Fabric art wallhanging & images (24)

This wallhanging has really satisfied my love for embellishing, textures and fabrics. For all that might look complex, it definitely took me far less time than making a card, it just seemed to come together without effort. I want to head in this direction more often. 
I was inspired by Ruth Rae, her book 'layered, tattered & stitched' plus several other blogs which pointed me in the right direction. Now that I have made my first one, I do not think I will need to refer to them again.


It is not quite complete as I want to add a couple of fabric tabs with a personal messages for my friend. I have hidden a 'Happy Birthday' message, which I hope she will find if she explores it, so she can hang it up without as a piece of Art without a glaring birthday sentiment.


It measures about 24cms wide by 45cms, 9.5" x 18"....ish


Anyway, I don't know what you think of it, any comments or suggestions very much welcomed :o)

I tea dyed the lace and fabrics

Centre embellishment was a necklace. All buttons are vintage.

Brass top bit, half a sawn off key

Navy blue base, is a hardback book cover

2 organza 'pockets ' containing 'things'

Baptism project/keepsake

I am really disappointed in these photos I took of this, they are very very grainy. That's what happens under low lighting conditions. I've spent weeks making it, and now I am unable to show it at it's best. Oh well, c'est la vie.

Shut up and move on eh?

Some of the graininess of the actual people photographs is because the lady who took them forgot to use zoom, so I had a real job on my hands trying to improve them when they were cropped down so small.

For some reason the text has ended up highlighted, and I cannot get rid of it.

I think I'll give up for tonight and go to bed  lol

The white lace butterfly top left, I took off of a vintage brooch. The top right and bottom left flowers and elements were donated to me by Malikas' parents from the table decorations at the party. (Except for the 2 round pink flowers which I made)

Malikas' parents, (on the right), have a nickname for her: 'Princess' so I added the 'crown' to her photo, and the background, as she was in someone's arms in the original photo. This 'page' is my favourite.

As you can see, I still have not learnt to stamp straight...grrr!

I zigzag stitched the heart shaped photos onto ........Yeah! Wallpaper! cut into hearts.

I do not know if you can see, but the flower centres under the Ladies photo are tiny tiny mother of pearl buttons only about 5mm across which I picked up in a job lot of buttons recently. I do not 'do' cute, as such, but these buttons are definitely 'Cute'

I am not all that good at arranging photos, but obviously these had to be in 'relative' order. Apologies again for the poor photo quality.

The Above is from the afternoon party, I copied some elements that were on the tables. The cake in the shape of a bed is a traditional design for French Baptism cakes. The peachy and cream background of the cake picture I made from paper decorations they had hanging round the walls. The picture frame, is a chipboard oval I made and I wrapped ribbon round it, put an acetate sheet over the photograph.

The Disney elements come from a box of almonds that I was given by them as a souvenir. Bob ate them as I am now allergic to nuts...nuts!  The pink garish 'rose'/flower I made from donated petals that they had spread over the tables.

This project just looks so much better in real life...honestly!

Tea cup mini pig easel card

My friend wants to own one of those tea cup pigs. I've never heard of them until now.  It looks to me like an animal you could easily lose in your house!


For her birthday I made this pig themed card. I experimented in making a box style envelope for it....out of wallpaper.... of course, as I always do. It turned out OK, however I did have to reinforce the sides with some chipboard strips.


I treated myself to some circle scalloped  Nestability dies so decided to make the circular 'tag' .  I also put a vellum 'window' on the front of the envelope, but you cannot see through it at all. If I do this again I'll use a bit of clear acetate. 


Thank you to 'The Graphics fairy' for the free sentiments, which I actually copied then modified a little in photoshop. 


The 'tag' that props up the front of the card 'make a wish' was meant to be loose. I'd ordered a couple of fimo pig heads and intended to use them to prop the card up, but they never arrived in time. The whole of France is on holiday in August, and it severely affects postal deliveries. What is the betting they turn up tomorrow!


The scalloped edges on the back of the envelope were done with shaped scissors. That was fun trying to line them up exactly!  I made all the fabric flowers myself, and I particularly like the pink button, as it looks just like a pigs snout. 
Instead of adding leaves to the flowers I wound through some gauze I found in our first aid box. I've been looking for some everywhere, and I had some here all the time, and I have been dying to use it. 
Talking of dying, the next card I am planning will involve having a go at dyeing some of the gauze with my over abundant crop of blackberries.


2 things I wish I could change on this card is to get rid of the brown fibre edging, I don't like it. Secondly, I really must try harder in lining up things straight. I can see it in the photos now that some elements are decidedly on the skew. Well, I am only an amateur I suppose, it looks so unprofessional.


One thing I did learn whilst making this is to tie bows so they sit straight. But I couldn't do this on the back of the envelope because the ribbon was too short and I did not have any-more in that colour. Learnt to do this by following this tutorial at Sharons blogspot:  Created By You Thank you for that Sharon.

Wedding card for bikers

I confess to seeing this style of card on another blog, and thought it would be perfect for my biker friends wedding card. A card in white, pinks and ivory just would not of been suitable for them, they are far too 'alternative'.

Its an easel card with an acetate window. I did not have any inks that would stick so I ended up drawing the swirls by hand on the acetate with a dip pen in Alcohol ink, as I don't know how to apply bottled ink to a stamp. I think the result is a bit 'naff' but I knew of no alternative. As it was I waited until the 'nth hour, as I'd ordered some stayzon ink pads which never arrived in time.

I made the little cherub from polymer clay in a mould and painted it silvery black. Again I have embellished with studs round the edge. The 'congrats' stamp is the only one I have, not much choice there then! I used removable body tattoo's on the acetate...the barbed wire. I sprayed everywhere with shimmer.

With this card, this was my first use of fabric flowers (see previous post). I've used quite alot of silver stickers, which is something I do not normally do. The envelope was made from good old wallpaper and for a change I decorated the back of the envelope instead of the 'front'

If anyone can tell me how to glue items to inked paper can they tell me, because I had terrible trouble, I had to scrape off the ink down to the paper to get the embellishments to stick.
To be honest, I think I like the envelope better!

Dartboard Cabinet Card. Gatefold

I think this has to be the simplest card I have made to date, it certainly seemed easy to do.
My friend is big fan of Darts, won a few trophies himself. Therefore as it is his birthday this week I thought I'd make a Dartboard cabinet card.
The cabinet itself is covered, both sides, in wallpaper. The hinges are flourishes which I got cheap from Maya road (eBay), cut them down, inked them in gold and walnut stain. The 'handles' are metal buttons which I filed off the shanks at the backs with my handy Dremel tool. After that, just a case of sticking padded tape into the backs.

I made the dartboard in photoshop, changed all the wire numbers so it reads 'Happy Birthday Symon 44' (that's his age), added his birth-date at the top to match the 'Champion' lettering.
To get the angle of the darts, which happen to be: 1 in where 19 should be, and 2 in the number 6 = 1966...smart eh? I wonder if he will suss that?
So I took a photograph of an actual dartboard with the darts in those places, printed them off and cut them out onto chipboard. The flights have a bit of foam behind them to give some dimension, whilst the tips are glued straight onto the board..

Chalk boards made from matt black paper, written on with a white oil pastel crayon.
And that as they say is that.
By the way, the front of the envelope is a photo of Phil Taylor, THE top English Darts player in PDC, I know Symon is a huge fan of his. I distorted the banner he is holding in Photoshop, then glued it into Phils Hands.

Birthday card for a singer

Its been quite a few weeks since I made a card as I seem to of been busy doing DIY around the house and trying to pot up all the 100's of seedling coming through in my greenhouse.
 This particular card I made this week is for a real tomboy lady's birthday who as well as being an 'off roading' freak in her top of the range Land Rover, likes to sing with 'big band' musicians. So I thought I'd use this as the theme, something a bit glitzy and more 'girly' than land rovers and muddiness. .

I sprayed the chipboard letters with glue then dipped them into fine glitter. I only hope it stays stuck on as I do not know any other way of gluing glitter down.

70th French birthday card completed

Good afternoon/morning/evening depending upon your location. I hope you are having a great time???
Today I finished a card for a neighbours Husband for whom I do odd jobs for. Its his 70th on the 25th.
With this card I have aimed towards not just 70, but anything french to do with the year 1940.
Not wanting to do an ordinary straight shaped card, I opted for this style,  which I dont know what its called,  anyone know?
The 'backing' papers of burgundy and blue are wallpaper. The calender on the right is from 1940, I'm going to put a red circle round his birthday date, I must remember to do that!  I added chipboard shapes and letters, numbers, I love flourishes, they are so universal.


Of course, the stamps are 1940's french ones and the papers behind '1940', '70' and Bon Anniversaire are 1940's french franc notes. What was left over I used for the flowers.
The reciept in the middle, I found on the net, is from 1940 for goods bought in our nearest city. The 2 flowers are a mish mash of 2 styles that I found in a tutorial. I will add the links to the links column when I can find them again. I really like the spikey additions at the back of them. Takes a long time to make them though.


It may seem as if the envelope is on the rather large size, and indeed it is as this card when folded down is a very odd shape. In fact, the whole card will not stand up, I had to add flaps at the back of both the tall squares, I think they are called easels???


Many more photos now on cards for men page  Photos of things you cannot see in these few
Anyway, I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed making it.
Cheers for now.