Going on a trip

Leaving for the weekend and wanted to share this photo with you.

Hope to come back with some more good pictures to share.

I took this at Riverea Beach, Tx.. Yellow butterflies were all around this red hibiscus when I finally caught this photo.

"People love that human touch-- holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

(or even a friendly email will do)"--anonymous

Swap Doll

This is the little doll I made for the 3D swap. In Decidedly Different Dolls we were supposed to make a little four inch doll, anything goes. I was to send mine to Debra in Colorado. She got there today, so now I can show her here.
Her head is polymer clay, her body is fabric and she has stick arms that are painted and wrapped with thread. The headdress is fabric leaves and I embellished her front with beads. The bottom of her body is a fabric, fussy cut rose and the top of her is wrapped with sari ribbon. But like I've always said I just can't make a pretty face!!!! LOL

Enfeebled English

I took this photo where we used to have our RV on Baffin Bay.


I cut this "Enfeebled English" out of a newspaper a long time ago and I always thought it very clever.
I wanted to share it with you.

Enfeebled English

"We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes;
But the plural of ox should be oxen---not oxes,
Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese.
Yet the plural of moose should never be "meese".

You may find a lone mouse or whole lot of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not "hice".
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called "pen"?

The cow in the plural may be cows or "kine".
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.
And I speak of a foot, and you show me your feet
But I give you a boot; would a pair be called "beet"?

If one is a tooth and whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called "beeth"?
If the singular is this and the plural is these,
Should the plural of kiss be "kese"?

Then one may be that, and three may be those,
We speak of a brother, and also a brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say "methren".
The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim!
So our English, I think you all will agree,
Is the trickiest language you ever did see.

Batik Fabric

This piece of batik was made using a mixture of what dye we had left over. It turned out a pretty red.

This piece was made using some acrylics brushed onto the fabric.

This is another piece using the mixture of left over dye after designs put on with soy wax, then it was crackled with a darker dye over 2 coats of wax.

This one is two pieces of fabric using some acrylics and procion mx dyes together.

All of these pieces were made using the very last of the dyes that we had. We try not to waste any of the dye each time we have a "dye day".

Now I have to order more dye from Dharma Trading Co. before we can dye more fabric. We need more Syntrapol too. Syntrapol is used to remove the wax from the fabric. You use a little bit of it in hot water in a bucket and put the fabric in and it will take the wax right out. No need in ironing it out like the old days. Then you put a little bit in your washer and wash a load of your batik fabric to get the rest of it out.

Sunday Citar Quote

Citar means "to quote" in Spanish

my front yard morning glory

Since I love quotes and I'm in the process of building up my collection again I thought a good way to share those would be to join Fresh Mommy and her "Sunday Citar". The Fresh Mommy blog invites us to share interesting, insightful or funny quotes. I will be adding some of my favorite quotes (along with one of my photos) here to Inkspillers Attic. Visit Fresh Mommy and all the other sites who have joined the Sunday Citar. You will be happy you did as they all have some great quotes and reading them will help make your day better. It did mine.

Here is my quote for the day, to start you off.

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."---Anonymous

I hope visiting my blog made you feel good today.
Thanks and visit often.

Tiny Journal Gift

This little tiny journal (2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches) came in the mail today, from my friend Mary Anne. It came all the way from Canada. As much as I love quotes and journals, this is just perfect! Please click on the photos to see a larger pic and you will be able to read the quotes. This is great MA!

I am starting to collect more quotes and have gotten quite a few from my online friends around the country and Canada. These will surely be added to my collection. Mary Anne compiled this collection from all the participants of the Art Doll Coolaberration 2009 project. She sent one of these journals to each member of the group. We were wondering what she had up her sleeve, as she kept asking for our favorite quotes. Very clever MA! Well, it was a surprise for sure to get this today. Thank you Mary Anne, I love it!!!

This is the first page "Favorite Quotes".

This page tells who's favorite quotes she compiled.

First page is Karma's favorite quote.

Next comes Susan's and Robyn's.

Then Barb and Jeanbean.

Then next is mine and Mary Anne's.

Last but not least is Em and Gail.

Last page finishes it off with this little message.

I surely will enjoy it MA!!!

I love how she made the little journal, and the closure is very simple but clever. Did I say already that I love it all!

Art Quilt Challenge

We had a challenge given to us in our little art group, at the quilt guild last meeting. We were given a small bag full of STUFF. Mine had (I wish I had taken a photo of the contents) old single earrings, beads, a broken pink heart, embroidery thread, 2 small pieces of fabric, a small tassel, some flower embellishments, some hat pins (3, one dog, one man, and one woman), some little shiny BB's, some broken earring hooks (wire) and bits and pieces of more stuff. We were supposed to make an art quilt out of all the pieces given to us. We could add some things, but we had to use everything that was in our goodie bag. So, this is what I came up with.

These photos are click able to enlarge, if you want to see the detail.
I cut the 2 pieces of fabric into very small pieces to make the leaves and the tree. I placed it on my batik fabric that I had made previously. I altered the broken hot pink heart by painting it and making it look like wood (well, it sort of does, doesn't it). I covered the hat pins with some of my banana fiber yarn and made sort of a beehive out of it, with little bead bees around it, hanging in the tree. I cut the flower into a butterfly and added some of the broken earring backs and wire and beads to make a butterfly. The embroidery thread was used for her hair and I embellished her hair with more oddball beads and earrings. I added a feather too. One piece of fabric had a little fairy on it so I cut it out and placed her behind the tree (like she is peeking out from behind it) and she is holding a wand (actually an old earring) and magic dust (beads) are around her. I put the BB's in a nest in the tree. To make the nest I took little slivers of fabric and string and thread from the tassel. I glued the BB's in to make them look like eggs (of course they are eggs like you have never seen before). I then took some of my dyed fabric and added 3 stars that I put more of the beads on. Oh yes... her face is a polymer clay face that I made.
So, what do you think? I kind of like it. It's sort of a fantasy piece , but it was fun making it and meeting the challenge. I used everything in the bag and just added a few things of my own. The piece measures 13.5 by 18.5.

Rain Stick for Tabby

I made a rain stick for Tabby before I have to mail her off to North Carolina next week. The rain stick sounds like rain when you roll it around or move it back and forth and listen. It measures 5 inches long and is made from a cardboard tube cut down from a bigger tube.
I sealed the ends with paper and then added some beads to the inside for the "rain" sound. The outside is covered with decorative paper with designs and colors of South America. I then added the final decoration of beads, some orchid tree seeds, a metal spiral and some alpaca yarn.

Tabby will be leaving soon but before she does I will be showing her off to some friends downtown in Kingsville who have wanted to see her. Then next week she heads for North Carolina for her 2nd stop on her journey.

It has been great fun so far and I look forward to my 2nd doll in this project. The next doll started with Robyn in California and went to Susan in Wisconsin and now comes to me here in Texas. I am so excited. So be looking for future blog posts about my adventures with her soon.

Bleach Discharge Fabric

I have been trying bleach dis-charging on fabric. I mixed together 3 parts bleach to one part water and put that in a spray bottle. I had some scraps of black and scraps of green fabric that I thought I would practice on. Then I found some items to put on the fabric...I used three feathers and 3 leaves from my giant pumpkin plant. I laid the items on the fabric and then sprayed the fabric with the bleach/water mix. I let it sit until it turned the color I was happy with. To stop the bleach action you rinse in water then put in vinegar water for at least 3 minutes. Then rinse again in plain water and dry. Press with an iron.

I like the rose color of the black fabric discharging. I didn't spray it solid so it has kind of a speckled look to it, which I really like. I did the same with the green fabric and I like it too, but not as well as the the black. I did try using some other fabrics and they did not bleach out at all, so you just have to see what works. I will probably do more of this on black fabric with different objects. You can also cut out a design from freezer paper and iron it onto your fabric and then do the discharging. You can do a positive or negative shape, whatever you like. Hand quilting looks good around pieces like this, when put into a small art quilt. You can embellishment these also with beads or embroidery.

Something Free

Susan from Threads of Wonder put me onto Dover Publishing who will give you free

weekly down loadable designs. They will send you an e-mail with a large selection of copyright free images to choose from. They can be anything from astrological symbols to dinosaurs to Victorian holiday vignettes. They have poetry, paintings, paper dolls, mazes, and much more, so check it out at ...http://www.doverpublications.com/sampler3/ .

As you can see some are in full color and some are black and white.

Rust Dyeing Fabric

Yesterday I started my rust fabric project. I got some PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric, soaked it in water, then in vinegar. I put it in a rusty old cookie sheet, put rusty objects on top, layered another piece of fabric, put more rusty pieces on top of that, etc. The rusty pieces I used were some old metal stars I've had for a long time and some rusty wire I found in the garage. It was coiled up so I just left it coiled up and cut pieces from it. After layering 4 pieces of fabric I covered it all with a plastic bag and left it for 24 hours. Today I rinsed the fabric out with water, then with hot water that I added salt or you can add vinegar, in order to stop the rusting process. Then I washed the fabric with soapy water and rinsed again. Then I pressed it and now it's ready to embellish. I'm happy the way it turned out.

Leaf Printed Fabric

Leaf printed fabric my Friday group did together...waiting to be embellished!

I used Procion MX dye and real leaves from Shirley's yard.

Now we plan on doing embroidery, machine quilting and beading.

No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung;

Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.

----Reginald Heber (1783–1826)

An Indian Prayer

An Indian Prayer

O' Great Spirit,
Whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world,
Hear me! I am small and weak, I need your
Strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.

Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice.

Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people.

Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy...myself.

Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes.

So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame.

Arashi Shibori Results

This is a close up of one of many pieces of shibori that my friends and I did last week. It is washed and ironed and ready to use. In last weeks post you saw a photo of all the shibori laid out on the lawn drying. It all looked so pretty, all the colors were wonderful. I think this one turned out really pretty and will be putting it in an art quilt later on. Everyone had lots of fun doing the arashi shibori and they told me its their favorite thing of all when it comes to dyeing fabric. It didn't take long and it is not difficult to do. I think we will probably be doing more of this.

Tabula Rosa Aiyana

This is Tabula Rosa as she appeared a few days ago (before deciding to get a tattoo that you will see below). Don't worry...it's just a small one mom!!! I made her a polymer clay face. I sculpted her myself so she is OOAK. I really tried to make her a pretty face, but I just can't seem to make pretty faces, so here she is in all her CHARACTER! She has the appearance of a Creole (down here on the Gulf), who are part South American, Mexican and French. She is deep in thought....actually I didn't have eyes small enough for her.
Her hair is recycled sari silk yarn that I cut long in length so future artists can add embellishments to it easily if they want to etc. I also added a pearl headband for her long hair. Tabby has one earring with 3 beads and ribbons, from the Mardi Gras in New Orleans ( and they also celebrate it in South America). Also added are shells from the Gulf of Mexico, and Alpaca yarn from the Wild Flower Alpaca Ranch where I purchased an alpaca shawl from Peru.

Tabby now has a tattoo between her eyes. In South America some tribal women have tattoos like this one. In fact this tattoo came from a photo of a tribal woman in South America.

Final journal page

This is my artists rendering of Tabula Rosa Aiyana.
Again, the dots, spirals and stripes echo throughout. Again I kept everything fairly simple as I know that Susan prefers simplicity. She now has a polymer clay face that I sewed and glued onto her fabric stuffed head. She has hair with embellishments. Next post I will go into detail about what I've done. This is the back of journal page 5. It is simple and has South American tribal words on it for Until tomorrow (paqarinkama) and Have a good trip (allin nan). I have had fun working on Tabby and I do hope she has a safe trip on her journey for the next year visiting all the other artists in the U.S and Canada.

Renewal, simplicity and beauty of being

Journal page 4 front and back are altered note cards of Dolores Prices watercolors of Peru. Page 4 back I wrote "A blossoming heart will take you on a journey of renewal, simplicity and beauty of being." Part of this quote came from a critics view of what he thought about a book called Blossoming Heart. I liked what he said, added to it, took out some and included it here.

The Alpaca

These little alpacas are from the Wildflower Ridge Alpaca Ranch near Fredericksberg, Texas. My friend Lana took me out to visit her friends ranch one day while I was visiting her in the hill country. These are the cutest little animals and they come in many different colors. They hum and they whistle. Their fiber is what they are praised for and these animals are in fiber shows, the owner told me. The owner has a pristine ranch in a very beautiful location in the hill country. They have a gift shop there where alpaca fiber and fiber products can be purchased.
To learn more go to the following website: http://www.wr-alpaca-ranch.com/

Tabby's Tiny Journal Finished

These are more photos of Tabby's Vision Quest Journal. I made a hand dyed fabric pocket for her to keep it in on journal page back 3, the map of South America from 1955. You may notice that I added a button to the pocket (as seen in the second photo). There are still some blank pages in the journal, as Tabby would like the other artists to add some little something to her journal pages as we are adding to each others in this project.

Tabula Rosa meets No Eyes

Tabula Rosa thought No Eyes was very interesting and during their many talks together he told her that she would go on a Vision Quest to find her Spirit Name. So I knew then I needed to get busy and create her a face so she could see what she was destined to see.

I continued to decorate the journal pages with colors she seemed to be drawn to and that matched her coloring as well. Dots are found most often in South America in many items that are handcrafted such as rain sticks. Susan's journal had dots on it.

Tabby was getting excited about her makeover and about her vision quest. She liked her name but wanted something more, something added to it to represent her blossoming heart.

Tabby was having dreams of her spirit animal, the Alpaca. AWKI means 'protective ancestral spirit' for the alpaca. She knew the alpaca was very gentle and hummed and whistled. This made her heart smile.

So Tabula Rosa goes on her Vision Quest and she keeps a journal of her experience.

Her little journal is 2 inches by 1.5 inches. It is made from fabric paper and has beads, hand dyed fabric, and embroidery for embellishment. It is kept in a pocket of hand dyed fabric that is attached to the back of journal page 3. It is a map of part of South America. The map came from a 1955 National Geographic map.

This is the first page of Tabby's journal, in her own words.

Throughout the journal she writes....

"I remember being in the great mountains. Everything including the dirt road was enmeshed with fallen clouds, creating a white fog. Like my life had been...I could not see my path ahead of me, but I continued to move forward one step at a time. After awhile, the fog lifted, and the landscape became crystal clear, and alive. The green leaves of the trees had little pinpoints of raindrops on them, and I could see a rainbow in each prism of moisture. I heard little whispers in the forest. The whispers said to follow where there is a little more twinkling, humming, whispering, or where there is something that gives me a few more goose bumps. I knew right then that the road ahead was going to be a tapestry of creation and that's when I knew that I wasn't just going to be a "clean slate" anymore. I would also be "ever blooming" I know now that my new spirit name is... Tabula Rosa Aiyana "clean slate ever blooming".

So Tabula Rosa is now Tabula Rosa Aiyana .

Next post I'll show you the last 2 journal pages and the new Tabula Rosa Aiyana who will continue to bloom!

Inspiration Hits

Tabula Rosa is the doll that came from Susan in Wisconsin for the Art Doll Coolaberration Project I'm in. She arrived as a doll start you see here, with her first journal pages. The quote Susan used was "And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom"--Anais Nin. The quote is on the other side of the cards, which look like postcards or note cards that Susan altered very nicely. One postcard is of the Mabel Tainter theatre, which is named after a young girl who died at the age of 19. She loved art and music and her parents built this as a memorial to her.
This theatre is said to be haunted with a good female spirit and some say it's Mabel.





I decided to go with the altered postcard technique in making my journal pages. I had recently been to a watercolor exhibit in town and I was reminded so much of those paintings. The local artist name is Dolores Price and her paintings were of her visit to South America. I used some note cards of her paintings to make my journal page contribution.

This is journal page one, front, to the right.
Very simple, just showing where Tabula Rosa arrived in Texas.








Journal page one, back, to the left.
Her coloring reminds me of the colors of the Americas and Mexico. She looked like she could burst open into the most beautiful and rare flower from up in the mountains of Mexico or near Machu Picchu in Peru. She's ready to bloom...and to begin her tapestry of life!!!
As you have seen in my previous posts Tabula Rosa has met all the dolls in my household. Next I'll tell you which doll she liked best and what happened.
Next post will be journal page 2 and 3.