It's a Creative World

Be inspired by every day things

The other day at work, I had a cup of water and marvelled at the bottom of a very basic plastic cup. I've taken a photo, just hope you can see enough detail.

The shape is a lovely flower and it's raised so would be great to use as a basic shaped stamp!

Of course this inspired me to keep looking at my surroundings for more items to use for stamping.

Bottle tops, the wrong end of a paint brush, keys, the tops of brads, corks, shaped pencil sharpeners. Rings, bottle bottoms.....the list is exhaustive!

Alot of these things are good for kiddies too so no need to share your good stamps :)

Sorry I only have one photo on this post but I'm still blogging by phone and it's not easy ;)

Take care all and please share your weird and wonderful stamps with me!

Caz xxx

Using a 'Layer Cake' to make a Lap Quilt...

Hi, this is Mandy,

I posted in January about a lap quilt I made my niece using a 'Jelly Roll' of fabric strips.  Well, I thought I'd share about the lap quilt I made my other niece, this time using a 'Layer Cake' of fabric.

Here's my dd holding up the finished lap quilt...

 

The pattern is free from Quiltville and is called 'Scrappy Mountain Majesties' . 

So, what is a 'Layer Cake'?  It's a cute name for a pile of 10" x 10" squares of fabric... 

 

The number you get depends on the manufacturer and mine was 40 co-ordinated squares in the Basic Grey fabric 'Fruitcake' by Moda. There are other cute piles out there like 'Charm Packs' which is a pile of 5" squares.  So, please refer to the original link if you want to make the quilt yourself, but here's what I did.  Firstly I separated the 10" squares into 'dark' and 'light', then pinned them (right-side together) into pairs with a light square on top of a dark square.  I drew a feint line down the diagonal of the light square of each pinned pair....

 

Then, stitch down either side of the line being careful to keep a 0.25" distance from the line...

 

 Then iron the squares and cut up the line so you get 2 triangles...

 

Open out the triangles into squares and press the seam to the dark side.  Lay the squares on top of each other as shown...

 

Being careful not to move the squares, cut four strips (do the centre cut first and work outwards)...

 

Re-arrange the strips and stitch them together again to get these panels...

 

Six panels sewn together makes the patchwork piece below (needs a border still)...

 

Here's the patchwork with the border...

 
 

Basting the lap quilt comes next.  Lay the backing fabric right side down onto the floor, slowly lower the filling (batting/wadding) and the quilt top last...

 

I hold all the layers together with a tag tool but some folks use safety pins or large tacking stitches.  My youngest ds likes to help with this stage...

 

Now it's time to quilt the layers together... 

 

Once quilted, trim the layers and bind.  I used red fabric to bind this lap quilt.  It helps to position a table (or ironing board) next to the sewing table...

 

This quilt came together fairly quickly because the fabric was already in 10" squares as a Layer Cake.  It was a really fun pattern to make and I'd recommend it. 

 

Happy quilting!

Mandy.

 

Shaker Card

In my previous post I used salt to create a different effect on a sprayed background.   The salt absorbed some of the colour from the sprays and looked really pretty.  I wanted to use it, so decided to make a shaker card.

 

 

It's a Valentines card but in a different colourway.  (Because of the colour of the salt)

I used a Fiskars Everywhere punch, it takes a little bit of practice to get the apertures lined up.

Line the back of the apertures with acetate

 
For the middle section I stamped an image on some sprayed cardstock

 
Build up around the other two apertures with 3D foam

 

(Excuse the reflection from the acetate)

Add the salt or glitter, sequins etc. and put some backing paper or another layer of acetate on top to hold everything in place.  (I prefered to use some more sprayed paper.)

 

If you're not using a tri-fold card you need to cover the whole back with another piece of card or patterned paper.

I shall be giving this to someone special on Valentines day.

Lynne x