Swirly Scribbles for Snippets Challenge

Well how is that title for a bit of alliteration?   I raided my bits boxes for a selection of colours to make this card and die cut the pieces several times, leaving me with four piles of bits and pieces on my mat - some of them very small I must say.  If you check out the post written by the clever Di HERE you will see her explanation of a really good way to deal with inserting all the teeny bits back into the spaces in the die cuts.  I did mine in the really fiddly way by sticking the main die cut shape down, then scrabbling through the coloured bits before sticking some of them back into the gaps with the aid of tweezers and glue which was a bit of a fiddly task.  I will certainly grab a sticky sheet to give her method a try next time I decide to go for this technique!!  Definitely a good number of snippets this week.

Sorry I've not posted much lately, nor left many comments but I've not been feeling 100%, hopefully on the mend now though.

Dies - Swirly Scribbles set from Stampin' Up
Sentiment - stamp from SU with large oval punch

Flutter Bracelet

This bracelet was also spotted on Linda's Blog and she has in fact made it in several different colour combinations and in THIS POST she gives links to the pattern source and also useful information about where to obtain the beads.  Mine has been made using what beads I have which I thought would go together and I'm going to try other colours when I have time to sort through my stash.

Again this is a small photo but if you click on the image you can see the larger version

Bracelets

Whilst I've not been too active on the card making front, nor blogging either, I've been beading.  A friend and I went to a bead fair recently and although I didn't buy too much, I was reminded that I have quite a few of the various Czech twin hole beads in my stash which need using.  I had a little trawl around Pinterest and came across lots to see and discovered THIS BLOG which introduced me to patterns I could use and maybe adapt slightly for the beads I have rather than buying more.  If you scroll down through some of the recent posts I'm sure you will see why I like what Linda makes - also why I will have to be careful not to be tempted into buying even more beads!!

This Lucy bracelet is one of Linda's patterns although I've not used exactly the same beads because I didn't have half tilas or silky beads.  Instead I substituted bricks and Kheops triangles.  I've made a couple of other items from her patterns which I might show you at some point.

EDIT - I 'm sure you all know this but if the picture is too small to see it will enlarge if you just click on it

I've Actually Made a Card!

Yesterday the postman brought me an interesting package containing dies which I just couldn't resist from the new Stampin' Up catalogue - Swirly Scribbles which also have stamps to go with them which I have so far resisted!!  I knew as always there were lots of snippets around on my desk and in boxes so I found a scrap and cut out one of the dies which made me think of a leafy tree.  I then stamped part of the tree from the Sheltering Tree set but after inking I wiped away some of the ink from the outer branches before stamping, added some grass and a sentiment before cutting out with a Sizzix square die.  This was layered onto another snippet of matching green.  I knew that somewhere in a little plastic storage box I had sundry left over small die cuts and  luckily there were a few birds and a cat.  The swirly green die cut was added to the tree as leaves, birds perched amongst the branches and the cat quietly wandering by in the grass.  The black and green layer was an odd piece of card which had been embossed and then rubbed over with metallic gilding polish - this snippet was also just lying around unused!

You've probably guessed by now that this card is for the Pixie Snippets Playground which makes me realise it is a week since I posted on the blog.

Birds and Cat - Memory Box dies (think so anyway, cut ages ago)
Swirl - from Swirly Scribbles set by SU
Stamps - Sheltering Tree and sentiment from Balloon set both Stampin' Up
Embossing Folder - Sue Wilson
Gilding Polish - Creative Expressions Citrus green
Square dies - Sizzix

Playground Week 234

I've been missing from the playground for a couple of weeks and in fact I've not even made any cards recently but of course I've still been keeping busy with other things such as sewing and I've also done some beadwork.  Luckily I still have a few cards which I've not shown on my blog and naturally many of them are made using snippets.  Do take a look at the Pixie Snippets blog HERE where as always there are some great picks from last week's entries and the usual lovely card from Di - just love this one with the chicks!  This owl image was left from some I printed using a Polkadoodles CD and it has been layered onto several circles cut from snippets.  The background was an oddment of card which I embossed using a free folder before inking to show up the design.  A simple sentiment and we have a birthday card.

I really must get back into the card making although Mr Mojo seems to have gone on his holidays!!  No doubt inspiration will return when I start to sort through my 'stuff'.

Image - Polkadoodles

Background - free embossing folder from magazine

Sentiment - Tim Holtz

Circles - Tattered Lace dies

Quilt

Sorry ... back to a bit more stitchery today.  You may recall I mentioned the Jelly Roll 'race' quilt a few weeks ago (look for it on YouTube where there are how-to's).  A friend had asked to see my quilt and the easiest way for now was to pop a photo on here although as the quilt is large it was a bit difficult to take a picture in a small space.  I used two rolls of fabrics for this and the quilt measures 64 inches square.

I'd seen these  rolls of Tilda fabric and quite liked the colours, spotted the 'race' idea and decided to go for it.  An original Jelly Roll has 40 fabric strips and usually, I think, quite a wide variety of designs included whereas these contained 24 strips consisting of only 12 different designs which meant once they were all randomly sewn together there wasn't as much variety in the look as I would have liked.  Once it was all put together I felt it certainly lacked 'something' and eventually decided to appliqué motifs randomly over the surface to break up the stripey look.  I drew a template in a couple of sizes, then purchased pink fabric from the same range which picked up on the pink in some of the stripes so that I could scatter the flowers across the area - the quilt was also bound in one of the pink fabrics.

The photo isn't the best but as I said taking a photo of a large quilt in a small space is a bit difficult.  I'm still not sure if I like it or not but I do think it would have been better with a wider variety of fabric designs to start with.  The way they are sewn together really gives no control over how they turn out in the end and to my mind there are too many areas of 'sameness' here although I do think the flower appliqué is an improvement overall.  This was a project I just wanted to try - would I make another?  Probably not although I certainly enjoyed the process which is the main thing.

Dragonfly

This card is really built around the stamped and die cut dragonfly which I found amongst the clutter on my desk - couldn't bear to throw it away!  I found some pieces of the same colour card along with some Centura Pearl in white and put this together, adding a few gems along the way.  Luckily I've not forgotten how to put a card together while I've been on my sewing marathon!!

Background cut using Sue Wilson pierced square die with SW corners  added in the same card
Decorative dies - Tonic
Dragonfly - from memory it was a free stamp and die on a magazine
Greeting - computer generated