Tractor Card

I've mentioned my use of the wonderful Wallies before, when I made the Plane Card. This time I used the tractor sticker to make a Birthday card for a young boy growing up in North Wales. I mounted the sticker on some brown packaging paper - I love using this when I want a more rustic look as it adds a new texture and a break from colour. I then mounted it on a striped background from a free printable papers collection (have a Google, it's a treasure chest!) I also added some holographic tape to the tractor, because even tractors should sparkle sometimes!

Forever Friends Baby Card

One of my relatives recently gave birth to a baby boy, giving me the perfect excuse to use this (new to me) Forever Friends stamp! It is quite dinky but so cute. I added colour using Whisper Strokes pens, with a touch of blue to emphasise the white of the nappy. I love how these pens allow you to shade. I layered the stamped image up with some patterned paper, brown parcel paper, and a sticker from my stash. I like the rustic texture the brown parcel paper lends to such a clean cut design.

Plane Card

Have you ever heard of Wallies? I first found Wallies about 15-16 years ago, when I used their products (specifically their funky flower stickers) to decorate my bedroom walls. Wallies are a brand of sticker designed for wall decoration. They're really great, however I have found they are very difficult to locate in the UK - typical! As part of the stash I inherited last year I received a set of "transport" Wallies, including fire engines, cement mixers, trains, tractors and planes. They are great brightly coloured images which are quite useful for card decoration!

This card features a plane Wallies sticker mounted on some beautiful cloud paper from an old issue of Craftseller magazine, and some blue paper from my stash. The Wallies are designed with an adhesive back which is activated by a damp sponge, but since I was making a card I simply used Pritt Stick. I wanted the card to have a 3D element, so I cut out an extra propeller from matching orange paper and attached it with a hinge. It can fold flat for an envelope but open out for display!

Such an easy way to create a really graphically stunning card :)

Felt Toy Train

One of my nephews recently turned 2. He loves trains, so I knew I wanted a gift that was very much train themed. 

I had originally hoped to adapt this Sweetbriar Sisters pattern to make a train, as I've used it before to make cars (which I've just realised I haven't blogged!) but the proportions weren't working out, so that was put aside for this train!

Internally, the train is made from upholstery foam cut into the appropriate shapes and a cork for the funnel. I then cut rectangles from a variety of coloured felts, and stitched them up to contain the foam, adding details such as windows and wheels.

I stitched velcro dots to the back of the engine and the fronts and backs of the carriages so they can be attached, detached and rearranged.

The birthday boy was thrilled with it, and enjoyed pushing and pulling it around the picnic table we were sat at!

Pirate Shield!

I was in a toy shop full of wooden toys recently, and they had some wonderful shield designs! I was inspired by them to create this pirate shield for my 8 year old nephew, and given that it was on his arm for the rest of the evening, I think it was a success!

I found the shape of the shield and the skull and cross bones design on Google, and resized them for my needs! The shield is a bit bigger than A4, and made out of mountboard. It has a back piece, through which the elastic is threaded (see below); a main piece, which is the black background, and the white details added as an extra layer, all very well glued together!

The mount board makes for quite a sturdy shield, and really affordable - although it will take dings a bit more easily than wood! I love the raised effect of the design, and the options really are endless to make other shields, especially if you design your own coat of arms!

As you can see, I used some wide elastic (that I actually had left over from a belt I made myself) sandwiched between the layers of mountboard so that it can be held on the arm without it interfering with any essential jousting! (Do pirates joust? Whatever it is pirates do!)

Stitched 1st Birthday Card

Such a simple design - a felt "1" stitched on to fabric wrapped card, attached to a card base... But it is textural, with strong shapes and colours. I love it!