A knitting post

Just a quickie knitting post today, if you've followed our blog for a while you'll know I pop up with these from time to time!

I've been trying a few things to move on from knit stitch and the inevitable scarf, and with the arrival of my lovely friend's beautiful little girl (congratulations D!!) I went looking for a simple pattern on the internet so that I could send a handmade gift.

I had a small cardboard box hidden away in my stash of things to alter, so covered with some scrapbooking paper and added a little bling thinking it would be useful for keepsakes :)

The booties are knitted from yarn in a very pale yellow/cream colour, with a pink ribbon threaded through to fasten them.

I admit my very first attempt came out at a size to fit a toddler rather than a newborn (I swear I used the right size needles!) but after trying again with smaller needles I was much happier with the size!  I managed to find a cute pair of Mary Janes to match the scrapbooking paper so that baby E would have something stylish to wear too :)

Hope you've had a great weekend, would love to hear about any projects you have going at the moment different to your usual habits :)

Gayle xx

Enjoying the Process

Good morning!  It's Julie here today with a post about the creative process!  This isn't a post with a finished product like a card, but a post about how getting there can be all the fun!!

Sometimes I feel pressured by deadlines.  There's always laundry, etc. to do that need to be done and there's always a person's birthday or an event that I need to make a card for and sometimes that pressure means something falls through the cracks or I rush and try to do everything and that means (for me at least), not doing anything well or thoroughly.  For today's post.....I'm enjoying the process!!!

For a few years I admired all the paper crafters using their Copics and doing wonderful cards!  Their cards were so wonderful to me that it kept me from coloring mine!  I just didn't like the way my images came out (at the time I had no Copics).  My Copic collection has since grown and I'm enjoying playing with them. Each time I color with them, I am learning things.  Crafting can definitely be an evolution of learning; learning what works and what doesn't, learning what we like and what we don't!  I have come to love my Copics.  I just need more practice with them!

I just got some new stamps to enjoy my coloring process!  The images below are from C.C. Designs and The Greeting Farm.  The girls in these images are just perfect for coloring.  Please excuse my Packers cup!  As a Minnesotan, this seems likes a treasonous item to have but I like the Packers, just not as much as I like my Vikings!  Haha!  Anyway, on to the post!!!  ;)

I have stamped out a ton of the stamps on watercolor paper (for Inktense pencils) and Neenah White cardstock for Copic coloring!  Part of enjoying coloring for me is coloring in different mediums.

Part of enjoying the process for me is failure!  Haha! As odd as that sounds, failure does help me enjoy the process.  I learn what works and what doesn't.  I learned that I need A LOT of work on my Inktense skin coloring!  Check out the girls below!!  YIKES!!!

This image came out a lot better!  I used Inktense pencils on all of this Princess EXCEPT the skin!  I used a mix of two Gelatos from Faber-Castell to product the right color.  She still needs a little touch up but she is almost complete!

Then I played with my Copics!  I still need a lot of work on hair and skin coloring but again, learning is part of the process and part of the fun! 

 

A little YouTube on our The Scrappy Tree channel going through the process:

 

Thank you so much for stopping by today!  Please leave us a comment below and tell us what you enjoy about the creative process for your chosen craft!

 

A side step card

Hello! It's Julie here today with a side step card I needed to make for a local store's card challenge.

I was given a set of border stickers and a green card base that was already cut and scored to make the side step card. The challenge was to use the base and at least part of one sticker on the card. Anything else could be added.

I started by using the stickers first. I layed them all down on the front layer of the card. (Then I covered a lot of them up! Lol). I had had no inspiration on this card until late last night but when it hit me, it hit me and kept me up late.

I cut panels of light purple cardstock to cover all panels (even the stickers I set down at first). I made sure to leave some of the stickers visible. I inked the panels with a purple Hero Arts pad before I glued them on.

I used a Nestabilities scalloped rectangle die to cut a white rectangle. Them I set it aside. I stamped a Princess and a Prince from Penny Black on Neenah white cardstock with Memento Ink and I played with my Copics to get their color right. Stickles here and there added the finishing touches. I set those images aside and then stamped flowers from Technique Tuesday with Versafine black ink and colored with Gelatos. I added Stickles and a black pearl to each center and art aside.

My sentiment from Penny Black was embossed on a piece of white cardstock after I colored with Gelatos. Then I tried to figure out where I was putting everything. :)

I decided to ultimately alter the scalloped white rectangle. I used scrap paper to free hand draw clouds. I cut the clouds out and used them as a mask. I watered down a blue gelato and used a stipple brush to stencil the cloud background. I then placed it on the front of the card and added the princess. I didn't like having her float in the sky so added the flowers beneath her and a little ribbon.

I added some corrugated cardboard to the back step thinking it was like a fence or a hill for the Prince. I glued that on and added the Prince. I added the sentiment to the front of the card with pop up glue dots. I thought it and the second step were missing something so I found Studio Calico wood veneers and colored them with Gelatos. Then I added them to the card and carefully added Stickles.

So that is my card share today and since I ended up liking the side step card idea, I might do a tutorial on cutting, scoring and making one next week. :). Have a great day!

I dream of rosette flowers....

 A late post from me this weekend after a very busy few days!  I can't believe it's Sunday evening already, where did the weekend go??

I have a rosette flower story to share with you today. After falling completely in love with the snowflake rosette Alterations die at Christmas, I was rather hankering after the less seasonal version so I could start putting that on lots of things too!

I had a voucher for the craft store so managed to pick it up at a reduced price, headed home to try it out on the Vagabond and poof! Disaster!  Smoke started coming out of the sides of the Vagabond and that was that!  The retailer was very good and collected it and replaced it with a new one but it did take a little while, which is a long while when you have a brand new die to play with (I haven't yet figured out how to run these long dies through the Cuttlebug, any tips anyone?) but at last it came back and here is my first play with the rosette flower.

I put the flower together as in this youtube tutorial and used some spray inks to colour it, accenting with some Distress Ink and a sponge applicator around the edges.

The background tag was coloured with Spring Distress Inks and Dusty Concord and then stamped with Indigoblu script, Stampers Anonymous harlequin pattern, Inkadinkado swirls and a word stamp from Andy Skinner (I just wanted the word 'Dreams' so covered the other words on the stamps with the flower). 

I embellished with some Studio FX chipboard swirls which I sprayed with blue spray ink and then distressed the edges in brown, and added a pearl pin and some brown twine to finish off.

Hope you had a great weekend and got some crafting in, I'll be aiming for some this week for sure!

Gayle xx

A tag using Inktense pencils and Gelatos

Hello!  It's Julie here today and I'd like to share a little tag made for a friend using some of my favorite products, Inktense pencils and Gelatos. 

Supplies used on this tag:  Versafine ink (good for watercoloring), Stampendous stamps, Derwent Inktense pencils (used on flower stamp) , Faber Castell Gelatos (used on tag only) , foam adhesive, Goosebumps texture spray (used to add shine to the flower).

I also used Tim Holtz's tiny attacher to adhere the My Friend sentiment.

Here's a video how to from our YouTube channel!  Subscribe to us on YouTube and tell us what you'd like to see.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Say it with flowers!

Happy weekend to you all!  Hope you enjoyed your Easter break last weekend; I managed to fill my Easter week by meeting up with some wonderful friends and also got some much needed sorting done, so hopefully I'm better prepared for a busy time coming up :)

 I have a tag to share today using a set of Paperartsy background stamps I was lucky to pick up in the sale; I love doing backgrounds and I often have trouble covering them up with a main feature but I went for some embellishment on this tag with some small paper roses (made using die cuts from the Alterations tattered floral die).  The background colours are Distress Ink in shaded lilac, squeezed lemonade and peacock feathers with some ink splats in broken china and scattered straw Distress Stain.  The stamped images are black and coffee Archival and poppy red Impress Ink, with some overstamped script in picket fence Distress Stain.

You can also see a little strip of washi tape with the word 'faith' peeping out from behind the flowers at the bottom :)

You can find tutorials on how to make the paper roses online; I was taught how to make them by Hels Sheridan at a workshop so here's the link to her tutorial.

You can see the pieces I started out with here, stamped with script in coffee Archival Ink...

...and then coloured in Distress Ink (in dusty concord, peacock feathers and squeezed lemonade)...

...this is the rose assembled...

...which I then sprayed with a little black Dylusions Ink to grunge it up a bit.

Along with the flowers I added some brown cord, some Tim Holtz and 7gypsies tickets (torn and inked), some pearl hatpins, an Ideaology fragment with a piece of stamped manila card glued to the back (with my initial!) and some yellow baker's twine tying it onto the pin.

I finished up by inking the edges with dusty concord and frayed burlap Distress Ink and some black Archival, and by tying on some Basic Grey fibres I've had tucked away for ages; the colours seem to match really well!

Thank you for visiting us today, have a great weekend and hopefully we'll have some exciting news to share with you in the very near future so watch this space :)

Happy scrapping!

Gayle xx