Gift Tag Challenge

Quilting Arts Magazine is sponsoring another challenge, this one for their seasonal "Gifts" issue which comes out in the fall.  Jane Davila brought it to our attention at a recent FANE meeting and encouraged us to take part in the challenge.  The idea is to create a fabric gift tag using one of the templates they supplied and one or more of the colors shown below, chosen by Jane herself.

They're kind of funky colors, very different from the traditional holiday colors.  I wasn't sure if I would have time to create anything before the deadline on the 31st, but the gift tags are only roughly 2"x 3 1/2" and I found myself with a little free time (and the itch to create something!) on a rainy Saturday afternoon, so I decided to go through my stash and see what I had that might fit the bill. 

I dug up this springy looking seersucker that had two of the colors in the pallete, and thought it would be fun to cut a Christmas tree shape out if it.   I had lots of snowy whites that could serve as the background. (Don't you just love a dotted Swiss?).

It was a cute idea, but then I remembered I had a large collection of buttons in that bright lime green.

After playing around with them, I came up with this:

I really like it!  It's not a unique idea (I've seen button trees like this before), but the lime green and pink color scheme makes it a little quirky and fun, don't you think?  I'll send it out to QA on Tuesday and maybe next time I find myself with the itch to create something quick and fun, I'll make some more that I'll really use on presents this Christmas (after the present is opened, it can be hung on the tree - two gifts in one!).

A Little Publicity!

Once again, I was fortunate enough to have a postcard printed in Quilting Arts Magazine!  I originally posted it here before I mailed it in.  Now that it's in, I'm glad I took the time to create one.  It was a fun challenge to get my vision down in the small 4x6-inch frame, I got to use both fabric and paper (the book is paper) and now I get to see my work in print!  Fantastic!  (If you go to the link where I first posted it, you may notice I positioned it with the feet pointing up.  I intended for the viewer to imagine themselves in the artwork, being the person relaxing with a book in the sun!  But QA decided to place it the other way around.  I guess that works too...)

Staycation Postcard

Quilting Arts Magazine is sponsoring another postcard challenge.  The theme for this one is "what I did on my Staycation."  Even though we did actually get away to the beach at the end of the summer, most of the summer I was home and working but took little "staycations" by escaping into a book.  I still think it's the most fun, relaxing, inexpensive, and easy way to get away from it all!

Another Artsy Snowday

We had another winter storm blow in yesterday and the schools and library were both closed. It felt like a holiday! I baked pumpkin spice muffins for breakfast and spent some time relaxing and creating the postcard, above, to mail to Quilting Arts magazine for their 10th anniversary. The girls and I played scrabble and worked on a jigsaw puzzle and enjoyed each other's company. It was a fun and pretty stress-free day.

But this morning the snow had turned to ice, and although the schools were closed again, everyone seemed to be tired of it all, and tired of each other! We have some dripping around the inside of two of our windows, a result of too much ice and snow damming up the gutters, but we never lost power, thank God. The girls really pitched in to get the ice and snow off the driveway; it was soooo heavy and we have to heave it up to the tops of the mountains lining the driveway! But it's done and we should have a couple of normal school days coming up. Let's hope the groundhog's prediction is correct this year!