped in a lovely rich red velvet ribbon, left over from Christmas!

I used up the last of my all time favourite flea market braid, I had about 2m and I've used it on everything!

Box of bells

I'm not sure what inspired me more, the little bells (previous post) or the box they came in! I just couldn't resist altering this little piece of packaging.

Three little compartments waiting to be filled with goodies!

I've run out of scrabble tiles to spell anything useful, there's only so much a gal can do with Q and V so I flipped them over and stamped my own letters

Dress Up - March

Opps now, I've done it again... green that is! Oh dear, it seems to be a reoccuring theme with me at the moment! perhaps it's my subconscious desire to see the start of Spring! Anyway, next month I promise to do better, really I do, NO green!! and I expect you gals to hold me to it!

I took the inspiration for my butterfly dress from Shelly's Blog, scroll down to her D-R-E-A-M garland, beautiful work! I painted onto a piece of dress pattern with acrylics, added some magazine scraps then decorated the hem with mini paper clips and painted bells.

I used two dried leaves for the wings which I folded in half and attached to the back of the dress. They are very fragile but they really do suggest wings to me.

And to finish I added some little metal flowers and a layer of clear texture gel to it give the dress a bit of depth, unfortunately it doesn't come out at all well in the photo but I'm pleased with the results.

The Linky for March is below, as I said earlier I'll now start to post the 'Dress Up' project on the first of each month. The linkys remain open and you can add to them in your own time, no pressure!! You can always find the 'Dress Up' post under the appropriate month in my Blog Archive, if you have time go back and look at January, there are still some wonderful creations coming in. Once again a very special thank you to all of you taking part, what an inspiration you are!