FMS #307

Another coloured pencil creation today, although to me this illustrates the difference between cheap coloured pencils & the more expensive Polychromos as the finish on the red golf bag is not as good as I’d like. It also shows the difference between colouring in artificial light and daylight, as it really doesn’t stand up to close up photography. Thankfully it does look better in real life! The layout is based on this week’s sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

The golfing stamp is from an old set by Crafts UK, the golf ball was made using a Cuttlebug embossing folder (it’s the reverse side), the spotty flag was stamped with a dotty background stamp & cut using an MFT die. The greeting is a Clearly Besotted stamp, embossed and then cut out with another MFT die.

Friends Forever

A quick post to enter this into a few challenges:

• Addicted to CAS
• Darnell’s NBUS challenge number 12
• Addicted to Stamps & More

I haven’t used coloured pencils for quite a while, but this quick & simple card uses my only Polychromos, which worked really well on the kraft cardstock. I heat embossed the flowers from the Clearly Besotted Friends Forever set, which is a recent purchase and therefore qualifies as my NBUS. I kept the card simple (although not very original!) by using a simple stamped greeting (again, Clearly Besotted) on an MFT die-cut flag and a few sequins.

 

CAS Mix Up

I made this card earlier in the week and then almost forgot to enter it into this week’s challenge at CAS Mix Up! The theme for this month is watercolour wash but you also have to include stamping and something else of your choice, in my case diecutting and embossing.

This card evolved as I experimented. I started with the watercolour wash, which I did with my Zigs, but then wasn’t sure what to do next. I wanted to use some new (to me, at least) stamps which I had just bought off Ebay, so I stamped the flowers in Versamark then embossed them in silver. The petals are coloured in the same paint as the background, but I wasn’t sure I could paint over the watercolour wash with another colour so it was a nice surprise to find it worked very well!

Finishing the card was easy: the greeting is a combination of a die cut by Mama Elephant and a stamped word by Clearly Besotted. Thin strips of card at the side added a little extra interest, and I felt it needed the sequins to finish it off.

Sewing Success!

I was lucky enough, years ago, to be taught basic dressmaking at school. Every so often I’ve tried to pick up the threads (sorry!) and have another go, and each time the result wasn’t good enough to wear outside the house – but not this time! I saw a free blouse pattern on the So Sew Easy blog and decided to have a go. I already had some fabric which was in the bargain bin at Abakhan last year, and although it was a nightmare to sew with (it frays really badly), this was the finished result:

The instructions were really easy to follow, and I even made my own bias binding – a first for me, and a major achievement! The only things I changed were that I lengthened the sleeves very slightly & elasticated the bottom as it was just too voluminous for me. I’m so happy with the finished result, and even my far-more-expert-at-sewing sister was impressed. And all for about £5!