Summer Of Color Week 4 and ICAD

Well, this weeks colours of charcoal grey and pink for the Summer of Color challenge have been an unmitigated disaster!  I have long had a love of Japanese gardens - I think the order and symmetry appeals to my slightly obsessive compulsive personality!  To me the colours conjured up the simplicity and tranquility of Japanese gardens, and I tried to capture the essence of it, leaving some areas unworked and keeping the design quite minimal.  However, what was going on in my head wouldn't transfer down through my hands into the work!  I don't think my ideas gelled really - the colours are too 'thick' - maybe a more watery delicate background, like a translucent colour wash would have worked better.  I don't like feeling this is unresolved so I might have another go at it!

I'm also linking up to the index-card-a-day challenge over at Daisy Yellow.

TAG TUESDAY AND EMBOSSING ON VELVET

This week's theme for Tag Tuesday is Books. 

I love books, I have a house full of them and I'm an avid reader, but it was so hard choosing how to represent this week's challenge.

Eventually I decided on two books but with one theme.  The first book being 'The Samurai's Garden by one of my favourite author's Gail Tsukiyama, and the second being 'Memoirs of a Geisha' by Arthur Golden.  

These tags represent The Samurai's garden.  I embossed a blossom image on velvet and covered a tag with it.  I sewed beads on a smaller tag, in a swirly pattern and added embossed velvet, also in a swirly pattern, to represent the raking of sand and fine gravel in a Japanese garden. I attached this smaller tag to the larger one with a ribbon.  On a separate tag I transferred Japanese text to it and then cut out part shapes of blossom and branches, and folded them back slightly.  I edged the petals in silver and sewed beads into the centre of the flowers. 

These tags represent 'Memoirs of a Geisha' and I used two beautiful Japanese stamps I had in my stash.  I transferred Japanese text to each tag and attached the stamps.  The purple 'bamboo' is cut out of card, marked with ink along the stalks and threaded through a coin made of embossed velvet.  The green 'bamboo' stalks are thin strips cut from paint sample cards, and they are threaded through a brass charm.

I had so much fun embossing on velvet - when I just want to 'play' in my studio I often settle down to embossing velvet for different projects.

I promise you it's the MOST fun you will ever have with an iron!

Here are some brief instructions from threads magazine.  More detailed information can be found at
 http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/4977/lush-embossed-velvet

(Check it out first as some velvet and stamps aren't suitable) 

See - it's easy!