Make it Yourself

It's Vanessa's turn to set the Daring Cardmakers challenge and it's all about

Homebaked or Homemade

The manufacturers all make it very easy to add lovely embellishments to our work with ready made, or ready to "build" embellishments, but this week Vanessa doesn't want to see any short-cuts, no! this week she wants to see us all creating at least one of the embellishments we use on our cards by ourselves - it could be something made from clay, shrink plastic, fabric - anything at all as long as we do the making/

My first thought was to dig out the shrink plastic and make my embellishment with that - but I really haven't a clue where it is atm. So on to Plan B - some sort of flower (no surprise there!).

I often make flower embellishments for my projects and it would have felt a bit like cheating if I did the same sort of thing I usually do.  So I thought I'd see what I could come up with using felt - something I have lots of, but rarely use for cards etc.  I also thought I'd add an extra dimension to the task by making something which could be detached from the card and worn as a brooch.

The problem with making the brooch is that all my jewellery stuff, including brooch backs etc is currently in the loft, so I've temporarily used an old hairclip to attach it to the card.  I'll add the brooch back once I've got my stuff back.

Actually I'm still not convinced whether to use the one shown on the card, or the first version I made just using felt.

Anyway, both of these were made in the same way, using needle and thread and lots of running stitches, then gathering up and sewing the ruffles nice and tightly to make the shapes I wanted.

Materials

version 1 (on card); 2 sizes of Nesties Dahlia dies (cut about a 1.5cm hole from the centre then make the gathering stitches around the hole and pull tight), Ice Stickles, Lace and seam binding (both from Creative Treasures), Pearlised button, lilac pearl brad - I used wire cutters to cut the prongs off then glued it to the button. Brooch back to be added later  :)

Rest of card:

Deep lilac paper, MS border punch, Pale lilac pearlised card, Seam binding this is cheat's gathering  (hehe) as I just drew a line of glue across the card and worked the binding into gathers with my fingers!, I-rock Pearls, Sentiment is cut using my Craft Robo

Flower version 2; 3 layers of felt cut with Nesties Dahlia dies  I used the 2 of the third largest size and 1 of the next size down (make holes and gather each as above), Ice Stickles, Large clear faceted brad

We hope to see lots of creative ideas for making your own embellishments this week - it will be fun to see what everyone makes and we should all learn some new ideas as we wander around the blogs of those who join in - one of the things I love and the world of Crafty Blogging is the was people share their ideas and show us how they put things together.  Actually, I'd like to say a big Thank You to all who take the time and trouble to share their ideas and skills via their blogs - I'm sure I'm not the only one who appreciates such generosity.

I hope you'll be Making It with Vanessa and the DCM, click HERE to see what the team have created to put on their cards for this challenge. 
Thanks for visiting