OH BABY!

The theme this week at H2H is Babies.  How sweet!  As sad as this sounds, this is the first time I have ever made a baby card.  It was tons of fun and as usual, I got in over my head with details.  I must be in a mood for patchwork lately as I have continued that scheme here as well.

This will also be my first entry to The Shabby Tea Room challenge blog.  The theme was to use 3 in a row, which I was able to accomplish with the tiny quilt blocks which were made using a punch.  There are the buttons too, but they are 4 in a row.

I made two cards, one for a boy and one for a girl.  They are both the same design, I just changed the colors slightly.



To make the patchwork, I cut 1/2" squares from 4 different patterns, all from the Sweet Pea paper pack.  I glued them onto cardstock making sure I made a section large enough to accomodate the stamp I would be using.  For the smaller squares I just glued the squares in groups of 4.

The elephant stamp I chose was not an outline stamp but a solid, so I stamped him onto the back of my cardstock in the area where my patchwork was.  He just ended up being backwards which for this project did not matter.  If I were using an outline stamp, I would have stamped the image directly onto the patchwork in a coordinating ink color.

After being sure that my project was entirely dried, I cut out the elephant and turned him over so the patchwork was facing up.  I estimated where his eye and mouth should be and drew them on using the Blush (one shade darker than Baby Pink) marker for the girl and Heavenly Blue for the boy.  I again stamped the elephant onto coordinating paper and cut out the ear portion to attach to the front of the elephant.

For the four-squares I just used a square paper punch and punched them out ensuring that all edges were even.

I used a Copic Multi-Liner pen and a ruler to hand draw stitches around each square and just hand drew the stitches around the elephant and his ear.

I finished each card off by adding buttons, ribbon and a tag with the sentiment.

Supplies (all CTMH unless noted)

Paper:  White Daisy Textured cardstock, Baby Pink and Heavenly Blue Cardstock, Pattern Paper from Sweet Pea paper pack.

Stamps:  It's A Zoo (C1360), Miracle (D1140)

Inks:  Heavenly Blue and Baby Pink ink pads, Heavenly Blue and Blush markers, Copic multi-liner

Embellishments:  Pink buttons (CTMH pink button assortment), Blue bottons (CTMH blue button assortment), Baby Pink and Heavenly Blue safety pins (CTMH, retired), Heavenly Blue Designer Ribbon (CTMH) and Sweet Blush ribbon (PTI), small tags are from my stash.

Tools:  Spellbinders square scalloped lace die, Papertrey Ink large scalloped border die, Cuttlebug.

From Your Heart to Ours

I am a big fan of the "From Your Heart to Ours" challenges at H2H.  It gives us more than just a project to think about.
This week for the "From Your Heart to Ours" challenge,  we are to feature a Home Decor item along with a little story or information about us and our artwork.

So, just a little info about myself.  Hmm, where to start?  Well, I am a fanatic about ancient history.  Yep, that's right.  When I am not in my scraproom you can almost always find me with my nose in a history book of some kind.  I am particularly fond of ancient Celtic folklore and traditions but I also love the Greek and Roman civilizations and culture.  Not only do I read about these subjects on a regular basis, but I am compelled to take notes as well, so I have notebooks full of information that is useful to me for later reference.  I know that it seems a bit odd, but I just can't help it, I'm a history nut!  I have a niece who rather enjoys my stories about faeries and the summerlands,  which of course I have read about since I was probably her age, so at least I have one family member who shares my passion.  I also enjoy playing the violin and piano and obviously I love paper crafting as well.  ;-)  I try to incorparate my interests into my artwork when it is possible, so that is why you often see faeries somewhere in my artwork.  (Even in todays project there is a wee bit of whimsy, can you find it?)

My project for this week is a wall hanging with a monogram.  I just completed it this afternoon, so it is something I made new, however,  I based it from a previous wall hanging I created this past fall.  Click here to see my original.

I used Silhouette paper which has the black and creamy bamboo colors.

The rosette is made from pleated Vineyard Berry and Black Ribbon with a black corduroy brad as the center.

The monogram "M" is cut from Black and Bamboo cardstock using my Cricut and then I dressed it up with Pink Paislee rub-ons, as I did on my original.  The vintage postcard pattern is from the Once Upon A Springtime collection by Graphic 45.  I mounted it onto black cardstock and then used a "stamp" edge cutter.

The entire center circle is attached using two layers of foam tape to give it some height.  All the edges were distressed using Vanilla Cream pigment ink except for the center circle where I used black ink.

Supplies (All CTMH except where noted):

Paper:  Silhouette pattern paper, Black and Bamboo cardstock, postcard paper is from Graphic 45 - Once Upon A Springtime

Inks:  Black and Vanilla Cream pigment ink

Embellishments:  Vineyard Berry and Black pleated ribbon, Black grosgrain ribbon, ivory crocheted trim (from stash), white lace trim (from stash), Black corduroy brad from the black Mini-Medley, rub-ons are from Pink Paislee.

Tools:  nail file used to sand edges even and smooth, Cricut to cut "M", Bonding Memories glue pen and rubber brayer to get an air-bubble free bond.

Thanks for stopping in!

Out of shape

H2H Challenge

The theme this week at H2H is to create a NON-rectangular or square card.

 

My card is in the shape of a bird and I feel I might need to explain a bit of what went into the creation of this card.  I found a picture of a bird that I liked and then sketched it onto a piece of cardstock, then cut it out.  I used this as my template.  I traced my template onto chipboard, but I didn't have a piece large enough for the entire bird, so I used two pieces of chipboard.  I then traced the bird again onto cardstock and glued the chipboard onto it like puzzle pieces.  I then pasted a piece of plain copy paper onto the top of the chipboard, so I created a kind of sandwich to keep the pieces together.  On the copy paper I used a ruler and made a grid pattern to use as guidelines.  I cut 1" squares of paper from two of the patterned papers from Mistletoe and attached them in a patchwork pattern onto my grid pattern.  Some of the pieces hung over the edge of the bird, so I trimmed them close, then once I had the entire bird covered, I used the sanding block to even all the edges.  Next, I once again traced the bird onto cardstock and another piece of patterned paper and glued them together to be the inside of the card (I needed it to be a little heavier).  I used a hinge on the tail so it would open (backwards unfortunately).  I used the poinsettia flowers from the Mistletoe embellishment pack and cut each of the petals into individual pieces then pieced them together to create the wing.  I used an artificial holly sprig to dress up the wing a bit.  I used cranberry ribbon around his neck.  The little brooch looking embellies in the Mistletoe embellishment pack gave me an idea to go through all the costume jewellery I have accumulated over the years and add them to my papercrafting items, so I used an earring that I removed the post backing from for the birds eye.

Supplies used are listed above.  Cardstock color is Colonial White.

~Shari