Latest Crafting Attempts

Yes, I have to say “attempts” because I’m not terribly happy with some of the results.

I’ll start with the latest finish first. This is a card for Anna‘s grandmother’s birthday. I rattled thoughts around in my head for a while without even the slightest hint of cohesion occurring and never did come up with an idea, except to use my new Sizzix Big Shot, which I bought recently from Joann.com and I happen to see is still on sale for $59.99. Anyway, I texted Anna and asked what Maggie’s favorite color was, to which she promptly replied “leopard.” And then, a more helpful response suggesting bright colors and no pastels. Yes, Maggie is not your ordinary grandma, for sure. But then, Anna isn’t your typical woman, either. 😉 Anyway, with the suggestion of bright colors pinging from one side of my cranium to the other, I just started pulling colors that would go with the Sizzlit dies that I wanted to use. Of course, I chose cherry blossoms and those don’t exactly lend themselves to bright colors now, do they?

The example on the front of the package of dies showed two-toned red blossoms with dark brown or black branch and yellow accents inside. Now we’re cooking – a little bit. Let’s not get carried away. But at least I had three colors picked out now, red black and yellow. What other dies are in the set? Branches with leaves. Okay, so throw in some green. That’s the palette. Now what?

Anyway, the entire process of creating this card was painful, to say the least. And after giving myself a headache from the fumes coming off of the gold metallic paint pen that I used to write in the greeting by hand, the thing is done. It’s ugly, but it’s done. I even threw in some pop dots to lift the cherry blossoms off of the page and give it a little dimension. So at least it’s one step above something a first grader could do. *sigh* So here it is, in all of its dull and decidedly un-birthday-like glory:

Front

Inside

Envelope

The inside of the card looks like someone vomited Mardi Gras remnants onto it and I’m pretty sure that my signature sugary swirls of writing on the envelope will give Maggie diabetes, but hey, it’s the thought that counts, right? 😕

Let’s move on to crafts at which I actually excel, shall we?

This first stitching finish is from mid-February. The design is The Flower Juggler’s Bookmark from Janie Hubble Designs (formerly The Cat’s Whiskers Design Studio). I stitched it using DMC floss on linen that I hand dyed some time ago. Unfortunately, I settled on the pink and yellow before trying to find a green that went with them and the best I could find was a little too close to the color of the fabric.

Front

Back

I apologize for the shadows in the pictures, but I tried a few different times to take pictures and couldn’t manage to eliminate the shadows. Granted, Terry has special lights and a light box to eliminate that problem but, let’s face it, I’m lazy and it wouldn’t be worth all of that effort for this little project. That said, if I ever want to send pictures to Janie, I guess I’ll have to do them right. I made it for myself, though, and it has my initial on it, so it’s not like it’s going anywhere right now.

And the other stitching finish, which I just completed on Monday, is a bookmark for my mother’s birthday and the pièce de résistance of this blog post. The design is a freebie from Passione Ricamo that Laura designed for Mother’s Day 2009. I stitched it using Caron Waterlilies silk in the color Frangipani on 32 count overdyed linen from Silkweaver in the color Rosebud, which I don’t think they make anymore. 🙁 Yes, the silk really has pale pink and yellow in it, but as I’m gradually learning (and you would think that I would have learned from my epic Swirlygigs failure), color changes in pale threads do not show up well against dark backgrounds. Which really goes against everything my brain thinks is right and true and explains why I continue to make this mistake.

I fused interfacing to the back and sewed it up. It’s not a perfect sewing job, but that seems to be the story of my life this week.

So, there you have it. My latest crafty adventures. Woo. Hoo. Can you tell I’m feeling annoyed tonight? I’m telling you, it’s those darned paint pen fumes!

Happy (early) Birthday Maggie!