Folk Art Inspired Ornament

What you're going to need

4" square Walnut Hollow aluminum and cardboard from package
embossing tool
ribbon for hanging
red paint
paint brush
decorative craft scissors
paper scissors
hole punch
E-6000 glue or similar adhesive
Adirondack alcohol inks and blending solution (optional)

Click on the heart image to open a full size jpg on another web page. Drag image onto your desktop and print heart design so that it fits on a  4" square (on point, measure on the diagonal).  Trace outline onto the 4" cardboard square that came in the aluminum package. Cut it out and paint it red on both sides. Punch a small hole for the hanging ribbon in the top.

Center line drawing over the 4" metal square and trace the small heart, this will lightly emboss the heart on the metal.

Using decorative edge craft scissors cut just outside the embossed line.

Glue metal heart to cardboard with E-6000 or similar strong multipurpose adhesive, it may need 24 hours to dry completely. Then emboss decorative designs on the metal, I prefer using a nylon tipped tool for this.

Draw the design of your choice on the paper heart, place over the metal and trace the design so that it transfers to the metal.

Go over the lines with the embossing tool to add more depth to the design and add more decorative details.

You could stop here with a silver embossed design or add color with Adirondack Alcohol inks.

Use Alcohol blending solution instead of water to lighten colors, rehydrate the inks on your palette (because they dry very quickly) and clean your brush between colors.

Thread ribbon through the hole and tie it for hanging.

Tomorrow be sure to see Kelli Nina Perkins Whimsical Spool Garland, you know it's going to be fun and colorful!

Check out all these other great tutorials:

November 9:^: Jane LaFazio Sketch & Stitch Gift Bags   

November 10: Lyric Kinard Glitter, Glisten, Glimmer: Beaded Snowflake Ornament

November 11: Tracie Lyn Huskamp Christmas Cardinal Ornament

November 13: Traci Bunkers Moldable Foam Stamps 
November 14: Melanie Testa Zipper Pouch

November 15: Judy Coates Perez Folk Art Inspired Ornament 

November 16: Kelli Nina Perkins Whimsical Spool Garland  

November. 17: Lisa Engelbrecht Experimental Lettering

November 18: Jill Berry Geo Papers and Projects

November 19: Gloria Hansen Resizing a Digital Image the Easy Way

November 20: Diana Trout Japanese-Style Fabric Wrap (Furoshiko)

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Repurposing at its best!

Check out Melly's Zipper pouch tutorial. Check back here tomorrow for my Folkart Inspired Ornament tutorial.

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Check out this cool stamp tutorial

Hop over to Traci Bunkers tutorial for some fun and easy stamping ideas.
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Saturday: Make it U, friends, Surviving the Runway and Pokey's Surprise Birthday Party

Saturday I taught a Make it University workshop using DeColorourant, a product used to discharge color from fabric using an iron. I have an article on DeColorourant in Quilting Arts magazine after the new year. 

Hanging with Friends

Melly, Rice and I ran into Jamie and Leslie on their way to open studios and had to stop for a photo

In the afternoon, I had my first real down time of the week and spent some time with Melly Testa and Rice Freeman-Zachery.



Surviving the Runway

Click on photo!

Saturday night was the last Surviving the Runway and Melly was the star of the show, so happy to be back with all her friends and cancer free and we were so thrilled to celebrate with her.

The theme was creating a fascinator/ hat out of a cheap black flocked plastic bowler hat with a variety of supplies like craft foam, duct tape, paint, glue, ribbons, feathers and pipe cleaners in less than an hour. Music is playing and there are challenges such as doing a curtsy or dance to get extra supplies for your hat.

Cheryl Sleboda

Melly and I getting our groove on

Catherine Redford, the winner

Now the fun really begins
Following Surviving the Runway, we walked over to the park for Gala on the Green where we ate BBQ brisket and danced some more and after an hour, much to Pokey's disappointment, several of us made excuses to leave early.

We then gathered for a surprise birthday party for Pokey. This was a pretty elaborate party that we began planning several months ago. We had the QA crew in on it to make sure we got Pokey over to the party.

As many of you know Jamie Fingal is a mad Barbie collector and she and Leslie have been using a couple Barbie alter egos in their travels over the last year.

This spurred the idea of planning a special calendar for Pokey with each of us creating a scene for each month with a Barbie alter ego and some way that Quilting Arts has been part of our life, whether it was reading the magazine, incorporating a project from an article or teaching a workshop at MIU. There is even a page with the whole Quilting Arts/ Cloth Paper Scissors staff as Barbies.

Jamie and Leslie set a beautiful table with all the Barbies in the center in various poses and Barbie party favors.

It was a fabulous party, celebrating friendship, Pokey's 40th birthday and our years working with her as the editor of Quilting Arts.



Farewell Houston, it was a fantastic week, looking forward to next year!

Head over to Melly Testa's blog to see her zipper pouch mania tutorial.

Friday: Lecture, Interview, Reception, Dinner

Waiting for the lecture to begin

 On friday my day began with giving a power point lecture called Making an Award Winning Artquilt (and everything that can go wrong in the process).

It's an information packed lecture showing a series of quilts from start to finish, how I pull together a concept with imagery to create a design, products that I prefer and why, funny (but not so much at the time) stories about mishaps and problems I ran into and how I resolved them.

After the lecture, I always bring out Primordial Sea since a large portion of the lecture is about making this quilt.

listening to a question from the audience after the lecture

SOS Interview

Awkward moments, waiting to start

In the afternoon I had a Quilters Alliance Save our Stories interview, that will go into the historical quilting archives and stored at the Library of Congress.












Lone Star Reception

Frances Alford, Leslie Jenison, Rachel Parris, Jamie Fingal, Kathy York, Sherry McCauley & me

Rachel holding the book

In the evening Karey Bresenhan hosted a wonderful reception to kick off the exhibits that go along with the beautiful, and big!, Lonestars lll book at festival and the new Texas Quilt Museum opening in La Grange next week.

I have two quilts in the book and exhibits that were made during my years living in Austin, TX. This is where I first became friends with Frances, Kathy and Sherry, we were all part of the same art quilt group and created a significant series of group quilts with a number of group members, exploring various themes based on color studies to begin with and eventually incorporating a variety of subject matter.








Dinner at 8

Our dinners always begin with a beautiful toast that Rachel leads about strong women.

Rachel, Deb Boschert, Jamie

Deb, Jamie, Linda Minton, Terry Grant

Frances, Gerrie Congdon, Susan Bruebaker Knapp, Leslie

Leslie, Barb Forrister, Susan Fletcher King

Guest appearance by Napkin head

Gerrie being a newbie to the dinner @ 8 gatherings takes a moment
to gather herself, lol

 Late night antics with roomies

Melly Testa pouncing on Jane La Fazio 

Melly sharing the love

It was great having Jane as my roommate in Houston during the week and then having Melly join us on friday and saturday nights was AWESOME!

Hop on over to Tracie Lyn Huskamp's blog to check out her tutorial.