It's a Creative World

Design Team Announcement

We've had a change to have a good look at all the submissions! I've emailed the new DT members and am just waiting on a few responses. When I get them back we will announce the new team :)

PS If you haven't emailed up about a Scrap Your Man Prize please do so on acreativeworld@hotmail.co.uk Thanks!

haPPy homeMAking

Do you find you always land up with far too many bottles of lotions and potions? I know I do and moving them to dust (I do occasionally dust ;) ) is a mission!

 

These little wicker baskets are just perfect for keeping all your spares neat and tidy and makes dusting a must easier task :)

I also have one in my shed for keeping seed packets tidy and use them in my scrap room too for embellishments, stamps, paints and blossoms.

Thanks for visiting!
Caz
xx

Tri-Fold Card

I saw a Tri-Fold card on Split Coast Stamps and thought they looked cool but WAY too complicated (I don't have a lot of patience!) however I found a lovely tutorial and was surprised how simple it actually was!

First of all you need a piece of cardstock 5.5" x 12" 

Next you score at 2" 4" 8" and 10" from the left edge:-

Now you need to cut a slot from the 2" score line to the 10" score line.

This cut needs to be 1.5" from the top edge and the same again but 1.5" in from the bottom edge:-

So it will look like this:-

Then fold along all the score lines.

Next fold the cut slot like this:-

 It looks like this from above:-

Then decorate the different faces of the card!

I used Cosmo Cricket papers and stickers from their Early Bird range. The 50's Retro style of the paper went well with the Cowgirl stamps!

Have fun crafting!

GlitteryKatie x

Teacher Gifts!

It's that time of year again when we start thinking about what to make our kids' teachers as a thank you gift, so here are my ideas.  What's in the bag? Here you go:

 

From the top of the picture clockwise we have a card, a small packet of chocolates, a Post It note holder and a notebook with pen. You could make all of them, or just one.  The Post It note holder and sweets are so quick and easy to make you could make one of them for each of the whole army of teaching assistants they seem to have in school these days!

The stamp set I used is called Teacher's Apple and is from Papertrey Ink, but you could use any set to decorate in any way you want. Cardstock and patterned paper used is Pure Poppy, Ripe Avocado and Lemon Tart from Papertrey.  The inks I have used are Real Red, Certainly Celery and So Saffron from Stampin' Up! 

So here's a quick run down on each item. First the notebook.

 

Take a piece of cardstock measuring 22cm x 18.5cm.  Along the 22cm side, score at 10cm, 11cm and 12 cm. Fold in half along the 11cm crease, and then make two small cuts half way down as shown.  Push the bottom and top folds inwards and the middle one outwards, this makes your pen holder.

 

You can then decorate the front of your notebook however you like and then stick your notebook inside.  I bought mine as a pack from Asda - plain shopping list type pads.  You could use any pad, but you would have to change the measurements accordingly.  It's quite straightforward to do, just make sure you have 2cm extra for the pen holder in the middle.

The Post It note holder is made in exactly the same way as the notebook.  Just measure around your block of notes and make your cover accordingly. For a square 7.5cm block of notes, the measurements were 17cm x 8cm, scoring at 8cm and 9cm - 1cm allowance to make the spine. You could always make a Post It note holder with a pen, just make the spine 2cm!

 

For the sweet packet, you need a piece of cardstock measuring 20cm x 10cm.  This needs to be scored along the 20cm edge at 3cm, 10cm and 17cm.

 

Fold the cardstock in half along the 10cm score line and using an oval punch, punch out a half oval as shown.  This makes the hole for your bag to go through the top.

 

Decorate the front of your package any way you like.  Then take a small cellophane bag (card bags are ideal) and fill with the sweeties of your choice. Thread through the hole and tie with ribbon.  Fold along the other two score lines and stick at the bottom to form a triangular shape.  Sweetie box done!

The card is self explanatory, the bag is just a brown paper lunch bag stamped with the apples.  Once folded over, holes were punched with a Cropadile and ribbon passed through and tied.

Hope this gives you a few ideas! TFL! Joanne xxx

Guest Designer ; His Pride and Joy

Hi Michelle here aka mjm and I’m thrilled to have been invited to guest at It’s a Creative World for June!

So a little about me before I share my 1^st project. I am a one time theatre designer/stage manager who has gone back to her arty roots and loving it!

 

I discovered scrap booking at the beginning of 2007 and realised it was the perfect outlet for my creativity. I love telling stories and creating art with meaning as well as being really into collage, so scrap booking is the perfect solution for me!

 

I was proud and thrilled to be announced a 2008 Best of British Scrapbooking winner with Scrapbook Inspirations last November and have been an on going contributor with them for just under 2 years. I design for Banana Frog here in the UK as well as being on the DT for Crafty Stash. I also design for Purple Cows in the States and have been accepted as a Basic Grey ideas designer. I launched my own website at the end of 2008. www.mjm-thearttart.com,where I share my work, inspirations, my blog and sell my DIY projects (full instructions and templates for some of my work that you can make with your own materials and colours in your own unique way!!)

 

I love playing with products and finding different ways to use them. Above all I have a passion for my hobby and love to share it with people.

 

And so to the creative stuff!

 

His pride and Joy

 

I love books and have many, many arty books to gleam inspiration from and to boost the mojo when it’s needed. The idea for this LO came after looking through a fabby book by a lady called Ashley Calder called Scraptatstic. I took her idea and made it my own. (I think with art we all gain inspiration from other artists from the greats to the contemporaries, to this end I will always acknowledge someone who has inspired me and hope that everyone always does the same!)

I loved the idea of creating a background that looks like a piece of metal but is just essentially a piece of card!

 

The Ingredients

An A4 piece of card

Some tin foil

Red, brown and orange acrylic paint

Kitchen towel

Some brads

An old ruler

Some ephemera (I found mine on the internet)

Some embellies (I used Tim Holtz idea-ology sprockets and a 7gypsies journaling block)

Tim Holtz distress inks antique linen, tea stain, and walnut

Tools to distress with, e.g. sandpaper, scissors etc

Spray adhesive

Glue of choice

Photo 6’’ x4’’ landscape

 

Rip along the edges of your A4 card to create an irregular shape. Rip some strips of your tin foil and scrunch, unscrunch and stick to the card using a spray adhesive (I can’t recommend crafters companion permanent spray adhesive enough!) They can be longer than the width of card and can go in any direction.

 

 

Fold over the edges of the foil and glue to the back of your card. As you fold over, mould the foil into the irregular shape of the edge of your card.

 

 

Time to get messy!!! Dribble red acrylic paint over your surface and spread with your fingers, leave it a few minutes then…..

 

 

Gently wipe areas with some kitchen towel. This will lift the colour in places.

 

 

Then do the same with some brown acrylic, spreading and wiping as before.

 

 

Build up your layers of colour until you are happy with the rusty metal look. Next we add

some orangey rust patches. 1^st by dabbing orange and brown acrylic along the edge of an old ruler and using it as a stamp to create lines, to look like the edges of sheet metal…..

 

 

Then with fingers, building up a corner of rust with the orange, brown and red acrylic

 

 

Take your ephemera, you could use a book page, a vintage ad like me from the internet or whatever you fancy as a mat and distress the edges and ink. Distress your photo, I distressed the edges of mine, ripped off one end sanded and inked it and adhere both to the background. Add some brads along the rusty lines as rivets (It doesn’t matter what colour these are we will be adding paint!)

 

 

Get your jounalling ready, I printed mine form my computer in word using the font travelling typewriter from 1001freefonts.com. I inked each piece and distressed my journaling block.

 

 

Assemble the rest of the layout adding in the sprockets or similar embellishments

Time to get dirty again!!! With more orange and brown paint and your fingers, meld everything together with patches of rust

 

 

 

 

And that’s it! A convincing metal layout that weighs nothing!!!

 

 

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little spot here and I hope you’re inspired to go and play (and get messy LOL) I’ll be back on the 14^th with another project for you which I am cooking up right now! Until then Happy Crafting and thanks to IACW and Caz for having me!

Love

M x

 

 

 

 

Message on a bottle

Hi Joy here.

 Just posting another idea for teacher presents. I am really in to felt at the moment. It is so easy to stamp on and to embroider on.  This piece was created using Imaginisce Snag 'em Stamps - Teacher's Pet collection. I purchased them from Paperarts.

  

Stamp the image onto white felt using a Stazon inkpad.

 

Stitch around the image in backstitch, using stranded embroidery thread. I used 3 strands to give quite a bold stitch.

 

 Stitch around each crayon in a different colour.

 

Stamp on a message.

 

Stitch over the message and add a border.

 

Attach the finished piece to a glass bottle with double-sided tape.  I used an empty Prima flower bottle but the idea could be adapted and sized to fit any bottle or jar.  Add a ribbon around the neck and fill with sweeties.

Happy making! It is only 2 weeks until the summer holidays in our county, so not many creative days left. I think I am going to have a few late nights.

Have a pear-fect day

Hello, Eleanor here.
With the fabric scraps left over from trimming my lottie bird embroideries, I decided to make a few birthday cards to have in stock, using a rubber stamp, my sewing machine and some patterned papers and trim.

I stamped the pear onto the scrap fabric, backed it with a small piece of white cardstock and trimmed it square.
I stitched the patterned paper onto a 6 x 6 inch card blank, added the pear, some matching trim and a computer generated sentiment, and it was done. Whilst everything was out on the table it was easy to make several, so I did.

I make 6 in square cards more often than any other shape, I like the symmetry, and also because I buy square Christmas cards in the January sales, use the card for scrap and hoard the envelopes.

Bye for now.

12 Months = 12 Projects June/July

Hello, Eleanor here.

Another month has passed in a flash up at the allotment. As we netted the pond to protect the eggs/tadpoles/froglets and toadlets from predators until they mature, I was thinking about the different birds we have seen at the lottie. The one we have not seen in action is of course the mallard who slurped up all of our pondlife last year, he's too crafty to be seen when we are there, but the others, well, see for yourself in my latest minibook, a fabric one:

These pages were quite a labour of love, and are a work in progress, as there are many more birds to embroider over the coming months.

The way I do these is to find a suitable image, from one of Richard's books for example, and draw the bird outline lightly in pencil crayon onto cream fabric (cotton curtain lining).

Then I pull out some matching colours from this:

I do actually have many boxes of embroidery threads neatly wound onto bobbins, but I love using these, found for me, by my mum, at a jumble sale, together with their handmade rollup. 

I just thread my needle and see how the picture evolves:

 

 

 

 

 

Did the last bird surprise you? He certainly surprised us when we first spotted him perched in a tree, looking for all the world as though he had lived there all his life. He's moved on now, but was a welcome presence for several months.

I decided not to bind the squares, but enclose them in a soft folder, with room for expansion.

I printed some text onto paper for the covers, and copied this lightly in pencil crayon:

Then stitched over it:

 

I zigzag stitched all around, catching in a ribbon tie on either side, and added a hessian tape spine:

 

Trimmed the excess fabric, taking care not to chop off the ribbon:

 

Voila:

Enclosed my squares:

 

And that's June at the lottie.

Recipe cards this month are potato salad, and no-skin rice pudding.

 

See you next time.

Hi from Caz

June 09 for me has been about the garden, watching is spring to life all on it's own has been magical. I didn't have the time or cash this year to spend too much time working in it so the hard work done at the end of summer 08 has paid off :)

I've spent so much time out there that it seems fitting to dedicate Junes page to 'our garden'.

 

It's fun looking back at '08 to see how things have changed and little people have grown.

 

I hope i'm able to keep this project going to have a record of each year, it's just a pity I didn't start it years ago.

Thanks for visiting!
xx

Speedy (no iron - no pin - no pattern - no measure) tote

I found this gorgeous apple and pear fabric at the quilt fair in Malvern. It's 100% cotton by Prestigious Textiles, printed in the UK. Nice to find British fabric, I thought. I was picturing shopping bags immediately. They had the hessian webbing too, so I picked it up for handles.

I've been enjoying sewing "freestyle" lately. I tend to get bogged down in details and sometimes I put projects off until I have worked out the PERFECT design. This usually results in megaprocrastination and stuff never gets made. My antidote to this is the freestyle thing - if you're sewing clothes, an inch here or there matters. But for a shopping bag, let go of that nasty perfect word. So here we have my no-iron, no-pin, no-pattern, no-measure tote bag. Came together in one evening too!



1. To avoid using a pattern, choose a bag that you already find useful. I chose this one.



2. Loosely wrap your bag with your chosen fabric to get an idea of the shape and size you'll need. Leave several extra inches over the top to allow for a nice square bottom, and overlap the fabric round the width a bit to allow for a 1/2" seam allowance at both sides. Cut out at the height you need, and where the fabric overlaps. Fold that fabric in half and cut down the middle so you have two pieces the right height.



3. Put the pieces right sides together. Sew down each side, about half an inch in. Sew across the bottom leaving the same allowance. I ran another seam just alongside the first for added strength for those trips back from market!

4. Turn back the right side out. I flattened the seams outwards with my fingers and turned in a couple of inches around the top edge. The picture shows me running a seam close to the top edge. I ran another one farther down, still on the area where the fabric is double thickness.



5. You could stop there and add handles, but I have several flat bags and I wanted this to be good bag for filling up with shopping. I wanted a flat base and a bag with some depth. What you need to do is flatten one of the bottom corners so that the bottom seam is pressed along the side seam. You then need to sew along at a right angle to the seam. You will then have a flappy triangle at the corner which you can cut off. It will look something like this, once it has been cut off. Sew and cut the other corner to roughly match.



This is the trickiest bit to eyeball... to stay true to my no iron - no pin - no pattern - no measure rule, I had to step away from my perfectionism. I did some faux measuring in the form of matching seams and holding one bit up to another bit to make things even. This is a quick and dirty bag for everyday life, not an exhibition piece!



7. Decide on the length of your handles and cut to fit. Decide where you want them to start and hold one end on the inside of the bag, overlapping the folded over edge. I stitched down one side, across the bottom, up the other side, across the top, diagonally to a bottom corner, across the bottom again, diagonally to a top corner and across the top again. It gave me this neat little shape and will hopefully be quite strong.

8. Fold your bag in half, so that you can get the other end of the handle an equal distance from the edge of the bag. Line up your handle and stitch again. Repeat steps 7 and 8 for the handle on the other side of the bag.



Shake out the bag, trim any loose threads and admire your handiwork!


Please get in touch if you have any questions. I'll be happy to fill in anything that isn't clear! If you make one, please link to your photos. Now I must go and make one with the apple fabric...

Kel x

Indoor picnic

Planning a picnic often requires super human powers as I discovered when planning a work event for last week. The weather was improving and we decided to have a team building picnic. Now as the food needed to be ordered way in advance I have been watching metcheck in earnst for days! And when I found a 'good' day I jumped and ordered the food.

I also did a fair bit of blanket and garden decor gathering and made another string of bunting :)

And would you believe it rained! Stinking great blobs of water fell from the heavens onto a beautifully cut lawn that was destined to be strewn with crochet loveliness!

But, we were not put off! Oh no, we just had our picnic indoors :)

 

We cleared an area and laid the desks with brightly colours table clothes. My bunting was strung around the table and over a filing cabinet!

lol, we even put the crochet blankets out on the carpet! And everyone wanted to sit on them.

 

Picnics are great fun, so don't be put off by the weather. Even if it turns soggy your day doesn't need to be ruined!

And there are some great free images on the internet to use for your invitations too.

Thanks for visiting!!
Caz
xx

Wrapping it up.

How did it get to July already?  Nearly the end of term and time to think about presents for teachers and teaching assistants.  I like to say thank you to them for all their hard work in the classroom plus all the extra hours after school and at the weekend.

I have decided, this year, to give the teachers coffee shop gift cards. Popping them in an envelope is a little boring so I decided to wrap them a little differently, using a coffee cup.  When I picked up the gift cards I asked if I could have a couple of clean takeaway cups.

 

Peel off the outer layer to use as a template.

 

Draw round it on the reverse of your patterned paper.

 

Cut out the shape and wrap around your coffee cup.

 Cut out a felt cuff, add ric-rac and embellishments.

 

Don't forget to cover the lid.  Pop the coffee gift card inside and you are ready to go!

My son has dyslexia and subsequently has quite a team of ladies to assist him at school.  He loves to go in on the last day and give them all a present.  He also decided he would like to give the ladies in the office something because "they don't get presents and they are very nice too"  !  We have gone for something cheap, cheerful and that we can make on a bit of a production line.  Decorated chocolate bars. 

 

Slide off the paper wrapper and use it as a template.  Select your patterned paper and embellishments and off you go. Now if only the weather would get a little cooler and the chocolate would stop melting before I can even get it home.

There will be a few more ideas next week.

Enjoy the sunshine and the tennis.

Joy xxx