Wednesday 31 August 2011

#81 Anything goes - Quiet Fairy






















Theme at I ♥ Promarkers - anything goes
Sponsor - Letraset (pkt of Promarkers)

Don't these week's just fly by? This week you can use any image you want of course (don't you all just love 'anything goes' weeks, LOL), just so long as you use Letraset products to colour it in - Promarkers, Trias, Flexmarkers or Aquamarkers.

I have used what I am sure will have been proving a popular design sketch from Cute Card Thursdays for the front of the card and for the base design I went with a tent fold card in shiny black. It is a lot more simplistic than a lot of cards I have been making but I reckon it is good to shake things up a bit & do things a bit differently for a change. The image is from A Day for Daisies and is called 'Quiet Fairy', a fairy rose which is a very tranquil image & seemed almost Oriental to me - so I used the ADFD challenge of using twine to create my own tassel which I thought might add to this Oriental feeling as well my use of the black background.  I shall try to explain how I made my tassel at the end of my post if you are interested. I didn't however want to be too obvious & go with the colour red, no matter how traditional a colour to go with black on Oriental themed cards, so chose peach colours instead which I hope also adds to the overall soft feel.

The tent card shaping at the side

Cutting my papers to follow the design layout guidelines, I then carefully distressed the edges of the triangular layer before sewing into position. The original sketch had a verse where my 3 gems actually are but I thought it better to fill out the space on the back with my sentiment (so I hope the Cute Card Thursday ladies don't mind this slight alteration) but I did balance out the design they provided with the matching gems.

For the reverse of the card I layered up a sentiment from Raindrop Echo Designs adding my own words of greeting underneath.



Challenges I would like to enter this card are:
Cute Card Thursdays - design sketch
A Day For Daisies #25 - twine (+ADFD image)
Cuddly Buddly - say something nice
Order of the Opus Gluei - create with roses (rose fairy)
Craft Us Crazy - anything goes
Creative Card - anything goes
Passion for Promarkers - anything goes
Heart Song Inspirations - anything goes (or fav col combo)
Outlaws - Copic/Promarker Friday Challenge - anything goes
Cupcake Inspirations - photo insp (colours)







Making my tassel

I will try to briefly show you how I made the tassel. I had to put it down to photograph it which wasn't always that easy to do. LOL.

I found some scrap card and folded it in half. So the total length of card I used before it was folded in half was exactly double that of  the length of tassel I wanted to finish up with. I then wrapped the twine around the folded card. How much you wind depends on how thick you would like the finished tassel to be. (You can see the tension on the twine as it is trying to wrap around itself).


How you do the next bit is up to you but I put a piece of the yarn through the loop at the top of the card. You could have just pulled the wound yarn off the card base & then added the securing thread afterwards but this way I knew I had got each strand accounted for. You could also cut the bottom end of the tassel at this point, using the gap at the bottom of the folded card as a guide for the scissors. I thought I might leave it till later on. Having slid the wound twine off the card base, I knotted the piece of twine I had threaded through the top to secure all the strands together.


With another length of twine I threaded up a needle with a wide enough eye to take it & wrapped this twine around the top, using the needle to sew into the back of the tassel when I had got a sufficient amount of twine there. I then cut all the loops at the the bottom of the tassel making sure they were all even.


As I wanted a thicker element to the top of the tassel to create a kind of fancy finish, I cut off another length of twine, folded it in half & held the looped end in one hand & the cut ends in the other & twisted the 2 together so that I got a lot of twists all the way up from one hand to the other. (This is where I needed another pair of hands to do the photos really!) I then carefully took the looped end towards the cut end so that they were now both in one hand but grabbed what was the middle of the twisted length with my now free hand & let the two sides twist together using the created tension. I do hope I am explaining this well enough.....

The doubled up length I started with.......

...& the finished amount of twists.

The picutre above shows what it looked like once the two sides had twisted themselves together - with a knot at the end to secure. Sorry, this photo is slightly blurry but I think you can see it well enough. I then used the needle to sew this thicker, twisted element into the 3 looped design at the top of the tassel & once completed I used glue gel to adhere to the card.


Happy crafting everyone. :)

16 comments:

  1. Beautiful very crafty, I just love that tassle!! Thanks for joining the Creative Card Crew this week x

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  2. Thanks for the tutorial! This is wonderful!
    Thank you so much for joining us at Cupcake Inspirations this week!
    Rene :D

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  3. I see you've entered two of my DTs challenges so I have to thank you for playing with us at Cuddly Buddly and at Cupcake Inspirations (weren't those cuppies just magnificent). Your card is lovely, the fairy is just adorable, and the colors are lovely.

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  4. Stunning card. I love the colors. I have never seen an image like this, she is so precious. Your tassel is to die for. Great work. Thanks for joining the Heart Song Challenge this week. Good Luck. Hope to see you again next week.
    Debbie HSI DT

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  5. Beautiful image and fantastic coloring! Thanks for playing along at Heart Song this week. Hope you'll play again regularly.
    NanaConnie HSI DT

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  6. Good grief Girl! YOU made that tassle yourself?? I need to look at that more closely, never know when I might need one. :-)
    Very pretty card, Tine. You do so nicely with the ADFD images.

    ps) thank you for your kind words. :-)

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  7. Great card Hun thank you for joining us at cuddlybuddly for our say something nice challenge good luck and spread the word

    Xx Wendy DT CB

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  8. Wow this is gorgeous!! So pretty and whimsical! I love your colouring and that tassel is fabulous!
    Thanks for joining us at Heart Song Inspirations this week!
    Hugs, Shannah HSI DT

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  9. Very pretty card, love your colouring :-)
    Thank you for joining us at Opus Gluei!
    Gini
    xx

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  10. Gorgeous card Christine, thanks for joining us at PfP this week, good luck.
    Tracy x

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  11. Fab card Tine :) and thanks so much for the tassel tutorial - I never knew how to make those! :)

    have a great weekend,

    hugs

    xxalisonxx

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  12. This is beautiful Tine! Love the colors and that adorable image too! Fantastic coloring! LOVE that tassel! Thanks for sharing how you made it. Must try one!

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  13. This is gorgeous, I love the serene mood that you've created with your lovely image, the soft coloring, and the general feel of the card. The tassle is wonderful too, I thought it was a purchased embellishment because it looked so perfect. I think you've subtly captured the Asian feel that you were looking for in your card. Thank you for participating with us at Opus Gluei and sharing your creation. I hope you return for more fun with us!

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  14. Beautiful cards...such cute images...thanks for joining us at Cuddly Buddly ……..

    Hugs
    Judith

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  15. Hi Christine, what a beautiful card. I love the image and pretty papers. Great job with the tassel. Thanks for joining in with our "anything goes" challenge over at PFP this week. Hugs, Denise x

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  16. I love the soft, subtleness of this card! So pretty! Thank you for the amazing tutorial too! I just sent about 3 pounds of floss to my husband's grandkids... now I secretly want it back to make these! I will go get my own though!!! how fun and pretty!
    Thank you for joining in our Rosey challenge this week at the order of the Opus Gluei! We are glad you came to play!

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