The Beauty of Irish Lace

 Do you love to crochet?  If so, then you know how beautiful Irish Lace is.  Irish Lace was created by the Nuns in Ireland during the potato famine as a way to get through the poverty.  Irish lace is created with crochet thread and a tiny crochet hook and consist of beautiful roses and lace.

 This was made for the Dirty Dozen theme of "Keeping You in Stitches".  I love to crochet so I thought I would use my crochet roses for this card.  The roses are mounted into the center of the Heartfelt Creations Posy Patch Die.

 I used Rangers Bundled Sage Distress ink and white card stock to create this card.  The pearl center brads are from Michael's in the Bridal Section.  I sprayed my flowers with Sparkle Spritz.  I used a Cheery Lynn flourish die to compliment the flowers.  The center die cuts are from Spellbinders and the Martha Stewart Punch around the page is called French Scroll.  The pearls are recollection.  I also embossed pieces of card stock with a cuttlebug embossing folder.

 Here is another close up of the flowers I created.   The sentiment is something I created in word and just printed out.

 

Thank you for visiting today.  I hope you have a wonderful day.  See you again real soon.

Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge #27

Welcome to week number #27 of the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge. Last week while visiting your blogs, I saw some very creative and inspiring ways you created the fan element on last weeks sketch. Here is this weeks sketch:
When I chose this image from Michelle Perkett, our sponsor for this week, there is one phrase that kept going through my head and I just couldn't shake it. When looking at this image called "Autumn", I kept thinking of "Fruit of the Spirit". I wrote a poem to place inside this card about the "Fruit of the Spirit".
I printed three images and layered them on the square scallop nestabilities. I used Plaid's Antique Liquid Embossing Glass Finish on the image. I colored this with pencils and blended. My flowers are hand crocheted from my own pattern and embellished with a pearl brad. I used some shiny glitter leaves and rhinestones for the corner.Here is a nice close up of the details of the layering and the embellishments used on this wonderful card. I actually dyed these flowers in Rangers re-inkers-they were crocheted with white crochet thread. The image was lots of fun to color. I used a combination of red, brown, and gold for her hair. I love red hair and most times your will find my girl images with red hair. Here is the poem I wrote to correspond with this card. What a way to take your cards to another level. I encourage you to give it a try. Be inspired by your images and see where your creativity will take you!
Here is another picture of the entire inside of the card. The left side is blank for a personal note and salutation. Would you like the crochet pattern for these little flowers?

Congratulations to our Midnight Madness Award winners this week:
Every week it gets harder and harder to pick a winner. We narrowed it down to these great card crafters:

Our Gold Star Award Winner this week is:
1. Grace N.

Our Remarkables Winners this week are:
9. Super Nan
16. Connie M.

A big thanks goes out to this week's sponsor Michelle Perkett. I used her wonderful image Autumn. Please check out all of her wonderful digi images, I am sure you will find lots of wonderful images to spark your creativity.

Michelle is giving away my 8 1/2 x 11 digi page called, "Christmas Delights" and 6 of her "Winter" greeting cards.



Michelle's Scrapbooking & More is a Monthly Bonus Prize Sponsor for the month of November. Please be sure to check out the Midnight Madness Blog for the huge list of goodies in this wonderful prize. Thank you so much Michelle!!Thanks everyone. I hope you all have a great week. Some of you may have Wednesday (Hump Day) off for Veteran's Day. Be sure to "Thank" a military person in your community for their service to our Country. It will surely make their day. I'll be around visiting your blogs!!!

Carol

Vintage Santa With Bear Christmas Card

Hi everyone. I haven't done a bear for a while...so you know me...I had to find something with a bear to do today. I was feeling "Vintage" and pulled out this image and went to town putting it together.This sketch comes from the Sketch Challenge at Split Coast Stampers from Wednesday's challenge. I really liked the looks of it and had to try it with this lovely card. I crocheted this Poinsettia from a pattern that I made today. You will find the pattern for this in the post below this one. Please let me know if you tried it, if you liked it, or if I had anything incorrect or confusing. This shows the details of my card. I used crystal effects on the image and lots of layering. A Fiskar sunburst border punch was used as well as a sizzx die for the corner treatments. I used seed beads for the center of the Poinsettia as well as a bit of gold stickles. This shows the inside of my card. I crocheted another flower to match the front. The sentiment has been gold embossed.Here's one last picture to show all the details and layers.

Hope you have a terrific day. I would love to hear what you think!

Carol

Crochet Poinsettia Directions for your Cards

Tomorrow, you are going to see more of this card. For right now, I would like to share with you the directions I drew up to crochet this wonderful Poinsettia.

We are going to start with a size 7 crochet hook and one skein of embroidery floss. You can use crochet thread, but I like how the embroidery floss looks. It is a personal choice and either material will produce this flower.

To beg: ch 4, join with a sl st in first ch.
Row 2: *ch 9, sc in 2nd chain from hook, hdc in next ch, dc in next ch, 1 trc in next ch and in each of the next 2 chains, dc in next ch, hdc in last ch, sl st in circle*. rep from * to * 4 times for a total of 5 petals.
Row 3: *ch 3, sl st between petals", repeat * to * 4 times for a total of 5 ch 3 loops.
Row 4: sl st in first ch 3 loop, *ch 9, sc in 2nd chain from hook, hdc in next ch, dc in next ch, 1 trc in next ch and in each of the next 2 chains, dc in the next ch, hdc in the last ch, sl st in next ch 3 loop, repeat from * to * 4 more times, sl st in first sc of row and fasten off.



I would love to see your Poinsettia if you should decide to use my pattern. Just leave me a comment and I will come to visit you. If you have any problems, or find a mistake in this pattern please let me know so I can fix it. Enjoy!!!

Hugs,
Carol

Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge #23 Vintage Halloween

Welcome to Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge Number 23. All the Design Team Members are getting excited about this Friday and working hard on our fabulous projects for:

PROWLING AT THE 1st MIDNIGHT MADNESS BLOG HOP

Date and Time: October 16, 2009 - October 20, 2009 12 p.m. Midnight

25 Prizes will be given away as follows:

One Grand prize random drawing

350^th BRAND NEW Sketch Player SPECIAL Prize

11 “Cards from the Crypt” (picked by our DT members from MMSC archives)

12 random Package winners drawn

Just wait to see what we have in store for you. It should be fun and fabulous for all who attend.

The Midnight Madness team wishes to thank this weeks weekly sponsor:

They are providing this weeks winner with a $50 gift voucher. WOW, the lucky winner will sure be able to do some great shopping with that!

We also would like to thank this months sponsor:All the design team members have been working with Cheslea's Gurlee Girl Designs and I have got to tell you they are of the finest quality and stamp a perfect image every time. Who could resist these cute little girls!!



And here is this weeks sketch. I really enjoyed working with this one. It was so much fun and perfect to go with my image choice.Here you you will see my Vintage Halloween Girl with her Kitty Cat. She is getting ready to go Trick or Treating. I used some non-traditional colors for this one. The papers are from the Indian Summer Fall Stack.I used my Fleur De Lis Shapabilities and the Spellbinders Classic Lace Border. I did some stitching with my sewing machine and used some rhinestones.This is a nice close up picture of all the layering I did on this card. The Fleur De Lis's were cut from some metallic paper I have.Here are the crochet flowers. I crochet these while sitting in the car while my husband drives. I tell you they come in handy!! I used embroidery floss for these with a punched flower center and brad. The inside of my card has been decorated as well. I repeated the image of the Girl with the Cat again and used a bigger crochet flower (it is two layered) inside.Thanks for stopping by my blog today. I really appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed my card. I'm intimidated and afraid of doing vintage images even though I love them. So little by little I have been practicing until I get do them justice!

Carol

Midnight Madness Purr-fectely Comfortable Kitty

Don't you think this Kitty is the most adorable "Diva"! She's glamorous and sassy. This wonderful stamp is from this months generous sponsor of Midnight Madness, DRS Designs, who have offered a $50 credit voucher for the monthly prize winner. She is absolutely fabulous and was a lot of fun to work with. I decided to paper piece this stamp. I stamped the design with versamark and embossed with black EP twice on my dp and three times on white card stock and cut them all out and placed them all on foam dots and layered them.
This picture shows you the layers and dimension of the image. I used my cuddlebug to emboss with the circle folder and the white layer was embossed with the paisley folder along with the corner cuddlebug die. I used embossing power on the white card stock to make it shiny. Then I punched holes around the card stock and sewed this yummy eyelash yarn around the outside. The Martha Steward border punch along with the branch and frond punch was used, I crochet the corner flowers, attached with rhinestone brads. I used black glitter and white glitter for accent.
Congratulations to the Gold Star winner for this week: Stephanne and the Remarkable Mentions: Michelle, Cabio, ConnieM, and Brises. If you haven't already, now is the time to sign up for your chance to win the wonderful blog candy at Midnight Madness. Many thanks to our sponsor this week 7 Kids College Fund! They are offering a $20 gift voucher for this weeks prize winner. I can speak from experience of the great service and fast shipping they provide to their customers as I am one of them. I got a great deal on my scor-pal and I just love it!!!

Double Challenge Vintage Halloween

When I woke up this morning, there were certain things I knew I wanted to accomplish....like laundry, make the beds, bake a lemon chiffon cake, and do the Midnight Madness Challenge. When I saw that the challenge at Splitcoast Stampers this morning for the "Way to Use It" was vintage, I knew I just had to combine the two.
My card today was layered four times. I used clear liquid embossing on all the images. The pumpkins are stickers from K & Company and I liquid embossed them as well. I crochet the flowers on this card and put a rhinestone in the middle that matches the rhinestones I applied on the sizzx swirl. The Martha Stewart branch punch was used to accent the flowers as well.

The paper used in this card is called the Indian Summer Fall Stack that I got at JoAnn's a few weeks ago. It is just full of the most luscious colors for fall. You are going to want to get a couple of these for your stash.

I hope you enjoyed viewing my card. Don't forget to join us at Midnight Madness for lots of fun and fabulous prizes. There is even cash up for grabs. Who couldn't use a little cash for those trips to JoAnn's and Michael's....lol Thanks and have a great day.

Carol

Three Challenge Bear

What a fun day today putting this together for three challenges. When I read at Splitcoast Stampers that the Way to Use it Challenge was to have something fuzzy on your card, I knew I had to do one of my paper pieced bears in curly felt. The second challenge that caught my eye was the Charisma Cards Thursday. It was a color challenge today using lemon, green, and pink. Don't you think those are just yummy summer colors? The third challenge at Eat Sleep Stamp was this sketch challenge:This was just so much fun to put together today. I used one of my own bear patterns and pieced this bear. I cut out my ovals with nesties, the corner treatment with a cuddlebug die, and the swirl florishes with a sizzx die. The flowers were crocheted by me with embroidery floss and I attached a pearl brad in the center. I have had that daisy ribbon forever and I cut off a couple of the flowers to dress up the bear. I used my Martha Stewart branch punch to accent the flowers. The sentiment is from Penny Black and the background was cut from a square nestie. The rhinestones are from the dollar bin at Michael's. All and all this was a fun card. Hope you enjoyed stopping in today. I appreciate it!!
Carol