Bionic Gear Bag for mom

Finished another Bionic Gear Bag, this time it is for my mom. I told her I would make one for her and plan to give it to her for Mother's Day, I guess I am early this year. I am sure she will love it. 

For mom's bag I have added some special zipper charms. 3 of the charms are made from scrabble tiles, a B, an M, and then Donald Duck. Dad's name is Donald. Then a photo transfer of my dad about 3 yrs old sitting on an old Ford car. I had made some photo transfer charms a few years back and this was an extra.  

You can see I made this bag Bright! I am very happy with the family of bright colours. I have added 2 vinyl pockets, one in front of the orange pocket and one in front of the first pocket. She can put paper note in the large vinyl pocket and maybe needle packs in the front one. 

This bag is also larger than the original pattern. I have made the bag 12" wide not the 9" as in the pattern. I also added a stiff bottom in the lining so it does not fold in the middle. I got the pattern over at Sew Like a Rock Star. I love her patterns they are so worth it. I joined the site and bought this pattern and the mother load bag. There are so many great videos. I love to watch the videos and seeing how fussy I can get. The Facebook group site has some other good ideas from the members. 

Here is the all zipped up photo. I am also very close to finishing up my bag too. I still have some hand stitching down the binding. 

I have added this post to Crazy Mom Quilts and Finish Up Friday, and Confessions of a Fabric Addict. 

More Charms

Here is a photo of many different charms I have made in the last month or so. A few of the charm swaps I am in are Valentine's Day themed. The little blue puppies are for a Kawaii themed swap. I am off to work on the next batch of charms.

Christmas Fiber Charm Exchange

Here are my charms I have sent in for the Christmas Fiber Charm Exchange on the Two Peas in a Bucket swap board. I made carrot noses with orange clay and drilled holes at the base so that I could sew them on. I used seed beads for the eyes and mouth. The ribbon at the top is so that the charm can be attached or hung. I hope to get a very small table tree to hang these on.

Snow White Charm Swap

I have completed my charms and sent them in the mail for Snow White Charm Exchange. The sign ups were a little slow at first so I took three spots. I will have more charms then I know what to do with. We were to make "mixed medium" so I tried to make my three sets from different materials. The witch is a photo transfer onto cotton and them sewn to red wool. The pick axe is from polymer clay. The bunnies are a photo glued onto a plastic crystal and then sealed with Diamond Glaze.
Here are my Twilight Charms. The host of this swap was changed after I mailed mine. The old hostess has not forwarded my charms and 7 other sets. I am worried they are lost for good. The hostess was changed because there had been so many troubles getting swaps back in a timely manner. I hope this does not happen again. I guess this is the risk of swaps.

Halloween Bracelet

Here is the bracelet that I have made after getting my charms back from swaps. I was in two charm swaps, The Halloween Fiber Charm Swap and the Vintage Halloween Charm Swap. I could not use all the charms. Some were a little larger than I wanted or to fragile. If you made one and do not see your, please know I have plans for it. I am hoping to make a mini book of Halloween and plan to use some in my book and book spin. Happy Halloween.

Harry Potter Charms

I have made more charms for a swap on Two Peas in a Bucket. This time it is the books or movies from Harry Potter. I have the Sorting Hat done here in Fimo Clay. I did not get all the wrinkles in the hat but I was pleased with the face and he way the jump-ring attached. My kids were quick to tell me that Sorting Hat was more gray than brown. This is artist free will and I changed it to more of a brown with sparkle in it. I had real trouble getting a photo to show the face so I placed them in full sunlight.
The second charm set I made is Dobby Socks. I did not watch all of the movie to get the colours just so. But I saw clip were Harry gives Dobby a gray or black sock. I think he gives him another one but it did not match. So here is the mismatched socks. My Son Adam often wears two socks that do not match. He has gray and black ones so his pairs of socks look just like this. If I did not get the sock colour correct it was because I was thinking of Adams mismatches.

Vintage Christmas Charm Swap

Here are the latest charms I have made. These are for a swap on Two Peas in a Bucket called Vintage Christmas Charm Swap . I have use a soft gold sew on plastic crystal. They have two holes, so one is used to attach to the clasp and the other has the red bell and beads. I got this vintage Santa image a few years ago from a fellow mixed media artist. She had a collection of old Christmas cards she had scanned and was sharing.

12 days of Christmas Charms

Here are the charms that I have made for the 12 Days of Christmas. There were two groups of 12 people so I was able to take a spot in each group. We were to do a charm with the number and a charm with the subject, 24 for each group. I did Three French Hens and 10 Lords a Leaping. I had made a big mistake and made the number 4 for the hens. I guess I do not sing the song enough to know which number the hens were. I had to remake it correctly. The lords are traced onto shrink dink art, coloured, cutout, hole punched and then placed in the oven and shrink. The others are all images printed on the ink jet and then sealed with Mog Pog.
I then cut the image to fit the plastic crystal. I found these "sew on" crystals on sale, they were perfect. Hope I can get more. Once they are glued on the back side, I had to put a jump ring in one of the holes. Then I put Diamond Glaze over the image giving it a raised glassy affect. I love that they look like a Christmas glass ball.

Wings and Things Charms

I just got my bracelet together this week from the Wings and Things Charm swap on Two Peas. I think the sign up for the swap was back in April. I did not use all the charms as there were too many. I left off a few of the larger charms. I am sure I will use them on a book spin some day.
Here are the charms that I made for the swap. I took two spots so that I could give my mom one set for her birthday. They were late but she was still glad to get a bracelet and the charms. The dragonfly and the green ladybug are hand made out of Fimo canes. Here are the canes of Fimo that I build and then slice off and piece to use in the charms or a button. A thicker slice can be cut and made into a bead too.

Vintage Halloween Charm Swap

Here are two charms on the right that are finished for a swap on Two Peas in a Bucket. The left has the 20mm shell disk beads that I started with and still show on the back side. I thought they looked like the harvest moon.
I printed small images of an old postcard. Sealed them with Mod Podge (Glow in the Dark). When dry, I used the light table and traced the circle on the back side and cut it out. Then glued the images to the 20mm shell disks. When dry again, I used Diamond Glaze to cover over the image for a good raised glaze. You have to try not to get bubbles in the Diamond Glaze.
Here are the many disk images drying before I can add more beads. I placed the disk bead on a 1 1/2" jewelry pin head and added the gold moon and star bead.
I love to put the charms together using my muffin tins. I have bought a few old muffin tins to use for project trays. I look for them at the second hand stores. This can then sit on my lap in from of the TV or at a table.

Scrabble Tile Charm Swap

I made a few scrabble tile charms for a swap. I did two for Twilight - Alice and Bella. The next one is the Heart group - I used a photo of one of my quilts that had hearts on it. The next one is the Skull group. I did Donald Duck for the Disney group. The Horse photo is my horse done for the Animal group. And the last one is a lily from my garden for the Flower group.
I followed directions for these one a web site. Here is the link http://www.makeandtakes.com/links/scrabble-tile-pendant-tutorial I printed photos and then sealed them with Mod Podge, Cut them to fit the tiles and glued in place. When dry I could add the Diamond Glaze. When dry, glue a hanging bail on the back side.

Pumpkin Charms

Halloween Fibre Charm Swap. Here are the little smiley faces. I am so pleased with how they turned out. This is the first time I have tried Felting. I dyed the wool then started to wet felt the wool into balls. It takes about 10 minutes for each ball. Start with a chunk of warm wet wool and some soap in you hand. Then roll softly and slowly adding more presser to the wool. Rolling Rolling. I could speed up the rolling when it was looking round and starting to stick together.
When the orange balls were made and dry, I got out my jewelry findings. I had some trouble getting the jewelry pin into the balls of wool. I sewed the black beads on for a face. I made the stem out of green beads. I added a silver leaf at the top with the lobster claw clasp. I have a few extra and plan to make some earrings for myself.
I bought wool last week to dye. Here are the dye supplies set out to get started. Below are the pots simmering on the oven. I dyed green thinking I would make the stem from wool but it looked like Florida oranges not pumpkins. I had to dye twice as I did not dye enough the first time. I was surprised how much wool is in a little felt ball. To do my 25 balls I should have dyed two oz of dry wool.

Fibre Charm Swap - anything goes

Here is the last fibre charm swap I was in. I love all the colour in these little beauties. You should click on the image and enlarge it to see them better. The charms I made are on the bottom. I have been doing these charm swaps on Two Peas in a Bucket. I think that I should get my Edmonton and Distict Quilters Guild to do a Fibre Charm Swap. I will have to talk with the program poeple and see if we can do it this year.

4th of July Charm Swap

This is my finished bracelet I made using my 4th of July charms. I think there are some 45 charms on here. I was the only silly Canadian in the group. I say silly because I am very Canadian and proud of it, but the Americans are cousins and good friends. I have some real american cousins.
This is my charm I sent in. I wanted the Red and White ribbions that you see drapped on the banishers of some homes. I knew there would be many flags so I wanted ribbions. I got it by making a cane of Red and White Fimo. After cutting a slice, I gave the ribbion a twist like it is fabric in the wind.

Spring Charm Swap in May

Spring Charm Swap on Two Peas in a Bucket was back in May of this year. I made this bracelet with the charms I got back. I wear it to town often and many people ask me about my bracelet. I started to do Internet swaps on Two Peas this year because I wanted to do a charm swap. I had heard about these swaps in a magazine and needed to find a group to swap with. When I Googled for a swap, this is the one I found. I am signed up for many of these charm swaps and I am sure if you follow me you will see more.
Here is the charm that I made to send in. It is made with a button and glass beads. It is less than 1 1/2" in length. I made some extra and have a pair of earrings to go with my bracelet.

Fibre Charm Swap from May

These are the great fibre charms I got from a swap on Two Peas in a Bucket. The swap was hosted by "cbjenks". We were to make them antique looking and use antique brass findings. Below are the two different charms that I made. I did photo transfer onto fabric using Golden Gel medium matt and printed copies of my images. Some one asked me how I did it one day. Maybe I will do a photo by photo demo the next time I tranfer photos onto fabric.
The two men together are my Grandfather and his dad. They are in Jacksonville FL in about 1913. The man sitting, is sitting on a stuffed crocodile. They were from Exploits Newfoundland and were traveling around North American.
The Boy on the car is my dad when he was small.