Designing a card using a sketch

Whether you are new to card making or an experienced hand, following a sketch when making a card can make you more creative as you can concentrate on different elements. It is like when we were choosing a name for our babies. By limiting the starting letter A for the 1st child, B for the 2nd etc, acutally made it easier and freed us up as instead of having 10,000 names to choose from we limited to 1,000 names. (We ended up having 4 kids Allan, Benita, Camille and Dean. They didn't have to be unique, they just had to not be common for that age. We didn't want half a dozen heads to turn when we called one of our kids!)

Now back on topic, card sketches make it very simple by suggesting a design layout. The card sketch will have basic shapes and designs drawn on the layout but no other instructions are given. You are free to interpret it however you like. You can use your favourite stamps, papers, color schemes etc to create your cards for any occasion you choose. You can even turn the sktch around mirror image it and so forth. Take this week's Simply Less is More challenge: "Week 186"

This single card sketch will be interpreted in so many ways. Just look at all the variations you will see other participants have come up with at the bottom of the blog page. You will be blown away at so many ways to interpret it.

So without further ado, here is my take on it this week.

I have rotated the sketch and used a feather stamp on which I had marbled the inks before stamping  and then fussy cut it and used that for my main image in place of the rectangle and my greeting as per the sketch. As you can see from the lighting and the angle I have embossed the feather with a poly sparkle glitter embossing powder.

I hope you like it and will think of joining us now or in the near future on another challenge at Simply Less is More

More Owl Heat Packs

These cute sleeping owls I made for the Illawarra Cancer Carers Craft Group to sell at one of their many market stalls. The owls also fill a practical purpose. Heat packs certainly don't need to be boring. They can be all sorts of fun shapes.

I prefer heat packs to be filled with low allergenic rice instead of the more common wheat. You can heat them in just the same manner.

I have a tutorial instructions written with lots of photos on how to make the minky owl as shown below on an earlier post here.   These instructions will be easily adaptable for the even simpler owl design I made as shown above.

Here are some other heat packs I have made in the past. I am sure they wont be my last. At the time of writing I have just one zebra one left for sale at $15 plus postage if you are interested then drop me a line.

My Hexagon Bag

I have been keeping busy making QAYG hexagons by hand, generally just keeping my hubby company at night watching TV together.

I had become quite reclusive after my cancer operations and so with the advice of my cancer psychologist, I joined a very active craft group that supports Illawarra Cancer Carers  by having frequent craft stalls. It has been very therapeutic and I feel that what I am doing is worthwhile.

One of the donations to the craft group was someone else's UFO (Un Finished Object) which was a QAYG hexagons. The fabrics were all cut and just a couple of patches were complete. I offered to give it a go. I basically followed the excellent tutorial by knitsnquilts found on the Always Quilting blog, though I had to make a couple of adjustments being someone else's pattern and cutting. My bag is different, but she is the one that gave me the inspiration to make a bag instead of a quilt.

The bag minus the handles

I think the original purpose of the hexagons were to make them into a quilt but I decided to make at least one bag with some of the patches. This is how it turned out. Making the handles were very challenging. I couldn't find any fabric that was close to the colours without over whelming the bag. In the end I decided to twist his cord that was also a donation to the Carers and make my own rope.

I am quite happy with how it turned out! I am happy to make more bags if there appears to be a market for them.