Lighthouse papercut card

For my uncle's birthday I made a lighthouse papercut card. I backed the papecut with red paper which really highlights the details of the lighthouse.

I hope he likes it!

Royal Festival Hall papercut

Here's a papercut I did last year for my Uncle's birthday. The Royal Festival Hall has an iconic shape that makes it a great choice for a paper cut. I 'lit' the windows with some orange paper to help the building stand out (and because he really likes orange!).

Papercut wedding card 2

When I make cards to celebrate a wedding I like to try and incorporate some of the couple's wedding theme into my card. Steve and Chika had bunting on their wedding invite so I had to have bunting somewhere on the card! (Sorry about the picture but I was running late for the wedding!)

Pretty cardboard letters

Today we has my niece's dedication. It was a lovely day where we could give thanks to God for her. I couldn't miss a chance to make some decorations for the party afterwards. As she has a short name I thought some cardboard letters would be perfect!

I found some pretty wrapping paper in Waterstones and painted the edges and back in a lovely fuchsia colour. A very easy craft and it didn't take that long either!

Pop and bang - my little felt rabbit puppets

When I saw these cute bunny rabbit puppets on the purl bee blog I knew I had to make them to use in sunday school. They were a real hit with the children and after the story they loved playing with them. They're very easy to make - although I'm not that good with the sewing machine and they have a few holes in the sides where I've only sewed through one layer of felt! I used Kunin eco-fi felt to make them and some of my scraps for the ears and nose.

As you can see the bunnies loved their photo shoot and I got to play with my new camera as well.

Time for a rest after all that running around...

The pattern and instructions can be found here - warning: more cute bunny photography!

The Ashford Eagle Owl

Had an exciting morning trying out my new Canon EOS 1100d camera when the Ashford Eagle Owl unexpectedly decided to spend a few hours in my nan's garden. I'm not usually one for bird watching but I couldn't resist an opportunity to see what my camera could do (although it might of helped if I'd finished reading the instruction manual first!) It sat in the flower bed for ages and I managed to get quite close.

A cat came along and it ruffled it's feathers while they stared each other out.

I got this one of the eagle owl taking off - shame it's not in focus but it all happened very quickly!

You could see how large it's wing span was when it was flying off back to Charter House.

You never know it might come back again - but as I'm going back to work on Monday I probably won't be around to see it.

Papercut wedding card

One of my old school friends got married on Friday. I wanted to make them a wedding card that was unique to them so decided to try a papercut based on some designs I'd seen on Etsy. Wasn't exactly sure of their colour scheme but went for bright purple which turned out to be the same colour as the bridesmaid dress!

Scrabble cushions

I've finally finished the scrabble cushions! It may have taken a few months (since August!) but they are now finished and will be taking their places on my sister's window seat as soon as she's finished the seat.

In order to get an authentic Scrabble font I enlarged some pictures I found of the original scrabble cushions and cut the letters and numbers out from them. The cushion pads are very cheap cushions from Ikea and the cover was made from Ikea white fabric. The numbers and letters are black felt. Each cushion is double sided so there are double the letters to play with....

Turn over the S and the T and you get...

 Turn over the A and you get a W...

Turn over the E and you get an I...

They'll provide hours of entertainment at my sister's house as they try and work out all the words you can spell with them. Now I might have to make a set for me....

Wedding anniversay papercut

Last year I was a bridesmaid for a friend's wedding over in Canada. It was a great day and a beautiful wedding. It's just coming up to their 1st wedding anniversary and I wanted to make them a special present out of paper (the traditional 1st anniversary gift!). After downloading Inkscape for free I started playing around with some designs for a papercut. When I had the final design I reversed the image and printed it on to some nice white paper. I then started cutting out the design...

 After a few hours (and a severely dented finger from pressing too hard on the knife!) it turned out like this...

I managed to find some card the same colour as our bridesmaid's dresses. Although I haven't actually mounted it on to the card as I wasn't sure if the colour would go in their house!

The bride's brother had created their wedding stationery and designed 2 birds that featured on everything (including the cake!). I couldn't do a papercut without including them - in the end I put them everywhere! At their reception they had loads of Christmas trees so I put a few at the bottom of the heart.

It's in the post now on the way to Canada. Hopefully they'll both like it!

Letter 'R' tote bag

It was my friend's birthday at the weekend and I couldn't find anything to get her so I decided to decorate a plain tote bag that I'd got from Hobby Craft. The bag looked a bit boring with just the letter on it so I put some buttons on the letter and also at the bottom of the straps.

 

  

She loved the bag and used it to carry all her other presents home! I've got 2 more plain bags to decorate so watch this space to see what I do with them!

Papercut butterfly pictures

I made a lot of these papercut butterfly pictures for Christmas presents this year. I found some great square box frames in Debenhams that meant I could make the butterfly wings stand out from the background so they look 3d. Think my favourite one is the bright red butterfly. It will look great in my sisters' red and white bedroom!

Butterfly papercut notebook

We're doing Secret Santa again at work this year. I had £1 left of my budget and couldn't find much under £2 in central London apart from this cheap notebook in Paperchase (although it was £1.50... I know, 50p over budget!). So I decided to cut a little butterfly to decorate the front and make it look pretty. I hope she likes it and doesn't guess too quickly who gave it to her.

Papercut Christmas card

Inspired by the laser cut christmas cards in Paperchase I decided to make my own version. Not a card for mass production as it took 4 hours to make!

I designed it on corel draw, flipped the image and then printed it on to card so I could cut it out from the back so you wouldn't see the lines. I'd forgotten how hard it is to cut card with a knife - it would probably have been easier to cut it from paper and glued it on the card.

Now I just gave to decide who to give it to!

Strawberry tote bag

I'm very proud of this tote bag I decorated for my Aunt's birthday - I think it turned out quite well considering I didn't really plan it. I've had the strawberry fabric for ages and now I've finally found a use for it (although there is still a lot left!). The fabric square is also a pocket, which will be handy to put keys in when she's out shopping.

The strawberry is made out of some red fabric that I also found stashed away in my cupboard. I ironed some bond-a-web to the back so it wouldn't fray. Unfortunately we didn't have any double sided bond-a-web so I still had to sew the strawberry on to the pocket. The stalk is made out of felt (I had to use felt somewhere!). The seeds are sewn on with white thread.

I found one of my old school uniform tags to use as a label. The reds match really well and finishes it off.

Now I've got 3 more plain tote bags to decorate for Christmas presents. Just got to decide what to do with them....

Butterfly card

It was my cousins 21st so I made her this butterfly card with some pretty butterfly paper I found in my local art shop.

Cath Kidston birthday card

For Christmas I got some lovely Cath Kidston note paper. I just couldn't resist using it on my cards...

I also used a Cath Kidston label for the message on the front and rubber stamped Happy Birthday inside it.

Meet Jonah!

The felt bible friends man is finished! The children loved him so he will definitely be helping me in Sunday school again. Although they got a bit concerned when his sandals fell off - so he might have to leave them at home next time.

Jonah even stands up by himself (although only on the rug!). As his arms have wire in them you can move them around so he can do different poses.

His hair is attached with velcro so I can use the body again with a different hair style (I could even make him into a woman!). I made his hair like I would make a pom-pom but I tied it off before the disc was fully stuffed. His coat is made from strips of felt sewn together.


For his next Sunday school outing I need to give him a beard. I found some great fringed ribbon in the Sunday school craft box so stay tuned for the beared version....

Attempt at making a Bible Friends character

I'm leading the 3 year olds in Sunday School this week and we're doing the story of Jonah and the big fish. We use this really cool bible called the Big Bible Storybook by Maggie Barfield, which has great pictures of the Bible Friends characters acting out the stories.

I though it might be fun to try and make one of them to use to tell the story on Sunday. What would be even better is if I could make it stand up and also make the arms bend!

I got him to stand up by himself (although only on the carpet!). He has a wire frame inside him so his arms and head can be moved around. I know he has one odd coloured section of his head - but I initially thought the head would just be tester. I was going to make another one but I got a bit carried away with making him and before I knew it the head was attached to the body.

Now I just have to make his face and clothes...

Crafty biscuits!

A few years ago I got sent some lovely biscutis from a catering company called Lettice who had launched a biscuit company, Biscuiteers. They have gorgeous designs and taste good! They even sell biscuit cards too.

They've just launched a tin of sewing themed biscuits - perfect for your crafty friends. When they've finished eating them they can use the tin to store their crafty things. You can buy them here.

Advent calendar - 15 December

Sorry about the short lapse in posts - been a bit busy getting ready for Christmas. I even had some orders for my felt reindeer and Christmas trees!

For those of you following my advent calendar this one will take you up until the 10th December

And this will take you from the 11th to the 15th.

I had great fun taking the shots for the videos and especially trying to get the Santa Sheep to stand up. I ended up using a combination of invisible thread to hang him from the ceiling, and pencils tapped to his legs to help keep his body up. The little felt snowflakes in this video are attached to the invisible thread to make them look like they are floating.