Buckle up!

Hello lovely people,

Today I have TWO projects to share with you and look what is first up...

Yep, that's right, I'm super excited to be doing a guest DT spot at  Top Tip Tuesday and the theme this time is...

CUTE

I was asked if I would do a tutorial and I knew straight away that I wanted to share how to make a buckle card.
I first saw this type of card here on Lyndsey's blog and just had to have a go myself, so here's a little look at what the finished card looks like...

And here's how to make it...

Cut a 4cm strip from the front right hand side of a 145cm square base card and save the offcut strip for later

Cut a panel of patterned paper to fit the front of the card and 2 panels to fit the inside of the card, leaving a small white border.  If desired, ink and stitch round the edges of all the panels

Glue the patterned paper panel to the front of the card

Take the offcut strip from step one, round the corners at one end then score and fold at 9cm from this end. This will form the 'buckle' strip.

Cut a small panel of patterned paper to fit the front of the buckle leaving a small white border, inking and stitching edges if desired.  Glue panel to buckle strip.

Inside the card mark out a slot roughly 4mm wide on the left hand side 4cm up from the bottom and 3cm from the left hand edge and cut out with a craft knife; the exact size and placement of the slot is not crucial and can be adjusted to fit where you would like it underneath the image

Attach buckle strip to right hand side 4cm up from the bottom so that the fold line of the buckle lines up with the right hand edge of the card and will fold neatly over the front of the card when closed

Glue patterned paper panel to right hand inside to cover the buckle

Stamp and colour image, trim to size and mat onto a piece of Kraft card. Cover back of image panel with foam pads or tape except for where the buckle will pass behind it; you can mark out where the slot will be by placing the image panel on the front of the card and drawing through the slot you have cut out

Cut a 4x6cm piece of white card and attach to the back of the image over where the buckle slot will be; just glue at the very left hand edge and allow it to hang over the foam pads but don't take the backing off the foam pads just yet!

This is the tricky stage; remove the foam pad backing from the image panel and poke the card strip on the back through the slot whilst you stick down image panel on front

This is what it now looks like from the front;

Glue the end of the small piece of card down inside - you can make the card without this little strip but it does allow the buckle to slide in and out much more easily without catching

Glue patterned paper panel to left hand inside to cover the slot and tab

Decorate the front of the card as desired; I have added flowers and tied some twine with tags round the buckle strip.

Here is the inside of the card and you can see that I added a white panel inside to write the greeting on.

I couldn't finish without a close up of the gorgeous little princess Tilda with a touch of Glamour Dust on the stars.

Card recipe;

Image: Tilda catching stars - Magnolia

DP: Sofiero - Maja Designs

Flowers: Wild Orchid Crafts

Twine: Ivory button twine - The Ribbon Girl

Dies: Lavish branch - Memory Box

Tags: Sentiment tags (set 24) - LOTV

Copic colours;

Skin: E0000/000/00/21/11

Hair: E50/51/53/31/43

Dress / crown: RV000/R81/83/85

Wand: E31/43 & RV0000/000/R81

Socks: RV000/R81/blender

Shoes: W00/0/1/2/3

Ground: W00/0/1/2

This card was made for my niece's birthday; I hope she is still into pink!

Thanks very much to the Top Tip Tuesday team for letting me join in and do pop over to see all their lovely creations :-)
The challenge is being sponsored by the very sweet Sami Stamps so I do hope you can join in for a chance to win.

Thanks for visiting and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,

Hugs,

Kat xx

Challenges I am entering;
1.  Cute Card Thursday (floral delights)
2.  Sweet Magnolia (girls only)
3.  Tilda's Town (flowers)
4.  The Ribbon Girl (Magnolia only - girly)
5.  A Creative Romance (spring flowers)

Tutorial - stitching

Hello lovely people,

I have had quite a few comments/queries about my stitching so I thought I would share a little photo tutorial on how I do it.
If you're not interested please feel free to skip on down to my Totally Gorjuss DT post below; I will not be remotely offended!

First off, I do the stitching by hand ... ok, maybe that's obvious because if I used a machine then a tutorial would be rather pointless!

Here's what I use: a cutting mat, a Tonic Studios Tim Holtz pokey tool (the rubber on this started flaking almost immediately but it works fine), a fine needle and some DMC white embroidery thread;

I start in one corner and poke holes about half way along, the spacing is by eye;

Then I start from the other corner and poke holes towards the ones I have already done.  I stop when the gap looks the right size for 3 more holes;

I add the hole in the middle of the gap;

Finally I fill in the 2 remaining holes either side of the last hole I made.  This seems to mostly avoid having the wrong size gap at the end, although I have been known to get it wrong!

For the stitching part I do backstitch with a fine needle;

I tape the ends down on the back although I realise now that my tape is almost invisible!

I also cheat!  If I know I am going to be covering some of the lower layers up then I don't bother to stitch the non-visible parts :-)

Since I do a lot of this just by 'what looks right' I appreciate it may be a bit daunting for some, but I like doing it by hand and trust me, you get a lot better with practice.  Besides, I reckon it looks better if it isn't too perfect!

I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial and happy stitching :-)  Oh, and if you want to see the finished article it's below this post.

Thanks for visiting,

Hugs,
Kat xx