Weaving with Fibres

 Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 

I thought I'd share a few photos and info on how I made the woven section of this card, plus some thoughts on what I'd if I did something similar again, as this was very much a trial and error king of thing,  even though I made it into a card!

 

I have a large collection of tiny spools of fibresthat I've collected over the years - I use them mainly for decorating the spines of books I make - though to be fair its a long time since I actually finished one of those!

The weaving turned out colourful and very textural so I didnt think it needed much else to work ok.  So I went throungh a bag of pearly and glittery card scraps and die cut some stars in different shapes and sizes, and a few little hearts for good measure.

 

I started by making a frame using pairs of card strips.

If I do this again I will use dies to cut square frames - it would be simpler in the end.

I would also make the squares quite a bit bigger than I needed the weaving to be, so it would be easier to cut the finished piece out of the frame

Next I fixed the vertical fibres to the top and bottom of the frame - I used glue for this.  They need to be well stuck before adding the horizontal fibres.  I always have a pot of 'bulldog' clips at hand as they are so useful in many ways

I started weaving the horizontal fibres in the middle because I planned to keep gaps between the rows and starting in the middle helped me keep the rows even

I'm not a great fan of threading needles and as I was using lots of different kinds iof fibres with different thicknesses and 'fluffiness' it would have been a real pain! So I cut a narrow strip of card and punched a small hole in one end.

With this tool I could simply pull whatever type of fibre through the hole with tweezers then weave easily over and under the vertical fibres with the card strip.

Asain I used glue and a clip to secore each end

I just continued until the whole frame was filled.

Next I spread PVA glue overthe centre of a piece of card the same size as my card blank and pressed it down on the wrong side of the weaving.  I put a paperweight over it and left it to dry

Once dried I cut away the pieces of card that made the frame

 this is where I learned that I should have made the weaving fram bigger and stopped weaving to leave a good 2-3cms margin around  the interwoven part - that way I could have used a smaller square of card for the backing, and it would have been much easaier to cut away from the frame too.

That's it, I hope you'll let me know if you have a go!

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

Under and Over, repeat...

Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 

Today I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers challenge, and this time it was my own turn to come up with an idea!

 Under and Over, repeat...

This one is all about weaving! 

You could do some actual weaving with paper strips or yarn... 

or use a stamp or embossing folder with a woven patters... 

or add some woven fabric...

There are lots of possibilities and I can't wait to see what you will make!

Click Here for some ideas from the design team

As usual, I have absolutely no idea why I came up with the challenge idea, and then had no idea what to make - its 'a thing' that we all struggle with our cards on our own challenges! 🤣

 

Then I remembered my big box of tiny spools of fibresand thought I could use some to do some actual weaving

The weaving turned out colourful and very textural so I didnt think it needed much else to work ok.  So I went throungh a bag of pearly and glittery card scraps and die cut some stars in different shapes and sizes, and a few little hearts for good measure.

 

For the sentiment I used an old, and much used Spellbinders die plus black and white card.  I cut three white layers and one blackj and glued them together to give a bit of stability when I glued it on top of the woven fibres

 

I'll add a separate post with how I did the weaving in case anyone is interested in having a go
 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

 

 

 

Autumn Leaves

 

 

  Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 

Today I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers challenge 

Our host this time is Dawn and her theme is

Always Autumn/Forever Fall 

 I love this time of year as the season changes and all the months that end in BER.  The colours are just beautiful and I love to get cosy at home.  I would like to see your cosy autumn themed projects this week. 

Click Here for some ideas from the design team

 

istarted by inking a piece of card with Autumn shades all merging into each other, then while that dried I made the background. This card blank is a ‘soft white’ shade which works better with the Autumn colours than bright white. 

I made a panel with a piece of dusky pink card into which I adhered two curvy strips of textured gold card. 

I cut lots of leaves from the inked card using a Spellbinder die from a few years back and arranged them to tumble down and sit at the case of the card.

To complete I added a sentiment panel and some loops of red and gold threads

 

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

 

 

Keep On Running!

Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 

For a change this isn't a catch up post for something made months back but a card made for my running-mad nephew's birthday in September

 

Also for a change, there are no dies used on this card!

Instead I downlioaded an image from the net and used it to make a template for the running shoe. This was then resized to fit in a DL envelope.  I made three copies of the template on copier paper as its a pain if you're half way through cutting out all the pieces and find you need another one!

Its relatively easy to make shaped cards this way, you just have to work out where your fold will be, or it this case where to add some kind of margin or tab (its behind the heel) as I didn't have a sheet of card big enough to cut the whole background card in one piece

I used Bazzill card for all of this one - the textured card helps it look more 'real' than smooth kind.  All the sections were  hand-cut with scissors.

I did get a message to say he loved it so it was worth the effort!

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

 

 

Take a Break

 

  

Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 

Today I'm sharing my card for this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge

It’s Miri here and I have a new topic for you:

Take a break!

I guess that most of us are back to everyday life after summer. And now let's not forget to take breaks regularly. Show us on your card what "taking a break" means for you: a cup of tea/coffee, a nap, a walk in nature, taking a sun bath, crafting etc.

Click Here for some ideas from the design team

 

 

 I made a nice big cup of cappuccino - because sitting down with one, and hopefully a malty biscuit on the side makes for a perfect break!

I found a suitable cup and saucer shaped image on the net, then used my graphics program on the pc to add the hand;e and a nice big mound of froth.

Once I'd got what I wanted I resized it and printed three copies onto copier paper to use to hand-cut my card shape.  In this case the fold is at the top of the actual cup shape, with the froth and the handle added sperately

I also made the paper designs on the pc and again resized and printed out - I tend to print onto white Bazzill card so that you get extra 'weight' and texture

I sponged a couple of shades of brown ink over the top for the cocoa dusting then added some bronze glass glitter over the top

 

Unfortunately the shininess isn't picked up on the photo.

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

 

 

Celebrate

 

  Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 

Another catch up post!

I made this card with two things in mind; a card for my nephew and niece-in-law's wedding anniversary and Miri's challenge to the Daring Cardmakers challenge on 21st July. It's always nice when a card works for two things

I, Miri, prefer warmth and sunshine and challenge you to make cards featuring

summer drinks

Whatever you like to drink on hot days is fine and we’d love to see it: cocktails, lemon water, coffee (a necessity in every season 😉!), iced tea … some fruit, other decoration or a straw are optional, but extra cute.

Click Here for some ideas from the design team

The cutting dies and hot foil stamps and dies I've used here are all from Spellbinders (HERE is my Link to the store),

I used a dusty pink foil for the dotty pattern and the sentiment

The swirly shape was cut from the foiled piece using a border die

The cocktaile glasses were covered with Glossy Accents 

I hand-cut the little parasols

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

Vintage Traveller

 

  Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 

Somehow I've got behind with my blogging again so this one is a catch up post!

Its a card made for Rizwana's Daring Cardmakers challenge on 28th July, when Rizwana said:

This week's challenge is all about holidays.
A lot of people are getting ready to go on holiday either abroad or at home. Summer holidays have started and the kids are off school. A perfect time to get away and enjoy family time.
Bon Voyage!
 Are you off on your travels? I'd like you to create a fun travel card to share with us this week and hope you all enjoy your time away either at home or abroad.

Click Here for some ideas from the design team

 I found a fantastic set of watercolour digital travel images on Etsy, plus anopther set which had just lots of different stacks of vintage suitcases, also in watercolour style - perfect to make a montsage style card using my favourites!

I reized and printed them out then arranged them on my card using some scraps of thick card to get some dimension

The suitcase pieces was mouted onto a box hinge so that it can stand right out from the card for display, but fold flat fro posting.

 

 

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

 

 

August elemental inspiration

 Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 

I've managed to get behind with blogging my projects (again) so this one is another catch up post!

Its a card for Joanne's Daring Cardmakers challenge on 4th August (yes, I am that far behind!).  This one was the August Elemental Picture Challenge.

Joanne here to host this week and I thought it would be fun to revisit the first ever August Elemental Inspiration picture — 2015 if you’re wondering! Some of the team have been here long enough to remember it from first time around. They have the fun of seeing how their changing styles and expanding stash influences their projects while the rest of us get new inspiration to play with.

Here’s the picture — lots to chose from!

Click Here for some ideas from the design team

 

My card is actuallyone of the invitations I made for our Pearl Tea Party.

Look closely at the picture and you'll spot a cup, a black sign with white writing and a gold viintage telephone!  There's also the striped pattern of the wooden box.

I used several different digital paper designs for my invitations, all with a vintage feel so that I could resize them to make the teacups and saucers.  The die is a Spellbinders one from a couple of years ago which I've used much more than I even thought I would!I made the striped paper on the pc to match by picking out a couple of shades of the colours in the flowery papers.  The curved edge is cut with another Spellbinders die, a set of edging dies again from a couple of years back.  The little 'invitationtags were made on the pc and printed out and I added a little gold thread bow to lift the design

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

Back to Collage

 

  Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 

Its another Daring Cardmakes Friday and our lovely, very talented Rizwana has  set the challenge for this week: 

 

Collage It!

I would love to see your cards using collage techniques.
You can use anything from magazine cut outs, patterned papers, bits of fabric or anything you have in your stash that
you can use as collage.
Have fun!!

Click Here for some ideas from the design team

Well. I definitely took the 'have fun' bit on board and I had an absolute ball making this the other day! I've always enjoyed making this kind of card - there's no right or wrong way to do it and if something looks wrong, just take it off or cover it up! The only hard bit is getting started.

As soon as I saw the challenge I knew it would be a great excuse to make a rose As I said, the hardest part is starting but having decided to use one of my favourite stencils (it has a fading diamonds pattern) and I decided on the colour theme simply by opening my drawer of mousses and interesting pastes to see what appealed!

In the end I chose black ink, gold mousse and red Glacier paste and randomly addrd them through the stencil.

Once your colours are chosen its easier because you can look through your stash for other things that match! 

After the stencilling my next layer was patterned paper - I had a feeling an old MME Lost and Found collection would match so dug that out. I cut strips from a few of the designs to make an overlapping design - finding the glittery banner piece was a bonus!

 

 

I wanted to add other textures so next I collected threads, fibres, lace and a piece of wide hessian 'ribbon' to add in. The tassel was made from unravelled black fibre, with gold thread wound around and to hang it with.

The red Glacier paste gave such an interesting sheen on the stencilled bit that I decided it would look amazing on the rose so before I cut all the petal pieces I covered a piece of red card with the paste - be warned, it took a while to dry! 

I actually made three roses but in the end the largest was enough on its own 

I die cut a couple of swirls from the same set as the flower used for the roses. I thought using the green would help lift everything else.

I added strands of gold and red thread curled under the sentiment and a few enamel dots to complete the card. I hope you like it!

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy x

 

 

September Elemental Challenge

 

Hello

Thanks for visiting. 

 

I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers Challenge, and as Friday was the first challenge of the month it's an Elemental challeng with the moodboard chosen by Nat

September Elemental Challenge

As we're moving into the last throes of summer, I've picked an image that will work with autumnal elements but also still has plenty of scope to keep that summery feeling living on!

Here's hoping we still see some splendid summer days in September. I'm not yet ready to get the heating on or put away my summer wardrobe.

Pick at least 3 elements from this image to interpret on your card (remember colours count collectively as one element) and enjoy some crafty time!

    Click Here to see what the design team made

Nat gave us loads to choose from with this board, but in the end I arrowed it down to the terracootta pots, the sprigs of lavendar and the woven texture of the gorgeous baskets

I sponged some watered down green ink onto the white clard blank to give some background colour. 

I used various inks to colour some scrap white card to a terracotta shade then cut it out using one of the recent Ceramic Vases die set

Then I added a final layer of a metallic copper ink to finish the pot

The lavendar is made using the Mason Jar and Lavender which I love!

 

The two die sets mentioned above are from  Spellbinders: HERE is my Affiliate Link, you can use it to access the store any time!  Please note that as an Affiliate I may receive a small commission when you use my links - it doesn't cost you anything but it helps me buy more stash so is much appreciated!  

 

I have no idea where the 'weave' die is from, I picked it up in an online sale and it arrived in just a clear bag.  It is such a great background for so many things!

To complete this card I added a green and whit sentiment from a batch I made a couple of weeks back - I knew they'd come in handy!  I used a green ink pad to colour some twine - messy, but worth it

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself

 

Kathy xx