All Stitched Up

Hi Magpies, Julie back with you today. This month I have chosen to focus on just one collection, Amy Tan Stitched. I love to stitch on my layouts, and this collection was just asking for me to do that. It’s a very varied collection with plenty of soft muted colours in it, but also a few brights and black to ground it. My first layout is simply called Love. I had to concede to it being the month of February, so I did a layout about love! I cut out a large heart on my silhouette machine and coloured the outer heart in Heidi Swapp Gold Color Shine (my favourite), and patterned pieced all the small heart cutouts with paper from the 6×6 paper pad. I tore a strip of the Repeat Paper adding it to the top of my background paper, and layered a branding strip over the top of that, I then added the heart die cut slightly to the left of the page. I stitched around the word love to make it stand out a bit more. I tore the edges of some papers from the 6×6 pad, and added some vellum which I embossed with the Love Spun Embossing Folder before adding my photo on the top. I scattered a few pieces from the Cardstock Die Cuts and With Love Puffy Stickers around my photo, then I added a small bulldog clip, from my stash, to the top. I finished the layout with some sprinkles of Heidi Swapp Color Shine Gold and Mr Hueys Mists.


My second layout is all about the love of getting new stash and don’t we all love that!!? I took a photo of my pizza box, and using an app on my phone, added the words ‘Happy Mail’ to the photo before printing it out. My background paper is the B side of Map Of My Heart which I gessoed and smooched some Mr Hueys Mist onto. I tore a piece of the Continued Paper, adding it to the left hand side and then added a branding strip. I then die cut lots of small envelopes of the muted coloured papers in the 6×6 paper pad, I stitched on to the insert that went into each one. I layered some papers up behind my photo, again using some vellum that was embossed with the love spun embossing folder. I stuck my photo to the left hand side of the layout, adding some embroidery thread underneath and attached all the envelopes coming across the page and to the bottom right. I cut apart the Jump Stitched Paper, adding bits of it around the page, and finished off with some With Love Puffy Stickers, Cardstock Diecuts and Transparent Accent & Phrase Stickers.


My final layout looks like it has come from a completely different collection, but I can assure you it’s the same. My background is a piece of white cardstock which I gessoed and added lots of ink to. I smooched it on, flicked it and stencilled also, thoroughly enjoying myself in the process :). I then choose the brightest papers in the 6×6 pad, red & yellow,and then to ground it a bit, I added some black and grey. I cut some various sized circles out of all my papers, and punched some strips from the same  papers, laying them down the centre in a vertical line, and scattering the circles off that line. I once again layered the papers behind the photo, and added the embellishment around the page. My title is pose, as this layout is about my dog, Riley, and how funny he looks when he sits down, like he’s posing. I stitched the title using the Amy Tan Embroidery Stencil Kit – Comrade, and choose black to stitch it so it stands out.



I hope my post might entice you to give the Amy Tan Stitched Collection a try!
Until next time,