Sparkly Old-Fashioned Doily Heart Cards

 Roses I by Fasani

from  Allposters

Why not click on my playlist music on the left, while you view these cards and get some ideas for making your own? You can press the stop button any time you like.

Click on to get the full benefit of the wonderful glitter on this card. With a fine tip of a bottle of glitter glue, you can outline the embosssed roses and leaves which are on many of these paper doilies.

These are cards made to look like scrap-cards, using bits and pieces of scrapbook materials, table confetti, parts of old cards, glitter glue, and paper doilies pasted on card board, card stock or heavier paper.

Find jewel stickers and place them as accents on your card. They make good dew-drops when placed on pictures of roses.

To make a picture for the center, you can either paste a cut out piece on a white card the size of a calling card or business card, or you can cut rectangles, squares, ovals and hearts from cards. Use older cards you have saved that are pretty, or just get a few from the dollar store for 50c or a package of 8 for a dollar. There are other sources of such clip art on the web at Victorian graphics sites that offer free printables like these. Print them off on card stock for best results.

Keys can be cut from printed scrapbook pages, glued on to the heart, and then embossed with glitter glue paint to give them a raised effect like real keys. You see here I have placed my picture first and then added

stickers and foam hearts around it. The red borders you see are made with glitter glue.

This is scrapbook paper on cardstock, from this package, which is only $5.00 at Walmart.  The heart was made by tracing one of the doilies with the scalloped edges, and then outlined with a shiny white puff paint, and a red glitter glue. The red heart above is also pasted on card stock.

This is paper, not cardstock, and is full of prints of roses, hearts, keys and more, which I am using for these crafts all week til the 14th.

The paper doilies are not expensive if you get them at dollar stores. You can also make your own by folding a heart shape paper in many folds and then cutting wedges and shapes from the folded areas, like you would a paper snowflake.

Inside each paper doily is a heart shape. Cut out one of them for a pattern if you want to trace around them to cut out hearts from printed papers. Then paste them over the heart area of your paper doily.

To make these scrap-hearts, first glue your paper doily on some card stock to give them a more stable surface on which to add other things.

Lay out everything you think you might like to use, thinking of colors and shapes.  I've cut some of these things right out of the scrapbook paper book to give myself some clip art.  A hint: leave the pages in the book, and just cut off pieces from the edges, rather than removing the whole paper. That way, you do not have stray pieces to deal with and store.

Experiment to get a nice look, by placing the main piece or picture on prepared heart shape.  Move them around and exchange them til you get what you like. 

Surround the main picture or object with other items that compliment it in color or theme, balancing the look as best you can.

Paste down the objects with an office glue stick, and outline them with glitter glue if you like.  I leave mine overnight before handling them the next day. As in the previous post, you can add the hanging ribbon on the back the next day, or do it in the beginning before you start decorating the card.  

These are the glitter glues and puff paints I used for outlines and accents in these hearts. By far the shiniest and most sparkly is the sticklers brand in the middle.  The dust glitter on the right is also very beautiful, but for the most part these days, I'm using glitter glue. Not all glitter glues are equal, however, and do not dry the same. Some end up looking more like glue than glitter, and others take too long to dry. Everyone has their preference. I put mine on a box in front of a blowing heater when I want them to dry quickly. That being said, these cards are perfectly lovely without any glitter at all. For children, just use the glittered stickers and glittered foam hearts, rather than the glitter glue, which needs to be more precisely applied, and cannot be touched until dry. Some of the glues take a long time to dry.

I hope anyone who wants to is able to snag the pictures for their files. You are welcome to put these hearts on pinterest or similar pages.  Also feel free to use these ideas for etsy. The only thing I ask concerning my   craft  ideas and patterns is that you do not copyright them, as I would like to let everyone use them freely.

You can preserve these by framing them behind glass or brushing on a layer of decoupage glue.  Try making some in the colors and styles to match your home decor and framing them. You can print photographs of your family and use them for the center of the cards.

Ladies Valentine Tea

Swan Cottage II

Kim, Sung

 Some pictures from the ladies tea and gift exchange this week: 

 

(Small hands helped set this pretty pink table)

Pink and white checked heart-shaped placemats with white cotton backing, and apple blossom pattern Acropal dinnerware, similar to Corningware.  The dinnerware and gold forks, knives and spoons all came from Wal-Mart.

Pink napkins for the tea/dessert table are tied in Victorian calling cards, lace and string of beads. Free Victorian clip art for crafts are available.

A tea serving table prepared with hand sewn table cloth and  little Victorian cards scattered on it, and several unique serving dishes. A young homeschooler crocheted those little drip catchers for me, from an old book called Workbasket.

Another table with a hand made table cloth and centerpiece bowl with decorative cards.

On the heart-shaped invitations, which were the Valentine cards you saw in a previous post, I requested that each person bring something from their home they did not want anymore, which would be suitable for a gift for one of the ladies there. Everyone got to choose what they wanted. Here is one of the gifts: a scented jar candle with a wax cherry, on a hand crocheted doilie. It is nice that some ladies are still doing that, and I intend to post a history of the doily sometime in the future. It was invented by a man of the surname of D'Oyley, who sought to make affordable placemats for people outside of the royal class.

One of the give-aways at the gift-exchange was a rose-shaped iron wall hook,

and an architectural-look wall hook,

and a magazine which was a gift to someone,

and this lovely artificial bouquet in a crystal-look plastic vase filled with clear pink floral marbles.

Each guest was given a hand made cinnamon ornament  tied in a wired chiffon bow.

Children made heart-shaped paper airplane gliders that flew beautifully!

Even a left over skein of yarn was an appreciated gift for someone.

Other gifts included heart-shaped tea balls, China Rose Tea, tea cups, and tea towels.

13 ladies attended this event and the group sang in harmony several songs:

The Love of God (is greater far)

It is Well With My Soul

This World is Not My Home

Someone read Hebrews 11, the great faith chapter about the faith of the Hebrews.

Food served was:

Creamy cheese-potato casserole

Chopped vegetable salad

Raspberry Dessert

Homemade cheese ball and crackers

The Tea Table contained

Tea: Sugar Cookie tea from Celestial Seasonings

Yorkshire Gold

Pink Cupcakes

Sliced Pumpkin Bread

Fabric Project for the Home

Snowy Evening Outing

by James Lee

Above: easy and elegant placemats with sparkled felt and sparkled rick-rack.  This fabric has metallic threads already in it, and is slightly higher in price. The napkin ring is made by brushing paper flowers with glitter glue and dabbing them in more prisma glitter. These were used for a special tea for a widow, and the others were used for a ladies Bible class luncheon.  Click on for a larger view.

It is a great time of year for a cheerful indoor project, such as easy felt placemats, that require no sewing. Wool felt or synthetic will both work well.

Turn your largest bowl upside down, or use a pizza pan of the size of your choice, and trace around it on the felt, with a ballpoint pen.  Cut out the circle, inside the line so that the pen marks will not show.

Here is what it looks like, plain. Some of the purposes of placemats are to protect your wood table from food and drink, or hot plates, provide a decorative background for your dishes, and to provide a soft, quiet landing for your forks, knives, spoons and cups. To make matching coasters for your goblets or glassware, just trace the smallest dessert bowl you have, or turn a goblet upside down and trace around the rim of the glass, for a pattern.

Just choose the color of felt that you feel best matches your dinner plates,

and add trims around the inside, if you prefer.  This one is a glittered rick-rack. Fabri-Tack works just fine, or use the sewing machine.

This one is made from glittered felt found at fabric stores around the country, and trimmed with wide rick-rack.  There are many interesting trims, and sometimes the sewing machine has a stitch that will decorate the edges.

These are easy to make and so pretty, you can have a quick gift for a wedding shower, or some other occasion.  If you are expecting company and want something special, just cut out some of these quick placemats to go with the occasion, whether it be spring or winter.  They wash nicely in the washing machine, but you may have to test one to see for sure if the fabric you are using will need to be hand washed or not.

Here is the smaller placemat, layered on top of the larger one.  There are a lot of colors available and you could experiment with the layering, to match the design colors in your plates.

One half yard of the 52 inch synthetic felt makes 5 large round placemats. The smaller round placemat will fit about 8 times on one half yard.  The fabric is about $5.00 a yard, so it will cost you $2.50 for 6 or 8 placemats, depending on the size you use. It is nice if the placemat has enough space around the edge to place a fork, spoon, knife and napkin. . It all depends on what you want.  Your fabric has to be 1/2 yard wide to cover the size of the placemat.

Here is a smaller placemat made from fushia sparkled felt (acrylic). It is machine washable. Try this easy craft in robins-egg blue or navy blue, black sparkled (which would look good with black toile dinnerware) and red.

To make the heart placemat, right click and print this pattern, or paste it on another page and print. This is for a small heart, so if you want something to put a larger plate on, just cut about an inch larger, outside the line, all around.

Place the pattern on the folded edge of your felt, and cut around it, like this:

Here it is, plain and pretty,

or decorated with a shiny rick-rack edging. I will be adding a matching coaster for a glass or cup.

You can make a larger pattern in the heart style you want, by using a  large paper bag for your pattern.

There is an abundance of felt projects on the web. Just go to Google, click on "images" and type in "felt crafts" and you will see pages and pages of creative felt ideas. This one here is really pretty http://www.flickr.com/photos/giantbutton/3311709964/

About the artist:  James Lee is a native of South Korea, who came to pursue art in the United States. Lovely Whatevers will have a large display of his art, soon.

Fog Fashion and Tea

Fog at Haceta Head, picture from Allposters.com

Hello, and welcome once again to fog days. My little home sure looks fogged in, from the outside, doesn't it?  One good thing about the fog is that it hides from sight all the yard work  and the house painting that needs to be done. The house looks kind of elegant, through the fog.  

I have sewn another fleece cape,  from an old pattern (1995)

however there are versions of it still available in the current pattern catalogs.

Capes seem to go well with fog; case-in-point: Cape Shank, Cape Byron, Smoaky Cape, Sandy Cape, Cape Townshend (Australian Capes) and, Cape Cod, Cape Disappointment, (rated the foggiest), Cape Cheerful (that's an Alaskan cape), Cape Augustine (American Capes). If I had the time and money I would make a cape for each cape that I liked. I was rather insulted that Cape Disappointment was rated one of the most miserable places to live, especially since I have spent several posts undoing that misery-theory about fog. 

I did not want to buy buttons this time, and so I found out how to make those fabric flowers that you coil, twist and glue, and made four large buttons for the loops on the cape. There are many tutorials online for fabric roses, if you want to see how these are made.

I do not know if you have ever seen the flower called "snowdrop," that grows in cold climates. I have made 6 snowdrops from the same fabric as the cape, and fastened them with pins in various places in this messy up-do, great for fog, which wreaks havoc with some hair.  

This is what the snowdrop flowers look like up close. I first made a center and then hot-glued them into a 3-petal base, gluing down some of the petals to open the flowers a bit.

The sun came out for a whole minute today, and my young photographer got a picture of the cape and the new hat I made, which is similar to the one in the previous post. 

Here is the pattern. I chose view C and made 4 loops and buttons instead of 3.

I originally wanted something like this, from Cloaks of Ireland.

This is the fascinator-hat made from the same fleece fabric, following instructions for making fabric roses. I made various sizes of roses and several rose buds. 

I hot-glued them on to a wide head band I bought at the Dollar Tree. Sometimes there are two for a dollar, so that makes a very inexpensive base for a hat, and it makes it exciting to make them.  I am already planning  what the next one will be.

You might be able to see where I dabbed bits of hot glue to make dew on the roses. The cost of the fleece for the cape was a total of $11.00, and the head band was a dollar. It was such an easy pattern that  I cut out the cape one day and sewed it the next, and still got my dishes and laundry done.

After the cape-walk in the cold fog, there was hot tea in the dining room,

...made from frozen strawberries and hot water, poured through a strainer.

I am using the Prairie Rose tea set from Alberta, Canada.

I bought this cookie from a bakery because it looked like it would match the tea cups.

Some of the bakery products are works of art. 

A ceramic spoon

and a beautiful heart-shaped tea strainer  makes the 

experience so delightful, and there was someone standing by, after

the photographs were finished, waiting to eat the blog food.

For a collection of heart (Valentine) crafts and things, go here and be sure to follow the older posts after that page, as there are quite a few of them with the heart theme.