Handmade cards and other crafts, templates & tips

Tuesday is Play Rangers day and Alex loves it. We all meet up at the football field and for 2 whole hours after school the children play, craft and have lots of fun. Now that the days are shorter and colder we also have a fire to roast marshmallows, make popcorn or to have hot drinks which are served in plastic cups.

To avoid the children getting hurt (the cups get very hot) I made these cozies using leftover yarn.

They are very easy and quick to make as you can see from the photos below (by the way, these cozies were made for plastic cups from IKEA).

18 rows of 9 treble crochet.

Fold in half to join both ends.

Slip stitch to the end of the row and weave in the ends.

You should now have a ring like the one above.

Crochet a simple edging in a different colour both at the top and at the bottom.

Your cozy is ready to be used and it only took a few minutes to make.

Here are all 20 of them

 

With Christmas fast approaching I dug out the Christmas cards we received last year and have been using them to make some cute gift tags as you can see below (to see a larger picture please click on the image).

There are lots of things you can make with old Christmas cards, if you'd like to recycle yours have a look at these great ideas.

Creative uses for Christmas cards

How to make a holiday star from old cards

Greeting card box

Make a Christmas basket out of old Christmas cards

Make tree ornaments out of Christmas cards

Even more ways to recycle your Christmas cards

Christmas ornaments

Recycled wreath (scroll to image 5 to see how you can make a Christmas wreath using old Christmas cards)

Recycle a card into a crochet ornament

 

This is a bunting I made for the Autumn Challenge on the Kool Crafts and Arts forum (please click on the pictures to enlarge them).

The inspiration for the crochet leaves came from this tutorial and it's a great way to use up leftover yarn.

 

With the days getting colder it feels good to wear warm and comfortable items. In the last couple of weeks I finished 2 pairs of crochet slippers for me and Alex and a neck warmer to send my sister for Christmas.

My slippers
Alex's slippers

Neck warmer

This knitted neck warmer follows the same pattern as these and it's really easy to make.

First you need to knit or crochet a rectangle long enough to go around your neck and wide enough to be folded in half. I finished mine with a crochet edging.

Now for the folding, fold your rectangle in half as shown in the photo below.

 

Sew on a button large enough to go through one of the loops.

Flip it over.

Fold the sides towards the middle.

Use a loop to button up your neck warmer.

This is what it looks like when it's finished.

This is a bag made out of granny squares which in turn were made using yarn bought at the local charity shop. I chose an easy pattern from the book "200 crochet blocks for blankets, throws and afghans" by Jan Eaton.

I loved mixing and matching the different colours and I love how it turned out. The handles came from a bag also bought from the same charity shop.

 

Just a short post to show you a few cards I've been making.

The accordion card below was a special commision from a teacher at my son's school. Due to the nature of the card I made a box to put it in rather than using an envelope.

The card below was made for the Halloween challenge on one of the many Flickr groups and also for the Halloween swap on the Kool Crafts and Arts forum.

This week I've been making a few cards to replace the ones I sold and it's amazing how a little detail can go such a long way in completely changing the look of a card making it truly special and unique.

Today's post is about some of the little details you can add to your cards so they stand out.

Butterflies and dragonflies

When adding butterflies or dragonflies to your cards try drawing lines or little dots to give the impression of movement. You can also glue only the body of the butterfly/dragonfly onto the card and then lift the wings a little, this will give the impression of flapping wings making your butterfly/dragonfly more realistic.

The last card in this series is one of my new ones and you'll see that the butterfly on the bottom corner is made up of 2 punched butterfly shapes glued together in the middle. Again, this helps give the impression that the butterfly is flapping its wings.

Flowers and leaves

To create layers of flowers or foliage with different heights use foam pads. You can also make your flowers look more "real" by slightly shaping their petals. To do this you can curl or pinch them so they don't lie flat on the card.

Also when making the centres for the flowers try using circles of different sizes. Even if you use the same flower shape throughout your project you can make them look different by using larger or smaller circles.

The flower used on the first card had its petals slightly twisted or pinched. The flowers on the second card are all the same but some look slightly different just by using a smaller circle in the centre.

Mix and match

Just because you're making a card it doesn't mean you have to use only paper and cardstock. Raid your sewing box and experiment with ribbon, fabric, buttons, yarn, etc. These elements will add texture and interest to your project.

All the cards above incorporate items you can find in your sewing box such as leftover bits of ribbon, lace, rikrak, buttons and fabric.

Stitching on paper

I love stitching on cards and use it quite often. Again experiment adding a few stitches to your project to see what a difference this makes. You can use a sewing machine, do the stitching by hand or use false stitching using a fine tip pen to draw the "stitches".

I hope you find these ideas useful.

Just wanted to show you these I made a few weeks ago for Louise from Send My Card.

They are for A4 size cards and I had lots of fun choosing the papers and making the little handbags.

 

Today I want to show you a new die-cut I bought to use with the Sizzix BigShot. Actually there are 3 dies or frames in the package, they come nestled and before using them you need to separate them with a craft knife.

These dies are compatible with the Sizzix BigShot and the Cuttlebug and they come with instructions for use with both the machines above.

What I want to show you is what you can cut with them because when I looked on the Internet I couldn't find anything that would give me an idea of what the product does but it sounded interesting and that's why I bought it.

These are the nestled dies.

Here they are after being separated.

Frame and mat cut with the larger die.

Frame and mat cut with the medium die.

Frame and mat cut with the smaller die

Experiment with different combinations of dies to get different frames.

    

     

You can also overlay different sized frames to obtain a different effect, this works best if you use matching or contrasting colours.

Note: I haven't tried cutting thick cardstock with these dies as they don't seem to be as sturdy as the Originals or the Bigz dies from Sizzix but they cut paper and thin cardstock very easily.

Following my previous post on t-shirt yarn here are the 2 bags I made with this material.

You can crochet or knit with t-shirt yarn just as you would with any other type of yarn, the only difference being that this is a much thicker medium requiring the use of bigger knitting needles or crochet hooks. On both these projects I used a 12 mm crochet hook!

These bags are slightly heavier that if they had been made using more conventional materials but they are very durable and hold their shape quite well. They were also worked in the round to avoid very bulky seams.