Upcycling a glass box for Love!

Time for a bit of collage fun, after spotting this sweet glass box in a charity shop. It was filled with potpourri and purple silk, but all I saw was potential despite the strong smell!

I cut some squares of thick card to fit each section - all different - then covered each piece with a page of a bible before getting busy with stickers, beads, threads and my neatest writing ...

The lid is secured with small pieces of creative memories tape and matching embroidery thread too!

Barn owl texture ....

Working on two new barn owls, one will be shown locally later this month with Artwey! 

Feels like I have not embroidered for a long time, I am using my old bernette machine for this ....

And some hand stitches in silver thread ....

New curtain ...

Remember those squares we laid out at church one day? I taught Michael how to pin them together ready for machining. 

And with the first set of 90 squares transformed I think this is the best curtain I have ever seen!

Making my house look cosy from the outside too!

Trixie - another dog portrait!

Trixie has been photographed indoors using a 'flash'. It makes her fur shine, but her eyes have become very reflective!

So while sketching her out in sepia, I filled in her pupils and added highlights to make them shine! 

Here she is in full colour, and ready for a birthday surprise!

A very special handkerchief!

This lovely retro hanky came is a box with three others, and was labeled PURE IRISH LINEN!

I have embroidered it for a very special bed-time edition of Edward Tulane.

I finished the lettering waiting for the local pantomime to start on Saturday!

Peanut The Beagle!

This is Peanut who was fun to draw with so many colours to build up the rich tan!

As you can see from Peanut's photo one of the eyes was clear and one was very much in shadow so I enjoyed the challenge of making the right eye reappear, using the left as a reference. 

White highlights show how the beagle has aged. At this point (below) the drawing looks almost done!

The final touch is the shading on the white parts of the dog, making the dog look three-dimensional in this area too!

I think Peanut is pleased with his portrait!

And so does his owner! 

And now for something square ...

At the end of the year I slipped into The Prayer House to lay out a really big project ....

It fitted into the floor space at the back of all the chairs laid out for Sunday's meeting ....

It also comes in three parts and will make me very happy. Can you guess what I'm making?

Afterwards, all the lose threads were hoovered up and no body knew we had been having fun with 270 8inch squares!