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A Card for Caterina

A Card for Caterina

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When Ann first invited us all to take part in a holiday card swap it was mentioned that our theme could be anything, it didn’t have to be particularly Christmassy…..and so mine wasn’t. I have to say that as more and more of the cards are now being shown, a part of me wishes I had gone with a Christmas theme, but it’s only a small part! My partner in the swap, Caterina, got in first with her card to me which I love and I felt that gave me permission to do what I really fancied doing! I won’t show Caterina’s card in case she’s going to do a post about it but let’s just say we were thinking along very similar lines.

I decided to make a mini Autumn/Winter forest floor mounted on to a 5” x 7” card. Starting with an off cut of Lutrador I used acrylics and Inktense to paint it grey with hints of green, or so I thought! Once I started to distress the Lutradur with the heat gun, what had looked very grey suddenly became very green as the green Inktense intensified. Rather than start again I decided to go with the flow and add more grey where needed later.

What was grey became very green!

Next I got out my box of Tyvek and Lutradur samples to see if there were any pieces of bark or leaves already made which I could use for this project.

The leaves were all too large apart from the one on the luggage label

All of the leaves turned out to be too large for the scale of the card apart from a small one attached to the luggage label on one of my workshop samples. This was the ideal shape and size so I used it as my template for the leaf to go on the card.

I had more luck with the tree bark as I found a few workshop samples, one of which hadn’t been painted and was the perfect size.

The barks been painted and I’m starting to audition pieces for the card

Moving the pieces around until I’m happy with the placement
I can spend ages arranging and rearranging the parts, distressing the smallest pieces of Lutradur to get pleasing shapes and checking I’ve made enough to cover the background. Once I was happy with the amount of pieces I had the bark was embroidered and everything stitched down to a piece of brown cotton fabric.
And this is the finished card complete with Colonial Knots, felt pebbles and the little leaf. OK, it doesn’t scream “Christmas” but, as a keepsake, I hope it will remind Caterina of the friendships she’s formed with the F&F group and of happy Christmas 2023 memories.


Once I’d got Caterina’s card in the post I caved in and made a reindeer themed “Christmassy” card for my local textile group swap. After trying, and failing miserably, to draw a simple reindeer I turned to clip art and found this cute reindeer pose.

I’d recently seen images of beautiful little birds online that had been made from scrap fabrics and free motion stitch and these inspired me to do something similar with the reindeer.

I had so much fun making this one that I tried another pose, got carried away and went in to production!

These have been cut from fabric scraps and free motion stitched on to patterned card (which makes a great stabiliser!) I figured the antlers and legs would be a bit fiddly in fabric so I simply used a marker pen for those.

Cards have never really interested me in the past but these were such fun to make, I can see myself creating more to put aside for next year!

I hope all our readers have had a peaceful Christmas and here’s to a healthy, happy and creative 2024 for all of us!

Playing with Tyvek

Playing with Tyvek

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My art group met at the first of June and we played with Tyvek. We were inspired by Karen L’s recent post here.  We cut up Tyvek envelopes, painted and heated them with a variety of heat tools including an iron and heat guns.

Paula had already made a few samples but we wanted to heat them a bit more than just the light heating that causes bubbling. The results are much more lace like.

Here’s another before and after. The results are really organic. So you just have to decide when you want to stop the melting process.

So everybody started painting Tyvek sheets.

Then we started melting them. These are Deb’s and she used the heat gun and then added some shimmery spray ink afterwards.

Here are a couple of Sally’s pieces. She stitched the leaves on the sewing machine before melting.

Here’s another one of Paula’s that turned out looking like a bunny.

Here are a couple that Louise made. The one on the right reminds me of forest floor.

And here’s one that I did. I added the darker blue paint on the high points after melting. I am looking forward to seeing how everyone uses their Tyvek experiments. I am planning on adding some acrylic mediums and paint and mounting them on a canvas.

Tidying, Rediscovering, and Inspiration

Tidying, Rediscovering, and Inspiration

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I’ve been having a big tidy up this week, so haven’t had much time to make anything. And not having space to make anything is one reason for the tidy up! It’s amazing how just not putting things away properly can soon build up to one giant mess. One of the few positives to tidying up is re-discovering things. The first thing I was happy to find is a chiffon scarf I must have bought over 20 years ago. I don’t think it’s silk, but it really is nice. It looks like it was made from a larger piece:

The second small scarf I found was a silvery grey silk one which was my mum’s. I’ve thought about making a nuno piece out of it:

I bought a few large silk scarves around November last year. They’ve got sequins sewn on, and I thought I’d try one for a nuno scarf. They’re not the kind of thing I’d usually buy, but they were knocked down from £20, to £2!:

And, if you’re like me, a big part of tidying up invoves playing about with stuff you’re meant to be tidying! For some reason I kept a load of little paper hearts from the hole-punch I use on tags:

And then I found a lens from a small kaleidoscope (I used to buy them for photography!), so had to have a play. This is a soft wispy piece I made at the well being centre recently:

And this is some Kevlar fibre/thread:

One thing I did find got me thinking about Ruth’s first Quarter Challenge. Tyvek envelopes. I’ve only played around with them once, fairly recently, and just held a couple of pieces over the gas rings on the stove:

I don’t know what I’ll do with the unmelted ones yet, but they have potential!

If you have any tips for keeping tidy, feel free to leave them!