New Header

Have you noticed that we've got a new header? Don't you just love the fairy.? She's also the new logo on the Craft Fairy site so you'll see a lot more of her in the future.

I'd love to hear what you have to say about her so leave your comments for me to read.

A Corsage from Paper Flowers

Recently I've taken delivery of a large number of fantastic paper flowers and they are too wonderful to leave untouched in boxes until they sell. So I've decided to put my floristry training into practice and show everyone how to use the flowers to make a corsge.

You will need to set out what you need to start with:

On my table I had small yellow (it said yellow on the packet but they really are cream!) rose buds.

Small open tea roses in cream.

Medium open tea roses in fuchsia.

Large curly roses in Cream.

A couple of green hydrangea petals and some tacky glue.

First of all I cut the green flower in four as seen below.

Then I layered the smaller roses as shown below. Start with the smallest flower at the top and gradually wor down to the largest of the three.

Now twist the stems together.

Add some glue to the base of the leaf .

Glue behind the flowers as seen below.

Repeat the same steps with flowers and leaves for the other side. Lay them on the table and cross over at the centre point.


Put the large rose in the centre and then twist the wires together at the back of the corsage so that they lie flat. At this point, this is what you'll end up with.

However, I decided that it looked a little empty in the middle so I glued some green petals behind the central flower and I was happy with the way that it looked.

Challenge 82 - Kids Kardz!

I know that I don't very often make cards for boys but this time I'm making the exception because it lets me use this great stamp from the Kids Collection by The Merry Stamper.

This card was made for

Challenge 82 - Kids Kardz!

on My Time to Craft.
This fab boy stamp is from the set of Sketch kids stamps from The Merry Stamper.
I also used some of our highly desired dinosaur ribbon.
Some Kuretake Art and Graphic, double ended pens for the colouring and a waterbrush for the shading.

I do hope that you like this effort as I know what a pain it is to make cards for boys and I hope that any slug hunter that gets it will love it too.

How chuffed am I, I've just had one of my tutorials added to the Inspirational Tipe, Techniques and Tutorials blog.







So please check it out for mine and other great tutorials.

Fennel Seed Head Card

The challenge on Our Creative Corner this week is for something old that's new. Well, like almost everyone else I've got lots of things in my stash that are old and neglected. In my case it's a brayer. I bought one some time ago and I've not been able to master it at all. So this card is for you to see how you can use those bits of card that you practise on and think aren't good enough.

I am often asked for cards for men and it is always difficult to come up with anything for them. So much of the stuff in the shops is covered with beer mugs that I decided to go for something refreshing and natural. Flowers are out for most men but seeds and weeds seem to be fine. This is what you get in this card.

What you will need:


Fennel Seed Head from Stampinback
Pieces of waste card from when you've been learning to use a brayer
or some nice paper
Stazon in Stone Grey
Sentiment stamp from I Brake for Stamps
Light duck egg blue ribbon from Craft Fairy
Toning background paper for the base of the card

Happy crafting

Ribbon Flower Tutorial 2

Well! The response to my last flower tutorial was huge so it's spurred me on to do another one and as we have just added fabulous satin dot ribbons to the Craft Fairy site this was an opportunity to use them too.

So above, is the finished flower and now I'm sure that you all want to see how I made it.

First you will need to assemble your ingredients:

On my table I had:
4 strips of hot pink satin swiss dot ribbon each measuring 15 cm.
A few buttons. I hadn't yet decided which ones to use. You will need one bigger than the other though.
Cotton
A needle. Use a sharp one.
Start your flower by putting some glue on one end of the ribbon:

Fold it to the centre add glue to the other end and fold that to the centre too. Your ribbon should overlap and form a loop that the glue holds together in the centre.



Once you've done this you can layer up the pieces as seen in the picture below and now you're almost ready to sew them together.

I played around with the buttons that I had on the table and I finally chose a pink and a green button as I liked the way that they looked.
You need to be aware that you are sewing a lot of layers of ribbon together so that's why you will need a sharp needle. I started by sewing just two pieces together to get the position right.


Now layer up the pieces and sew together. Add your buttons and sew together and your flower is ready to go...

A necklace for a change

This post is a bit of self indulgence as I made myself a necklace and I wanted to share it so I decided to add it to my blog.

I bought some beads for Sandra's Accessories and she had a similar necklace on show and I decided that it looked easy enough to make. It was and here is the evidence.

It's not the best photograph as it's a scan but the light wasn't good enough to tahe a photograph.

Watercolour flowers with Kuretake Calligraphy pens

When I was at a recent show many people loved the calligraphy pens but they didn't think that they would be clever enough to use them for writing. So here's another use for calligraphy pens that needn't frighten you.
First of all you'll need at least two calligraphy pens in toning colours. I've used a light and a dark one from the Heart pouch set.
What I then did was touch the side of the lightest pen with the dark pen.

This will allow you to write in two colours.

I kept the darker edge of the pen still and moved the light side in a rough quarter turn and got a petal. I then moved the paper a bit and repeated the above. I did this until I got about 5 petals. Just remember to move the paper round every time you want a new petal.

Pull Treat for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is just around the corner and, while we want that special gift from the one that we love, we also want it to be beautifully packaged. So here is an idea for making the packaging look superb and the treat inside it will seem so much better too!

This pretty pink package is made with:

a heart die cut

pink calligraphy pens
9mm pink saddle stitch ribbon
3mm saddle stitch ribbon
a sheet of heavy paper
1 sheet of medium weight card
1 flat gift

The tutorial for making this gift wrap is to be found on splitcoast stampers resource page. The flower making and pen blending technique can be seen here.

Once you have mastered the technique you can make the package bigger or smaller to suit the gift. I would love to receive this. Now, how can I persuade my husband to make it? I'll let you know if I'm successful

Ribbon Flower Tutorial

As many of you may know, we sell lots of ribbon at Craft Fairy and I have now learnt not to be amazed when customers ask me... What can I do with ribbon? So to help out those who don't know, here is my latest tutorial.


Gingham Ribbon flower:

1. You will need a 10 inch length of ribbon. I used this black and white gingham. You will need at least 23 mm ribbon for this to work. Ribbon available from Craft Fairy.
   
2. Thread in your chosen colour. I used white but red would be quite nice if you have red on your card or page.
3. Two buttons, one slightly bigger than the other.

Now comes the fun part:

Thread your needle and with small stitches, stich along one edge of the ribbon.

When you get to the end of the ribbon, pull the thread to make the ribbon into the sort of cartwheel shape that you can see in the picckie.

Sew the ribbon together at the back... No one wants to see tacking stitches.

Now sew the bigger button on first and then when it's secure sew the smaller button on top.
There we are, ready to be used.