Showing posts with label horror crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror crafts. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

How to make a painted block quilt, Part 2: Painting



For Part one, Click here.

Hey, sorry it's been awhile since I continued this tutorial.

The painting part can be easy if you're going the color page route, or it can be challenging if you pick the custom image route, but I will give you some tips. So again, I recommend going with what you're most comfortable with.

With either method, you need the items listed in Part One.

In addition, you'll want to place a piece of white paper beneath your square on the clipboard to absorb the paint that bleeds through.

This is what the paper looks like after the paint bleeds through, so you see why this is important.

You will also want a piece of scratch paper to check your colors and make sure the paint is flowing. This also serves to check your colors and to clean your white after it's been in contact with other colors.



Color Page Method: 

As outlined in part one, you can take a page from a coloring book and transfer it onto the square with carbon paper.

Once you've done that, use your fabric paints, (Tri-Chem and/or Aunt Martha's) and simply color them in like any page on a coloring book.

Be sure to hold paint tube vertically, and don't squeeze too hard.

Here are some my aunt and cousin did:







Custom Image Method:

Be certain to transfer every visible shape and change in color of the image. This can take forever, but it makes the process so much easier.



Once the image is transferred, you utilize the same principle as the color page method. It's just a more complex color page.

Order of painting:

To avoid smearing paint all over your hand and across the square, work left to right and top to bottom.






Blending:

You will have more difficulty in getting the correct color sometimes. For example, in my People Under The Stairs Square, the smokey-cloud thingies in the background were this odd blackish purple color. I was able to duplicate it by layering.

This is an example of when blending the paints is a good idea.









Also, blending is great with faces.



However, sometimes you DON'T want them to blend, like when you're doing white lettering on a dark background or any sort of eye detail. In that case, you need to wait for your square to dry. It takes a full 24 hours, but you can probably get away with 8.



Dimension:

Things like wood and hair require use of progressively lighter and darker shades of the same color.




Patience:

Some squares are just a pain because they are so detailed and they take forever.



Courage:

The majority of the reason that this square took so long was because I kept chickening out and procrastinating on working on it. When I buckled down, it wasn't really that hard.



I've never really taught painting before, so if you have any questions, please ask and I'll do my best.

Next post will be on the actual sewing, which will start in a few weeks. This will be my first time, so it's going to be scary!


Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Unleashing Desire comes out in 7 days and other news!



My hands are sweating, just like they do before every release. Will you guys like this one? Will this book help or harm my career? So many silly worries plague an author when a release is imminent.

Mostly though, I'm excited. This might be my favorite cover of the series, and early reviewers love it.

I'm also excited for you to read the story. In this book, Razvan and Radu, twin vampires separated for seven hundred years, finally reunite. Also, a certain plot thread left open in book one, Wrenching Fate is finally resolved. I've been sitting on this secret for over two years (6, if you count when I started writing the series) and I finally get to reveal it!

So be sure to Preorder UNLEASHING DESIRE !


Also, I'm having an awesome release party on Facebook on the 16th. Go here to join in the fun!

In other news, my birthday is Friday! I'm going to be thirty-::cough::

And my Horrorquilt is coming along. I have seven and a half squares to go.

These are the ones I've done lately:




I should be finishing my Phantasm 2 square tonight. I hope. 


I also need to get on making part 2 of my "how to make a painted block quilt" posts.

But for now, I hope everyone has a wonderful week and I hope to see some of you at my release party!

Friday, June 10, 2016

With Vengeance Giveaway, plus quilting update!






Happy Friday, peoples!

First off, I have some excellent news. WITH VENGEANCE is currently the #1 Amazon bestseller in the category, "Heavy Metal!" YESSS!!!

Also, Amazon is having a giveaway with 2 Kindle copies up for grabs. Go here to enter!

As for my quilting, I'm still painting away. So far I have 12 Squares.





 
Whew! Almost halfway there. But I also have much going on in the writing front. My publisher has asked me to write a short holiday story in my Hearts of Metal world. After that, I need to get cracking on Scandals with Bite book 5.

Anyone else have exciting plans for the weekend?

Sunday, May 29, 2016

How to make a painted-block quilt. Part 1.

Aside from writing books, I also make quilts. It's something my mom and grandma taught me to do when I was little. In fact, I learned in the daycare they owned together.

Here's one I made for my boyfriend for Christmas:




Okay, I kinda lied. The only part I did for that one was painting the squares and tying the quilt. So if you have an amazing awesome grandma, this process will be even easier.

However, I finally got a sewing machine and I'm learning, so this next quilt I'm working will be ALL me. Anyway, I'd been promising a few people that I'd write a series of blog posts explaining the process. So here we go.

Supplies that you need right away:

1.) Ball point fabric paints.
I use both Aunt Martha's which you can get in combo packs on Amazon, and Tri-chem, which you order from their site.




You can also get this nifty case to hold them all.


2.) Washable Fabric pencil

3.) Quilting ruler.

The square one RULES!!





4.) Cutting mat




5.) Rotary cutter




6.) White cotton fabric.

How much you need depends on how many squares you'll cut.

Tip: You can get 42 13x13 squares out of a Queen flat sheet.

(Just get a bed sheet from a thrift store. They work great)

7.) Carbon paper

8.) The images you want to use.

Ex: 30 for a Queen Size, 42 for a California King.

You can either pick pages from a coloring book, or download any image you want off the internet.

If you're not using color pages and printing off your own, then you will need:

9.) Some photo program like Gimp, Paint.net, or Photoshop

Then, of course, you'll need access to a color printer to print the pictures.

10.) A clip board.

11.) Clippies: Um.. you, know, these things:



Supplies you'll need later:

1.) Fabric for the strips that frame your squares

I'm going with this:



2.) Fabric for the back



3.) Quilt batting for the middle




4.) Yarn or Embroidery floss for tying.

I prefer the latter.




5.)Needles

6.) Sewing scissors

7.) Sewing machine, or an awesome grandma who has one.

Pictured above: The most amazing woman in the universe.


8.) Access to a quilting frame... or study the DIY methods to tie a quilt without one.

Um, we'll get into quilting frames in a later post.

Okay, let's begin:

Step 1: Select the images you want for your quilt. Since I'm a hard core painter, I'm doing the covers of my favorite horror movies. Here's my pinterest board for that. Horror Quilt

However, for easier painting, I recommend coloring book pages. My aunt made quilts with Disney characters, for example.

If you're going my route and duplicating full color images, then you'll need to adjust your images to 8 1/12 by 11 and 300 dpi resolution in your photo program. After selecting the pictures you want to paint on your quilt, either print them out or take them out of your coloring book.



Step 2: cut the amount of squares you need for your size of quilt. For the quilt I'm making, I'm doing 30.



Step 3: Line up one of your fabric squares on the clip board, then place a piece of carbon paper, inky side down on the fabric. Place your image on the carbon paper. Make sure everything is centered before securing the layers with clips.




Step 4: Trace your image onto the fabric.



Step 5: Remove the image and carbon paper, then place a piece of paper on the clipboard underneath the fabric square because the paint will bleed through.


Step 6: Paint the squares.

The envelope was scratch paper to test paint colors. More on that later.


For tips on painting squares, see Part 2!!!