Sunday, September 30, 2012

A stroke of inspiration & a quick card...

Hi! Have you ever been really stuck for inspiration? Or worse still, got a concept in your mind but it is just not gelling completely.

That was exactly what happened to me when I read the September challenge at the Indian Craft Room. The challenge was interesting...



I like making cards using card sketches. But somehow the card wouldn't come together in my mind. Every time I decided to sit down to work I blanked out. I was sure that I wanted to make a card with robot theme. But that was all.

Then yesterday, late at night, I got this brainwave and every thing just clicked! I started making the card after the kids & hubby were asleep and finished in record time. Went off to sleep tired, but feeling oddly light and happy.


The card is meant for my niece, who recently participated in the International Robocon 2012 held in Hong Kong this year. Their team won this year beating strong competition from several other countries. The achievement is all the more remarkable, as she had a very, very bad accident last year. So bad that for a while we were not sure whether she would ever be able to walk. She ended up spending a large part of the year in the hospital and undergoing physiotherapy. Despite all these obstacles, she has triumphed and I am very, very, very proud of her!

So this card is going out to her and also her team, who have really made India proud!



I have used the first sketch. The card base is a lovely white hand made paper. The bands of orange, white and blue represent the Indian tri-colour and are cut out of scraps of handmade paper. The dancing robot, of course, alludes to the Robocon competition and is hand cut and paper pieced out of silver corrugated paper. The arms and legs are paper clips that I cut and bent to shape and are the metal component of the card. Google eyes and a smile out of a red scrap of paper finish the robot.


The sentiment is from the Happy Days stamp set by Micia  that I bought recently from Lulupu. I used a dark blue Faber-Castell sketchpen to ink and stamp the sentiment.

I am entering this card in the ICRC21 card challenge of the Indian Craft Room.

Love,
Nan


Thursday, September 6, 2012

A rainbow in my sight...

Good morning!

A peaceful morning for a change! The baby is playing happily and the older one is away at school. Bliss!

Moving away from paper craft today, I want to show you a project I made with some fabric, felt and paint sometime back. I decided to hang it on the door of our room and put it away while the room was getting a make-over.

I was looking to make something cheerful and colourful, for the new baby. The concept sort of grew from there to this...



I started with a scrap of thick fabric and a sponge which I cut into semi-circles to make the rainbow. I machine stitched the divisions for the colours. Then I added acrylic colours in the suitable shades, finishing up with a light blue for the sky.


The lines of glitter added a bit of sparkle as well as masked the stitching lines.


The sun and the cloud were both made of felt and embroidered with floss. I stuffed them lightly with some polyfil for added dimension. I stuck the rainbow on a stiff piece of mount board with fabric glue after adding a loop of cord for hanging. 

The final touch was gluing the sun and cloud on either end of the rainbow with fabric glue.


And this is how the rainbow looks hanging on the wall. I took the photo against the bookshelf as the light near our room door is not too good.

Hope you liked this little hanging; it always brings a smile on our face each time we see it. Like catching sight of a rainbow in the sky...