Crystal Necklace

A friend sent me a  beading pattern for a necklace in with her Christmas card last year so I thought it was about time I had a go at making it.  It turned out to be relatively easy to make but as is usual with seed beads it took quite a long time to complete. I am pleased with the result and whilst making it ideas for several variations have popped into my head (as they do!!).  It is a netted tube with fire polished crystals 'trapped' in the centre - I'm thinking of trying one with glass pearls trapped next time and in a different colour. Apologies for the picture - it looks more sparkly in real life!

Funky Hand Masterchef Recipe

This month the challenge at Funky Hand is to follow a card recipe - 3 papers, 5 flowers, 2 buttons, 1 ribbon all seasoned with a sprinkling of pearls/gems. For this DL triple easel card I've used the free paper which is on their blog for this month with two others from their Papercraft Factory CDs.  The flowers are punched from some of those papers and have pearls in the centre, one of the buttons is a tiny one which matches the ribbon (from Papermania) and the other one is a hand made Dorset crosswheel in toning thread.  The  images  from My Craft Studio were printed onto pearlescent paper

Bah Humbug Challenge 20

The folks at Humbug Hall this week have thrown us a serious challenge - to make a kinetic card and I've had a go using a template for a sort of cascade card but not too impressed with the result. I might try something else later because there are lots of great tutorials out there if you search around.  On the whole I reckon that the only people who really appreciate these fancy kinetic cards are other card makers - I know that they tend not to sell from my box of cards so I don't make many.  For this one I printed onto heavyweight card using  Artylicious Seasons Greetings CD and then drew around the plastic template on the back and cut it out.  The penguins on the little tabs (which slot into cuts on the front of the card) were from a My Craft Studio CD and the insert was printed from Seasons Greetings.

I had another brainwave this afternoon and wondered if a cracker would count as a kinetic item - it would certainly move when pulled!! Made from a template in MCS using background and holly image also MCS.



Forgotten Friday 17

For Judith's Forgotten Friday challenge this week I decided to revisit one of my large collection of CDs some of which definitely haven't seen the light of day for a long time.  The one I settled on was Garden Gals from Fee'J Designs and I printed out one of the decoupage sheets. Decoupage is a technique which I've not visited in a while either apart from occasionally adding an extra layer to a stamped image.  I opened the CD in My Craft Studio so that I could make a border using one of the little daisy images on a background to match the check behind the 'gal'.  The main background paper  from the CD was reduced in size to fit the card and one of the layers was cut in pink pearlescent card using a Nestability die and then embossed using a plastic mask with large dots.  The sentiment was printed from one of my many MCS discs and poppped onto a Marianne flower shape.  A couple of crochet flowers, Marianne leaves and a bit of glitter were added as finishing touches.

A Self Portrait

I belong to a Patchwork and Quilting group and from time to time we run projects and challenges - one which is coming towards the final month has been a block swap where each member taking part chooses a block which she would like to make into a quilt and each of the participating members makes her a block following instructions or using templates.  In this way each month one of the participants receives a number of blocks (enough to make into a quilt as there are fifteen people  in the group) and she has only had to make one of the blocks herself and then of course complete the quilt.  I hope I've explained this clearly.

However this last month has really taken me out of my comfort zone as the person whose turn it was gave us all a square of hand dyed fabric and a smaller piece of another colour along with a template for a doll type figure and asked us to produce a self portrait so that she can make them all into a wall hanging for an upcoming exhibition.  Patchwork I've done, applique too and embroidery but the self portrait was something quite new and I'm not sure if I will be pleased or horrified if I'm recognised from the results!!   In case there is any doubt we were  asked to embroider our name at the bottom. I've added a little greeting card in an envelope (made from stiff interfacing fabric), three tiny beaded flowers (using size 15 beads) and a mini knitted scarf using eyelash yarn - the hair on the doll was made using needle felting technique and a bit of wirework came into play for the spectacles.  These things all represent just a few of my many interests and I'm quite looking forward to seeing the blocks all assembled.

Bah Humbug Challenge 19

This week seems to be disappearing rapidly - some weeks seem to be like that but I've managed to make a snowflake card for the Bah Humbug challenge. Background paper is from Artylicious Seasons Greetings CD and the message was also printed from there as well.  I added a border of dark blue card which was embossed using a cuttlebug snowflake folder and then sprayed with some Glimmer Mist (I also added a few touches of Stewart Gill shimmery blue with a paint brush).  Snowflakes were cut from glitter handmade paper using a Marianne die.

Forgotten Friday 16

Well it is time for Forgotten Friday again on Judith's blog although now it is Saturday.  Blogger was 'down' yesterday so wasn't able to post this card until this morning.  I was reminded when I saw Judith's card last week that I too had bought a box of Scrabble  style tiles a good few years ago and hadn't actually used many of them so dug them out of retirement to add words to this card.  In doing so I discovered there are many more Qs and Js etc in this set than there are in the real game tiles so not really sure what will happen to those but maybe I can paint over them and stamp something but it would probably be easier to bin them!!  I was asked for a Get Well card in the week and realised that all I had were a couple of 'feminine' style ones so decided to do this one which might be more male orientated.

The image is a digtal one but I'm afraid I can't recall where it was from because I usually print out a whole page of images to make best use of the card or paper and keep the spares in a box so this 'ruff' looking dog has also been lying neglected.  Background papers are from my stash, the words at the top were printed from the computer and I added a Marrianne die cut corner.