CCM 104 Paper Piecing

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is Paper Piecing. We are sponsored by both Saturated Canary with two of their gorgeous digi images and also by Woodware Craft Collection with a £12 voucher to be spent at one of their retailers, either online or in store.

I had a lot of fun with this one. Some friends and I have been having a bit of a hard time and so we decided to make something sparkly for each other to cheer ourselves up. I do hope that the person mine has gone to has achieved that, because it certainly cheered me up making it.

I forgot to take photos all the way through, but the door hanger started off plain wood and I painted one side in a pale pink so that it would tone in with the paper I chose for the front side.

The paper is from the Craftwork Cards Vintage Boho Pad. After I had stuck it in place I started to get really cross with myself because I had forgotten how difficult pink is to match, there are red pinks, and orange pinks and blue pinks, and no other pink seemed to match or rather tone in, and I didn’t want to paper piece my prima doll with the same pad as I didn’t think it would stand out enough. In the end I went for some WRMK paper from their Tiffany Pad, which I had left over in my scraps box, I knew there was a reason I didn’t throw it away! I had to stamp it in white though so that the dress folds would show up against the black paper.

I coloured her body parts first with copics, and then trimmed her out and restamped her again onto the tiffany paper. The shoes, bolero and hairband, and also the hem of her dress were also stamped onto some green paper scraps from the same pad and trimmed out.

I have these teeny tiny flowers and I had the idea to put them onto her hairband, and then I just got carried away and decided to make her a bolero with gems stitched onto it, although in this case of course, they are stuck on, they also ended up as buckles for her shoes. The crystal swirls came from Poundland, in their make up section as body art, and I coloured them to tone in with the greens in the doll clothes and the green in the background paper and the frame around the door hanger circle.

The gems around the top are some coloured gem flowers with small crystals in the centre in pink, and the green ones, were plain flat back pearlised flowers which I coloured with the same green as the crystals and stuck tiny crystals into the centre so they would sort of match the pink flower gems.

I tied some various ribbon scraps around the hole and made up a prima flower with my own metallic floral centre.

The circle in the middle drove me nuts. I cut it from double sided paper and first off I laid it down with a darker side showing, but as I started decorating the hanger I realised it was jarring and so recut it and this time stuck it down the other side facing up, which I think tones in much better.

I also made a little box for it, lined with pink tissue paper.

And some Hunky Dory paper covering the lid

I have a few of these doll stamps, and I really enjoyed working with this one. Hopefully I will find time to dress a few of the others, and I have masses of small scraps that are ideal for this sort of thing! This reminded me of when I was a small child and my Mum and I would sit with the sofa pulled up closer to the fire in the Winter to get cosy and she would help me cut out pictures from old catalogues and we would then cut out the various fashions and dress the dolls! Later, of course, she bought me some proper paper dolls to dress, but nothing quite matched the joy of those early images cut from the catalogue. We used to cut out beds and living room furniture and make whole houses for the paper dolls….. happy days. These days of course, if it doesn’t have bells and whistles and ring, with a camera attached kids don’t want to know. I doubt they will have the same fabulous memories when they are my age that I have!

I am entering this into the following:-

4 Crafty Chicks – #167 Anything But a Card

Brown Sugar – #67 Anything Goes

Bunny Zoe – November Shabby Chic/Vintage

Craft My Life – All Crafts Challenge October/November

Crafts4Eternity – #149 Anything But a Card

Di’s Digi Designs – Girly Creations

Eclectic Ellapu – Anything But a Card

Hiding in My Craft Room – #123 Super Scraps Saturday

Hobby Cutz – #24 Glitter and Sparkle

Inky Impressions – #133 Dies and Punches

Lacy Sunshine – #21 It’s A Bling Thing

Pan Pastel – #45 Altered Media

The Paper Girls Challenge – #43 Cut It Out