Crafting - buttons for card holders using decorative butterflies

 

I have been making card holders for Christmas and thought I would see if I could find some colourful buttons at our local thrift or dollar stores.  Unfortunately, not much was available.  I did find some colourful wood ones but with such bright and busy fabrics they would probably blend in too much.  Maybe it doesn't matter if they blend in???  I will think on that!!  They were $2 for less than a dozen buttons.  So I kept looking to see if I could find any sort of resource with which I could make buttons.  I was successful in finding these plastic butterflies at Dollarama.  There are about 50 in a package for just under $2 with tax.  I brought them home and thought they would make great buttons and fit quite well on the card holders so I made them into buttons.  I used a 5/64" bit in the drill press and made a hole on each side of the body just about where the wings meet.  Worked out really well and they look great on the the card holders.  I put regular buttons on the other side.  So I will be looking for other options in this vein to make buttons with.  In the meantime I bought a few more packages and will make them into buttons and add them to my stash and use them where they work the best.  Therese

Slow stitching - another batch of card holders for Christmas

 I have been busy making up card holders with the kits I prepared a little while back.  It is fun to repurpose unused CDs along with some fabric scraps and buttons to make a functional and useful tool for anyone who has trouble managing lots of cards when playing card games.  I have been raiding my stash of buttons so will be on the look out for a few more for the next batch!!!

Therese

Cardmaking - lots of fun candles made from decorative paper strips, marker wicks and bird wing flames

Another card for a family occasion!!  Lots of candles - paper strips trimmed diagonally and adhered to the long card front.  I added wicks with a black fine tipped marker and then embellished some "flames" punched with the wing of the SU bird punch to more realistic and added clear glitter to give them a bit of shine.  I adhered them to the card front over the wicks to finish my card.  It will be a fun card for a birthday!!  Therese

 

Cardmaking - handmade paper and fabric scraps to make a kite

For this card I used two triangles to create a square and them trimmed the two sides to create the kite shape.  I stitched it to the handmade paper all the way around, added stitching to make the cross in the middle and then stitched the tail by using a very narrow zigzag with very short stitches and added little navy bits as I went.  Worked really well!!!!!  I added the navy border of stitching, coloured my white card base with watercolour and adhered the large piece to the card front.  Really enjoying the process!!

Therese