Life's A Picnic - the paper piecing project

Afternoon All,

Here's the completed card featuring a sweet little flower stamp by Polkadoodles. For the paper piecing I stamped twice in black, once on the green paper and then on the red. The paper is from a stack which came free with a magazine, and I have to admit that until now it was stashed away and unloved - shame on me.

I punched out the image on the green paper with a scallop punch and then coloured the leaves with a green ProMarker. I also punched out the same shape from a piece of smooth white card and adhered the image to it, just to strengthen it.

Having cut round the flowers only from the red paper, I adhered them to the stamped image There is a pattern on the paper, it's just so subtle it isn't picked up by the camera. To finish off, I've added black glitter to the anthers (? I think that's what they are called!) and iridescent glitter around the leaves.

The flower embellishments are handmade too. The flowers were stamped out twice on both colours of paper, then cut out, and because the DP was single-sided, two flowers were glued back-to-back before curling the petals.

 They are both finished off with a button and baker's twine.

For the embossed matting and trim I've used Core'dinations card from my stash and three embossing plates from the Cuttlebug Bloom and Grow set, giving enough pieces to mat the topper and trim both the inside and the back too. When sanded down a red core is revealed - very pretty.

The rest of the trim is leftover strips from the DP. All the papers were inked along the edges to give definition.

The above shot was taken before I started gluing everything down. I thought some of you might be interested to see this. Before completing a project, I like to lay it out, move things around and then when I'm happy with the arrangement I take a snap of it. I then have a record of what I intend to do and I can refer to it if  whenI forget some placing - this works just as well for scrapbook layouts too. You can see the paper strips aren't even trimmed - that's because I trim as I go - there's nothing worse than finding I've cut something a bit too short :(

Materials used:

Cardstock: Base - white card (cut to form a 5"square card); Scraps of smooth white card to line topper and sentiment; Core'dination Whitewash Collection, white/red piece for embossed matting and trims
Design Paper: Serif's Picnic in the Park paper stack
Punches: Woodware 2.5" scalloped circle and daisy flower edge punches; X-cut scalloped edge punch;
Stamps: Polkadoodles Flower Stamp and Artistic Stamper Button Centred Flower - both free with Craft Stamper magazine
Ink Pads: Memento Tuxedo Black; Tim Holtz Pumice Stone
Promarker: Marsh Green
Other materials: The Ribbon Girl's Red/White Baker's Twine; Buttons, black glitter, iridescent glitter, miniature heart-topped peg all from stash

I'm submitting this card to the following challenges:

Polkadoodles Week 40 Challenge - Handmade Flowers - the flower embellishments are handmade

Jules Crafty Snippet Challenge Week 40 - the smooth white card is leftover from a previous project and much of the materials are tiny strips and scraps from my snippet mountain.

Scrap Our Stash Challenge - October Quote Challenge - the quote is one of my favourites from Life's A Picnic by Tobi Payton.

I can remember going picnicking with my parents when we were all much younger. They would pile us into Dad's old jalopy and off we went, the baby on Mum's knee and me with my two brothers and one sister in the back - nobody bothered with seat belts and passenger restrictions back in the fifties. Mum made all the food herself - no popping down to the supermarket and buying it all ready-prepared - vacuum flasks of hot water were taken to make the tea and coffee, and there was diluted orange squash for us kids to drink. Lots of play, in the sunshine if we were lucky, and then home, tired out, exhausted and ready for a good night's sleep - oh, happy days :)

And here's the poem.

Life is a picnic,
As you can see,
As long as we have,
You and me.

Throw in a swing,
And a day full of sun,
We'll show you,
How to have some fun.

Add some good food,
And put on a smile,
Don't be in a hurry,
Stay for awhile.

Laugh and giggle,
Eat till you're stuffed.
Have some dessert,
You can't get enough.

Family and friends,
Make good picnic mates,
Because life is too short,
To have empty plates.
- Tobi Payton

A long post today, made all the longer by the poem but I couldn't write about it and not include it for you to read, now could I?

I'd better go and do the links before I forget. I hope you enjoyed this post and liked my little stab at paper-piecing. I had fun doing it and it's easier than I thought it would be so next time I'll go for something a little more complex, and bigger too :)

Happy crafting,