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.