Dear Mum,...I sewed!!

Dear Mum,

It's been a little while since I last wrote to you, but I had to share some excellent news: I sewed!!

Now I know this is a small miracle in itself, particularly given my last attempt required your expert hand at sewing the hem properly and instructing me on which way to have my seams folded prior to whipping them up on the machine.  We know that my successes do not extend to needle and thread.

So let me tell you about my little experiment, because experiment it was!!   I have this lovely banner cutter for my Stampin up! Big shot.  I tell you what, that thing is pure genius; it cuts layers of fabric just as easily as card stock.  You just lay your fabric on top of the cutter, sandwich it between two layers of perspex, roll it through the Big Shot, and Ta-dah!! Lots of little banners.  So, I cut a stack of burlap and a stack of linen and this is where you would be proud....I pinned them together!  Pinning! I know!! Who would have thunk it!   Some banners were a little larger than others, but you know what, I didn't care. I thought it would add to the rustic look I was aiming for.

So Mum, I pinned the banners together and I hand sewed the first banner.... I have to say at that point I felt a little bit like you, sitting in front of the TV with a pile of sewing in my lap.

Now, I may have to ring Dad when you get to this point to get him to check you haven't fainted at the PC. 

Because that first banner took forever, and as you know I am entirely too impatient at times when it comes to results, I sewed the rest on my dusty and rarely used machine.  I know! Sewing machine,...me!

Is Dad still with you?

After I sewed the banners together, I pinned and sewed the little lace edge along the open front and the back edge onto the linen tape I had bought.

To finish the fronts I attached a little burlap and linen cut-out - also from the banner template - that I had ink stamped with Christmas sentiments like "Joy", "Thanks", "Cherish" and "Hope".  Lovely!

To add an extra dimension to the banner, I decided to include some clay tags - remember the Christmas ornaments I showed you how to make here? Well, this time I used my french script stamp and a scone cutter.

Oh, remind me if I ever make you scones that I cut clay tags with them and I shouldn't be using them for both tasks.

Once the clay tags dried, I was inspired by something you had done once before - remember when you were involved in the creative group that made textile pictures out of fabric that had been dyed with organic materials?  Well, I decided to tea stain the tags because I really wanted to keep the tonings in line with the rustic feel and I thought it would also bring the script out beautifully. 

I reckon beetroot would be quite interesting...though am not sure how moss would go.

I did also give the tags a little rub with a metallic white, but just a little - enough of a christmas pop without losing the rustic-ness.  I popped eyelets into the tape between banners, then tied the clay tags using twine.

I will post an extra photo to you tomorrow when the sun is out and is working in my favour for taking photos.

My plan on Christmas night is to pop some Lindt chocolates and little bits and pieces in them. And there, you have it - I sewed: the seams are straight, they may appear "inside out", but they are just how I wanted them to turn out.

Big hugs, love you,

Catherine
xxx

PS - I am going to pop this over at Jami's place for the Air your Laundry Friday, because that is where lots of lovely textile creativity can be found.  You can find her link on my side bar at the right if you would like to have a look. x

How to make - Christmas ornament tutorial

Hi sweet friends

Today I bring to you the instructions for my Christmas Ornaments. The gorgeous thing about these is that this is a “do your own thing” from the very start.  The only things that remain the same are the tools you will need, but after that, it is you and your beautiful creativity!

OK, grab yourself a cup of whatever takes your fancy - if you hadn't worked it out yet, my choice is coffee - and let’s get started.

Gather up all your necessary tools to make these lovelies.  To make my ornaments I used:

• Air dry clay - I used DAS,
• A rolling pin,
• baking paper,
• My gorgeous stamp from Stampin Up!,
• A skewer or any sharp pointy object,
• metal nail file;
• Pearl white acrylic paint;
• Glue;
• Buffing gold;
• Red Glitter
• Red velvet ribbon.

First thing, get your lovely air dry clay out and roll it to your desired thickness.

• I placed a sheet of baking paper on my bench and rolled my clay on top of this;
• I placed two glass chopping boards on either side of my clay, no wider than my rolling pin, to make sure that I rolled my clay to a level depth.
• Place a sheet of baking paper on top of your clay…and roll away!
    

Next, take your gorgeous stamp of choice and stamp your images;

• be sure to leave space around your stamp for your shape.

Take your skewer or sharp pointy object – or you may even have the perfect cutting shape that you can use – and cut out your shape;

• With the skewer method, start by “dotting” the outline of your shape around your stamp. This will help you to balance your shape and is easier to fix up with a gentle rub if it is in the wrong place.
• Next, start joining the dots up to reinforce your shape,
• Finally, use the longer edge of the point on your skewer and press all the way through to pull your shape out.
• Press a hole through your shape for threading the ribbon.

  

Now your ornaments must dry for 24 hours…

…are they done? Beautiful!! Now it is time to give them a little tidy up.

Sand the edges;

•  Using your metal nail file, gently sand around the edges of your shape until you are happy with the results.
• If you need, this is the time to adjust the shape to ensure it is balanced – alternatively, if you are the type of person that likes a skewed uniqueness to your ornaments, just sand until it takes a shape you like.  

Decorating time!!

• In the case of my ornaments, I brushed them first with pearl white acrylic paint.
• Let the paint dry…I used my hairdryer to hurry this process along.
• When dry, rub the buffing gold over your ornament until you are satisfied with the results.
• Again, let dry, then re-stamp your image with Versamark ink or, if your stamp is not too ornate, draw inside the shape with a glue pen;
• Sprinkle your glitter over your image; shake it, dust it off, then step back to admire.
• Give a little “YEH!” because it is l-u-v-e-r-l-y.

You can choose to not follow this last instruction, though be warned you may spontaneously whoop, yell, laugh or clap your hands in glee – it is a side effect I found during this process, so consider yourself warned in advance.

• Thread up your ribbon through the hole in the ornament and hang it up.
• Dance some more…and feel very chuffed with yourself!!

I do recommend you follow this step, because I did and it felt GREAT!!!

 

Simple yet lovely!!

I hope you found my tutorial easy to follow and inspiring.  Please be sure to let me know if you give them a try, along with a photo!! 

Big hugs

Cath

xx

My old gold Christmas Ornaments

Hello my lovelies

I am so sorry for my absence the past week - unfortunately we have been dealing with a full plate at home: aged family challenges, end of school year with exhausted chicklettes, work and anything else we can squeeze in-between. 

But I love and thank you all for checking in to say hi, both in email and here - it's lovely to be missed and it warms my heart to know you have stopped by. 

Right, down to the fun stuff....I have finished my ornaments for the great Christmas Ornament Swap...

Tomorrow these three little babies will be individually packed and posted to Canada and the US.

As you may recall, the challenge was to use red, green or gold (or a combination).  I considered my options for a while, but knowing I wanted to use this particular stamp from Stampin' Up!, I really wanted a classic look, so red and gold it was, topped off with some red velvet ribbon.

Do you like?  I did make it up as I went along, so made many mistakes and learnt from them.  I will provide a tutorial in my next post on what it was I did and what I used - mistake free of course - but in short I had a blast!!

To see all the fun and check out all the beautiful ornaments created for the Christmas Ornament Swap, pop over to the Flickr group here.

I am also going to link these pretties up to Kristin''s Uncommon Slice of Suburbia's Tuesdays Treasures, because I love sharing at Kristin's as she is a total sweetie!!

And speaking about Christmas and total sweeties, I have to finish writing my letter to Santa asking if I could pretty, pretty please, be the lucky recipient of one of these two Giveaways....

{sigh}

Jami is giving away the most beautiful collection of items in celebration of 6 happy months in blog land, as well as reaching 500 followers.

Jami has extended the hand of blog friendship since my beginnings and is an inspirational, creative, textile goddess, not to mention a total sweetie!!

I can only dream to be capable of creating such a whimsical, magical hideaway as the Shabby Streamside Studio...Sandy is celebrating 1 year, and 1000 followers....what a milestone!

Not only that, but this is what Sandy shared when posting about this milestone and giveaway:

"Material things are meaningless compared to the daily cup of joy topped with foamy sunshine you serve me by sharing your visits, blogs, and comments..."

Another sweetie!!

So there you have it my lovelies, my Christmas Ornaments for my swap and a couple of Christmas wishes.

Big hugs to you all,

Cath
xx

Update: the tutorial for these can now be found here.  Enjoy!!

Lovely Spring

Hello all my lovelies

Thank you so much for all your kind comments over the last few days - I got a real thrill to see so many new visitors stop by and have a look around my little corner of blog-land!! 

This weekend has started off as classic Spring!  We have had such good rain this year - the first time in a while - that the gardens are all going crazy and it is fabulous to hear the sound of mowers and have the smell of fresh cut grass on the air; one of my favourite smells, after coffee of course!

Second to Autumn, the light in early Spring is a favourite. Whilst Autumn has all the colour of the changing leaves and the Summer heat is (finally!) replaced with the soothing hint of cooler nights...Spring brings all the new buds of green, followed by the arrival of lots of flowers.

By Winters end this year I had a house full of family suffering cabin fever (please someone let them out!!), so for the first time ever I am celebrating the arrival of warmer weather. It has been just lovely to turn all the heaters off and open the house up to let in fresh air.

At a deeper level, there is something about Spring that makes me think of beautiful memories - memories triggered by a particular light, a particular smell and a particular temperature.

The air is cool but carries warmth and a hint of lilac,...

the light is golden and lazy as the sun slowly drifts towards the horizon.

I can't tell you what makes it so, but those moments really fill my heart with joy.

The sunlight coming in this afternoon reflected this light quite beautifully.

...

I hope your weekend is truly special.

Hugs

Cath

Printing on Fabric - Utensil canister

Hi there my lovelies

In an earlier post I mentioned I had been playing with printing on fabric. (see here!).

In preparation for the painting of the house, and upon arrival of some wonderful Stampin' Up items, I decided to revamp my terracotta coffee canister that I have been using for my utensils (I have become a coffee snob since we got our machine and so don't have instant in my house, no more, no more!).

So, the canister, being terracotta, was painted first with a coat of White Knight Tile and Laminate undercoat.

Then, when dry, I topped it with a coat of Dulux White Duck (quarter).

My image for printing was using the knife and fork image from Graphics Fairy, and also some text. I merged them together and played in Photoshop until I was happy with the results.., then printed away.

If you missed the previous blog, where I very briefly mention the "how to", here it is again..

• Using A4 print labels - just like the ones you use for envelopes, only A4 - stick this to your fabric.
• Trim the fabric to size ensuring there are no stray threads....and print away!!

Easy hey!!

To embellish, I die-cut my printed fabric on my new (woo hooooo!) Stampin' Up Big Shot, punched a couple of holes and attached some lovely Jumbo Eyelets (again, thanks Stampin' Up!!).

Tie with twine...and there we have it!!

I seriously need to find my camera charger, as my phone isn't cutting the photo taking, but you get the idea.

I love the result, so will do my sugar and tea canisters next.

Hugs to you all!! Come on over for some coffee!!

Cath

Experimenting...

Hi lovelies

I am still here, I promise! It has been a little busy in the Tig household of late, but I have managed to squeeze in some experimenting time. Unfortunately nothing I am prepared to show you yet...but I will soon, I promise.

Anyway, I have been looking at image transfer to fabric. I am in love with the beautiful french design pillows, but honestly, how expensive they are!!!! Crazy!! And I thought to myself, "Catherine, it is time to dust off your sewing maching (only used previously for hemming curtains) and make a cushion." Seriously, how hard can that be! Surely it is just like hemming curtains, only with corners...right?!

So, off I went in search of instruction....

The lovely Kristine at The Painted Hive was kind enough to mail me the instructions for doing a citrus rubbing of printed images onto fabric.

So I sourced the most gorgeous image from The Graphics Fairy

and then using the rubbing method, rubbed my little heart out!! Those results were pretty good. I even attempted a "Bonne Nuit" rubbing for a pillow for Boo's room...again, just a curtain, with corners, but longer...yeh...?

...can you tell I haven't started sewing yet...

...yes, I AM procrastinating...

Anyway, then I decided to attempt another method. I bought A4 print labels - just like the ones you use for envelopes, only A4. Stuck it to my fabric...trimmed my fabric so there were no stray threads...and printed away.

Let me tell you, that was PERFECT!!

So, when I finally sew these little experiments up, I wil post some pics. Promise.

Even if they do look like curtains with corners :-)

Stay tuned!!

hugs

Cath

Creative Colour Challenge - Turquoise

Hey all


This week has been a total creative black hole - with lots of sickness in our home - it's that time of year isn't it! So I was a little disappointed to find I had little time to puddle around with the Creative Colour Challenge run by the talented Louise Gale. As a result, I was left mulling ideas over in the wee hours of the night, which isn't a bad thing to be truthful as I find I tend to get most of my creative ideas when I should be sleeping - do you find that? One side of the brain is saying "sleep", but the other side of the brain is saying "if you try this...mix that...blend, glue, stick, print..." :-) Maybe it is all that coffee LOL

Anyway, in my mulling I came up with the idea for making a little gift box using fabric roses, as I thought the gorgeous colour would be perfect. So, when the lovely headed away last night for work, I sat myself down in the quiet and made some burnt roses in turquoise!

The best tutorial I have found for making these is at DuhBe. I decided to make some in satin, and also an organza and was really pleased with the results. Not only that, I had a blast making these as they were dead easy! Yes, I got addicted very fast, so be on the look out for these to pop up everywhere LOL

I teamed a couple of my results with a little white gift box I had and some pale turquoise ribbon! And tah-dah!!!

I hope everyone has a super fabulous weekend - I for one am going to steal some time to make some more roses and complete a bunch of projects I have started around the house.



Cheers!



Cath

xo