I am NOT a morning person!

...so I can totally relate to this Bella! I loved Stephanie's card with this image, and was so excited to have her myself that I rushed to make a card with her. I've REALLY been wanting to make a quilt card as well, since I know I'll NEVER have the patience to make a real quilt with cloth - this seemed like a great compromise! Let me tell you...I think I real one might have been easier!

I started by punching squares from my patterned paper. I purchased a few extra packages of this Petal Patch paper last summer because I just LOVE the colors, and diagonal stripes are so much fun! Unfortunately, my 1 1/4" punch was NOT working well. Run down 2 flights of stairs to get some tinfoil (thankfully I had some! Can't seem to find Wax Paper here...may have to request that on my hubby's next US trip!) then back up! Sharpened that puppy and now it works. SO, I punched my squares from 4 different patterns, and laid them all out. Shockingly, the dimensions actually worked! The stamping gods were smiling on me!!

Next, Paper Piercing. Now, I don't pierce all that often. I like the look, but I'm really a lazy stamper! But, I got out my piercing guide (I don't think I can live without it now!) and my new Paper Piercer from Cindy and got to work - took about 20 minutes! Finally, I drew in all the stitches. I tried with my white gel pen (you can see the remains if you look in the upper left square!) but decided it was too light, and that chocolate chip would work better. So...off I go. I did smarten up enough to realize that Grumpy there was going to cover up some of the work so I didn't make all my X's, although my husband later pointed out I could have avoided lots of piercing too. Thanks honey!

Ok..finally finished my quilt. Now it's time to watercolor Ms. Grumpy. I've been practicing some of the techniques shared by Debbie Olsen on her Thinking Inking blog, and I do think my watercoloring has improved. I used my aquapainter and ink from my ink pads. Then, I wanted to shab her up a little....but not too much, so I lightly sponged some chocolate chip around the edges, then roughed up the edges of the Bashful Blue CS she got layered on. Finally, I stuck her on with some dimensionals.

I REALLY like how she turned out, but I feel like she's missing something...maybe some hardware? I don't know...what do you all think? I'd love any suggestions!

TFL!
-Jana