Cute Embellished Tissue Holders

I had a week off work a couple of weeks ago, during that week I found out about a village event which was asking for stall holders for an upcoming event on the Saturday.  My craft stall stock was fairy depleted, so I needed something quick and easy to make a few of....  I have made tissue holders before, but was unimpressed with them - what they need is a bit of cute embellishment and co-ordination.

There are many tutorials out there so I adapted one and added a cute fabic yo yo and button to give that little something extra... This tutorial from Skip to my Lou is closest to what I did!

The lining is gingham to co-ordinate with the outer cover, and the yo yo made in the gingham too!

I then made 2 other colour ways - the pink ones was proved most popular!

I think adding the yo yo vastly improved this simple item.

Sarah xx

Silhouette SD Envelope

Of course I needed an envelope to go with my birthday cards and found a free template to use.  The size of the card dictates the size of the envelope. My card was too big for an envelope cut from an A4 piece of paper, so after a bit of trial and error, I successfully cut one the right size from 2 A4 pieces.  I managed to join the pieces more or less at the fold of the base of the envelope, and I added perforated lines at the folds to make folding easier.

The end product looked pretty good!

Sarah xx

Silhouette SD Birthday Card

I had 2 friends with birthdays recently so, I'm of course I thought this was a great opportunity to try out making birthday cards with my Silhouette. I'm not a card maker but, I thought somehow this was going to be easy, I downloaded a template design from the Silhouette Shop.  Unfortunately the template didn't come with any instructions (there may be a general tutorial, but I'm too impatient to look).

Anyway, I cut the design the way I thought it should be and this was the result...

Somehow, its not quite right, I kept looking at the template and the picture of the design and wasn't quite sure how it was supposed to go together, it was quite fiddly and all the pieces had to be stuck individually, there is another piece which I haven't used here. I didn't like the paper I used either!

Then I thought I can design my own happy birthday message,  and use the template shape to border it....  This was the result, made with  metallic card.

This was closer to what I was expecting... So having done this I thought maybe, if I layer the border over the words, it would cut them out together...

I think I may have cracked it... although I re-sized the design to make it smaller that the actual card and have got the resizing wrong, I am much happier with the result although I'm not sure if this is totally the way the designer intended it to be.  And as this is for a female friend I added a Butterfly, also cut with the silhouette to feminize the card a bit.

I was very impressed with the Butterfly, it was a large template and I reduced it quite small, the silhouette coped really will with cutting the delicate bits.

I don't intend to make lots of cards, but with a bit of practice I think I could make a few fairly passable cards for the odd occasion!

Sarah xx

My First Silhouette Project

I couldn't wait to try our my new Craft Robo Silhouette SD. I really want to cut fabric with it. So with a bit of research and an idea forming in my mind, I gave it a go!

I go line dancing once a week, and we wear dance trainers, so I had in mind to make a bag to carry the shoes and decorate it with a design cut on the Silhouette. So I set to choosing a font and welding the letters together (so it cuts the whole word together and not each letter individually) using the software that comes with the Silhouette. Its quite easy to use and it didn't take me long to work out how to use the tools etc.,  and there are plenty of tutorials and help out there in the world wide web.

I ironed some HeatNBond lite to the back of a piece of scrap material. And set the Silhouette to cut!  This is where I came unstuck!  After the 1st attempt to cut out the design, it wasn't quite right, the backing paper stuck (and I mean stuck, there are still bits of paper stuck on it now!) to the carrier sheet and the fabric wasn't cut right through. I realised I hadn't set the cutting settings right and found there is a setting for fabric, so I tried again, the 2nd attempt wasn't much better in fact worse! The material was coming away from the backing paper and getting all tangled up in the machine.  Disappointment was setting in fast!  However not to be beaten, I studied an on line tutorial and couldn't quite figure out where I was going wrong until I looked at a picture of the fabric being peeled off the carrier sheet, it had the HeatNBond ironed on to it, however the backing paper had been removed before cutting! Hallelujah!  Third time lucky - a perfect cut!

I also cut out a flower design from the library of designs that came with the software, just to try it!

I have made a tote bag, although its not really what I had in mind, it just wanted to make something with my first cutting attempt.   As I had used the HeatNBond lite, I had to sew the design on to the fabric and I think the font was a bit too fiddly, but I sewed all the way around it with my sewing machine, when I came to the flower I cheated and went around the middle and the outer edge so you can see the stitching in between the petals.

Lessons learnt:

1. Remove the backing paper from the HeatNBond before cutting the fabric.
2. The lightweight carrier sheet is also adhesive, (I didn't realise it had a removable film covering the sticky bit. (I had used the heavier weight carrier sheet, hence the backing paper sticking to it too much!)
3. Don't use an over ambitious design if you intend to sew it on with a sewing machine or use the no-sew version of HeatNBond.

I have ordered some Heat Transfer Material in normal and flock to try as I have seen some nice ideas for t-shirt designs whilst blog hopping!

All in all I am quite pleased with my first project.

Sarah xx

My New Toy

It was my birthday the other week, and I ummed and arred over buying (getting my hubby to buy me) a Silhouette SD machine.   I looked at the lite version, but liked the idea of the registration mark feature which allows you to cut out things you have printed.  I mainly wanted the Silhouette to cut fabric and wanted to make sure it would do that.  Having mulled it over for some time and talked about it with hubby... he said I might as well get the full version....  I shopped around a bit and end up ordering one from CreateandCraft.tv and it arrived a few days later....   I haven't had much time to play with it yet, but have loads of ideas...  watch this space...!

Sarah xx

Bon Jovi at Hard Rock Calling 2011

I went to see Bon Jovi at Hard Rock Calling yesterday. It was amazing, one of the best concerts i've seen (and I've been to a few Bon Jovi Concerts).  They played for a full 3 hours and of course played all the old favourites, but also played some of the songs that we die hard fans really appreciate!  Highlights for me were 'Hey God', and These Days amongst others.

Being a fan club member I had Gold Circle tickets so had a great view and room to dance and sing. The arrow marks my spot LOL!

Photo Hard Rock Calling

They played a total of 27 songs set list as follows:
1 - Raise ur hands
2 - Bad name
3 - Born to be my baby
4 - we werent born to follow
5 - Lost Highway
6 - Its my life
7 - In These Arms
8 - Blaze of Glory
9 - Lay ur hands on me
10 - Cptn Crash
11 - Bad Medicine/pretty woman/shout
12 - Hallelujah 
13 - When we were Beautiful
14 - I'll be there for u
15 - Who says u cant go home
16 - Sleep when I'l dead
17 - Hey God
18 - HAND
19 - KTF
Encore1
20 - Dry county
21 - Wanted
22 - Some day I'll be Saturday Night
23 - Prayer


Encore 2
24 - Always
25 - These Days
26 - Blood on Blood

Encore 3
27- I love this Town


Still buzzing with excitement this morning!


Sarah xx

Fabric Swap

The lovely Kandi Pandi is organising a Fabric Swap.  Pop over there now to get your name down...  you never know, you might get me in the draw!

Sarah xx