It's been a While!

 A few years ago, I took over running a craft group in a local u3a. I'd been a member pre-lockdown, and once we got back to meeting, the organiser felt she no longer wanted to do it, so either someone else had to, or the group would end. I agreed, and as a result, I've had to try out lots of different types of crafting and I rarely seem to be able to do something simply because I want to. However, we don't meet in August, and while I've had to think about the projects we have planned for next term (crochet, clay, acrylic paint amongst others), I've managed to get a little time to do some things I really enjoy.

I volunteer in a hospital one day each week, and work with two people there who happen to have the same birthday which is next month, so I decided to do each of them a birthday card.

The first uses one of my favourite techniques - making flowers using dies designed by Susan Tierney Cockburn. I've been collecting her dies since her first company (Sizzix, I think) and have a pretty good collection now. One flower I hadn't spotted in her previous collections was this one;  it's called 'Southern Magnolia'. I did hope I could make it look a little more like the magnolia blossom I love and see around here for just a week or so each week, but that didn't work. (The ones I'm familiar with are more bulb-shaped flowers with magenta at the base rather than the yellow she used.) Anyway, I had a go, and I do like the effect even if any resemblance is small. I used Susan's speciality card - in white for the blossom and coloured with Promarkers for the leaves, and added detail on both with Pan Pastel. I completed the flower with artificial pollen. I've struggled to find that recently, so my use in flowers may be limited! While it may not look much like a familiar magnolia, it's quite a dramatic flower, so I chose to keep the arrangement simple, and just matted and layered. The card was sized to fit the design and isn't standard, but that's not an issue since it needs a box rather than an envelope!

This second card is completely different! I've used a pattern from Stitching Cards . I've bought quite a few of their designs over the years, and I do like the style - especially those, like this one, which 'fill in' areas rather than just providing an outline. In this instance, I've added a sentiment using one of their True Type fonts, and completed with a border created by pricking holes around the rectangle they always use to surround their patterns. The threads are machine embroidery threads which I've collected for a long time and I now have a decent range of colours.

The second card is for a man. I know cards for men is a problem for many cardmakers. It's something I've always struggled with. The top card is for a woman, and I chose to make a pretty flower - something that's pretty universally acceptable among women. When you look at the Stitching Cards website, or designs supplied by pretty much any company, designs for men tend to fall into just a few categories: sport, alcohol or scantily-clad women. The last option isn't one I'd use for anyone, and I struggle with the others. I don't know any men whose life revolves around drinking alcohol to the extent that they'd love to look at a picture of it. And there are many men who aren't interested in sport, or who are so involved in a specific sport that depicting it is actually very difficult because the details would be wrong. And, with both those options, you have to know enough about the individual to decide on 'football' or 'cricket' or 'bowls' or 'rugby' or 'fishing'. There's no universal type of image that works for all men the way flowers and butterflies or 'cute' works for women. So, he's got a geometric stitched design in non-girly colours, and I think it works.

That's it for now. I need to get back to blogging here more regularly, although I do blog regularly on behalf of my craft group here: Crafty Harrow People

Easter and Anniversary Cards

 The first few are Easter cards from patterns by Stitching Cards.

This is a new pattern from Stitching Cards. I thought it was cute!

And an older, although new-to-me pattern.

And a couple of cards from a company called Form a Line. They've got quite a few free patterns, and in fact, I think the designer is the same as for Stitching cards. In both cases, I've used the free Stitching Cards font to add, or in one case, change the greeting.

This one was just the floral wreath.

And this one originally had a Happy Birthday greeting which I replaced. All the stitched cards used machine embroidery thread.

Stamping this time, and not a clear stamp in sight! The central image is a stamp by Crafty Individuals. Once it was stamped, I masked it, and then added further images using stamps from Stamperia (music and the right hand lace strip) and U Mount (butterflies) and the crackle (Crafty Individuals again). All images were stamped with Verrsafine Clair in Acorn. The background shading was added with Distress Ink. I added further colour to various elements using pastel pencils. The background paper came from a CDRom I've had for a very long time called Crafty Image Emporium. I tweaked the colour in Photoshop elements. 

And finally, an anniversary card for my OH. The background was made ages ago and not used. There's Distress Ink, a stencil and a stamp involved there. The diamond shapes were cut using Spellbinders Nestibilites. I added a gold border using an acrylic paint pen. The digits were cut using a die set from, I think, The Works. The sentiment was stamped using a pre-inked stamp I've had for a very, very long time. I bought it before I was comfortable stamping! I added some colour to the leafy bit using a Posca pen.

See what happens when you're planning to be out all day, and then the weather means you have to stay in and craft instead!

International Art and Soul Challenge 146

 The challenge for this fortnight was set by my team mate Christine, and she wants us to make a Christmas card. 

The amount of time I spend on Christmas cards varies depending on how close to Christmas it is, but there's still a while to go now, so I've been making some stitched cards. 

The tree and pot pattern is from Stitching Cards and is copyright to them. I bought the pattern a few years ago, and I love it, so this year, I've done several in different colour schemes, and I've added the stitched frame to complete the effect.

The varigated thread I used each time is from Sulky. I do love their Blendable range. The gold thread is from Anchor.

The metallic thread this time is silver and from Krenik.

In each case, I've varied the way I've stitched the pot, and I've added some glitter gel pen to complete the effect.

So, quite a good start on my Christmas cards, but I've still got a fair number to do. I do hope you can join us this time.

International Art and Soul Challenge 142

 The challenge for this fortnight was set by my team mate Craftygirl, and she would like to see projects with a Transport theme.

I struggled a bit with this. My stash contains a multitude of flowers, butterflies, landscape bits, fairies, but not a lot in terms of modes of transport. I solved the issue by going to Stitching Cards where I picked up a couple of patterns I could use. I made this card for my brother-in-law.

The stitching design is called Sunset, and while it suggests using all metallic threads, I used what I had to hand. For the clouds, I used some holographic gold thread, and for the rest I used various shades of Sulky varigated thread. I love how that gives that random shading to the sun, reflections and even the sails on the yacht.

The spotty paper if from a very old Papermania pad, and the sentiment was stamped using Versafine Clair ink and a stamp from a Creative Expressions set.

I do hope you can join us this time.

International Art and Soul Challenge 117

 The theme for this fortnight's challenge is Fancy Fold and it was chosen by my team mate Christine. 

I generally struggle with these. Unless I use a die to cut an unusual arrangement, I find this type of card hard. But, I found a template for a diamond fold card on the Create and Craft website and decided to have a go.

The fold isn't perfect (the display section isn't quite square), but I decided it was good enough, and it was a perfect  size for an image that's been languishing in my craft room for a year or two. It uses a Hobby Art wood mounted stamp for the image. I'm pretty sure that's amongst the oldest stamps I own. When I first decided to get into stamping, the biggest choice was among wood mounted stamps, and I used to visit Blade Rubber Stamps in London occasionally to peruse their selection. It's a Mackintoshesque image which is a style I love. I coloured with pencils - possibly Polychromos - as I bought three blues to try out, but then decided that a complete set was prohibitively expensive. The greys and greens are probably Derwent Coloursoft.

To complete the card, I stitched a couple of rose heads using part of a pattern from Stitching Cards and Sulky thread.

So, thank you, Christine, for getting me out of my comfort zone (even though I added comfortable things to the basic design.) 

And I hope you can join us this time.

International Art and Soul Challenge 113

 I'm hosting this fortnight's challenge at International Art and Soul, and I've chosen the theme, 'Use Thread or Beads'. One obvious option is something stitched, but if you don't want to do that, there are lots of ways of using thread and beads that involve other techniques - including beads as flower centres or eyes or just for decoration. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

I kept things fairly simple, stitching a couple of designs from Stitching Cards. I like a lot of their designs and given my love of all things Mackintosh, it's not surprising I chose this one.

I used two different types of thread here: the flower heads use a general machine embroidery thread in a crimson shade, and for the rest I used something new to me - a Sulky no. 12 which is varigated in shades ranging from pink and blue through to lilac and grey. To complete the card, I used a Sue Wilson Mini Striplet die to cut out of the white card and placed a silver panel behind. The, I matted with red, and that was that.

This is another Stitching Cards design, but this time I've gone full rainbow! The petals and leaves use machine embroidery thread, but the pots and frames use another Sulky varigated thread - this time in a rainbow range. I used the same striplet die, but this time just mounted the top layer on to some green mirror card directly.

And, for something completely different, I made a Valentine card. (I know, that was months ago, but I tend to make my cards well in advance and then schedule my posts, and I'm typing this on 14th February.)

This card uses a different source - a book called Fold and Stitch by Christa Bushousen. It's an odd mixture of pricking, stitching and tea bag folding, but there are several heart designs. I adapted this from a three-heart design in the book. I'm kind of traditional in my Valentine cards - they've got to be anonymous, although I daresay my husband isn't fooled by the cards that turn up each year. This uses just the Sulky thread I used in the rose card above. To complete, I cut 'be mine' using a set of Tonic dies. The top layer of each uses some card I shaded using a gelli plate and distress ink. I wasn't happy with theoverall result, but I think it worked well for this. I'm just disappointed the set doesn't include punctuation as this really needs a question mark!

I'm looking forward to seeing your thread and bead creations.

Paper Embroidery Cards

 I love some of the designs available on Stitching Cards, and have spent some time lately on a variety of their designs.

Two geometric patterns and a floral vine. The vine pattern is available free to try out if you're interested. 

And, I got started on my Christmas cards!

For most, I used Sulky varigated thread, but others, including first, the snowflakes and the grey on the robins, use some machine embroidery thread.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 247

The theme for the last challenge of the year is Christmas.

I recently discovered a site which sells pricking patterns for paper embroidery, and some of the designs are gorgeous. Needless to say, I had a few, three of which are Christmas themed, and this is what I came up with.

One of my favourite colour combinations here - I do love turquoise and gold!

I do love this pattern! To back it, I've used mirror card and I stamped a repeating tree pattern on some white card using a Kaleidoscope ink pad in Berry Blaze. In fact, I liked this so much, I did another in the same colours (although I mixed up the order a bit.)

 This time I stitched on some pearlescent grey card. Again, I've matted with mirror card, and the backing this time is a silver and white vellum that I've had for many years.

And finally, there's this trio of trees. I stitched this in a multi-coloured thread, and completed each tree with a silver star. Again, I've matted with mirror card, and again used some of that white/silver vellum in the background.

One of the things I like about paper embroidery is that it's easy to travel with. I did most of the stitching for these while my husband and I spent a few days at the seaside this summer. Most of the crafting I do needs too much 'stuff' to be practical to take, so this is ideal!

I do hope you can join us this time, and I'd like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2020!

International Art and Soul Challenge 72

The challenge for this fortnight is to make something for Christmas, but not to include an image! So, we'd love to see lots of sentiments, backgrounds, textures, but no focal image.

I've been enjoying paper embroidery lately, and recently discovered that Stitching Cards do True Type fonts of stitching patterns. So, I've tried one out here to create a (not very) original sentiment for a card.

The frame pattern was pricked using a brass stencil from Joke de Vette. I used some gold-coloured machine embroidery thread for both the circles in the frame and the text. I used some Lurex thread for the scallop, and I don't think I'll be doing that again. I stuck with it because I liked the effect but it's very hard to use as it twists, stretches and breaks very easily. Apart from the stitching, I've added some mirror card and that's it! (Sorry about the reflection of my finger and phone case in the mirror card - I really don't know how to avoid that!)

I do hope you can join us this time.