IF Rocking Horse

I made this card for our neighbours' younger daughter who will be a year old in February. My word, doesn't time fly when you're having fun! It doesn't seem like 12 months since I made a birth congratulations card for her parents using parchment craft....come to think of it, that was the last parching I did! This little rocking horse is done with iris folding; the pattern is a free download from Circle of Crafters and I'm quite pleased with it. The dark pink on the horse's back matches the rocker far better IRL than it appears in the scan, and the iris is a piece of pink/silver holographic paper.

Highland fling!

When I saw the new challenge on Rainbow Lady's blog this week I just knew I had to enter - entitled 'Highland Fling' it covers all things Scottish in honour of Burns Night next Tuesday, 25 January. And I have a lot of Scottish stamps.....

My father came from a tiny hamlet called Invergloy, almost midway between Inverness and Fort William, in the Great Glen. Sadly he left my mother just before I was born; he visited us briefly on my first birthday but that was the only time he and I met. I didn't go to Scotland until I was 21, but ever since then I have felt at home as soon as we cross the border. After my father's death we met his two brothers who still lived not far from Invergloy and it was quite uncanny seeing the family resemblence between them, my sister and me, because we all have dark brown eyes and (unfortunately!) a rather large nose! This latter I call the Curse of the MacDonalds......I am so relieved that although my children have brown eyes they escaped The Nose.

Sorry, this wasn't meant to turn into my life story but it does perhaps explain why I have all these stamps. We have been invited to friends for supper on Tuesday to 'share a haggis' with them and I had already thought it would be fun to make them a special card (they always enjoy receiving their handmade Christmas card) so here it is. I love the Selkirk Grace, which although not written by Burns is traditionally used at every Supper, and printed it from the computer because I don't have it on a stamp. The thistle was stamped in Versamark and embossed with white detail powder.

The inside bears a Gaelic sentiment which I bought so long ago I've forgotten what it says! I think it's something like 'Blessings of the festival' so is quite appropriate; it definitely isn't Happy Birthday' nor 'Merry Christmas' so that's OK. And I do love the celtic bird so tried to find a way of incorporating it, and our friends are cat lovers so will appreciate the (modern) celtic-style cat.

Finally, for the first time ever I was able to use this celtic initial F on the back in place of my usual logo stamp. Maybe we'll sign the card from 'Rabbie and Fionnaghal' in place of the rather prosaic Robin and Fiona.....

Thistle by Elusive Images, sentiment unknown, bird by Scottish Borders Rubber Stamps (now defunct), cat by Clarity Stamps, initial by The Stamp Pad (Dublin).

Neither Christmas nor stitching!

One of my best friends is going to New Zealand for a month in early February. I helped her to plan her visit, having been there twice myself, and made this card for her today. It took me ages to find a suitable image (it's not a topic I do very often) and ended up buying the stamp specially because it was so good - of course it would have been a lot cheaper to go and buy a card from Hallmark or Clinton's but it wouldn't have been the same!! I used Promarkers to colour the image and chalked the background after cutting it with Nesties Label 8. The striped paper came from a pad of Christmas papers I bought last year and haven't used - it's actually more red than brown, whereas the chalked background to the sentiment is less red than it appears (I tried to match it to the suitcase). Sentiment is trimmed using Nesties Mega deckle rectangles. I had to trim the top and bottom edges of the card because the paper wasn't quite straight, and although I almost always have crooked panels on every card I produce, it was so much worse with stripes!

Main image by Penny Black, sentiment by Mostly Animals

More cardifying today

I stitched these 3 last weekend and mounted them this morning. The first two are matted on silver mirri and the third is on gold...now...the first attempt almost saw it on dirty white because I stuck the mirri face down by mistake :(. DH can't believe I could do such a thing but I have to admit it isn't the first time, and probably not the last, either. The tree took the longest time to stitch but I think it was well worth the effort; oddly enough the sleigh, which looks very straightforward, gave me the most grief. All patterns by Pinbroidery.

Bookmark still looking for a home!

I still have a bookmark waiting to be claimed from my blog giveaway of last week. I waited a couple of days longer than I said but finally decided on another draw and the name that came out of the box was

Elizabeth

So if you would like to send me your full name and address to me via email - fionabirchall AT ntlworld DOT com - I will put one in the post to you, Elizabeth! Mind you, it might be quicker to hand deliver it as you are only about 50 miles away. BTW, check out the previous posts for pictures: A & E from the later post are already winging their way to Texas but there are still 6 for you to choose from.

Willow Pattern card

On one of the stitching forums I frequent, someone invented a new word which was so graphic that we all adopted it. Many of us stitch ornaments for the Christmas tree, but once stitched they are still just bits of fabric until they are mounted over card, or backed and stuffed like little pillows, with cording round the edge and a means of hanging them. We needed to differentiate between 'I have finished this ornament' meaning, 'I have finished the decorative stitching on the fabric', and 'I have finished this ornament and it's ready for the tree'. Someone identified the final finishing off process as ornamentifying and it is such a useful word! I am now proposing a derivative for the cardmakers' vocabulary: cardifying. It would be used after you have gathered together disparate embellishments, images, background papers and cardstock for a card and later finally assemble them as a complete, ready-to-send item. I realise it doesn't have quite the same impact as ornamentifying because there's usually a much shorter time scale involved (I've known ornaments be ornamentified years after they were stitched) but to prove my point, here is an example of a card which was stitched last week and cardified this morning!


This is the front, covered in paper from a book of oriental designs published by Search Press. The tie is soft round cord from my stash, looped round and fastened with a lark's head and then knotted, with two brass charms added to the tails. It slips off the card to reveal...

...the inside with a stitched panel and the greeting by Funstamps using Versafine ink in Majestic blue . The righthand panel then opens to reveal.....

...the second and third panels of the Willow Pattern Story. These were so much fun to stitch, using DMC embroidery thread in shade 798. The card is for a friend celebrating a Very Special Birthday soon (but I can't say any more) and I think I'll be doing more like it just for the fun! All patterns from Form-A-Lines, which is the third site in a trio with Pinbroidery and Stitching Cards (yes, there is a reason for the separate sites but it's a long story).

Bookmark giveaway - winners

I put the names of all those who left a comment into a box and asked my DH to pick 3. The winners are.......

Dixie

Kathy Braun and Lucky (sorry, you'll have to share! LOL)

Anne Marie

Please send me your full name and postal address by email to fionabirchall AT ntlworld DOT com (taking out all spaces and using conventional symbols for the capitalised words of course) with 'Blog giveaway' in the subject heading. Let me know which bookmark you would like, from the 5 shown on 11 Jan (identify them as A-E from left to right) and the 3 on 8 Jan (F, G and H). If I haven't heard by Tuesday midnight GMT I'll draw again.

I haven't been idle over the past couple of days but the card fronts I've stitched haven't been finished into Christmas cards yet, and now I've started my sister's birthday card ready for July! I really should be making a Bon Voyage card for a friend who is off to New Zealand soon, plus several birthday cards for February, but while I'm still suffering with this cold I'm taking the line of least resistance - stitching doesn't require any decision making and since I'm feeling pretty mindless right now any decision made would certainly be the wrong one! My time will come.....