This week wasn’t a huge quilting week for me but I did get to try out a few things I purchased last week…in other words, I played.

I wanted to try out the water soluble Inktense Blocks and the Shiva Painstiks with the rubbing plates. I found a way to use both. The Inktense Blocks look like this…

When they dry, they become permanent ink.

I liked the idea that I saw on a Quilting Arts episode of making a small art piece using the Inktense Blocks as background with a freezer paper mask. I wanted to use a template that was quick and easy because by the time I got to play with this, the kids were due home in 30 minutes. I decided to use a Sizzix die so I wouldn’t have to cut intricate pieces. So here is my small piece of muslin with a freezer paper die cut of an ice cream cone.

I used the coloring blocks around the mask. I went lightly and deliberately made it look like tie dye with the “lines” of coloring. Next time, I’ll go for a different look that has less of an appearance of lines. Once it was colored, I used a wet paintbrush to spread the ink and get a more intense color. Next time, I’ll also try for a darker, more intense look.

Because I still had a few minutes at this point, I pulled out my Shiva Paintstiks (oil paint sticks) and the rubbing plates. I was able to use these to add detail to the ice cream cone. Before I took the mask off, I outlined the ice cream cone with a very fine tip pigment marker…

This was the final result as far as coloring goes…

I will probably not finish this since it was a practice piece but I do think layering this and quilting it would be a great start to a postcard or a very small wall hanging. So now the challenge is to think a bit bigger and come up with more ways to use these versatile tools.

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As far as the Couch To 5K running program goes this week, I finished week 5 yesterday. Yesterday’s run had two 8 minute runs plus some walking in between. It was the first time I ran more than I walked even if it was just by 1 minute! Tomorrow is two 10 minute runs with walking in between.

Yesterday I found my gardening groove! I went out to the vegetable gardens and cleared out the weeds and landscape paper from last year. These are ready for rototilling and planting.

This morning I went out to Walmart and bought 3 hanging plants for the pool area. The pool area needs plants that can handle a full 8 hours in the sun. I have found that these Million Bells plants do the trick. I also like going to Walmart because I can get each plant for $12 and when (not if) I kill these, I only want to kill $36 dollars worth of plants and not $60 worth of plants. LOL.

I got home from Walmart and spent a half hour weeding my favorite flower bed and the only one in the backyard…Everything has been hit up with Miracle Grow and it’s looking pretty good. Next week I’ll tackle the front flower beds.

What are you all up to this week?