How To: Simple Stripy Scrap Cards

A couple of years ago I'd been thinking about making paper flowers for my sister's wedding. She ended up going in a different direction with her decor, so the crepe paper colour swatch I'd bought went in a drawer and sat there unused... until now!

I have no plans to order more crepe paper any time soon, so when I re-discovered the swatch this week I decided to chop up the samples and use them to make some colourful, stripy cards:

Aren't those colours just gorgeous? Ah, bright colour makes me so happy.

The texture of the crepe paper is also rather wonderful.

Making your own striped cards is a quick and easy crafty project, and a great way to make use of any delicious scraps of colour in your paper stash.

Okay so you probably won't have a crepe paper colour swatch sitting in a drawer, like I did, but if your crafty stash is anything like mine you've probably got lots of colourful paper scraps which you've kept because they're too nice to just throw away.

To make the cards: 

Cut your scraps to an even width (mine are about 5.5 cm across), then cut them into sections of differing heights (I cut mine between 1-3 cm). I used a pencil and a ruler to make sure all my rectangles were straight and neat, drawing the lines on the back of the paper.

Arrange the scraps on white card blanks, with a mix of colours and sizes.

I made some tall stripy cards...

.... a stripy postcard...

... and some mini stripy cards to send with my parcels (using up some scrap bits of white card in the process, hurrah!). Add a hole and a piece of coordinating twine and these would make great gift tags.

Once you're happy with the arrangement of your scraps, stick them in place with double-sided sticky tape or a glue stick. I used tape to stick mine, it's less messy than using glue and I was also worried that pressing the glue stick along the flexible crepe paper would stretch and distort it. Whatever method you chose, line up your rectangles neatly and press them down firmly.

On the mini cards, I cut the cards to be slightly narrower than the paper scraps (5 cm wide) so the paper went up to and over the edges. If you like this look, once you've stuck the paper in place turn the cards over and trim the excess paper with scissors for a lovely neat finish.

So simple, so stripy, so good.

I can't wait to send these little stripy bursts of colour!
 
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#Crafting365 Days 24-35: A Knitting Obsession and a Needy Kitty

I don't know about you guys, but I find that the arrival of autumn always re-ignites my love for knitting. I've been knitting blanket squares like craaaaaazy over these past couple of weeks! My knitting has been making regular appearances in my daily #Crafting365 photos, but even when there's been no yarn in the pics there's been some knitting happening behind the scenes...

On day 24, I did some knitting and cut out my festive embroideries, ready to turn them into felt ornaments (you'll find the free patterns for these designs here). I used tracing paper to make the circle template - the semi-transparent paper makes it easy to perfectly position the template to frame the motif.

On day 25, I did some work on my Christmas quilt... and did some more knitting.

By day 26, my pile of re-knitted blanket squares was thirteen squares high, and still growing...

... and I (entirely predictably) did a bit more knitting on day 27. I also did some "cutting and sticking", making a few "thanks for your order!" cards to send out with my shop orders. These photos are of some of the gorgeous vintage scissors and sewing threads I inherited from my grandmother.

The next few days were very hectic, as I had a looming deadline. I did a small amount of knitting on day 28 (I'd not noticed how bent that knitting needle is until I took that photo!) ...

... did a little bit of work on some candy corn -themed tutorials on day 29...

... then met my deadline on day 30 (yay!) and collapsed in a bit of a heap on the sofa as I'd come down with a horrid cold (boo!). I spent most of the rest of the day curled up under a blanket with the cats keeping me company (our cats are very pro-blanket, especially blankets with a person underneath them) feeling a bit sorry for myself but very glad I'd managed to meet my deadline.

I tried to do some knitting in the evening but only managed to focus long enough to knit these few stitches. Better than nothing though, right?

The blanket-y theme continued on day 31 as I did some more blanket-square knitting and started sewing together some mini squares to add to my patchwork blanket. I'm sewing the squares together in blocks of one colour then slotting the shapes into the blanket, creating a Tetris-like pattern. 

On day 32 my #Crafting365 projects had to fight with our little old lady cat for attention! She is being super needy at the moment and loudly demanding lots and lots of cuddles. I tried to ignore her while sewing some more shapes onto this cushion but she was very determined and just jumped straight up onto my lap and sat on the felt. Luckily there weren't any pins in it at the time, and she didn't do any damage to the project with her sharp claws!

 

Our old lady kitty was still insisting on lots of loooooong cuddles on day 33, so I switched to a smaller project that I could stitch with a cat curled up on my lap: finishing the embroidered felt baubles. I'll have a tutorial for making these up on my blog sometime soon!

I let #Crafting365 take over my schedule on day 34 for a hugely enjoyable day of making and crafty brainstorming. It was wonderful! I worked on a whole bunch of different projects, including my geometric cushion which is now almost finished (yay!). 

Then my knitting obsession returned full force on day 35 with yet more blanket-square knitting and lots of happy hours spent working on my mini patchwork square blanket. I added some more squares to the blanket, then wove in a whole bunch of yarn ends.

This is definitely the downside to making patchwork blankets, and the smaller the squares the more ends there are to sew in! It's a very relaxing way to spend the evening though: a perfect simple, repetetive task to do while chatting and watching TV.

I expect there will be lots more blanket squares and lots more yarn ends popping up in my #Crafting365 posts over the coming months...

Making Mini Thank-you Cards

I'm working towards getting prepared for the Christmas season at the moment (it seems to come around quicker, every year!), and I noticed that my stash of mini thank-you cards was running low... so I've been gradually working on a big batch of them while watching TV during the evenings.

Whenever I send out an order from my shop, I include a business card and a little handwritten thank-you note. I always appreciate a handwritten thank-you when I shop on sites like Etsy, it adds to the sense that you're buying from / supporting a person instead of a faceless corporation, and I hope my customers will feel the same :)

I've used all sorts of random bits of card from my stash to make the cards, first cutting the pieces to approximately business card size and then decorating them with an assortment of pretty stickers and tape - including designs by Summersville and Joanna Rutter which I also use for prettifying my parcels.

It's good to know I won't run out of thank-you cards during my busy season, and it's great to have at least one job ticked off my pre-Christmas to do list!

Jubilee Weekend Bits & Bobs

I hope you guys enjoyed the Jubilee weekend!

Here a few snaps of what I've been up to over the past few days...

I used some pretty tape from Summersville to make lots of mini "thankyou" cards to send out with my orders - this was the perfect task to do while sitting watching coverage of the Jubilee festivities on the telly! I use the same tape when packing my orders, sealing bags and envelopes. 

Following the fine example set by our kitties, I've been spending lots of time curled up with blankets taking it easy (although I haven't gone as far as to have have actual naps yet, haha). The weather has been so cold & miserable here lately that both cats have adopted a very "pro lap" policy this week and I've had lovely purring bundles of fur keeping me company (& keeping me warm!) when watching films in the evening.

Thanks to the chilly weather I've also managed to get caught up with my sky blanket. It's definitely the right sort of weather to sit with a half-finished blanket on your lap, sewing in yarn ends. I've been knitting so many grey squares for it lately, I don't think this blanket is going to be a particularly great advertisement for the charms of the British summertime!

I've also been framing some large prints & posters, the frames for which have been on my "to buy" list since I sorted through my pictures back in January. January! At this rate, I may have actually hung some art on my walls by the end of the year. (The print in this slightly blurry pic is by Hazel Nicholls).

In other news....I'm trying a few new things:

1) I've switched off the word verification widget on my blog's comment form. I keep reading on blogs etc how much people hate them / how they prevent some people from commenting, and I'd hate for that to be happening here on my blog! However, I am a little concerned about getting a sudden influx of spam in my inbox so I'm going to give it a try for a while and see what happens. If there ends up being too much spam it will have to come back again (sorry!).

2) I'm giving up caffeine for a bit, to see what effect it has on my energy levels. I've been trying to cut down on my tea drinking for a while now but it's all too easy to let those tea breaks slip back into my routine (especially with my parents freqently offering to put the kettle on). Today is Day 2. I'll let you know how it goes! :)

and 3) I've resolved to stop neglecting my Facebook page as I have shamefully done pretty much since I first got it. I don't use Facebook very much in my personal life & it's taken me a while to get used to it / work out how I want to use it for my business. I've been linking to my latest blog posts, but really that's not very exciting, is it?

So from here on I'm going to be trying to share some more fun stuff over on Facebook - links to cool projects, tutorials or crafty products I find in my online travels, reviews of my book or nice things people have been making from my tutorials, and other bits and pieces that are great but aren't normally things I blog about... plus I'll keep you up to date about new posts here on the blog & anything new / any special offers in my shops. Sound good? Click here to visit my Facebook page.

October Crafting

I'm still in the process of moving house, so things have been a bit quiet on the crafty front this month - not least because most of my craft supplies are packed up in boxes.

I have been doing a little bit of knitting.... well, unravelling and re-knitting!

My mum started knitting this scarf (from some yarn which my sister bought when she briefly attempted to take up knitting) but she unfortunately has had to give up knitting due to problems with her joints, so she asked me to finish it. Our tension is so different that I couldn't just pick up where she left off, and it turned into one of those jobs you keep meaning to do but never get round to, sitting in my knitting stash for many months.

I finally unravelled it a few weeks ago and have been knitting it gradually in the evenings while watching TV. The yarn is lovely and soft and cosy, and the simple rib knit is a perfect switch-off-your-brain soothing project.

I've also been making some festive thankyou cards to send with my shop orders, using the cute mini snowflake stamps I bought from MUJI last year. I've actually run out of my normal thankyou notes at the moment, so I've had to break into the snowflake ones already... well, it's almost winter, right?

In other news, my shop got a nice little mention in CrossStitcher magazine this month:

(Unfortunately there was a bit of a mix-up about my prices... the Goldfinch Brooch is £15, but the 10 felt squares are £5.50 not £2.99 and the 6 mini embroidery hoops are £8 not £5.50)

I've never bought a cross stitch magazine before, but I am totally in love with this one!

It has even inspired me to get my pad of graph paper out and start designing a little something stitchy of my own... but pics of that will have to wait for another day :)

Packing, Wrapping, Posting

Packing: getting an order ready to send with a candy stripe paper bag, pretty tape from Summersville (which I also use to seal all my parcels), a colourful business card and a hand-written thankyou note.


Wrapping: sorting a delivery of mini embroidery hoops into bubble-wrapped sets of six before storing them (pre-packing them makes posting days run much more smoothly).


Posting: no posting day can happen without the contents of this basket! It contains (almost) all the kit I need for sorting out orders and packing parcels.


(If you're interested, you can click on the image or this link for detailed notes of what's in the basket)

Silver and Gold Thankyous

I've been in the mood for some cutting and sticking this week, so as well as notecards I've been making lots of little thankyou cards to send with my shop orders. Each card is about 3 inches (7.5cms) across.


I've been using up lots of paper scraps to decorate them, including bits of yummy silver and gold paper ribbon leftover from giftwrapping.

I stuck some of the ribbon onto my mini cards "as is" but also used the wide ribbon like fancy paper, and cut shapes out of it: silver hearts and little gold oak leaves.

PS - today is your last chance to enter this month's giveaway! Visit this blog post for a chance to win an autumnal felt flower headband (comments close at 10pm tonight, UK time).

Love Notes

I always include a little thankyou note when I parcel up my orders and whenever I have the time I love making a batch of handmade cards - decorated with stickers, shiny paper & fancy giftwrap.

This week I've been making use of some felt scraps to make these mini cards:


They're really easy to make - just cut out a simple heart shape and stick it to some bright card with double-sided sticky tape. Instant cuteness!

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In My Absence...

Lots of photos to catch up from the past week!

When I had to break off from my daily blogging last weekend I kept myself entertained whilst ill by doing nice relaxing crafty things like cutting and sticking (making thankyou notes to send out with my orders) and doing a bit of knitting...
... then I went to visit my mum for a few days to get looked after & took lots of sewing projects with me. I made a start on finishing these ...
... and then I got scratched on my sewing hand by my mother's giant cat Ollie and was stuck unable to sew for a few days. This is the beast wot dunnit (normally very sweet tempered!)
Now I'm back and (almost) fully healed and getting stuck into some sewing again. On Sunday I made a batch of specially ordered poppies (including one little poppy in "orchid", which turned out rather nicely) ...... and then yesterday (Crafting 365, day 353) I finished some bluetit and badger brooches that had been sitting in my wip box for just ages awaiting their eyes and little noses: all the fiddly final touches.In other news: you can now send an e-card featuring one of my photos over on DaWanda, in English, French or German. I didn't know in advance that my product would be featured, so it was a very nice surprise when I went to check out their new e-cards!
Plus a big shout out and congratulations are due to fellow UK crafter Bombus who was Etsy's Featured Seller at the weekend and (drumroll please) to Memake who is I think the first Crafting 365 member to actually complete their 365 project! She managed to stick very strictly to the task and completed it within a calendar year (unlike me!) and took some fab pics along the way. You can check out her amazing crafting photos HERE.