In preparation for a quilting cruise I am taking in November I needed to make a block for a challenge.

Each participant was sent a piece of required fabric along with instructions to keep the finished block at 9.5 inches and use the theme "Life's a Beach". We could use any technique we wanted.

At the first look at the blue and yellow batic fabric I knew I wanted to represent a sunset on the ocean. It took me several weeks to finalize a design and settle on 'applique' as my technique.

I sketched out the components on Steam-a-Seam² and tacked these to yellow, brown, green and cream fabrics. Then I cut out the elements, peeled the backing and arranged them on the backing fabric. These were pressed in place for a permanent bond.

I laid the piece on some tear-away stabilizer and loaded the sewing machine with invisible thread.

I stitched all the elements down on the edges as well as adding details with free-motion sewing. Then I continued on to adding artistic details to the background with stitching.

The final step was to add some shading to the water, sand and tree trunks with alcohol markers.

When we get to the cruise all the blocks that have been created will be judged by the instructors, other students and any passengers on the ship that want to vote. Winners will receive a share of all the blocks to use in creating their own quilt. Since everyone will be using the assigned fabric in some way, all of the blocks will coordinate.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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A swap back in September called for a paper embroidery card with a 'harvest' theme.

I had a large square sticker with a branch and apples that I wanted to use. I chose a diagonal plaid cardstock and a pattern of a border cross stitch.

I stitched up the pattern with green and dark yellow threads that go with both the background and the illustration colors.

When it was time to use the illustration in the center I decided it would look better to trim away the border and background from the sticker and just use the apples, flowers and leaves.

I added a thin bordering red and mounted it all on a cream colored base card.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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I decided to combine two challenges into one card. First was a Paper Embroidery pattern challenge. The pattern is from Ann's Paper Art.

There was a 'pink' challenge on a paper crafting list so I decided to use pink printed cardstock and stitch the pattern with pink thread to meet that challenge.

I mounted it on a folded pink card base and then decided it was too plain. So I selected a pink floral 3D image to mount on top.

I guess, with the inclusion of the green of the leaves, it no longer meets the exact criteria for an 'all pink' card but I'm just that kind of a rule-breaker.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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It was time to move on to the next letter in the alphabet swap on the paper embroidery list. We were assigned O=oriental for this round.

I wanted to use some of the alcohol ink paper that I had left and chose two patterns to combine for this card. 

The Kanji letters on the left side say 'good luck'. This is a pattern that I designed and I added a couple of pagodas on the right side. These were from a book.

I stitched with a burgundy thread and mounted the pieces side by side on a burgundy paper.

The base card is playing havoc with the camera as it is a shimmer cardstock.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Not done with the alcohol background yet. I had two pieces that were very close in appearance with great fall coloring and silver mixatives on the surface. Each of them was just large enough to stamp one of the large leaf images.

I used Archival black to stamp the images and dried with a heat gun. I used small scissors and trimmed right up against the images.

Now my idea was to run these cut leaves through the Xyron machine to apply a layer of adhesive and stick them onto a burgundy background. Unfortunately, I put them in the Xyron upside down and now I had adhesive ON THE FRONT! Aaaaaaak!

In an effort to salvage them, I placed them on a sheet of transparency, applied adhesive to the back of the leaves and placed this over the piece of burgundy. To keep the edges down and not have adhesive showing, I scored the transparency at the edges of the burgundy and turned it to the back. This got stuck down with a line of adhesive and 'hooray' the leaves were saved!

I finished this off by mounting it with foam tape over a sage green card base and adding silver peel-off word stickers for a sentiment.

Gotta be flexible.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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 I wanted to keep going with the alcohol backgrounds and liked how that stained glass stamp was working. I have others of those types of stamps so I selected a background with a lot of gold mixative on it and a harvest stamp with a cornucopia.

There wasn't a whole lot of color in the image so I chose a fall leaf printed paper and selected a bordering color from that. I also gave the image a wide black border for impact.

This stamp runs landscape format unlike those for the last couple of days.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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The card today is SO much like yesterday's that it hardly needs all the descriptives and step-by-steps.

I actually used the other half of the same alcohol background paper from yesterday. Some of the background had a 'good' section and other 'not so good' sections. But this one was all good, allowing me to use both halves since the stamp was not too large.

This background was a little darker so I chose a purple from the image colors for bordering. I repeated the black border as on yesterday's card and found a golden pring to layer behind it.

This image has more metallic mixative on the surface which causes a glare with the camera. The image is NOT poorly stamped as the photo appears, that's just the camera.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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When I made the latest Tim Tag, I 'used up' the extra alcohol inks, mixatives and blender solution on the non-stick craft sheet by swiping through them with other pieces of glossy cardstock and set them aside for later use.

Today is 'later'.

I took a piece with multiple colors and stamped it with a 'stained glass' stamp using Archival ink in black. I love how this really has the look of colored glass.

I chose one of the colors in the background and backed the trimed out stamp with this red-violet. A black border on this really gives the stamped image impact.

I chose another color from the image and found it in a printed snowflake paper.

Placing this on a black base card while leaving a border showing makes for a Christmas card that will go out without a greeting.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Another swap assignment from a Paper Embroidery group - the theme is 'buttons'.

I really thought about doing something with a telephone, calculator, ATM, or something else with buttons but decided to play it straight.

I chose copper metallic cardstock and pierced a border off center. This was stitched with dark orange and yellow threads.

I had two sheets of stickers with buttons. They were the perfect color for this project. The smaller buttons were acrylic domes but the larger three were flat cardstock stickers. I covered these with Glossy Accents so they were shiny  like the others.

I used a yellow base card and added gold text sticker for the sentiment.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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It's time again for an art pieceinspired by Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2015. We're up to September now:

Here are the steps I used to create this

- on non-stick craft sheet scribble metallic mixatives from the alcohol ink line

- shake and scribble several colors of alcohol ink directly over mixative

- shake blending solution over top

- swipe glossy cardstock through inks

- set aside to dry

- on heavy cardstock use foam tool and distress inks to blend color to complement alcohol inked piece.

- mist with water and dry with heat tool

- trim alcohol piece to desired size

- select stamps for feature

- ink with Archivel black ink and stamp on alcohol piece. dry with heat tool

- place stencil over top

- use plastic card to squeege  clear mmatte medium through the stencil

- carefully remove stencil (wash it immediately)

- allow piece to dry naturally

- stamp the same stamps on heavy vellum using Archival black ink

- heat dry and cut out

- shape if desired

- over dried matte medium very lightly sponge with Archival black ink to show the texture

- use sponge to ink edges of piece with Archival black ink

- use sponge to also ink edges of the heavy cardstock piece with Archival black ink

- tear a piece of black cardstock the same width as alcohol piece

- pierce four corners

- cut label shape from metallic cardstock and add metallic text sticker

- string thin wire through ends of label

- place metallic brads into pierced holds

- wind wire ends around brads

- assemble piece: alcohol piece to heavy cardstock piece, black strip to bottom, stamped vellum over stamped alcohol piece

- spritz surface of piece with spritzer and Distress marker in black

Yes, I made another display piece instead of a tag like Tim does.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Have you ever tried to make a card using ONLY purple? That was the challenge I answered.

I first selected a checked background paper and stamped leaves and stem with a Milled Lavender Distress. I used Seedless Preserves Distress marker to sketch in some leaf details.

With this background prepped, I punched a zillion tiny flowers out of five shades of purple. I then used a ball tool to shape them over a foam pad. 

Starting with the darkest flowers I attached a layer using Glossy Accents as adhesive. This was followed with a layer of the next darkest, not going all the way to the edges of the darkest. Continuing in this manner I used all the tiny flowers and finished with a dot of Stickles in the center of each. I also outlined the leaves and stem with Stickles.

I used Seedless Preserves Distress marker and a spritzer to spray the whole surface. 

Here's a look at the many layers of flowers that make up this bloom.

I finished with a stamped sentiment bordered with a dark purple the same as the border on the whole card.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Actually, not DONE because even with these 28 loaves of fine zucchini bread baked, cooled and wrapped there are three larger ones in the oven and SIX more waiting for their turn to bake!

The really sad thing is that after the crisps shown yesterday, the loaves shown today AND one ridiculously large squash that was cut up and fed to the cows down the road, there is THIS:

And who knows what has been going on under those big leaves in the garden when I was baking instead of picking.

Aaaaarrrrh!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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When I got tired or making mock apple pies from the zucchini I decided to make a couple of pans of mock apple crisp. I modified two recipes - one for mock apple crisp and one for apple crisp, combined the two and then added a few other refinements.

I placed the crumb topping in a vacuum seal bag, covered the crisp with foil, wrote instructions on the foil, taped the crisp to the outside and put them in the freezer.

When we were having a LOT of people over for a BBQ I only had to take them from the freezer, pour 1/3 c apple juice over the top, cruble the topping and spread it and they were ready to bake (uncovered).

Look how nice the 9 x 13 desserts look!

They were served with vanilla ice cream and, trust me, you can truly not tell they are zucchini instead of apple.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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When I was at the closeout sale at the bead store I picked up some parts to use on making evenly spaced triple bead strands. These included silver pieces that transition from three loops to one loop and silver bars with three holes.

I dug through my bead stash and selected tiny gold beads, tiny light green beads, medium grass-green beads, medium-large olive beads and medium-large turquoise beads. All were translucent except the turquoise.

I used beading wire to string three strands of the beads working randomly on the color mix. I attached the three strands of wire to one of the triple-loop terminators. Then I strung 2 inches of beads on each of the wires, twisted them around one another and threaded them through the holes of the spacer bar to keep them twisted.

Another two inches on each, twisted, threaded through a spacer, two final inches, twisted and then attached each to a loop on the other terminator. I used crimp beads to attach the wires to the loops, threaded the extra length of wire through several beads and clipped it.

Here is the finished bracelet and you can see the spacer bars holding the twists in place.

Here you can see the terminators to which I added jump rings. One got a lobster claw clasp.

Now that's something different for me.

I have now used up all my bargain purchases.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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I needed a paper embroidery card for a swap with the theme of 'roses'.  had one more of the 3D roses on a background and chose to prick out the same circle and vines pattern that I had used before.

In this case the rose was light pink so I chose a verigated pink thread for the circle and a very dark green thread for the vines.

I used a craft knife to cut away the center of the embroidery circle and mounted the picture behind. As I punched out (the 3D image was diecut) the parts of the rose I used foam tape to mont them, overlapping the frame wherever they needed to be.

I mounted thefinished piece on a bright pink card base and left off any greeting.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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A challenge to do a paper embroidery card with the theme of 'fashion' led me to make this one.

I stitched the dress using irridescent blue thread on shimmery white paper. This was followed by the application of gold stickers of a necklace, shores, handbag and a single word.

I mounted this to a dark blue glittery card over a plain white card base.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Group challenge: Make a paper embroidery card using purple and white.

I chose an shimmery purple cardstock and pricked out a floral pattern. This was stitched using shimery white thread.

I decorated the card with white rubon text and used white glittery Stickles inside the petals.

Here's a look at those petals:

I mounted the card on a shimmery white card base.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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The other day both of us walked all over the deck, arranged chairs and a fold-out table, wiped down the chairs and when we sat down were shocked to see a little visitor up with us on the second story. Somehow we had managed to miss seeing him in all the activity and yet had missed stepping on him, too!

He was so still we weren't certain he was still among the living but, when he was nudged onto a newspaper for transport, he demonstrated his good health and leaping abilities.

Look at those cute sucker toes!

I assume he was able to crawl up the siding to get up to the deck. He did NOT take the same route down, though. Our hudges with the newpaper encouraged him to take a giant flying leap off the edge of the deck. 

We must assume he landed gently and hopped away to a new home (because we would to hate to think anything bad happened to him).

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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When I got an email that a local bead store was having a BIG sale pending closing the store at the end of August, I went in mid-month to have a look-see.

The owner asked if she could help me find anything and I explained that I really wanted to learn how to do beading beyond just stringing strands. She politely told me I should have come in before because she USED TO do classes several times a month. Then she sat down, picked up her cell phone, and proceed to play Candy Crush. Thank you SO much for your service!

I wandered around and picked up a few things that interested me anyway and got the 50% discount.

I didn't learn anything new and ended up doing exactly what I had been doing all along... stringing strands. I did, however, make two nested strands to switch things up a bit.

The beads I bought were the irridescent stars, the Irridescent drops and the clear blocks. From my own stash I pulled polished garnet chips. Way up at the top where you can't see them are 3/4" gold tubes and a magnetic closure.

The other thing I did new on this piece was use beading thread with knotted ends instead of stretchy cord or beading wire with crimp beads.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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I was telling someone the other day about how to use waxed paper in a Cuttlebug folder to iron between glossy cardstock pieces and ink/buff for a great background. In the middle of the explaination I found that I had several pieces of this prepared cardstock so I demonstrated the inking step (to ooohs and aaahs).

I used Shaded Lilac Distress ink.

I didn't have an illustration to match the lilac but found a printed tag that looked good with it. I cut a slit in the top and the bottom and wove a strip of dotted paper through.

I gave the card a thin border of green and mounted it on a lilac card base.

I had a pre-stamped sentiment on glossy cardstock. I used the lilac inkpad to color it to match the background and popped it up on foam tape.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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