My friend Ellen is to blame.

In all the good ways, of course. But she sent me down a rabbit hole with this new release (see it all HERE!). A rabbit hole decorated with very pretty patterns and colors!

When Ellen Hutson sent this new release my way, she also sent some links to the team showing this thing called String Art that I didn’t know existed. I got lost down that bunny trail for many hours! Lots of people put nails into pieces of wood to create these artworks, but I’m kind of tickled we can do this with dies and paper – lots easier, and I’m pretty sure I could never nail a bunch of little nails in a line, evenly spaced! ha!

Supplies for this project are linked at the end of this post. Compensated affiliate links may be used at no cost to you.

Video

I’ll show you my first three little string art pieces…I think I’ll be spending more time trying these in the months to come. They’re really different than other things I create, and that gets me excited!

Essential Ovals for Stitching

These dies with little stitching holes are good for more than just making decorative borders. Connect them with embroidery flosses – and you can make amazing little works of art!

With the ovals, I diecut an additional panel to pop up over the string art to “cover” the holes. So if you don’t like the look of them showing, this cleans them up.

Essential Circles for Stitching

I diecut two circles – one had 55 holes, the other 44. After several tries making the “wreath” around the outside edges, I learned I’d be more successful by stitching 11 semi-equidistant threads first. I marked off every 5th one so I could keep one end of those stitches even, then fudged the others.

Adding stitches between those 11 then allowed the “cheating” to happen but with the abiliity to maintain an approximately similar angle for the lines Then the center portion was simply stitched into the one hole punched under the heart.

Essential Squares for Stitching

This was my big step outside the box! I played around with creating a pattern in the outside border first – counting the number of stitch holes so I could start/stop in the middle and do the reverse number of stitches going the other direction.

The second color got added in the corners first – then I diecut another square in the center to make the panel for the heart. I could have just joined the bigger square – but the extra line of white – which now looks scalloped! – really added a lot to the design!

The hearts in all of these are from the

Hit That

The “Hit That” stamp set is a mini with a cute little pinata! I “broke” mine by stamping the back half with the front masked off, then the front with the back masked off. Then I could just draw in the busted middle. The candies are in the set – I just added more little hand drawn rubble. The lady is from the Cooking Lady set.

Guac On

For this little card, I stamped it using Catherine Pooler inks on watercolor paper, deliberately letting them be broken up. I didn’t have a brown though….so I layered blue over orange! The sun is made from the same stamp as the avocado pits, and a little swipe with a brush made the shadows on the ground and rays of the sun.

Just Squidding

Nutty card here! The squid and fin are diecut; the sailboat was stamped crooked on a full panel. Then I fussycut the right half of that piece around the boat, and then tore the paper on the left for the top of the wave. Then I airbrushed a pretty sky using some torn masking paper to create clouds; airbrushed the water, and added just a few swipes of marker to create the underside of the wave. The fin’s stick is stabbed through two slits cut in that front panel.

Guest Video on Ellen’s channel/blog

If you’re wishing I did some coloring for the release, never fear! I’ll just be doing that over at Ellen’s sites this time. Again with Squidward, but this time it’s his sweet sister? lol. Soft cheerful colors, a simple diecut to control the real estate for coloring…. BLOG – YOUTUBE

This is similar to my recent Lucky Cats technique where I cut out a frame die but left the rectangle frame off that card; this time it’s just a circular frame!

Supplies

Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art

• Full new Ellen Hutson release
• Crafter’s Companion Gemini Junior
• Letterpress 110 lb. White – 10 pk, Essentials by Ellen
• Scotch Foam Mounting Tape
• Cooking Lady, Essentials By Ellen
• DMC Embroidery Floss, Essentials by Ellen:
  • The Rainbow Collection
  • The Snowman Collection
  • The Arctic Collection
  • The Ornament Collection
  • The Color Pop Collection
  • The Flannel Collection
  • The Ginger Collection
  • The 12 Days Collection