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Tuesday, 15 April 2025

Easter Post

 Something for Easter

Today my post is a special for Easter 

Instead of an Easter card I have made these lovely Easter stakes that can be used in the garden or part of an Easter display .


  • Here they are in my indoor plant 
  • They would be perfect for lining the path to the egg hunt.
  • Placed by the front door 
I have made them by making a rosette with scrap paper 2 pieces 12” x 2.5”
1cm scores all the way along and then folded valley and mountain folds.
To the centre of the rosette I have hot-glued a wooden tag with the Easter bunny image and then all of this has been hot-glued to the stick. 
I finished the back with a circle of paper to cover the stick and then a piece of ribbon with a loop over the top finished with a wooden button. 

The craft group I attend had a go at making them along with the yellow card die cut chick that holds a Cadburys cream egg. 

Happy Crafting 
Dee 




Sunday, 13 April 2025

Desk cleared & 2 Great Keepsake books made

 More Tidying = Blizzard Books  

I don’t know about you but every time I try to clear my desk I manage about 10 minutes tidying  before I pick up something that just begs to be made into a card or craft project. Some of my card designs and fabric patterns come from these tidying moments. Or it may be that I am putting away paper and card I see a use for them, so they never get into the correct box, they just scream to be made into a folio page or , most recently blizzard books. 

Thought Process
I was putting away some papers I had printed and realised that the copy paper I had used for the printing was the right thickness for origami folding.
That led me to remember the Blizzard books I had made some time ago.
I quickly folded a small size blizzard book. As the binding for the blizzard is made from a piece of paper half the width of the length of the paper this was made from a piece 15cm x 29.5cm, using the whole length of the A4 sheet. This binding was a fraction too small to hold business cards, so I repeated the process making the width 16.5cm and this worked perfectly.
Having made the book binding I cut 2 pieces of card to make the covers, a little bigger than the business cards I had put into the book. 
Looking at the card covers on the desk, I needed papers or fabric to cover them.
I decided as I was going to use the book to hold my business cards I would use some fabric recycled from one of hubbies shirt and I would have a great memory/keepsake book that would be useful.




I usually use a button on elastic for a closure for this type of book but for this memory book I found an old Ilfracombe Yacht Club pin that had particular meaning. 
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I was so pleased with the end product I decided to make another. This time, staying with the memory book theme, I decided to make another bigger book and using a sheet of A3 paper , which is 42cm long I cut it to 21cm wide. I wanted this memory book to be a photo album and so cut panels 4” wide from sheets of A4 Black card. 

Next what to cover the book cover with. This time i decided to use one of Brian’s ties and carefully unpicked a favourite silk tie, ironed it out, sewed 2 pieces of the stabilising fabric from inside the tie together to make padding for the card (as the silk was quite fine) and glued the stabiliser and the silk onto the 2 covers. 



                                                                


                
                                    

I really like this book and will pick some favourite photos  to go inside. I am also going to offer  a workshop for this project and kits where there will be fabric included and instructions to use your own fabrics to make this a keepsake book.



Monday, 7 April 2025

New Box Bag



 So many Crafts so little time.

It’s been a while since my last post, but I have been busy crafting. Trying to use up some of my paper stash and still sewing my bags for charity. 

So the first item I want to share with you is my new box bag. . I have been thinking about making this since I saw it on Christine’s Home Affairs on YouTube. Her box bag comes in many sizes, she even makes a large one for a weekend bag. 

When trying something for the first time I always make a trial version. For this one I used a piece of cotton which I added a stabiliser to. I wanted to practice my zip insertion and this was a good way of doing it without wasting the heavier furnishing fabrics that I will use later. 

Following the YouTube tuition I put the bag together using a piece of fabric 16.5” x 18” . The bag went together well but the fabric was far too soft for the finish that I wanted, however it had given me the confidence to try with other fabrics. 

Then I had one of those Eureka moments when I  found some leatherette fabric that had been given to me. I cut out a piece 18” x 20” and a 25” zip.  The beauty of using this fabric was it did not need lining. The end tabs were made with one piece of the same fabric, no hemming required . 

The end result was a lovely roomy box bag.

     






All done and all that remains is to add my label and make it again in a pretty  upholstery fabric so we have all tastes covered, once I have a small selection I can add them to my sale list.

Back soon - it’s new papercrafts next.


Happy Crafting 
Dee