Paper-pieced Pictures

What a day! Finally stopped working long enough to write this entry. Currently waiting for tomorrow's presentation sheets to publish to PDF. They certainly throw you right back into it in second year!

Anyway. Last night, I finally got to try something I had been meaning to try for a while now. Back in the summer, I made a paper pieced card following the theme of The Joker from Batman. This was - at the time - probably the most complex paper-pieced/decoupages I had ever done and I felt it was wasted on a greetings card. Plus there was that danger of being to fat to fit in the envelope!

So I thought, what if I created decoupaged images to frame. Never actually got around to it until this weekend when I actually went out and bought a wooden picture frame from Wilkinson. That was Saturday. Apart from group project work to be done, I was out Saturday night. Slept in Sunday morning. Was rowing Sunday afternoon. Went to church Sunday evening. Watched Downton Abbey Sunday evening. FINALLY, I got the chance to make my prototype. . . .

I am a big fan of Doctor Who, especially David Tennant's Doctor. I decided to make this the theme of my picture. I had already jotted down a design so I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I just had to sketch it out properly. It was easiest to start with the smallest piece, the shirt and tie and from there I worked up to the suit jacket, bottom part of the suit, trousers, bottom part of the coat, coat sleeves (and lapels) and finishing with his Converse - kinda like dressing an actually person . . . . . concentrate Emma! I added pen details such as pockets, buttons and shadows as I went along. After I had finished, it was not-so-simply a case of choosing the right backing paper and then assembling it all in the frame. I am so happy with the results but have decided that it is not good enough to be sold, it being my first one and so, I have been resigned to having to put up with it sat on my bookshelf. Such a hardship and I suffer greatly because of it!

The finished and framed picture

I hope to make more of these and already have plenty of other designs lined up to try. I may even have a go at making some to sell at my soon-to-be first craft fair (that's a story for next time!).

Would love to hear what you all think about it/them!

Card-lympics Day 8

Like last Friday, this post will be the first of two, the other being my CAS-ual Fridays entry which is all done and just waiting to be posted.


I have to be honest and admit that I mixed up my cards for today. The event was meant to be diving but after that amazing performance yesterday from Gemma Gibbons in the judo, I had to make my judo card today, so here it is.


I couldn't wait to make this card anyway as judo is my sport and has been for about 5 years now. However, when I was jotting down sketches for my card designs, I did struggle to come up with one that I was 100% happy with. I figured the only design I could really do would be someone throwing their opponent but how I was going to do that I had no idea.
As I started to make it this morning (while watching today's judo, of course) I decided to make it into a découpage. The sketch I had made was quite simple and block-y so I thought it would be fairly straight forward. How wrong could I be!
I now realise that making your own découpage (obviously, depending on the design) is not as easy as I thought it would be. First there was deciding which levels each bit should be, then there was making sure that everything was the right way round. I also had to trim so much of the edges to hide the lower layer and cut the blue parts to fit right. It was so fiddly but totally worth it.
I am all for women's judo so, of course, the judoka on my card are female but I went that little be further and gave tori (the thrower) blonde hair to match Gemma Gibbons.
I used black pen to add definition and the edges and on the gi (or as mum and dad call them, the pyjamas!). I finished the card off with a strip of black ribbon - it crossed my mind to put a knot in it to make it look like a judo belt but decided against it - and my Union flag.


I think this card has got to be my favourite of the Card-lympics so far. Maybe because it's my favourite sport or maybe because of the fact it's my favourite sport that I spend the most effort on it. Or a combination of the two. The découpage really works and shows the movement of the players, although I may struggle to get it into an envelope, there are 5 layers of card in there!

While on the topic of judo, I want to say well done to Gemma Gibbons of team GB for her silver yesterday and good luck to Karina Bryant in her semi final this afternoon. Bring us another medal home!