Card Making and Creepers

I rarely buy cards now, normally I make them.  Sadly this doesn't take me any less time.  However, it does mean that I can create one fairly quickly even when the shops are shut.  Handy if you need one for a birthday right away.

I decided some time ago that taking an hour to make a card was kind of pointless, so you'll notice my cards don't tend to look perfect.  That's the charm of home made stuff!

My latest fave design is very minimal:

I love it because it will work with any shape.  You could use stickers too.  I mainly use paper punch shapes - as I appear to be addicted to buying them and I have a lot!

I've been working on another project too, another cushion cover.  I've always loved the designs made by quilters, but as I cannot sew with a sewing machine at all, I've never been able to see how I could create something like that.  Then just recently it came to me, I could use crochet squares.

So I started crocheting in the colours I needed and I kept going, and soon I had enough to make a start.

I don't sew well by hand either, so it is taking me time, but slowly, slowly,it is coming together.  I add a few squares each evening, and I think eventually it will be an eight by eight square of Minecraft Creeper awesomeness.  I've already mentioned that our family is Minecraft Mad at the moment, so I don't think anyone will object to this cushion cover once completed, in fact I have a horrible feeling that requests for more of the same will be made!

Despite the slow going sewing, I already want to do something more using this technique.  You can see that I am using a traditional Granny Square for this project, but the options for textured/patterned squares are endless.  I realised that any Minecraft project would be ideal for using Granny Squares because the game is based on squares too.  Whether I stick to Minecraft related square projects or branch out to something else has yet to be decided.

I'm still slowly sewing squares together, but hopefully it won't be too long before I can share this as a completed project.

More Hearts

I've been enjoying using hearts to make more bits and bobs recently.  My Mum found some cards that weren't the traditional stand up kind of card.  Instead you hung them up.  I loved the idea, and immediately had to copy it!  The ones my parents found were owls and monkeys and butterflies I think, but I could see that it would work with a lot of different shapes.  Here it is with hearts.

I used co-ordinating paper, and a heart template.  On the back of the paper I attached the string, which is actually embroidery thread, and on the back of that I added some thin card, I embellished using some craft jewels (mainly from Poundland!).

I was really pleased with the result, and plan to do more like this in the future, I can see that it would work well with flowers, birds and stars and I'm sure many more designs.

I also love seeing what other people can create using felting techniques.  Mine never seem to turn out how I imagine them in my head, but the process is fun.

I was hoping to make this into a family project, but halfway through their first hearts, both children managed to injure themselves with the felting tool.  Normally they are very good with it and manage to keep their fingers out of the way, but not this time, and I'm not sure how long it will take me to persuade them to have another go.

So I think rather than the bunting project I had planned, I'll just do a little hanging garland thing.  I quite like these, even if I can see I've not quite managed the design I had in mind for them.

As well as being able to get involved with the felting, card making and other crafting I do I like to get my kids to create some art of their own for a "sort of" gallery we have for them.  At the moment I really want them to make me something with hearts on it for Valentines Day.  

Often I can encourage the type of art I want by finding printables online with the right subject matter, or I do love the Usbourne colouring books and sometimes I photocopy pages that I know I will want them to do more than once!

This time I created my own doodle page, and I thought that it might be fun to share it, so others could colour it in too:

Heart Art

We have done some heart artwork over the years, some stuff I thought I would share.

I loved these layered cardboard hearts from A Little Learning For Two, and I thought we would have a go.  I traced around my heart cookie cutters, the inside and the outside to make 6 hearts.  Though I'm sure most people would just be able to create their own.  I also cut the hearts out of thick cardboard, as the kids were a couple of years younger.  However, if we re-do this project the kids will be tracing and cutting their own hearts onto thinner cardboard.

They picked their own colours.  My daughter wanted pink, so we used various shades between red and white.  It is slightly more obvious in real life than in this photo (but only just, I was a bit liberal with the red paint when we started!)

My son basically picked all the colours we had at the time!  I do love it though.

We also tried printing with toilet roll insides. My daughter wanted to create hearts, so we simply bent the toilet roll inside to look heart shaped.  I don't know how she managed to pick up enough paint to fill some of the hearts, but I like it.

This isn't our art I'll admit (how amazing would that be!), but pretty nonetheless.  It is the Red Arrows performing their heart formation.  You can just see them completing it at the bottom of the picture. 

I think this is one of my favourite crafts we have ever done.  DIY air drying clay , we have done it a couple of times, I like using the little cutters we have to create toppers for cards.  Here I just used the clay as it came, but it can be painted too.  If it is rolled thin it dries pretty quick, in about 24hrs.  Thicker stuff takes a while.  It is quite brittle, so I don't think I could make it into jewellery, but it is fine for cards.  

Here is another heart related card.  I still haven't sent this one, everytime I look at it I think of the Beatles.  I guess it is the colours.

So these were some of the heart projects we have done in the past.  I'll share some of things we've been doing recently soon.