Paper & needle crafts among other handmade things

Not long ago I wrote a post on how after a long time looking on the Internet for a chart for a crochet butterfly I found one in a magazine I had for years.

Well, guess what! I actually managed to find a chart online for a crochet butterfly and the good thing is it's even easier to make then the first one

This is the butterfly I made which has since then flown to a new owner and the corresponding chart is below.

Happy Spring!

Savoury muffins

300 g of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
salt
4 eggs
2 dl of milk
2 dl of vegetable oil
200 g of various cold meats (ham, cured ham, chorizo, bacon, etc.)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 ºC.

Put the flour in a bowl and mix in the eggs, the milk and the oil until you get a smooth dough.

Cut the meats and mix.

Pour spoonfuls of this mixture into baking cases and place in the oven to bake. Check with a cocktail stick to see if they are done.

Note:
Instead of vegetable oil I used butter and these were made only with bacon which I slightly fried previously. Because the bacon was already quite salty I didn't add any salt to the dough.

We loved these and I'll try them with different fillings.

Yogurt cake

1 yogurt (natural or any flavour)

Use the carton where the yogurt came to measure the remaining ingredients as follows:

1 carton of vegetable oil
2 cartons of sugar
3 eggs
2 cartons of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder

Pre-heat the oven and grease a cake tin.

In a bowl mix well the eggs, the sugar, the vegetable oil and the yogurt.

Add the flour and the baking powder and mix.

Place in the oven to bake.

Note: I replaced the vegetable oil with butter.

Hope you enjoy these recipes and have a lovely week end 

 

Tea bag folding is a sort of origami which uses small squares of paper with the same pattern, folded in the same way and then arranged so as to form a symmetrical rosette or medallion which is then used as an embellishment specially on greeting cards.

This paper craft was created in Holland by Tiny van der Plaas. Apparently she needed to make a card for a friend and absently began folding tea bag envelopes thus creating a unique embellishment.

Nowadays, you can find plenty of tea bag tiles on the Internet for free download.

I must admit this is not my favourite technique simply because I cannot get neat folds as you can see from some previous attempts of mine when I first began making cards:

For really gorgeous cards made using tea bag folding you should visit KoolCrafts' Flickr page. Her folding is so neat and her cards beautiful as well as all her other origami projects. If you want to try or further develop this technique and need inspiration this is the place to go.

Here are a few links you may find useful:

Free tea bag tiles

http://www.teabagfolding.circleofcrafters.com/freeprintabletiles.html

http://madeinniagarafallsca.com/

Tea bag folding projects

http://madeinniagarafallsca.com/

http://www.dotcomwomen.com/crafts/teabag-folding-butterfly.shtml

http://www.cardinspirations.co.uk/demo/demo16.htm

 

 

These are some of the commissioned cards I made recently.

Brief: Basketball card

Brief: Football cards

Brief: Viking helmet

Brief: Funny Golf

 

These are my most recent purchases, I bought everything online from Cutting Edge Crafts, an online shop that sells to the UK only. I don't like to buy online but this has been my 3rd or 4th time buying from them for several reasons:

- Their prices are very competitive;

- Payment can be done by credit card but also through PayPal, cheque or postal order which is great if like me you don't like to give out your credit card details;

- P&P is absolutely FREE;

- You don't have to spend a minimum amount like some online shops require you to.

 

 

I've been wondering for sometime if there was a way I could emboss paper/cardstock using my brass stencils on the Sizzix BigShot and after several "trial and error" experiments I finally found out how to do it .

If you'd like to try this for yourself just follow the instructions bellow.

You'll need:
- Sizzix BigShot
- Sizzix multipurpose platform
- Sizzix cutting pads
- a foam sheet
- brass stencil
- paper/cardstock

1 - Place the multipurpose platform on the Sizzix BigShot.

2 - Make a sandwich with the cutting pads like this:

          one cutting pad
          brass stencil
          paper/cardstock
          foam
          second cutting pad

3 - Run this sandwich through the BigShot to emboss the paper/cardstock. You'll get an embossed image like the one below.

4 - If you want to colour your embossed image just flip over the brass stencil and place it over the image making sure the outlines match. Use chalks, markers, pencils, etc. to colour in.

 

Here's another example of an embossed image using the steps described above and coloured in with blending chalks.

And this is a card I made using an image embossed with this technique.

If you want to give your handmade cards an attractive 3D finish one of the techniques you can use is embossing.

There are 2 kinds of embossing: heat and dry embossing. For the first you need a heat gun and embossing powders and for the second you need stencils and an embossing tool.

    Dry embossing tools                                                     Heat embossing tools

I'm going to start by demonstrating the heat embossing technique.

1 - The first step is to gather all the tools/materials you'll need. Choose a rubber stamp, have your embossing ink pad ready, choose the embossing powder you want and have your heat gun all set up to go.

2 - Apply the rubber stamp to the ink pad and stamp the image on the paper.

3 - Quickly sprinkle the embossing powder over the stamped image making sure it's well covered.

4 - Pour the excess powder back into the container to avoid any waste.

When sprinkling the embossing powder over the stamped image, do it over a piece of paper big enough and with a crease down the middle, this will make it easier to pour the excess powder back into the container.

5 - Melt the embossing powder with the heat gun. When the powder starts to melt move the heat gun slowly to the next section of the image until it's all done. You should have a raised glittery image like the one below.

Now for the dry embossing technique you'll need stencils and an embossing tool.

1 - Place the piece of paper/cardstock you want to emboss between the 2 layers of your stencil making sure it stays in place.

2 - With the embossing tool start tracing the outline of the image chosen. Be careful not to make too much pressure so the paper doesn't tear. Go over the outline 2 or 3 times so you have a noticeable raised effect. The finished embossed image can then be used on your project.

Note: If using brass stencils (like the ones below) you'll need a light box to emboss on any material that's not see through. Place the paper/cardstock on the stencil and keep it in place with Blue Tack. Again, go over the outline with the embossing tool.

If you want to use an embossed piece of paper or cardstock as background for your cards I find that the easiest way is to use embossing folders like the ones below for the Sizzix BigShot. You simply place the paper/cardstock in the folder and run this through your BigShot to get a lovely embossed image.

Tips:

* When heat embossing try to handle the paper/cardstock as little as possible as otherwise the embossing powder will adhere to other parts of the paper besides the stamped image. Before melting the embossing powder remove any specks with a thin paint brush.

* You can colour in your embossed images using markers, colouring pencils, chalks, etc.

* Practice your embossing techniques on scraps of paper until you feel confident.

* Try mixing embossing powders of different colours to create new tones. Use a small resealable bag for this.

 

Here are a few examples of cards and other projects using both heat and dry embossing.

Card with heat embossed flowers                                 Heat embossed embellishments used to decorate an envelope

Dry embossing on vellum using stencils

Both these cards use backrgound images embossed with embossing folders from Sizzix

 

For quite some time I've been wanting to have a go at those crochet butterflies you make from a folded granny square but I couldn't find the chart anywhere, and I've looked using any search terms I could think of!! A few nights ago, I was going through my old cross stitch magazines and guess what? I found these cute crochet butterflies and... they came with a chart  Yuppiii

If you'd like to make some yourself just follow the chart bellow: