February 8th, 2010 by iHanna
Green buttons, green fabric.
Here is photo of the whole thing from above, it’s not giant, but not small either:
What you get for helping out with quilting and sewing:
Homemade chocolate! Deeeelicious!
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February 4th, 2010 by iHanna
I was finishing my postcards for the swap today and thought I’d design a postcard backside that I could print. They turned out really great, and it fits two postcards to one page. Download the PDF, print it on cardstock and glue it to your finished and handmade postcard (or make your postcard directly on the cardstock you printed). Ta-da!
I made two versions. One that’s for the DIY Postcard Swap, and one regular that you can use for your extra postcards over and over again in the future! Enjoy!
* Download Postcard backside - for the swap!
* Postcard backside - for all your handmade postcards!
I created the promised postcard group pool at flickr tonight, it’s here, but I won’t add my postcards yet because I want them to be a surprise to those who get them. Just a sneak peak for ya above, the backside and the yummy pile… I had so much fun making mine! Go ahead and join the flickr group if you want to, and add your cards when they are finished (photographed or scanned). Thanks!
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February 3rd, 2010 by iHanna
When someone I know are really creative and does cool things I sometimes have to share that on my blog though I primarily blog about what I create and do here. I’ve blogged many times about my quilting mom and her creations and mentioned my cousin Charlotta and her beautiful Sculptural Lamp before. Now we’re back with another school project from Charlotta!
It’s a inspirational quilt with lots of photos that I call The Landscape Quilt. She came to me with the background fabric, the idea and found photos printed and ironed to fabric.
We put it together in 1.5 day and today I thought I’d show you how to make a Photo Inspiration Quilt on your own, weather you are Landscape Architect or not! I want to make one for me too, but it took a lot of time to make it, so I will store it in my pile of great ideas one day to be…
1. Chose a theme. Our theme is nature - inspiration for a landscape/garden. Yours could be your own garden, your family, knitting (adding yarns too), kids, postcards and letters that you scan and print, artists you admire, rainbow colors or a collection of photos from a trip or holiday. Anything, the sky is the limit!
2. Print your photos onto fabric in some way (there are a lot of products to chose from) and cut them all out.
3. Background fabric. Plain white or very light is good if you want your photos to “pop”. Though we thought that just adding the photos would be a bit boring and “photo album like” so we decided to add already (rotary) cut fabric strips to add a bit of color. The stripes are mostly nature greens and soft colors.
4. Pin each fabric strip down and start sewing.
Trying to fit a quilt into a regulare sewing machine is, as you might know, hard! It’s a lot of work, turning, sewing, moving all that fabric through and then sewing again. Drink water, take breaks.
5. Place the photos where you want them! After all the background stripes were attached we went back to “the drawing table” ie. the floor, and added another layer - the photos printed on fabric.
-Where should this one go, where does that one fit in? Some where left out, all couldn’t fit!
Photos on fabric - yummy inspiration!
6. Pin the photos in place. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but there are special needles for quilting. They are longer and have bigger heads. They are great for when you pin together several layers to quilt together. We added the batting at this stage too, so when attaching the photos with a straight stitch on the sewing machine we also quilted the layers together!
7. Time to sew again!
We took turns sewing, because there were lots of images and wrestling with the fabric.This is my cousin doing some serious stitching on the sewing machine.
Then I had a go at it, sewing some:
And this is where we decided to take a beak for the day and eat something. I hope you will be inspired to make your own photo quilt! I will post the finishing result photos of the Landscape Quilt next week!
If you want to sign up for the DIY Postcard Swap do it right now, I will close it a bit earlier than announced because I’m going away this week end. Sign up ends Thursday night! Check out the tumblr blog Good Mail Day for postal inspiration!
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January 30th, 2010 by iHanna
This is where I’ve been sitting all day. On the floor with all my paints out. I’ve been working on my batch of postcards for the DIY Postcard swap I’m hosting (There is still some room, feel free to join! For inspiration Daisy Yellow has some great links to mail art on her blog!) but also a few spreads in my art journal just for fun. This is one of them:
First spread: Braving the elements! My page turned out messy, but it’s an experiment. The most fun was finally using a spray bottle of water on wet paint and then blotting away the water with a tissue. This creates a very cool pattern with the gesso peaking through.
Also experimented a bit with indoor spray paint, since I had the prepared for a mess today. I bought this bottle of Memories Mists from a scrapbook shop in Stockholm. The color is called Strawberry Daiquiri and it was surprisingly bold red that I really like. The bottle bleed a bit but I would recommend this if you want to try Spray Painting in winter time or in a smaller scale.
A second page, with lots of polka dot silk papers and another one of these paper cuts I did from a dictionary:
My paper cuts before using them. I used these shapes as stencils on the art journal page and then glued it in for extra fun. I didn’t feel like painting another deep blue page and didn’t want to cut snowflakes, so I did mine like this. Just fun shapes. iHanna shapes.
January’s crusade is called Braving the elements and it’s about playing with simple materials and using those elements in your art. The assignment is to Make your own tools, use them and to combine several previous techniques from past crusades to make a richly layered two page journal spread. Some techniques used on this spread is dry brushing, layers of gesso, water bottle spraying on acrylic paint (first time I tried this - love it!) and cutting out a quick stencil (snowflake or other free form).
I’m off to work on the summer issue of the Embroidery magazine today, but will have to surf a bit more on other crusaders posts and you should too. They are all in the sidebar of Michelle Ward’s crusade page. Don’t miss the cool crusade video for example over at illustrating stories. ♥ inspiration!
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January 27th, 2010 by iHanna
Sitting here with a cup of coffee. I’m overwhelmed with the response to the postcard swap, and wow, thanks for all your kind comments on my Dixieland Tree Embroidery! I’m glowing with pride. Each comment you write makes me want to sew 100 stitches more!
If you read my blog last year you might remember that I did two small ♥-quilts back then and promised to have them up for sale “soon”. Hmm, this is not soon but a year later I know! Well I think right now is perfect!
I’ve decided that if I have a shop there should always be something fun to buy there, and these heart quilts are so cute and ready to be wall-hangings in a beautiful home somewhere in the world… Where will they go? I hope they will find good homes. I’m hoping I will get to update my shop soon again - with a little surprise I think you all will like… Stay tuned.
Right now I’m working on a few new heart quilts, but in the mean time I’ve added these two (finally) to iHanna’s Etsy Shop! Please check out my personal favorite Valentine Pink and Green Quilt and the Scottish inspired Valentine Amore - coz’ Valentine’s Day is around the corner!
Also check out these blog buttons recently added to my Link Love Page that you can find in the navigation above:
Check out all of them - there is so much to read and to be inspired by!
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January 25th, 2010 by iHanna
I’m proud to present the Dixieland Tree Embroidery with hand stitched patchwork border, batting as backing and lots of small stitches all around:
Dixieland Tree Embroidery ready to hang! What do you think?
While working on Dixieland Tree I have really had many beautiful moments that I cherish in my heart. I was visiting my friend Maria when I really got into this embroidery so my memory of that summer week with her is filled with images of us sewing together. We did sew at lots of different cafés, in front of the TV (watching Dexter) and me sitting at her balcony with a glass of wine by my side - all the time this embroidery in my hands. Oh how much I loved making this embroidery! I hurried back after the warm brisk evening walk, thinking up new branches to add to it.
Sometimes I needed to do other things though, so I promised I would just thread another color of floss and do a couple of more stitches before I would stop… and then I continued to sew until my back hurt and my fingers were prickled with holes. I hope you recognize that feeling of love for what you create, it’s a magical feeling that takes you into the flow of creativity. I wish it for you all!
This is the spot where the sun hits the tree first each morning - lightening up the beautiful colors and welcoming little happy bees for pollination breakfast. :-)
I took some more photos though the light is quite a problem here in winter. I finished the border just recently and had to take the photos when we have so little day light here. I want to take new photos when the sun comes back because I think the close ups and details of the embroidery would look much better if photographed in sunshine! That said, I have added contrast and light in Photoshop so if you want to, please have a look at even more details of my embroidery below.
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January 23rd, 2010 by iHanna
Early this summer I read through Danny Gregory’s latest book An Illustrated Life - Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers (2008). It’s a big book, a coffee table paperback with 270 pages to look through, though the paper is matte and not glossy as is usual with this type of book.
All ye oldies have seen or know about this book already, but as I know many of you are new seekers of creative inspiration so I wanted to mention this book before I forget.
As it is a massive read I took it in in chunks. Inside this book you will find presentations of fifty different artists who keep a sketchbook in some form or other, all of them answering the same questions about their sketchbooks. What size, papers, pens and brands do they prefer? How long have they kept a journal and do they keep different ones for different projects? Is the first page more difficult, do they draw in public and what kind of things ends up inside the book?
If you know you love reading the answers to these types of questions you’ll adore this book for sure! Some said they only do precious drawings in watercolors in their books, others doodle with a bic pen, some artists mostly write/take notes and yet others mix it all together inside their blank books. The answers are varied and interesting, but after a few presentations I needed to close the book as it gets a bit tedious to read through similar answers again and again.
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I Hanna write about my passions in life; writing, visuall journaling, crafts, mixed media, happiness and creativity in general. 
In 2008 I self published a book called A Creative Year. It's availible from lulu.com and amazon.com. It is filled with creativity and inspiration. More information here.