Bathtime...Fabric as Paper.

Hi again :)

Even though I am not a seamstress, a quilter, a patchwork person or sewer of any shape or form (at this point in time - you never know), I love fabric. I love the patterns, the colours and the feel. I think it stems back to when I was a little girl and spent school holidays with my Nana. She was always sewing, knitting, spinning wool, cutting up a pattern, crocheting, quilting, bias binding this and darting that. You name it, she did it.

As her only granddaughter, she would "just rustle up" a skirt, a dress (sometimes made by cutting up another dress), a basket of scrunchies or a cute top. It was her thing. It was what she was known for her whole life and she was amazing at it. When she passed away, I was lucky enough to keep her sewing machine......yeah, I know....what am I going to do with it? Well, at the moment, it's in storage but if in the future I don't learn to sew, I'll display it. She used a beautiful black Singer 201K and it's just too lovely an antique to be kept tucked away. They are renowned for being among the best sewing machines ever made and were quite expensive. If you'd like to read more about them (I did and was quite surprised), you can do so here .

A couple of times in the past, I have bought quilting fabric just because I liked it. I liked the way quite different patterns could somehow be combined through colour. I knew I probably wouldn't use it, or if I did, it wouldn't be for a long time. But recently I thought, how can I incorporate fabric into paper craft? If I treat the fabric like paper, how hard could it be?

I came across some cute rubber duckie quilting material and thought that maybe I could use it in my friend's baby album....a bath theme...something like that...

Here's what I started with...

and after adding water and bubbles...

Paper by Sugar & Spice Studio

Card stock (rain) and foam lettering (subway, powder) by American Crafts

Material by Fat Flats (Ducky Bath Yellow)

Buttons by Basic Grey

Ink by Versa Color (Baby Blue)

I bought myself a fabric roller cutter. Those things are great! I left the little loose threads as they reminded me of a fluffy towel or bathmat.

 

Instead of using paper as a mounting platform, I just used the material instead.

 

 

The little duckie on the fabric matched the little duckie on my paper quite nicely :) Quack!

 

If you would like to see another example of fabric incorporated in paper craft, visit Deb's Craft Shed here Deb has made some gorgeous silk flowers for her latest card. Her cards are just lovely :)

 

Only two more pages to go in my friend's album. I'm looking forward to giving it to her. It's been so much fun to make.

 

Thanks for stopping by :)

 

Abs



Making Progress...

Welcome back everybody :)

I am still in the process of making an album for one of my friends and feel like I am making good progress. Only a few more pages to go.

For the very first page, I wanted to do something a bit more textured and detailed. It still allows my friend just to insert her desired photo without having to do anything else. Easy!
I had quite a few flowers I hadn't used in a while - some I had never even opened - so out they came and I got busy "flower arranging" :)

The paper used is by Sugar & Spice Studio.

Cardstock, chipboard lettering, paint, pearls, paper leaves and some of the paper flowers by Kaisercraft.

Other flowers by Cre8tiv and Craft Market.

Ribbon by Krafty Savers.

Also tapestry yarn and flowers cut from lace.

Lots of layers and a little bit of shine provided by the glossy ribbon.

I had some small flowers that were perfect shades of purple for this page, but they had a sparkly silver detail that didn't quite suit. I flipped them over and the back side had quite a nice texture so I used them face down. I also cut some of them up into single "petals", one of which you can see in the foreground here.

The chipboard lettering needed...something...so I just tied a little piece of tapestry yarn around each letter and unravelled the ends. A little bit of...something...but not too much :)

It was good fun doing a 12x12 page. Haven't done one of those in quite some time. Well, back to it.

Thanks for stopping by :)
Abs

Sugar & Spice And All Things Nice.

Hi again :) I am in the process of making a baby album for one of my friends. She welcomed a little girl in April (yes, it's taking me a while). I wanted to make something that wasn't too complicated, where all my friend would have to do is choose her photos, cut them to size and place them in - I could even do that for her once the photos are chosen.

With this in mind, the design is quite basic. I found a great paper pad by the Sugar & Spice Studio called "Baby Girl". It's a 60 page paper pack with 3 sheets each of 20 different designs - perfect for 2 page layouts and embellishing. The same pretty pastels are used throughout the entire pack so although the designs are different, there is a common colour scheme binding them together.

Here's a sneak peek...

This little garden of flowers was created using felt, tapestry yarn (knotted for a bit of detail), and individual flowers cut from lace.

 

What a cute little elephant. I gave him some rhinestone eyes so he could see better :) I also added some lace along with buttons. I threaded tapestry yarn through the button holes and unravelled the yarn a little for some texture.

Hopefully I'll have the album finished in the next couple of weeks. At the moment I am grabbing short pieces of time here and there to do what I can. Only about 8 pages to go.

Are you making anything crafty at the moment?

Until next time :)

Paper, Paper Everywhere...

I love paper. I love card. I love anything that can be cut out, stamped, peeled off and/or stuck onto paper or card. Some people just don't grow out of the childlike pleasure of cutting and pasting. I am one of those people and I make no apologies. There are many of us out there....if you aren't one yourself, you could be living next door to a craftie, or sitting next to one at work...the tall, dark and burly man from the office goes home and uses his special Fiskars paper scissors to cut out snowflakes...

I enjoy making cards mostly, but now and then I'll make a scrapbook, usually as a gift for a friend. I also like making invitations and have done a couple for birthdays and christenings.

For my son's first birthday, I used some fun papers from the Party Animals Collection by Kaisercraft. I wanted something cute, colourful and with a circus or carnival kind of theme. This collection was perfect.

The design was simple, yet effective, with the Tangerine card stock (also by Kaisercraft) being a perfect complement. I added a lime green rhinestone to each corner to give the invitation a little sparkle. The little lion came from a paper within the collection called "Yippee".Because this paper features many different animals, the invitations had great variety and only 2 or 3 sheets were required.

The "Yippee" paper...

Next time I'll show you what I've been doing with the leftover bits and pieces. Nothing goes to waste.

Until then...