another set of literal quilt blocks

This time the set is for my friendy friend, Robyn, and the third color is coral instead of blue green. 

I packaged up this block set to her along with a paper HST birthday card and a guide sheet showing many of the possible combinations for the blocks. 

(If you are wondering about that excellent acorn/squirrel ribbon, it's designed by the ever willowy and affable  Jessica Jones  for  Renaissance Ribbons.)

The blocks are very relaxing to make, if you enjoy repetitive preciseness. You can totally zone out while painting and binge watching Gilmore Girls. (Unfortunately I've found I can't watch a Korean drama while painting – too hard to keep looking up at the subtitles.)

Beware: These just-for-fun quilty display pieces are real time suckers. It's addictive. 

And, as I mentioned before, if you are careful to paint each block the same way you will get two designs each time, one on the front and a different one on the back side. I like flipping the set over to see what I got. It's a surprise!

If you'd like to try making your own Literal Quilt Blocks I've included construction tips with the earlier post. 

another paper HST card

This paper HST card is for my beautiful mom! She's a September baby too. Have you guys seen a picture of my Mom?

Here she is with my super cute nephew and her grandbaby, my oldest. I think her inner beauty shines from her face. This lovely, godly and clever lady loves feeding her big family, sewing, soul stirring music, peanut butter and sparkly things. She does not love technology. Or things with motors. I adore you, Moms! Happy birthday from Atlanta!

(HST cards are easy to make with a square punch. See this post for more info.)

hst card for Leigh

Handmade happy birthday card for my sister Leigh! It's made of half square triangles because
1) she's a fantastic quilter
2) my gift to her is also quilt themed
3) this just seemed like a fun thing to try in paper, right?

But I found it is totally not fun to make a card like this unless you go buy one of these:

Having a square paper punch makes this card a cinch. I picked this up at Michaels. Don't be fooled by the 1 1/2 inch label there. It punches squares slightly over an inch in size, but the size noted on the punch is measured on the diagonal from corner to corner. Weird. Maybe that's standard but it seems goofy to me. I measure squares along the sides.
So the finished card is 5 x 5 inches.

I planned my colors and then assembled the squares like this: whole square on bottom topped by a triangle, which I cut from the punched squares with scissors, just eyeballing it. Then the assembled HSTs were all glued together on a piece of paper by just lining them up end to end.

I used a Tacky Glue pen for the assembly and it was perfect to put just the right tiny amount of glue on the triangles.

Here's the card with the wrapped gift. It's winging its way to her now so I'll wait a few days to post what's inside the wrapping.

In a completely unrelated K-Drama note, guess what's now streaming on Netflix?

Yaaaaaaaaaay! In the middle of it now!

hand stitched flora card

Card for my momma. It probably looks familiar because it's basically my Flora Needle Book cover pattern that I enlarged to 4 x 4.75 inches. It's made from wool felt and embroidery floss on card stock, with a flower in the place of the button that's usually on the needle book.

Closeup of the stitching. I pre-punched my holes with the needle. You kind of have to do that with paper. I punched them through the felt and paper from the top, then proceeded to embroider with a back stitch like usual. The key is to use BIG stitches.

In progress shot of the other card I made for my MIL. I didn't get a final photo of that one! Too last minute. That one had a few beads and sequins too. The process is pretty time consuming for a card, but it turns your card into a little work of art that is pretty gift on its own.

birthday card for Lita

Simple card made from card stock, wool felt, and gel pen. Happy birthday to my sweet May-born sister!

and cards to match

The finishing touch to the very late birthday gifts were these very late handmade cards.

Made from paper, gel pen and felt.

welcome home and happy birthday, Hobyn

Did I tell you? My dear bestie and her family have now moved back stateside. Yay! Their years in Rio were lovely but there's no place like home. And now it's her birthday. So I thought a couple of mementos from her time in the warm southern climes of Brazil would be appropriate!

First I put together a photo book of our time together in Rio. I love making iPhoto books. I spend way, way too much time arranging everything just so. (If you'd like to see more about the trip, go here, here and here.)

Then with the help of my intrepid brother-in-law, Robby, I was able to make the Brazilian coins I brought home from my trip into this charm bracelet.

Sometimes it's a little unfair how pretty coins from other countries are. I especially like the two-tone gold/silver ones.

This bracelet looks a lot like the one I made myself when I was a young teen. And that is because this one is made from the same silver necklace that I frankensteined to make my own coin bracelet some thirty years ago. *coughhoardercough*

Just goes to show you, pack ratting pays off. I think that double chain makes a cracking charm bracelet! And goodness knows the silver finish has proven impervious to the passage of time. (And I still have enough for at least two more bracelets!)

After my failed first two attempts at drilling tiny holes in the coins myself (I don't know why it was so hard for me, this tutorial makes it look like a piece of cake), I handed that job over to a professional. Thanks, Robby! Once that was done, the rest was easy. Harvested jump rings and put the lobster clasp on and finished. I love the cheerful clinky clink sound it makes on your wrist.

I also threw in these pattern weights for her that I've been meaning to make for months. Pretty easy to make. The tutorial is here.

Basically you hot glue two 3/4" oversized zinc washers from the hardware store together and then wrap them tightly with ribbon to make it purty. If you hate to pin patterns you need to make yourself some of these. So that's everyone. I still need to finish my own set. I have been known to anchor my patterns with scissors, rulers, jars, coffee cup, and anything else within arm's reach on my craft table. These will be really handy. And less sloshy.

And lastly, her birthday card. A September birthday deserves a warm, orangey autumnal card. (It's also pumpkin spice flavored.) It is made from paper, wool felt, ribbon, and those tiny pom poms you can get en multicolored masse at the craft store. I never thought I'd have a use for tiny, pale orange pom poms but I did. Hoard, people.

you'll be gladder without your bladder

Gladder. That's not a word but it's funny. I quite enjoyed making these cards for Chelsea and Mattheus. It was a nice break from Christmas ornaments. My niece Chelsea has recently parted ways with her recalcitrant gall bladder...

(if you didn't know, this is really and factually what a sick gall bladder looks like)

 ...and neighbor Mattheus had a birthday.

Both cards are 4.25 x 5.5 inches folded (that way you can get two cards from one 8.5 x 11 sheet of card stock, so I prefer this size). You can see I was feelin' the black/chartreuse/green/orange color palette. The paper eight and the gall bladder were drawn and cut from card stock and then enhanced with colored pencils and punches. I used foam pop dots to elevate them on the black card stock and then added white gel pen details. Taped an iTunes gift card inside and voila!

FYI: If you are wondering about a felt color collection for Turtle Dove, Renae at Benzie Design is working one up as we speak! Great choice if you would like to make some Turtle Dove ornaments that are the same colors as mine. The felt bundle (with matching floss) will be available in her shop soon. I'll post about it!

hand cut father's day card

After-the-fact post for this Father's Day card because of course I wait until the very last minute to make cards. It reads Supa Dad...or does it read Supa Bad? You know it, uh huh, rockin your Dockers and cell phone holsta.

Made by hand with an Xacto by printing/sketching on the back of white card stock in reverse then backing it up with blue and chili pepper colored papers.

Thanks so much for all the great feedback on my new Partridge & Pear pattern! I'm looking forward to working on Turtle Dove. But right now I think I might have drafted myself a peplum top that I can actually wear. I need to look into that further.

make a felt bouquet card for mom

I like to make cards. As well you know. Here's this year's handmade Mother's Day card. It's made of handcut felt flowers and leaves with a paper punch label in the middle.

Would you like to make a similar card? It's a cinch to make if you have some know-how, pretty felt and a little time. I'd say it is intermediate level crafting. Bonus: these flowers won't wilt and they won't cost a fortune. (Are you a beginner? Try this one!)

You will need:

• A laser print of this template at actual size (no scaling)
• Letter-sized piece of black card stock
• Scrap of white card stock
• Two 1/8 inch thick pop dots
• Scraps of wool felt in various colors for the flowers (do not use acrylic craft felt!)
• White pencil or gel pen
• Black ink pen
• Tacky Glue®
• Scraps of freezer paper and a pencil for tracing
• Small scissors
• Toothpick
• Black embroidery thread and a largish embroidery needle

1) Start by cutting the letter-sized black card stock in half so you have two 5.5 x 8.5 inch pieces. Keep one piece and set the other aside for later to make another card.

2) Fold the piece in half so you have a 4.25 x 5.5 inch card.

3) Now's the time to add your haiku on motherhood to the inside of the black card with a white gel pen. Or whatever message you like. Just in case you mess up. Because if you add the message now and mess up, no big deal; you can just use the extra half of the paper to make another card. If you wait and attach the elaborate, gorgeous flowery outside of the card and then mess the inside up you will have a slightly larger problem. Let the ink dry.

4) Write a cursive greeting on the scrap of white card stock with a black ink pen. You can do this. Don't cop out and print it from Microsoft Word. Handwritten is charming! Call up your best penmanship and keep it simple:
"I love you, Mom"
"For my Mom"
"Mummy Dearest"
Something like that. Just write it somewhere on the white card stock with plenty of room around. Practice if you need to.

5) When you are happy with it, use a light table or handy window to center your writing over the rectangle shape on the template and lightly trace the rectangle. Cut out the label and erase any stray pencil marks on the edges. (Or if you have a fancy label punch like mine, center your writing in the window and punch that baby.)

6) Put two pop dots on the back of the white label and place it in the center of your black card.

7) Lay freezer paper (shiny side down) over the template and trace all the flower and leaf shapes separately with a pencil. The shapes are overlapped on the template so be sure to trace the whole shape. Group the traced shapes together according to felt color, leaving a little space in between them for trimming.

8) Cut the freezer paper apart roughly by color grouping. Iron the freezer paper shiny-side-down on the corresponding colors of wool felt scraps. Carefully cut out the felt shapes with small scissors. Leave the freezer paper in place for now, and peel it off as you use each piece. It will help you keep your shapes oriented right side up.

9) Squirt a nickel-sized blob of Tacky Glue on a scrap of paper and use the toothpick to add small dabs of glue to the backs of the flower parts to layer them together. Less is more - it only takes a small dab here and there to adhere the parts. Don't worry about symmetry. It looks better when it's wonky.

10) Use all six strands of embroidery thread to sew a star in the middle of the orange flower as shown. Use one big stitch for each leg. Easy.

11) Test the two largest flowers in place on the card. You may have to trim a bit of the petal from the orange flower if it bumps into your pop dot. Keeping them in place with a finger, lift the edges and add a dab of glue to the middle of the backs with the toothpick. Don't glue the whole shape down. You need the edges loose so you can underlap the other pieces.

12) Now glue on the smaller roses, one underneath and one above the large rose.

13) Add the leaves, putting them in place first and then using small toothpick dabs of glue to secure them. (I use another toothpick that has no glue on it to tuck the ends under where I need to.)

14) You are almost done. Looks pretty nice already, huh? Use a white pencil or gel pen to add two curved lines like this:

15) Now add the last few little leaves to these stems.

16) TADA! A pretty, handmade bouquet of love for your mom and now you are the favorite child and now you have the satisfaction of making something special by hand! If you do make one, I'd love to see it! Share a photo by adding it here.

If you are running low on wool felt you could also make this card with paper flowers instead. Same instructions apply. I have ironed freezer paper on card stock with great success.

Looking for other card crafting ideas that you can use for Mother's Day? Here are some from previous posts:

 

 

Just a reminder that all of my paper crafts templates are for personal use only. Thanks so much for respecting that.