A Game to Start Children's Chores


I'm always thinking of ways to ask my children to do chores. We all know they don't receive these commands with a big smile on their face so why not create a "game" to start their chores?

That's why I created a vase with flowers, which I call "Command Flowers", best of all they're made from simple materials: paper and fabric.
Let me guide you through the process:
Fold a piece of felt lengthwise, 1 1/4 inch from the border and sew a straight line. Cut very close to the sewing line to obtain a long tube.
With a pair of scissors cut straight lines across being careful not to cut the sewing line. This will be the flower petals.
Repeat the same process for all the colored felt.
With the help of a thread and needle make a few stitches at one end of the cut tube and start doing a coil securing it with a few stitches
Once you are happy with your flower, cut the end.
Cut the floral wire 8 inches long, curl one end and sew in place in the center of the flower.
Cut a circle from a magazine page, try to use a different color of your felt for contrast and sew it in place with a decorative button in the middle.
For the flower vase, cut a strip of your fabric remnant, big enough to cover your thread spool. Sew a piece of rick rack in the middle. With glue paste the fabric over the spool.

Cut a circle bigger than your spool circumference and paste with glue the decorated spool on top.
Write in the computer the different commands. For example: Dry the dishes, Pick up the toys, Put the shoes in their place, Feed the dog, Put the dirty clothes in the laundry basket, Wash your teeth....etc.
Cut the paper in long pieces. Paste with glue one paper with a command per flower.
Congratulations your Command Flowers are finished. The idea is to start with all the flowers in the vase, once the child finished a choir he or she picked the right flower and put it away.

Working with Botanicals, Decoupage...Who knew?

I love to put a detail surprise in my work. Sometimes you have to look closely to discover it and sometimes it is a major part of the composition. In this case, the surprise element are dry flowers. It was a challenge to find the correct "glue" to adhere them onto the fabric. I discovered that matte medium burns the delicate petals and turns them brown, as you can see in some flowers. The best glue is Decoupage because it keeps the vibrant colors of the flowers intact, as mother nature intended. Now, with that happy discovery I'm already planning a mixed-media quilt.


Recycled Paper and Fabric Card

This is a paper and fabric card I made for some good friends. We spent the weekend at their house. Each card component has a meaning. The green represents the woods near their house. I painted a bird because wherever we went we heard them singing. The crinkled background is a napkin they gave us when we went out to lunch, I didn't use it and instead put it in my pockect. The lace because their house is decorated with all kind of antiques and the beads are the bubbles of the sparkling wine we toasted with!
I hope they liked it!

American Quilter Magazine AQS May 2012 pattern

For me it's very difficult to follow the rules of patterns, which is why most of my work is freestyle. However, when I opened the May 2012 issue of American Quilter Magazine, I read the article on page 36 describing how to do BIG and FAST blocks and knew that was something I had to try.
So I embarked on dyeing my own fabrics. I wanted to use predominantely black and white colors. I put all the fabric in the same bucket of dye (except the solid black which was store bought). The difference in coloration that you see is because I manipulated the fabric, meaning I folded, pleated, scrunched and clamped the fabric. When you do that the dye travels in the water and stops faster in some areas then others achieving different colors in the same cloth. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of each fabric before sewing so this is a close up during the process.

And this is the finished quilt!
 It measures 42 inches by 72 inches. Best of all it took me only a day to finish the quilt top!

Paper and Fabric Birthday Bag

I've been invited to a birthday party and have been asked to make a bag to collect money for the birthday girl. So I whipped up this bag in an hour! Best of all I had all the materials at hand. Let me guide you through the process:
Cut a piece of fabric 12 inches by 8 inches. Mark with chalk or pen in the middle.
On a piece of plain copy paper, stamp a word. In this case I stamped "tesoro" which means "treasure" in Spanish. If you don't have an alphabet stamp you can write with a black marker or you can even print the word from the computer.
Cut the word out. From a magazine page, cut a rectangle slightly bigger.
With school glue paste it in the lower part of the right side of your fabric. Sew around it.
Cut two circles from felt and from another magazine page of contrasting color cut a smaller circle and choose a decorative button for the center.
It will look like this.
Sew it in place.
Choose a colorful ribbon and sew it all around the upper edge. Cut a piece 12 inches long and sew it in the middle, 2 1/2 inches from the top edge like shown in the picture.
With the help of a pin, hold the ribbon in one place. This way when you sew your bag around it doesn't get caught in the seams.
Sew around and a diagonal line on each corner, this helps the bag to stand better.
With a big eye needle pass the ribbon through a decorative button and make a knot at the end.
You have finished your bag and it's ready to give out as a lovely gift!