Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight on ... Silhouettes

That's right. This week, we want to see your silhouettes. And we're sponsored by Stitchy Stamps who has some fabulous silhouettes among her fabulous creations.

I've used one of Stitchy's silhouettes - she comes from a set called 'A Touch of Class'.

I printed the silhouette, some leaves and the frame onto film. The background includes some files from Crafty Image Emporium CD, and some PSE generated trees and shadows and is printed on paper. I've layered them with foam pads to get some depth. The backing paper is from the same CD, but I've changed the colour to give the yellow background. The flowers were cut with Marianne Creatables dies and the ferns were punched.

And some news about the Spotlight Challenges! They'll be moving to their very own blog as of next month. That's right, Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight Challenges has a new home, all of its own! Challenges on both the main and the Spotlight blogs will continue to run for a fortnight, starting on alternate Mondays. So, bookmark or follow the new blog so you don't miss the exciting new spotlights we've got in store for you!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Incy Wincy where they want punches or dies (fern punches and flower dies)
Lexi's Creations where they want flowers,
Tuesday Digital where they want punches (ferns)
Do You Stack Up where 'anything goes'
Papercrafting Journey where 'anything goes'
Stamp Something who want us to 'use flowers',
Crazy 4 Challenges who want us to 'use flowers'
My Grafico where 'anything goes'.

One Stitch at a Time Challenge 51

This week at One Stitch at a Time, we're previewing the March collaboration - a great free gift if you spend $10 in the Stitchy Bear shop during March.  The theme of the challenge this week is 'Mothers'! Remember, Mother's Day is coming up at the start of April, and that's only one reason to make a card for a mum.

I cheated a bit with my image. It was intended as an Easter image - complete with Easter greeting, but I thought it'd be ideal as a Mother's Day image, so I used the magic of digital images to remove the sentiment.

Isn't it a lovely image? I coloured it with Promarkers, then added some further shading with my Coloursoft pencils blended with Baby Oil. I dabbed a little Versacolor ink in Cocoa in the background with a shaving brush. The paper came from a CD called 'Flower Power', but was originally in two varieties - black on white and white on black. I used PSE to change them to brown/peach tones. I've used some Spellbinder labels and the In Spades medallion die, as well as some Spellbinder swirls, and made the flowers using some Marianne Creatables dies, all in my Wizard.

We're sponsored this week by Bunny Zoe who's offering a gift voucher to the lucky winner.

Hope you can join us this week, and don't forget to check out the other DT creations!

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

Do You Stack Up where 'anything goes',
Papercrafting Journey where 'anything goes',
Stamp Something who want us to 'use flowers',
Crazy 4 Challenges who want us to 'use flowers',
My Grafico where 'anything goes',
CD Sunday who want Art Nouveau - well I think that pretty much sums up a lot of Hope Jacare's work!

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.