Handmade cards and other crafts, templates & tips

Today I want to share with you a few more of my favourite links. These are aimed at the needlework crafters and I hope you find them useful. If you don't yet know any of the sites below, then sit back, relax and enjoy .

FreePatterns.com

Whether you crochet, knit, cross-stitch, quilt or sew you'll find lots of free patterns here. To download the patterns you'll need to register and this is also free.

Crosstitch.com

Here you'll find a few free charts plus some very handy tools like a free online caption maker, a floss conversion tool and a cross stitch calculator.

Cross-stitching.com

Sign up (it's free) to have free charts delivered straight into your email box, you can also browse them online.

About.com:Quilting

Here you can find plenty of useful information on quilting as well as many free patterns.

World Wide Quilting Page

Web site with plenty of quilting patterns and instructions.

Free Applique Patterns

This site has many free applique patterns. Scroll down the page to find links to sewing and crochet freebies.

Freeneedle

Directory of free sewing patterns, tutorials and projects.

Free Sewing Patterns for Felt Toy Animals

The name says it all, if you like making felt  toy animals this is the site for you with lots of free patterns.

Crochet Pattern Central

Site full of free crochet and knit patterns, tutorials and tips and tricks from other crocheters and knitters.

About.com:Crochet

A-Z list of links to free crochet patterns.

Craftbits.com

Free crochet patterns, project and gift ideas to make yourself.

The Daily Knitter

Very good site with plenty of knitting patterns, videos, knitting forums, etc.

Happy surfing .

 

 

I don't know about you but when my son is on school holiday I never have much time for crafting or blogging. However I did manage to finish a few cards I needed for a commission and for a couple of challenges and also to play with some fimo I bought at my local charity shop.

The "Leaving to have a baby" card was a commission and I used a free template I downloaded from here.

The "Tea time" card below is for a challenge on Flickr and the other is for the Circles Summer Challenge at Kool Crafts and Arts.

I have mentioned my local charity shop several times on this blog, I love going there and finding things to use on my crafts. Recently I found fimo in different colours and have been playing with it making buttons and sweets. Alex also had fun making some animals and other stuff.

Alex made a panda, a lion, a tiger and a dolphin's head
Alex's bamboo

For some great ideas on what you can make with fimo have a look here and here.

Sometime ago I posted photos showing a few of my crochet bookmarks and received several requests for instructions so I've put together this photo tutorial which I hope you'll find useful. I used 4 ply cotton and a 1.5 mm crochet hook.

To make a similar bookmark you should start with a loop and one single crochet.

Increase one stitch everytime you turn to make the next row.

When you have the desired width (this bookmark is 12 stitches wide), work 17 rows in double crochet.

You should have something like this.

When you finish, weave in the ends of the cotton thread. Then you'll have to make a chain which you then attach to the pointy end of the bookmark with a slip stitch again weaving in the end of the thread.

On the other end of the chain attach a flower or any other embellishment of your choice. I chose a flower and a little bead. To hold the bead in place tie a knot and if you want use a little glue to prevent the end of the thread from fraying.

This is the finished bookmark.

Happy crafting.

Today's post is about using collage and decoupage when making cards and it's also the last in my series of posts on different card making techniques.

The term collage comes from the French coller which means "to stick". The Collins English Dictionary defines it as an art form in which compositions are made out of pieces of paper, cloth, photographs and other miscellaneous objects, juxtaposed and pasted onto a dry ground.

According to the same source, decoupage comes from the French word découper meaning "to cut out" and it's the art or process of decorating a surface with shapes or illustrations cut from paper, card, etc.

For both these techniques you'll need to find a source of images you can cut and use. Maybe the most obvious one is the Internet with it's wealth of free images you can print, cut and paste. Other sources are books and magazines and these you can buy very cheap at charity shops, car boot sales, etc.

The books below were all bought at my local charity shop and I've been using the images from them on cards.

 
The image on the left shows a page from the book "The World of Butterflies". As you can see the images are beatiful and if you want you can also use the text as background for your project.

Here are a few examples of cards I made using the collage and decoupage techniques. I hope they may inspire you to try these techniques.