Too Early for Christmas Cards?

It’s the end of September and there are 3 months to go until that big day where everyone eats too many Heroes chocolates, the day where everyone argues over the dinner table about how many pigs in blankets so-and-so has had and the day where everyone complains about the awful comedians they’ve chosen to present the shows on TV.

However, is 3 months too early to start making Christmas cards? Being a bit of a craft hoarder, my house is full with tins of ribbon, boxes of scrap card and bags of little ‘things’ that I’ve kept ‘just in case’. A whole bag of this stuff is just dedicated to ‘things’ with a Christmassy feel, so it only seems right that I put them to good use. Afterall, I have been saving these bits and bobs for at least one year, some of them possibly a lot longer (I told you I was a hoarder).

Anyway, the picture above is of the five Christmas cards that I created one rainy afternoon last week. There are a couple of Christmas scenes with houses and trees and a few baubles hanging on different coloured ribbons. Of course, this is only just skimming the surface of what lurks in my bag of Christmas crafts – if I hadn’t run out of cards and envelopes in the process I could easily have made another 45 more. Looks like a trip to The Works is in order this weekend…

More Festive Cards (& 83 Days To Go)

Colourful buttons are my current craft inspiration and obsession. Yes, I am that cool. I made a cushion last week using buttons as the leaves and flowers on a tree, which was great fun to sew and incredible as an overall result. You can see that by clicking here.

I then started to make Christmas cards using an idea I spotted in a craft magazine, and here are the 3 latest additions to my range of Winter 2011 Christmas cards. The few others I made a fortnight or so ago you can see by clicking here . This time I created cute little Christmas trees and hanging bauble designs. With only 83 days (and counting) and many friends and relative to whip up thrifty creations for, my Christmas craft skates are well and truly on!

101 Days Until Christmas

It’s September. I realise this. But there are only 101 days left until the Big Day itself and I’m starting to get fearful flashbacks of an endless queue of customers, late nights, delirious days and an unimaginable number of Take That albums. I’m becoming increasingly aware, therefore, that I’ll probably only have another 5 days off work between now and the festive season – thus September being the perfect month to begin my Christmas card preparation. Apologies to those who disagree.

In one of my previous posts I mentioned that I’d bought a Christmas card-making magazine. This, so far, has been the inspiration for my crafts. In keeping with my love of sewing (and also this blog) – my handmade cards this year are mostly based around buttons.

Check the photo above for 3 of the cards I made this morning!

Card descriptions from left to right:
1. Green card covered in festive paper, with a ‘Merry Christmas’ ribbon through the middle, tree and robin embellishments, gold glitter plant pot button and red bow.

2. Green card half covered in festive paper, 4 coloured buttons attached with ribbon and 1 poinsettia flower button.

3. Yellow card with cut out window and half covered in festive paper, gold bauble embellishment, Christmas tree decoration made up of green buttons and beads threaded onto a glittery pipe cleaner, ‘Merry Christmas’ logo on inside of card.

Also – how adorable is the button-snowman card I made?! It took me a total of 2 hours to make these four cards – all to the accompaniment of Japanese anime film ‘Summer Wars’. I think I might need to get my skates on….

The Christmas themed papers I used came with the magazine Cardmaking & Papercraft, issue 96 October 2011.

Cartes Postales Francaises

Card-making is probably the oldest string on my metaphorical craft bow. I’ve been making them for people for most of my life – collecting bits of paper and decoration left, right and centre to produce a craft box to rival that of Neil Buchanan from Art Attack.

Since buying a copy of Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine last week (see the post about that here) I’ve been inspired to whip up a further few masterpieces. They’ve got a lovely feature about turning vintage postcards into greetings cards by cutting out the main image and adorning it with ribbons, buttons and bows.

So, on my lunch break yesterday, I set out for Oxfam Harrogate and their grand collection of postcards from yesteryear. I picked out 8 in total – all images of cathedrals, palaces and chateaux in France – I’ve always felt a strong connection towards the land of onions and baguettes, so was naturally drawn towards this as a theme. Plus I do have an A Level in the language. Which I achieved a year in advance. Ahem.

After having looked at my choice of cards, I’m not so sure I want to part with them anymore. They’re such lovely images I think they might look better on my noticeboard… a selfish attitude I realise, but there’s never been any harm in a little self indulgence. I’ll just go and buy a few more… so if it’s your birthday coming up – keep an eye out for these cartes postales francaises.

 

an iPurse for an iPad

Previously in my life, see here, I astonished myself and those around me by hand-making my very own quilted Kindle cover. I adapted a lovely pattern out of that trusty Cath Kidston Sew! book – there’s a handy review of that here too – and, basically, turned a coin purse into an e-reader storage facility. Such skills.

Now this is where the real story begins. Recently, my adorable work colleague has visited the Big Apple and purchased herself an iPad mark 2 - Apple pun obviously not intended, promise – and has expressed the severe need for a case to keep it in. Whilst there are many wonderful, technological and expensive designs on the market already… clearly nothing says ‘I love you but I’m fairly jealous anyway’ more than her very own, hand-sewn, unique iPad cover.

Enter the iPurse. Patent pending (I wish). This week (or fortnight at least) it is my ambition to stitch away and create a new masterpiece. When I’m not doing one of the other 14 masterpieces I currently have on the go, that is…

Let’s just get this out there now, shall we? Yesterday I bought myself a Christmas card-making magazine. There, said it. In all fairness it did come with some fabulous, free Christmas card decorations and backing paper. I’m even considering wallpapering my room with the paper instead it’s that pretty. The magazine is Cardmaking & Papercraft (issue 96, October) and isn’t one I usually buy – I’m more of a sewing magazine kinda girl! Nothing wrong with being prepared for the festive season though, right?