Handicrafts by Kate Perry and other ramblings

Sunday, February 25, 2018

February Rudolph day Challenge

Something a bit different for me this month. This is not my usual style but I wanted to try it, and also to try out a new stamp and die set.

I like cards that have a suitable verse on them, especially if it is Bible verse that tell us the true reason for Christmas. But in this case I had a nice little verse that I saved from a greeting card from a few years ago.
The red, inner white, and green holly, frames came as a set of dies by Amy Designs. I cut a trial set to see how much space I would have and then typed the verse using a font from my library called Asphodel, and played around with it until it fitted inside my frame.
The poinsettia is stamped and cut with my new set that I bought recently in an Altenew sale. The stamps are again layered with four shades of red, and two shades of green for the leaves. My Misti is perfect for getting the layers just right. The matching dies cut with a white edge around each petal which I don't care for, so I inked it to match the petal or leaf.
The ivy and holly sprays are Joanna Sheen signature dies, I layered them all up to cover the 'empty' part of the frame, and used green distress ink around the base card edge.
This month I made a set of six cards all the same, so not quite as good as last month's twenty-five, but a good addition to my stash all the same.
So I shall now go to Scraps of life by Scrappy Mo, to link this up with the February Rudolph Day Challenge.

Monday, February 19, 2018

Butterfly Challenge #95, P is for........


Yes there is a new Butterfly Challenge and this time the letter is 'P' which stands for Pink, Purple or Peach, Pearls, Paper Piecing and Patterned Paper. So there was quite a choice, but because I need a challenge to motivate me at the moment, I decided to try to use all six, and here is what I made.



I started with Paper Piecing which I quite enjoy. I used my Silhouette cameo to cut a hexagon grid from dark Purple card, and raided my snippets box for any Patterned Papers that were Pink, Purple or Peach. I cut out several hexagons from each and rearranged them several times until I was happy with them, then glued them in place, and covered all the joins with the grid. I thought it looked quite pretty.

I then chose a set of Tonic dies that have never been used, and cut the main piece from black card, and then some more solid and lacy butterflies from snippets of bright Pink and Purple mirri-card, and some from black. I cut several lacy flowers from Peach glitter card.
I tried my Paper Pieced background on white, Pink and Purple card, and decided it looked best on the Purple (lilac actually!), so I cut a base card from that and glued the grid in place. 
Then by trial and error I eventually placed the main die cut across the upper half and added Pink mirri card butterflies with black lacy overlays on them. Then I added the Peach glitter flower, and used two more in the bottom corner with a Pink mirri-card butterfly in place of a bow.
There was a tiny mistake in the top right corner where I had trimmed the grid too closely, so I covered that with a Purple lace butterfly over a solid Peach mirri-card one.
The sentiment die (Joanna Sheen Signature dies) comes in  two sizes, and I thought this card needed something quite bold so I went for the larger size, and cut it from the Purple mirri-card.
To finish off I used Pink Pearls on the bodies of two butterflies, and a tiny Peach Pearl on each flower.
So there we have it, a card with all six 'P's' on it, and I have quite a few extra die cuts that might make up in to a second card.
So now I will flutter over to Mrs A's blog to enter in the Butterfly Challenge #95, and also go and play in Pixie's Snippets Playground.