So it's a great day when the fabulous Yana Smakula reaches out to you to see if you would like to play with the Spellbinders July Small Die Kit of the Month. It is an even greater day when you see the FABULOUS dies she would like to send you. Paisleys and flowers? No need to ask me twice.
No joke... I have been looking for a beautiful paisley die for what seems like ages. I love paisleys. When I saw the image of the paisley die in this kit, I did a happy clap (for real - I really did). So in a move that would probably surprise everyone, I reached for the paisley before the flowers (which are amazing in their own right... more on those to come). That's how much I LOVE this paisley die.
With sweltering temperatures, all I've been dreaming out is lying out on the beach with a cold fruity drink in hand. So I reached for some juicy summer colors when creating these cards. I started by die cutting a bunch of the paisleys and coloring them with Copic markers.
I then stitched around the borders of the paisleys, using the little dot accents as stitch holes. And here comes my *A-HA!!!* moment when creating this card. I did not have that "just right" shade of pink thread and wasn't sure what I was going to to for stitching on the orange paisleys. Then it occurred to me... why not try to color some white thread with the pink marker I had used? Ding ding ding! It worked! I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this, but I was really pleased with this improvisation. I will say... this does stiffen the thread a bit, so I wouldn't necessarily want to do this for larger projects or when using larger quantities of thread. But for small accents like this, it was PERFECT. I'll be using this technique a lot.
After coloring and stitching, I assembled my paisleys by stacking up the frames, creating lots of pretty dimension.
A crafty confession... I'm not always the best at figuring out card composition (whether it be colors, placement... there's usually something I need input on). I usually ask my husband and kids what they think (love them for helping me with my cards!), and this was one of the rare instances where we were split down the middle with a white background or blue background. So I made one of each!
And now we would love your help because we are hopelessly deadlocked... which do you prefer? The white or the blue? We are hopelessly competitive and we need to figure out the winner! 😂
Gorgeous! And such fun colors. The blue pops more to me but I like how you embossed the white, too. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Michelle! These are definitely my current go-to colors. :) So happy you stopped by!
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