Another Happy Dance!

That doesn't even seem possible, that I am doing two crazy happy dances over the course of two days!   Yet, that is the reality.  

I opened up my email to find this lovely paragraph addressed to me:

I am pleased to inform you of the acceptance of your entries A Walk Through Time and My First Modern Quilt for exhibition in the 2013 National Juried Show (NJS) to be displayed at the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre  from May 16– May 18, 2013.

Both my quilts got accepted into Canada's juried show!  I was so flippin' excited.  Especially because I had just hosted a full turkey dinner for ten people and was a little tuckered out to say the least.
Then after finishing cleaning to pop open my email and find that lovely letter, gave me my pep right back!

I have another art quilt on the design wall right now and am trying to figure out if I want to use the 3D flowers you see pinned on it.

I do love them on it!

I have also been playing with some fun little gems trying to figure out how to turn them into an embellishment... any ideas?

Cupcake Pincushion Tutorial

Riley Blake Fabrics has this fantastic section on their website where it is all pincushion tutorials!
How totally fun is that?   What a fantastic gift to make that special quilter in your life.  In my case, I would probably just make one for myself.  Kidding, okay not really, I guess I would probably make one for my mom too.

Why am I telling you all of this?   I made a special pincushion for Riley Blake's tutorials.
You can see all the instructions here.

Don't you just want to go right out and make one?  I had to satisfy my sweet tooth and my cravings for embellishments while making this pincushion.   How did I do?

Zipper Tape Embellishing

I have posted over at Riley Blake's Cutting Corners this fun art quilt and a few other cute ideas for using zipper tape.

You will also find instructions for this:

and this:

Head on over and take a look! If you enjoy it, please leave a comment while you are over there=)

Embellishing with Stamps and Buttons

Most of you know that every art quilt I make has embellishing on it.   My preference is 3D embellishing, but I do like using stamps and different techniques.

I bought a really cool circle stamp yesterday  ( I am also currently obsessed with circles).  
It is going to be for my current art quilt, to be used on the background, to give some variety to it.

I tried out several different ways to apply it.  Here are the results:

This one I put the stamp under the fabric and brushed Shiva Paintstik on the fabric.

I used the same method as above, but with a marker.

I used a brayer and put paint on the stamp, then stamped it onto the fabric.

I love buttons.   I use them on many of my quilts.   Okay, I use them on all my quilts.   But I wanted more from the buttons.  I didn't like that I was limited to whatever colours the buttons were and I had no say in the creation of them.   So I ordered a little button making kit.   Now I can use my own fabric to make buttons.   This is Riley Blake fabric, but I am also going to use my hand dyed fabric too.

How cool is this?

I am definitely using both on my quilt in progress.