for the love of sewing and card making!!!

Today is the last day for ordering things from the Autumn/Winter Mini Catalogue and so (or should I say SEW) I just HAD to use a stamp or two from it. First is the Pattern stamp that I used for the background paper. The paper is from the Hostess pack which come in the current 'In-colours' - this is Poppy Parade. It only had small dots on it so I stamped over the whole thing with the Pattern stamp creating my perfect DSP. NEVER be afraid of stamping on DSP to make it more what you want - customising it to suit what YOU want to do, not trying to work around something that's just not quite right!

The second stamp I used is from the set 'Sew Suite' which is one of my favourite sets from this mini. The mannequin stamp is so useful for lots of projects. Here I have used it as the base for my picture. To create the top on the mannequin I stamped the mannequin stamp on the back of the DSP paper and then cut the bodice out. The skirt is fun to make. It's made using the largest scallop circle and folding it on the scallops. To add a bit to it I punched the scallops with the hand held punch - I liked how it turned out.

The words are from 3 different sets - the first 'You're' is from a stamp out of "WORD PLAY" and I just coloured in the word I wanted using the SU markers. 'Wonderful' is from the 'WONDERFUL' stamp set and finally the 'S E W' is from the "DEFINING ALPHA" set. Again I inked these with the markers. I thought the stitching added a nice feel to it - as well as putting them on different angles. You won't often see me putting sentiments on an angle - it's one of my pet peeves to be honest - but I thought I could get away with it on this one! LOL (correct me if you think otherwise! hehe)

Another thing I like to see is a card finished completely which includes the inside of it. Here I went with a different piece of the Hostess DSP but in the same colour and it's matched up with the white the same size as the front of the card. By the way the 'dress and top' paper is also from the same Hostess DSP set. A really practical Hostess gift!!!!

I first saw these dresses on Sharlene Meyers BLOG the other day - they are dotted all over web now.

I have made a few more examples of these cute dresses which I will post over the next few days.