It seemed like a good idea at the time ...

This fortnight's challenge at Top Tip Tuesday is stitching which is something that I've been wanting to do for ages.  I've seen it on some fab cards, especially my talented Stampfairy teamie Deanne, who uses stitching on most of her awesome creations.  Pop over to her blog if you want to see some stunners using stitching!

If you want to know how to get started, Janette has also written a fab tutorial on the  Top Tip Tuesday blog today.  I've only just got my sewing machine (well I've had it a couple of months but I've not had much time to play with it yet), so I'm still working out what all the dials and knobs do (and usually getting the dials for stitch width / length the wrong way around).

I should really have started with something easy, huh. Walk before you run, right?  Ha ha, not me !!  Making the fancy tag shape seemed like a good idea when I started out, but was a BIG mistake considering I was going to have to stitch around it (I had forgotten the requirement for stitching when I decided what I was going to make).

Well, who wants an easy life, right !!!

Despite the fact that it took me flippin' ages to sew around, I was really pleased with the end result. It is big too, about 18cm (7") tall, so I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it now!

What do you think?

I used Sakura stardust pens on her wings, so they really do sparkle. And the seam binding was a bit pale, so I gave it a little bit of treatment with my copics to darken it up a bit!  You can see the seam binding at the top of the tag is a different colour - well that is the original colour cos I forgot to colour that bit!!.  The bow on the bottom is the same stuff, but after the copic retouch!

I've also made a matching card in a fancy shape.


Both the items in this posting are available on my eBay listings

And finally, the picture below of them both together shows how big this tag is ! ...

Top Tip Tuesday have some fab prizes this week, check out the sponsors below:

Card Recipe:

• Image - Whispy from Saturated Canary
• Papers - First Edition Sweet Owl
• Colouring - Promarkers, Copics, Sakura Stardust Gel pens
• Nesties - Labels 18
• Swirl - Magnolia Leaf & Swirl set
• Tag template - Krea Teja Freebie Download (bottom right pdf "Workshop Patterns Label")
• From my stash -  Pearls (coloured with copics), ribbon, seam binding (also coloured with copics!)

Please pop on over to the Top Tip Tuesday Challenge Blog to see the other creations by the talented design team, and to enter our challenge.  I look forward to seeing your creations this week.

I've been inspired by:

• Saturated Canary - Not a square 
• Crafter's Companion - Anything Goes
• Die-ing for a Challenge - Anything with dies
• Sparkles - Things with wings

Happy crafting.