Quilts and Fabric Markers–Project Updates!

So many project updates.  I’ve been a busy beaver this week!

Pink and Teal Quilt

I’m quilting again, which I’ve missed.  Quilting (to me) is kind of like painting but less messy.  I absolutely despise picking out fabric.  #1 I want to take EVERYTHING home with me, and #2 because I’m an absolute perfectionist about picking out fabric.  It all has to go together.

Teal and Blue Quilt

And by go together, I mean that the colors have to work together and the patterns.  You cant have five seriously busy patterns and then one that isn’t.  I like varying the degrees of the patterns, picking one favorite and basing the rest off of that.  Thus it takes forever.

I have a “boy” quilt and a “girl” quilt started (I’m going to use that very loosely…to me neither one looks particularly gendered…also, my boy students all love pink…so…what’s the point?)…they’re going pretty quick.  I also have cats…they’re very…helpful…

Cat on a Quilt

Pele would like everyone to know that he absolutely DID NOT walk all over the pieces I laid out and mess up my layout.  He helped me artistically rearrange them.  Because that’s the kind of cat he is.  Helpful, through and through.

Colore Fabric Markers

I was also supremely delighted to get a new set of fabric markers in the mail.  I LOVE THEM.  THEY WORK SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE TULIP ONES!!!!!  Yes, I just scream/typed.  Because I am that excited.  I love you Colore markers.  You are da bomb.

Colored in Fabric

You can see a little comparison between Tulip vs Colore.  The wishy-washy colors are Tulip, the bright ones are Colore.  I intentionally recolored half of the red/purple lolipop with Colore markers so that you could see the difference.  Crazy right?  As I was playing with them I realized that I could use the two types of markers together to create shading/watercolor effects/etc. but if you only want to buy one set of markers, don’t even bother with the Tulips.  Just get the Colore’s.

The Colore Fabric Markers bleed less, plus they have a lovely super saturated color.  The only downside is that you really need to put paper or something under the fabric as you color, because they will bleed through to the table.  Everything I’m making with my coloring fabric will be interfaced and probably have a layer of batting behind it as well, so I’m not too worried about that, but if you were to color a t-shirt with them it would absolutely matter.

So…that’s all the project updates I have for today, BUT (yes, that’s a big but–and I did just giggle a little bit over that…I made a butt joke!) I’m going to post an update later in the week with a few more creations for the craft fair…they’re coming along nicely!

Tulip Fabric Markers–Worth it?

DragonCon is over…AWA is yet to come…and I no longer have a pressing cosplay to finish (unless you count Megumi from Food Wars…but I’m not going to call that pressing), which means back to making things for Holly Days!  They officially accepted me last week, so it’s really going to happen! (November 10-11, mark your calendars!)

Tulip Fabric Markers

Instead of stressing out, I’m trying to figure out all the bits and pieces I’m going to need to bring with me, and I need fabric markers if I’m going to make stuff out of coloring fabric.

These are Tulip, and I’m regretting not buying the dual tip ones.  This pack was $20 for 20 markers (at Joanns, I used a coupon), but the dual tip ones come with 14 colors for the same price.  I thought more colors would be a better deal.  I may have changed my mind.

Candy Fabric Colored in

As you can see, they bleed–my mom and I colored around the edges of my test strip.  Once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t so much of a problem, but certain colors (like blue) bled more than others and I really had to remind myself not to color too close to the lines.

Red and Purple Lolipop

I also felt that the color was a bit too wishy washy.  I got over it after a while and pretended it was watercolor–but then I discovered that you can layer them!  Please keep in mind that you still have the bleeding problem, but it is possible to make the color stronger.  The purple and red lolipop on the left is probably my best example of this.  The light red and purple are before, the dark red and purple are from the second layer.

You can also layer different shades together to make a better color.  The half of a green lolipop in the middle/bottom was closer to the light  green of the candies on the right.  I then layered neon over the “dark green” and voila!  An actual, honest to goodness, saturated color.

I’m going to keep playing with it.  I’ll probably end up buying the dual tips to test out the fine points (they have really thin points on the dual tips), because I feel like the markers do what I want them to do.  Just not perfectly.  And if I’m going to bring some to my booth to sell, I want to make sure I’m bringing something I would use myself, that I can instruct someone else on how to use.

I’ll be trying out the “Colore Premium Fabric Markers” 20 pack in a few days–more reviewers claiming that they don’t bleed.  I hope I like them better!

Visit my Etsy shop here to buy a downloadable PDF of Coloring Bookmarks Eat Sweets! (The candy pattern on the bookmark)

I’m slowly but surely putting my DragonCon pics up on Instagram ( scribblerex ), so follow me! (And let me know who you are, if I know you!)

Fun with Cupcake Earrings!

Adding fun into the title clearly makes EVERYTHING more fun.  True story.

And now for my face:

20160810_111037

Becky and I came up with 2 different earring designs based on my brand new coloring bookmark set–> Coloring Bookmarks Eat Sweets! Pretty spiffy, no?  The ones I’m wearing in the photo feature a tiny stack of 3 cupcakes.  Which means that when you wear them you are literally hanging 6 cupcakes off of your ears.  Lets see Chuck Norris do that!

Now lets see my face again:

Pink single cupcake earringsBam!  My face.

These are the singles.  As it turns out, I like both of them equally–which is only odd, because I was really, really, really determined at first to have a stack of cupcakes because in my crazy cupcake obsessed mind more cupcakes are ALWAYS better.  As it turns out, they are pretty stinkin’ cute, but the singles have the added bonus of being able to see the detail a bit more, so hooray for that.

Multiple embroidered cupcakes

As with the cherry blossom necklace (scroll down, I promise it’s in there), I created the lineart and Becky worked her magic to digitize it for the embroidery machine.  They take a bit of trial and error to get right, and then they take a bit of prayer–because I really am terrified of fire, and melting the edges so that they don’t fray is utterly terrifying.

The purple cupcake stack and the blue cupcakes on the right are actually the original design.  Can you tell the difference?  The finished ones on the left look so much cleaner and nicer because we removed some of the detail.  The poor yellow cupcake in the middle bit the dust–I think the embroidery machine tried to eat it…it happens sometimes.

So, what do you think?  They’ll be available for sale soon…hopefully!  We’ve got a few other things in the works as well, so keep an eye out.

And if you didn’t follow that link above to go buy my coloring bookmarks, go here!  They’re pretty!  They’re inexpensive!  You can color them!  And think how happy your very favorite Angela will be if you buy a set! (BTW, thank you for everyone who HAS bought a set, I really do giggle like a little kid every time I sell another one!)

Coloring bookmarks preview

 

Dessert Bookmarks–Almost There!

Almost done!  One left to finish!

I thought I’d try coloring it for a second to see what it would actually look like…and then I got hungry and had to stop.  You seriously cannot stare at a chocolate colored strawberry without wanting a chocolate covered strawberry.  You know?

Dessert Coloring Page

That said I hope this is my only food themed art…ever…I think I’ll gain twenty pounds if I try to do this again!

So many exciting things coming up this month, so stay tuned.  Hopefully by Wednesday I’ll have a new embroidery project (earrings!) or Harry Potter project (potions bottles, Hogwarts robes!) to share.  Did I mention that we’re doing a midnight release for the new Harry Potter script at the store?  I’ve got three sets of Hogwarts robes to make.  I think I can do it!

If you haven’t seen my other coloring designs yet, go check out my Etsy shop–> here

I’m going to work diligently to (hopefully) get “Coloring Bookmarks Eat Sweets” finished and up by tomorrow.  Then on to “Coloring Bookmarks Cast Spells”!

Candy Coloring Bookmarks

I’m mostly (haha…okay, that might be an exaggeration…) done with the next bookmark, and I needed a breather because I looked at what I did and it’s way crazier looking than I thought it’d be going in.

Screenshot of Coloring Bookmarks

Yep…that’s a lot of candy.

I have learned (after a few fails) to print these guys out periodically and make sure they’re actually possible to color.  I’m happy to say that most of it is.  I’ll have to make a few things bigger as I start with the line art, but in the grand scheme of things it isn’t horrible.

5 Coloring Bookmarks

Another thing I’ve learned is that they’re all going to shrink once they’re printed out for sale/digital. (converting to pdf does that…) My flower bookmarks are there for a comparison.  They’re not too much smaller, but that’s almost a full inch.  An inch matters a good deal when it comes to teeny tiny little shapes.  My goal is to make a product that can be colored–not just one that you’re going to stare at in frustration.

I am happy that the two I’ve finished so far look so very different!

Thanks Amy and Puvi for the ideas!  I’ll decide once I’m done with  this bit.

And I still want a cupcake.