What's in my art journal? Going beyond the pages

Hello everyone,

For those of you that got snow over the last few days, I hope you are safe, warm and snug in your homes.  The weather has damaged my lil greenhouse.  I hope to be able to get out today and get a tarp to throw over it to prevent any more damage.. This is my only compliant of the weather....right now.

On to the art journal.  I'm working on a wall hanging quilt that will have various images of my art work on it.  I'm taking my time with it, so who knows when it will be complete.  The design plan so far is just to make quilt blocks of various sizes.  Once I feel I have enough blocks, I'll work on the design of putting it together.  

I bought some not so cheap Computer Printer Fabric.  These sheets are white fabric (100% cotton) with a peel off paper backing.  Print your image onto the fabric, peel off the back then your ready to use it in your project.  Folks this was a total impulse buy.  In my haste to buy crafty things, I completely forgot that all I need to do is cut some freezer paper and fabric to 8 1/2 x 11  and iron the fabric on to the freezer paper (fabric should be 100% cotton).  Side note: if you don't have freezer paper in your supplies, I highly recommend it. You can use it for so many things.

The first image I want to share with you is from last weeks post.  I chose this page because it has a lot of negative space for machine quilting (of which I need tons of practice).  I did not alter my photo of the art journal at all, notice how my printer interpreted the colors (left side), completely different.  I actually don't mind it, but if I needed it to be exact, there would have to be a lot of tweaking that I'd have to figure out.

After preparing my block for quilting, I ran into sewing machine problems.  I refer to my machine as "The Brother" (it's a Brother sewing machine).  The Brother was having bobbin thread issues.  I couldn't get it fixed right  and will have to spend time (Googling and Youtubing) today to fix it. ARRGH!

(backside)

Setting that project aside let me introduce you to Lutradur.  Lutradur is this fantastic material that is sorta like fabric and sorta like paper. I've used this in other projects and love the versatility of it.  You can print on it, paint on it, stamp on it, and melt it with a heat gun or use a heat tool to cut away at it.  It's so durable that it cannot be ripped.  I have yet to see if it's simple to cut with the Cricut, I'll let you know. For those of you that sew, this material feels very much like that of a really good stabilizer (stiff sturdy material)

Again, I chose another recent art journal page and printed a close up of the flowers on the Lutradur.  The Lutradur is loaded into the printer just as you would regular paper, there is no backing on. this.

After cutting around the image I put white fabric behind the Lutradur so you could see the image in the picture better.  

In this close up you can see how see-through it is.  My intentions are to machine stitch directly along the petals of the flowers and in the negative spaces. I will not be using batting or any other material along with the Lutradur.  So once I get the Brother up and running, I'll do just that.  

The reason I'm showing these incomplete projects is in hope that this may inspire you to go beyond the pages of your artwork and try something new, and I hope you do.  I would love to hear about it if you decide to give it a whirl.

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you subscribe, leave a comment and visit again. Until the next blog...enjoy!