Handmade cards and other crafts, templates & tips

Having a sewing machine that does a little more than straight stitching but mainly that handles thick fabrics or bulky seams well makes a lot of difference as I'm finally able to make some of the things I've been wanting to make for quite a while.

One of the items on my list was a folder to take to the PTA meetings and where I could keep my A4 notebook as well as any other documents pertaining to the meeting. Here it is below.

As you can see I kept it very simple, inside there are 2 pockets the contents of which are held in place by the 2 pieces of ribbon.

I've also been having a go at making myself some bags mainly for shopping. This is the 1st one I made and it's a little longer than I intented.

This is my 2nd bag made using a template I drew myself and lined for added strength.

The bag below is the 3rd I made and my favourite so far, I used 2 tea towels from a set of 6 I bought at the local charity shop.

Alex is 10 tomorrow and there's nothing he likes more than to get back from school and to have the house decorated for his birthday.

A year ago I made him this bunting but it's not very long and I've been wanting to make another one to put up on the opposite wall. So today we both got to work, we gathered a few fabric scraps, cut them into squares using the Sizzix Bigshot and my squares die cut, trimmed them with the pinking shears to avoid fraying and then just fed them through the sewing machine diagonally following the colour pattern Alex chose and that was it, our bunting was ready in no time at all

Here is the finished bunting and also the birthday invitations I made for Alex to give some of his friends at school.

Thursday is Forest School day for Alex´s class. They explore the small wood they have at school and I´m very pleased that Alex enjoys it so much. They´ve been learning which berries are edible and which are not and that´s how he had the idea of trying a blackberry crumble.

So after school off we went in search of blackberries (fortunately they aren´t difficult to find around here) and then home we came with a bag semi full of them ready to bake our dessert following this recipe.

When I take my son Alex to the park I usually take something to keep my hands occupied and this is what I made recently, a white crochet garland using thick cotton bought at the local charity shop.

The inspiration came from Blossom's blog and you can find her tutorial here.

 

Because I've been missing my Singer sewing machine so much (I couldn't bring it with me when we moved to the UK) and because it's my birthday next week, my husband decided to give me an early birthday gift...

So to try it out I made these covers for our passports.

If you'd like to give this a go just follow the instructions below.

1 - Make a template

Measure the width and length of your passport and add a seam allowance to that or use the template below  I made for mine (don't forget to check if the size is correct for your passport).

2 - Cut your pieces of fabric

Using the template as reference cut 1 piece for the inside, 1 for the outside and 1 as interlining (I used something called  volume fleece), leave a margin all around the template. Cut also 4 fabric squares big enough to fold diagonally to form the triangles you'll use for the corners of your passport cover.

3 - Put the pieces together

Lay your interlining on your work table and on top place the outside fabric (right side up as shown in the picture below) and then the piece of fabric you'll be using for the inside of the cover (right sides together).

After putting these 3 pieces together flip them so the interlining is on top and trace the template using chalk or a pencil.

Lift the 2 first layers of material and place 1 triangle in each corner as shown below.

4 - Sew

Sew all the way around but make sure you leaving an opening to turn the cover inside out. Trim to avoid bulky seams.

Turn your cover inside out, press and sew all the way around again as close to the edge as possible and your passport cover is done and ready to be used.

Note: I also decided to sew along the centre fold so the cover would fit snuggly.

 

 

With Alex back to his school routine I was again able to take some time off my chores to do a bit of crafting and finish some cards I had started at the begining of Summer. You can see them at the end of this post.

I have also worked on a Birthday gift for a friend of Alex's who was 10 yesterday, I made her the card, the album and the necklace you see in the photo below. The inspiration for the necklace came from a book I found at my local public library titled "Bead & Button, Ribbon & Felt Jewellery" by Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell, ISBN 978-1-904991-66-3. This book includes beautiful jewellery projects you can make using items you have in your sewing box such as buttons, ribbon, lace, fabric, etc.

These are the cards I mentioned at the begining of the post.

If you read this entry on my blog you know I've been playing/experimenting with some Fimo I found at my local charity shop. I've also been having a look at some great sites/blogs trying to learn a few modelling techniques although without much success as I just don't have the skill, so I endend up making very simple buttons and pendants which I plan to use in future projects.

One of the things I learnt is that the best way to obtain an even "sheet" of Fimo is by using a pasta machine which I don't own so after thinking about it for a while the only thing I could think of was my Sizzix BigShot and you know what? It actually worked

If you too would like to give this a try when working with Fimo what you need to do is a "sandwich" like the one shown in the photo mosaic below.

1 - Use your multipurpose platform without the tabs.

2 - Place a cutting pad on the multipurpose platform.

3 - Place a piece of Fimo between 2 pieces of grease paper

4 - Place the other cutting pad on the grease paper with the Fimo in between and feed it through the machine.

5 - This is what you should get, a thin, even sheet of Fimo.

6 - Carefully peel the grease paper.

The grease paper prevents the Fimo from sticking to your cutting pads and it will peel off easily if you do it slowly and carefully. You can also vary the thickness of your Fimo "sheet" by not using the bottom cutting pad.

Also, when using this method you shouldn't try to flatten too big a lump of Fimo as the grease paper will rip and you'll get Fimo all over your cutting pads!

Here are some of the buttons and pendants I made.