Inspired by my home town...

Recently I was asked to make some brooches with a 'Margate' theme. It sparked a whole host of ideas all based around my home town, hence my lack of blogging over the last few weeks as I've been busy creating.

A cushion with a bit of machine and hand quilting and I was able to use some jelly roll strips I'd been saving for the right project. The centre 'Margate' panel was hand stamped just like the Love Is The Drug block I made. This is it before quilting, a simple construction around the centre panel.

I used the same alpha stamps to make some hand painted and stamped cards.

And finally a small selection of the fabric and felt brooches.

......you've got to have ice cream at the seaside - right?

Home Sweet Home - mark 2

Hi when I've not been busy with granny squares I've been dabbling with frames again. This one is bigger than the last one I found but I gave it the white treatment again.

No bunting this time but the flowers stuck......

.....those felt flowers, would you like to know how I make them? They are good for 3D projects and of course if you make your own  embellishments you get to choose what colour they are.

First cut five flowers shapes, I use my ever useful tattered floral die but if you don't have a flower die, circles would work just as well.

Take one of the flower shapes and fold it in half and half again so it's a quarter of it's original size. Hold it's shape with a couple of stitches at the pointed end.

Taking one the shapes as the base of your flower sew the quartered flower to the centre of the base with a couple of stitches. Repeat folding the other three shapes and sew them in position too covering the whole base shape.

Once you've finished you should have a fluffy looking flower. The felt gives it a very rounded shape and two back to back would give a pom-pom effect. (mmmmm now I'm thinking they would make lovely tree decorations.....don't get distracted!) If you make them from fabric they have a less structured look but are still as effective. It's fun to experiment with different flower shapes too.

Have fun creating.

Me a wallflower?

A very good friend of mine sent me a link to a brilliant tutorial for making a felt dahlia corsage. Now, whilst the instructions were very clear and I could see how lovely the end result could be I'm ashamed to say I abandoned my attempt. Yes, I baled out early. The tutorial did say that the stage I got to was the most frustrating - how right it was. This is my attempt, I'd even bought special fabric glue but it just didn't want to stick and drying took forever. I'm not the most patient........Perhaps one day I'll revisit this little project but just as likely it will get lost in the blackhole that is my craft room. Then around the same time I saw these fabulous fabric wall sculptures and decided to recreate one in paper on a somewhat smaller scale using the same technique as the felt dahlia.

This is my prototype it measures about 12" in diameter and is made from 12x12 double sided scrapbook paper. At first I thought about mounting one on a square canvas but then remembered that you can buy self adhesive rings for hanging posters and I think one of these would work well to mount directly onto the wall. If I make another I think I might try to add another layer of petals or make a beaded centre but I'll definitely use a more striking colour combination.

You never know where inspiration is going to come from do you?

Shake your tailfeather

.....that's the song that kept going through my head as I was making this little felt birdie brooch and ok so he hasn't got a tailfeather more of a tailribbon but I did contemplate the feather. I think I could end up with a whole collection of these maybe I'll include that feather in one.

With Spring nearing, although it certainly didn't feel like it today I thought I'd use some spring like colours to make a birthday card. I stamped the flowers and chinese vase onto watercolour paper and coloured the flowers with yellow cosmic shimmer watercolour paint. I don't know if you can see very well in the photo but I then sewed a tiny black seed bead in the centre of the flowers. Yellow isn't normally a colour I use but I thought it looked good with the black card that I matted the stamped image on. The finishing touch, some tied yellow organza ribbon. I have another card to share later in the week.

I really must get my February page ready.....