Valentine's Day Box Card Tutorial

I have created a tutorial for this Box Card over on the MyMakes forum - do pop over and check it out! I made it into a Valentine's card as it's February, but once you have mastered the construction you can decorate it any way you like.  And it folds flat for posting too.

It's a great little stash-buster for odds and ends of paper and die cuts: even the acetate strips are recycled from packaging materials.

Change the colours and it's good for a wedding. I made a couple of Christmas boxes last year and I have an idea for using some hot air balloon dies sometime soon... would also be good with flowers for Mother's Day.... hmm that's coming up soon isn't it - watch this space!

Button Heart Hoop

A pretty room decoration from a scrap of dressmaking fabric, an embroidery hoops and lots of buttons and beads from my stash

A nice little stash buster I made for the Fiskarettes UK Facebook page back in June. 

I cut a scrap of dress fabric just larger than my embroidery hoop, drew a heart shape

and sewed on a variety of buttons and beads with a few different shades of embroidery silk, then filled in the gaps with seed beads.

I felt it needed a backing as the fabric I had used was quite thin, so to finish the back I trimmed the surplus fabric to about an inch, ran a running stitch around the edge to gather it and stitched a circle of felt to cover the raw edges.

I have had the hoop for years and never used it for its intended purpose but it now looks really pretty on the wall.  I think I may make some more to go with it!

Heart Bunting for the Fiskarettes UK design team

 

I made this shabby chic heart bunting from some scraps of fabric and felt, stranded embroidery silk, ribbon, toy stuffing and some heart shaped shell buttons and flower trim.

I drew ten hearts on the fabric using the 3 inch heart from the Fiskars Hearts Shape Template.  I used a vanishing pen on the right side of the fabric but you could also use a pencil on the reverse instead.

I cut the shapes out with pinking shears allowing a 0.5 cm seam allowance outside the drawn outline.

I used the 1.5 inch heart template to draw 5 hearts on blue felt and cut them out using straight scissors, without leaving a seam allowance.  I blanket-stitched them onto five of the fabric heart shapes using three strands of pink embroidery silk.  I stitched a heart shaped button onto three of the hearts, leaving tails so I could tie the thread in a knot through the buttons.  The other two hearts were decorated with a strip of flower trim with a couching stitch.

I pinned the decorated hearts at regular intervals onto the ribbon, alternating between buttons and flowers.  I then made a sandwich with a little of the toy stuffing and a plain heart behind each one, pinned the edges together and used three strands of pale blue embroidery silk to sew them together along the 0.5 cm seam allowance with a decorative running stitch.  Just before finishing sewing round each heart I stuffed it more firmly with additional stuffing.  Then I made a loop on each end of the ribbon and stitched it with matching cotton to make hanging loops for the bunting.

You could also make individual hearts with a ribbon hanging loop at the top, or even add a little dried lavender to the filling for a drawer freshener.

3rd Jewellery Challenge

This is my entry for the third jewellery challenge The theme is "Hearts or Red" and I have combined the two in this netted seed bead necklace. It sorely tried my patience when I was making it but I am pleased with it now I have finished. It is a pattern from my jewellery class from a couple of years ago, by Gillian Ashwell. I will be wearing it on Valentine's Day!  It's also entered in the seed bead challenge on the Crafts Beautiful forum.

February ATC swap

These ATCs are for the February swap in the Crafts Beautiful forum, the theme is fairly obviously Valentine's Day! The hearts are stitched onto the backing paper in a variety of red seed beads. I tried bugles for one but that didn't work so well as the curves were not very smooth.

This larkpur ATC was created as a thank you for the host of the swap, in 3D decoupage, flat backed crystals and glitter glue. Off to get them in the post now...