We'll be spending Easter with my Aunt as usual and the weather up there promises to be snowy, again, so getting prepared for anything. Have posted one more vintage style book mark and now must get my mind set for this weeks lesson in Sumptuous Surfaces which will be working with colour. Off to do some long awaited Housework - ugh!!

All finished (I think)

I love the finished result and it was such a pleasure to work, I'm not sure the photo really shows the rich texture of the beads and stitches, I'm thinking I will have this framed, sure I can find a little spot for it.

Bookmarks

I made these as little gifts to take to the NEC

A Pear in Progress

Started adding the 'filling' to my pear last night - it's beginning to look almost edible, in a crazy kind of way! I'm only using three texture stitches - french knots,bullion stitch and spider stitch and adding beads between the stitches which are done in different thicknesses of thread to give texture. I did try a couple of other 'new to me stitches' but my brain wouldn't let me turn them to left handed and they just didn't turn out right - you never know they could be new stitches for a left handers stitch dictionary.

My new stash

Added to this stash are some promarkers and a couple of cases to keep them nice and tidy!

A lovely Day

Aching legs and an empty purse but all well worth it for the day we had yesterday at the NEC,Viv came down from the north west and Annefrom a more southerly part of the country with her friend Val, we met up for lunch between attempting to relieve the brave stallholders of their goodies, I think Anne won the prize for this in buying up a stash of the new Tim Holtz distress inks at a ridiculous price, by the time we got there - all gone ! - but we don't hold it against her, we just started at the wrong end because you just couldn't get up the aisles at the start.Anyway I now have the pleasure of trying to find homes for my new goodies. I just have one surmountable problem now, my cousin Sandi is coming from Canada in two weeks and I'm meeting her at Alexander Palace in London at the big craft show on the Sunday, perhaps a lottery win would be useful!!

The little Gardener.

I made this card this morning for the charity stock and then looked for a challenge to fit it and I found mo's challenge blog, this required at least 3 punches be used in making the card, I counted and yes i'd used three so it's in.

Part Two

This week we had to put in the flat stitches around the design, also these were to be 'pulled' stitches which would give a holey effect, being a newbie I chose two simple stitches ,double back stitch in the borders and satin stitch around the pear, I could happily have continued stitching but made myself stop and not overdo it.

Spots before your eyes.

I am entering this card for two challenges, the first is the Creative Card Crew challenge which is 'Going Dotty' and the second is the Pink Gem Challenge which gives a sketch and asks that you use one of their designs, I have used 'Tulip Heart Millie' which they gave as a free digi stamp.

Part one - completed

Well I stayed with the pear and have put in the outline stitches ,which was the easy part as I just used back stitch and whipped stem stitch altho the stem stitch may be outline stitch, I'm left handed and have never been able to stitch in the correct direction or have my thread on the proper side of the work, my Mum always told me off about that when i was embroidering. The next part is unknown territory and out of my comfort zone of using stitches.

Design

This is my design that I am going to try to stitch for the first part of my Sumptuous Surfaces course, am I certain- well may change my mind before this evening, can I do it, not sure - so watch this space!!! (ok so I can do it!!)

Pastels

I've entered this card for the Twisted Thursday Challenge who's theme is pastels this week. The image is coloured with pro markers, of course, and the flowers are paper and fabric with gem centres.

Card holder and cards

Knowing I was interested in card wallets or similiar
Viv pointed me in the direction of the tutorial for this card holder on Jo's blog so I had a go and made the holder and three cards, the holder was really simple to make out of one A4 piece of card.The cards are inspired by some I saw in a craft magazine and gave me the chance to use my dogtooth check stamp and cuttlebug butterfly die.

I have decided that as I am still making lots of cards for Viv's charity, I might as well enter them into the challenges that are around. I have wanted to make an easel card for some time so the Lili of the Valley blog challenge fitted this well and here it is, I coloured the stamp with promarkers, and the gingham and striped paper is some I have had for many years and have just resurrected, I have it in all colours so you may see more.The digi stamp came from Digital Two for Tuesday.

Lighthearted

I really should be catching up on free machine embroidery course work at the moment so to ease my guilt I stitched on a birthday card!!
The Twisted Thursday Challenge was to use this freebie Cheshire Cat digital stamp from Shirley's 2 Girls, an optional sketch was given, which I've sort of stuck to, and the twist was to use stripes - all in all I think I've complied and that this is a quite lighthearted card. I was planning on using the striped paper for a scrapbook page but it just had to go with the cat.

Treasure Casket

No cards made today but I've made something I've been looking at for a little while, I saw it in the Stitch magazine and really wanted to have a go. In the mag all the lace embellishments are dyed , I don't have any dyes so I used glimmer mists and spray inks and got just the effect i wanted,I should say that all the lace bits started off as white, the background has also been sprayed then overlayed with cut pieces of organza and silk then over stitched.- I really am so pleased with this piece.
I have one FME lesson left and this evening the first lesson of Sumptuous Surfaces came thro', I have 34 pages to read thro before I can start it, oh boy!!!

I'm having a couple of days making cards before the stitching starts again, one thing I never get bored doing the same old thing.The Oriental card was inspired by an article in this month's Craft Stamper and is for my friend next month, the beer mug is a digi stamp coloured with promarkers as is the fairy, I've added some glitter glue to her wings for a bit of bling and the pretty organza ribbons are some Viv brought for me.

April Showers

The latest set of postcards for my Yahoo group swap are these 'April Showers' cards, I knew what I wanted to do then when I went to our fabric guild I saw this great sky fabric and just had to get a fat quarter. I keep one for myself then the other three are off to the USA.

Flower Notebook

I made this notebook for a swap on one of my flickr groups, I had the idea but as usual it didn't work as I wanted altho' it's close, I used cuttlebug embossed metal for the cover and added metal punched flower embellishments coloured with promarkers and alcohol inks. I'm afraid the shape isn't perfect as it's not so easy to cut around this shape so for simplicity I put 6 round pages inside.

An Orange Muse.

I have made this card according to a sketch on the Paper Sundaes challenge blog andI'm entering the card into the challenge,I am also doing my best to get my money's worth out of the 'Puccini Muse' stamp, the backgrounds are washi paper and a cuttlebug asian folder block, not the usual asian colours but - let's be different.

Pink!

One Stop Craft Challenge has the theme 'Optimistically Pink' this week so I thought this one would fit the bill perfectly, the image is a digi stamp that I coloured with my wonderful new Promarkers, never thought I would be looking for things to 'colour in' but I'm hooked - I don't get the pictures so messy as with watercolours.

I have taken some time out from the machine course to complete some postcards for swaps that I commited to,struggling a bit on the course with the stitches required versus my machine so I only have done part of the last lesson , this weeks looks friendly tho' then one more and finished and on to the next course.

Postcard swap

What a beautiful postcard I received from Angelique this morning, lovely hand stitched pansies, one of my favourite flowers, there are now two postcard swaps left to do together but I'm sure i'll spot more that I like on her flickr site, she does such lovely work.