Dotty Gift Bag

I'm joining in again on the Spots n Dots Challenge over at Simon Says Stamp's Flickr Group.

I wanted to make a little gift bag so had a rummage through my patterned papers and came across a Recollections set called Today Tomorrow Forever which has a lovely mix papers including dotty and wood papers that I wanted to use for this project. Recently I bought Lawn Fawn's Goodie Bag die and used that to die cut the little bag. It's such a quick and easy way of whipping up a bag in no time - love it so much! Then I cut a panel of wood patterned paper, and from it, die cut the goodie bag handle and used the banner from Simon Says Stamp's Bundle of Stitched Shapes to finish the shape.

Stamp - Birthday Farm Animals (Simon Says Stamp) Die - Bundle of Stitched Shapes (Simon Says Stamp)

After adhereing the banner to the bag I stuck a little branch on the banner and tied the bag with raffia. I stamped the chicken from the Birthday Farm Animals set, coloured it with Promarkers and did a bit of paper piecing.

As the paper I used for the bag has glitter on some of the dots I thought I'd add a bit of sparkle to the chicken using clear Wink of Stella. I tried to capture some of the sparkle on the chicken's head in the photo below.

After having very mild weather over Christmas, it looks like we're having our cold snap now. It was -3C this morning when I went out and we're due some snow tonight - brrrr!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! It has been such a long time since I blogged, but between being busy with other things and wonderful weather which I've been sure to made the most of (never know when the rain will be back again!), I haven't been stamping much recently.

Anyway yesterday my friend Linda hosted a fun scramble over at the Hero Arts Flickr group. At the mention of the word scramble, I seem to turn into a complete butterfingers but had a great time with Linda's paper piecing theme. A little earlier in the day I had made some chocolate and cornflake Easter nests and added mini eggs, so I thought I'd bag a few and add a paper pieced tag.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - CL758 A Little & B3837 Bunny Basket

I pulled out some card in spring\Easter colours and embossed and paper pieced the various parts of the tag. Then I added a little bunny on foam pads and after punching a hole in the top of the tag added some fibres. I don't know what the fibres are but they feel similar to raffia and are in the shape of twine. I'm submitting this card into A Blog Named Hero Layer Cake Challenge and Simon Says Stamp's Animal Antics Challenge.

I'm not the only one enjoying the glorious sunshine here. The garden seems to be full of ladybirds this year



and the flowers and shrubs are showing signs of soaking up all the lovely sunshine too!







Hope you're enjoying lovely weather wherever you are:)

Crazy in two ways for paper piecing!

Below is a birthday card I made for a quilting friend. I was going to put the birthday sentiment on the outside but with so much going on there as it was, I decided to put it inside instead. I’m submitting the card into the Play Date Cafe Challenge Colour Splash Week and the Moxie Fab World Paper Piecing Challenge. This month’s challenge at Hero Arts includes the theme of birthdays.


To start with I stamped the Envelope Pattern in white on red card. Then I stamped this and two pieces of white card with the sewing machine and paper pieced it – yikes those pieces were tiny but I love paper piecing anyway! On a piece of white patterned fabric I stamped the sentiment and hand stitched it with red thread. Then I just threaded up the pieced machine, added a gem and some machine stitching on the black background.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Sew Artsy, Classic Fabric Design, Large Canvas Stripes, Flourish Background, Magical Background & Envelope Pattern.

For the patterned background I white embossed pieces of black card with the Magical and Flourish Backgrounds and stamped the Classic Fabric Design and Large Canvas Stripe in black on white card. These were then cut into strips. I cut a square of white card into four triangles applied the strips, trimmed and put the square back together again. I think I can safely say this card takes the record for the most time I’ve ever spent making a card but I had great fun making it!



Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend!