Canvas Adventures

Hope you all had a great holiday! We don't do much here, but finally got a good paycheck that wasn't totally taken by bills so I ordered a sewing machine from WalMart. The shipping was only 97 cents and it got here within a few days. I ordered a Brother CS6000i which has 60 different stitches on it and I LOVE IT! I have been using an older Brother machine (they are workhorses and I have had this since my days at House Of Fabrics!)and wanted to use some fancier stitches in my work. I gave the old machine to April so hopefully she will be able to do some fancier work herself with it!
For the past week of break I have been working, working, working on several swaps that are due in January. I joined collageUnleashed and have made 20 out of the 24 background papers to send in. It was sunny out yesterday here so I covered a table out on the patio and painted for several hours (Dave laughed when he saw my large pieces drying on the clothesline!). I forgot to finish one side of a piece so will probably finish that today and get them in the mail. We were to do 24 8X10 double-sided papers utilizing techniques in Traci Bautista's book Collage Unleashed. I had started these several weeks ago at Jane's and needed several hours outside to finish them. When I finish the last set I will post pics.
Below is a piece I worked on with April Christmas day. I started with canvas paper and layered acrylic paint (pink, green, yellow) brushed on, stenciled with a metal bracket (found in the junk drawer) in both white and black, stenciled the oval (Easter egg cookie cutter) into chains and a flower in black and purple, used punchinella in two different sizes with white and black again. When I got home the next day I sewed over the flower petals with my machine and then used a fancy stitch all over the canvas.

This is canvas paper again with left over paint from the 120 pages for Arttechniques technique swap....

...and another left over paint canvas with more added to it: I collaged scrapbook paper pieces, page from an old children's encyclopedia, used some rub on phrases that I would never use elsewhere (cut apart and randomly adhered), added some hearts and a flower with black sharpie. On the machine I stitched over the hearts and layered clear plastic over the flower before stitching that as well. I added some fabric scraps from my stash, highlighted some rubons with stitching, and stamped some squares on top.

Arttechniques is hosting Monthly Art Technique swaps, January's swap is using tar gel which I received a small jar in Jacqueline Sullivan's Journal of Surfaces class at Art Unraveled. Those 10 pages are finished and there were 1 inch pieces left on the ends so I used them for a beaded charm swap hosted by Pam at Bad Baby Artists group.
I used the leftovers to make beads and then added an assortment of beads around the beads for the charms.

Today April and I worked on some larger canvas pieces out back. Hopefully she will post some of what she did on her blog!