let's be honest...

I don't usually over-estimate myself or my abilities in any area of my life. I'm actually more likely to sell myself short, although I'm generally pretty honest with myself. However, the one area in which I cannot seem to be honest with myself is the caliber of my sewing skills. I cannot sew. I can't even sew a line neat enough or straight enough to hem my own pants! I don't have a lot of practice under my belt, but I'm just not patient enough to take on projects that would allow me to gain more experience. And yet I continue to purchase fabrics and patterns, lying to myself far too easily that yes! I will make these someday soon!

So I found myself embarking upon today's cardmaking adventure via a few different influences. First, sewing on cards is so hot these days. I've played around a little recently with hand sewing techniques, and wanted to try some more. Second, Valerie Mangan, whose blog Paper & Cookies I've just recently discovered, posted some cards that she made using the most recent Studio Calico kit and some machine sewing. Third, some of the design team members have been posting on the Studio Calico blog this week actually encouraging us all to scraplift! So I decided, since I already had the same supplies as Valerie, and I've kind of been interested in trying machine sewing, why not go ahead and lift her cards?

So... here's what I came up with...

Sewing in circles is super hard, and you can tell by this photo that I had an especially hard time! But I'm proud of me for trying something new!

I couldn't tell exactly what Valerie had done for her sentiment, but it looked sort of cork-like, and I thought cork would be nice with the color scheme. I didn't have an appropriate stamp that was small enough (plus, I wasn't sure if stamping on cork would even work!) so I pulled the yellow tones out of the patterned papers with the Pink Paislee brad.

When I first saw Valerie's cards on her blog this morning, I immediately remembered that the reverse of the button paper was the same print but in a lovely pine-y, lime-y kelly green color. Wouldn't that be fun, I thought to myself, accented with real buttons as holly berries for a Christmas card? So I took Valerie's second design and put my own, albeit small, spin on it...

I knew I didn't want to mix too many patterns, but the holly leaves weren't standing out enough, so I did some white "faux stitching" around them.

No sewing in circles this time!

So there you have it. Three new things for me today: Machine sewing on paper, directly lifting (as close as I've ever come to CASEing) somebody else's design, and admitting to the world once and for all that I cannot sew!! :)