big floral papercut

I worked on this big ol' papercut a while back while I was in the groove of the floral papercut cards. It didn't turn out very well at first, so I put it aside and waited for inspiration to strike so I could finish it.

I love the strong black background and the punch it gives to the arrangement on the mantel. I have a terrible urge to drop what I'm doing and make an applique quilt just like it.

Made from art papers, cut by hand, with colored pencil accents. In an IKEA frame.

(I have felty plans for that bell jar too. Found it on sale at Ballard a while back. It needs something taller in it for sure.)

feliz aniversário, Robyn, part 3

Ok, so Robyn already bought this DIY papercut set from Elsita months ago, but I knew she would not get around to cutting them out for herself to enjoy before she draws Social Security anytime soon. She's got way too much going on to sit down and do that for herself these days. So I bought the set and took it upon myself to do it for her.

Because it's FUN.

However, I would not attempt this as your first papercutting DIY. Elsita has some simpler ones to do if you browse her shop. This set was challenging at times for me, even with my many years of wielding an X-acto. It's mostly due to the overall scale, which is pretty small, and all the tiny, tiny detail. Which is of course what makes the finished papercut so satisfying.

The set comes printed on some really nice, creamy stock, with pink printed on all the areas you cut away. I recommend you start with a brand new blade, good light, and a calm spirit (read: no espresso). I cut out the tiniest interior pieces first, then the last thing I do is cut around the outside.

So here's the completed set, mounted on dark grey 5x7 inch cardstock. I flipped them all over for mounting because as careful as you are, some pink is still visible in tiny places on the cutting side. Robyn's (gorgeous) home in Rio has many large, solid white walls, so I figured more artwork would be welcomed.

And, Bob dear, when you get your set cut out, guess who you are sending it tooooooo? LOL.

This completes the handmade portion of her birthday gift, which I sent to her along with a retail arty wall calendar. I'm glad I have a friend who loves handmade things as much as I do, so I can victimize her year after year with stuff like this. ;-) Love you, Robyn! Happy birthday! (waving)

papercut cards

I started an oversized version of the tole painting card for my mantel and so far it's a fail. Poop. So I put it aside for now and made two more hand-cut cards. I like the woodcutty feel to them, and the fact you can play with paper colors behind them. I'm looking into getting a Silhouette Cameo. It would be fun to design more things like this and just let the digital cutter get the crick in its neck for a change. Do you love yours?

make a ruffle circle pillow sham

This is a reprint of a guest post at Kojo Designs' The Sincerest Form Of Flattery series. Enjoy!

Hi, folks! I'm Larissa Holland of mmmcrafts and I like to make stuff and drink coffee. A lot. I'm a graphic designer turned home-schooling mom, and being creative really helps* to keep me sane. I have a shop where I sell my sewing and papercut patterns and the occasional finished piece. You can find a wide variety of crafts on my blog. I like to try new things, but I mainly squander large amounts of free time on papercuts, cards, felt crafts, and of course sewing clothing, accessories and gifts.
*no guarantee implied

I'm happy to be a part of this Sincerest Form of Flattery series. Most times when I attempt to recreate something from the retail world it is due to one or both of the following reasons:
1) I cannot possibly afford the staggering price tag
2) The item I am lusting after does not quite fit my needs (i.e. color, size, etc...)

In some instances, I think good design is just worth paying for. For me, the price/value is on a sliding scale with ease/cost of replication. For example, I recently purchased this Pintuck duvet cover for our bedroom from West Elm. I love and adore it, and just thinking about trying to make something similar to it gave me hives. It was easily worth the purchase price.

image from West Elm

On the other hand, I elected to make something similar to their wonderful Ruffled-Circle pillow shams:

Image from West Elm

I thought it would be a great look to complement my youngest daughter's new duvet cover, however, I wasn't sure the WE white would match it, I didn't like the way the ruffled circle is cut in half on the West Elm standard sham, and the european sham is the wrong size. So, I stared at their photos for a while and made my own version:

Here we go: West Elmish Ruffled Circle Pillow Sham How-To:

First I grabbed an existing pillow sham from my daughter's bed and measured it. It was 25 x 20 inches. Then I hopped on my favorite design tool, my Mac. I drew a layout to size like so:

Next step was to root around in my fabric shelves to find some likely looking white fabric. Allowing for a half inch seam, I cut the following pieces:

1. Two 21 x 26 inch rectangles for the front (one for the top, and one for the backing) and also a piece of cotton batting to match
2. One 21 x 22 inch rectangle for the envelope back
3. One 21 x 12 inch rectangle for the other side of the envelope back

I pressed the edges of the two envelope back pieces over half an inch, then another half an inch and sewed it down to create a finished edge. I set them aside.

Next was a boatload of bias cut strips for the ruffled circles. (Bias cut because there was no way I was going to finish the edges. Raw bias strips don't fray a lot). I laid my yardage on the floor and pulled a corner over like so:

Then I cut along that fold. This new cut edge was on the bias. Then I cut 2 inch strips from those bias edges until I had what looked like a really ridiculous amount. Turns out 225 inches was not even enough to complete the larger ruffle circle, so I had to cut more. (How much you need may vary depending on how tightly you ruffle the strips, but more about that in a minute.) I figured 2 inches wide would allow for the strips to fray a bit in the wash and still look fluffy. If you look closely at the West Elm photos, I'm pretty sure their strips were not that wide. You can vary it as you like.

I sewed all my bias strips together end to end. Here's how you do that:

Ok. This is where your results may vary. I used my ruffler attachment to gather the strips. I didn't want to hand gather a strip that long because, well, I hate gathering. With every fiber of my being. If you have a ruffler attachment, by all means dust it off and put it on. This is where it shines, man.

I used a stitch length of 2.5 and the 6 setting on the ruffler (meaning a tuck is taken every 6 stitches). Then I just fed the strip through and watched it do all the pretty tucks for me. One thing you want to keep an eye on is the needle itself. It can work loose after a little while from the action of the ruffler and you don't want it to fall out mid-stitch. Like I did.

 

So you don't have a ruffler? You can cheat too. You can use a gathering foot, or if you don't have one of those you can experiment on a test strip by increasing your stitch length and tightening the tension until your machine is making gathers by itself as you sew. It will really help if your bias strips are a lightweight fabric.

After ruffling all the strips I pressed them in half along the seam.

Next step was to assemble the sham top. I used my fancy compass (from a drafting course in college) with a pencil lead in it to draw concentric circles in position on the sham top piece, like so:

Each nested circle is an inch apart from the next. Then I also drew in my quilting lines with an air soluble marker. I sandwiched the batting between the sham top and the sham top backing, pinned (a lot), and sewed along the quilting lines only, working from the center outward. (Do not sew the concentric circles).

I used fabric glue to tack down the center seams of the ruffled strips to the concentric circles. Beginning with a tight circle in the center, I worked my way around and outward. I tucked the end under when I completed the circle.

Then I used the machine to stitch each ruffled circle in place.

Now to put it all together. First I squared up the sham top. Then I aligned the envelope back pieces right sides together to the sham top and pinned. Using a half inch seam, I sewed all the way around.

Lastly I snipped the corners, turned it, stuffed it with a pillow and viola! The West Elmish look I wanted for her new bed.

I have to say, after making this sham with the 14 miles of bias strip to ruffle, the WE version looked a lot more attractive, and according to my sliding scale I think the $30+shipping they want for their sham is a pretty fair deal.

But having said that, the one I made still wins with me because 1) it's the style/exact color I wanted, 2) I was able to make it from my stash in more durable fabric for zero dollars, 3) it is something special from her mom that my daughter loves!

handmade gifts 2012, part 1

We draw names on my side of the family for Christmas. That means each member of my own family will get a gift for another member of the extended family. So, basically I had four gifts to take care of for our swap. I have never attempted a completely handmade Christmas. Way too overwhelming. I bow low to those of you who manage it! But I did try to include handmade elements with each name draw gift.

Even though I was struggling to get along with the new Cameo, I did manage to produce the papercut card sets you see above for my niece. She's the busy mommy of two toddlers, so I figured having nice cards handy would save a trip to the store. I designed both these cards a while back, here and here. Instead of cutting them by hand for multiples, I converted the files to DXF for the plotter. Yada yada. And they were done.

After they were assembled, I tied a couple of stacks together with envelopes and pretty ribbon. During the yada yada there were moments when I thought I could have cut each by hand and had them done faster. It was a learning experience but

1) I was very pleased with the cards I did manage to make and
2) now I have Much Knowledge.
To be fair, most folks probably don't get their Cameo out of the box and start importing their own custom cut files. I kinda skipped the whole crawl before you walk part.

I raided my awesome paper tower to produce a variety in eye-popping colors. Have I mentioned how much I love and adore my cheap, plastic paper tower? I have? Oh.

 

Sorry for the gloomy photos. It looked like a nuclear winter here for the last half of December. My new replacement blades have arrived promptly from Silhouette America, so I'm looking forward to giving this another try and seeing if the fine cuts/points/corners come out cleaner.

handmade gifts 2012, part 3

The last handmade gift is a reprise of the Phil 4:6-7 papercut I made for Robyn a while back. This version is for my sister, Leigh.

It fits an 8 x 10 inch frame. I changed it a bit from Robyn's with more leaves and no birds included. I included several background colors with it so she could switch it up and find one that worked best for her decor.

I gifted it to her along with a pillow cover you see folded and tied above that I made from some Crate & Barrel napkins. I forgot to take a picture of it on an actual pillow. Oops. It's a nice, Christmasy array of bold green stripes. I made it in my favorite, quick no-zipper-required envelope method, which took three napkins. Also no hemming, since the edges of the napkins are finished already. Boom.

In addition to those I gave some Rifle Paper Co. notes and the Penguin Classic edition of Cranford, in honor of the afternoons we spent watching the mini-series together and drinking tea. The scene about the oranges. Oh my word. "We will repair to our rooms... and consume our fruit in solitude." So funny. The book is a wonderful read, too.

That wraps up the making for Christmas. I had pie-in-the-sky visions of making the quilts for the girls, but I've set my sights on Valentines for that. Which is probably just as unrealistic. Oh, I did have one more handmade gift besides these, but you've already seen the photos. I made a gift of these two stockings to my lovely sister Lori along with some books. She's a book addict like me.