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Starry, Starry Night

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As soon as I saw the Drift stencil, it made me think of van Gogh’s Starry Night painting so I challenged myself to create a version of it using some of the new Light You Carry products. After creating an inky background using Distress Spray Stains and Spritzes, I stamped and clear heat-embossed the walking lady from Keep Moving onto the panel.   I also stamped her onto a sticky note and fussy cut that. I coloured the image with a black alcohol marker so that she represented the cypress tree from Vincent’s painting. I skipped the village and just blended ink over a turn strip of paper to create a rock for the lady to stand on, stamping the dots on top for added texture. After using an embossing tool liberally over the panel, I masked the ground and the woman and then used a Distress Embossing Dabber to daub ink through the stencil. Gold embossing powder was poured over, the excess tapped off and then heated until melted. Finally, I stamped the stars using the shining ...
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Neat Needles

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Do you remember the fabric I made during the Shibori and indigo dyeing workshop I did a couple of months ago?   Well, I finally got around to making something with the bag fabric.   I’ve wanted to make one of these for a while but (as usual) hadn’t gotten around to it.   I started off following this pattern  that I’d purchased from Etsy but ended up winging it as the measurements weren’t quite working out for me. I began by cutting out all the pieces of fabric and backing them with heavyweight fusible interfacing to give the fabric more body.   I also added fusible fleece to the reverse of the outer fabric.   For the vinyl, I cut up an old pencil case I had lying around, which just happened to be the perfect size.   Very handy! The vinyl strips were held in place using quilt clips before sewing.   Using pins would have put holes in the vinyl which would have been visible after removal. After sewing along the bottom of each pocket, I then ...
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Location: Fareham, UK
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Birthday Love

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Earlier this month it was my birthday and like last year, I kept all the stamps from the envelopes which arrived from the UK and worldwide, cards courtesy of the lovely ladies in the group I run on Facebook.   I decided to repeat last year’s project and make another page in my art journal. To make it different from my last collage, I started by stamping the film strips from Arden’s Maker’s Marks randomly all over the page. Next, I glued the stamps in place, lining up some with the film reel sections and placing other over the top. There were a few bare spots so I used some of the other texture stamps in the set to fill these in. I then pasted Transparent Matte Texture Paste all over the top to ensure all the stamps were well attached.   Whilst the paste was still wet, I used it as glue to adhere the “birthday love” die-cut from Text{ures} Wildflowers Large Sentiments . After leaving the page to dry overnight, I applied gold metallic paste through Visible Image Star...
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Location: Fareham, UK
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Start Somewhere

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Welcome to my first DT post using the brand new “The Light You Carry” release.   I love the image of the lady walking as onwards is the only option.   We can’t pause time or go back so forward it is. To make a sunrise (or sunset) background, I sprayed yellow, pink, purple and blue Distress Stains and pink Distress Spritz onto a white card panel.   Once it was dry, I stamped and clear heat embossed the land and sun stamp from  Take A Breath .   I added more colour to the sun and added a few swipes into the sea for the reflection. The lady from Keep Moving was stamped alongside the scene and clear heat-embossed.   I also stamped her again on another inky background.   It’s not shown on this shot but I also stamped more of the land to the left of the lady, making sure that the horizon line matched. I fussy cut the second stamp, cutting off her head, hands and forward leg. This was glued onto the panel.   I tore a strip of paper and stencill...
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Location: Fareham, UK
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Busy Bee

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Last weekend I took myself off to Dorset for a weekend workshop with Katy Rundle to create a bumble bee painting with fabric and thread.   Katy creates amazing things with fabric and thread – check out her website here , where you can also book her workshops.   Whilst I have done a reasonable amount of free-motion embroidery now, I’ve never really done appliqué so this was a great opportunity to learn a new skill.   And who doesn’t love creating bees? Katy had drawn the bee on calico fabric to get us started so our first job was to apply fusible glue to the back of the decorative fabric pieces.   I’d normally use Bondaweb but I’d had trouble getting hold of any so I tried out a new brand called Quiltlines Superweb which did the same job. Then it was just a case of cutting out shapes from the fabrics and positioning them on the drawing.   I was trying to do what I’d do in my drawings to try to get the tonal values right, even though I wasn’t using conve...
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Location: Fareham, UK
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A Piece of Cake

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Beautiful, fun free-motion embroidery cards keep popping up on my Pinterest feed so I thought it was about time I had a go at some.   I started by just trying to cut shapes from fabric but soon realised that making templates would make the job loads easier. For the background, I cut a 5” square of light canvas and used that as my guide when sketching a slice of cake on a plate, with a candle on top.   I drew all the components out individually on cardboard and cut them out. The templates were drawn around onto Quiltlines Superweb and roughly cut out.   After selecting some complimentary fabrics, the shapes were glued onto the back of the fabric using a hot iron and carefully cut out. The shapes were arranged on the backing canvas and then pressed in place with the iron. Next, the fun bit!   This is like doodling with a fine liner pen but using thread and a sewing machine instead.   I dropped the feed dogs for free-motion sewing and started by attaching a...
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Location: Fareham, UK
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Glitter Balloons

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Whilst having a tidy up of my craft room, I found some goodies that I’d bought ages ago but hadn’t yet gotten around to using.   So, I got busy with my Big Shot and a load of glitter card. The die set is Happy Birthday Celebration Frames by Tonic Studios and it comprises 2 dies; the image and the outer frame.   I used a selection of coloured glitter card so I could mix and match the designs. After sticking a sheet of double-sided adhesive to a piece of card, I die-cut the frame and then adhered the outline die-cut to that.   “ Happy Birthday”   was then popped into place. Next, I puzzle-pieced the balloons into their respective places.   The balloons were OK to do but the tiny ends were a bit of a faff! I die-cut the balloon panel from white card and used the background pieces to finish the inlaid die-cut panel. This process was repeated to create four cards, using up all the balloons I had cut.   To finish the cards, each panel was mounted on a si...
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Location: Fareham, UK
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