Join me for an interview with Linda Rapchak for the first in our series, “Everyday Artist.”
Linda Rapchak
Cheers to YOUR artful adventures!
When you participate in any creative activity where there are daily prompts, you just never know what you will come up with! That is no exception here today! I have been participating in a daily scrapbooking challenge, while still wanting to give you some fun ideas to use heart punches and die cuts! Today, I worked in some heart flowers!
Heart punches or die cuts make quick work of creating enough hearts for a project like this. Buttons create the centers of these hearts, and stitching created the stems. There is ink sprayed at the bottom of the stems giving it more of a “dirt” look.
This is actually a digital page, and my computer was so slow this afternoon that I really was frustrated. Normally, it would just not have taken long to make this page either in paper or digital, but it did today. I just realized I never put leaves on my flowers, as was my original plan. Did YOU notice? I’m fine with it as is. Tell me about a project you were just happy with at some point, even though it wasn’t your plan!
Make some heart flowers and share with us over on the Artful Adventures Facebook Group!
Those who know me well, know that there is just not an end to my interest in all things crafty. Sometimes I jump from one thing to another, and that is why scrapbooking and card making became interesting to me. It was like making miniature art projects! Then when you throw in art journaling, mixed media, doodling, oh my – my head starts to spin with all the excitement of possibilities! This website will never become a sewing focused place, but I just want to give some love to all my fellow crafters who know how to rock out a sewing machine! Here’s why:
This month I am participating with over 400 other people in Lain Ehmann’s LayOutADay for February 2013. You can Scrap Happy and participate next time. During LOAD, she gives us a prompt each day, and everyone creates a page and uploads it to a private Flickr gallery. Obviously every prompt elicits an individual response from each person, so there are a multitude of layouts and stories!
My layout for today was from thoughts I had about being crafty from a young age. With so much talk these days about actually stitching on scrapbook pages and cards with a sewing machine, it reminded me of how much sewing I have done in the past.
My grandmother learned to sew on a Singer treadle machine which I still own. If you walked into the room when she was sewing, you could hear it practically singing, and it was going so fast you would think it was an electric machine! Even after she had an electric machine, she often would rather use the treadle, especially for quilting. It became hard to find the belts and she eventually just used an electric all the time.
My mother also knew how to sew and she made most of the things she and I wore. She wanted me to learn to sew, but instead of really trying to teach me herself, she had me join 4H and we learned some basic sewing skills. I think I made the obligatory apron. Hmmm…. I didn’t think it was all that hard!
By the time I started eighth grade, I was making all my clothes, except outer wear, sweaters, and jeans. I really enjoyed selecting my own fabric and patterns, and not wearing what my mom picked. Let’s just say we don’t really have the same taste!
Between my mom and grandmothers, they enjoyed sewing, quilting, embroidery, smocking, needlepoint, knitting, crochet…. It was no wonder I felt that these needle crafts were awesome!
After marrying and having three girls, I did a lot of sewing until three things happened:
The love of sewing was lost.
Lately, my oldest granddaughter has been so happy to have me mend some of her favorite pants, and I’ve seen so many beautiful quilts, stitching on paper projects, cute aprons, that I’m starting to get the itch to do some sewing again. I’m thinking I may start with a cute apron. I feel like I am coming full circle. Thank you grandmas, mom, and 4H!
In case you are interested, check out this Free Webinar coming up on 2/13, “Get Your Stitch On with Jennifer Larson” – Sewing on Scrapbook Pages.
Here is a quick tutorial on using an embossing folder with the Big Shot. This is the type of folder I used on the cupcake with hearts frosting, which was the Stripes folder mentioned in the video; as well the Petals-a-Plenty folder used on the heart couple. When you have these little folders on hand, you can make quick work of adding some dimension to a card, scrapbook page, and even fun elements on an art journaling page, or mixed media piece.
Dress was embossed before cutting heart.
You can make this cute couple with either a heart punch or die cut!
The black heart for the man’s jacket has been cut partially down the center and then folded out from the center to make lapels. A white heart makes his shirt, and a ribbon with a knot at one edge makes a tie. A dot of Crystal Effects makes his button. (As I am writing this and looking at this photo, I see that I didn’t get his tie on right! It will actually look neater if you get it on with the snipped off part turned on the bottom!)
To give the dress some texture, the paper was embossed before the heart was cut. A little ink sponged over the embossing gives it more dimension. It was also cut deeper in the center to give it more of a plunging neck line. Rhinestones were set around the edge for more sparkle. Her body was made from a light pink paper heart, with a little ink to give some depth to her body.
The hearts for this couple were cut from a set of Framelits, as I wanted them larger to go on a scrapbook page.
