Ruby's Girl

Queen of Hearts 2012

2012-02-14T07:13:00.001-08:00

Happy Valentines Day!!!!

Here is my 2012 Queen of Hearts collage. I made it 8X8 again as that is my album size for challenges I started years ago. The base for it all is some 7 Gypsies paper. then the lovely lady is from a very old book I have of Fashion, her dress is embellished with Broken China Distress Stickle. I also used packing tape to transfer the ferris wheel and the lovely lady on the lower left. Other embellishments are Tim Holtz tissue tape and of course our lovely hostess Suzanne from Quietfire's lovely Flourishing Hearts! Thanks for the challenge Suzanne.

Judy

Queen of Hearts 2012

2012-01-19T18:03:00.000-08:00

Once again this year Quietfire design is sponsoring a theme of Queen of Hearts for Feb 14th. Here is the site with all of the info

http://quietfirestyle.blogspot.com/2012/01/queen-of-hearts-2012-challenge.html

I hope that some of you will join us in this challenge. I have a couple of posts on my blog with the Queen of hearts that I have done in previous years if you would like to see them

http://rubysoldestdaughter.blogspot.com/2011/02/queen-of-hearts-challenge.html

http://rubysoldestdaughter.blogspot.com/2010/02/queen-of-hearts-blog-challenge.html

I am still thinking about what I am going to do this year. Hope you will play with us this year too! Sorry I cannot seem to get my blog challenge sites to be clickable? So copy and paste them please if you want to see my other posts from 2010 and 2011.

Judy

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

I have made some little felted trees this year as gifts and hope to make some for myself in the new year. They are needle felted on to cheese cloth and I have used a touch light inside of them to illuminate them. I am pleased with the outcome of them . I had thought of adding beads but the people who will be receiving these two are very talented artist themselves so they can decorate them as they would like. No more felting now till after Christmas. Must clean the house for Santa.

Merry Christmas

Judy

12 days of Christmas

2011-12-15T07:36:00.000-08:00

Day Three is My Day! This is a tradition for me the last few years to swap with online friends from the Byhand Artists group . This year I felted rope necklaces all fall and now today my friends are opening their gifts. I crocheted a rope and then needle felted them rather that using the wet felt method. I am pleased with them and need to finish my own. I did another one for a friend and made some of it very thick and she "loves it" and has already adorned it with some worry dolls. I hope that those who got theirs today will share with me how they embellished them.

Seasons Greetings

Judy

Miniature tile projects

2011-12-02T17:10:00.000-08:00

Wow December 2nd already!! I have been busy with the making of several gifts again the past month. Today I gave away a couple gifts away so I can post my projects. The table is one of the Dollar store tables that I will be using for my Day of the Dead display. I may do some more grouting on it yet. I am very pleased with the tiled mirror and picture that I made for a friend's dollhouse that she just started to work on. It is to be spanish/southwest themed Bed and Breakfast house. She was very happy with them both! Now I need to make one of the mirrors for myself.

My felting for Christmas gifts is almost done too so will post some photos after Christmas of them. I need to get started on Christmas cards too. Always something happening in my crafting life. I do not have too many days of boredom.

Happy December and I will check in soon .

Judy

Lest We Forget

2011-11-11T15:06:00.001-08:00

I did this page in an ATC swap a couple of years ago. Daphne made the ATC which does not photograph well but the embellishment on the tile is maple leaf . Heck the photo is terrible I will try another one in better light and less blurry soon. The theme I used was Lest we forget for my page using rubber stamps , figures from the newspaper. punched leaves and distressed inks. I should have written on the back how I made it so shiny. Looks great in person though. I really need to work more in this format. 4"x4" page and I do have lots of ATCs to work with from swaps over the years . Maybe a 2012 project? Maybe.

Judy

new photo but not much better than the first one. Maybe Santa will bring me a new camera??Thanks for looking

Minis

2011-11-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

My miniature club made their lettuce salads on Thursday and I finished mine. Every salad looked different but I think they all enjoyed making them . I am going to make a couple more of them myself. Remember they are made from green grocery bags so it is interesting to see what you can make out of them One of the group did not stretch the plastic much and it looked great. If you need to know more let me know and I will send you off some instructions. This is not an original thought of mine but a collective of things I have read in magazines and online.

I am very happy with my results though.

Thanks for looking.

Judy

Minis

2011-10-30T15:24:00.000-07:00

I have been busy working on my Felting the past month when I have a spare moment so have neglected my blog . So much for once a month posting eh? Anyways I have been working on some Day of the Dead sugared skulls in mini and this week I am in charge of the mini project for my club and here is my little lettuce salad prototype for my class. I will of course be adding to it to make it better but it is a start for them to see what they are making. The lettuce is made out of green grocery bags that are stretched and cut and glued into the bowl. And the table is from a dollar store which I will tile one of these days and use in my DOD project for more food and other Mexican things I have been collecting over the years . I will keep you all posted on that.

Thanks for looking and happy Autumn

Judy

August Post

2011-08-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to post once a month on my blog so here is a photo of what I have been up to this month. I am experimenting with needle felting and wet felting too. I am going to use the flowers to make a table runner. I think it will look cute on my table top and maybe help me keep the junk off the dining room table too (I wish). The other is an attempt at a necklace! Not sure where it is going to go to but I am needle felting it to a crocheted rope and then will wet felt it at the end to make it more firm. This is the plan and I HOPE it turns out . Thinking it will need some beading or something more to make it perfect. Stay tuned for the results! What are you up to????

Off to enjoy a lovely summer day!

Judy

Miniature Hat challenge

2011-07-07T21:45:00.000-07:00

On one of my yahoo groups there is a challenge to make a hat in any scale. Since I am making a southwest (sorta) theme display I thought I would try my hand at a felt sombrero. I will try another one soon as I made some big mistakes on this one, but ........ Thought you may like to see the photos anyway. I do like this one and may add some more beads to the brim yet.

Thanks for looking!

Mini show challenge

2011-05-16T21:30:00.001-07:00

Dale
Ruell and Sandie

Val

Mine
Last fall I challenged my miniature club to making up Poinsettia kits that I had bought from Peaches (Monica). The challenge was to have them ready for the Kelowna clubs show and sale the end of April. Enjoy and I will try to get names on them too. Sometimes I have trouble with blog and pictures getting to the spot I want. My display is far from being finished but I displayed it anyways. You can see I have been busy making cacti too. I really like the way my poinsettia bush turned out. Thanks for looking!

Minis

2011-04-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter,

I cannot believe how fast the month has flown by! Time to post again.

I have been working on Minis this month. There is a miniature show and sale next weekend in Westbank and my club always has a table to display our artwork. I am working on a south west scene and have finished some of the cacti and my poinsettia bush that will be in the display, so these are the photos that I am showing you today. Hopefully I will get the windows in the "house" (going to be a wine shop eventually)and get a photo of that at the show for next month.

The first photo is my collection of cacti that I have made or collected over the years. There are four which were tops off some little knives. Some I have made out of paper clay.

The second photo is the poinsettia which is finished and at home in it's tiled planter. Very happy with it but the photo does not do it justice . Amazing how a box from bar of soap can become a planter.

Some of the cacti in the oval planter are from a workshop that my friend Rosemary had for a couple of us last year. Thanks for the inspiration Rosemary and Cate for the mini tiles too. I am very happy with the results even though I need to add some different shades of green to make it perfect and the odd flower on a couple of them maybe. Are we ever done with a display? ; )

Thanks for looking!

Miniature poinsettia bush

2011-03-27T12:11:00.000-07:00

March is almost over so time for me to post again.

I have been busy this month working on a miniature poinsettia bush. I bought several kits from Monica (Peaches) and challenged my little mini club I belong to to make up a poinsettia plant and display it in the Kelowna club's show and sale in April.

Anyways I had five kits left and I remember seeing a poinsettia bush in my travels and thought that is what I will make for my southwest style dollhouse I am working (?) on. The bush will be about five inches tall and three inches across . As you can see in the picture I still have some more leaves to add and I think about five more "stems" to add to the bush yet. I then have the tiles (in the second photo) to add to the planter and I think I will add some cacti to the planter as well.

Now back to Monica's flower kits she has some very lovely ones and you can find them here at Danielle's site here.

http://www.dpminiatures.com/catalog/store.php?pg1-cid115.html

They go together very well and my only advice from this project is to take your time and not try to glue alot of petals at one time. Other than that great kit and I will be buying more in the future.

Thanks for visiting my little blog and check out some of my favourite blogs on the side to see where I go to visit for inspiration in my hobbies.

Judy

Queen of Hearts challenge

2011-02-13T18:22:00.000-08:00

Here is my post for the Quietfire Challenges with the theme of Queen of Hearts. This is a transfer to a piece of muslin . The transfer was done with a photo copy and Matte Medium then used water to remove the paper off the fabric leaving the ink on the muslin. I then used a couple more layers of the matte medium before embellishing. I have used beads and Pearl Ex on it and think I would like to add some embroidery in the future to add more detail to the dress. I did the felted heart awhile ago but thought it would work OK with the theme. Thanks for looking be sure to leave a comment with your blog site so I can go an see your art as well. Happy Valentine's Day!!!!!

Judy

Winter , swaps and challenges

2011-02-06T19:22:00.001-08:00

I missed posting in January so will try to post a couple of times this month to catch up. We had a snowy day today ( 1st photo) . We never get very much at all here but think it must be 6 or 7 inches. Looks pretty out the window, hope they plow tonight!

I spent the day working on some envelopes for a swap that is due the end of Feb. It was nice to just spend the day playing with my papers and stamps and actually got a lot done. Always relaxing when it is going well. I have a teaser photo of them (15 of them) above to show you. I have some little items to put in the envelope before I send them to Joanne our hostess of the swap. Joanne is going to bind the envelopes for us into a lovely little book . That will be something worth waiting for I am sure.

I need to make some Rolodex cards this week for a small swap also due in a couple of weeks. Staying out of trouble at least eh? ; ) The theme for that is Ampersand and mine will be Black And Blue. Only six to make of these though and I have a plan!

Suzanne has a challenge for us again this year too with the Queen of Hearts Blog Hop. Check her blog for all of the details. I have her blog listed on my site. We did this last year and it was fun to see what everyone was up to. So please join me on Feb 14 with your entry. Suzanne says she will have prizes??? Remember to leave a comment on the blogs you visit as we love comments don't we bloggers?

So lots of projects and working on my mini roombox off and on but looks like it may be March before I can spend a day on it again. Starting to look like a South West Adobe after all. Will post picture of it next post. Winter continues it looks like though we thought it was gone, stay warm and drive safe on the icy roads. A little to chatty a post I know but thanks for popping in to visit!!

Judy

Dollhouse MInis

2010-12-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

So today I was bored and decided this is the day that I start on my mini display for the April Show and Sale in Westside. I have been collecting items for years for a South West House and though I have not found the perfect house yet I am going to at least put the treasures out so I can enjoy them. This is an altered Adams Cottage that I bought at a Peddlar's market a couple of years ago. It is pretty small but will work for this display. I am using paint(actually a warm white not Yellow) and TP to give the outside an adobe look. The inside I will paint and for the floor I will make paper clay tiles. It will turn into a wine tasting room and hope to eventually make a patio and ........ I will post my progress as I go along this personal challenge. I have so many things I would like to do felting and making collages but for the next few weeks I am going to work on this. I am taking a course in Kelowna in Feb doing vintage embellishing and have an envelope swap to do too but I think that is Feb now too? Always projects to do!

Judy

Felted Ornaments

2010-12-27T14:30:00.001-08:00

This year for Christmas I felted some animal ornaments for some of my family. My Niece got me the cookie cutters from Ikea this year and she got this set for her tree and others only the Bear. I wish that I had taken a better photo of them as this is very blurry but I will post it any ways . My next project will be a table runner for myself so hope to get a good photo of that. Very cool set of cookie cutters . Thanks for looking and Happy New year to everyone. I almost am at my First Year Anniversary of my blog. Hope to be more active in 2011.

Cheers

Judy

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T16:50:00.001-08:00

Best Wishes for a very Merry Christmas from my home to yours!

Judy

Sick Day

2010-12-18T11:34:00.000-08:00

Sheesh I have too much to do to be sick, just look at my desk (actually the dining room table) . But off to bed I go and hope tomorrow I will feel like turning this room into what it was meant for. If you look carefully you can see three pressies I opened and they deserve to be hung up and enjoyed. 1130 AM and I am going back to bed.

Poor Me ; )

Judy

collage and paper clay and Christmas

2010-12-15T20:12:00.000-08:00

Wow two posts in two days!!!! I am doing a 12 days of Christmas exchange with the Byhand Artist groups on Yahoo and I was day two which was yesterday December 14 . I am in Group One and there are two more groups!!! What a great swap hosted by Mary-Beth. Linda C happily let me copy her pictures and so ta da here are photos of my gift. I used Paperclay and a mini cookie cutter to make the buttons and a very lovely napkin that I found this summer on a a Bird house shape (from Micheals) and on the buttons and used Quietfire stamps from the 12 days of Christmas stamp set that Suzanne has. I decoupaged the napkin on the house and the buttons with Matte Medium in several layers. Fun project and wonderful swap again this year.

Judy (thanks Linda C for the photos!!!!)

Felting

2010-12-14T21:30:00.000-08:00

I have been busy felting some gifts again this year. The one with the bear button (I made the button using Paper Clay and a bear cookie cutter) is a holder for a gift card so is 4 1/4 inch X 3 inches and the other holds a package of beading needles for a friend who is into beading. I am very happy with them. I hope the girls like them too. I also have several bears that I am working on for family gifts this Christmas and a very wonderful Moose. I will post when I get them done.

Also in the midst of a 12 days of Christmas swap that is fun. I of course forgot to get photos before mine went off but hope to get some soon and will post them.

Just a few more sleeps till Christmas and so many things yet to do.

Judy

Vernon Art Gallery ATC exhibition

2010-11-07T23:20:00.000-08:00

Wow this is a great exhibition of ATCs from all over the world in Vernon, B.C,'s wonderful art gallery. And it was great to see my own humble little ATCs hanging in such a lovely little room. Very inspiring! Joanne, Anne's , Judy M and mine are shown here in close ups. There were metal , watercolours, fabric and beads, rubber stamped , photographs and other great works of art done on a very small Size. For those who do not know what an ATC is it is 2+1/2 inches by 3+1/2 inches in size. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit and cannot wait till I can sign up for another swap in a venue like Vernon's. Hope you enjoy the photos! And if you are in the area stop in and see the ATCs in person in the next month. And when the exibit is finished the ATCs will be swapped out. I will post then which works of art I got in my swap.

Judy

2010-10-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween

I am late getting my October Rolodex done but it will go out tomorrow. I decided to try fabric and embroidery so used muslin and when I was finished my trees I used matte gel to glue the fabric to a rolodex card. Then I used acrylic paint mixed with Matte Medium to paint in the orange sky. I also used my water colour crayons to add more colours to the sky , reds and blues and then used browns for the ground. The photo doesn't show the shading at all unfortunately. I then distressed the card with walnut stain distress ink. The bats are traced from Tim Holtz grungeboard onto flocked black paper. I am happy with them. Hope that the ladies do too. Next project is the 12 days of Christmas swap.

Judy

ATCs for Vernon Art Gallery

2010-09-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

So finally photos of the ATCs I am sending to Vernon for their exhibition/ swap in October. It took me several days to remember to buy batteries for the camera?? I have altered a photo of the S.S. Sicamous that is on Okanagan lake here. I then distressed the photos with sandpaper and used distress ink pads to colour the photos using four different colours. I used tiny brown brads in the four corners of each atc then used word Rub ons by Kaiser Scrapbook. I am quite pleased with the results but the resulting photo makes them appear lighter than they are in person. Thanks for looking!

Judy

Added photo of journal

2010-08-26T04:34:00.000-07:00

I added some rub ons to the journal page. Made it more "grown up" art I thought. J

new photos at last

2010-08-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

Wow last post was April ! I am way too busy it seems but I have been working on a couple of projects so will post photos today. Lovely summer here and busy !! So here are a couple of photos of a Rolodex swap with a theme of Market Day as the hostess always posts her market day buys on her blog, hi Beth, and another of a food journal I am doing for the never ending diet that is finally showing some results. Yeah Vitamin D!! Now just need to make a commitment and journal! And I have added some rub ons to the Journal Page too so will take a photo of it soon and post it. Made it look less like grade one work for me at least!! ; )

April art projects and minis

2010-04-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I sat down and loaded some photos. I am not sure where the time goes sometimes! Anyways I took a stained glass class, and tried to make some Christmas ornaments from Microscope slides. They are not perfect but I did learn a little bit about foiling and soldering and the likes.

And the second photo is some of the cakes I have made using bottle caps and fake snow and paper cuts outs. They are in 1"=1foot scale . They will be on the group display at the Mini Show and Sale in Wesbank on the 24 of April.

And then there is a Nuno Felting project that I am working on with some beading and embroidery embellishments. I also did alittle bit of needle felting on this piece as it was just not quite what I was shooting for. When I finish it I will post another photo

Anyways as you can see I have been busy and staying out of mischief ( I think I need some mischief).

Thanks for looking!

Judy

nuno felting

2010-03-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

This morning while waiting for the laundry to do it's thing, I decided to TRY some Nuno Felting. Now this is very new to me and I have tried Needle felting (love that). Gathered up the supplies and made some soapy water and here we go

Layer one : bath towel,

two: bubble wrap

three: roving

four: fine cheese cloth

five: more roving,

six: layer of some thin organza material.

Sprinkle the organza with soapy water till wet then rub the soapy water into the organza for several minutes to start the felting. when you think you have done enough, remove the organza fabric and cover this now with good old plastic wrap.

Since I do not own a rolling pin I used a fancy vinegar bottle and rolled the bubble wrap on to the bottle and tied it on to the bottle and rolled it on the bath towel. Now some instructions say 150 rolls but hey ...... who really counts that, I mean really!!!!! So I did it for 5 or 6 minutes (hoping the whole time that it will make my arms more shapely) the opened it up and wrapped it on the bottle from the other end and tied it and rolled it once again.

THEN take it off the bottle and because this is a very small item I spent another few minutes rolling it in my hands and squishing and playing with it till I liked the look of the felting. Then just did some rinsing in H2O (not really sure if I was supposed to do that) and then blocked it .

Now for this little piece it took maybe an hour tops, including looking at instructions online and having no idea what to really do for a couple of supplies needed. But I am really happy with my little piece of felting and I can see beading and embellishing and maybe even a frame???

For more information try this link :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ray_chel/414472133/in/set-72157594576821207/

I found this spot very good but there are more spots to see out there and numerous books at the library in my little town too.

Thanks for looking!

Yellow Rolodex swap

2010-03-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

The Byhandartist Yahoo group is doing another Rolodex swap for March . We have done several of these swaps over the past couple of years. The theme is yellow with a quote. Mine is a daffodil napkin for a base and some bird pictures collaged over them with a stamp from Crafty Individuals stamped with Stazon Ink. The quote is one of Keat's . This card was collaged in layers using Matte Medium . Thanks to Beth for hosting this swap and yellow will be a wonderful addition to my ever expanding Rolodex!

Judy

Encaustic collage class

2010-02-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

On Friday I took a wonderful class doing collage with magazines and bees wax with Thea Haubrich of http://www.encaustic.ca/ !! It was a wonderful day and learned alot from Thea and plan to to take more classes from her in the future ! These are photos of my two attempts and I really like them myself. I hope to try more of these very soon. Excellent class and if you look at Thea's website you will find out where she will be teaching in the future and also buy any supplies you need from her. Thanks for dropping by .

Judy

Queen of Hearts Blog Challenge

2010-02-14T09:08:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines Day everyone!!!

Here is my Queen of Hearts page, it is an 8"X8" piece that I have stamped and aged and cut and glued and finally finished. I love it and hope you do too.

Judy

Minis 2

2010-02-12T22:50:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple more photos of minis that I have made in the past few months. My mini club has been trying out some green projects and recycling . The Tea pots are made out of lids from dish soap and toothpaste lids and buttons (and I forgot to put the penny in the photo). The bird feeder is aquarium tubing and an ear ring back and grommets with ground pepper as the bird seed. We do have the most interesting meeting!!. We are working on cakes now made from bottle tops. I will post those photos when I get mine done.

Opening ceremonies were good but sheesh CTV try to get your feeds better!!!!! Watching NBC now and really the quality is so much better!! Not nearly as many glitches!!

Judy

Minis

2010-02-12T15:49:00.000-08:00

So at long last I have my camera once again hooked up to my laptop!!!! Yeah! So I thought I would post a few of the minis that I have made this year. I work in 1 inch equal a foot (dollhouse scale) and have many UFOs happening but eventually I will get them done! I will most likely be showing these and maybe a couple of other things at the Kelowna Mini Show and Sale on April the 24. If You need any info e-mail me and I will let you know the particulars of this show. Olympics Opening Ceremony starts tonight so off to watch and enjoy for the next two weeks!!

Go Canada Go!!!

Judy

Queen of Hearts Blog Challenge

2010-01-24T09:39:00.000-08:00

I have challenged My Byhand yahoo group to a Valentine Challenge with the theme being The Queen of Hearts! So on Feb. 14 2010 I will be posting my piece here and hope that lots will appear on other blogs too. My first try with a blog challenge so if you come back to see mine please leave a comment with a link to your artblog too so we can all check out your art. Stay posted for more info here or check with Suzanne's blog. http://quietfirestyle.blogspot.com/

Hope you will play with me ! The rules are simple make an atc or a card or a tip in for your altered book or journal page . Just use the theme which every way you would like and post it to your blog on Feb 14th. No mailing what so ever but be sure to share your site so we can all see.

Have fun!

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Today I finished up a couple of felting projects I had been working on before and after Christmas. Lillian gave me this great cookie cutter she knew I would love , she got the moose in Banff. And the little snow darling is something I was playing with, She is actually felted on a piece of white felt using an acrylic Roving from Bernat and it actually worked very well. Both these projects are Needle Felted with roving . I am thinking that the Moose will end up the center of a hot pad for the table. That may take awhile for me to do but will post pictures when that is done.

Thanks for looking !

Judy

Acts and Altered pages

2009-12-31T18:16:00.000-08:00

I belong to a yahoo group that this year did a few swaps using ATCs. We would send off our atcs to our swapping partner and they would do an altered page with it. I have a couple of my acts here, one Bird theme and the other Asian. And I have pictures of the pages I did with the atcs I received , the bird theme was from Therese and the Asian one from Jane. I liked doing this swap as it pushed me to try other techniques and to think outside the box. It is a stretch for me to do "pretty" sometimes. I am thinking that I will continue doing this on my own with some of the atcs that I have collected over the past couple of years.

2009-12-30T00:20:00.001-08:00

Yes it does work now can I upload some artwork?? Let us see!! J

2009-12-29T23:34:00.000-08:00

Well let's do a test of this and see if it works!!