Valentine's Day Craft Swap

I know it's early and it's not Valentine's Day yet,

but I've already made my item for this swap

hosted by Amy on her blog

And Sew We Craft

and as my swap partner

Rae of Felt by Rae

has now received it, I can show it here.

I intended at first to make a padded heart and cut two

heart shapes from an old embroidered table runner.

This picture is of the back.

For the front I collaged various pieces of old lace

doilies and cheesecloth over the top.

I rubber stamped 'Love' onto a cotton scrap

and machine stitched the whole lot together

in a haphazard fashion.

As I was stitching it together it occurred to me

that rather than just being a padded heart,

it would be more useful as a pocket -

so I left the top unstitched.

(There is a layer of thin wadding between the

top and backing fabrics to give it more of a lightly quilted feel)

For the hanger I plaited three strands of string together.

As it was a pocket now, it needed a little gift inside!

This is the gift - a little Metal Pendant.

I was pleased with how the heart pocket turned out

so I made one to keep for myself too!

....  but there's no Valentine gift in mine -

oh yes, it's too early yet isn't it!

My inspiration for making this heart came from

Lilla of Just Lilla

who makes the most beautiful things and shares a

tutorial for a lace collage on her blog

which I followed when making my hearts.

I was lucky enough to win one of Lilla's lace collages

in the form a little book last year.



Isn't it beautiful!

Thank you Lilla for the inspiration,

and thank you for looking :)

Fabric Collage - How I Did Mine

I think I may have another addiction (as well as altering matchboxes that is!) - fabric collages!

This post follows on from the previous one where you'll see I've made 3 of these collages in not as many days!

Here's a brief summary of how I put the 'Daisy Cottage' fabric collage together.

Start off with the cross stitched cottage

Cut a rectangle of cotton for the base

and re-inforce it with something sturdy - I had this roll of strong hessian type stuff which was ideal.

Machine stitch the hessian strips onto the cotton base (sorry the photos are a bit dark)

I machine stitched up and down each row and top and bottom, this is what the back looked like when I'd finished.

Stitch a narrow edging of lace around all four sides

At this point I machine stitched a handwritten label on the back

That's the base done, now to start decorating the top.

  I decided to use some paper - sheet music and aged it around the edges with Distress Ink.

The next stage is the most time consuming, but also the most fun - sorting out what layers to use.  I laid the various lace and fabrics onto the base before stitching anything down to get a rough idea of what it'd look like.

When happy with it, start stitching!

I coloured a bright white lace flower from a curtain edging (thanks Mum!) with Distress Inks so it blended in better.

I also added a few beads to the cross stitching, a vintage button for the centre of the flower, some hanging beads at the bottom and a horseshoe for good luck at the top right hand corner.

I gave it a simple hanger of twine (braided three lengths together and knotted them at the back). 

Here's what the finished back looks like.

 I attached rusty keys to the first two fabric collages





I think I now need to go shopping and hunt down more cross stitched cast offs, lace, buttons, keys - and anything else which I could use to make more - these addictions must be fed - lol!

Thanks for looking!

Tag Art Swap

Vixykins is hosting a tag art swap. There are ten members in the group and the theme is 'Vintage Ladies'. Each member sends 10 tags off and gets 10 different ones back.

For mine, I inked and rubber stamped the base of the tags, then stuck some old dressmaking patterns over the top and painted a thin layer of Gesso to tone the whole thing down. I photocopied some images from the covers of various vintage dressmaking patterns and stuck them down. Finally I machine stitched around the edges and added some scraps of material and lace - and not forgetting a button or two!

An Altered Key

This month's challenge over on Flickr's GAS MAMMA (group for altered art swaps)is to alter a key with romance as a theme.

Not being the most imaginative of people I couldn't think of how to effectively alter a key - a key's a key right! In the end I decided to make a little piece of artwork - with the key as the focal point - and used a mini canvas measuring just 2 1/2" x 3".

I love the shape of the old key I used and it was very rusty to begin with so I just enhanced it a little with some metallic gold rub on and added two silver heart shaped gems at the top. I entwined some gold beading around it and through some lace too which is attached to the canvas by a heart shape brad. The canvas itself I painted with acrylic, coloured the edges with more of the gold metallic rub on - coated the whole thing with beeswax and adhered some music score with more of the wax (it's an extract from 'Get me to the church on time' from My Fair Lady) A bit of lace top and bottom and a couple of flowers to finish.

Seeing as I was at a loss as to what to do for this challenge, I'm really pleased with the end result.