I’ve Moved!

Head on over to http://thebellamodiste.com/ for future posts!

I’ll be posting more frequently and will be sharing a variety of fun things from tutorials, things I’ve made, to fun vintage finds!

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Mural Decal 1 of 4- Done

I’ve been working for a few weeks on redecorating and updating one of the bathrooms in the house. Even after removing the very outdated wallpaper border, and painting a much brighter shade of blue, I still have much to do. Part of the new decor will be a series of murals, depicting mushrooms, and various plants and a few snails thrown in for fun. Yesterday afternoon I completed the first of the panels.

Rather then painting the design directly on the wall, I painted it on to an adhesive backed fabric that we use for removable/re-usable decals. This way, when I tire of the designs in there, I don’t have to paint over them, losing all my work. Rather, I can just peel them off, and save them or move them to another room.

I sketched out the room, measured the areas I had to work with, cut my material to size, and just started sketching.

I laid down a thick base coat of color, and then working with thinned paint, applied washes to shade, and again to highlight, a time-consuming process to be sure, but gave me the effect that I wanted.  After I was done painting, I sprayed it with a clear coat of polyurethane to protect the paint from scratches, humidity, and cleaning.

I’m looking forward to completing more of the mural, and will share pictures as I get it all completed.

What is on the worktable this week

   I’ve been working for a few days on some linoblock designs, my first steps into an art form that I’ve found intriguing for some time now.

Those who know me well, are not terribly surprised that the majority of my designs are of mushrooms. I did mix it up a little and included a snail in the mix this time. Mr. Snail is rather my favorite of the four blocks, and prints up beautifully.

These two are my first and second blocks, I’ve learned a lot since these first two, carving technique, design dos and don’t. When you are learning as you go, and teaching yourself from tutorials and how-to articles, you make a lot of mistakes, though…as I’ve heard before “we aren’t making mistakes, we are making experiences”. I’m hoping to take a class at my Community College this coming fall semester, I’ve heard that they’ll be offering a printmaking class for those of us that want to learn more. I tend to learn hands on, so that would give me the opportunity to learn “proper” techniques, and the process a little better, as well as try out other aspects of printmaking.

I hope in the near future to start offering prints of these and other blocks in my Etsy shop.

*aaaw so cuuute!*

Raven at 9 weeks old-an early birthday present from my parents to me. Labrador Retriever- the sweetest puppy, she looves to give kisses. We’ve already started training some(I’ve had her a week now)- housetraining is going well. She is a chewer, and a wanna-be digger so when she is out you have to keep an eagle eye on her- whew. She looves the water- tonight she was playing in her giant water bowl and she proceeded to grab the edge and dump the whole bowl of water on the floor and started trying to play in it. So cute..hehe

Antique Gazelle Embroidery Pattern

I’ve been working off and on scanning in and cleaning up my collection of antique embroidery patterns for preservation and future use and have found a few that I believe are out of copyright, so I’ve decided to share some of them here as I can and as I find more.

This gazelle is from the early 20s I think, very art deco in design- I’ve never seen this design before, and can’t find reference or pictures for anything like it in the vastness that is the internet.

Click for full size- the framed version is 8 inches across and the single gazelle is 6 inches.

If you use it please post a link in the comments- I would love to see what you do with it!

If you know anything about this design please share!

Bella  Modiste

Don’t wanna sleep!

I’m getting pretty excited about last nights ideas- I came up with my next fabric collection at about 2:30 yesterday morning…wrote it down- sketched out my ideas and decided to sleep on it…woke up this morning and got excited all over again!  Today I’ve drawn maybe 20% of the illustrations and worked out my colors…I think this might work.

It will be my first *big* collection- all the designs I want to do and with the color waves- will take it to around 40 designs…

Since I’m only in the very first steps of this…I only have the color palette to share…

Very excited about this…

I know what I am doing tomorrow!

-Mod

Retro travel!

I was so excited to win the Spoonflower weekly contest (eep! 8 weeks ago already!), so much so that it has really sparked some many more ideas.

I have 19 designs up on the site right now,  6 of which I completed this weekend…and expect to be in by next week. I’m very excited about this most recent collection…and am most eager to get it in and go over it with a fine tooth comb….:D

I’ve been contemplating all of the possibilities with my design work…not only can I offer my fabric, but embroidery patterns to match! I can just see my travel trailers hand embroidered, too fun!

As soon as I finished(well tentatively finished, until I get the printed fabric) this collection on Saturday, I started another…heh

This is opening up so many possibilities, along with learning more and more about my design programs it is forcing  me to think outside of the box to create *different* styles then I am used to doing. I’ve always kind of been stuck in the “must be realistic looking” box, it is really nice to finally break out and actually be able to create different styles…and have them turn out properly! 🙂

So, right now- lots of ideas rushing about in my head..bumping into one another and making lots of noise…time to post this and go write this all down so I can sleep tonight!

-The Bella Modiste

Exciting!

I’m very happy to announce that my first collection of fabric has been available for purchase on Spoonflower.com for just about a month now.

(Click the photo to go to my collection on Spoonflower)

Winners!

I’m excited to announce the winners of my pattern!

#12 Caroline

#49 Sharon Chapman

#56 PEA

#107 Lisa Lectura

#113 Lisa W.

I’ve contacted each of  my winners, and sent each their patterns.

I hope that they will have as much fun making him as I did designing him.

Cheers!

The Bella Modiste

Would you, Could you

Pretty please vote for me in the Spoonflower “bugs” fabric design contest?

The design is Hopalong Cassidy By: Naomi Wilson….

See!—>

*ahem*What!? I am a little bit excited! I already ordered a swatch of it, that will be in next week…..eeek!

I had so much fun designing, coloring and choosing the layout….

Hopalong is about 4 inches wide, so really quite large.

If I win….I’ll have another giveaway, this time for a fat quarter, eh a 1/2 yd!

Yes. I am unashamed in my attempts to bribe you. Completely and totally unashamed.

Now go vote!

*hehe*

The Bella Modiste

Edited to add:

It should be noted that the fabrics appear in random order on 3 pages, so you may or may not see  my design on the first, or even second pages.