Bad Blogger

Argh!! Twice now I have had something non-knitting craft to blog about, and I have failed utterly, becuase I did not have time to take a picture of the result. I made two cards in the past two weeks, one for my friend who was having a baby shower, and one for another church member who had a wedding shower.

For the baby card, I used:

--a pre-made window card from Michael's, the kind that is made for you to slide a picture into, in white, used vertically (with the fold on the left side)
--olive green staz-on ink (it didn't have to be green, that's just what I had in that color)
--Judikins Color Duster
--EK Success water-based brush pens - I don't think they're made anymore
--Stampin' UP stamp from a set called Summer by the Sea (the same one used in the first card on this tutorial, which you totally should go read
--Stamping UP stamp from a set that I think is called "Blessings" - the quote is "It's the little things that make life Big."
--Dye-based black ink
--colored pencils

I tapped the color duster in the staz-on and swirled it around the outside of the frame. I originally planned to stamp the girl and the sentiment on a separate piece of cardstock and slide it in, but I'm not sure whether I did that in the end or not. I used the EK Success pens to ink the stamp of the girl, and then filled it in with colored pencils. I stamped the sentiment in black above her head. I think I used another stamp on the inside of it but I have now totally forgotten what it was.

For the wedding shower stamp, I used:

--A butterfly stamp that I got at Angela's Happy Stamper
--Black dye-based ink
--Another stamp from the Blessings Set, that said something to the effect of "May the God of Love be your eternal partner in your new life together,"
--A Stampin' Up stamp that is the word "love" in very elongated script
--A white pre-made Michael's card (I was in a hurry), used vertically (with the fold on the left side)

I stamped the butterfly in black ink from the left bottom corner to the right top corner, stamping multiple times before reinking so that I had layered butterflies the whole way up, like a flight. I stamped the elongated "love" just above them, following the diagonal of the butterflies. I stamped the sentiment on a white square, which I then matted on a light pink square, which was the only colored piece of the entire card. I put the matted sentiment in the lower right hand corner of the card. Very minimalist, kind of oriental looking to me. I have to admit, though, I totally ripped the idea off one of the cards we did in the Beginning Stamping class at Angela's, with the diagonal butterfly thing. The class card had the butterflies across the diagonal, and then one stamped onto white and matted, and mounted on top of the diagonal butterflies. I loved that card so much I bought the stamp, even though it wasn't in stock and I had to wait months for it. In the end, I did get it. Mwaha. Love it.

In other news, I am up to row 91 on chart 2! (Chart 2 goes from row 51 to row 99). I nearly had a complete meltdown Saturday evening, because while picking back something to see if I had in fact made a mistake, I dropped SEVERAL stitches at the end of the row, in an area full of yarnovers and decreases. I nearly had a heart attack. I put in a lifeline at the beginning of Chart 2, but I really didn't want to lose that much work. I started to try and run another lifeline higher up, but I had a really hard time picking the stitches out. I finally gave up on that and, after much deliberation, I got out a pillow, pinned to the two edge stitches out of the way, and took my needle out of the next six stitches, which covered everything I had dropped. I found the dropped stitches and stabbed through them with blocking pins to keep them from falling any further, until I had a chance to assess the damage. Then I picked a row below them where everything was intact and I could clearly identify each stitch, and stabbed blocking pins through those stitches. Then I took the top set of pins out and carefully pulled out each strand until I had the pinned stitches, and a bunch of loose strands above them. I used a crochet hook to work the next row, unpinning and repinning each stitch as I went across, one at a time. Working this way, I was able to get back up to where I had been, and put the correct number of stitches back on the needle. Only time will tell how I did, but it is looking pretty good so far. I am rediculously pleased with myself.