Definition of collage according to the Collins English Dictionary:

 "an art form in which compositions are made out of pieces of paper, cloth, photographs and other miscellaneous objects, juxtaposed and pasted on a dry ground."

This is the card and envelope I sent to one of my Flickr contacts together with the crochet flowers below.

Collage is a fun technique which allows you to mix all sorts of materials. On the card I used, once again, text and images taken from books on gardening and woodlands. These were bought at my local charity shop and cost between £1 and £1.50. Now, that's very good value . I also used some yarn on the side of the card. On the envelope I used a strip taken from a paint colour catalogue and an image from one of the books mentioned above.

Tip: Next time you go into a DIY store, see if they have paint colour catalogues or cards like the ones below. These are great to use on your projects, you can use them as they are or punch out shapes with your paper punches.

These are my first collage cards.

The 2 above are for a swap and they are already on their way, one is staying in the UK and the other one is crossing the Atlantic to go to the U.S.A. The 3rd one is for a friend who hasn't been well lately and it's a sort of Get Well/Cheer Up pack. I've included a small envelope with a tea bag inside. Hope she likes it.

The background texts and the images come from 2 gardening books I bought at my local charity shop. They were already written on and some pages were torn so I don't feel so guilty at cutting the pages up.  Both books have beautiful drawings of flowers, trees, birds, butterflies, etc. which are just perfect for this kind of project.

If collage is something you'd like to try there are some nice free images on the Internet or you can have a look at the used books for sale at your local library, charity shop, car boot sale, etc.

Here are a few links for you to explore:

Vintage items for collage (on Flickr)
Victorian graphics
Vintage images
Vintage resources

...I could make time stand still so I'd be able to finish all my WIPs (Works In Progress). My last post was 2 weeks ago and that's because I've been busy making these felt bookmarks.

They are gifts for some of the staff at my son's school. I also made little Thank You notes to go with the bookmarks inside the personalized envelopes, all 7 of them! Not that many but time consuming.

Also, I've set myself a challenge which is to try and come up with some nice designs for tall cards. It was only recently I realised I make mainly square or C6 cards, the square ones being my favourites. To see my most recent cards, please click here.

As for WIPs, I'm working on a curtain for my son's bedroom, it's navy blue and it's going to have a sea theme with lots of fish, sea weed, boats, submarines etc. made out of felt. Then I'm going to make some curtains for my bedroom also with appliques but I haven't decided on a theme yet.

Also, I've entered this competition to make either a Christmas gift or decoration so I need to decide what I'm making as the deadline is the end of September. If you'd like to enter the competition, join the Christmas Gift Projects-arts and crafts group on Flickr.

I like embroidered cards, they are different, special, delicate and make beautiful keepsakes. I made a few embroidered cards recently and plan on making some more using some beautiful free drawings I found on the Internet and in embroidery magazines. If this is something you'd like to try, I put together the instructions and the photos below to help you get started.

1 - Choose your embroidery pattern and the cardstock you're going to embroider on. Decide on the size and shape of your project, I went for a tag shape which I cut with my Fiskars tag templates.

2 - Align the embroidery template with the front of the cardstock and fix using Blue Tack or a similar product so they remain together during piercing.

3 - Place the cardstock with the template on a piece of foam and pierce using a pin. There are piercing tools available on the market but you don't need to spend money on them unless you really want to, of course.

4 - After piercing, remove the template and you're ready to start embroidering. Don't tie knots, instead use adhesive tape to hold the end of your thread in place. Start from the reverse of the cardstock and go all the way around your design using the backstitch. For flowers, use the daisy stitch.

After you've finished your embroidery you can either leave the edge of the cardstock as it is or go around it with the blanket stitch or any other appropriate stitch. I chose the blanket stitch.

When embroidering on cardstock remember to:

- Work slowly;
- Always hold the cardstock near the hole where the needle is going to go to avoid bending, creasing the cardstock.

If you're like me and you can't draw there are many free embroidery patterns available for download on the Internet. Click here to get some patterns for your embroidery project.

Have fun.

It really bothers me when I buy a craft tool and then for one reason or another I don't use it for its intended purpose and I know this happens to a lot of other crafters too. Recently, however, I realised that some tools can be put to good use even if not for the one they were meant to. Here are a few examples. I hope this helps you make the most of those craft tools you bought and never use or use very little.

Fiskars shapes templates

I have 6 of these and I use them to cut paper and cardstock but also to cut fabric/felt. What I do is place the template on the fabric/felt and trace the shape with a pencil or sewing chalk or I trace it onto vilene, iron it onto the fabric/felt and then cut the shape. The one I use the most is the one with the different size circles.

Fiskars embossing stencils

I'm not very good at embossing and so don't use these much but I realised that I can actually use some of the shapes to cut elements out of cardstock,  fabric and felt. A few days ago while making one of my owl cards I needed to cut a tree branch but I don't draw...I remembered that I have this Christmas embossing stencil with a very nice branch which was exactly what I wanted. Again, I used the embossing stencil to trace the shape of the tree branch onto the cardstock, cut it and used it on my card.

Eyelet setters

I like to use them to cut little circles out of felt or cardstock which I then use as eyes or as flower centres.

Heat gun

As I said above, I don't emboss much as I'm not very good at it which means that my heat gun does not see much action. However, recently I made several cards stamped with bleach and my heat gun proved very useful as it allowed me to blow dry the bleach instead of having to wait for it to dry naturally.

If you have any other suggestions on this topic I would love to hear them.

My son is going to a birthday party today (another one!) and I thought that as he's going to give the birthday girl a handmade card and a couple of handmade hair clips it would be nice if the wrapping would be special too so I chose a brown envelope and embellished it like this:

The little cupcakes were transfered onto white card and the outline embossed with gold embossing powder. Then I coloured in the paper case and the cake with my pastel Whispers pens and sprinkled some Bridal embossing tinsel, melted the embossing powders with the heat gun and then did the cherry using Red tinsel embossing powder. What I found out when doing this is that when the Bridal embossing tinsel melts the colour underneath still shows through which I think is a very good trick ;-)

I finally finished this project and I'm quite happy with how it turned out. To have a look please click here.

This card is part of a set of two I made following an idea I had for using my scalloped circle punch, I call them Happy cards.

Here's a photo of the finished card:

And here are the instructions:

1 - With your scalloped circle punch punch out the number of circles you'll need in matching tones of green.

2 - Also cut a rectangle for the trunk of your tree.

3 - Cut the rectangle to give it the shape of a tree trunk and trim the circles to different heights and overlap to creat the bush.

4 - Using one of the circles finish the tree and position it among the bushes (On the card shown above I then added some more bushes to the right of the tree).

Your tree and bushes are done. Embellish them and use them on a card or scrakboop page.

On the card above, the clouds were made from two overlapped circles coloured with some blue chalk. Here's another Happy Card.

The end of the school year is near and it's time to start thinking about the Thank You cards you'll have to make, here are some very easy to make card toppers in the shape of colouring pencils.

For the template and instructions click here.

The Internet is my favourite craft tool because it inspires me and provides me with endless ideas, templates, patterns, tutorials, etc.

I think the main thing is not to limit your search to a specific craft only. For instance, if you're a cardmaker don't just look at cardmaking or cardmaker's websites/blogs, widen your horizons by looking at sites on other crafts like patchwork (even if you don't like sewing), appliques, stained glass, children's colouring pages, etc. Whether you're looking for something specific or just surfing the Net you're certain to find a template, pattern or idea that you can use or adapt to suit your needs craftwise.

Here are a few examples of cards I made using/adapting free templates or patterns I found on the Internet:

I found the template for the dove on a site with lots of free stained glass patterns.

This flower is made of textured card and I found the template on a webiste about appliques. I made a few changes to the original flower.

For these dresses I used a template I found on the Internet and which was to make a dress shaped card, instead I resized it and made these cute little dresses using felt.

Here are a few links for you to explore:

Stained glass patterns

Appliques

Martha Stewart