I belong to the 'Lost Art Creations' yahoo group, which is an online group where members can share their art that uses Lost Art Creations (LAC) products. If you are not familiar with this company, you can view these products on LAC owner Terrie Lightfoot's PictureTrail or in her Etsy Shop. The LAC yahoo group is a very nice cozy spot to find some cool swaps to join, get advanced notice of new LAC products, plus receive group-only specials and sales. There are also group challenges and a free vintage image to download every month . . . and of course yahoo chatting & sharing! Follow the link to the yahoo group above to find out more and to join the group.

Earlier this year, LAC owner Terrie Lightfoot put out a swap call for a Mixed Media fabric book Collaborative -- All players will make 5 original pages. Theme is Favorite Quote(s) -Create 5 original pages (one sided), they can all be different or the same, just make it your BEST work. I will create the covers of the book and assemble/bind the book. Measurements of each page you create must be 4-1/2" WIDE x 6-1/2" TALL. They will be attached to a fabric page base. Do not forget to sign your pages! Use paper, fabric, lace, beads, buttons - whatever your heart desires just be sure to use at least 1 LAC image and 1 pretty bit (ribbon, trim, charm, etc. from LAC) on each page to create your pages!

This was a very fun fabric art project for me to do while I was visiting Wolfe Island a few weeks ago. At the cottage, there's a big table in the dining area that looks out over the st. Lawrence River. Before we left on vacation I had picked out possible fabrics, batting, quotes printed onto fabric, embroidered handkerchiefs, beads, threads, LAC fibers, and a hand sewing needle to bring with me. I also printed images from my favorite LAC Waterhouse image sheets (paper) onto plain fabric for this project. I limited myself by choosing in advance, but I think that was truly helpful. I spent some very enjoyable time on the island working on this project when Steven was checking out something with one of the boats! When I came home, the only thing I added was decorative machine stitching around all the edges. I think that really finished the pages off nicely. I was not satisfied with them until I did that. (click on any photo for more detail)

My process for creating these fabric pages was to measure the size I needed for the exchange, then snip and rip the fabric. I cut batting a little bit smaller -I like the warm and natural flat cotton batting the best. Then I chose a embroidered handkerchief for each piece of fabric. I had picked up most of them at a tag sale, but the one below was a gift from one of my swap participants, Janice Perkin in the UK. Her gift actually gave me the idea of using them on each page! I glued or sewed (or both) the handkerchief down onto my fabric page with the batting in place behind it. Then I glued or sewed the LAC image and the quote for each fabric page in place, trying to match the image with the quote as best as I could. In some cases I sewed beads, or embroidered a bit, and in all cases I choose a fiber from LAC to embellish the page.

I cannot wait to receive my completed book back! There are 5 of us in the collaborative exchange and each book will have 1 of our pages. Terrie is creating the books for us -- thank you so much Terrie!!!!!!