A Lucky Layout

I'm catching up on my Lucky 13 pages--woohoo! I created this page for Melissa. She sent me photos from the dinner we had at CHA Winter 2009--we all met up at the Paradise Pier hotel by Disneyland to have dinner & chat in person. Our next date is January 2010! WOW it seems far away but then again, I cannot believe it is April already--January will be here before we know it!

Melissa's favorite color is green (and I love it too) so it was fun to create this page on the "lucky" theme with all sorts of green and lucky embellies. This page also helped me a tad bit with my green flower dilemma--what to do with all the green flowers that come in those multi-packs of paper flowers? Use them as flowers! LOL

I'm not art expert but I have found that I love mixing colors that are next to each other in the rainbow (or color wheel if you prefer). Yellow pages look awesome with a little bit of orange. Orange makes a red page POP! A little purple makes a moodier blue page, and a little bit of blue, makes a green page prettier. So on this page I worked in a little bit of blue.

Since we are using canvas for this project I figured I'd do a little sewing. Just like doodling, if you draw/stitch more than one line, any boo-boos or waves will be disguised--it will look like you planned it that way. I stitched around the edge of the canvas using turquoise thread, about 6 times all the way around.

First I laid out all of my pieces that I wanted stitching on. If you want to stitch on top of the flowers like I did, position all the items on your page before stitching. Use a little adhesive to secure them in place--make sure the section with adhesive is NOT the section you'll stitch through because wet adhesive can gum up your sewing machine. I stitched one pass around the page to act as a guide to let me know where not to put adhesive.

Make sure you hold the flowers down carefully as they go under the pressor foot of the sewing machine to avoid unwanted folds:

Some people like rounded corners when sewing a border on a page but I like nice crisp corners. Here's how to get them:

1. Stitch until you get almost to the end of the fabric/page, about 1/2" from the edge.


2.Make sure the needle in down in the fabric. If it is not, turn the wheel on the side of the sewing machine until the needle descends down into the fabric.

3. Once you've checked that the needle is down in the fabric, release the pressor foot (pull the lever to make it rise up off the fabric).


4. Turn the fabric 90 degrees so that you are ready to stitch down the next side of the fabric. Once the fabric is in position, release the pressor foot so it is pushing down on the fabric again.



5. Turn that wheel on the side of the machine a couple turns to get started and then stitch away.

I wanted to add ribbon to the center of the page, so I rousched about 18" of ribbon using adhesive on one edge (put adhesive on the ribbon with a tape runner and then scrunch it as you press it down onto the page).

I tucked the raw end of the ribbon under one of the flowers I stitched to the page to hide it. To make sure the flower stayed foled back (because I did not want stitching on top of it) I made sure it was under the pressor foot when I started sewing.

I stitched a zizag stitch down the center of the ribbon, keeping away from the adhesive on the edges.

When I got near the end of the ribbon strip I stopped the machine.

Then I pressed the reverse button and stitched in reverse a few stitches, then forward again, back again, a few times until I got a nice thick set of stitches. This will hold the ribbon down really well.

After I did all of my stitching. I cut the edges of the fabric with pinking shears.

After that I embellished, inked, and played. It is a little bulky but I love the playfulness of all the goodies there are to look at:

Supplies:
Ribbon - Joann's
"Luck" Sticker - Me & My Big Ideas
Gems, Plastic Flowers - Queen & Co
Flowers - Imaginesce, Prima, Doodlebug
Canvas - C&T Publishing
Covered Button - Polka Dot Whimsy
Stick Pin - Hydrangea Hippo
Thread - Coats & Clark

Transparency - My Little Shoebox

Chipboard Numbers - American Crafts
Cardstock - Bazzill
Diecut Machine - Accu-Cut
Ink - Colorbox Chalk

Happy Creating!!!