Author Archives: mlwilkie

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About mlwilkie

Software Developer, Mother, Wife with keen interest in art, design and crafts of all kinds.

Art projects for your kids: Making Cards

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It has been a chaotic first full week back at work this week, I definitely got writers block this week. For the first blog of the week, I wanted to start sharing art projects I do with my son. Doing art projects with my son helps us do something together, I am not really a “play” kind of person – so this give me some mummy time, and I hope it allows him to be creative later on in life.

About 12 months ago, I stopped buying children’s birthday and thank you cards. Instead my son and I make the cards. Our favorite cards are monster birthday cards, each one is unique. We start with a standard white card, a body for the monster made out of adhesive foam. Then for the arms, hair and legs my son helps by instructing me the shape he wants and he colors in the arms, legs and hair. We add glue on eyes.

For his birthday recently we had a dinosaur theme and went to the Life and Science Museum in Durham. For the Thank You cards, I got my son to draw dinosaurs on adhesive foam using dinosaur stencils. He then helped cut out the pieces and we added spots.

Inside we used fabric for a background and color card for the area in which we wrote our note. We also included a photo of the child in the card so they have memories to keep as well.

Today, he was off to a girls birthday party, we decided to make the card match the strip birthday paper we used. We added flowers to the card, using left over buttons I have from the Four Seasons Quilt. My son was able to cut the strips, choose the buttons he wanted to use and do all the glueing (with supervision).

I think this helps add a personal touch to the kids gifts we give.

I would love to see and hear what you do with your kids. I will continue sharing other art projects we do and some of the products/books we have – we are trying to recycle when we can.

Backyard Garden Design: Part 2

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With the weather now cooling – it is extremely pleasant in our back yard. It is the perfect time design and planning of our backyard.

Currently, our yard really does not have a whole lot of structure and the grass is not existent (just weeds). We have a finished deck, a vegetable garden (left side) and a play area (right side) all done. This is what it looks like – I love the trees

        

Our goal is just to enhance the area to the left and middle – by adding stone paths around the vegetable garden, two grass layers that step into each other and a circular area for entertainment or place to relax. The last one will be towards the back of the yard.

Here’s the design:

The grass step areas, I want to have concrete step slabs on the each, with slate tiles added into the grass for contrast and visual interest. Towards the bottom of this design, you can see the circular area which will be intertwined koru’s of grass and stone; and a seclusion wall around 2/3 of it. This project circular space will be a latter project. First of… is the layers and the stone path for the vegetable garden

We started the first steps this weekend.

  • Needed to re-stain the decks rails (DONE)
  • Mark and string out each of the layers (DONE)

Additional steps over the next few weekends:

  • Order and get the wood
  • Order and get the stones, gravel and dirt
  • Lay out the step walls
  • Put in french drains behind each step
  • Fill in with soil
  • Order and get sod
  • Add the additional vegetable garden
  • Place the boarders for the vegetable garden path
  • Fill with stones

I will post pictures as we make progress.

Progress on Quilting Projects

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I am back at work, finally, after about 3 weeks of work. I was definitely very tired in the evenings this week, and I couldn’t post as often as I wanted. I enjoyed being be back at work though and no longer just lying around the house.

Today, I thought I would update you on my quilting projects I started couple of weeks ago.  I previously had posted about my 3 projects I undertook while recovering from surgery. I wanted to show you the progress on these projects, which have been moving slow but steady. Feel free to give feedback or I would love to hear other ideas or see pictures of any of the projects you are working on.

Quilt 1: Four Seasons Quilt

The four seasons quilt has been enjoyable project. I love working with texture and seeing the panels come to reality. The story of an apple tree through the four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn (Fall), and Winter has started to come together. I have two panels completed; Spring and Winter.

I designed Spring for the apple tree to be in full blossom with new leaves, and at the bottom new grass and dandelions. The one thing I will say, is I have a long road ahead to sew on all these buttons (yes, there are about 250 buttons to make the leaves and blossoms).

  

The Winter Panel, represents a leafless tree and snow has started to fall. I used two types of brown ribbon for the branches and sequins (snowflake and circle sequins) for the snow.

Each of the trees (the canopy and trunk), and the ribbon grass/branches were machine sewn on. All the sequins, buttons, flower buds are hand-sewn.

Two panels to go – Summer and Fall, which I have finished the machine sewing, I just have to do the hand sewing. Each of these panels will have ~250 buttons for leaves and the apples are red wood beads.

Quilt 2: Our Quilt – Grey and Orange 

To get started, I got an idea based on an image of a square design I liked, while searching google. From there, I worked out the measurements I would need to mimic the design, as there was not a pattern with the image I saw.

I am using a 12 inch square and I am making a king size quilt. I will post the measurements and design once I complete it.

Now, with the recent arrival of fabrics from spoonflower.com, I have been able to start the grey and orange quilt for my husband and I. I love the new fabrics. Here are pictures of the first squares.

    

  

NOTE: It was so hard to find good grey and orange modern looking fabrics. If anyone knows of any other fabric stores that have a good selection I would love to know about them :-).