Love Subway Art and a Heart Punch

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Artful Adventures Kristie Sloan Couples Names Subway Art Style

Couples names are individual digital files to arrange as you like!

Yesterday was Valentines Day, and I really hadn’t planned on sharing this page I made, but in the end, I wish I had shared this information with you sooner!  However, it’s not too late, this would be perfect to use for an anniversary or wedding!  Here’s the scoop:  The couples’ names are each a digital .png file, that can be arranged or sized any way you want to.  There are even more of them than I chose to use on mine. Even though I feel bad that I didn’t share it with you in time for you to use it for a Valentine, wouldn’t it be cute to use for an anniversary or wedding?  You could easily replace the “You & Me” with the couples name, and add a date!  There you go – great personalized gift!

I finally had time last night to put one together, put in a frame and gave my husband for Valentine’s Day.  I made a 5×7 (because I thought if he wanted to set around his work space it wouldn’t be too big, PLUS I figured I had a frame I could put it in.  (I like to play like I am being eco-friendly, rather than flying by the seat of my pants, and just need to grab what is on hand!)

Artful Adventures Kristie Sloan Couples Subway ArtAfter getting that done, I decided to use it for today’s scrapbook page for the Layout A Day (LOAD) challenge this month.  Why start from scratch when I already had that much done!  I added the little doodled looking border, (if you know who this designer is, please let me know!)   A “heart punch” photo of the two of us, and some journaling on the side.

Back to the heart punch.  Think how cute it would be to take photos that you won’t ever scrap, and just punch some hearts!  Or hearts punched for floral, landscape, sky… that could make some interesting hearts to add for embellishing something!

You can grab the digital couples’ names artwork here at the Stampin’Up Store. When you download it be sure to select whether you want to use it with My Digital Studio or other programs.

Heart Punch Flowers

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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!

Artful Adventures Kristie Sloan LOAD213-1 Heart Punch 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!

 

Sew Thankful – Sew Loved

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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!

Artful Adventures Kristie Sloan LOAD213-09My 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:

  1. I had better luck being able to try something on and knowing if fit and looked good, and just buying it.
  2. The girls decided it wasn’t cool to wear “homemade” clothes.  They wanted to shop at stores with trendy clothes.  It would almost kill me to buy things for them made with such cheap fabric and poor workmanship.
  3. Family who couldn’t/wouldn’t sew wanted to take advantage of my skills, and have me do all kinds of alterations for them, or things I didn’t even like doing for myself.

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.

Using an Embossing Folder for Texture

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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.