Summer of Color 2014 completed

Summer of Color 4 - smudge, splash and pop.  My 6 beach huts have become a mini quilt (19 x 17 inches)!  I am so chuffed at how they turned out and with the finished piece.  As I can fold this quilt I also made a special little bag for it to rest it, safe and sound.  Any quilters out there, please don't look too closely as I took a few liberties to get to the end result.  It all just grew organically, so I had not really planned it all through.

This is it in all its glory.

I painted the back and the bag in some of the colours we had used.  This was the largest piece of fabric I have ever painted!!

And then we have the bag, again using some of the colours.  I added a pocket so that I could pop in a card with each weeks colours as a record in the future.

This is the quilt folded.

Thank you so much Kristin for hosting this Summer of Color, I have learned so much and managed to do things I have never done before with fabric.

Can't wait for next year's SOC.

Summer of Color 2014 - week 6

Time just flies by when you're having fun!  Week 6 already of Summer of Color.  Colours this week are raspberry and tangerine with a splash lemon.

I am now working out how to put all six beach huts together.  I am thinking a small quilt that can be folded like a book.  Check back next week to see what I do.

Summer of Color 2014 - week three

Wow, already the third week of SOC and the colours are lavender, grey and a splash of plum.

Continuing my theme of fabic beach huts, I again found I had no fabric in these colours so had to paint my own.  It is actually kind of fun looking for varous items that I can use as stamps.  For the main body of the beach hut I cut out triangles of foam stuck them onto some card and used this as a stamp. The door was a stamp I already had.  The rest is painted using a sponge and paintbrush.

When I looked at these colours I was not very inspired by them at first, but now it is finished I think they really work.  This is what is so good about Summer of Color in that you find lots of lovely surprises.

Other interpretations of this colour are over on the SOC blog.

Summer of color - week two

The colours for this week's Summer of Color are coral and teal with a splash of white. 

When I decided to sew beach huts for this challenge, I hadn't thought that I may not have fabric in certain colours. This week I had neither teal nor coral. 

As I did not want to buy fabric specifically for this I thought why not have a go at painting and printing my own, so out came the acrylic paints together with fabric addititive and I played.  My stash of stamps came out and suitable ones were used as well. 

This was such fun and I had strips of fabric drying on the line rather than washing!

The teal background is rather darker that I had wished and is creating a rather stormy effect, so the sun is trying to banish the clouds.

Loads of people are participating in this very popular challenge, so grab a drink and check them out here.

Creative Tuesdays - Christmas in July

No I have not gone barmy, Christmas in July, that is the subject of this week's Creative Tuesdays challenge.  Here in the UK we have not had any summer yet, as it has been raining constantly, although the forecast is now for sunny summer weather. Yay!

So thinking about the sun and holidays this is my interpretation, beach huts on the sand.

Why not pop over to Mr T's blog to see what other lovely people have come up with.

What have I been doing this week?

Well, I have joined the oh so talented and lovely Jane Davenport's Supplies Me on line workshop.  This class looks fabulous, with such lovely other participants.  I have not yet managed to start on my first assignment but am hoping to do that this weekend.

My beach huts bag arrived from Zazzle, it was a good test as I realised that paler items on frabric are not so vibrant.  But I think I will open a shop once I can get my head around all the correct sizings (pixels and ppi's), its another world!

I am part of a fortnightly co-op called Creative Tuesdays, and next Tuesday's entry is Kitchen, so I have had my thinking cap on and have been working on that, this is a sneaky little bit of my entry still being worked on, but I don't want to give the whole game away.  Visit my blog next Tuesday to see the finished item.

Finally, I painted four ACEO size owls.

 Hop over and visit the fabulous Artists in Blogland to catch up on everyone elses week.

Good weekend to everyone and my thoughts and best wishes to those who are were affected or are still suffering from the terrible 9/11.

What's been happening this week- Ideas and moving forward

Now being back at work from a two-week break, I found that I have done lots of doodling but nothing serious except think about how I would like to move forward.  I am testing the waters with Zazzle and have put my beach huts below on a tote bag to see what it will look like.  When it arrives I will let you know. Have any of you had any experiences with Zazzle as I am thinking of opening a store.

I am also thinking of painting some ACEO cards with some of my owls on to try and sell on ebay to see what happens.  I did manage to prepare them this week ready for painting.

Some of you might suggest opening up an etsy store, but I don't think I am quite ready for that yet and like everyone else all this has to be fitted around other work and home commitments.  Why is there not more than 24 hours in a day!

This post is for my show and tell Saturday on Artists in Blogland.

Happy weekend everyone!

Creatives Tuesdays - Summer break

It's time for another Creative Tuesday with Mr Toast and this one is Summer break. I love the sight of a row of beach huts on the seafront and nowadays the price to buy is very high and beyond my reach.  Instead I have come up with my own which I could happily sit in all day. 

The size of the above is 6x4.5 inches and painted with acrylics. Why not check out what summer break means to others on Mr Ts 'blog.