International Art and Soul Challenge 9

This fortnight's challenge is Stitching. That can be real of faux, as you wish.

A while ago, I finally got a craft room. Previously, my crafty stash was in various rooms of the house, and I was finally able to get (almost) all of it into one room. (Yarn for knitting and crochet still seems to live in my wardrobe ...)

The upshot of that is a somewhat renewed interest in stitching. I've been doing a little cross stitch, some Hardanger, and recently was reminded about Blackwork.

As you can see, I haven't gone for the traditional black-on-white option. To be honest, that's a very unforgiving option. Mistakes that require unpicking tend to leave some debris and it always looks poor, in my experience. But, I've got loads of bits of Aida and Evenweave, and a complete set of DMC cotton and rayon threads, so I've got lots of options.

For this one, I've used some evenweave in a rather nice dark peachy colour, and two shades of brown rayon thread. The main squares are my own doodling design, although I adapted the outside border from a pattern I found online here.

I do love the scent of lavender, and I find stitching these quite theraputic. The don't take too long, and are just complex enough to give a sense of achievement, but simple enough to do while indulging in a marathon of whichever TV show I'm currently watching. (This was done to X-Files!)

I do hope you can join us this fortnight!

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 189

Hello! This time, at Crafty Cardmakers, our theme is Floral Profusion! So, anything you like so long as there are lots of flowers.

I had to make a card for a colleague who was loves blue and was having a birthday and leaving our school within a few days. This is what I came up with.

For the background, I cut a Sue Wilson Striplet die twice from some pale blue card, and then cut used the same die to cut from white card, adding that as a central panel. The swirly shapes were cut using some Sizzix dies I've had for ages - they're Sizzlets, and I make a point of not buying them because I really don't like the rubber-backed type dies as I don't find they're very forgiving if you don't cut them first pass. Having said that, I've never had a problem with this set, but then they're quite small. For the flowers, I used a Crafter's companion die, and I cut the computer-generated sentiment using a Spellbinder's die. To finish, I added a touch of glitter glue.

I hope you can join us this time.

International Art and Soul Challenge 8

Our challenge this fortnight at International Art and Soul is to use hot colours - other than that, you can make anything, for any occasion.

My immediate thought when I started this was to head for one of the collections of Kate Knight papers I've got. Many of her designs are extremely vibrant! Having found one that met the bill, I designed a card around it.

See what I mean about vibrant? I wouldn't normally have the confidence to mix magenta and orange, but with her papers, combinations like that just seem to work.

I used a Spellbinder's die to cut the background for the flower, and I think the dies used for the flower are from Crafter's Companion. I used some Pan Pastel to give some shading to the petals, leaves and stem, and that's about it! The colours are so bright, I really didn't want to add anything else.

I hope you can join us this fortnight.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 188

This fortnight, our challenge here at Crafty Cardmakers is to use a sentiment.

I like to keep well-ahead with DT makes, but for the past month, I've been fighting some sort of virus which, while it hasn't kept me from work, has left me feeling drained when I'm at home, so I've done almost no crafting. As a result, I'm short of cards for birthdays that are coming up soon, and defninitely needed to get some done. Fortunately, while the silly lurgy is still lurking, I've finally got some energy from somewhere, and I've managed a day in my craft room, and this is one of the results.

I've got a mixture of very old and very new here! The circle dies here, and the medallion set are among the first dies I bought, while the flower die and the embossing folder I used for the background are fairly new (to me). Some are from Crafter's Companion but most are Spellbinders. When I first bought a die cutter, it was a Wizard, and I stuck pretty exclusively to Spellbinder's dies because, despite the advertising, the Wizard didn't really do a good job of most others. But, that's water under the bridge (or a die cutter consigned to a cupboard), and now I've got a Big Shot Pro which has been cutting most of what I've used with it for the past three years or so!

So, die cuts and some Coredinations card which I embossed and then sanded down, and the whole thing is finished with a computer-generated sentiment.

I hope you can join us this time.