Haberdashery Dashery Dash

It's Daring Cardmakers New Dare Day again. This week it's over to Gillian in Australia for our challenge and if you ever follow Gill's blog you'll know that she loves to delve into her sewing box for inspiration. Lots of people have felt the need to acquire a sewing machine thanks to Gillian's fantastic and inspiring work, so it was no great surprise when she set this one:

G'day all, Gillian here, and it's my turn to dare you all this week

Your card can be any theme you like, just as long as it's got something you'd find in a Haberdashery Department on it

Alright then, grab that old sewing basket of yours or raid your sewing machine drawer, have a look at what creative bits are hidding away there....maybe it's buttons, a zip, hook & eye's, ribbons, braids, Dressmaking patterns, tape measures,Pins & Needles, lace, safety pins or embroidery thread....

so many wonderful little treasures just waiting to be added to your next card

I'm going to add one more rule....

Yes you may stitch on your card, but that can't be your only haberdashery item....

From the start I wanted to use a motif from a piece of fabric that I've been hoarding and using just tiny scraps of on special projects. It originally came in a fabric swap with the Swiss Miss herself, Nicki (Zug Stitcher) who does the most fantastic sewing projects but doesn't have a blog (note to self, find Nicki's website address to add here.....) It's funny how a card evolves, some happen really easily and others really don't. This one was in the latter catergory. For a start I couldn't decide whether to use burgundy or blue - both looked good with the cream. I played safe as you can see with a classic combo of burgundy, cream and gold. I went through the drawers in my sewing cabinet, and my sewing box to see what goodies I could find that might work on a card and came back with safety pins, curtain rings and some hooks & eyes. Obviously the buttons, threads and ribbons had already found their way out of the sewing stash and into the cardmaking stash! Some mad idea made me get the alcohol inks out and have a go at inking up the various metal bits. I've only got one set of inks but managed to mix a close enough colour to go with the card. The hooks were fixed to the card with tiny gold brads and I went with the bead string idea rather than my original ribbon idea. I'm not sure it all shows up clearly in the picture. I used the alcohol inks on the chipboard fluted square too, plus a few squiggles of gold Krylon pen., punched holes in the corners to add a gold thread trim, mounted it oream card and then added the cut out motif on top. It's such a lovely piece of fabric, lots of fine gold embroidery and masses of tiny beads. The curtain ring was fixed under the corner of the square and tied with narrow organza ribbon. Luckily I found a Happy Birthday message ready printed ( the printer isn't connected to the new pc yet), not exactly what I wanted, but it'll have to do. The inked safety pin was fixed through the message card and I added some glue to the closure as I'd hate anyone to hurt themselves if it came undone! Short pieces of gold, cream and burgundy ribbon were tied to the pin. At the other side is a button decorated with a sheen of gold Liquid Pearls and gold Stickles glitter glue. I still felt the balance wasn't quite right, so I added the small ribbon tab to the right hand of the chipboard square, funny how something as small as that makes a big difference to the final result. There are some fab cards on the DCM blog this week, so please check them out - and we all try to tell you a bit more about how they were made on our personal blogs. We were so lucky to have the wonderful Manicstamper Sheila, with us as our Guest Designer for the last couple of weeks, but it's time to say "bye bye Sheila" and "hello Donna" - another Kiwi who is going to be sharing her work with us for the next couple of weeks