Making it Myself

It's my turn to set this week's challenge for the Daring Cardmakers:

"I think we've probably all saved links to wonderful projects and ideas that we'd like to try out....one day, so this week I'd like you to.....

 Make It Yourself 

It's all about making your own embellishments. You can use one of those saved "I'll try this one day" ideas, or come up with your own decorative element and use it on your card.

 Use felt, card, paper, fabric, ribbon, lace, wire - anything you like, but no cheating and using a ready made one  

 If the idea is your own, it would be especially good if you could add a little tutorial when you add it to your blog, and if not then a link to where you found the idea would be great, so we can all be inspired!"

Well, I quite often use my dies, Craft Robo and fussy cutting to make flowers and other embellishment - I love using ribbon and lace and other bits and pieces from my stash to make the decorative elements, so I had a look around for something a bit different.  

It was while browsing around Pinterest that I spotted some beautiful beaded pins and thought that one of these might do the trick.  I already had the pins - bought months ago and unopened, and what a good excuse to delve under the desk and drag out the crate with my bead boxes in it.

Obviously I completely forgot to take photos of the making of and of the finished pin before it was fixed onto the card.

 I used a couple of Distress Inks to colour the card I used for the background of the butterfly, and also used this piece as a stencil to add some shading to the background - this didn't turn out as planned - it was supposed to be wispy and ethereal, but you can't have it all, eh?

I've used Glossy Accents to keep the various beads in place, and then a needle with silver thread to fix it to the butterfly wings.  Once the wings had been glued into place, I made another stitch down near the catchy-fastener-thing.  The threads can just be snipped off to remove the pin.

Materials and Tools

Deep pink "Best Creations" Glitter Card (from Craftz Boutique) 

Distress Inks on both sides of smooth white card for the butterfly wings and to stencil onto white background card

Bazzill Bling turqoise card for fancy wings

Long Pin and Dewdrop jewels from Charmed Cards and Craft

Beads from stash

Silver thread and narrow braid, Glossy Accents

Craft Robo for Plain wings

Memory Box Butterfly Die for Fancy Wings

Spellbinders Die for tag, pc generated sentiment

Woodware Butterfly punch 

Circle Punch

This took ages to make - not because there was anything difficult or time-consuming, not even because of the difficulty of choosing which beads to use. No!  It was trying to get the background made and get the little sentiment to fit the circle I wanted to use that took the time - you know, the stuff we do all the time that should be the simplest to get right.  

Anyway I hope you'll head over to the DCM BLOG and take a look at some truly beautiful embellishments, all handmade by our wonderful design team.  We'd really love for you to join in with us and share your own embellishment-making tips and techniques with us this week.

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