In Rememberance

First of all I want to extend my thanks to all the staff and Customers of Rayher in the beautiful city of Ljubljana. I had a great three days and wish I could have spent more time exploring the beautiful countryside. I was lucky enough on my first day to have lunch on the edge of Lake Bled which is absolutely stunning, check out the link! We ran four separate workshops each day and on the first evening we had late night shopping at which I demonstrated all things Sizzix, they even served Sizzix cocktails (non-alcoholic I might add!)

 This Sunday I will take my place at the local cenotaph alongside many friends who have served in the forces down the years. The Poppy is such an evocative symbol and lends itself perfectly to innumerable craft applications, it works as well for appliqué as it does for paper crafting and there are many shades and varieties to choose from too.

I thought I would create a couple of simple cards this week using poppies, one using the fabulous Thinlits Poppy set by Susan Tieney-Cockburn and the other using some imitation silk from an old cushion cover.

As well as the Thinlits set I also used my Trusty Susan's Garden Tool Kit and decorative papers from the My Mind's Eye Collectable Range.

I started By Die cutting two sets of petals from red card, the leaves and central stamen from green card and 3 more stamen and the calyx from black card ( to find out more about the tools and techniques click on the links above to find tool kit tips and die specific instructions as well as some general tips)

Next, I inked the centre of each petal as well as the edges to add a little definition, if you prefer you can use pastels. I shaped each petal with the ball end stylus and 'stirred' the centre of the calyx on which the petals sit before attaching them one at a time with PVA glue.

I coloured all the leaves with a blue ink pad finishing the tips with black. Next, I stirred and shaped the green calyx on the foam mat and snipped down the centre of each spoke of the black stamen with a pair of scissors before cupping and stirring on the foam mat.

After separating the spokes with my finger tips I attached all three black stamen to the flowers centre followed by the green stamen and attached the leaves to the rear of the petals.

I hand cut the black pennant and created the text using my PC before printing onto the face of a standard sized card.

The second card was created using a Bigz Circle die of which there are many. I think it's an essential piece of my die stash, maybe the essential piece.

 I die cut 3 green and 3 red circles from a man made silk/satin fabric, in the end I didn't use the medium sized circles but they will come in handy soon I have no doubt! I folded the smaller red circle in half and grasping it in my tweezers I ran the crease over the flame of a candle to make it permanent.I then repeated the last step working around the flower before sealing the edges of the circle over the candle flame.

I sealed the edge of the larger circle in the same way before placing them together.I placed one of the green circles back against the die, but slightly offset to create a leaf shape. Once I had the four leaves I again folded then up the centre and creased them over the candle flame as before. Finally, I attached the circles together using a jewelled brad and mounted the leaves onto the rear.

This is the finished card, I created the text on my PC and added a length of folded ribbon with the ends trimmed as shown.