Christmas Crackers

I do get some strange requests from time to time and this week it was from a friend in the patchwork group who had purchased a couple of fabric crackers thinking they would be a good thing to make. She was unable to see immediately how they had actually been made and asked me if I could work out the method.  They are lined tubes of fabric into which you can slide a cardboard tube to hold a small gift and the ends were tied with ribbon.  She had partially unpicked one of them and I thought I could see how they were done but needed to have a try with fabric to be sure it worked out as I thought.  I've made a couple today and they turn out to be quick and easy - also  they could be adapted to other sizes depending on what size cardboard tubes you can find. If they were made in non seasonal fabrics they would be handy for parties or maybe wedding favours - endless possibilities - and they could be decorated in different ways with added embellishments!  For these ones I used the inner from a kitchen paper roll and cut it in half; measured the length and circumference to determine the size of fabric to cut; adding on sufficient for the seams and 'frilly' ends which were tied with some matching ribbon.  All that is needed now is to compose some understandable instructions and write them up - usually far more difficult than the sewing in my experience!!

Feeling Sentimental

No, not me - this is the name of the stamp set I used for this card and I really can't imagine how it came to be named but I do know that this particular stamp has never been used until this week.  I must have loads of such stamps which have not been inked so I'm trying at the moment to make better use of things which I have rather than being tempted to buy any more 'stuff'.  The image was stamped onto some cream card and cut out with a label die before cutting it into four pieces to reassemble onto a larger matching label in a darker colour. The background was embossed with a wall type folder and sponged with some brown ink to bring out the texture.  The narrow panel was a dictionary stamp with the addition of a couple of tickets.  A banner and corner cut from oddments completes the card.

Background - Embossalicious folder
Printed panel - Dictionary stamp from Stampin' Up
Main Image - Big wheel stamp from Feeling Sentimental set Stampin' Up
Tickets - Creative Expressions stamp
Sentiment - Tim Holtz stamp

Ghosting Technique

I came across this technique when trawling around Pinterest (as you do) and thought I'd have a go.  The kraft card panel was stamped with the flowers using a white craft ink and once it was dry I stamped again using dye ink slightly offset which was easy to do using a set of clear polymer stamps. Background paper is from Stampin' Up and the sentiment was computer generated.  Some little pearly embellishments were popped on for the flower centres.

Stamps - Flower Patch polymer set Stampin' Up
Background paper -  also SU from a previous catalogue
Sentiment - Stampin' Up punches and Sue Wilson die cut
Colours used - white and rich razzleberry SU

Cats (and some birds)

The challenge theme this week on Make My Monday is cats, large or small and there are some great ideas from the design team, including of course some Halloween ones!  My cats are of the small variety and they are watching birds in a tree.  The background was embossed and sponged with Distress inks before adding the little die cut birds and cats.  Sentiment is a free stamp which came on a magazine (again) and is popped onto some die cut shapes.  The background piece of card was lurking in my bits box from a demonstration day so I decided to assemble it with the other items for this challenge - another 'bit' used up!!  As the weather has turned nasty after the lovely days we've been having I went into the craft room with good intentions to have a sort out but again became distracted when I came across this embossed piece - there are other items to use up too of course so the tidying could take a while at this rate.

Birds - Memory Box dies
Cats - Impression Obsession dies
Background - unknown folder (on loan for a demonstration)
Sentiment - free magazine stamp on various Sue Wilson die cut shapes

Flowers for Pixie Snippets

Before I put away the stamps I used recently I decided to make another card for the Pixie Snippets challenge this week.  The background was embossed and the flowers stamped onto snippets of white card which in turn have been mounted onto some pale plum pieces from my bits boxes. I'm very fond of these colours but as I've had these bits for ages they may well have been discontinued - shame but they may well have been replaced by something similar.  The squares were first die cut and then the corners rounded off with a punch.  The butterfly has been die cut from another snippet as were the scalloped shapes for the computer generated wording.  As always there is a lovely prize on offer this week so well worth taking a look.

Stamps - Summer Silhouette Stampin' Up
Butterfly - Spellbinders die
Colours - Perfect Plum and Pale Plum (possibly discontinued)