Promarkers Challenge on Going Buggy

The image is a Ching Chou Kuik image from Sweet Pea stamps, and she's coloured with Promarkers. I added a little Glamour Dust to her wings and necklace. The paper is from Personal Impressions, and the flowers were made using Blossom nesties and Promarkers, and finished with some pearl strings and more Glamour Dust.

The mats were white coloured with Promarker (in Cobalt Blue) around the edges.

Promarker Colours Used: Pinks - Antique Pink, Cocktail Pink, Salmon Pink, Baby Pink
Blues: Cobalt Blue, Powder Blue, Arctic Blue, Pastel Blue
Greens: Mint Green, Pastel Green (for the background) with Vanilla over both to change the colour a little.
Skintones: Sunkissed Pink, Blush, Almond

I used a lot of blender in this one - fading out the blues in her wings and the pinks in her lower sleeves.

This card is made for the Letraset challenge on Going Buggy.

One Stitch at a Time Challenge 50

This week at One Stitch at a Time, we want you to show us your shapes! And none of them are to be squares.

We're sponsored this week by Joanna Sheen who's offering a £10 voucher to the lucky winner, and she offers free worldwide postage!

The theme this week was Natalyia's bright idea - no squares. Definitely something that takes me out of my comfort zone. So ... what did I do? I turned a square into an octagon!

The inner octagons were cut with my Nesties, but the scallopped one is the largest in that range. So, to cut the card, mat and paper bigger than that, I had to use some Maths! (I'll put a bit of that at the end of this post so as not to  bore those of you who're not interested!)

The gorgeous image is from Delicious Doodles and is available at the Stitchy Bear store. I coloured it with Promarkers, but added some extra shading with my new Coloursoft pencils. The backing paper is from the Flower Power CD which I got from Crafty Emma's store. The butterflies are die cut - not sure whose die maybe Quikutz? I've covered the lower layer with some fantasy film and used the fact that the die doesn't cut too well, leaving all the cut out areas in place. The upper layer is thin card which did cut properly, coloured with Promarkers.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Digital Tuesday who want die cuts (the various nesties used in layering and the butterflies)
Bunny Zoe who want Spring Flowers
Creative Cottage whose theme is Fabulous Florals
Charisma Cardz whose theme is 'Spring has Sprung',
Totally Papercrafts who want digis
Digi Doodles where 'Anything Goes',
Mami Doodles who have a Flower theme,
Allsorts who have a 'nature' theme.

Now, the Maths. I'd be really interested to know if this is useful to anyone. And if you spot a problem or don't get what I'm doing, please let me know.

I started with a square card - I measured it at 148mm square.

To cut an octagon with sides all length a mm, we need to find out the measurement b mm. The external angle of an octagon is 45`as marked.

We know that a + 2b = 148mm.
From basic trigonometry, we know that sin(45`)= opposite/hypotenuse of the right-angled triangle = b/a.
or sin45=b/a
which gives b=a x sin45.

Substituting this value for b into the first equation gives:
a + 2(a x sin45) = 148 mm
a(1+2sin45) = 148 mm
a= 148mm/(1+2sin45)
Using a calculator, a=61mm (rounded)
Therefore, from a+2b =148 mm,
b= (148-61)/2 = 43.5mm.

So, to cut an octagon with 61mm sides, you need to cut the corners off your square, 43.5mm from the edge of each side.

Doing the same calculation for different square sizes gives the cut points for different sized octagons.

In general, a= L/(2sin45 +1) and b= (L-a)/2 where L is the length of side of the square in mm.
Or, if you don't like the look of ths trig function,
a=L/2.41, and b=(L-a)/2.

Doing Things Back to Front

I was working on a DT card a couple of days ago, and I had some leftover bits. Then, I spotted an image stamped for me by a Secret Santa in a cardmaking group, and I thought it'd work well with the leftovers. I can't show you the original card yet, but here's the 'extra' one!

Because it was stamped for me, I don't know whose image the girl is. Sorry! She's coloured with my Coloursoft pencils. The papers are indirectly from the Flower Power CD I got from Crafty Emma's a while ago. I say indirectly, because I've recoloured them in Photoshop Elements. (They were originally black and white.) I love the result so much, I'm really using them as a feature rather than just a backing. I've used one of my Label Nesties, and a Marianne Creatables die for the flower. The sentiment is a sticker from a previous Secret Santa.

No challenges for this yet - I may come back in the morning and add some.

Hope you're all having a great weekend. I expect you'll hear from me a bit more than usual this week since it's Half Term, so I'm at home all week.

Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight on ... Plastic!

Whose idea was this? Oh, yes, it was Judie's! This spotlight is about using plastic on your creation. And I had loads of good ideas which promptly fell apart when I tried to put them into practice. Still, I tried some different options, and came up with this.

So, where's the plastic! Well, there are several bits here. First, the silhouette image (a freebie from My Grafico) was printed onto film. Then, it was backed onto some 'Shimmer Paper' from Craft Creations which definitely has a plastic coating on the front to give that gorgeous shimmer. Next, there are the flower shapes. I stamped a background stamp onto shrink plastic, coloured it with Sakura Stardust pens, cut out the flowers using my nesties and trusty wizard, punched a hole in the middle and shrank them. They're finished with some flower brads. The background (which isn't plastic) is some card given the same treatment (except the shrinking, of course) as the plastic. The butterfly is a (plastic) peeloff stuck onto some white gauze which I cut out, and the whole thing is finished with some card (Martha Stewart border punch) and some ribbon which, given I'm sure it's a manmade fibre, I'd be inclined to call plastic too.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Sir Stampalot who want 'All Creatures Great and Small'
Digi Doodles whose theme is 'Nature'
Delightful Sketches whose theme is 'Get Punchy' (border punch and die cut flowers)
My Grafico where 'Anything Goes'
So, what're you waiting for? Get out your shrink plastic, your friendly plastic, your sweetie wrappers or whatever else you can think of.