Warm Hugs... for Colour Me...!

A little mid-week post to play along with my friends at Colour Me...! where the theme this week is "striking."

My crafty sister Morag sent me a link earlier this week to a tutorial by Dawn McVey, on the Make It Monday YouTube channel. She demonstrates a simple method for a no-sew quilted look.  I had tried something similar before with embossing folders, but I had not tried using a cutting plate to emboss layered paper.

So, a little time to play presented itself last night, and I tried it out.

Here's the first card, pretty much CASE'd from Dawn's examples:

She lined her blocks up with the diagonal on the card base. It makes for some funky angles, which didn't really line up too well with the diamond design on my cutting plate. I added a vellum tag, attached with some cross-stitch "kisses."

For the second card, I placed the patterned squares more "squarely" and used a random-pattern cutting plate, which looks more like free-motion quilting:

I gave the vellum tag a little more definition with some white faux stitching.

Which do you prefer?

Plenty of time to join in Colour Me...!'s challenge this week!

Happy crafting,

Caroline

Supplies:

Patterned paper: CTMH, featured colours are Crème Brulé, Lagoon and White Daisy; vellum.

Ink: Lagoon pigment ink; clear embossing powder; Signo Uniball white gel pen.

Fibres: CTMH waxy flax in Colonial White (retired)

Lawn Fawn Hearts-lawm cuts

Cover Up Die Swirls

Paper Smooches- First Aid Kit

InLinkz.com

Announcing...Tints!--Color My Heart Dare #58

This week's Color Dare features a trio of soft pastels:

SKY

SWEET LEAF

and BUTTERCUP

I believe Sarah will have a little color-theory lesson for you, on the blog, regarding TINTS.

We have a couple of young friends who are expecting, so these soft colours made me think of baby quilts.

I used the "Trip Around the World" pattern, cutting some papers from the Chantilly paper pack into 1/2 inch squares. 

I glued them to a base of scrap paper, and added a thin border in white. The centre square features a sweet little heart stamp from the retired set Happy Occasions. The faux stitching was done with a white pen.

The lacy ruffle at the top was punched with a Martha Stewart edger on thin computer paper, scrunched and then smoothed out again.

I had fun embellishing the little tag, which features another stamp from the Happy Occasions set. 

I used my Cropodile to round the corners. I gathered some stitched Sweet leaf ribbon by pulling on the stitching along one edge. Some Color Ready Seam-binding and some of the new Aqua Enamel dots complete the look.

Now I may just start a REAL quilt for one of those new babies...the paper one was such fun!

Now trip over to check out the Design Team's creations at the Color My Heart blog. 

How do these TINTS inspire you? Link up your creation to share with us; you have until Thursday noon, September 5th to get inky. Remember, if you don't have the exact Close to My Heart colors, use what you have. We love to see what you create! And there are new Jewel-tone winner badges up for grabs!

Happy crafting,

Caroline

Supplies Used:

Chantilly paper pack-X7163B

Sky and White Daisy cardstock

Sky and Buttercup ink

Sweet-leaf stitched ribbon

Color-ready Seam-binding

Aqua Enamel dots-Z1853

Happy Occasions stamp set-B1136 (retired)

Martha Steward border punch

Crop-o-dile corner-rounder

White printer paper

Paper Tumbling Blocks...

 I'm trying to catch up with my "homework" for the Online Card Class Pattern Play, this weekend.
Friday's class was all about weaving, folding and fussy-cutting patterned paper. A LOT like quilting techniques with fabric... A couple of the cards featured involved basket-weaving with strips of paper, at 90° angles. That reminded me of a reversible quilted wallhanging I did several years ago, with three different fabrics at 60° angles, which formed a tumbling block pattern.  I thought I'd give it a try with paper!

 I cut 1/2" strips and laid them out parallel, at a 60° angle to the vertical lines on my self-healing mat. My trusty Omnigrid 6"x6" ruler was invaluable for this job. Washi tape was used to temporarily adhere the strips to the work surface.

Then I laid out the next set of strips, following the opposite 60° angle,

then started weaving in the third set of strips vertically. I wish I could tell you a quick and easy rule on how to do this, but I basically just eye-balled it, developing a royal head-ache in the process!

Love the effect, though!  I ended up with a 2"x4" useable strip of woven paper, which as I had used two-sided paper, had a completely different design on the back!  I machine-stitched the edges together, and trimmed them with pinking shears, in keeping with the textile theme.  Here's the finished card:

The poster-style stamp is from Close to My Heart, entitled Home Sweet Home. I gave it the on-trend blackboard treatment, heat-embossing with white and then rubbing on some white pigment ink with my finger. The embellishment was fussy-cut from coordinating paper and layered with foam tape, along with a die-cut flourish from Marianne Design.

Here's a final close-up of the woven panel, with its intriguing 3D tumbling-blocks effect. 10-minute Craft-Dash this was NOT! More like an hour+. However, an interesting experiment...

Happy crafting!
Caroline

Supplies Used:
Cardstock from CTMH in Black & Slate
Patterned Paper from CTMH, For Always
Stamp set CTMH #S1302, Home Sweet Home
Black and Grey sparkles, CTMH
Versamark Ink, White Daisy pigment ink
Superfine white embossing powder and heat-tool
Washi tape
Omnigrid 6"x6" ruler, available at JoAnn's
Marianne Designs CreaTables cutting die
Red gems, Michael's