April 2012

MANday Monday – An (almost) One Layer Car Card

by Lesley Oman on 30 April, 2012

So confession time. This card was actually for a girl, but i thought that is would work well for a boy too.

This is a ‘congratulations, you passed your driving test’ card built primarily with stamps. I picked out a few stamp sets from my stash which had cars and a driving theme, and tried to build a picture in my head. Its important to do some proper planning whenever making a one layer card because you have to start at the top and work backwards using masks – i used post it notes to mask over the stamped area.

I chose a word stamp from this Gas Hogs stamp set from Sassafras and repeated it over the bottom section of the card to make a patterned paper effect.

When I was finished stamping, i felt that it was missing something (perhaps i just missed a little bit of colour) so i punched some hearts out of scraps of scrapbook paper and adhered these with a glue pen.

Thanks for stopping by, I have a few layouts to share soon so come back to me soooooooon.x

 

 



 

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Just Add Sunshine: Adding A Trim To A Plain Dress

by Lesley Oman on 24 April, 2012

When Mum and Dad were visiting a little while back, we went shopping in London and I wanted to replenish my summer wardrobe a little. I’ve been feeling in the mood for more day dresses recently you see. I tried on LOADS, but only came home with a few. The problem was that many of the dresses in shops these days are SUPER short. I’m not really in the habit of flashing my knickers at every Tom, Dick and Harry in the street so this meant that my choice was limited. I usually end up buying a dress that could be worn over leggings or thick tights (but in the summer I rarely want to be wearing thick tights, do i?). I picked up two stripy dresses, one red and the other navy. Nothing overly special, but i thought they were cute, albeit a bit plain. So i decided to experiment with the navy dress, and add a little sunshine to it, whilst at the same time adding length to keep my modesty in check! :-) Below is a photo tutorial (which means its a long post..sorry guys). I hope you can follow along. Disclaimer: I am NOT by any means a professional seamstress, but i like to play with my sewing machine every now and again. It’s a bit messy in bits, but I don’t really mind that. I hope you enjoy taking a peep at the tutorial.

Take a strip of yellow fabric fold in half lengthways and sew along the edge. I used a stretch stitch which kinda acts a bit like an overlocker.

If you need more length, do this twice and sew both together to create one lone strip of material. Once again I have used a stretch stitch to prevent unravelling of this seam.

Next set your machine to a long straight stitch and adjust the tension. As you sew the fabric will start to ruffle itself.

Let the machine ruffle the material of its own accord.

When you have done the entire length, it will look like this.

Find the bit where you joined the two pieces of yellow fabric together and pin it to the bottom of the dress, matching up the side seam of the dress with the seam in the yellow fabric.

With navy thread and using a straight stitch, sew the fabric to bottom edge of the dress, making sure to keep the visible length of yellow fabric consistent the whole way around. I kept a ruler at hand whilst doing this bit.

When you have gone the whole way round you will have two edges. Sew together with the zigzag stretch stitch once more, just like in photo 2.

Next I made the belt. I had some fabric left over and i also thought that it would tie the whole dress together. Here’s a photo walk through.

Take a Looooong strip of fabric and iron in half lengthways (right sides facing each other) and sew along the long edge with a straight stitch. Turn the right way out and iron flat with the seam in the middle. Next sew along the outer edges to neaten.

Fold a piece of fabric in half and draw around a leaf template with a pencil (i sketched the leaf shape freehand onto a piece of scratch paper). Sew along the pencil line, leaving one end open. Do this twice so you have two pieces. Cut notches and then turn right way out.

Take a rectangular piece of spare scratch fabric and sew the leaves to this piece. Pinch the fabric first so the leaf will ruffle a little.

To prevent the corners of the rectangle peeping out, tuck them back to create a point and add a few stitches to hold in place.

To make the know, take another piece of fabric about 5″ long and 2″ wide, fold in half lengthways and sew along the long edge. Turn inside out and sew along the edge to neaten. Next tie a loose knot into the fabric.

Match the two tails of fabric together and sew with a straight stitch.

Push one leaf through the knot and wriggle into place. The knot should sit snuggly in the middle.

Next find the middle of your belt length and sew a button hole. The button hole should be as wide as the knot tails (see photo below)

Tuck the knot tails into the button hole.

First I used a zigzag stitch along the edges of the knot tails to prevent unravelling then using a straight stitch, sew back and forth to attach to the belt. If you are careful you can sew over the top of the seam which is already there which gives a really neat result.

To finish I added another button and a button hole at either end of the belt so I could fasten it around my waist. I made the button fasten inwards (so the button is against my back) but as an embellishment I added a big fancy yellow button.

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MAN-day Monday – Chevron Birthday Love

by Lesley Oman on 23 April, 2012

This week’s MANday Monday carries on with my love of notecards. I just love their ittybitty style! And for this weeks masculine card I have also decided to work with chevrons.

Chevron patterns are very hot at the moment, very a la mode in the crafting world. Theres something about their zigityzagity nature that makes them seem masculine to me.

I didn’t have any chevron papers but I chose a page from the We R Memory Keepers Hippiyty Hoppity stack which had solid stripes in a variety of gorgeous colours, and by cutting strips of this paper you can make your own chevron effect.

`The trick is to cut at a 45 degree angle to the stripes, I used my cutting mat as a guide, first cutting across the diagonal of the grid marks, then turning my paper so that the edge lined up with the vertical grid lines. Then i cut at 1cm intervals.

I used a 12 x 12 piece of scrapbook paper, first cutting into the bottom left corner, then i repeated this on the bottom right – this makes sure you have both the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ in order to make the chevron shape.

I love the way the bright chevrons stand out against the kraft background. All it needed was a little greeting – so I turned to these Hero Arts Sparkle stamps.

Thanks for stopping by.

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Things To Do Chart

by Lesley Oman on 22 April, 2012

I’m a list maker.

And i love it.

At work, I have a ‘things to do’ book, and really cannot function without it. Its like a life line, an aide-memoire, an archive, a thought extractor, a telephone directory, a doodle pad and really, all in all, that book is priceless to me.

At home I must confess that I am not as organised. I’ve got loads of notebooks here, there and everywhere. I like having them so i can jot things down, but then sometimes i find that i write something down and then don’t look at that book for weeks.

I decided that i needed a way to make a note of project ideas which was more visible to the eye. Whats the point in writing down ideas then tucking away the notebook and not looking at it for ages?

So I started creating, and this is what I came up with. I knew i wanted to use little clothes pegs. I had some teeny tiny ones, but thought they were too small, and i knew that normal clothes pegs would be a bit too big for what i wanted. So for a while this project sat on the sidelines, until one day I found a pack of pegs that were the perfect size. Not too big, not too little. just perfick! wooohooo, love it when that happens!

I used a chipboard square from Zutter – its actually supposed to be a chipboard book cover but it was a good size and really sturdy.

Next stop- papers. I loved the Dots and Stripes paper from Echo Park and wanted to use these for the pegs, and as this is going to hang in the craft room, I chose bright, happy colours! :-D

I cut squares from black card and stuck these down and added a peg to each one, this way the white note would stand out against the black background, and it kinda makes a border when you are looking at it from a distance.

There was a gap in the middle, and at first i was going to add some more papers but then i had an idea. A little while ago I designed some business cards and got them printed at MOO.com. There were a variety of designs with different words, so instead of using pattern paper, i added three little business cards. <3

I thought i was done, but my brain told be otherwise as my hands kept on crafting. Next I made a little additional piece to hold the squares of scratch paper and stuck it to the bottom of the chart. This also was fun to embellish.

Now my chart hangs on my wall in the craft room. I have used these to stick it up..

I have been using these a lot and they are wonderful!! At the start i thought that they were a bit costly, but I’ve had this packet for ages and was impressed that they can hold quite a load and i love that it doesn’t require drilling or mess.

 

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