Today's event was badminton.
I knew what I wanted to do, but again, wasn't entirely sure how. I decided to use paper and netting to create the racket and net. It was really difficult to get the net to stick to the card frame of the racket and I had to used PVA but it stuck eventually. I used card again for the shuttlecock, adding some red card for the tip. I finished it off with pen detail in the way of shadows and the plastic on the tail. This was stuck down with a foam pad to make it look as if it was flying over the net.
We are well over half way through the Olympics now. Yesterday, now known as Super Saturday, was absolutely amazing! Three British gold medals in the space of 45 minutes and a couple more today, courtesy of Ben Ainslie and Andy Murray. We are on a roll!
Today's sport was hockey, field hockey to be more specific, and seeing as I hadn't played hockey since I was probably in year 8, my inspiration left much to be desired. My obvious design was the stick and ball and that's what I stuck with. I tried to make it a bit more interesting by adding some patterned paper as a background and finishing it off with a peel-off message but it's certainly not my best card-lympics entry.
The stick and ball were cut out from black card and outlined with gold pen, just to give it a bit extra.
Maybe tomorrow I won't leave it so late and give my creative juices time to flow properly.
This is just a quick entry for today's card. Don't worry, I didn't forget. Today's event, and what should have been yesterday's event before my shifting the sports, was diving. This seemed simple enough although I'm not completely convinced with the results.
Again, I used that blue handmade paper for the pool and used some pale brown sugar paper for the diver. This was a very simple paper pieced project although I added the GB pattern to the trunks with ProMarkers and finally finished it off like all the other cards.
I realise know that I should have put some sort of splash into it but the simple shapes kinda give it a cartoon-ish feel.
Well done to our athletes today, the cyclists, rowers and those in the stadium. Made us all proud! And, on the subject of diving, good luck to Tom Daley in his individual dives which will be coming up soon.
Time for blog entry 2 of 2. This weeks CAS-ual Fridays challenge was to create a card featuring things in the sky. I chose to stick to a summer theme and straight away I thought about the ELO song, Mr Blue Sky. To me, that is the ultimate summer tune and I decided I wanted that to feature on my card.
I used a bright blue card blank and left it plain, only adding the message and a single cloud with the sun peeping out from behind it. I used white texture card for the cloud and added some dimension with blue coloured pencils. This was attached to the blank with foam pads. The sun was done in a similar way, yellow card and shaded with yellow and orange pencils. I glued this instead of using foam pads.
For the sentiment, I knew I wanted a loopy font, so I went onto word and flicked through until I found it. After typing out the message, I was able to copy it directly onto the card with black pen.
Hopefully Mr Blue Sky will make his appearance at some point. It's meant to be August!
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!
Today's event is sailing and probably one of the only sports that coincides with the actual Olympic event.
For this card, I used various paper and card to create the boat, adding the Union Jack to finish.
I wanted to add some sort of back ground but didn't want it to look too similar to yesterday's card. I managed to find some patterned vellum which almost looks like clouds so instead of added paper to make the sea, I added paper to make the sky (I'm not sure how well it shows up in the photos). To give a sense of movement, I used the same handmade paper from yesterday to add waves splashing up at the front of the boat. I also wanted to show the sail billowing so I glued the top down but used foam pads at the bottom.
Wow! What a day. No wonder it's been named Gold Wednesday: first the rowing and then the cycling. And to top it all off, the opening day of the Online Craft and Gift Fair and I have a sale (but that is another story!)
I hope the weather has been nice where you are, the sun was shining down in London and there was some sun up where I am, although there was also rain. But hopefully, this card will brighten up your day!
The event was Beach Volleyball and I moved away from the bikini's and Horseguard's Parade and headed to the beach. Again, this was a paper pieced card, but I used silver netting for the net. The ball was coloured with ProMarker to match the ball they used in the Olympic (I had to look it up!). Of course, I had to leave a clear blue sky, it is August after all! Hope you like it and are enjoying the summer!
