wire coat hanger – The Art of Cobwebs

If love is blind ... why is lingerie so popular? — If love is blind … then why is lingerie so popular?

I had so much fun making this card. It’s a large 8″x8″ card, made on white cardstock. The pink, rose and printed papers (at the two corners) are all papers which came free with magazines a while back; and the gold mirror board and flat gold card (die cut into a rectangle doily) were from my scraps drawer!

I’m very much a thrifty crafter and won’t waste great papers if I can save them – so where I knew I wanted to curl back I simply used a large triangle of paper to cover the corners of the base white card. ↑

The sentiment was stamped onto gold card and embossed in black. I felt that it needed more importance, so choose to use one of a selection of light-weight wooden frames – this one is warmer to look at than the photo shows.

I stamped out the basque ↑ onto the same colour of pink paper as the backing paper, embossed it and then attached it to a little hand-made, wire coat hanger. I punched a hole in the rectangular doily and ‘hung’ the basque from it.

If you look closely at the basque in the photo above ↑ you might be able to see that I used a white pen in places. This was to place ‘light’ in the places that natural light would have fallen on parts of the basque in real life. The ribbons, the seams, bits of the lace, etc etc.

I stamped peacock feathers ↑ over the paler of the pink backing pages, and embossed them with a pale pink, twinkly embossing powder. In the photo above you can see the embossed feathers. (I was checking the page for placement of the basque on the doily to make sure that it would look right.) ↑

Added roses in three shades, and some sprigs of a lilac type flower in white and pink. ↑

Close up photographs ↑ of the corners ↑ which were curled back so that you can see the patterned paper underneath and the two different colours of pink papers.

Although I’d curled and glued corners I wasn’t entirely convinced that the glue would hold, so I chose a large, warm pink brad for each corner to pin the paper in place.

I attached the rectangle doily, which I’d die cut on my Ebosser, to a piece of gold mirror board, then cut around the doily so that the mirror board fitted the doily exactly. Everything was then fixed in place, and voila! One more card added to the pile for charity.

I had lots of fun making this card and loved the way it’s turned out. Hope you like it too.

Have a truly lovely Sunday all!

Sending love out into the ethernet – so grab some as it flies by!

I challenged blog readers to make a card, or something, from their stash this week. Anything at all, so long as they didn’t have to buy anything to make it … and I thought I’d better take up my own challenge and make something from stuff I had hanging around my craft room.

I dipped into my scraps drawer and found some bits of left-over papers which toned nicely together, but had a slightly vintage look about them. I took a card ‘dress form’ (mannequin) – from a selection which I’ve had for about 12 months and only used one of, and aged/distressed it to give it the right ‘feel’. I knew I had some sewing themed stamps in my unmounted stamps collection, which had come free with a magazine last year – so grabbed those and chose the ones I wanted to use for the card.

My pinking shears from my sewing box came into play to cut out the little squares of paper – in order to make them look like fabric which I’d quilted and sewn.

I stamped the sewing machine, first onto some craft card which was also in my scraps drawer, then cut it out and mounted it onto a scrap of black card, then cut round it again – but making sure to leave a tiny border of the black card visible, to make the sewing machine stand out and not get lost on the card.

Stamped sewing machine, mounted onto black card

The little card with the sewing thread wound around it, was again a stamp which was part of the sewing stamp set which was a freebie with a magazine. I was really surprised at how well these stamps worked. Normally stamps that you get free with magazines aren’t that well cut, but these were fabulous!

I knew that I wanted a short length of measuring tape to wrap around the dress form (mannequin), but didn’t have any of that ribbon which is printed up like a measuring tape. So I took a short length of Rayon Seam Binding and using black ink, I stamped a ‘rule’ stamp onto the seam binding. It looked exactly what I wanted, so I wound it around the mannequin and pleated it a little to make it look just right.

The addition of some teeny-weeny tiny little buttons, in vintage colours, and the front was finished.

But … I hate to leave cards without something of a surprise, – so I drew and cut out a little Something for the Weekend, from another scrap of card and added it to the inside….

Little surprise ... Something for the Weekend which I ran up on the sewing machine. — Little surprise ... Something for the Weekend
*which I ran up on the sewing machine*.

Hung from a tiny wire coat hanger – a little dress! … Made from some of the same green and white dotty card which I’d used on the front of the card. I added a belt from a scrap of paper left over from the squares on the front of the card and all that was needed then were some pale green teeny, mini buttons down the front. Voila! Something for the Weekend! All made from stash and scraps.