Handmade cards and other crafts, templates & tips

 

This is my last post before Christmas and most probably before the New Year :-)

 

Anyway, today I decided to use some pine cones I gathered a few months ago on a walk to the nearby deer park to make these very simple and pretty decorations.

 

You'll need:

 

Pine cones
Green wire
Ribbon
Spray paint (optional)

 

Instructions:

 

Spray the pines cones with the colour of your choice, I went for gold. This step is optional as you might prefer to use the pine cones as they are.

 

Cut some green wire, enough to go around the top of each pine cone and twist so it doesn't come undone, as you can see below.

 

 

 

Gather your pine cones in bunches and twist the wires so they stay together.

 

Tie a ribbon around the wire and hang your pine cones wherever you like.

 

Hope you like this very easy and quick to make project.

 

Merry Christmas everyone and thank you for your visit.

 

 

 

 

I finished these this morning and I want to show them to you before I send them off to the US. These coasters are for a swap on the Kool Crafts and Arts forum and they very easy to make. Mine are a little wonky but I don't mind that, I think a little wonkiness is OK and to me it's synonym with character . I hope my swap partner won't mind it either.

To make these I followed the brilliant tutorial by Allsorts

This is a card my son Alex,9, made at school...

and this is the one he made at home for Santa and the Reindeers

If you like to give handmade cards but still haven't gotten around to making any this year, gather the children and make these, they are easy and fun to make and look great.

To make a card like the ones above you'll need:

* 1 card blank with window
* Adhesive clear film
* Christmas confetti
* Glue or double-sided tape

1 - Measure the window on the card and cut 2 pieces of adhesive clear film slightly larger than the window.

2 - Take the backing of one of the pieces of adhesive clear film and scatter some confetti. Press lightly so it sticks to the film.

3 - Take the backing of the other piece of clear film and stick on top of the confetti.

4 - Apply some glue or double-sided tape around the reverse side of the window to hold the confetti sandwich in place.

5 - Add a Christmas message and your card is done.

Last week I received a few commissions for handmade cards, 2 for a lady who is retiring from the local primary school and 2 18th birthday cards. These are the cards I made.

The card below is A4 size, the crochet flowers were made by me and the stitching was also done by hand. I made the envelope too.

The cards below were commissioned for the 18th birthday of twins, a boy and a girl.

As much as I love the Internet as it allows me to see what wonderful work other people make, sometimes there's nothing like a good craft book with simple, easy projects and clear instructions to get your creativity going.

Today I want to tell you about two books I bought recently through the School Link catalogue. The first one is from the Usborne Activities series and the title is "Christmas things to stitch and sew" [ISBN 978074608688-9]. I love this book, it's full of great Christmas projects with very easy to follow instructions. I also bought "Make!" by Cath Kidston [ISBN 978-1-84400-360-0], some great projects there too but my favourite has got to be the one from Usborne.

I also found 4 fantastic books at my local public library:

- "Crochet handmade style" from Murdoch Books [ISBN 978-1-74045-891-7]
- "200 Crochet blocks for blankets, throws and afghans" by Jan Eaton [ISN 0-7153-2141-2]
- "Crochet stitch motifs, 250 to crochet" from The Harmony Guides [ISBN 978-1-84340-426-2]
- "Sew fabulous fabric" by Alice Butcher and Ginny Farquhar [ISBN 978-0-7153-2858-3]

Of the 4 books above, I love the 2 last ones. The "Crochet stitch motifs" is a great book with great crochet motifs and it includes both the written instructions to the patterns as well as charts. The "Sew fabulous fabric" has 20 beautiful projects that will make you want to sew non stop :-)

I love decorating the house for Christmas but this can be time consuming specially when there's so much to do: cards to write and post, gifts to buy, wrap and hide until Christmas Day plus a million other things.

I wanted to make something for a little window in the entry hall and this is what I came up with.

It took me only a few minutes to make it and I love to see it up on the window.

To make something like this you'll need:

- Acrylic pomp-poms (as you can see mine are different sizes and colours)
- Cotton thread (I used some of my white crochet thread)
- A sewing needle

Thread the needle with the crochet cotton and then go through several pom-poms. Cut the thread to measure, tie a knot or two at the end and fix to the wall or window with adhesive tape.

Today I'm going to show you how to make a card topper like the ones below:

You'll need:

2 cocktail sticks
2 beads
Yarn (you can use your leftovers)
Small strip of paper
Glue

Step 1

Make your knitting needles by putting just a little glue on one end of the cocktail sticks and insert the beads. Put aside until the glue dries.

Step 2

Make the paper ring for your skein. Cut a small strip of paper in keeping with the theme of your card and glue one end over the other to form a ring like the one shown above.

Step 3

Make your skein. Use a template or just your hand and go around several times until you have a skein big enough for your project. Tie a knot around the middle so it doesn't come undone.

Step 4

Insert the paper ring to finish your skein.

Step 5

With your regular knitting needles knit a few rows with the same yarn you used to make your skein.

Step 6

Transfer the knitted bit to one of the cocktail sticks. Apply a little glue to the first and last stitches and press onto the cocktail stick so they remain in place. Allow the glue to dry and there you have your card topper ready to be used.

Tip

You can also adapt this idea to a Christmas card by changing the colour of the beads and the yarn and by changing the message from "Congratulations" to "Warm Wishes" for instance.

 

I finished these four brooches this morning, they can be found in my online shop and they have all now found new owners :-)

 

 

How often does this happen to you? You have an idea of something you want to make and by the time you're done it turned out something quite different. To me it seems to happen all the time

At the moment I'm into crochet flowers and that's what I was trying to make when I got these leftover yarns from my crochet box. These were bought years ago by my mum, she knitted a jumper for Alex and I kept the leftovers. Anyway, there's me sitting on the sofa trying to come up with a new flower design and instead get this spiral thingy. It reminded me of some glass Christmas decorations I had as a child. So I made a few more using different colours and in different sizes and then attached then to a crochet chain and now I have a cool (well, I think it's cool anyway!) Christmas garland.

These are my new headbands, they are a one-size-fits-all design and very comfortable to wear.

 

  Ref. 001Headband - £5 including P&P (for UK only) For other countries the corresponding postage will be added Payment by postal order or PayPal (please email me your order and I'll send you my details) Description  Made with green felt and light green dotted ribbon, measures approx. 90 cm and is embellisehd with 3 little crochet flowers each with a cup sequin and bead in the centre.

 

  Ref. 002Headband - £5 including P&P (for UK only) For other countries the corresponding postage will be added Payment by postal order or PayPal (please email me your order and I'll send you my details) Description Made with pink felt and brown dotted ribbon, measures approx. 90 cm and is embellisehd with 3 little crochet flowers each with a pink bead in the centre. Not available.

 

  Ref. 003Headband - £5 including P&P (for UK only) For other countries the corresponding postage will be added Payment by postal order or PayPal (please email me your order and I'll send you my details) Description  Made with red felt and light green ribbon with white and blue circles, measures approx. 90 cm and is embellisehd with 1 green crochet flower a red button in the centre. Not available.

 

  Ref. 004Headband - £5 including P&P (for UK only) For other countries teh corresponding postage will be added Payment by postal order or PayPal (please email me your order and I'll send you my details) Description Made with red felt and red ribbon, measures approx. 90 cm and is embellisehd with 1 white crochet flower with a metalic red bead in the centre.

 

  Ref. 005Headband - £5 including P&P (for UK only) For other countries the corresponding postage will be added Payment by postal order or PayPal (please email me your order and I'll send you my details) Description Made with white felt and blue dotted ribbon, measures approx. 90 cm and is embellisehd with 1 white  crochet flower  with a blue bead in the centre. Not available.

I now have my own online shop, I'll try it for a while to see how it goes.

I've listed a few of my new handmade headbands, if you'd like to have a look, just click here.

This is one of the headbands I made recently.

This is a photo tutorial for one of my crochet flowers. All my flowers are either my own design or based on someone else's but with some alterations.

I am used to crochet charts instead of written instructions, unfortunately everytime I tried to draw a crochet chart it was just so awful that I'm sure no one would understand it so I decided to take photos of every stage of my flower making.

Let me show you the finished flower first so you know what it will look like:

A flower like this one is done in 5 quick steps as you can see below.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

 

And the winner is...

Alexia

Congratulations.

Last month my blog had over 2000 visitors, a number beyond all my expectations and so I think a big Thank You is in order to all those who not only visited my blog but also took the time to leave such lovely comments.

Thank You

As a token of my appreciation I'm giving away these 6 lovely crochet snowflakes I made. All you have to do is leave a comment or subscribe to my blog until November 7th. I'll then put all your names into a hat and take one out at random. The name of the winner will be posted here on November 8th.

 

I had such fun making these two Christmas stockings. The one with the teddy is for my son Alex and the other one is on its way to my niece, I hope she likes it. Alex loves his but he'll like it even more when it starts getting filled with little gifts.

They were much quicker to make than I'd thought. If you'd like to make some too you will find the top part of the stocking here, the bottom part is here, click here for the teddy and here for the star.

Today I'm going to show you how I made these cute hair clips.

Let's start with what you need, just check the photo below for a visual guide. I'm going to make the pair for the one with the blue crochet flower:

 

Circle template (big enough for your hair clip, you can use anything that's round. I used my Fiskars template)

2 felt circles

Crochet flower to which I added a bead in the centre

Thread

1 hair clip

Step one

After cutting the 2 circles out of felt, I stitched my crochet flower to one of the circles and added the blue bead to the centre of the flower.

Step two

The next step was to make a small cut on the other felt circle, as the photo shows. Determine where this cut should be using your hair clip as a guide.

 

Step three

I then inserted the bottom part of my hair clip through this cut.

Step four

I closed the clip and turned it downside up. This is what you should have.

Step five

For this step, I made a sandwich placing the felt circle with the crochet flower on top of the circle with the hair clip as you can see in the photo below.

Step six

My last step was to go around with a blanket stitch to join the top and bottom circles. This is the result:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial

This is what I made lately:

Also made some new cards:

My son Alex is always complaining that I never make anything for him!! Before you say "Poor boy!" read back some of my posts and you'll see how unfair this accusation really is.

Anyway, next month he's going on a 3 day school trip and all the children are allowed some pocket money. Alex has a wallet but it doesn't have a zipper and he needs one where he can keep his change safely... Enter crafty mum and this is it:

He chose the patterned felt he wanted me to use and I spent the whole morning working on it mainly because I really don't like sewing zippers onto things, never did and no matter how many tutorials I see on the Internet telling me how easy they are to sew I'll never get the hang of it!

Can't wait for him to come back from school today and see this.

I recently learnt 2 new embroidery stitches; the fly stitch (on the left) and the feather stitch (on the right).

These 2 stitches are very easy to learn and master and although they look gorgeous on their own I love them embellished with little beads and sequins.

I used the fly and feather stitch for the first time on this wall hanging I finished a few days ago and I'm quite proud of how they turned out.

If somehow, after reading this and having a look at the links below you feel like giving hand embroidery a go I would advise you to first experiment on a separate piece of fabric so you get the hang of the particular stitch you chose.

For brilliant video tutorials and links to patterns check ou the Needle 'N Thread website.

The following websites/blogs are also well worth a visit:
Knitting-and.com
BellaOnline
Primrose design

Have fun embroidering

The days are getting shorter and colder too, a sign that Summer is definitely over and Autumn is settling in. Some shops have even started displaying things for Christmas!!

Although there are still 3 months to go I've began working on some Christmas projects, the reason being that I can't devote many hours to crafting and only do so for short periods of time in the evening  and as there are a few things I want to have ready by December this is a good time to start!

This is what I'm working on at the moment: an Advent Calendar for my lovely niece who is 17 months old. I think they look very pretty all piled up .

As you can see this Advent Calendar is made of felt tags that I cut with my Sizzix Big Shot and my big tags die cut. I still have a few to make but cutting them with the Big Shot is a breeze.

These can also be used to make a garland or as Christmas ornaments to hang on your tree.

If you don't have a die cutting machine you can cut your tags by hand using either templates that you can download for free from the Internet (just click on the links below) or you can draw your own. Instead of felt you can also use paper.

http://www.scrapbookscrapbook.com/tags-templates.html

http://tigrisdesigns.net/creativity/templatestags.htm

Made these for a commission so the lady can choose one or the other. Which one would you choose?

I've been wanting to make a bunting for sometime and Alex's birthday (he was 9 yesterday) was the perfect "excuse".

Depending on the level of detail you want your bunting or banner to have, it can be very quick and easy to make. For this one I used a template a drew myself in the shape of a triangle but you can use any shape you like. A bunting is also perfect to use up any scraps of fabric you might have leftover from your previous projects.

I enjoyed making this one so much that I'm thinking of making one for Christmas and one for my little niece's birthday in February.

Here are some very cool buntings/banners you can find on Flickr:

Bella Dia made one with crochet flowers, and this one with crochet hearts, they are so pretty.

Cupcake bunting by Jellybelly*Jellybrain, isn't it just adorable?

A few months ago I posted a tutorial on how to make headbands. To me the problem with the type of headbands that have an elastic at the back is that you have to measure the head of the person you're making the headband for. This is all very well if you're only making them for personal use  but if you're making them for sale what will happen is that you'll need to have an assortment of different sizes. Not pratical at all, in my opinion.

This is a design I came up with when making the headband below to give as a birthday present to a little girl. I didn't know how long the headband had to be and therefore what I needed was a one size fits all kind of thing.

Here's the headband I made as a birthday gift for an adorable 2-year old.

And here's how you can make one yourself:

1 - Cut a strip of felt, mine was 40,5 cm long and 6 cm wide. Determine how much ribbon you need and cut the necessary lentgh. Choose any embellishments you want to add (crochet flowers, buttons, felt appliques, etc.).

2 - Fold the felt in half widthwise and sew all the way around. Trim with your pinking shears.

3 - Place the ribbon centrally on the felt and sew all the way around and as close to the edges of the ribbon as possible. 

4 - Embellish as desired and your headband is ready to be used.

Hope you like this tutorial.

I got this book on Cupcakes from my local library, and simply had to try one of the recipes. I baked the ones below following the basic recipe and they are delicious.

Basic cupcake recipe

115 g butter, at room temperature
115 g caster sugar
2 eggs
115 g self-raising flour
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract, grated zest of 1 lemon or 2 tablespoons cocoa powder (optional)

a 12-hole muffin tin

Preheat oven to 180ºC (Gas 4). Line muffin tin with paper cases.

Beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time.
Sift over the flour, then fold by hand. Stir in the milk and flavouring if desired.

Spoon the mixture into each paper acse and bake until risen and golden.

Transfer the cakes to a wire rack and leave to cool completely before decorating.

The 2 cards below are going all the way up north to Aberdeen to my Internet friend Susie, we've been commenting on each other's cards on Flickr for some time and we're both on the Kool Crafts and Arts Forum.

She liked this embroidered sheep card so much I decided to make one for her with a few changes in the design. I'm sending it blank so she can keep it or to send it to someone. The collage card has a little personal message. Hope she likes them.

Meanwhile, my son has started school again and I'm slowly catching up on several projects that were put on hold over Summer (not that we had much of a Summer, it rained almost all the time and the Sun has been playing hide and seek, more hiding actually ).

This is my list of projects to finish as soon as possible:

- Birthday bunting for Alex
- Wall hanging for Jen
- Head band for Isabella
- Advent calendar for my niece
- Christmas stocking for Alex
- Make Christmas ornaments

I'd better go and do something then if I'm to finish any of these in time

I made the 2 cards above for a Halloween card swap at the Kool Crafts and Arts Forum. I've never made Halloween cards before so I had great fun making these and I hope my swap partners like them. They are both flying across the Atlantic to the U.S.A.

These also gave me the chance to put some of my paper punches to good use, they don't really get to see much action . For the spider I used a circle and 8 swirls for the legs, add the wiggly eyes and you've got a scary creepy crawly. The pumpkins were made using 3 circles and some swirls. Slightly overlap two of the circles and glue them, glue the third one on top. Position and glue the swirls as you see in the picture, you can also use a leaf punch if you want. I drew some black lines all around my pumpkins to make them look a little more realistic.

Can you see the bats on the purple envelope? To make one bat all you need is a small star, a heart and a larger star. To assemble the bat, glue the small star on the back of the heart (the heart is the bat's body) in such a way that only 2 pointy ends will show (these will be the ears). Cut the larger star in half and glue each of these halves behind the heart to make the wings.

I tried to upload a few cross stitching charts yesterday but for some reason I couldn't :-(

Anyway here they are today, you can use them on your Christmas projects. To download them just follow the links bellow:

Heart, tree, snowman, Christmas bear

Christmas baules

Small Christmas baules (this is the chart I used to embroider the tiny Christmas baules you see on the white cross stitched bag in yesterday's post)

For those of us who really love to make things there's nothing like Christmas to get our creative juices flowing. There are so many things we can make: cards, git tags, ornaments for the Christmas tree or to scatter around the house, gifts for family and friends, etc.

From now on until Christmas I'll be posting templates, charts, tips and suggestions you can use when planning your Christmas. Hope you like them .

So, here's my first project: little handmade bags/sachets. These are very easy to make and you can use them as gifts (fill them in with pot pourri, lavender, etc. to turn them into pretty sachets) or as bags for small gifts. If you make them small enough you can even use them as ornaments for your Christmas tree.

Here's how to make them:

1 - Cut a rectangle of fabric with the length and width you want.

2 - With the righ side of the fabric facing up (and with the fabric in a vertical position) fold in half upwards. Make a fold around the top and iron to crease.

3 - Sew the sides and turn the bag inside out.

4 - Attach the ribbon to the back of the bag and near the top with a few stitches. Your bag is now ready to be filled with goodies.

I made these 2 bags yesterday to show you as an example.

I've decided it was time for another tidy up of my craft supplies. Unfortunately, I don't have a craft room, I use my dining room table to work on and my bits and bobs are stored in boxes underneath the stairs so it's important to go over them once in a while and have a good tidy up so I always know where things are and to make sure they don't spread all over the place .

Although I don't use peel-offs much I have quite a few, bought mainly on sale. I've been thinking how I could organize / store them, one solution would be the plastic boxes available on the market and made specifically for peel-offs but I find these a little expensive and they don't take much anyway. Then, last Thursday I had an idea, why not use an empty ring binder I had and some A4 plastic envelopes to sort out my peel-offs. I divided each A4 plastic envelope into 2 sections by stapling it vertically along the middle that way peel-off sheets are kept place. I also stored them back to back and by themes: Christmas, lettering, words, flowers, insects, etc.

I also bought new storage boxes. The red metal box is one of 2 I bought from B&Q. Each one has 11 plastic containers inside which can be moved if needed. I also bought 2 plastic boxes with 12 compartments each. I've already filled one with sequins.

 

In the photo above you can also see some of my other purchases. I hadn't planned going into Hobbycraft but as I was in the neighbourhood I couldn't resist going in and I'm glad I did. They have a great offer going on on paper punches. Prices start from 29p and you buy one and get the cheapest free. I got all of these for just over £3, not bad.

Oh, and last week I finally decided to go ahead and get myself a Sizzix BigShot, again taking advantage of the sale prices at Hobbycraft. One of the shop assistants recommended the Cuttlebug because it's more compact in size and it also works with die-cuts from other brands except for the movers and sliders from Sizzix and as these are on my wishlist I bought the BigShot. Unfortunately, I haven't yet had time to play with it to my heart's content but I hope to put it to good use pretty soon, after all Christmas is only 4 months away

On a recent walk to a nearby deer park, we (me and my son) found some little pine cones. We brought some home with us to use for Christmas. I don't know yet what I'm going to make with them but I found some very cool Christmas projects on the Internet and might try one or two.

I also know someone who works for a local catering company which does the catering for many events including weddings. The cute fabric favour bags bellow and the clothes pegs were left behind after a wedding and instead of being thrown away they were given to me and I love them . Sometimes, I also get bits of ribbon, sequins and organza bags among other bits and bobs I keep for use in my crafts. I think it would be a shame not to reuse/recycle these items as they are in perfect condition and most of them are very pretty.

In a previous post I mentioned I was working on a curtain for my son Alex. Well, I finally finished it and this is the end result.

I'm quite happy with it and so is he

These are the templates I used although I made a few changes when I built my appliques. Please click here for the fish and here for the jelly fish and submarine templates. The sea weed was free cut.

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

Father's Day is almost here and that's why I've been making some male cards that can be used for this occasion and also many others.

Nothing shows how much you care than a handmade card. If it's made by you so much the better but if not you can always buy a handmade one and write your own personal message inside. Your dad you'll love it.

This is one I made recently.

For more ideas scroll down the page and click on the link My Works which you'll find on the right.

Before                                                                          After

This is my last tutorial in this series. Today I'm going to show you how you can recycle your old buttons by covering them with fabric. Just follow the easy steps below to create new buttons out of old ones.

1 - Cut a circle of fabric big enough to cover the button you're recycling.

2 - As in the previous tutorials from this series, sticth all the way around the circle.

3 - Place the button in the centre of your circle of fabric.

4 - Pull the end of the thread as shown in this photo and until the fabric is covering the button tightly.

5 - Do some stitches to hold the fabric in place.

Hope you enjoy this tutorial. This is a great way to get buttons that match your projects or to recycle buttons that have lost some of their colour because they've been around for too long as was the case with the ones you see above. They came from old clothes that were thrown away.

Today I'm going to show you how to make these cute pumpkins 

1 - Cut a circle of your chosen fabric and stitch it all the way around as shown in this photo.

2 - Put some soft filling in the middle of your circle and pull the ends of the thread to close it like this.

3 - Choose a strong thread in a matching or contrasting colour and tie a knot at the end. Insert the threaded needle from the front to the back of your pumpkin.

4 - Stitch all the way around to form the petals always making sure you keep the thread under tension. You should get something like this.

5 - Finish the middle of your pumpkin using a button or any other embellishment of your choice.

Your little pumpkin is ready to be used.

I've been having fun making lots of felt flowers that I plan to use in some future projects. I made these last week without using any template and I quite like the result. Here are the step by step instructions:

1- Draw and cut a circle out of felt or fabric.

2 - Find the centre of the circle and then draw some straight lines that will serve as guides for cutting the petals. Cut along these lines but stop short of the centre of the circle

3 - With a small pair of scissors cut the edges of the petals giving them a slightly curved shape. To do this hold your circle between your fingers and cut only the right side of the petal. Keep going around the circle until you've done all petals. This is what you should have.

4 - Turn it around, hold it again between your fingers and do the same as above. When you finish check your petals to see if they need a little more cutting to make them as round as possible.

That's it, now you just need to do the centre of the flower using another smaller circle of felt in a contrasting or matching colour, a button, beads, etc. These flowers can then be used in cardmaking, scrapbook pages, on hair clips, headbands, etc.

This is my secong tutorial in the series of projects using circles of fabric. This time I'm going to show you how to make a flower.

1 - After you have cut your circles pick up each one and fold it in half.

2 - Fold in half again to get a triangle as shown in the photo.

3 - Stitch all the way around the wider part of your triangle like this to form your first petal.

4 - Do the same with the other circles of fabric you've cut threading them all together to make a chain.

5 - Carefully, pull the end of the thread to gather all the "petals" as you can see in this picture. Join both ends of the chain with a stitch or two to hold in place. Do the middle of the flower by using, for example, a fabric yo-yo as I did here.

Your flower is done and ready to be used.

Over the next few days I'll be posting some tutorials on what you can do using circles of fabric, this is the first of the series and I'm going to show you how to make yo-yos. These can then be used in a variety of projects. For example, you can use them to make necklaces, bags (by sewing lots of yo-yos together), as embellishments for hair clips and headbands, as brooches, etc.

Let's start:

1 - Choose your fabric and cut the number of circles you need for your project. As template I used my Fiskars Circles plate.

2 - Turn the fabric so the right side is facing down and stitch all the way around as you can see in this photo. The length of your stitches will make the yo-yo more or less frilly. The closer the stitches are the more frilly it will be.

3 - When you finish the step above, pull the end of the thread  to make the circle sort of "curl" up as shown in this photo.

4 - Flatten it a little and then cover the hole in the middle by sewing a button or any other embellishment of your choice. Click here to see my finished yo-yo.

I hope you enjoy this project and don't forget that I'll be posting some more using circles of fabric.

There was some interest in the template I used to make the felt crown appliques I used in some of my most recent cards so here it is for you to download, just click here

I made some new cards using a lovely dress template I found on the Internet. To have a look at the cards click here and to download the template click here.

I've been making cards in preparation for an upcoming Car Boot Sale and Summer Fair at my son's school and these are my latest ones. I'm loving making cards using fabric but specially felt, it's such a good and versatile material to work with. To see my cards click here. I particularly like the male shaker cards I made over the week end. Usually I have trouble coming up with ideas for cards for men and I think these are not too bad. I used my Citrus Colossal Paper Pack which I bought on sale at The Range for £2.99. At Hobbycraft this very same pack is being sold at £4.99!!

For the cupcakes I used this template and for the Hello Kitty and Miffy cards I used this one. Hope you like them. I'll be posting more templates soon.

Last but not least, a very big thank you to everyone who visits my blog .

I received a present last week, this lovely book with lots of ideas for gifts and keepsakes all in cross stitch. The deal is I get to keep the book and in exchange I make a Wedding kneeler similar to this one. Not a bad swap is it? Anyway, it has to be ready in July because this is going to be someone's wedding anniversary gift so I'd better start working on it to make sure I have plenty of time.

I also received a surprise packet today from Adrian from http://www.nnairdas.blogspot.com/
A few days ago I sent her a few decoupage sheets I had and she surprised me by sending me a packet full of goodies: beautiful papers, die cut flowers and butterflies, a lovely handmade note, etc.  Can't wait to start using them as they are so gorgeous. Thank you Adrian

Yesterday I made myself a new pot holder. My old one is falling apart and I needed a new one. I'm going to make a set of 2 and this is the first one. The sewing isn't perfect, I guess I'm a little out of practice. For the inside I used squares of fleece I cut from my son's old pyjamas. Instead of throwing them away I thought I could use them as filling and they seem to do the job quite well.

The template I used is here.

Some time ago I received an order for a Birthday card. I thought about what I could do and after a walk came up with the idea of making a shaker card with a frame of small flowers but I didn't want the flowers to look flat I wanted them to have some "dimension". So this is what I came up with to make my flowers look a little more like real flowers.

1- As you can see in this photo, I used these 4 punches, 2 eyelet setters, a cutting mat and cardstock in the chosen colours and glue of course.

2- Punch out your different elements. I used the eyelet setters to cut the centres for the flowers. As you can see they are different sizes. Also, punch out your leaves and swirls.

3-Start assembling your flowers. Glue the small circles you've cut with the eyelet setters to the centre of the flowers. You'll see how the different sized circles give a different look to the punched flower.

4-Now, this is my way of giving my flowers some "dimension". Place the flowers one by one centrally on one of the holes of your cutting mat and using the back end of your embossing tool or your eyelet setter press down gently until the centre of the flower gets in the hole.

5-This is what you should get.

6-As for the swirls,this is how to can make the most of your cardstock. Punch out the swirl and then use your scissors to cut the thicker swirl left on the cardstock. This way you'll have a thinner and a thicker swirl.

Hope you enjoy this tutorial.

Things have been a little slow here. The reason is that I can't function when there's too much mess around me and so it was time for me to clean and tidy my house from top to bottom. I hope to finish this boring task this week end so that I can then start crafting again.

I plan to start working on some sewing projects I have in mind, things that I want to make for myself and also for sale. Hopefully, I'll have new things to show during next week and also some templates and ideas to share with you.

Meanwhile, here are a few cards I made this week. The one with the 2 Sunbonnet Sues is a birthday card for a friend and the two with the cute elephants are for an order I received yesterday.

Hi, I'm back. I've just uploaded some photos of my new cards which I made using my own felt cupcake appliques and also some photos of my new buttons, fabric, ribbons, etc. Have a look here.

Also, I decided it's time to start my Spring cleaning and this means, among many other things, going over my craft supplies and sorting them out.

I think that the best approach to it is to have a specific place for everything and always make sure that that's where you put your things once you've finished crafting. If you're beginning to feel overwhelmed by all your craft supplies and are not sure how to organize it here are a few suggestions based on my own experience:

- Keep all your papers in one place. I'm using an old chest-of-drawers as storage for my papers and that's where I'm keeping all my cardstock, background papers, vellum, card blanks and envelopes. I have a third drawer for my card bags, labels, templates, etc. All the templates I've printed and all my patterns and charts are in one folder, I also have another folder with sheets of paper that have already been used/cut out. Whenever, I want to use a sheet of paper I always start by looking in this folder instead of just getting a new sheet from my stacks. I also have a box where I keep all those smaller pieces of paper. This way you make the most of your resources and avoid unnecessary waste.

- If you use lots of beads like I do, then it's worth it to get some of those storage boxes with little compartments. This way you can sort out your beads by colour and size and they'll be much easier to find. The same applies to your sequins and all your smaller bits and bobs.

-Keep all your scissors, craft knifes, etc. together. The same goes for your stamps, paper punches, embossing powders, ink pads, pens, pencils, etc. And you don't really have to spend money buying boxes to store all your items. For example, I keep my stamps in one or two of those big ice cream boxes. They are stackable and very handy.

I think that the main thing to keep in mind is to specify a place for everything and always make sure that when you are tidying up you always return every single item to the place where you got them from. This will make things much easier as you know exactly where everything goes and where to find what you need.

Well, I'd better get back to my cleaning

I'm going to be away for a few days and therefore won't be posting anything during this coming week so I decided to share some links to web sites I visit regularly.

Hope they inspire you as they do me

* Background papers you can print at home

   Pastiche
   Canon

* Templates

   Chia's Rubber Stamp Art
   JersGirl's Free Templates

* RGB colours

List of codes for RGB

* Tea bag and Iris folding

   Circle of Crafters

I've been making some felt appliques to use on my cards and decided to put together a tutorial on how I make them.

See here my finished cupcakes and ice creams.

For the template click here and for the instructions read below:

1 - Choose your template and trace all the elements onto Vilene.

2 - Cut the Vilene and place on the fabric/felt you've chosen. The Vilene should have glue on one side so it sticks to the fabric/felt. Follow the instructions of the Vilene manufacturer. Usually, you just have to place the side with the glue on the fabric and iron until it sticks to the fabric.

3 - Cut on the lines you drew. If you have a sewing machine you can do a zig-zag stitch all the way around so the fabric doesn't fray or you can use the blanket stitch. I also have a tutorial on how to do the blanket stitch. To see it click here.

4 - Mount the different elements that form the applique and embellish as desired.

Hope you find this tutorial easy to follow and helpful.

Happy crafting

Sometime ago I found a tutorial on how to stamp with normal household bleach. So, here's my first card using this technique and also one of Sunbonnet Sues I made earlier in the week.

I used a thick sheet of dark green handmade paper and this is what I did:

I poured some bleach (a capful) onto a couple of kitchen paper towels and made sure the bleach was spread evenly. I used the lid of a plastic container to place the kitchen paper towels. I then prepared some scraps of paper and got my embossing heat gun ready. I took my stamp to the kitchen paper towels and stamped my scraps of paper several times always wetting the stamp in bleach in between.

When I thought the stamp was coming out OK (without missing bits) I then began stamping the handmade paper. I always took my stamp to the bleached paper towels in between each stamping.

Finally, I used my embossing heat gun to dry the bleach. This is much quicker than waiting for the bleach to dry naturally.

Some tips:

* Protect your work surface and your clothes.
* Work in a well ventilated area.
* Rinse your stamps with plenty of water as the bleach might damage the rubber.
* This technique works best with cardstock in dark colours and where the core is the same colour as the outside. I tried stamping with bleach on cardstock with a white core and it didn't work very well.

For more instructions, tips and ideas visit the Splicoaststampers site.

Last night I made 6 Sunbonnet Sues using this template. I love Sunbonnet Sue and have been collecting every single free template I find on the Internet. This time I used only paper to make my Sunbonnet Sues but you can also use fabric/felt. For embellishments you can use beads, threads, sequins, etc. You can see them in my Flickr gallery.

Also, I've been going through my card gallery on Flickr and realized that most of by cards follow a flower theme. I want to change that, not because I don't like flowers but because I think it's important to vary my designs and so I had a look in my templates folder and came up with a few new cards. To see them follow the link down the right hand side of this page called "My Works".

I used templates that are available for free on the Internet.

Yesterday me and my son made a chocolate salame. It's really easy and your children can help you as long as you supervise them, specially when melting the butter.

I do have a proper recipe somewhere but I never follow it. Here's my way of doing it:

1 - Wash your hands really well. Then get a packet of rich tea biscuits and crush them inside a big bowl.

2 - Add a few spoonfuls of chocolate powder. 3 or 4 should be enough for a packet of biscuits but it depends on how chocolaty you want it to be.

3 - Add the melted butter. About half a wooden spoon. If the butter is too hot wait a little bit before you start mixing it with your hands.

4 - Add a whole egg.

5 - Mix everything really well.

6 - You'll get something like this.

7 - See if you can mould it into a sausage shape.

8 - Cut a piece of kitchen foil and place on your work top. Place the chocolate salame in the middle of the kitchen foil.

9 - Wrap it and roll it with your hands squeazing it gently at the same time. Tap each end slightly to flatten them. You should get something like this.

10 - Place the chocolate salame still wraped up in the kitchen foil in the fridge.

This is what it looks like when you slice it.

Tips:

* You can add a little sugar to the mixture if you want to but the biscuits and the chocolate are already sweet enough so don't add too much.

*You can also add a little bit of Port, either add it to the mixture or sprinkle the kitchen foil with it before wrapping the salame.

*For birthday parties, mould the mixture into balls. Melt some chocolate and cover them and sprinkle with sugar decorations. Place in small baking cases. The children will love them.

* If you find the misture is a little too sticky, crush some more biscuits and mix well.

Enjoy

As promised, here's my tutorial on shaker cards. This type of card is great fun and not at all difficult to make.

Let's start then:

1 - To make your shaker frame you'll need to choose the type of card you're going to use. For this card I used some pink mirror card (I know it doesn't look pink on the photo but it is pink). Decide on the size you want your frame to be and cut both along the outside and then the inside.

2 - Turn it over and apply glue all the way around. Stick the acetate on top and trim.

3 - Let it dry a little and then apply foam tape or foam pads around your frame (these will give the frame some height so the shaker bits can move about). I like it to be very near the border of the inside window so the shaker bits are always visible. Make sure there are no gaps as otherwise your shaker bits might come out of the frame.

4 - Place your shaker bits (sequins, confetti, very small beads, etc.) in the middle of your card. Go back to your frame and lift just enough of the foam backing to create a sort of tab. Do this on all sides. Place the frame centrally on your card and very carefully pull the tabs and press down so it sticks to the card.

5 - Embellish as desired.

If you'd like to see some other shaker cards I made click here and here.

Have fun

A few posts ago I said I would be giving away some decoupage sheets. I've had them for some time and I'm sure I'll never use them as decoupage isn't really my thing. I find it too fiddly and that's why I'm giving them away.

I have two sets each one including one of these and one of these. If you'd like to have one of these sets I'll post them to you for free. This applies only to the UK and Europe and within the UK I'll send it by 2nd class mail.

I'll send them to the first 2 people that leave a comment on my blog saying they'd like to receive one of the sets.

Also, I've uploaded new cards to my Flickr gallery. To see them follow the link named My Works down the right hand side of this page.

I've also been experiment new techniques following some of the slipcoaststampers tutorials. The idea of stamping with bleach sounds fun and I tried it but somehow it didn't seem to work too well either because I wasn't using the right sort of card or because the stamps I have are not the most appropriate for this technique. I'll have to try that one again. One that I tried and liked the results of was the masking technique which means that I'll have to try and make some cards with this one. Here's what I did. No too bad I think for a first time try.

This post is all about adding text to your handmade cards. I prefer to make cards without any message because this way any given card can be adapted to several occasions but there are times when you do need to add some sort of sentiment and so this post should cover some of the options available.

If you're new to card making and you want to add text to your cards you can do it in many different ways using:

a) - papers with printed messages

Papers with printed messages can be used as background papers, to make tags and card toppers, etc. For some ideas have a look at these cards I made using my stack of text prints. To see them click here and here.   

b) - peel-offs

Peel-offs are a very easy way of adding a message to your handmade card. However, some types of peel-offs are more difficult to work with than others. I find that the ones that imitate "handwritten" messages are more difficult to apply but if you follow these tips you should have no trouble using them:

   * use the tip of your craft knife to lift the peel-off from its backing sheet. If it's a big word or one in which the letters are formed by very fine lines, as this one, don't try to lift it all in one go.
Work slowly. Start by lifting the beginning of the word, then the end and also a little of the middle.
Some peel-offs also tend to loose their shape when you remove them from their backing sheet. If this happens just leave it stuck to the tip of your craft knife and put it aside for a while. This will allow the peel-off to regain its shape making it easier for you to apply it onto your project.  Also, when you apply the peel-off onto your project just tap it lightly at first and see if you like the way it looks. If you're not happy with the result it will be easy to remove it again with the tip of your craft knife without damaging your card or the peel-off itself.

c) - stamps with whole words/messages or alphabet stamps

you can buy stamps with whole words or messages or alphabet stamps. If you're using alphabet stamps it's best not to try and get your text evenly spaced and straight, instead try to make it look like it's meant to be all over the place. This way if you make a mistake it's easier to "disguise" it.

d) - Alphabet die cuts

The same as above for the alphabet stamps.

e) - Computer and printer

You can also use your PC and printer to print the words/messages you want to use. In this case, you might want to search for some nice fonts on the Internet. You might also want to print your text using a colour to match your design. I usually refer to this list of RGB codes whenever I want to choose a colour for my text.

f) - Confetti words

Confetti words are fun to use too. You can glue them or fix them to your project with thread and a little knot as I did in this card, for instance. You can also use them in shaker cards. If you don't know what a shaker card is have a look here and keep watching this blog as I'll be posting a tutorial on these very soon.

I hope you find these tips useful. Happy crafting

I've been suffering from the above for some time. It's so frustrating to want to create something and not being able to because of lack of inspiration.

Anyway, today I opened my Flickr account and had an invitation to join a private group of crafters. This cheered me up a little although after having a quick look at the said group I don't understand why I was invited! Everyone else's work is light years better than mine.

I don't know if this happens to you (is there anyone actually reading this apart from me?) but most of the time I feel something is missing from whatever I made whether it's a card or something else.

Changing the subject: I have some decoupage sheets that I bought sometime ago and which I don't use. I thought that maybe I could give them away to someone who would actually use them so I'm thinking of a way of doing it, either I'll just upload a photo of the items in question and they will go to the first person that says wants them (EU only as I'm paying for postage. Sorry!) or I'll ask people to leave a comment on my blog saying what they liked, what they think should be improved, tips, etc. and set a date and do it sort of out of the hat or something along those lines. I'll think about it some more and decide how I'm going to do it.

That's it. Enjoy your week end.

Here's a quick tip if you need double sided paper but don't have any: choose two matching or contrasting sheets of paper and make a sandwich with them placing fusible web in between. Iron and let it cool...and you have double sided paper

Today I've uploaded some new cards I made in the last few days. To see them just follow the link with the name My Works which you'll find on the right hand side of this page.
 
I'm trying to go back to my original idea when I began making cards, that is, to make cards without any sort of message so one given card can be adapted to several different occasions and that's the reason why most of my recent cards have no text.

I got the template for this type of flower sometime ago somewhere on the Internet. The ones I saw were made of fabric and I decided to see how they would work in paper. I must say I'm quite pleased with the result.

Below you'll find the instructions to make this card:

1 - Cut 2 larger circles and 4 smaller ones. I used my Sizzix die cuts but you can use a cup, or glass or anything that's round and the size you want for your template.

2 - Fold all circles in half and go around them with your edge scissors.

3 - Make 4 cuts on your 2 larger circles as shown in this photo.

4 - Overlap the 2 larger circles. You can use a small dot of glue to hold them in place.

5 - Fold the 4 smaller circles in half and overlap them as shown in this photo. Again, use a little glue to hold them in place.

6 - Place them on top of your 2 larger cicles and glue. For the centre I used a brad but you can use a button, beads, etc. It's up to you.

7 - Put the paper flower aside and choose the paper you're going to use. I used a lilac handmade paper and the best way to tear it is to use a brush. Wet the brush and then move it along the paper where you're going to tear it. You'll see how much easier it will be for you to tear your handmade paper by hand.

8 - Get a green ribbon and tie a knot at the centre. Now you have the 3 elements you need to make your card. I applied a little lilac chalk inside the petals of my flower.

9 - I used my sewing machine to do the stem. Be careful when sewing the leaves (the piece of ribbon with a knot in the middle) so you don't break the needle of your sewing machine.

And that's it, your card is done. Add any other embellishments you want.

Hope you enjoy this card making project.

As Easter gifts me and my son (he's 8) are going to make some chocolate and biscuit bonbons. However, I wanted to make some sort of boxes to put them in so this is what I came up with.

I made 13 of these using only paper, glue and a stapler. If you'd like to make some here are the instructions.

1 - Cut squares of thick card. Mine measured 21 cm. Draw lines as you see in this photo. I left a 4,5 cm margin all the way around. Don't forget to the corners too.

2 - Fold and score along all the lines. Do the corners last.

3 - Apply some glue on the corners and use pegs or paper clips to hold in place until the glue is dry. Don't use too much glue as the paper will warp.

4 - Meanwhile, cut 8 circles and 4 leaves from crepe paper. For the circles I used a cup as template. Cut the circles using some deckle scissors. The leaves I cut free hand.

5 - Hold the 8 circles you've just cut, pinch the back and staple. Separate the different layers to make it look more like a flower.

6 - Arrange the 4 leaves and staple onto the back of the flower.

7 - Go back to your basket and glue the corners so they face each other as shown in this photo. Hold in place and wait for it to dry.

8 - Cut a strip of paper for the handle and glue the flower and leaves to it. Hold in place using either paper clips or pegs. Let it dry.

9 - Cut a strip of paper long enough to go around the basket and high enough so you can fold it in half and cover all the outside of your basket as you can see in this photo.

10 - Staple the handle to the basket and it's done. Fill in with Easter goodies.

This basket is really fun and quick to make.

Here's the second part of my cross stitch tutorial I hope you've been practicing .

Because Easter is just around the corner I chose this cute little hen.

Let's begin:

1 - The first thing I did was to count the squares that make up my hen both horizontally and vertically to find the centre square. I marked it in pencil on the chart. Then I cut a piece of Aida fabric big enough for my motif and leaving a margin all around, for this I counted 50 holes horizontally and vertically on the fabric. I also applied some slanted stitches to prevent the fabric from fraying and found the centre of the fabric square and marked it as shown on this photo. I also chose the colours I wanted to use.

2 - To begin my motif I counted the squares to the left of the centre square on the chart and then counted the same number of holes in the fabric starting from the middle. I then began my first row using 2 threads of my chosen colour and removed the red sewing thread I used as markings as I no longer needed it. Don't forget to catch the end of your thread under your stitches as I explained in the 1st part of my cross stitch tutorial. Always refer to the chart so you don't miss any row and go up or down as needed.

 Remember: On the right side of your work the needle has to form a diagonal line and on the wrong side of your work the needle only goes up or down in a vertical line.

3 - Keep following the chart. You might need to cross some stitches completely in order to be able to go up or down to the next row.

4 - Here I was running out of thread so I inserted the needle underneath some stitches and then cut the remaining thread.

5 - Start another row as if you didn't need to have threaded your needle again.

6 - Keep following the chart to build your hen. It might be a good idea to cross out on the chart the rows you've already done. Use a pencil so you can rub your markings afterwards and use the chart again.

7 - As you can see, I've reached the last row that makes up the hen's body and I'm going back down crossing all the previous stitches.

8 - Always refering to the chart, finish your motif. I used a little black bead for the eye. This is what the right side of your work should look like...

9 - ...and this is the wrong side looking very neat.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Please, bear in mind that this is my way of doing the cross stitch. I'm sure you'll find many other tutorials on this subject with different methods of going about it.

Here are a few sites where you can find free cross stitch charts:

http://www.cross-stitching.com/
http://www.cross-stitch-centre.co.uk/
http://www.jessica-tromp.nl/embroiderycrossstitchfreepatternschristmaschildrencross-stitchgraphs.htm

If you have any doubts please email me and I'll try to help.

In the last few days I've uploaded new cards to my gallery. To see them you can follow the link on the right called "My Works".

I also received some orders I had placed for craft materials: coloured wood beads perfect to use in accessories for children, key rings to make...well, key rings and my soap making stuff! Yeah, I'm going to try to make soap. This was actually my husband's idea not mine. So we bought the melt and pour base, some moulds, fragances and colours to add to the soaps.

I feel excited and nervous at the same time. Unfortunately I haven't had time yet to have a go at making soap but I hope to be able to do it soon. So, don't be surprised if from now on I start writing posts on soap making too.

Easter is just around the corner so if you're going to buy someone a card why not buy a handmade one? They are so much more beautiful and will certainly be treasured by the person who receives it.

Have a look in my card gallery and if there's any card you'd like here's the link to follow for instructions on how to order:

http://cards-by-paula.blog.co.uk/2008/01/27/handmade_cards~3640854

For some more inspiration, have a look at KimmiKat's cards. She not only uses punched out shapes on her cards to stunning results but she also uses the scraps left over from her paper punching and very cleverly incorporates these in her design.

First, I must admit I don't use my paper punches much which is a shame really so from now on I'm going to try and change that as there's so much you can do with them. For example:

- You can use the punched out shapes on their own to embellish cards, scrapbook pages, etc.

- You can use these shapes as confetti, for instance in shaker cards.

- You can also combine them with other punched out shapes to create new and original embellishments.

- And, you can also use them to create stencils.

Have a look here to see how you can combine your different punches to create flowers, butterflies, etc.

As I said above, you can also use your paper punches to create stencils or border strips which you can then use in many projects. Here are some suggestions.

Get some scraps of paper out and your punches too and experiment. Who knows what interesting shapes you might come up with .

This week end I made this card for a Baby Boy using some of my paper punches. I punched 4 pieces of paper and then cut these into squares (well, sort of squares!). I applied some blue vellum on the back to make the shapes stand out. Have a look here at the finished card.

If you like bargains, the Range is selling some really nice paper punches for 99p and it's buy one get one free. I bought these.

Have fun.

Recently I uploaded some cards I made using the Iris folding technique and thought that maybe it was a good idea to put together a tutorial showing you how I made them. So here it is. I hope you like it and find the instructions easy to follow. These are easier to make than they look and very effective.

Let's start:

1 - Download the template. You might need to resize it depending on the size of the card you're going to use.

2 - I used an A4 sheet of card and I drew the outline of the template on the card. Then using a ruler and a sharp craft knife cut out the shape you just drew.

3 - With the help of some Blue Tack fix the template to the card making sure the outline of the template matches that on the card.

4 - Measure the widest part of the strip.

5 - Cut strips of the paper you've chosen for this project with double the width measured above. Fold these in half lengthwise and apply some glue inside. You can either combine several different patterns or just use one pattern. You can also use ripped vellum or paper. This will produce a nice effect and saves you paper as you don't have to fold it.

6 - Apply double sided tape all around the outside of your template.

7 - Start placing your strips of paper in an alternate fashion following the template. Cut out excess paper.

8 - Keep layering your strips of paper until you finish. You might need to apply small pieces of double sided tape to keep the strips of paper in place.

9 - Carefully detach the template from the card removing the Blue Tack. Turn the card around so you can see the right side of your work.

10 - Choose the material you're going to use for the center. I used fusible fibres but you can use card, fabric, etc. Experiment and see what works best.

11 - Embellish as you want and cut your pattern. Apply on the front of your card.

Hope you enjoy this project.

As promised, here's the first part of my cross stitch tutorial, this will allow you to practice your basic cross stitching before you move on to doing motifs (that will be on another tutorial).

To get started you must have a piece of Aida fabric. It doesn't have to be very big just enough to allow you to practice a few rows using the cross stitch.

Let's get started:

1 - Aida fabric tends to fray, so to prevent this use some sewing thread and apply some slanted stitches all the way around your piece of fabric. You can do this by hand or if you have a sewing machine with a zig-zag stitch you can use it and it's much quicker too.

  Important: The needle for cross stitching must have a rounded point so it doesn't catch the fabric or the tread and is usually short with a large hole for threading.

2 - With step one finished you can start practicing your cross stitching. Take 2 or 3 strands of cross stitching thread and thread the needle.

3 - Start your first stitch as shown in this photo making sure you leave some length of thread loose on the right side of your work.

 Remember:
     Right side of your work -> stitches are done in a diagonal line
     Wrong side of your work -> the needle only goes up or down in a vertical line

My stitches are going from bottom left to top right. At the same time, the end of the thread left loose is being nicely "tucked in" under the stitches.

4 - Keep going until you have a row of stitches and the end of the thread is completely hidden underneath these.

5 - To go up: your needle should be positioned as shown in this photo.
     To go down: the needle should be pointing downwards.

6 - Keep going until you reach the end of that row and turn back. This time your stitches should go from top left to bottom right creating a perfect X . To finish, insert the needle under several of the cross stitches on the right side of your work and cut the remaining thread.

7 - This way you have a perfect right side and a neat wrong side.

I hope you find these instructions helpful.

One of my next tutorials will be on how to embroider a motif using the cross stitch.

Have fun

I just wanted to say a Big Thank You to everyone who has visited this blog. To my great surprise in the first month of this year it had over 500 page visitors and last month that number went up to 951. Also, a special thank you to those of you who took the time either to leave a comment or to add my blog to your bloglist. I really, really appreciate it and hope you keep coming back

I'm working on new tutorials. The cross stitch one is coming along although it has proved to be more difficult than I thought but I hope to post it during this week. I also want to do one on Iris folding as I've had great fun making some cards last week using this technique. Have a look here and see what you think.

Thank you.

• You get unique products, full of character quite unlike the mass produced items you buy in supermarkets or shopping centres
• You are sure to get quality and attention to detail
• Handmade gifts make the recipient feel special because you actually took the time to find something that's one of a kind

How you as a crafter can help protect the environment

If you're an experienced crafter I'm sure you're also a hoarder of things that might be used in your future projects. If you're starting now keep all those interesting bits and bobs that you think you might use. Here are some suggestions:

- Ribbon: keep all the bits of ribbon that come with some products. They can be used in cardmaking, scrapbooking, sewing, etc.

- Beads/Sequins: the same as above. Some time ago I threw away a pair of slippers that were falling apart. They had some sort of design made with beads and sequins and I took these out and put them in my beads box. It just seemed just a waste to throw them away when I use beads quite often in my crafts!

- Buttons: these make great embellishments for cardmaking and scrapbooks pages. Take all buttons from clothes you no longer wear. You can do the same with the zippers if they are in good condition...and while you're at it what about the fabric of that shirt, skirt, etc. that you're about to throw away? If it has a nice, unusual pattern you might want to use it for some project or other.

- Paper: you can get nice samples of paper from gifts, packaging, cards you've been sent, etc. Also, if you work with paper keep all those small pieces in a folder or box. You never know when they might be useful.

There's a crafter on Flickr who has been using punched out pieces of paper left over from her previous projects. She has very cleverly integrated them in her handmade cards to stunning results. Check out her blog at http://kimmikat.wordpress.com/

Well... today I didn't do what I had in mind which was to put together a tutorial on cross stitching because...

...I got an unexpected order for a card. I'm still in a state of shock! So I got to work and spent all morning trying to figure out what I was going to do. I came up with two designs which you'll find here. I'm quite pleased with the result. Have a look.

Here's a little photo tutorial I put together on how I do the blanket stitch. I'm not sure this is the correct way of doing it... this is how I do it although I must say I don't always get it right. I guess I'll just have to keep practicing

The most difficult bits are the corners and I tried to illustrate the different steps I usually follow. Have a look here and here. I've also included a little text below the photos which I hope will help you get started.

The blanket stitch is used either as a decorative stitch or to help prevent the fraying of fabric. You can also use this stitch to create buttonholes but in this case you'll have to do the stitches very close together.

Hope you like this tutorial.

The next one will be on cross stitching.

I have finished the cards I mentioned in my last post...here they are, have a look. I'm so proud of them as I think they look really cute.

I started these cute felt animals yesterday and I'm going to use them on some fun greeting cards I've been planning for children.  You can also use them to personalize children's clothes, as patches, as mobile elements, etc. Just let your imagination fly. The template for some of the animals is here. These were not designed by me but found on the Net for free download.

Also, have a look at the new hair accessories I made. For some I used crochet flowers and beads and for others felt flowers, all handmade by me. All these projects are very easy and quick to make. Hope you like them.

I've been making some Easter cards and also some for Mother's Day. I stitched these Easter cards last night. They are very easy to make and you can find the templates here if you want to try stitching some to give your friends and family.

Nothing shows your mum how much you care as something handmade, so why not give her a beautiful handmade card? And don't forget Easter too.

Have a look here for ideas or to buy a handmade card for Mother's Day (2nd March) and Easter (22nd March).

If you want to buy one of my cards, please read these instructions.

I got the idea for these last night while watching Poirot and had to try them straight away, needless to say I didn't watch the rest of the episode so don't know who killed who!

These are very easy and quick to make and I think look great on both adults and children.

If you want to try for yourself, here are the instructions:

1 - Make a crochet chain to the desired length.

2 - Using this template, make a flower following these instructions.

3 - Attach the flower to the crochet chain.

4 - Insert some beads on both ends of the chain.

5 - On the back of the flower stitch a small metal hook. This will be used to join both sides of the chain to form a loop around your neck.

It's that simple and quick

Hope you enjoy this project.

I love felt, there's so much you can do with it and it's so easy to work with.

These are my latest projects using felt: a chicken, ideal for any Easter project and a very easy to make felt flower that you can use on cards, necklaces, bags, etc.

The templates for both are here, please feel free to download them and try them yourself. You'll see how quick they are to make.

Instructions for the blue felt flower:

1 - Cut your flower from felt.

2 - Pinch the centre of the flower at the back and apply a few stitches. This gives dimension to the flower.

3 - For the centre of the flower use a button or a round piece on felt in a contrasting color, or even beads. It's up to you.

4 - Embellish the flower. For this one I used transparent beads. If you're making a white flower you can also apply some chalk around the edges as I did for this one.

5 - And your flower is ready to be used.

Hope you like these fun projects.

I love felt, there's so much you can do with it and it's so easy to work with.

These are my latest projects using felt: a chicken, ideal for any Easter project and a very easy to make felt flower that you can use on cards, necklaces, bags, etc.

The templates for both are here, please feel free to download them and try them yourself. You'll see how quick they are to make.

Instructions for the blue felt flower:

1 - Cut your flower from felt.

2 - Pinch the centre of the flower at the back and apply a few stitches. This gives dimension to the flower.

3 - For the centre of the flower use a button or a round piece on felt in a contrasting color, or even beads. It's up to you.

4 - Embellish the flower. For this one I used transparent beads. If you're making a white flower you can also apply some chalk around the edges as I did for this one.

5 - And your flower is ready to be used.

Here are two projects I started yesterday and finished today. This is my new idea for a wedding favour. I think it's a lovely, simple wedding favour... just the way I like things.

Also, I created this fun necklace using gingham, felt, beads, ribbon and a button. I think any little girl will look adorable wearing this.

The weather has been so lovely that I've been out for walks and therefore have negleted my crafts a little .

Anyway, I did manage to try and make a couple of headbands following this pattern. The blue one is for adults or older children and the white one for babies and toddlers. You can use this template for any size headband you want, you just have to use a longer or shorter elastic depending on whom the headband is for.

If you want to try and make one this is what you have to do:

1- Download the template from here.

2- Choose your fabric or fabrics.

3- Place template on fold of fabric and cut along the outside line. Do this twice as you'll need to have two pieces.

4- On one of the pieces you've just cut iron on some sort of interfacing, the one I use is called Vilene and I got it from HobbyCraft.

5- Place the 2 pieces of fabric with wrong sides together and tack or use some pins to hold them in place. Sew either as close to the edge as you can for a larger headband or following the inside line for a narrower headband.
Sew only along the length of the fabric on both sides, do not sew the ends.

6- With the help of a pencil or a safety pin, turn the resulting tube inside out very carefully. Flatten it out and iron.

7- Measure the elastic you need and using some matching fabric make a smaller tube (this is where the elastic will go in). This should be longer than the elastic and have the same width as the ends of the headband.

8- Place the elastic inside this tube and make sure the edge of the elastic is aligned with the edge of the fabric and sew. Do the same on the other side.

9- Insert this into the ends of the headband and sew again. Embellish your headband any way you want. You can use buttons, embroidery, bows, anything you can think of to make it really special.

10- Show off your headband .

I've just uploaded a few more new cards. To have a look follow this link.

I've also uploaded the template I used for the Best Wishes card (tree trunk with small bird).

I think I'm going to give card making a rest for the time being and dedicate my free time to some sewing projects I have in mind and also because I want to try my new fabrics from IKEA.

Oh, almost forgot... I have a new website, please see here.

I've just uploaded a tutorial on how to do the chainstitch I used on some of my cards. If you'd like to try it please feel free to use the patterns I uploaded yesterday.

At the moment, I'm really into using emboidery and patchwork in my cards. It makes a nice change from paper and I think they look so good

Again, if you're looking for a handmade card to send someone or just for some inspiration have a look in my gallery. To order cards read this post.

I've uploaded 3 new cards. I'm very proud of them as I've used a different technique and I love the results. These have all been hand embroidered by me using these templates and chainstitching. These cards are very versatile as they can be used for several occasions.

If you don't know how to chainstitch, keep watching this blog as I'll be posting a tutorial on it very soon. It's really easy and I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Also, I was "surfing" the Net yesterday and found these very interesting articles to do with things handmade. Here are the links:

Why buy handmade?
Why the web is getting crafty? (By the BBC)

As promised here are the instructions for a drawstring bag.

1 - Decide on the size of your bag and measure and cut the fabric accordingly.

 Tip: when you want to cut a strip of fabric, measure it and make a small cut and then with your hands on both sides of this cut just rip the fabric. You'll see that although the fabric frays a little you'll actually get a perfectly straight cut.

2- Make a little hem both at the top and bottom of your strip.

3- Choose the ribbon you're going to use to make the tube or path for the thinner ribbon and sew at at the top and bottom as close to the edge as possible.

4- With right sides of the fabric facing each other, align the ribbon you've just sewn and sew the sides of your bag.

5- Trim all the bits so it looks nice and tidy. Turn your bag inside out.

6- With some very sharp scissors make some cuts on both sides of the ribbon tube. This is where the thinner ribbon is going to go. Do the same on the other side.

7- With the help of a safety pin, insert the thinner ribbon going all the way round. Do the same on the other side and hold together with a knot.

And there you have your drawstring bag ready to be used

I've just uploaded some new cards I made yesterday and also two new drawstring bags to be used as wedding favours. If you want to have a look follow this link.

Also, should you wish to buy any of my cards, please read the post below which tells you how you can order and pay.

Later today I'm going to try to put together a tutorial for the drawstring bags and I'll post it here as soon as possible.

Wishing you all a lovely day.

Here's a vase full of very easy to make felt flowers. I think they are beautiful.

If you'd like to try and make these flowers, here are the instructions:

1 - Choose the felt you're going to use and draw circles on it. For this, I used my Fiskars template but you can use cups, bowls, plates...anything round. To make flowers of different sizes draw smaller and larger circles.

2 - After you've drawn all your circles cut them with your pinking shears.

3 - Cut the wire you're going to use to the desired length and curl one end.

4 - Pierce the centre of the felt circle with the other end of the wire and make the felt circle go all the way up the wire.

5 - Fold the felt circle in half upwards.

6 - Fold one of the sides to the centre and then the other side so it overlaps the previous fold.

7 - Using a matching colour thread apply a few stitches to hold everything in place.

8 - And, there's your flower ready. I told you it was easy !

To see my handmade cards follow this link.

If you'd like to order any of my cards the prices are:

Cross stitched cards ------------------ > £3,5/each card (p&p included)
A5 cards-------------------------------> £2,5/each card (p&p included)
All other cards-------------------------> £2/each card (p&p included)

To order you should do the following:

- Follow the link above to see my card gallery:
- Make a note of the card reference number which appears below the card (A5 cards and cross stitched cards are identified as such);
- Send me an email (please see my profile to get my email address) stating the reference number of the card or cards you want;
- I only accept payment by postal order. I'll give you my details upon receiving your order and cards are sent out when payment is received;
- Cards will be sent in a hard backed envelope and wraped in bubble wrap;
- Cards will be sent by First Class mail (UK only).

 Important notice:  All my cards are handmade and therefore it's possible that the card you receive might differ slightly from the one on the photo. Also, all my cards are made in a smoke free and pet free environment.

Hi again!

In my previous post I mentioned my first acetate card, well here it is if you'd like to have a look. For a first try it didn't come out too bad and I think this is a very romantic card.

Also, I've been working on some ideas for possible wedding favours. This is what I made today. It's a White Calla Lily made of felt. The meaning of this flower is "Magnificent Beauty" and it's one of the favourite flowers for weddings. It's also used to celebrate the 6th Wedding Anniversary. This is only a template that I will use for the real thing so I didn't bother too much about using white thread to sew the stem and also about the size of the stitches.

I think the photos are clear enough so I'm not going to write the instructions for this but you should bear in mind the following: the size of your flower will depend on the width of your strip of felt so the best thing for you is to try different sizes to see which one you like best.

Have fun

I didn't post anything yesterday because I was busy making these new cards. I wanted to try some of my new papers and stamps I bought last week end at the Range.

I also had a go at these organza bags as wedding favours and also made this packet for seeds but I must say I'm not too sure about it. I have the feeling something's missing but haven't figured out exactly what yet . Is there anyone out there reading this and getting married in the near or maybe not so near future? If so, keep watching this blog as I'm working on some projects for wedding favours .

I bought the organza at HobbyCraft and then went to The Range (these are in the UK). Big mistake... I should have bought the organza at The Range instead because it was half the price I paid for it at HobbyCraft!! And the same goes for many other craft supplies. I find that cardstock is much cheaper at The Range and they have a much wider variety, on the other hand they don't have dies for the Sizzix!

In conclusion, if you're near these two stores it might be worth your while to make sure of prices in both before you buy as it might save you a lot of money.

Oh, almost forgot I also made my first acetate card. I'll upload it later for you to see.

This is a very easy way of creating your own background paper using only your iron and some crayons. I like this technique better than marbling as I find it much easier and less messy and... less smelly too .

So what you do is:

1. Get your iron and wrap the base with alluminium foil.

2. Get the crayons you're going to use. It's even better if they are glittery crayons as then the glitter will transfer to the paper and make it sparkle.

3. Switch the iron on and let it warm up but not too much just enough to melt the crayons. When it's warm enough, switch it off.

4. Rub the crayons over the foil - you'll see them melting straight away. You can either mix the colours or do one colour at a time. Just experiment on a piece of paper until you get the desired effect.

5. Place the iron on a piece of paper but don't move it about just kind of put it down and lift it up.

6. If you don't have glittery crayons you can use your glitter tubes to sprinkle some over the wax on the paper while it's still warm so it sticks to the paper.

And that's it. I've created these two lovely A4 sheets of background paper using this technique. On one I used orange, green, brown and yellow to create the lovely Autumn colours and on the other I used different pinks and red and purple.

If you want to try this technique bear the following in mind:

- protect your work surface;
- if your children are helping you make sure you supervise them at all times;
- never leave your iron unattended, specially if it's hot or connected to the mains;

 If you find that you get large amounts of wax on your paper just warm up the iron and stab the paper so the wax melts and spreads.

Hope you have fun trying this technique.

Also, yesterday I made some fun birthday cards for children and also two more paper baskets: one for Valentine's day and the other with a pink baby boot. Have a look!

Yesterday, I finished my "felt toy" (I don't really know what to call it! )This is a gift for my son's teacher, actually for her baby,  and it's going together with the baby boot in a basket I made last week.

This project turned out different than originally intended because for some mysterious reason I always get my measurements wrong! So, I had to think of a way to finish it and this is it and I must say I'm actually quite pleased with how it looks.  My favourite bit is the tree which I drew myself and that's something because I'm rubbish at drawing .

Saturday night, I made this crochet necklace for myself. The amazing thing is that I really never liked crochet much but somehow I just really felt like it and here it is. I even put it on today.

Here are the instructions for this project:

1- Make the baby boot using Donovan's template. I've put it here. The link to his site is http://www.bydonovan.com/ but at the moment it's under construction.

2- Make the basket (click on the asterisks to see the relevant photos):

* Fold a square piece of paper (21 cm x 21 cm) diagonally so the corners meet. Crease, unfold and do the same the other way to find the middle of the paper.

* Unfold the paper and then fold the bottom part up so it slightly overlaps the middle. Use a pencil to mark where the edges touch the creases and unfold again.

* Keep turning the paper and making the marks as described above.

* With the square flat, spread some glue in each corner.

* Press together, fold to form a triangle and glue. Do the same on the other side.

* Glue these triangular flaps like this to finish the basket.

* Embellish the basket.

3- Spread some yarn inside the basket to form a sort of bed for the baby boot. Glue the baby boot onto the yarn.

4- Measure the height of the basket and cut a piece of paper with double that height. Punch 2 holes and use some thread to attach it to the basket. Embellish the outside but leave the inside empty por a personal message.

5- Make the handle for the basket and glue into place.

I hope you enjoy making this project.

This is what I made last night. It is my very first project of the kind and there are some things that I need to correct next time but overall I'm quite pleased with the result.

I'll try to put together the instructions for this project in case anyone out there would like to give it a go.

Happy crafting

As promised, here are the instructions for this card.

1- Make the envelope. Cut a square piece of handmade paper (I used a 10 cm x 10 cm square). Fold it diagonally so the corners meet. Crease slightly, unfold and do the same the other way so you can find the middle of you paper.

2- With one corner of the paper towards you fold the left and right flaps until they touch the middle. Fold the bottom flap up and allow it to slightly overlap the other two and glue. You can fold down the top flap if you want but that's not necessary. And that's your envelope made. Tie a ribbon around it.

3- Cut a piece of paper to go into your envelope. Use a corner punch to decorate the two top edges and then apply some matching chalk. Put a peel-off in the middle.

4- Insert this into the envelope at an angle and glue in place. Your card topper is now complete. Glue it centrally onto the card blank.

5- Write your message on the front of the card. I used peel-off letters to write the word "Congratulations".

And there you have your card done in no time at all .

This is a new design for a baby card. I'll post the instructions tomorrow in case you want to have a got at making one too.

The title of this post says it all. I have finished my pincushion, I've also made another tissue case, this one in a colour combination I love: pink and green. It look so looks yummy and... I also finished the red cellphone case to go with the red tissue case. Unfortunately, I realised too late that I'd made a mistake with my measurements as usual!!  I cut 1 cm off when I should have used the whole length of the strip of felt. You can still follow my template as long as you remember not to cut anything off.

Hope you all have a lovely week end.

Yesterday, I was going through my list of Flickr contacts and having a look at/commenting on all their lovely work when I came upon this really lovely pincushion someone made and suddenly it hit me...

Here I am, someone who really enjoys sewing and all my pins are in a very small box with the result that I get pricked quite often .

So... you've guessed it! I'm making myself my very first pincushion. It's going to be in the shape of a cube and I've already cut out all my elements made from bits of felt I have leftover from other things I made. Have a look here.

I'm also using this as a template/practice for one of my next projects: soft cubes for babies to play with .

I hope to finish my pincushion tonight and I'll post the results tomorrow.

This is what I made last night: two cards for Mother's Day.

They are very simple but I quite like them, I love brown with blue and pink.

If you'd like to see them click here. If you'd like to see my card pool then click here.

With the bit of felt I had leftover from my other sewing project - the tissue case - I made this cellphone case. Obviously, if you don't have a cellphone you can always use it for something else . I think these make a very nice set.

And while making this case I realized that for the two projects I only used one A4 sheet of felt. Is that good or what?

Anyway, I was feeling a little fidgety last night and so got to work and made another tissue case. For this one I used red felt and also a very pretty fabric I bought years ago. It's white with very small red, blue, green and yellow dots. I think they go quite well together. The obvious next step is to make the cellphone case to match . That might be my project for tonight.

If you want the template for the cellphone case you'll find it here.

Happy crafting

Here are the instructions for a tag card similar to the one I uploaded yesterday.

1. Get a tall card. The one I used was 105 mm x 210 mm, but you can use any size you want. I divided the height of the card by 3 and then scored and folded the bottom part of the card (measuring 7 cm in height) so as to form two pockets for the tags.

2. Either glue or stitch these pockets. I thought it would look nicer if the stitching in my card went all the way around it on both sides but this is a question of personal preference. If you glue the pockets you just made then allow enough time for the glue to dry.

3. Make your tags. I used my Fiskars template and cutter but you can draw your own tags or download them from the Internet and then cut them by hand. Here are some tags you can use. I chose the big one for my card. Also, depending on the thickness of the card you use to make the tags you might need to cut two for each tag and again glue or stitch them together to make the tag thicker.

4. Embellish the front of your card and the tags. Don't forget to leave some space for a personal message. With that in mind, I decided to leave one of the tags empty so anyone can use that to write their own message.

5. Et voilá. There's your tag card ready to go .

 Tip: If you're anything like me, chances are you'll probably get your measurements wrong so I advise you to make a template of the card and of the tags first.

I hope you find these instructions clear and if you make a tag card based on them I would love to see the result.

Another weekend almost finished :-(

Yesterday I decided to have a go at making my first tag card. Have a look here to see the outside and here for the inside. I think it turned out quite nice. I'll try to put together a tutorial or set of instructions in case you want to have a go yourself.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

As promised here's the template for the tissue case. You can see what the exterior looks like here and the photo of the interior is here. This template will allow you to make a basic tissue case, you can embellish it as you wish.

Enjoy! You can use this template as long as you give me credit for it.

I came up with the template for this tissue case many years ago when I made some cross-stitched ones to give as gifts to friends of mine. I'm quite happy with how this one turned out :-)

Oh, and here's a photo of my sewing machine. Isn't she beautiful?

Santa has given me a late Christmas present (OK, it wasn't Santa. It was actually someone who works with my husband :-)): a sewing machine. It's one of those very old Singer sewing machines. It only does straight stitching but it will allow me  to work on some sewing projects I have in mind.

I have very recently started selling my cards through people I know and at the PTA's events at my son's school. I thought it would be nice to have other things to offer people besides cards and as I have always liked sewing... Problem is: I have so many ideas, there are so many things I want to do that I don't know where to start! Isn't that just typical?!

Anyway, I've chosen a name for all my other crafts besides card making and it's Blue Dot Crafts. I've got an album in Photobucket where I'll upload photos of my future work. For the time being, you can have a look at these lovely snowmen I made before Christmas and which I used as tree ornaments.

Well, I have been true to my word and I've already started my stock diary. I'm making a note of every rubber stamp, stencil, die cut, paper punch, etc. I have. I'm also trying to get my expenditure under control. That is I want to know exactly how much money I'm spending on my craft supplies so that I can then have an idea of how much my cards cost to make.

Card making really is very addictive and a little expensive.

I have also managed to come up with some card designs for Valentine's day and for Easter and which I'm quite happy with. If you want to have a look follow this link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11657162@N03/

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy 2008. May it bring you health, happiness, love, lots of inspiration and a little money for you to spend on your favourites hobbies.

Meanwhile, remember some important dates that are not very far away:

Valentine's Day
Easter (I realised a few days ago that this year Easter is in March!)

If you're going to make cards or any other crafts that have anything to do with these dates you should start getting some ideas now. You know what they say, time flies :-)

Check here for some ideas:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11657162@N03/