Planting Happiness

Darkroom Door's Gardening Vol. 2 surprisingly lead me to painting and embroidering upon canvas.

The basic technique was as follows:

1.  Layer Gesso onto a small panel of torn canvas.  

2.  Stamp image (i.e. watering can) onto canvas.

3.  Paint image using acrylic paint.

4.  Re-stamp image over the paint and heat set.  I'd recommend using a stamp-positioner if you have one.  I didn't and it was a bit tricky.

4.  Embroider stems and flowers.  I used lovely variegated threads by DMC.

5.  Stamp sentiment, affix to card and embellish with lace.

Don't be too worried when you don't end up with a perfectly crisp image.  Stamping on canvas can lead to a more painterly effect.

I used simple straight stitches and colonial knots to create the pot full of flowers.

Random dabs of green helped fill out the second flower pot and I added some dashes of green onto the pots to balance the work.

Simply Stitch

Darkroom Door's Stitch Word Block stamp is FABULOUS!!!  This is the first time I've worked with a word block stamp and it was so much fun!

I stamped the image onto a vintage dressmaking pattern with a navy ink and used this as the centre point for the card.  All the papers are from the same dressmaking pattern and have been layered and hand stitched together.

I used the sentiment from Darkroom Door's stamp set 'Stamper' and altered it to say 'buttons' instead of stamps!  The word buttons along with the letter 's' were used from the word block stamp.

I have a huge collection of buttons, so it was wonderful to put some of them to use to embellish my work.

Here's a mini quilt I created.  First I stamped the word block stamp onto dressmaking tissue paper and added the Singer sewing machine from Darkroom Door's Dressmaker stamp set.  I then layered the stamped panel onto fabrics and embellished it with hand stitching and lace.