popped by our shop today, studioWERX on main and dropped off some new spring inventory for the store.

• first we have a great new collection of bird stamps! yep… i caved and did an entire sheet of birds - over 10 of them in total. we have them available as a sheet set, or as individuals and they are design in our signature etched style. yummy!

• i also brought in some new 6×6 paper pads by basic grey including sugared, boxer and sultry collections, 3 new 12×12 patterned papers from basic grey’s soon to be retired romani collection and 3 of the making memories noteworthy ledger style papers. the romani and mm papers go together really well… check it out in the photo below.

• other fun stuff includes the new cosmo cricket blackboard chipboard mini-books. love these! the chipboard is black all the way through and has a slightly rough blackboard finish. looks great with pencil crayons, gel pens, pastels, chalks, patterned paper and photos of course.

• we also have new stamps arriving from prima soon and fresh maya road chipboard goodies in the next couple of weeks, so stop by and check it out…

the store is in vancouver at 4738 main street [1/2 block north of 32nd avenue] and is open tuesday to sunday from 11am-6pm daily. here are a few shots of what you’ll see inside the shop…

thanks for switching your bookmarks and welcome to our new blogspace!

we hope that this new space will enable me to post…

• larger, prettier photos and artwork
• better, higher quality video feeds
• a more user friendly environment
• and i’m a code-geek… so this is just fun for me =)

enjoy the new space… and thanks for coming along =)

yep… that is the question! spring schming. we ain’t gots no time for no stinking spring! or at least that what mother nature seems to be saying. the weather is very very confused… again. last night and earlier today we’ve had crazy weather again… snow, wet and heavy fell all over the city on friday night and caused the fragile spring growth some serious damage! oh well… mother nature can be a real bitch can’t she? lol! today, i took advantage of the nice window of weather and visited our local botanical garden: van dusen. it’s located in the middle of vancouver and is over 200 acres of beautiful trails over hills and water features along side spectacular spring and summer floral colour. well… the colour is a little behind this year with our cooler than average spring, but there were a few nice shots to be had anyways… if you were patient and knew where to look! we’re about 4 weeks behind growing wise, since my tulips are up, but STILL not open <le sigh>. but once the temperature warms up - watch out! double-peony tulip photos will be the image du jour. yes… double-peony tulip. it is a hybrid tulip with characteristics of peonies and their ruffled double petals. they are a-m-a-z-i-n-g and the size of dinner plates! in the meantime, here is a little taste of vancouver springtime as of today…

there are so many possibilities for these wonderful textile anthology fabric projects… here are a few examples for your consideration:

using large grommets and your crop-o-dile punch, create binding holes along the left edge of your fabric page so that it can be included in a traditional binder album like a maya road chipboard binder. this is a great addition to any paper based scrapbook album since it infuses unique textures and tactile qualities of fabric into your memory project.

use grommets and fasten multiple textile anthology pages together with binder rings to create a 100% fabric book. yummy!

add grommets to both sides of your main page and add additional fabric pages to the sides to create an accordion album! so cool and infinitely touchable.

make two fabric panels that are the same size, then create two narrow sides panels and a bottom panel that when stitched or fastetned together make a ’soft’ box! this is so great for holding collectibles and memorabilia in a baby’s room or as a gift for grandparents…

more ideas and photos will be coming soon!

i’m all jazzed up about making more of these touchable, lovable and huggable fabric projects. i just can’t stop touching all my fabrics and embellishments… it’s a bit of an addiction lol!

i’m off to the quilting store again this afternoon to pick up more lovely fabrics and then this weekend will be spent stitching new projects and sifting through my embellishments so that i can put together the most wonderful textile anthology kits. ahhhh… nothing like a little enabling huh?

since the first etsy kits are nearly sold out [wow! that was fast…] i thought i would add a few more to the mix in different colour palettes.

each kit will come with the same basics [see the etsy listing for complete details] and the embellishments will be adjusted to coordinate with the colour palette of the foundation fabrics. here are the new kit colour ways:

just a reminder…

these kits do not come with the image transferring transparencies, fluid medium or transfer fabric. the textile anthology kits are made up of the patterned fabric seen here plus coordinating embellishments including thread, beads, ribbon, buttons, silk flowers, batting, image transferred graphics and interfacing.

tomorrow, i’ll post some additional images and ideas about how to use these wonderful, textured and tactile fabric pages… in the meantime, happy stitching!

p.s.: i have amy butler fabric arriving in about 2 weeks from her new spring collections. these will be posted in my etsy store shortly after they arrive. thanks!

since i was restless last night…

i thought i would put together the first textile anthology kit for my etsy shop.

this new kit is based on the adjacent project and uses the yummiest fabric - it looks like scrapbook paper! the fabric features silhouettes of botanicals and butterflies in a palette of burgandy, light green, olive, black and white. accompanying this fabric is a soft green patterned square for the back of the piece.

the complete kit contains the following:

• 2 - 9″x9″ squares of patterned fabric
• 1 - 9″x9″ muslin square
• 1 - 8″x8″ quilt batting
• 1 - small bags of loose quilt batting
• 4 large pre-transferred graphic images on linen fabric
• 3 - 9″ strips of ribbon including grosgrain, velvet rickrack and pierced velvet
• velvet brads
• embroidery floss
• glazed button brads
• vintage mother of pearl buttons
• glass beads
• large color coordinated silk floral

the listing is now on etsy… there are 6 Kits available.

additional kits in different colour palettes will be listed in the coming days, so if this one doesn’t do it for you… give it a few days and i’m sure there will be something that does very soon.

if you are interested in having your personal images transferred onto the same linen used in the transferred word and tag graphics, please let me know. for a small fee i will size, print and transfer your images onto linen, then you can be assured that they will be perfectly transferred for your project.

so what do you all think? if you are interested, please click here to jump to the etsy textile anthology listing

ok gang…

i have a plethora of fabric, embellishments, flowers, batting, etc… and was wondering if anyone would be interested in textile anthology based kits for scrapbooking projects?

in the kits you would be provided with pre-printed images transferred to fabric, colour coordinated fabric and embellishments, threads and everything you would need to create a fabric scrapbook page. for a small fee, you could also send me your photos and i could transfer them onto fabric for you - ensuring a perfect photo transfer for your projects! sound interesting? if so, please let me know and i’ll start putting together the kits this weekend. they will be listed in my etsy shop.

textile anthology 8×8 page kits would retail for between $25-30 depending on the extra embellishments, with an additional fee of $1.75 per photo transfer of your 4×6 image onto linen.

instructions are included with the kit.

a few weeks ago, i was approached by the creative director of pclayers - the digital arm of provocraft - about coming on as a new digital designer with their product team. without hesitation i accepted.

i love creating digital artwork and this invitation by pclayers presented a new opportunity to share my digital artwork with a wider audience, how could i say no? i’m happy to say that tomorrow my first collection will be debuting on pclayers and i’m super excited about it!
the collection is comprised of digital papers, cardstock, tags, design elements, digital brushes and more with a pretty, sophisticated spring color palette.

drop by pclayers tomorrow to check it out. i think you’re going to love this new collection… i certainly do!

enjoy the sneak peek…

wow. 18 hours of teaching in 2 days at donna downey’s inspired event.
amazing…
exhausting…
an experience to remember - for all the right reasons.

as i posted earlier, the event was so well organized you would never know that this was donna’s first workshop retreat. both donna and her husband bill made it look so easy. trust me, i KNOW it isn’t from personal experience and those two rocked it….

when you look beyond the event organization, i think the thing that really made this event so amazing was the mix of instructors and students. creative energy was everywhere with a diverse group of instructors and students open to trying new things. it was really wonderful and totally in keeping with my belief that people gravitate to what they
are comfortable with. sometimes, unless you put people into a position where
they are pushed out of their self-imposed creative boxes, they will
never grow or try anything new. inspired perfectly illustrated this concept and 200 women embraced the idea of trying something new and stepping outside their “creative comfort zone”.

over the two days of classes, a number of my students expressed that they felt “out of their element” when it came to sewing and fabric. but, after giving me a chance and embracing the idea of something new, those same students came back to tell me that the class was either one of their favorites, or felt that they had really grown with the experience. it was wonderful to hear that i could help someone onto a new creative path… one that they never would have considered without the inspired event push. how awesome is that?

it was fun having some scrap-celebrities and fellow artists like ali e, wendy smedley, renee pearson and cathy z in the classes at inspired. a little intimidating for sure, but super fun to see them take to the on projects with excitement and enthusiasm. ali’s travelling bud paolo and her sister were there too… hanging out with her, taking the classes and sharing her creative energy. i have to confess that i was a little disappointed that cathy z missed my class, but i understand that she was feeling a little overwhelmed. no prob cathy, maybe next time? renee p and i bonded over image transfer and the idea of digital/hybrid scrapping with fabric… an exciting new tandem class could be in our future. wouldn’t that be cool? yup. i certainly think so!

i did manage to take a few pics while my students settled into the stitching part of the class. while they hunkered down and focussed on their needlework, i quietly snapped a few photos and have uploaded them
to my flickr site. to see them, please click here.

i enjoyed meeting the other instructors… it was so great hanging out with my dear friend claudine. getting to know fellow canadian kal was fun and i was so glad that i was able to help her out a bit at the airport [even if it was only to lend some moral support, my cell phone and give her a hug when everything seemed to be going sideways]. tena and i bonded over a common problem with headaches [botox rules!]. but, unfortunately due to the busy event schedule i wasn’t able to do more than meet jennifer stewart [darn! we’ll have to fix that. another time, another place] and didn’t even get to meet stephanie mcatee.

it was fun connecting with vancouver/bc girls at the event too… for heather main i will always think of sookwang tape as ’smells like daddy’ and to my table of bc girls we ‘kick ass’ and yeah, ‘f*ckin eh!’

i’m tired.
my brain is a bit like mush.
but i am totally and completely thrilled to have been a small part of this very creative and inspiring event.