Paper birds

Hopping around Blogland this last couple of weeks, I kept coming across birds. It seems they are theme of the month in some circles. I like to visit Emilia's blog, and she uses a lot of Just Joanna stamps, many of them birds, and a greeting stamp that says Happy Birday. I remember making a birthday card for Lizzie a couple of years ago that had the same greeting and two hand drawn birds with multi-coloured floss tails, so thought I might revisit the idea. I find paper piecing a simple and effective way of quickly producing a card, so I drew out a simple outline, and had a test run using some paisley patterned paper that was lying on my desk. I used a Sharpie to draw the outline, and it bled out a little, so I cut along the centre of the line to reduce it. My handwriting is nothing to write home about, so in an attempt to make this a little less obvious, I staggered the letters...to no avail...it still looks pretty awful.

I was quite happy with my shapes, so I cut myself an acetate stencil, and used it to draw more bird pieces, this time using a Staedtler Lumocolor; much finer and no bleeding. For the greeting I resorted to the computer; Girls are Weird font and a whistling bird found in an Easter picture font. I filled a whole page with the script and used a coloured pencil to draw a couple of lines before cutting off a strip. The paper for the birds is a Japanese print off the Canon site, printed when the printer had run out of yellow ink, but still had plenty of cyan and magenta in the three colour cartridge.

The last example is a little more masculine in flavour. The paper is gift wrap, the branch is handrawn with little reference to botanical accuracy, and the greeting strip has had a little embellishment that harks back to the trial run. I have made a dozen copies of the pattern, run off a dozen pages of text, and I am hopeful that the Craft Club Ladies will enjoy putting their own twist on the idea on Monday. They will use their own choice of paper and card, and they are going to have to draw in their own versions of legs and eyes, so I am hoping for plenty of variety.

Totty Teabag brews again

It seems ages since I last made teabag tiles, but one of the new Craft Club ladies asked for a tutorial on folding, and some of the other members said they would like a refresher, so here is what I came up with. It is a little squashed by the scanner, but pops up nicely when released from confinement. If anyone wants the tile, leave me a comment.

Key bag

Not a very good picture, but it disguises the fact that the corners are not exactly square, just approximately square. I ironed on a very heavy interfacing before I stitched it together in the hope that the keys won't wear holes in it too quickly.

Playing with a pillowcase

Spanish pillows and pillowcases are long and narrow. The pillows span the full width of the bed, and the cases are even longer tubes, open at each end. On the Saturday market they were selling them for €2 each, which is cheap as chips for a piece of cotton cloth 110x80cm, especially when you reckon that someone has gone to the trouble of putting wide double facings and bias binding inserts at each end! I looked at them on my way down the hill, and was tempted, but didn't buy. Further down the hill though, I was tempted by a pale aubergine handbag that was a much better match for the outfit I was wearing than the bright red carry-all I had with me, so on my way back up again, I had a good excuse to buy a pillowcase to match.
So far today I have made a fold-up-in-its-own-pocket shopping bag, and have plans to make a zipped pouch on a long strap to hold my keys, so that it will be easy to haul them out of the depths, and probably a couple of other bits and bobs, and still have the other end of the pillowcase left to make a bag in a pocket to give away. Did I say that I bought an orange red and white pillowcase as well?