The 1st Project With My Sewing Machine

... was this envelope pillow case for our living room. I bought the fabric and filler at IKEA and my hubby measured everything out carefully. Then I sewed the pillow with the help of this video. From the rest of the fabric, I'm planning to make a cover for my sewing machine. :-)

Have a Heart

This is my very first attempt with my first sewing machine (got it from my faboulous husband and superb parents). 

Challenge: Simon Says Stamp - Have a Heart

ric#72 - Hervé Léger

You gotta love the orange colours of autumn. And this dress at RIC's 72nd challenge shows them off perfectly.

So I thought of doing the same:

By the way, it's a thank you card and it has no sentiment outside because you could see it through the vellum leaf, which for personal reasons hasn't been photographed. :-)

Water-themed and -coloured card

This is my second scheduled post for this week as I leave for the UK for two weeks and I didn't want to leave it here all alone. LOL

I whipped up this card in like 15 minutes (which is veeeery fast for me) because it was a late nameday card for my dad. We spent a week in Croatia with my parents so its theme was obvious and that's also the reason why it was late. :)

I used my brand new watercolour set and a little bit of embossing before I hand stitched its left side. Then I tried my lettering skills and wrote 'Dad' on the right side. 

To finish it off I put a textile button with a starfish on it in the top right corner.  

I'm also entering this into this week's Paper Smooches Sparks Anything Goes challenge.

A Birthday Card That Travels With Us

To Scotland to be exact. It'll be our Scottish friend's birthday on the 4th August and we were invited to meet them during their summer holiday back in Scotland. I wanted this card to be pretty special for her so I was delighted when checking out the current RIC photo and said: yes, that's it!

I've bought recently a Kohinoor watercolour kit - better later than never. It has 16 beatuiful colours and I decided to try them for backgrounds first. 

The flowers fit just perfectly to the inspirational photo in colours. I chose them from Basic Grey's Fresh Cut paper pad and fuzzy cut the image by hand.

In the end I decided to hand stitch the top stripe to add a little bit of interest. With the help of my ruler's holes I punched along first then stitched through with a lime green thread.

You have still time to take part in this challenge. I think its colours are fantabolous - again!

A recycled business card

I was handed this card at a chocolate festival (nom-nom) and it has been sitting in my stash for 2 years. I couldn't wait any longer and wanted to use it at last! And since I missed Virgina's last challenge, I am taking part in the current one, called Stitchin #3.

I pierced the business card with the help of my Dovecraft ruler, pulled out a big needle and voilá. I've also discovered recently that Tchibo has a range of markers that can be painted, just like the distress markers. So to highlight and separate the business card from the white base, I drew a line around it and added some water. I coloured some chipboard ballons, added some glossy accent and stamped a happy birthday sentiment in cup o' joe shadow ink and that was it. I think it became a pretty versatile card that you could give both to a female or a male recipient, as well.

(Sorry for the crappy photos, I was in a hurry in the morning... as usual. :-))