Thursday, June 25, 2015

8-bit Paintings

Another geekery craft that I love to do- especially if I need a break from quilting- is pixel painting. I've always wished I could paint as it looks so fun but I'm not that great of a drawer. Creating pixel paintings has been a lot of fun for me as it makes me feel as though I can paint... and I probably really can't paint that well. I just paint and call it good. I'm sure someone who knew what they were doing would see lots of errors, but that's okay. This is for fun!
The first painting I wanted to give a whirl was Mario in the sock as Mario is so cute in it! The only thing cuter than Mario in a sock is Tanuki Mario.
I created this Zelda scene to go with the Zelda quilt that I made for my brother.
Kirby is one of my favorite Nintendo characters. He's so cute too and a lot of fun when playing Smash Bros.




Thursday, June 18, 2015

Quilting- another passion

Creating cards isn't the only craft I do... pretty much if it's a craft that interests me I'll give it a whirl and some crafts become addicting and others just don't catch.
One craft that has become addicting is quilting and then I took it to another level and began to make video game quilts.
The first video game quilt I constructed was a queen sized Legend of Zelda quilt.
   It was exceedingly time consuming to make, not only with the construction but also with creating the pattern.  Thankfully since then my wonderful husband wrote me a quilting program that will take an image and give me the amount of fabric I need to purchase.   This program saves me soooo much time- and frustration!
I generally construct the video game quilts using 1 1/2 inch blocks or strips.   I really don't have the patience to make a video game quilt one block at a time so if the color in a row is the same for seven pixels then I use a 7 1/2 x 1 1/2 inch strip.
Since Zelda I've created a Sonic baby quilt, a two-sided Kirby quilt, and a Mario quilt.  
I loved making the Sonic quilt.  I think I had the top thrown together in one day! How awesome is that?  It definitely makes me want to make more baby quilts and fewer bed-sized quilts. ~laughs~
The Mario quilt is the first video game quilt that I used the program my husband wrote for me.   That program is an amazing time saver and the accuracy for the amount of yardage needed is spot on... which I guess is why people love math.   The answer is always constant... unless you're me and then the answers always vary.     The entire quilt probably took about sixty hours worth of work.    I enjoyed it, but I was very happy to have the last block finished.   Because of the amount of time it took to assemble the blocks I kept the quilting very simply.  For the characters I sewed up and down to help give the characters a more pixelated look.  I also did this as it helps distract from the fact that I assemble the squares with strips and not 1 1/2 blocks.    For the background I did a simple stipple.    

Geekery doesn't stop with video game quilts.  I've also designed a Tardis quilt.    My sister-in-law asked my if I thought I could make a Tardis quilt for her daughter's sixteenth birthday.   I said yes and then went, "Wow.  This just might have been the dumbest thing I agreed to.   I have to create a pattern for this... this could be bad."
I did a lot of googling and found a few Tardis quilts that I like different aspects of and then incorporated those aspects into my pattern.  
It actually ended up not being as difficult as I thought it would be and I've made two Tardis quilts since then!

Monday, May 13, 2013

A Card for Mother

I barely finished this card before Mother's Day was over... but it's not the day that really matters, but the thought and care behind what's given that matters.

I purchased this digital stamp during Elisabeth's Bell's BOGO sale.    The image is me.  Photography, flowers, feline- that's me.  

So of course I had to then color the image to look like me and then use a Martha Stewart butterfly punch as there can never be too many butterflies- just like there can never be too many flowers or felines.



I'm entering the card in the following challenges:
Elisabeth Bell World Challenge - Flowers
Elphine House - Flowers
Divas By Design - Anything Goes
The Sisterhood of Crafters - Flowers
Simon Says - Things with Wings
The Squirrel and the Fox - Mother's Day
Whimsy Stamps Challenge - Anything Goes

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Way too addicting...

These gift boxes are absolutely adorable and so much fun to make- well, once I got the measurements figured out. :b

I made the box out of card stock, recycled ribbon, a watercolored digi stamp, and Martha Stewart border punches.

As you may suspect the box was designed with the Red Hat Society in mind. What do they do besides go out to eat all the time?

I'm entering the box in the following contests:
Penny's Paper Crafty Challenges - Animals
Creative Craft Challenges - Animals
Sister Act Challenge -Anything Goes
Penny's Paper Crafty Challenges - Animals

Also this weekend I finished up some graduation cards. Already that time of year, eh? But I thought I'd post one of the cards as I think it turned out rather well...

Friday, May 3, 2013

A Card for Kathryn

I needed to design a card for an elderly lady from church whose birthday is tomorrow so I looked through my stamps chose an image and watercolored it.
I used a Martha Stewart punch for the edges, papers from an awesome Vintage Flower stack from Hobby Lobby, distress ink, and two rubber stamp sentiments.


I'm entering the card in the following challenges:
Word Art Wednesday - Anything Goes
Crafts for Eternity - Pegged

Monday, April 29, 2013

For Him and Her

Another week, another challenge... or two... or ten...


I water-colored this Wee "Love Me Do" stamp to look like my brother and sister-in-law.    My s-i-l is into the modern look so creating this card using black and white papers ended up working out really well!   I also used a Martha Stewart punch for the edges.
I also needed to incorporate something inspirational as well as a movie quote... so for the movie quote I turned to "Princess Bride" as my brother is oft quoting lines from the movie, including the quote I included on the card.

I am entering the card in the following challenges:
Eureka Stamps - Black and White
Stampin' for the Weekend Die-cuts and/or punches
Diva's by Design - movies
Sister Act Challenge - anything goes
Word Art Wednesday - Anything Goes

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Challenges, Challenges, Challenges

Oh dear, I love challenges.    This may become too addicting!

First off, I absolutely adore this stamp. I was the typical girl growing up who longed for her own horse but never received one so when I saw this Crissy Armstrong stamp from Whimsy Stamps I had to purchase it.

I stamped the image onto watercolor paper and colored it using watercolor pencils. The sentiment is also available at Whimsy Stamps. I think my favorite thing about coloring the images is that I can color the same images so many ways! I decided to try my hand at creating a buckskin horse and I must say I was surprised with how well I accomplished it!
I am entering this card in Eureka Stamps - Animal Catwalk,
The Squirrel and the Fox - Furry Friends,
Satmpin' for the Weekend - Friends.

This card I created for my niece's tenth birthday. She loves the Fairy book series and this stamp was perfect as her birthday gift from me were ten fairy books.

I've entered this card in the following contests:
Everybody Art Challenge - Fairy
Divas by Design Birds and Butterflies
Stampotique Designers Challenge -Birthday #96

I began designing this type of card due to Whimsy's Try it Out Tuesdays. It really is quite simple to do and I find that it takes less time for me to make this card than it does doing a regular fold card... weird, eh? I think it's because this style card, in my opinion, doesn't need a lot of embellishing. It has a lot of class on its own. Entering in the following: Word Art Wednesday - Anything Goes, uplifting sentiment
V's Sweet Ideas - Anything Goes

Isn't this gift box adorable?
I'm entering this at Crafts 4 Eternity - Flowers and Through the Craftroom Door - Anything Goes.