As far as I can go!

Well, I've done as much as I can on the birth sampler, until Baby Sophie arrives. I can't even risk putting the year in as she could just as easily arrive in 2013 as 2012!

December already???

Where on earth has this year gone? I've been trying to crack on with the birth sampler and have made good progress this week, despite stitching time being shorter than usual.

I've also managed to get some 'filling in' done on Faces of Faery as my other threads arrived....

... I love how I can finally recognise her gloved hand from the pattern now.

Cross Stitch crazy!

I'm totally loving my cross stitching at the moment. It's so involving and great for keeping negative thoughts at bay. There's also something incredibly rewarding about seeing a picture build up from tiny stitches and knowing that you have to work one stitch at a time, even on a huge project.

I *should* be spending all my stitching time on the birth sampler for my Sister in Law, but it's just not holding my attention. So, I'm stitching it in rotation with another project, Faces of Faery 185 by Jasmine Beckett Griffith. Here's a pic of my progress on the sampler first of all:-

Before...

 

After...

Excuse the creases! I'm jumping about all over the pattern to keep it as interesting as possible because it's turning out to be a really boring pattern sadly. Still, hopefully my SIL will appreciate it once it's finished.

Now for the Faery progress. I'm working on 18 count Aida, which is the smallest I've ever worked but I love how it looks. The stitches are so compact and smooth. This is my first pattern from Heaven and Earth Designs (HAED) and it certainly won't be my last. I love how detailed the shading is and there's no backstitch which is nice!

Here's my first couple of progress pictures...

I really wish I'd bought all the threads I needed in one go as I'm now stuck with big gaps I can't fill in yet. I've now ordered the rest of the threads needed for the first page so hopefully they'll arrive soon. The full pic can be seen here.

I started the Kawaii Christmas Countdown too, but soon realised I had no chance of completing it in time for December so I've put that on hold and will do a little bit each month next year once the birth sampler is out of the way. This is how far I got...

Finally, an update on my pottery. Here's the finished Sea Urchin tealight holder. The glaze is a raku glaze, but just biscuit fired to retain the turquoise colour. I'm very happy with this :D

How many stitches???

Yesterday I worked out that my Panda Collage cross stitch consists of around 51,000 stitches. Eek!!! I've done around 5,000 already though so nearly 10% of the way through. I do wonder how long it will take me to complete.

I plan to start another project soon, Faces of Faery 185 from Heaven and Earth Designs. I'm just waiting for the fabric and starting threads to arrive. This is what it will look like when it's finished...

I'm still working on the birth sampler, and that should be complete by Christmas. I'm also hoping to start on the Kawaii Winter Wonderland Countdown from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. Again, I'm waiting on fabric and threads arriving, but I may have to put the Faery and Panda Collage on hold so that I can complete the countdown before the start of December. It would be nice if my Daughter can countdown to Christmas with it this year rather than next!

So, onto an update of the Panda Collage.... I've spent some time in hospital recently and have had a hard time of things so my mind hasn't been so much on stitching. HoweveI'm just about to start on the bird underneath the giraffe, and I've already made a few stitches on the koala too.

Sticking my neck out.

This week my Giraffe has finally grown a neck! There are some more leaves growing around him and a bit of tree has sprung up behind him too.

I've started working on the hoop as it was getting tricky to keep the fabric taut as I worked further into the design. I've made some progress on the birth sampler too but haven't got a picture of that.

I was also busy in my pottery class this week. I started, and pretty much finished, a coil pot. I just have to scrape the excess clay out of the inside and then glaze it.

Making good progress.

As I promised myself last week, I spent most of my stitching time this week on the birth sampler, which of course I then forgot to photograph - d'oh! However, I also made some good progress on the Panda Collage. There's now a happy Giraffe smiling at me from the Aida...

...although DH insists it looks like he's sporting a Richard Branson-esque beard :D

Another successful creative exploit came to semi-fruition this week. I started a pottery evening class 3 weeks ago and my first project was a pinch pot. When the tutor said we'd be making pinch pots my heart sank. In my experience, pinch pots usually look something like this...

Now, no offense to the creator of the pots pictured, but that's just really not my cup of tea I'm afraid. However, I was very pleasantly surprised when the tutor showed us a technique to join two pinch pots and make them into a lovely smooth clay sphere, ready for us to decorate as we wished.

I chose to turn mine into a Sea Urchin inspired tealight holder, using various objects I found around the house to make the decoration. I used part of a broken zip, the barrel of a ball point pen and even a wine pouring device to make this little beauty.

Now it just needs to be fired before I probably go and ruin it by glazing it! I'm thinking I'll make the raised circles white and the rest a turquoise/teal colour, if that's even possible. Not sure yet how I'll do that. Probably by using a white glaze all over, firing it, then masking the circles and re-dipping in the teal glaze. I'm sure the tutor will be able to let me know the best way.

One week in...

After a week's work on my Panda Collage cross stitch it's not looking as different to last week as I'd hoped. I've managed a few hours on it, spread over the week, but the section I'm working on has so many different shades of brown that I feel like I've spent most of my time changing colours.

The most frustrating part has been the confusing nature of some of the symbols on the chart. Some of the symbols are not as they appear in the key, and so I've had to guess which colour they're supposed to represent. Then, to make matters worse, two very similar shades of brown have very similar symbols too! I've lost count of the number of stitches I've had to unpick because I've used the wrong shade - grrrr!

Still, I'm loving how it's looking, with it being such a densely stitched design. It almost ends up like a stitched carpet of colours.

Here's where I'm up to now (excuse the poor lighting)...

I haven't made any progress on my birth sampler this week as I wanted to get a good start on the collage. However, I think next week my stitching time will be more evenly split between the two projects. After all, I only have until New Year to get the birth sampler complete and framed - eek!

A new thread...

...quite literally! I've taken a little break from card making to concentrate on Cross Stitch for a while. I've been dabbling with cross stitch for about 20 years but never managed to finish anything other than tiny projects.

There was one particular project that I bought around 20 years ago that just kept getting put in a bag or drawer for years at a time, then worked on for a week or so before being consigned to the bag again. I dug it out again recently and, spurred on by my 3yr old Daughter, I decided I WOULD finish it this time. It is called 'Fireside Toast' and features the Country Companions animals. I DID finish it and this is what it looks like before framing...

As you can see, where I kept it on the hoop it has marked the fabric but I'm hopeful that I can get a picture mount that will cover those bits.
I also completed a Cherished Teddies kit which was given to me when my Daughter was born. It's called 'Phoebe Bear'...

I've now started two new projects. The first is a birth sampler for my Sister-in-law, who is expecting her first child in December.

This is where I'm up to so far...

The other project is a kit I found on eBay for the silly price of £4.50 including postage. There must be over £20 worth of threads alone! It's called 'Panda Collage' and is part of the DMC Wildlife Collection. I hadn't realised quite how big it was until it arrived and it's huge! Much bigger than anything I've attempted before. When completed it will should look like this...

It took me about 4 hours just to sort all the different shades of floss so I've not had much stitching time yet. However, this is my progress so far...

Not much I know but I'm happy with it as a start. The pale blue stitches are all half crosses which helped speed things along. I'll try to provide weekly updates on my progress.

Some Odd Girl Challenge

Just a quick one to share my entry to the Some Odd Girl sketch challenge this month. My card doesn't strictly follow the sketch but I hope they won't mind too much when they see what I did with Tropical Mae.

Inspired by the lack of Summer in the UK this month (probably the wettest July ever recorded), I wanted my entry to radiate warmth and sunshine. I attempted this by creating a sunray design made up of various patterned papers to provide a suitable background for Mae.

Mae herself has been coloured with Promarkers and I paper pieced her dress with a lovely pp from Basic Grey.

The sentiment 'blue skies and sunny days' is from a Papertrey Ink stamp set.

Procrastination Station

So much for getting flying on the yo-yo's... So far the 'grand' total is 7 LOL! I've just been procrastinating so much lately.

I have been making cards still though, so here's a round-up of the latest...

This was a thank you card for an amazing friend who took me to see Coldplay at the Emirates Stadium, just because she knew I'd always wanted to see them live! I used the Harvest Berries stamps and die from Papertrey Ink and the sentiment is from their Movers and Shakers set.

I used the same colour combo, Melon Mambo and Concord Crush, to make this birthday card for one of my best friends...

I've used the same stamp sets with the addition of a houndstooth background stamp.

Next up, a birthday card for a friend's little boy. The dinosaur stamps are from MyCuteStamps and the Argyle background stamp is from the same set as the houndstooth one, but I can't remember where I bought them - sorry!

The next two cards are for a very special little dude by the name of Jess. All I can say is that he's a really cool cat and deserved two cards for his birthday...

Digi stamp from Pink Cat Studio and sentiment stamp from Papertrey Ink.

This was mainly done on the computer, using Word. I pasted four of the digi image, from Soft Pencil, and then added borders, shadows and colouring. I added a marker pen effect to thicken the lines of the stamp. The 'birthday' border was from a pti stamp.

Finally, my piece de resistance...

I was lucky enough to win the new release of digistamps from SomeOddGirl last week. I decided to use 'Bicycle Kaylee' and try to the cloud colouring tutorial posted on the SOG blog. Here's a close up of the image...

I paper pieced her dress using some really cute floral paper from the Konichiwa range by Basic Gray.


Phew! Maybe I haven't been procrastinating as much as I thought after all!

Yo-Yo crazy

I'm so far behind with blogging at the moment but I've still been busy creating. I've got some cards to show soon but for now I wanted to tell you about a new project I'm embarking on. It's called the Yo-Yo Along and details can be found on the SewTakeAHike blog here.

Basically, I'll be creating fabric yo-yos (also known as Suffolk Puffs) to make into 'something'. I very much doubt I'll be making 1008 like in the original, but I'm planning on making up to 84, using two charm packs in the pattern 'Hunky Dory' by Moda.

My only memory of these yo-yo's is that they used to be popular in the Seventies for making soft toys like the ones pictured below.

I'm hoping that whatever I create will be rather more modern! Maybe something like this gorgeous cushion...

...or this stunner from Amy Friend...

I'll keep you updated as the yo-yo total increases ;D

Postcard Challenge - England

A little later than planned, I finally finished my England postcard. I steered clear of all the stereotypes like cups of tea and bowler hats and went for a countryside scene instead.

When it comes to English artists, top of the list for me is David Hockney. I knew he'd done a lot of countryside pieces recently, using his iPad, but I wanted to see if he'd touched on this in any of his older work. I found a couple of perfect images to inspire me and ended up going with 'Road across the Wolds' from 1997. This is Hockney's original...

...and my rather poor tribute...

I wish I had been able to capture the vibrancy of the original but until I own the full palette of Promarkers (yeh right!) I have to make do with the limited colours I own.

I love the patchwork of fields showing various crops and those hay bales. This really sums up England to me.

Here's the reverse of the card...

Postcard Challenge - West Africa

After a bit of a hiatus from the Postcard Challenge I'm back in the game. This week's country was actually a collection of countries under the umbrella term 'West Africa'.

The pattern on the left hand side of the card is an example of a kente cloth design, a fabric native to the Akan people. This was drawn in pencil and coloured with promarkers. For the rest of the card I applied some Antique Linen and Tea Dye Distress Inks for the background. I then created the figures with my Promarkers. I've added the Senegal flag, although I've since realised that the Akan people didn't live in Senegal - oops.

For the stamp I have drawn and coloured an adinkra symbol, known as Sankofa. It is a bird looking backwards and is symbolic of learning from our past.

Monochrome

I'm on a bit of a roll these last couple of days, which is lucky as I have a TON of cards to make!

This card is a congratulatory card for some dear friends who have gotten engaged and are getting married in August. I chose to take up the challenge from Simply Stampin' (#60) and create a monochromatic card with a splash of a different colour. I also used my oval dies to fit in with challenge #53 (use Punches or Dies) at CAS-ual Fridays.

I went for a muted blue colour scheme, using a combo of Night of Navy, Baja Breeze and Bashful Blue. The splash of a different colour came courtesy of my Wisteria Wonder ruffled ribbon, which I layered with Night of Navy ribbon.

I used the bird image and a sentiment from Silhouette Sentiments, stamped in Night of Navy on Bashful Blue card. The Baja Breeze panel has been dry embossed using the striped embossing folder from Stampin' Up! and mounted on dimensionals. To add a touch of sparkle I placed basic rhinestones around the central image.

Hot off the press!

Talk about cutting it fine...this is my entry for this week's Simply Stampin Challenge, which closes in just ten minutes time!

The challenge was to use the following colours...

...which was totally outside my comfort zone! I was pleasantly surprised by the combo and this is the card I made:

I've used the Simply Soft stamp set and a sentiment from Silhouette Sentiments. Sorry for lack of description but the challenge now closes in 4 minutes - eek! Wish me luck ;)

Happy Birthday Urban!

It was my friend's little boy's 3rd birthday today and I knew he'd love a card with his name on it.

I got my little one on board again to help cut some letters using the Big Shot and my Timeless Type alphabet dies. We used patterned paper from the Just Add Cake set.

The layout is based on the sketch from this week's Feeling Sketchy Challenge - week #7. 

The image is a cute digistamp from Pink Cat Studio which I've coloured with my promarkers. I added some faux stitching (I can't stop using it at the moment!) with a red marker and added black dots at the ends of each 'stitch' to make it more convincing.

As well as the Feeling Sketchy challenge, I'm also entering this card into the following challenges:-

Lollipop Crafts Challenge # 80 - Just for Him
Allsorts Challenge Week 154 - Card for a Man or a Boy

Colour Create Challenge #96

My lovely 3 year old has been so well behaved this week that I got her involved in cardmaking. She absolutely LOVES using my Big Shot so I let her do all the handle turning :)

Yesterday 'we' made a card for the Colour Create Challenge #96, which was to use a colour scheme of Green, Brown, White and a touch of Lavender or Purple. It seemed an odd combo to me and I wasn't sure how the purple would work with it. When I picked out some shades to try though...oh my! Gorgeous stuff!

I decided to go for a clean and simple design to balance out the detailing in the stamp I used (Faith in Nature). The stamped image was coloured using my SU inks with water and a paintbrush. The sentiment is from a Hero Arts set I was lucky enough to win recently.

I really like the retro 'mod' feel this layout has to it.Must remember this one for the future!

Clean and Simple

I'm a huge fan of CAS (clean and simple) cards. I'm not so good at making them though. They require a lot of thought about how to make an impact without using too many elements, and how to use negative space effectively.

Having a sketch to follow makes this easier for me and I really liked the sketch provided by Card Positioning Systems' Challenge #265. 

I teamed the sketch with the theme of 'Birds' given in this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge #52 and the gorgeous colours in the last Play Date Cafe challenge. The deadline for the latter has passed but I was so in love with the colour scheme I still went with it.

For my card I used a simple white background and printed on a digi stamp from Pink Cat Studio. I coloured this with my Promarkers and found patterned papers from Stampin' Up! to match. Simple, yet fun.

I've photographed this against a background of patterned paper, but it is just a white card.