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
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!
