Cards

The view out the window coming downstairs in the morning.  If I lived here there would be plants all along these shelves.

 The view across the road.

 There may have been sangria there...

 

 My design using the scraps from the kit.

 This card and the two below are from Close To My Heart- they were kits.

During a recent scrapbooking retreat I made some cards.  I was suppose to be working on picture pages but I could not stop making cards.  So fun!  They are addictive to me.

Easy Paper Bow

I totally love this bow because you can make them so easy.  You can style up your package exactly how you want it to be.  You could even use some cartoon paper for something a little different.

You can find the tut and template here at How About Orange. Have you been to that site How About Orange.  Lots of fabulous ideas things to look at.

Fathers Day Card

I think I need to do something around the edges but this is my husbands card so far.  Ain't it cool? I sewed it right to the card stock.  The bar that says Best Dad is glued on.  The buttons are sewed on because I needed a way to keep those triangles down.

Iron Craft: Paper Craft

It's Iron Craft time and the challenge of the week was papercraft.  There are so many amzing things out there on the internet.  Amazing creations.  I was totally wowed.

I found these cute little Japanese women dolls on Omiyage Blog:  Simply Charming.  You can view them here.  Theirs of course are amazing, done wiht beautiful paper.  I have to say if I see beautiful paper like this, I think I will pick some up just to make these Japanese women- they are so beautiful.

It takes about 20 minutes to put them together.  I can totally see why they are addicting.  I would like to make some of the blue ones.

Here is the other thing I made.  This two week thing takes some getting use to but it works so much better for me. Slow I know but it usually takes me about a week to get my inspiration.

Iron Craft: Heritage Craft

This week for Iron Craft the challenge was to create something that would reflect your heritage. 

 One of the things that I decided to make a commitment to is spending more time with my children.  I do okay in this department but there is lots of room for improvement.  If I was single or at any age where my kids did not want anything to do with me (hope that day never comes), I would have done a Polish egg or a tile mosaic.  Something.  I dunno.  What I really wanted to do was do some traditional Polish design on this step stool that I have been meaning to paint.  Another project for later on.

Instead I see this idea for paper mosaics to do with children.  I always have a hard time figuring out what to do with them.  This was a great project- little prep time!  And my daughter who is five can practice with scissors.  A bonus since this helps with writing later on.  The idea couldn't have been more perfect.

While mosaics are not primarily Italian- there are a lot of mosaics done in Italy. I went with it.

"In parts of Italy, which were under eastern artistic influences, like Sicily and Venice, mosaic making never went out of fashion in the Middle Ages. The whole interior of the St Mark's Basilica in Venice is clad with elaborate, golden mosaics. The oldest scenes were executed by Greek masters in the late 11th century but the majority of the mosaics are works of local artists from the 12th-13th centuries. The decoration of the church was finished only in the 16th century. One hundred and ten scenes of mosaics in the atrium of St Mark's were based directly on the miniatures of the Cotton Genesis, a Byzantine manuscript that was brought to Venice after the sack of Constantinople (1204). The mosaics were executed in the 1220s." Wikipedia

Iron Crafters: Week 5-

While hearts may be a bit kitschy to some, they certainly are not for me. I have two young daughters who, of course, go crazy for this stuff.  As you can see, I also went crazy for hearts this week for the Iron Crafters Challenge. I made the loot bags and used some scrap ribbon/embellishment I had laying around.  I just folded over the top two times inside, placing the ribbon inside the seam and top stitched. It's a very simple gift pouch.

I saw this cute little card in Martha Stewart's magazine, Living.  This one I am going to give to my husband.  But I will probably make the girls one too.

These are little pins they can wear for school on Valentines.  We made construction paper woven hearts for school Valentines and attached hugs and kisses candy. With the felt I used pins to hold it in place while weaving and then sewed it with a blanket stitch.  I finally had a chance to try that stitch.  My Mom had given me a fleece blanket years ago with a blanket stitch sewed all around.  I love how it looks.

Then I saw some cute hair pins at this site that were just adorable.  I did the blanket stich on these too.  Comes out much nicer with thicker thread.

I doubled the felt to give it a little heft.  Then when I placed the hair clip on the back I cut a small hole in the first layer of the back to push in the pin.

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