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Friday 17 February 2012

Here's to using up leftovers!

Many of you already know that I run regular craft classes, so I thought I would share the aftermath of my Weds night class.......
 This first pic is all the stamps and Distress Inks piled high on my table, ready for cleaning and sorting.  We always end up throwing everything in the crates at the end of the night, and I start my day with a cuppa and a sort out!  Well, this particular class used a lot of card pre-cut to size, and I had an awful lot of identical sized strips of card left afterwards.........................



Being a typical crafter, I didn't want to throw it away, lots of good quality card, what could I do with it...hmmmmm..............the craft brain went into overdrive and started thinking about weaving the strips together to make a decorative background, so out came a set of Penny Black stamps I've been wanting to play with, and my trusty Pro Markers, and I had so much fun!


I coloured some strips to match my main stamped image, and left some white, then wove them together in a basket weave pattern.  The main trick is to stick one end of each strip (just one direction to start with) in place with double sided, then to weave the strips thru from the other direction until you're happy with the layout, then attach double sided tape to the underside of the end of each strip and fix each one in place as you go.  I found using the lines on my craft mat invaluable to line up the strips evenly along both edges!

They looked a bit boring on a plain white background, so I stamped a quick background with one of the small flower stamps from the set (Micey Day) and quickly coloured the centre of the daisies to match and presto! Big improvement. See what you think.............


And as I had so many strips, I made quite a few cards, but can only give you a quick peek of one here, as they are now destined for Making Cards magazine, along with a set of tea bag folding cards I've been working on.  Again, I had a ball making these, not having tried tea bag folding before, so I made flowers, medallions and butterflies, and made a beaded body for my folded butterfly out of twisted wire, and it came out pretty good! But that's for another post......

For all those who asked, I will get around to a TP mini album soon, and show you how to make one from scratch, and the finished sample...it's on the crafty to do list!!!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a fab crafty weekend

Debs x

1 comment:

  1. What a fantastic transformation from those "dull" strips to a stunning card. Thank you for you lovely comment on my card, and your suggestions on how to improve it. xx Maggie

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