Because new on my hook just doesn't sound that good. ;)
I've made a vow to myself - to not to buy more yarn until I've used all the yarn I bought on sale last year. Oh dear.
It pains me to push my kanzashi sunflowers post down from the top of my blog, but it had to happen some time... The vibrant yellow colour was a real energy boost and a natural mood enhancer. Sheer bliss. And just look what I'm replacing it with! ;) Don't get me wrong, despite this card belonging to a less cheery colour family, I still like it very much. Most cards (including mine) are cute and cuddly and flowery, this one definitely stands apart! You might recognise the materials from this card posted not long ago. I threw in some white in this card, and finally got the perfect opportunity to use my inverted scalloped circle dies. Look how it mirrors the shape of the silver Punchinella! Janne is actually 40 years old, but the 32 years written on the card is an inside joke between giver and recipient. How cute. :)
My finished tsumami kanzashi sunflowers will serve as brooches, identifying the six ladies in charge of a conference they're arranging soon. It's a neat idea I think - if you need to talk to someone in charge, just look for the sunflower! :)
I made a prototype earlier using a rounded fold, which is probably the most commonly used folding technique. After some searching for something with a closer resemblance to sunflower petals, I came across a few techniques for pointed petals. This particular one is asymmetrical, something that's showcased well when the flower is sligthly squashed in the center like this, twisting the petals and giving the flower a pinwheel/spiral look. Quite simply explained, this petal is made by folding a 3 1/4" square piece of fabric over itself four times and snipping off the raw edges. You can see some WIP pics here. The button and backing piece (with safety pin for attatching to clothes) were simply glued on with ordinary craft glue.
If you want to have a go at making your own, I've got a few tutorial links for you!
I've got a lot of Eskimo yarn leftover from my shopping spree last spring, when it was on sale. Not enough of any colour to make anything large, but just enough for some small projects. Like these winter mitts! The winter we've had this year really makes these a nescessity - gloves just doesn't cut it when it's -17 degrees Celcius!
Cut, starch, fold, press.
Cut, cut, snip snip snip, glue.
Cut, fold, press, insert, glue.
--
Fold, fold, fold, cut, string.
And repeat. Again, about 90 times.
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Finished project to be posted later this week! :)
(ETA: Here it is!)
(Link to prototype)
I knew I'd get good use out of these papers one day! They've lived deep down in my ever growing collection of design papers for a long time, just waiting for their day to shine. Fredrik gets the honour of recieving the first card made with these papers by EK Success and Harley Davidson. Yep, you heard right, these are Harley Davidson papers! :) How cool is that! It's really great stuff too, the bottom DP has a letterpressed look and the flame/tribal pattern is in some seriously shiny silver. The top DP has been slightly embossed to enhance the pattern.
I've been dying to try out some kraft paper lately, but have been patiently (ok, not so patiently, in fact I checked my mail box twice some days) on some supplies. This is what I made in the meantime, using the awesome JilliBean Soup papers. And by now it should have arrived at its destination. Congratulations Torunn!
As a contrast to the very matte look of the kraft paper, and to create some depth, I sprayed the edges with some Perfect Pearls (Perfect Bronze) powder mixed with water in a Mini Mister. It turned out to be completely impossible to show the true depth effect when photographing it, but this picture gives at least a little hint.
My latest addiction in the cooking department is crispbread! Homemade, delicious, crunchy, healthy, addictive crispbread. ;) So easy to make, so good to eat. Since I got the recipe just after christmas, I've made them nearly ten times... They just don't last long in this house. ;) And since five people have already requested a copy of the recipe, I figured I might just make a blog post about them!
The recipe is incredibly easy to memorize, but requires a quite a few ingredients:
Pat the mixture onto baking sheets using a spatula or even your hands. I strongly recommend using multi-use teflon baking sheets, they make everything so much easier! The recipe makes almost three pans of crisp bread. Score lightly with spatula to make it easier to break them apart later. You might see in the picture above that near the edge I haven't as much scored, as made a little gap - I've found that this prevents the edges of the crispbread from curling up too much.
And I can't help myself, I just have to do a bit of bragging: Tasha at the Charizma Cards Challenge chose my dad's card amongst her top three favourites! Whohoo! Thank you so much, I will display your banner with pride. :)
My friend and colleague Linn came to me with a very spesific colour request for Oda's card, and, of course, I obliged. Purple and pink on a dark brown background. The lovely butterfly die has rested for a while and needed an airing! It's just perfect for cards like these. I kept the embellishments in groups of four. That's normally a no-no for me, but in this case I made an exception to the odd-number-rule.
When organizing my picture folders for safety copying the other day, I found this file buried in a folder with other unrelated stuff. I had forgotten all about it - probably because the picture is a disaster. I'm sure I intended to take a better picture in daylight the following day and forgot about that too... But here it is, nontheless, flash burn and all. ;)
My dad just celebrated his birthday, and that meant I had to make one of the much dreaded male cards... But I was pleasantly surprised of how easily this one came together! Nothing like a looming deadline to give the creativity a kick, right? ;)
I stamped the black Prima Alphas with StazOn Ultramarine and wiped the excess ink off before it dried, giving them a nice blue glow. Some glue and 2 mm foam pads help the two raised letters stick to the card. The only other embellishments are three brown eyelets keeping the three paper circles together. Lots of distressing on this card, the design papers really made that nescessary, and it seems fairly masculine too.
I haven't entered a challenge in ages - I never won anything after my beginner's luck faded anyway. ;) Going for a lucky comeback strike today though, with these three challenges: Charisma Cardz (men's cards), Cupcake Craft Challenge (keep it simple), and if I'm not too late, Papertake Weekly (the sketch, interpreted a bit loosely, as I don't have an image on this card).
For my very dear friend Kristin, an exploding box! All she wanted for her big day was a card, sorry I didn't manage that Kristin, you're getting this instead. Hope you're not too disappointed sweetie? ;) Oh, and I should warn you all that this is another long post. I seem to be drawn to the bigger projects these days. Bear with me. :)
Making the flowers was the most time consuming part of it all. Every flower is made from two punched-out Retro flowers sprayed with Glimmermist (Sunflower, Green Meadow, Tiger Lily), inked, curled, detailed with Stickles Star Dust and glued together, finished off with a stamen made from a cut, sprayed, glued, glittered, rolled-up paper strip. The whole thing is then mounted on springy acetate strips. Complicated? Well, yes. That's a lot of steps to complete, and counting in the drying time of all the Glimmermist and glue and the sheer number of flowers required, it all adds up to quite a task. But the result was good, and that's the important thing! :) :)
Every bit of this box is hand made by yours truly. The panels are made from a pattern paper with a very subtle yellow organic pattern stamped with this great stamp and heat embossed in green. The Glimmermist has been put to good use again, the same three colours as used on the flowers. This paper was then mounted on a shimmering green pattern paper and the whole thing glued to thin cardboard for weight. The ugly sides were covered with silver heat embossing.
Elaine is very generous in sharing her techniques. In this post she explains how to make the stamens I've made here. This flower is made with the biggest Retro punch - for reference, the lid measures almost 9x9 cm. On the inside of the lid I've put another mat like this one with a little greeting for Kristin.
