Hand Stitching Tutorial (Artfull Crafts)

Good morning! I'm on the Artfull Crafts blog today with another layout made with the beautiful Kaisercraft Telegraph Road.  This time I decided to make a clean-style layout featuring the majority of patterned papers from the collection on a white cardstock background.  I punched out a heap of circles from the 6x6 paper pad, then arranged them in a grid.  I layered my photo and one of the 4x6 cut-apart cards, and then placed the entire layout on a piece of patterned paper from Crate Paper (Flea Market by Maggie Holmes) to create a border.  

I kept the embellishment simple too, with some wood veneer hearts, a Paper Bakery flair badge, and white tag which I stamped and embellished, and some grey ink splatters.  My journalling explains that my daughter and I went shopping to buy her some new winter clothes, and of course she had to pick pink jeans with white hearts!  I will admit that if there had been adult sizes I would have got a pair too!

As my sewing machine wasn't cooperating I decided to hand stitch around the cardstock, to both assist in adhering the paper, and to create a feature in itself.  The following tutorial explains my process:

1. Measure and pencil in an even line around the cardstock then pierce holes at even distances apart ( I did this freehand).   

2. Erase the pencil lines. My favourite eraser to use on cardstock is an electric eraser from Smiggle:

3. Select the embroidery thread you wish to use:

4. I use washi tape to secure the thread on the back of my layout, this saves having to tie knots.

5. Back-stitch around the perimetre of the layout using the pierced holes.  This is painstakingly slow but so worth it.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.  I love the extra texture that machine and hand stitching adds to my layouts, and it ensures that my layers are secure.  You can purchase the Telegraph Road Collection in the shop here.

Thanks for looking, see you in March!

Melissa 

Lets Get Sketchy is Turning 2!

Make sure you join us for our special blog hop for Lets Get Sketchy's  2nd birthday!

Have a fantastic day!
Melissa x

Hello Poppa (Lets Get Sketchy)

Hello!  Its the third week of February which means our team is up for another reveal over at Lets Get Sketchy!  And this week I have to say that this is probably one of my favourite sketches ever!  I struggled when I started to create this layout, I got my main paper layers down, and my stitched messy circle, but then I was almost at a blank at what to do next.  This layout actually sat on my desk for about a week until I finally finished it!

I used Flea Market from Crate Paper, which contains all the Maggie Holmes goodness that I love.  Once I started embellishing the design was able to flow, and as I loved the sketch so much I stuck to it completely, including punching out gold butterflies.  The "hello" vellum die cut is from Heidi Swapp, and the beautiful wood veneer feathers are exclusive to the Paper Bakery.

This photo was taken by my Mum, and is of my Dad holding Azaria when she was a tiny newborn baby.

And here is the sketch, designed by the lovely Laura Whitaker:

Thanks for looking, and make sure you link up your layouts, and head over to the blog to check out the other fabulous creations by the DT.

Be blessed 

Melissa x

Teamwork (Scrapstuffz)

Hello! Whilst it's been quiet here on my blog this past week I've been scrapping heaps lately to get ahead with some Design Team projects before my baby arrives in approximately 10 weeks! We're starting to get really excited to meet him or her!

I'm up on the Scrapstuffz blog today with my February reveal. For the first time ever I took a literal interpretation of the inspiration photo and scrapped a large photo collage of cupcakes and baking that we made for school fundraising at Arrowtown Autumn Festival last year.  I used a Paper Bakery Kit.  I kept this one very simple as the photos already have so much going on. I must say that the stamps that Sarah designs are such good quality, as they stamp really clean straight away.

And here is this month's inspiration photo:

Make sure you play along for a chance to win!

Blessings

Melissa x

Good morning, well Summer has finally arrived here in Queenstown, which everyone is happy about!  This month Liz from Artfull Crafts gave me some of the beautiful Telegraph Road to create with, which is described as "the perfect mix of adult sophistication, bright playful colours and vintage throwbacks."   It is such a lovely collection and it was so easy to make the following two layouts.

The first layout records our family memory of attending the Anzac Day parade in Arrowtown last year.  I printed out these Instagram photos months ago, but struggled to find the right product to use to record them.  Telegraph Road was perfect.  I spread started with some gesso, and then used some watered down ink to run down the page, and finished my base with some spatters of Heidi Swapp Colour Shine.  Next I sewed on the large piece of patterned paper, and then layered up the cut apart cards and die cuts.

For my second layout I wanted to feature as many of the patterned papers from the 6 x 6 paper pad as possible, so I tore them into strips and layered them up horizontally down my page.  I sewed each strip down.  The page came together really quickly after my base was made, with more gesso, ink splatters, and layering my photos over two doilies and some die cuts.  I journalled on a tag, placed it on dimensional adhesive, and then added the two heart brads, and the die cut off the side.  These are really old photos of my family when there were just three of us!  The first photo is a selfie, as evident by the cutting off of our faces, but I just love it!

Thanks for looking.  You can purchase the Telegraph Road collection in the Artfull Crafts online shop here.

Enjoy your day

Melissa x

Lets Get Sketchy's "Get Inspired Issue 2"

Hello, as I said in yesterday's post, Lets Get Sketchy's online magazine "Get Inspired" is now live, and you can view it here.  Just to warn you , this is a layout heavy post from me to share what I created as part of the Design Team.

This first layout had to have a pocket on it.  I decided to do a pocket page to show how I scrapbook an event with lots of photos.  This is the second page about Sam's 5th birthday party (its a real challenge to photograph divided page protectors).

My second layout had to include memorabilia.  Rather than use tickets, I included Sam's certificate from rugby last year.

My third layout had to incorporate stitching. This layout is about Azaria's first plane flight when she was about 3 months old.  I used both machine and hand stitching.

My fourth layout had to include a selfie, and this is me at 17 weeks pregnant. You should see how big I am now!  I used a Paper Bakery kit.

My final layout had to be a white space page, and I scrapped these photos of banana berry muffins I baked for our church cafe a few years ago.

Thanks for making it this far!

Melissa x

Love (A layout & Some Cards)

I made this layout for a design team call, but as I didn't get in I'm keen to share it on here now.  I made the pink ruffle by machine stitching some pink tissue paper that was wrapping on a present at Christmas.  It always feels good to be able to re-purpose materials that would otherwise be thrown into the recycling bin!

The photo is an Instagram of Azaria that I enlarged.  When Mum and Dad were visiting late last year we went shopping and Azaria posed on this chair in Glassons, so of course Mum and I had to take a photo.

I used a mixture of American Crafts and Crate Paper, and kept it simple so the photo and ruffle could shine!

I also made these cards for the same DT call:

By the way, Issue 2 of Lets Get Sketchy's "Get Inspired Magazine is now live", you can check it out here.  Submissions are also being taken for Issue 3, so if you are keen to get published make sure you head over to the blog here.

Thanks for looking, have a great day!

Melissa x

Love This (Lets Get Sketchy)

Wow, can you believe its February already?  This means a new month of weekly sketches over at Lets Get Sketchy. This week I scrapped a page for my pregnancy album, and its of a onesie that my sister sent over for the baby bump for Christmas.  Its perfect as we don't know whether the baby is a boy or a girl, and I had to take a photo to document it for my album.

I used predominantly Echo Park Paper's Beautiful Life Collection, with some Heidi Swapp and Dear Lizzy which matched really well.  I just love the tiny hearts on the background music score paper.  I added some gesso under the banners at the bottom to help them stand out from the music notes.

This weeks lovely sketch was designed by our awesome leader Brenshevia Baker:

I loved this sketch so much that I stuck pretty closely to it, I just added a few extra layers, including tissue paper as the bottom layer.  I love the soft dreamy look it adds.

Thanks for looking, make sure you play along this month for a change to win, and because we all love to see you pages!

Be blessed 

Melissa x

Inspired by Maggie Holmes

Well its been a while since I blogged, and its mostly because work and church have gotten busy, and on top of that I've been struggling with morning sickness again.  However, I have less than 12 weeks to go now (I'm 28 weeks), so the end is in sight.  This whole pregnancy has really been a test of my endurance.  Having another baby is really becoming a reality now, as my tummy is rapidly growing now, and the baby's movements are stronger.

On Thursday I had to do another glucose tolerance test, it was the 2 hour test again and wasn't pleasant. The best thing was that I got chatting to another pregnant lady (doing the 1 hour glucose test) who is due two days after me.  She will also be having her baby in Invercargill so it was great to chat and be distracted from our tests.  She's a very talented seamstress, and loves reading blogs, so we had lots to talk about.

I love reading blogs too, and a couple of weeks ago I watched this great video by Maggie Holmes on the Studio Calico blog here.  I just love everything Maggie creates, and in this video she explained how she made her own custom background with 4 patterned papers.  I was so inspired that I decided to make my own background with some leftover papers from my Paper Bakery kit.

My layout is about the Daddy baths that Shaun would give newborn Sam when he got home from work.  Hard to believe that my boy will be 7 soon!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Melissa x