Welcome to the party!! Did you get here via Sian's blog,
From High In The Sky? Cool, you'll already be in the party spirit then :-) Did you just happen upon the party here? Cool, you're very welcome! Let me take your coat. What would you like to drink? I can recommend the punch....
May I introduce you to a few people?
There's Rinda, at
Gallo Organico. She's sharing some lovely mixed media work with us. (And she organised this party - thanks, Rinda!)
And here we have Jacky, aka
Scrappy Jacky, who is a prolific and very talented cardmaker!
Then there's Sian,
From High In The Sky, who scraps beautifully and makes me laugh often.
Me? I'm Mel :-) I dabble in almost any craft going lol but today I've been playing with small scale pieces - my contribution is of an inchie/twinchie/taggie/moo variety!
Sharyn, who is
Living Artfully, will be popping in and out of the kitchen - she's cooking up something gorgeous for us (can't have a party without food!)
From
Happy Bunny Designs we have Gemma, who's our photographer in residence today :-)
Fiona from
Fiona's Flotsam has been having fun with some cute crochet. Can't wait to pick up some tips from her, as crochet is on my 'to-try' list!
And Lizzie of
Lizzie Made is queen of mini albums (Queen Elizabeth! You see what I did there?!)
If you get lost at all (it's a big party....) you can always look out for
Rinda, she knows who everybody is and where they can be found. (And she has a little party gift for one lucky party-goer...) Or you can find me, of course.
So, what are these inchie twinche taggie moo things then?! Shall we start with a few definitions?
Inchie: A square piece measuring 1" by 1" (approx 2.54cm by 2.54cm).
Twinchie: A square piece measuring 2" by 2" (approx 5.1cm by 5.1cm).
Taggie: Just a tag. Taggie fit better. Any size, really.
Moo card: A rectangular piece measuring 2.8cm by 7cm (or 7cm by 2.8cm. Depends how I feel that day).
The rest is up to you - at various times I've used cardstock, fabric, acetate, wood, Stampbord etc as a base, and decorated with stamping, inking, stitching, collaging, glittering, painting, layering.... The possibilities are endless, my friend!!
I decided to go with a self-imposed theme of roses and colour-scheme of pink, green and white - just because. And I couldn't decide between inchies, twinchies, taggies and moos, so I did one of each! Here they are:
And here's a closer look at each...
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Inchie: I made a ribbon rose by coiling and stitching a piece of narrow organza ribbon. I began by folding one end to a point, then wrapped the ribbon around a few times and securing with a couple of stitches. Then I sewed a running stitch for an inch or two, gently pulled the thread to gather the ribbon, wrapped it round and secured as before. This gathering helps to give the outer 'petals' some shape.
When I reached the end of the ribbon I stitched it neatly(ish) to the back of the rose. I then trimmed a piece of card to a square inch, attached a loop of green ribbon to form leaves, and added the rose on top.
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Twinchie: I found an Anita's stamp which just happened to be almost exactly 2 inches square (hooray!) I stamped it onto acetate using black StazOn then left it overnight to dry. I then flipped the acetate over and painted behind the design using acrylic paint, letting it dry between colours. (A spare scrap of acetate is great for mixing colours - but don't mix too vigorously or you get air bubbles!)
Then when this was all dry I just trimmed the acetate to size.
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Tag: I used the brushless watercolour technique for this. Stamps with large 'solid' areas give the best results. Ink up your stamp - I use a pale shade generously all over the stamp, build up with a stronger shade, tapping it all over the stamp, then add a still darker shade just to the edges. Refresh the ink by 'huffing' on it - just breathing heavily onto it - then stamp onto paper or card. Watercolour paper is particularly good for this. I'm afraid I can't tell you much about this stamp; it was given to me and it has no identifying labels at all! But I can at least tell you that I used Whispers inkpads in Whisper Lilac, Grand Cranberry and Port Wine to do the inking, and a heavyweight watercolour paper to stamp onto. I wanted a very faded, antique-y look, so didn't refresh the ink very much. You can get a stronger impression by slightly moistening the paper before stamping if you prefer that effect.
Then I used my Big Shot to die cut the tag shape from the stamped card (but you could easily just hand-cut a tag shape). I added a couple of strips of green checked paper and a selection of ribbons and fibres to finish.
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Moo card: For this piece I went for a paper-pieced peel-off technique. First cut the background cardstock to size and choose a peel-off to fit. Stick the peel-off to your clothing a few times so it isn't so sticky. Then apply it to some scraps of coloured paper or card, draw around the selected area, and remove the peel-off. Cut out the pieces and arrange on the base card, using the peel-off to check placement before you stick anything down.
Finally, stick the peel-off outline on top.
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There we go, a few different rosy small-scale pieces - hope you like them!
Mmmm, something smells good..... Shall we go see what
Sharyn's up to in the kitchen? See you there! :-)
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