Yes, that is what you saw in the red card that I posted yesterday: Tilda in fishnets and heels.

I think it is cute.

One of the things I love about paper crafting and rubber stamps is that you can alter things so easily. You can cut hair shorter, add a Santa hat with another stamp, layer stamps, mask stamps, and get all sorts of effects. And as in this example, you can add to stamps.

Now if we want to stray from the paper talk, and talk fashion for a bit: I love fishnets. I love patterned tights. I don’t get much chance to wear them (most days I lift and carry and crawl on the ground too much to want to wear skirts) but I do like them. And I do think there are rules too: I don’t wear them with giant heels. I generally keep the rest of me well-covered to keep the look classy (I hope!). Those shoes of Tilda’s are very sensible heels, and she’s wearing a long-sleeved dress. A perfect chance to add some spice with tights!

I think as crafters, creators, we should explore more – move outside our comfort zones to create new, great things. I think this card is going to sit on my desk to remind me of that.

I think the card looks great, I don’t think Tilda looks inappropriate – maybe this is because in my head, she doesn’t have an age. I see many bloggers refer to her as a ‘little girl’, but I suppose in my head, she’s categorized more as ‘ageless female’. As I said, it’s very interesting to see how different people perceive her.

After the break, I explain how I added the tights!

I have to admit that one of the reasons Tilda’s kicky leg is popped up is that I messed up on the original leg.

Runs in your fishnets = a look I don’t think anyone should try to pull off.

I inked up just the leg part of the stamp, and stamped it a couple times on my usual paper. Then I sat and really thought about what wearing patterned tights means. The leg she’s standing on is straight, so that was straightforward. I took my 0.05 Copic multiliner and added a diamond pattern to that leg. I used a ruler to keep the lines straight, but I didn’t plan anything like ‘lets make lines 2mm apart!’. I just shifted the ruler after each line, eyeballing distance. The great thing about this is that it looks more real – tights distort around your legs, so the pattern isn’t even. really, the holes are bigger on bigger parts of your leg (thighs) and smaller on smaller parts (ankles) but I didn’t get that detailed.

You could do the leg that is bent the same way, but then it would look very flat. I switched from my 12″ ruler to a theatre ticket. I couldn’t find my 6″ ruler, but this worked just as well. The 12″ ruler was getting a bit unwieldy to work with in such a small area.

Now, back to thinking about tights. I realised that when you bend your leg like that, it stretches out on the front of your knee, and gathers at the back. The lines that go around your leg would radiate out from one point at the back of the knee, and the ones that go up and down your leg would bend at that point.

The first line I drew went from the crook of the back of her knee to the centre of the kneecap. I then drew lines to the left of it, starting the line at the same point in the crook and radiating slowly outwards until I had gotten to the point where the knee would no longer distort the fabric. Then I made lots of lines parallel to that line up to the skirt. I did the same on the other side of that centre line and on down to the ankle.

For the second set of lines, I started at the thigh, and drew lines that ended on centre crook – to – kneecap line. To do the calf, I drew lines at a different angle from the crook-to-kneecap line down to the shoe. Ideally, these two sets of crosshatches would meet at that centre line: this is where the pattern bends, so they are the same lines. To get that to work correctly though takes a little more planning and less eyeballing, so I just connected most of them.

It took a couple tries to get right, but I think it is a great effect! (I ended up using the top leg in the picture above).

For the card, the cardstock is Core’dinations, and I sponged Pearlescent Lavender Brilliance Ink onto a Crafters Workshop template. I used the same Copic Multiliner to trace every other dot of the outside circle, then took the template off and added Frosted Lace stickles to those dots. I used the following Copics to colour:

Candy Cane Stickles on her wings. I used one with wings! The banner is a Magnolia Stamp (also from the Winter kit), and ‘Explore’ is a K&Company rub-on.