Birthday Wishes roses card

It's been a while since I've done any paper crafting but I made this card a few weeks ago.  Earlier in the summer, I decided to practice watercoloring and the perfect solution for me was to use an image out of the Simon Says Stamp Suzy's Flower Sentiments watercolor prints.  The images are printed on watercolor paper, come in a variety of themes and are about 4 1/4" x 5 1/2", great for card making.  This makes it a nice alternative to stamping an image onto watercolor paper which can be challenging due to the rough texture of it although, not impossible.  I colored this beautiful image using Fantasia watercolor pencils.  

I used two colors, a light and dark shade, both for the roses and the leaves.  After I used a wet paint brush to water down the pencil color, I did go back in to add more of the darker color for shading.  It may be hard to tell but that's why I'm practicing 😊!  

To turn the print into a card, I adhered a piece of light purple card stock to the back for a mat and applied that panel to a card based covered in a piece of printed art collage card stock by Die Cuts With a View.  I was going to leave it at that but it needed a little embellishment so I added the yellow ribbon and bow and some sparkle with a Wink of Stella glitter brush pen.  It's hard to capture the sparkle but I think it can be seen in this next picture.

 Happy crafting!

 

One Stitch at a Time

My latest fully finished cross stitch project is the One Stitch at a Time pattern by Tiny Modernist.  I completed the stitching in July and periodically I would think of finishing ideas and recently I finally came up with this clean and simple finish.

Here are the stitching supplies and  details:

Fabric - 16 ct. white Aida cloth

Finished stitched size - approx. 4" x 4"

Floss

Blues - Sullivans 45444 and 45442 (the DMC equivalents are 3846 and 3844)

Yellow - Sullivans 45171 (the DMC equivalent is 726)

Grays - Sullivans 45483 and 45089 (the DMC equivalents are 168 and 413)

Greens - DMC 906 and 907

Corals - Sullivans 45075 and 45076 (the DMC equivalents are 351 and 352)

Brown - Sullivans 45097 (the DMC equivalent is 436)

 

Finishing details:

 

I purchased an ArtMinds wood plaque from Michaels and painted the sides and part of the interior with Folk Art's Wicker White acrylic paint.  I measured, cut and adhered some blue fabric to the plaque interior for the backdrop to showcase the design.  I adhered the stitched design to a piece of chipboard and pondered on how to make it pop off the background.  I like the look of rick rack and also wanted to use cording so I looked through my supplies to see what would work.  I decided on some nice 100% cotton jumbo rick rack (purchased from Sew Vintagely on Etsy) and figured out the placement, glued it down to the background fabric and then adhered the stitched design on top.  Next, I considered either purchasing a tool to make cording or trying a DIY method.  Well, I referred back to this video by Lolly Palooza that I watched several months ago and using some yarn to practice, I was successful in producing some cording!  I wasn't sure what color to use for the cording and was thinking of using the 45442 floss but as I was looking through some of my supplies, I discovered I had some DMC Perle cotton size 5 in a complimentary color.  Well, I never realized there was a color number on the Perle floss and guess what? As I peeled off the label, I saw number 352.  Wow, no wonder it was a great match to a color I used, LOL!  Sullivans 45076 is equivalent to DMC 352!  So, with 4 strands of the Perle cotton, I made some cording and adhered it to the perimeter of the design; a nice addition to finish the look!

 

Happy stitching!