Stamped Blue Tit image on linen and embossed squares

Think the title says it all really.

It's for a birthday and I thought the image was apt for this time of year as there are lots flitting about busy with nesting.

I coloured the blue tit's head a little and then put wadding behind the image and then hand stitched it to the blue card. I'm really not fond of hand stitching and unfortunately, it shows. I justify it as looking folksy artsy craftsy. Lol.

Mothers Day Card Elegant Bouquet Embossing Folder Inked With Vellum Overlay

I wanted to have a bash at inking an embossing folder. Mmmmmmm, not sure whether it's because I bought a cheap brayer but mine skidded rather than rolled the ink!

After embossing it was very patchy so had to fill it in with a paintbrush. This looked very harsh so I ran a piece of vellum through the clean embossing folder and overlaid it.

Looks much better!

Quilted Birthday Card

I'd made up some quilted pieces to use as test pieces when I was looking for a new sewing machine.

I decided I rather liked this pinks one so I cut it down to a central piece to use for a card. Unfortunately, I had to cut it down so much that I lost most of the side panels. Oh well......................................

I used said new sewing machine to create the sentiment. Now I have to say that it pains me to look at it as it's not properly centred or symmetrical as you have to sew each word separately. If anyone has any tips on how to achieve this, I would be most obliged if you'd let me in on the secret.

It's now winging it's way to the recipient and I just hope she doesn't look too closely. Or have a rule to hand. Lol.

Paper Hearts Flower

Wanted to use up the rest of the paper hearts and wondered whether I could create a different sort of flower.

Now I'm not sure what sort of flower it is exactly but when the card was upside down I thought it looked more like a bunch of grapes. Lol.

All White Birthday Card

I saw this idea on the Love Nerds blog (http://blog.thelovenerds.com/2013/04/3d-flower-art-using-paper-hearts.html) who had seen it on Mondo Cherry (http://mondocherry.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/new-blossom-colours.html). Errrrrrrm, for some reason, my link button isn't working?

This is an A5 card. The flowers are made by using various sizes of heart cut outs. The hearts are then folded in half and glued down.

I do love the look of the card (though I do wish I could not be quite so fixated with the symmetrical thing) but the folding and gluing of the really small hearts was way beyond tedious and next time it will be an A6 card! Lol.

Bright Hopes Quilt Block Woolies Flannel Quilt

This block pattern is called Bright Hopes. The blocks are made up of 4" x 2" (finished) rectangles and 2" x 2" (finished) squares. The fabric is called woolies flannel and is lovely and soft. And seeing as though this was for my OH he chose the colours from what were available in the shop at the time (though would you believe there were nicer ones on our second visit to choose the backing) and the block pattern he found on the internet.

This has taken an absolute age to finish. I sewed the blocks up lovely. However, when it came to the actual quilting bit my little Brother sewing machine just couldn't cope with it. There were several mammoth sessions of us both unpicking and between this and the sewing machine dragging (even with a branded Brother walking foot), the squares unfortunately became rather distorted. It also came to light that the grey tartan was printed on the slant but I have to hold my hand up and confess that I did cut some of the others a bit on the huh. Lol!

It was eventually finished on a very old (1971) borrowed Bernina with a borrowed walking foot. It still wasn't overly happy though and became a two person job to ease it through.

So, I have now definitely learnt my lesson not to use fabrics with a line pattern in them. And the other thing to come out of this is that I am now looking into a new sewing machine. The one I'm interested in is the Pfaff Ambition 1.0 and am going to give it a try in a local shop later in the week. Yipee!

New Home & Happy Birthday for Today

for a friend who moved from Scotland back to Yorkshire last Friday. It is also her birthday today so I cheated and wished her happy birthday on one half of the insert and happiness in her new home on the other. Cheapskate or just super efficient? Lol.