Horseback Adventures!

Amanda loves to go horseback riding. Every summer she books a day and goes on a 2-hour trail ride. This year she went on Canada Day! That worked great for me because I was able to make it out to take some photos before her ride.

She always goes to Horseback Adventures! They do their trail rides along the Conestoga river so it is very scenic.

Here she is getting acquainted with all the horses.

Amanda was telling me that this was going to be the instructors horse. It was the biggest one in the line up!

Funny thing, it ended up being her horse!

Here she is, all saddled up and ready to ride.

I just love the head gear. Gotta keep that noggin safe :)

And they are off!

She had a great ride, but was rather stiff the next day. Her horse was a bit of a wanderer and ended up having to be attached to the lead horse so he would stay on the path. Now I am on the hunt for some papers I can use to scrapbook these photos.

Stitching Week - Faux Stitching

The final day for the stitching feature on the Sketch Support site was faux stitching. I think that this has just as great of an effect on a project as the hand or machine stitching.

I created this tag using one of Allison's add-on sketches and I added some faux stitching around the mug. It really makes it stand out against the background.

On this layout I used a border stamp that I have and some white ink. It gives the illusion of machine stitching without having to pull out my sewing machine.

On this layout I used a white pen and did little dots to create the look of stitching. This is a very fun and easy technique.

I hope you enjoyed this week of stitching highlights. It was fun for me to go back through my layouts and pick just a few to show you how I incorporated stitching. I hope you give it a try.

Stitching Week - Machine Stitching

I am not a big 'machine' stitching person, but I have pulled it out from time to time. On Thursday, Allison's stitching feature was all about machine stitching.

I was looking back through my pages and I came across this layout that I did for my very first appearance as a guest designer on her blog. I was really nervous and wanted to make a good impression, so I pulled out my sewing machine and stitched a border around my pattern paper.

I used a contrasting thread colour so that it would show up against the light background.

I was really easy to do, just like sewing fabric, only it is paper.

Another layout that I found was for an article for Scrap Street (an online magazine). I used my sewing machine to sew each of the patterned squares for the background.

This is one of my favourite layouts and I am really happy with the way that the machine stitching turned out.

If you have a sewing machine, I recommend you try sewing on your pages. Be sure to pop over to the Sketch Support site and see what the other members of the creative team have done with their machines.

Stitching Week - Templates and Tools

Sorry I am a bit late posting these. The week sort of got away on me. I am going to catch up on the stitching feature that was being showcased on the Sketch Support site.

On Wednesday Allison was highlighting templates and tools (Sew Easy). I love the Sew Easy. I also have a little trick that I use to create borders on my pages. I use a die-cut border out of paper and then placed it on my page as a guide to punch my holes.

When I created 'When it Rains, it Pours', I used a straight stitch to stitch all around each of the squares and then I used my scallop border template to create the border along the bottom of my layout.

Here is a close-up of the squares and the border.

The Sew Easy is my favourite tool for stitching. It is especially great for fancier patterns. I created this layout using the Burst tip and created a border around the dark blue paper.

It was a lot of stitching, but well worth it in the end.

For more ideas and tips on how to use the Sew Easy tool, check out the Sketch Support site. You won't be disappointed.

Stitching Week - Accenting

If you like to add stitching to your pages then this is the week for you to visit the Sketch Support site. The entire week is dedicated to stitching. Today they are talking about accenting a die-cut!

I created this layout and I accented the chipboard stars with black stitching.

I treated the chipboard like any other die-cut. My only advice is to be sure to pierce your holes very well so that you needle goes through the chipboard easily. Otherwise you end up with really sore fingers.

On this layout I did quite a bit of accenting on my die-cuts.

I love, love this tree! I downloaded the cut-out a long time ago and don't even know where I got it. I have saved the template to use over again. I stitched around the brown and the green using coordinating floss!

I cut the sun using my Cricut (Doodlecharms, I think) and then added the stitching to the center.

I added stitching to the centers of each flower in matching colours.

I love how stitching takes a simple die-cut and turns it into something 3-dimensional. Give it a try!