This was superb timing!

Our friend Mary will be 99 next Friday. Last week I was joking with her that her birthday card ought to show a picture of a '99' which is a soft ice cream in a cone with a chocolate flake bar stuck in it. Not having such a picture, yesterday I made instead a pretty card with daisies on it. Last night I had an email newsletter from Form-A-Lines who publish patterns for stitched cards and lo and behold! one of the new sets includes a 99! Fortunately the patterns are sold by direct download so I was able to stitch it today and am very pleased: not only do I have the perfect card for Mary but I also have a card ready made for a friend's birthday in a couple of weeks (I do need one for Saturday for which the daisies aren't suitable but I'll deal with that on Friday, my only free day this week).

Two stitched cards

A friend on an online craft forum recently posted a request for help: she has been asked to do a demo plus 'make and take' in a London store using Gutermann threads and asked if anyone could make some sample cards for her. There was a free choice of designs and L supplied five spools of Sulky thread, I received two pinks, light brown, light green and a green/gold mix. These are the two cards I made, both using patterns by Form-A-Lines. It was the first time I had stitched with Sulky which is intended for machine embroidery but I shall certainly be using it again - it is very smooth and has a lovely sheen, so not as bright as the metallics I normally use but shinier than DMC embroidery threads.

Bah! Humbug! Challenge #11

Gold....Silver....Copper....sounds like the Olympic medals gone wrong! But this week's Challenge theme of metallics certainly has plenty of scope, and if you think of those car colours available as an optional extra in metallic finish (at vast extra expense, of course) you can see we're not restricted to the precious metals. On the highest step of my rostrum is this Christmas star stitched in gold metallic thread, edged with a thin gold border and mounted on dark blue velvet paper. Stitching pattern from Form-A-Lines, the sentiment is by JustRite Stampers cut with Nestability dies and has a scalloped border of the same gold.


Silver and white says snowflakes to me (yes, I have very selective hearing...). The big one is a stamp by Personal Impressions embossed with silver EP and mounted on matt silver. Two embossed panels have snowflakes by Crafts Too and Papermania, and the card is 6 inches square.


The partridge in a pear tree is made with a Dreamweaver stencil and matt black paste on copper coloured card, then mounted on green velvet paper. I even had a sheet of copper coloured greetings to embellish it!


The three kings stamp by Hobby Art is embossed in gold and painted with Twinkling H2Os - those non-precious car colours - which have a pearlescent finish rather than 'twinkling' in the way that Glimmer Mists or Cosmic Shimmers do. I cut the shape with Nesties Label #8, framed it with a patterned gold card and mounted it on green mirri card.

I didn't even use the buttons, charms, wire, eyelets and brads all with metallic finish that I'd unearthed before I started!