New Silhouette

My oldest just got back from Disneyland where she was a nanny for a family for a week.

She kept a tradition alive of getting a silhouette while there.  Best gift ever.

Thank you China Khoral in real life she works as a sound editor she has her own IMDB page  Please check it out.  She earned it at the age of 17 she is nearing 19 years old now.   She goes to the same collage I do, nice to be able to spend time with her.  I guess most would think it weird to go to collage with your kid but actually seems sort of normal.  I think she will go far in life she has a great start.

New Silhouette of my oldest daughter

My daughter had a choir performance over the weekend that had her group singing with Vocal point.   I did her hair for it and thought it looked good in profile.  Good enough that I wanted to do a new silhouette of her it had been 10 years since I did the last one so it is about time I do all of my children again.

She has her hair up in a French twist that turns into a a braid that is then formed into a bun.  She had to wear a white shirt for the performance with a scarf.   As you can see I stream lined the scarf so as not to have to cut all the roses but I was real tempted to cut them just not sure it would look good in the finished piece.

In this silhouette she reminds me so much of my grandmother it almost makes me cry.  I took two photos so you could see what she actually looked like and what the silhouette looks like.  I took the two photos after the performance so her hair was rumpled by this time.

This is just neat

A small collection

This is a few of the silhouettes that are in my home. Some I have cut some other people have cut and some are ones I have cut to copy old ones that are in other family members homes. They span from about 1950 to now. They are all family members except the one in the middle that has the silhouettes of 4 people walking with a poem. I have more I need to cut that are from photos of silhouettes in family member homes. I just haven't had the chance to sit down and do that yet. Once that is done there will be about 10 more on this wall. Four of these are from Disneyland over the years.

On a side note the ceramic dragon you see on the bottom left my 12 year old daughter made.

Foil Silhouette

This is for my sister in law for her birthday. Yes there have been a lot of birthdays in our family in the recent past and I am trying to get caught up on them all. Top photo flash off bottom photo flash on.

Twin Dragons

This is for my brother-in law for his birthday. Sort of a yin and yang dragon theme. He loves oriental stuf and collects dragons. This design was originally meant to be a tatoo but I think it looks much better this way. The design is not my own but the scale and the cutting and material sued are my own.

Yoda silhouette

These are for three different nephews. We are going to my Mil's house tomorrow to celebrate the last three months of birthdays so I decided I would make each nephew a Yoda silhouette. I don't know if they will like this type of thing but you know they don't really get a choice on what gifts they get now do they. Ihave got to find my silhouette paper using origami paper is driving me crazy.

David H. and Wendy R.

I showed the Wendy tapes recently. I also thought I would share this a picture I cut of Davy and his wife Wendy this morning. Yes he married a Wendy just not this Wendy. She looks charming and I love this picture that was on face book of the two of them so I decided I would cut a picture out of them. The original photo was of them taking a picture of themselves looking in a mirror so there are things I have edited out and changed. I made a little mistake on the mouth area but if he wants it I will gladly send it to him. I wish them a long life together. It isn't mounted to the red just sitting on it for contrast for the photo.

Scherenschnitte

There is this blog I found the other day about Scherenschnitte. The lady lives in Salt Lake City which is less than an hour away from me. The basic techniques I already know how to do but it would be fun to take a class from her to see how she does it herself. The image in this post is one, Alice playing crochet with a flamingo and a hedge hog, I cut but I used a free pattern she had on her blog. So if you want to make one follow the this link to the specific page it is on. She tries to post a new pattern every Tuesday for people to try. Which is pretty cool and a major thing to do as she would have to design and cut and make a pattern for you to cut pretty generous of her. I am more use to using scissors to do this type of thing the artist craft knife is not as comfortable to me as you can tell my lines are not as smooth as they should be. I also need to improve where the holes are as that was a little ruff and it shows. But that would improve with time I think I had a death grip on the blade. I need to relax a little and it would be nicer. The red and blue are not glued together I just set it there for the eye popping effect for the photo. Because I am new at this that took me about 30 mins. to cut this I am sure it would be faster with practice as I wasn't always sure where to cut next.

Silhouettes

While in California I took some photos of silhouettes that my grandmother had.  I have a collection of family silhouettes that hang in my dinning room.  I wanted to add to these images.  So I took photos of some my grandmother had that I did not.  Some are in real bad shape so I sat down at the computer for a while to fix the images up so you could see what they should look more like  I am not done with this as of yet as you can tell these are splotchy hard to take photos through glass.   when I find my Silhouette paper and scissors I will cut new ones of these and add them to my wall.  Some I have not had the time to fix yet. So some of these are an after some a before but they all had damage.  I have cut new silhouettes of my own family that hang on my wall and other other peoples families.  But that was free hand and not using a computer I like the free hand more but these where too fragile and not mine so I could not bring them home.  With the aid of the computer I can still cut these free hand just by seeing the image on the screen and have a set of them.  Which is pretty cool as my great grandmother I never met so it is a silhouette that I would have never seen in real life.

My mom and aunt

my Tia (aunt)

my mom

My Biza Avo ( my great grandmother)

Silhouettes

I like to cut silhouettes, but I am not as fast as I would like to be at them; it takes me a little bit of time. But this lady is fast -- 30 seconds for a sitting. WOW! Watch the video and see, yes she works for Disney. I cut the one to the right a long time ago. You can make these yourself, but if you don't live near Disney and don't want to cut them, I sell these items in my etsy store. Each is one of a kind image of your family members and sure to be an heirloom (each is a set of two mirror images).

Re-purposed Dress into Butterfly Slip / Prize awarded

So the butterfly girl wants a butterfly bedroom, but that all has to wait a little. Because she is having a real big growing spurt, we made a butterfly slip yesterday and today. I found this yellow piece of lace at an antique store and bought it just because it had butterflies on it. I love the butterfly silhouettes on this.

Then, three days ago I realized my daughter had grown out of all three of her slips. So I came up with an idea to correct this.

Re-purposed

At one time we had a dress that had tulle on it that kept ripping off, and I got tired of repairing it. So I cut off its underskirt, and sewed on lots of lace to give the slip volume to fluff up her dresses. Then took the pattern from the yellow lace, used size 10 thread and a size 5 steel hook and made three repeats of the pattern, also 3 solid rows so I had something to sew buttons to. Then I added crochet straps and attached to skirt. Wish I had taken a picture of the before dress; trust me, this is an improvement. My daughter is happy to have a so-called new slip, especially since it has butterflies on it. The lace is actually sewn on straight; it just looks funny in the photos.

500 Post Prize goes to:

"Javajem said...
Congrats on 500!!!
I always get inspired when I read your blog :)
Wed, Oct. 31, 2007 10:49:00 AM"

You can check out her blogs here, here, here and here

I will be sending out fat quarters, vintage mother of pearl buttons and other items. I need your mailing address to mail this to you. My email is on the side bar so you can send it to me privately. I would love to see what you make with any of the items.

Hand Cut Silhouettes

I just wanted to show a silhouette that I cut recently. The silhouettes fit in a 5 x 7 frame for size reference. I am very pleased with the results, as the photo was not good. I hope the person getting it likes it, too.

These make great Mother's Day or Father's day gifts.

Grand Opening of Vintage Threads Inc.

Vintage Threads Inc. is open for business. There are lots of items there, and I will try to update at least ever two weeks. I am also waiting on more inventory from other artists to place in the store.

Currently there are head wraps as seen in Mary Jane Butters book "Stitching Room". You can order the book here. The head wrap she is wearing on the acknowledgements page is one I made; it is Style D in the long length if you are interested in ordering one like hers. Plus a few other items are in the store: doll/wall yo yo quilts, baby items, silhouettes, hand made buttons, bookmarks, etc....

Soon there will be hand-made lotions, soaps and other potions like that. I really like this lotion; I purchased some from the maker about 1 year ago for my daughter. I was having a hard time finding a lotion I could use on my kids because they all have very bad eczema. I know it did wonders for my oldest on helping her skin not to have ruff scaly patches, and it kept it from cracking. The one we purchased was the chamomile and lavender bar of lotion. So, I wanted to carry this in the store because it is handmade and helps my daughters a lot. That should be in the store in the next two weeks .

There are other items I am expecting, too. I will let those be a surprise to you until I post them in the store.

When it asks for a coupon type in Sunshine; this is only good for today, Tuesday and Wednesday. It will give you 5% off purchase your total purchase, before tax and shipping.

Part 6 Valentine done

The second heart for the Valentine swap I am in at my hand-embroidery group is done. Now I just need to package them up, and get them in the mail.

Front

BackPart 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Now for the other Old Fashioned Valentine swap I am in at MJF. In that one, people sign up for swapping cards. The hitch is they all have to be hand made. I think we are up to about thirty people, so I need to get cracking on that.

Part 4 Valentine heart swap #2

Here is an update on how the heart is progressing. I am doing this one in Russian Needle Punch, too. It will only have three colors: black for silhouette, red for background and white for the edging. The black loops have actually been trimmed to give a little bit of different texture to the piece, more velvet like. It also has different heights for each of the differnt colors. You are not able to see that in photograph very well.

BackFront
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Part 3 Valentine swap WIP 2nd heart

Here is the next heart pattern in the heart swap. This one is more simplistic than the last one. A lot more traditional as well. I will probably do a tiny bit of shaping with it, but I'm not sure yet. These hearts can be used in Crazy quilts.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Time to start decorating.....

Usually I start to decorate the day after Thanksgiving if I am home in Utah.

This year has just been so hectic I have not had a chance to really even start yet.

These nut crackers have been out for about three months on top of my china cupboard in my front room. My children are collecting these. It is a thrift store thing; they have found all of them for less than two dollars each. As you can tell, one has had a rough life and needs a new beard. The girls like him, anyway, and one day I will fix him. They just think it makes him more like the broken nutcracker in the play. If you haven't guessed, this is why my daughter wanted to make Russian needle punch Nut Cracker . The little Santa tin is also a thrift store find; he was $0.75. He is actually two tins; his head comes off to reveal an opening in his body, and his hat comes off to show an opening in his head. That just sounded painful!

If you noticed the wood blocks in the picture, my Vavo makes those each Christmas (and a lot of other holidays) and special events are depicted in these. I have one for each of my graduations, my wedding, children's baptisms, Easter, thanksgiving, 4th of July; you name she has made them. They are one of my favorite things she has made for me. This is an angel that used to hang over my Vavo's mantel in California. She was kind and gave me one a few years back. I love it so much that it stays up year round in my front hall. The angel is always heralding love and good will, in my opinion.
The above ornament stays out year round, too. There are a few new ones that I have received from the cake and pie ornament swap. The silhouette tree is one of those as is the knitted sweater and the pynsanky egg. The big temari ball, top right, is actually from Japan, as is the little one in the back right. The black temari with the red and orange embroidery is the only temari ball my husband ever made. It is only half done, and I think it will be that way forever, but it means so much because he made it. The temari ball on the bottom left is my very first temari; very ugly, but it is my first so I keep it. If you notice the one on the stand, front right bottom, I have improved a lot. I do have to admit that my husband divided the ball and I embroidered it. The wood ornament is from a wood tuner who used to live in West Jordan, Utah. He mainly made bobbins for bobbin lace, but one year he made these, and I got it from him. I actually have a few others from him, just smaller. The paper angel in the back left is from my church tree. It is a giving tree; we help a family out who is less fortunate than our selves.

Dr Pauls Family

Got the dad and the dog, now, and the oldest son again.
I had to re-do the oldest son because oil got on the paper after I glued it; very, very annoying! Oh well. Now they have one nice one and one almost nice one (you can't see the oil by looking or glancing at it, but it will turn brown in time, so best to fix it now I thought. We also decided to cut a silhouette of the family dog. My first attempt at that not too bad.

Dr Pauls Family

Some more silhouettes; I just cut these. It is almost an entire family; I am missing the father and family dog.
The dad is a very busy man; I'll get him later.


If you are interested in silhouettes of your family, please go to my store "Vintage Threads, Inc." link on left side of screen to place an order. (I ship only in the United States).