Be my love bug

Well hello again my lovelies I hope you are all well and haven’t missed me to much (haha). I seem to have a thing lately for using love bug in the title strange but purely coincidental (honestly) Anyways as you will know I have been a little busy lately with one thing and another but I have had time to make a couple of cards (yesterdays being one) and actually got make some embellishments yayyy I also managed to do a tutorial of the flowers in this one it’s only a pic one, I haven’t worked out how to do a video yet and I don’t think my camera is good enough but I think you will get the drift (and it’s such fun to do too) (see bottom of post)

So anyhoo onto my card, it’s a commissioned card and it’s for a girlfriend (not my girlfriend BTW) the only info I was given was that she loves her Beetle car so that got the ole grey matter ticking (yes I had to have a lie down in a darkened room)but after the head ache had passed this is what I came up with.

 

The card blank is 8x8½”  the papers are a mix from freebie sites which have been distressed (I had withdrawals form not doing it last time) then inked with pumice stone, faded jeans and broken china DI

The sketch I used is another one from Jules if you haven’t seen her sketch library you should pop over they are really easy to follow. I did jig this one around just a tad but you can still see the LO (I hope)

Now I can’t remember where I had the image from but I have had it for a while which is why my head started twitching when fella that asked for the card mentioned a beetle I printed it out onto textured photo and matt grained paper. I cut out the cars and the one heart from the matt paper and added glitter and glossy accent then set aside to dry while doing the card. Then I mounted them onto DSST to add a kittle depth. I also inked the edges in faded jeans before adding to the card.

To embellish the card I made the flowers from organza ribbon (again destructions below) and some red gems just tie the red in from the hearts and writing.

I made the insert as always using the same papers from the front and bringing the image through again fading it in the background under the verse and greeting.

And there you have it I hope you like it, thank you for popping over and saying hello, you know I love seeing you and kettle is always on.

I will leave you with a list of challenges and the picture tutorial of the super shabby flower (hope you like it)

   Challenges

http://glitternsparklechallengeblog.blogspot.co.uk/  Happy Birthday

http://thatcraftplaceblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/new-challenge-for-all-crafts-blue.html

http://crafting-with-dragonflies.blogspot.co.uk/ Floral (Hope my handmade flowers count)

http://craftycatzweeklychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ Flowers

OK class are you ready(sorry only joking it’s been a while since I did a tutorial)

So for this flower you will need a length of ribbon (mine is 1½” wide and I have used roughly about 30” in length) scissors, lighter, needle and thread. (If you want to make a bigger flower then the wider your ribbon the broader your finished flower will be)

First take you lighter and gently scorch the ends of the ribbon (this will seal the ribbon and stop any fraying)

Then fold in ½ length ways and with your lighter go along the fold you have just made, now you do need to be careful not to singe through although if you do, as long as it’s only a little hole it won’t hurt and will add to the shabbiness. Doing this will stiffen the fold and make it easier to cut and sew. 

When you have gone all the way along the fold you then need to take you scissors and cut from the fold down to the 2 ends but obviously not going all the way (that would be silly wouldn’t it) how far apart you cut is up to you I went about 2-3mm again going from end to end. When you have finished if you open your ribbon you should have slats running through the width.

Now folding back in half (if you opened it)   take you needle and thread and as you start stitching start to roll the end in and every couple of rolls do a stitch to hold in place.

 Keep doing this all the way to the other end keeping the bottom as flat as you can. Once you have got to the other end stitch in place to secure then start to open the flower, you can at this stage snip some of the loops to make it look more ragged and don’t worry if some start to fray it just adds to the look of the flower.

Once you have your desired shape you can then secure onto your card mixed media

Here you can see I have made 2 different sizes just by adjusting the length to start with but I think they look really pretty.

 

And there you have my first in a very long time tutorial I hope you find it easy to follow and enjoy having a go