Button and Bead Chameleon Wall Plaque

Title: Chameleon

Materials: Cotton interfacing, buttons, beads, sequins

Size:  7 H x 12 W

Year: 2015

This piece was made by sewing buttons and beads with Nymo thread onto a stiff interfacing.

 

Eastern blue bird button and bead wall plaque

This Eastern bluebird measures about 6 inches from beak to tail feathers and has a bracket on the back so that it can be hung on a wall. I made it by sewing buttons, beads, and sequins on a stiff interfacing cut out in the shape of a blue bird. Then more layers of interfacing were added and painted to make the piece stiff and waterproof. It is currently for sale at The Bowery Art Gallery (http://www.boweryartgallery.com; (850) 653-2425) in Apalachicola, Florida.

Button and Bead Hummingbird Wall Plaque

This hummingbird measures about 6 inches from beak to tail feathers and has a bracket on the back so that it can be hung on a wall. I made it by sewing buttons, beads, and sequins on a stiff interfacing cut out in the shape of a hummingbird. Then more layers of interfacing were added and painted to make the piece stiff and waterproof. It is currently for sale at The Bowery Art Gallery (http://www.boweryartgallery.com; (850) 653-2425) in Apalachicola, Florida.

Red button octopus wall plaque

  

This is a wall plaque made out of buttons, beads, and sequins that were sewn onto a stiff Pellon cutout of an octopus. It measures 12 inches wide and 11.5 inches high. I adapted the techniques of Frances Holliday Alford to create this. Many of the buttons in this piece were white before an encounter with red Rit dye in my microwave (you can find this technique on the web). The process was hard on the fingers, but it sure used up a lot of odds & ends in my bling stash. This octopus is an homage to the delightful red octopus who resides at the Monterrey Aquarium in CA, and I made it as a birthday present for a friend who collects all things cephalpod except for the creatures themselves.

Tree frog made from buttons and beads

My friend Gloria and I were scheduled to take a class in embellishments from Frances Holliday Alford (www.franceshollidayalford.com/) last September at The City Quilter in Manhattan, but the teacher cancelled because she wasn't feeling well. After reading her article, "Outrageous Embellishments" in the Dec/Jan 2008 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine, I just had to try out her techniques on my own. So, I stitched the outline of a tree frog on a quilt sandwich, free-motion quilted the background, and then embellished the frog a la Alford. It was too much fun! The frog is about 9.5 inches high and 7 inches wide.