by John O'Brien American 1951-2004
These egg cards are quite easy and fit nicely into a square envelope. You can buy a box of pastel envelopes of this size at Walmart or the Dollar Tree. In the above photograph you see the card, a smaller, gift-enclosure card, and a gift tag with a hole punched. Each one is decorated with a rose image cut from Anna Griffin scrapbook card-stock. The paper used is regular print type card-stock, in white. Write your greeting on the inside of the card.
Here is a pink set, including some smaller eggs (pattern included), which can be used for table confetti, or as interesting enclosures for the card. I've put the K&C butterfly stickers with the same shade of pink on each egg card. K&C is an English company and you can find the stickers at JoAnnes. Often they are reduced in price or you can use a coupon to get them nearly half price.
You can make your own butterfly clip art by cutting several layers of a hand-drawn butterfly, and putting them together with special tape.
From right to left: parchment marbled pastel card stock, Anna Griffin printed scrapbook card stock, and K&C stickers. It is not necessary to buy anything for these cards. Just use what you have, and cut decorations from bulb and seed catalogs that have good quality paper. This projects looks good made with children's construction paper, too.
The Anna Griffin pack is printed on each side of the paper, so the card will open up to another color. This is one of the prints from that stack.
Click on the patterns for a larger view, and then on the window that pops up, click "save." Save this to your pictures and then print on card stock. It is difficult to trace around a paper print-out, so I would recommend you use a heavy paper like card stock. Cut out the templates and trace around them with a pencil on your favorite papers. Cut out and decorate with stickers and other things, even sewing notions such as little ribbons and rosebuds.
If you do not want to purchase envelopes to fit this craft, or cannot locate them in any store, here is a pattern you can use. Print or paste it onto a heavier piece of paper or card stock, and use it as your template. Trace around it on thin scrapbook paper or computer paper. Make envelopes to match the color of the cards.
See more of John O'Brien's paintings here.
These new bulbs appeared to brighten the overcast days.
Something else new is lightweight coat I have been sewing, for spring or autumn:
Butterick 5425
This pattern recommends using a light-weight wool. I made mine in a thin, inexpensive fleece. The pattern is made for a lined coat, but you can skip this if using fleece and you just need a spring coat that will not be too heavy. It has a close fit, so you may need to sew a muslin copy first to try on. This is is for an advanced seamstress. Buy a pattern like this when the fabric store has a 99-cent sale. This is not a good sewing project for beginners.
Pink fleece dress-coat with princess seaming and stand-up collar. It has a detachable hood. The cost of fabric and buttons, all purchased at a discount, was approximately $25.00.
These are the buttons that will be used on it:
Sometimes these can be purchased at a discount by using a coupon from the fabric store which gives 50% off your total purchase.
The coat would look nice in other pastels like blue, yellow or green, and also in white.
