In Your Words: My Little Gems' Gym Bags/Designing with Bleach

The thread was flying,

the needle bobbing,

and last minute preparations for the day's blog hop were keeping me in a stir all week and into the night! 

In fact, I was in such a rush I even threaded my machine needle with my bobbin thread! 

Now that is a new one on me!!

And believe me I have done some doozies in the past! 

Just last week shopping in Costco with Linda (yes, Linda who is our blog hop leader and my sister) I walked off with the wrong shopping cart! 

It went unnoticed until Linda wanted to know where her Nutella was and... where were my HDMI cables?

Trust me... life's a trip!
Never a dull moment. 

It is all worth it to be able to share my little gems' gym bags!

My little gems are my eleven grandchildren.  (That makes me sound so old!)

This Valentine's day they will be receiving their own personalized gym bag

with a few little surprises inside....

nine bags completed!  Two more to go.

So my contribution to our blog hop today are the little gym bags with some fun words

bleached and embellished.

Designing with Clorox Pen and fabric marker!

Here are the guidelines for this project:

1. Do a time bleach test on a sample of your fabric to decide how long to leave the bleach.  I cut several 1" squares and squeezed a little bleach on each and rinsed one at a time in 10 minute intervals. 
2. For the bag cut two panels 15"(or 14) x 18" (I got four bags from one yard of 60" wide cotton duck)
3. Press each section onto the waxy side of freezer paper to stabilize during bleaching.
4. Design the fabric with the Clorox pen using the narrow tip side. Squeeze gently and evenly, moving as smoothly as possibly.   
5. Watch the clock and rinse at the appropriate time previously decided in the bleach test. Gently remove from the freezer paper.
6. Add baking soda liberally to the wash tub of cool rinse water or you can sprinkle baking soda directly onto the bleached area and then rinse.
7.  Rinse in cool water until all the bleach is removed.
8. Lay the fabric on an old towel. Roll the fabric into it and gently squeeze.  Open it up, remove the panel from the towel. Lay flat to dry. 
9. Once dry.  Go back into the design using a Fabric Sharpie marker and embellish with more details.  The fun continues!
10. NOTE:  Pictured below, way below, are the Clorox types I used.  I used the Pen type to draw and then used the gel (toilet bowl cleaner) in a bowl for stamping the bleach.  The gel is more liquified and thus runs outside of the lines more.  But for those of you who do not have the Clorox pens you MIGHT try the gel in a bottle with a NARROW opening like a glue bottle. Be resourceful and let me know how it works.   I have not tried this myself but now I will have to!

The Gem Bag Construction

• Press down  1" on top edge of both pieces.
• Clean finish the top edges on both pieces (zig-zag or stitch a narrow edge)
• On sides about 2" down (where the casing will be open for the drawstrings) clean finish the edges.
• Stitch along the top, leaving the ends open.
• Sides and Bottom of bag
  
• Stitch sides starting at top stitching leaving casings open on the sides. 
• Stitch bottom and opposite side ending at stitching for casing.
• At bottom corners stitch diagonally creating a triangle 2" in both directions from the corner.  This will be for serve to lessen stress on grommets.
• Grommets
  
• 1/4" grommets are attached using manufacturer's directions.  Place in bottom corners inside of triangles.
• Drawstings
  
• 1/4" cording ( I found 1/4" clothesline rope in white at my local grocery store which is economical, attractive and sturdy. 100' for about $2)
• Cut two sections each about 2 yards long.  (Total 4 yards per bag.)
• Run the first cord through both casing returning to its starting place.  Pull cord ends down to the grommet and run both ends through the grommet and knot ends together to keep them secure. 
• Second cord will start on the opposite side as the first cord, run through both casing and returning to where it started. Pull cord down to grommet and secure
  with a knot. (The first cord starts and ends on one side.  The second cord starts and ends on the opposite side.  To close the bag pull the cords on both sides at the same time. )
 

Thank you, Madame Samm and Linda!  What a great idea! 

This has been a fun experience! 

Oh, I almost forgot! 

Leave a comment so I will have a record of your visit and enter you in my...

SURPRISE GIVEAWAY! 

The Winner will be announced on Jan. 24th!

Now, don't forget! 

Be sure to drop in on all the other participating blogs for today. 

Wednesday, January 9

Kathy's Quilts (Kathy W.)

Sunshine Quilting (Martina S.)

Sew Incredibly Crazy (Amy)

Quilt Doodle Doodles (Cindy S.)

Doodling in My Mind (YOU ARE HERE  Darla)

I Like to Quiltblog (Bente)

Michelle's Romantic Tangle (Michelle M.)

Grammie Q's (Charlotte M.)

Dancing Moon (Carla B.)

(Betty V.) at “that other blog”

The Fuzzy Hat Quilter (Laura Ann)

Sing Out Loud...Swing High....Watch Ants Crawl..

Find the Artist who's inside of you!

See you in the blogs!

Darla

Sneak Peek for In Your Words

In Your Word Blog Hop

Jan 7th-16th

 

Oh, I need to get to work! 

That blog hop I signed up to do is just next week! 

And here I am putting together jigsaw puzzles and watching old movies on TMC,  leisurely taking down the Christmas decor and keeping warm while enjoying my time off! 

Which by the way, I'm not ashamed of not being more productive but it is time for me to start putting my mind to some more creative endeavors.

 

In Your Words is the blog hop that has me hopping right now!

I am anxious to see what the other bloggers have in their minds. There are so many new things on the market and I expect to be seeing some fun ideas, to be impressed, to be inspired and motivated to action.   

 

And not a minute too soon for me!

 

You may think the hard part is coming up with the technique but instead for me the hard part has been in coming up with just the perfect words! 

 

Do I want to be funny?

...or inspire goodness?

...or state the obvious?

...or do a play on words?

 

What words do I use?   

 

And then there is this personal drive to do something that is new to me! 

For this project I want to do something I have NEVER done. 

I have considered a number of things and when I think I have a good idea I find someone else has already done it and sometimes, even marketed it. 

 

I have written it, and sewn it, and glued it, and waxed it and even pixelated it! 

But how do I want to do it this time?

 

Well, here is my sneak peek! 

Bleach! 

 

But bleach what?

 

I'm not telling...not yet! 

But I will drop a hint or two!

A child will like it...or even a teen...

and you will have all the information to complete the project yourself

without even buying a pattern. 

And

there will be tips to set you up for successs

and a giveaway

and  all you will need to do is

drop me a line in the comment section next Wednesday

and your name will be added to the drawing

which will take place on the 24th which is Linda's birthday. 

 

So until then enjoy the first week of a new year!

 

 

 

 

Making Fun & Making Faces

Another project using Sharpies on Dollar Store plates.

Just for fun.... but aren't they all?
Pearson, my four year old grandson requested a plate with funny and scary faces on it so I had to indulge him.

His little sister Blakely, who just turned three, did not "get" the scary faces.  She has been kept pretty sheltered from scary things.  For awhile she sat  examining the faces.  With a quizzical look on her face she looked up at me and touched the top of my head and said, "You don't have horns!"

I had to laugh then she laughed, too and I think she understood a little better that it was for fun.

And just in case you are wondering... that is a Cheerios drawn into the bowl, not a doughnut and yes, I took the picture upside down.  I noticed that, too but since the faces go all around which side is up is up to you.

So here is for Pearson....funny faces with scary (in a four year old fashion) faces.

See also, for instructions on using Sharpie markers on china: Fire Up Those Sharpies.

 

Fire up those Sharpies!

Something next to magical happens when a Sharpie is placed in someone's hands. 

The lines are clean and crisp and one design just leads into the next. 
I love working with Sharpies!

My kitchen now looks like a manufacturing kitchen....dishes everywhere but no food in sight!

So here's the scoop......I bought out the white china dishes at Dollar Tree. I bought several shapes and sizes of glazed white china.

The magic of a Dollar store find and a Sharpie!

I bought coffee mugs...coffee mugs that were tall and narrow, coffee mugs that were short and fat, coffee mugs with slightly fluted designs, and coffee mugs with little raised dots!

I bought plates...round plates, square plates, dinner plates and snack size plates! I even bought some red plates to play around with.

(Poor checker who got me, right? Took forever wrapping those glass dishes in paper to get me out of the store.)       

I stocked up on new Fine tipped Sharpies (the original Sharpies, not ultra-fine), made sure I had some alcohol...the kind that goes in the medicine cabinet and a few little q-tips for my many mistakes!

 Next I settled in for a  good old movie I could enjoy while listening because my attention is going to be on drawing the dish in my lap.

I started looking at those dishes and waited and waited and looked and looked even turned it in my hands as if that would matter!  And I waited for inspiration to strike me in the head like lightening....oh, but it doesn't work that way, does it?
So I took a deep breathe and got up the courage to put down the first mark!

DONE!

So there it is...the first mark! 

YIKES!

THAT WILL NEVER DO!

  Just gently wipe that stray mark away like a stray tear that slips out of the corner of an eye. 

Use a dab of  alcohol on a q-tip and wipe.  It will turn purple but wipe it again until it is comes clean using the other end of the q-tip.
I tried prepacked wet wipes for eye glasses not the wipes for  little bottoms. They work also, but I
had to keep the q-tips handy because I was using up all my wet wipes. 

I make many, many mistakes. 

Since I have the best job in the world...teaching art, I took all that glassware to school and let my students experiment on glass. 

Yesterday one of my students came by after school to show me her finished mug and get final instructions on firing the glass...in your own oven, by the way!

(And I call it firing not baking because we are talking ceramics here not cakes.)

Before she left she admitted to me,

 "I'm addicted to it now! It's so much fun."

Well, welcome to my world!!!!

Sing it Madonna....(oops!  Cyndie
, thanks Lisa!)
Girls just want to have fun-un!

Yes, girls just want to have fun!

So here are the simple, simple instructions:

Draw & Fire!

• Place the glassware in a cold oven, set the temperature to 400-450 degrees
• Begin your timing when the oven gets to the desired temp. 
•  (Color markers lose their color in the hottest temps but red comes out red at 400 degrees in my oven.  Most colors faded but especially the cool colors:blue, green and purple.  Yellow turned brownish.) 
• Fire about 40 minutes,  
• Turn the oven off and leave the glassware to cool in the oven.  Cooling takes hours but you don't want to rush it because cooling too fast causes cracks and ruptures to form or even breaking. 

Most importantly, treasure your creative time!

UPDATE  UPDATE UPDATE!

Please, read!
Since I wrote this article back in December 2012 I have continued to experiment and have found a better method of drawing on porcelain which is dishwasher safe.

Any Color, Food Safe & Dishwasher Safe!
Using a product called Porcelaine paint which can be purchased online (I got mine through Amazon) and used small applicator bottles  to draw.(also, purchased through Amazon)

I drew as usual with my Sharpie.
Then traced my drawing with the small tip of applicator bottle in whatever color I wanted.
Allowed to dry 24 hrs then fired in my own oven at 300 degrees (150C) for 35 minutes.
The paint is more dimensional so it is slightly raised but I think that adds to the charm.
As I write this I am putting a much used dish in the dishwasher with not even a slight concern as to whether or not it will come out as I put it in.  It will!

So keep drawing with those Sharpies but make your dishes dishwasher safe with Porcelaine paint plus add colors.  Colors come out fairly true!

And thanks, Lisa for correcting my two year old mistake. Cyndi Lauper not Madonna sang "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."

Another design but made for the kids at Making Fun Making Faces 

Wreath, Angels and Bells...Oh, my!




Finished wreath hanging on my school shelves.  Well, it even makes the storage shelves pretty.  Now it adorns the door in the main office. 



Cardboard tubes for wreath

Spray painted red with a touch of diamond dust...all we need is a bow now.

Student's Angel

        My room at school is overloaded with fun projects my students are working on and it is like the kids are on bungee cords.  They keep coming back to my class when they are supposed to be in other classes. 

One magazine folded and attached to a hand painted mat board. 

They must be having fun. 

Here are some of the fun things happening in my classroom.  (All photos are student projects.)

More photos as projects are finished.

Two National Geographics Magazines

Origami bell with embellishments of diamond dust , ribbon and bow

 

Front view of Old Book Angel

Side view: Book cover/ wings

Directions for Origami Bell click here.


Directions for Re-purposing old book into an angel click here.

 

 

A Family Tradition: Christmas Ornaments

I can not remember a Christmas without making my own ornaments.  Linda and I used newspapers, egg cartons, toilet paper tubes or whatever else we can get our hands on.  We were green before green was green!

Although, I am not sure we could call ourselves truly green since we glittered things to pieces!  
The papers available now are just too much fun to not use. So go green if you wish but for this project make sure your paper is thick enough like card stock.   In the past we may have used pages out of old wallpaper books we collected from venders when the papers were discontinued.  I had a closet full of wallpaper books. My children were free to use them when they were being creative.

But I have to be honest. This is not one of my green projects.  I am using scrapbook paper for this project.

The HOW-TO:

The basic design is an origami bell that I learned from my big sister Linda who learned it from her teacher in school so many years ago.  I have no idea how old we were but she had to help me make mine in the early years.

Now as an art teacher I have my students do this project every year in my high school art classes.  The project has been popular with my students for years. 


Start with a perfect square of any size.

For every fold reopen the paper.
Ready?  Here goes...

The easy way to remember the steps is to remember hot dog, hot dog, taco, taco, kite, kite, kite, kite!
These are not technical terms but my students understand them and I can hear them say it while they work.
"Hot dog, hot dog, taco, taco, kite, kite, kite, kite.."

Hot Dog Fold

• Hot Dog (Fold the paper in half creating a rectangle thus the hot dog bun.)

• Open fold
• Hot Dog (same as above)
• Open fold.

Taco Fold Upside Down

• Taco (Fold the half from point to point making a big triangle...aw-w, that taco went upside down!)
• Open fold.
• Taco (same as above)
• Open Fold

• Turn paper over and work from the backside. 
• Kite (Turn the paper to make a diamond shape.  Place a finger on the top corner to anchor in place.   With the other hand pull up one of the side corners and fold to the center of the paper, lining up the edge of the paper to the center fold.  Repeat on the opposite side to make a kite shape.  

• Open folds.

• Kite (Repeat folds as above on next corner)
• Open folds
• Kite (Repeat folds as above on next corner)
• Open folds
• Kite (Repeat folds as above.)
• Open folds.

Octagon shape in the middle

If all folds have been made you will see an octagon shape in the middle.

Gentle pressure on the sides

Gentle press inward on the middle of each side so the sides begin to push inward.  At the same time as you begin to push upward with the four sides, press in the middle to make the middle of the bottom push outward.

Gentle shape the bottom of the bell, creating hills and valleys along the folds. 
Hot glue along point where all four sides come together.

 Okay, now go a step beyond and start some ornamentation to make it distinctly yours.

• I hot glued rosettes to mine by cutting a circle then cutting it into a spiral.  I used various size circles. 
•  Use a toothpick and start with the outside edge swirling it around the toothpick. Hot glue in place using the center of the swirl as a base.  
• Cascade the rosettes downward and add leaves.  
• For the leaves cut out a leaf shape, fold it down the middle for a central vein, then fold the reverse direction toward the top end of the leaf on each side to push the leaf downward.  
• Add curly ribbons and you are finished.  

Gorgeous!!

New life for an old book

Oh, it is nearly Christmas again and that means Christmas projects!  Linda and I always spent our evenings after school and weekends making ornaments and doing projects related to Christmas.  I still think the best projects happen in December and the time leading up to Christmas.

One of my fond memories is making an angel in the garage out of my dad's old Popular Mechanics magazines.  After all, what good were they? They were just filled with not so pretty pictures and had lots and lots of writing.  He had stacks of them in the garage so Linda and I just helped ourselves to his magazines and started folding.

When we brought out the beautiful angel Daddy did ask what magazines we used and he did have a strange look on his face when we told but I never heard any complaint!

I guess, we were really cute back then!  I wonder if I could get away with that today?

This week I requested magazines from our school librarian for my art classes. She supplied me the magazines as requested and threw in some old books as well.   As soon as they fell into my hands the old folding memories resurfaced.  I had kids folding pages in minutes.  As I folded I let the book tell me what it wanted to be.  This book wanted to be an angel but we had many various Christmas trees using the same concept.  

The How-to:

(I started with an old book with yellowed pages and thicker paper with 200 pages.)

The Folded Page:

• Each individual page has three folds: 
• 1st: Top right corner to inside seam.   
• 2nd fold: Folded edge of page to inside seam. 
• 3rd.  Turn up triangle that hangs off the bottom.   
• Next page: same as above until all pages are folded.

Sleeves and Wings:

• Pull out pages where you think the arms should be.
• Unfold page leaving only the first fold.
•  Tuck tip of page into one of the pages in front of it to create a curved sleeve.several pages in front of it.
• The hard cover and the fly page folded in serve as wings.

Head...Still re-purposing!

• Wad up a plastic grocery bag into a ball  and place into another bag making it as round and smooth as you can.  
• Cut a large circle out of an old white tee-shirt and cover the plastic ball with it stretching it tightly.
• Hold fabric with a rubber band.  
• Tape around rubber band and a little of the bag below the rubber band.   
• Insert taped end into the gap made by the book binding.   

Scarf....oh, so easy and so cute!  

• Sandwich a 6-8" square of that old tee-shirt fabric between two pieces of paper.  
• Draw a circle about 4-6" or improvise and wing it and just cut the circle cutting through both papers and fabric. 
•  Continue cutting in a spiral folding the edge of the circle about 1/2"-3/4" away from previously cut edge until you come to the middle.  Cut a tiny circle out of the middle and discard.  
• Take an end in each hand and stretch fabric.  
• It will twist and spiral downward.  
• Wrap around neck letting spirals of scarf cascade downward.  Hot glue in place. 

Spray Glitter:  NOT re-purposing but oh, so nice!

I purchased spray glitter in the craft section of Walmart.  I used silver Glitter Blast.
Spray the entire angel including head and scarf.

Add halo using a length of wired ribbon about 6-8" long depending on head size.

I'm having so much fun!  

Can't wait until tomorrow so I can do more fun stuff!