Twinkling Tuesday

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Good Morning!

I'm still grinning from yesterday's announcement. :) Thank you so much to everyone who left me a comment/congratulations - I really was so touched by it. I also want to say a quick hello to the influx of new friends/followers to my blog. Helloooooo! Pull up a chair, grab a cup of tea or coffee or something a bit stronger ;) and stay a while. :)

Today is Tuesday which means another Twinkling Tuesday sketch challenge from 9 yr old Madelynn. Only today, we have a temporary twinkie - Madelynn's younger brother Jack. You can find the sketch and this week's featured Twinkie, Debbie Lee, on Madelynn's Twinkling Tuesday blog.

Thankfully Jack went easy on us this week and I definitely took advantage of that! LOL I colored up one of the super cute little girl's from The Greeting Farm's Wild Sprout collection. I just LOVE these little girls!
I stamped out Dahlia on a Very Vanilla circle and again on watercolor paper. I then colored up the latter one with reinkers and a water brush. I roughly sponged in a circular motion with Antique Linen and Tea Dye around the Very Vanilla image. Popped the colored image on dimensionals and created the center panel with an EK Success circle cutter and decorative scissors because I don't own a cuttlebug. (Although, after reading about all your favorite tools, I'm finding it harder and harder to resist that purchase!)

The individual squares were sponged with Antique Linen and then matted with Georgia Pacific cardstock (plain white cardstock). I haven't wanted to use my sewing machine much lately because I wasn't happy with the quality of stitching it was producing. It was messy and uneven no matter what the upper thread tension was set at. But that all changed the other day when I found the problem - bobbin tension! My mum is a seamstress, so sewing is in my blood, but I had no idea there was such a thing as bobbin tension! I found this you tube video and did the test on my bobbin cradle and sure as shootin', mine was loose. So I followed these instructions and tighted the screw a 1/4 turn to the right and voila - I have neat stitching again! (Note: I also switched my needles from a 90/14 size to a thinner 65/9 so I wouldn't have giant needle holes. That's helped a lot too.) Then I just added some adhesive pearls to the corners and some ribbon and I was done.

The paper I used is from that new Greenhouse stack by Carolyn Gavin I bought last week. Soooo yummy!! I chose this particular sheet because it matched this week's Our Creative Corner color challenge (of Regal Rose, Certain Celery, Bashful Blue and a nuetral color).

If you think you'd like to play with Jack's sketch, just create your card, upload it to your blog, SCS or PCP, use the keyword MTTSC23 and post a comment on Madelynn's blog and leave a link to your card. Wanna see more cards created with this sketch?? Head on over to the rest of the Design Team's blogs (list is on the left) and check out their creations!


Supplies
Stamps: The Greeting Farm 'Wild Sprouts - Dahlia' and 'Wonderland'
Inks: StazOn 'Jet Black', Creamy Caramel, Really Rust, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Pretty In Pink, Regal Rose, Bashful Blue, Certain Celery, Old Olive, Distress Inks 'Antique Linen & Tea Dye'
Papers: Canson Watercolor, Bazzil Basics, Georgia Pacific, PP - K&Company 'Carolyn Gavin Greenhouse Paper'
Access: Ribbon, Adhesive Rhinestones, Kaiser Adhesive Pearls, Circle Punch, Decorative Scissors, Sponges, Dimensionals