Shabby Lace Wedding Card for Unscripted Sketches #251

This week’s sketch is so simple and versatile! It’s a Unscripted Sketches favourite for sure! I decided to get my shabby on for this one and wow, am I ever proud of how it turned out! Especially my handmade flower! I am entering this in this week’s Shabby Tea Room challenge ‘Pretty in Pink’.

The flower is made from layers of organza, light see-through bridal fabric, and some crinoline which is heavy and stiff but once wet, it curls up and then dries with lots of texture. The organza flower petals were melted with my heat gun. I use tweezers to hold each petal while I just kiss the edge with the heat gun. It’s easy to end up with lots of melting and no petal so be careful and same for the crinoline; it singes very easily. So go easy if you speed up drying it with your heat gun but that can be a cool look if you want it really shabby. I allowed it to singe in a few places just enough to get a light brown colour to help out the Distress ink I added to make the crinoline ivory.

The leaves are made in the same way as the petals but this time I used satin fabric. The crinoline will also make nice leaves if you dye it green with reinkers, spray mist or colour it with markers. The green ribbons are hand cut using more organza cut on the bias. If you cut fabric into ribbons this thin in the usual straight way, it will fray too badly to be used. To cut it on the bias, cut your strips, mine were 1/2”, on the 45 degree grain of the fabric. A quilting ruler, rotary cutter and a grid mat with 45 marked on it are a tremendous help.

The lace is gorgeous don’t you think? I picked it up in the bridal department of my local fabric store. It was pricey but I bought it on sale and since it had two decorated edges, and I only needed a bit, it was worth the cost. I had a hard time deciding if I wanted it to overlay the whole card or just the bottom but it was too pretty to not use it on the whole card! I just had to arrange my sentiment carefully so you could read it! I just love how the stripes peek out from underneath the lace!

I made the little pearl accent on the wire, it’s pretty easy, just cut a piece of wire, add a pearl to the center, twist the wire. Then add another pearl a little ways from the bottom of the twist, fold the wire and twist just using that one wire until it is tight. Then twist the two wires together and repeat. Just try to alternate which wire you add the pearls to or one will be really short and the other very long and use lots more wire than you think you’ll need. Twisting wire uses a lot more than you’d think.

If you’ve always wanted to play but never got the chance, this is the week since this is a pretty easy sketch! And be sure to visit my blog and Unscripted Sketches next week too because we are having our BLOG-AVERSARY! YEAH!! There will be prizes and giveaways on some of our blogs and other fun events so you don’t want to miss it!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Stamps: Say it Loud-WMS
Ink: antique linen Distress, Watering Can Archival-Ranger, London Fog-Memento
Paper: MME Market Pad, cream CS-PTI
Accessories: fabrics, lace as listed above-Fabricland, brad-CTMH, flower, leaf dies-rose creations Spellbinders, ribbon-stash, half-back pearls-can’t remember sorry they are really nice ones, gold wire-beading store, top-drilled pearls-AH Beads, cream silk ribbon-May Arts