WIP (work in progress)

I've been away from the craft area and computer for the past several days, so my project for this week's Designed2Delight digital stamps is still unfinished.

Basically the ATC is done, but I need to figure out some sort of binding. What I did this time was print the digi stamp on fabric, and then colored it with crayon, and heat set the color. I put a backing of batting on it, and then free motion embroidered the outline to quilt it. I had outlined the entire card before printing, forgetting that the quilting would pull in the fabric and shrink the card. So you can see the original lines. This will be covered by the binding.

with minutes to spare...

Last week had been very busy, in a very crazy sort of way. Basically, extra work at work, doctors appointments, and I am without a car, so it meant walking everywhere. (good for the waistline, but not so good for time efficiency.) And Thursday night, when my Designed2Delight challenge was due, I hadn't even started. And I had a long list of phone calls to make.

Digital graphics comes easy to me. And so while talking on the phone, I put together last week's digital ATC. It was no big deal. Just filled the flowers in with the paint bucket tool. And the watering can was metal style Photoshop plug-in from Scrap Girls. Just before the midnight deadline, I got it uploaded.

You can see it here.

Designed2Delight digital stamps

I tried...

I've made several attempts to write this post. From several different perspectives; and each time I just couldn't get my thoughts together in a meaningful manner.

Likewise, I've tried with this week's challenge from Designed2Delight Digi Shop. I've tried to put together what I thought was a cute idea, but in execution, it didn't quite work out the way I intended.

Nevertheless, the conditions of the challenge are to post your creation publicly. So here it is, for better or for worse:

64 crayons

I have a box of Crayola 64 crayons that I had never used. For this project, I finally opened them. I've heard that many people enjoy coloring as it brings them back to their childhood. For me, I found that I enjoy the coloring process, whether it's with paint, pencils or crayons. Copic markers have been a big thing in the crafting world lately. I had the opportunity to try a friend's copic markers and I would one day love to have my own. But crayons did the trick quite nicely, even it they didn't have quite the same effect.

I started with the weekly digi stamp from Designed2Delight digital stamps. I kept thinking back to the crafts we used to make in kindergarten with crayon shavings, where we would iron waxed paper over the crayon shavings and create a design. Or rather, the teacher would do the ironing over the design we had placed on a sheet of paper.

In Photoshop I shrunk it down to ATC size, and printed it out. Then I colored them in with the 64 crayons. Well, some of the 64 crayons. I think the ATC size is too small for shavings, but I might try that at some point. The end result didn't have quite the melted look I was hoping for.

I next took a plastic sandwich baggie, and ironed it onto the card. (The card and baggie were sandwiched between my silicone ironing sheet and a piece of parchment paper.) The result was the colored card with a laminated covering. Ok, but kind of blah. It needed something else.

I noticed a package of blue glitter that I had lying on my desk, and sprinkled some of that on the next card, and then ironed the plastic on. That was the missing touch that it needed. Here is the final result:

"...A Bunch"

The deal with Designed2Delight's digital stamps is that you get one free a the beginning of the month. You are then challenged to create something with that stamp within the week. If you do, you will get the next one. (Designed2Delight digital stamps.)

For the first time, last week I actually achieved her challenge and this week I got her second digi stamp. This time I made a hybrid ATC. (Hybrid crafting takes some elements of digital crafting, and some elements of regular paper crafting and melds them together.)

I took her stamp, and laid it out in Photoshop elements along with a background from Scrap Girls. I then isolated the bear and the flowers from the digistamp and made copies of them. The flowers were overlaid with another digital "paper" from Scrap Girls. I then printed out all the elements. I first cut out the bear, and coated it with a layer of brown flocking. Then I cut out the flowers, and assembled all the elements on to the ATC background. The flower stems are green embroidery thread.


Here is the result as the card is now:

My plan is to finish working on this card. I have since added dots of dimensional paint into the center of the flowers. And the picture makes it clearly obvious how splotchy the flocking is, so I'll be going back and patching that up. Otherwise, this card is available for trade. If you are interested in trading, e-mail me with a picture of what you have available.

Coming along

One of my goals in blogging was to have an arena to share my craft projects with the world. My regular blog reading includes many craft blogs, and although I don't hope to compete, I wanted my small little share. However, I haven't done much crafting to speak of, for many reasons, and so no blogging to go along.

One big obstacle was my old computer. Much of my crafting has its origins in digital form, whether a template or image that I print out, or the entire project in digital graphics. The old computer was not designed to handle graphics. And so it crept along, trying its best, but it was so frustratingly slow that any motivation to do something was quickly dashed.

I came across a blog, Designed2Delight and delightful it is, that is until I had to face the computer. Well that changed a few weeks ago with the purchase of a new computer, and while there are many factors influencing my motivation, slow graphics is no longer a problem.

The e-mail from Delightful Inspiration came only a few days ago. With my schedule, that didn't give me much time to create and get it posted for her deadline. And so I hastily put together something in Photoshop Elements. It's not nearly as creative or inspired as many others, but it is what it is. And for me, at this point, any creation is better than not.

For the record, I've created an ATC in digital form. The background is from Scrap Girls , one of my favorite digital graphics sites.