Fabric Friendship album & thank you card

I thought you might like to see the packaging I made for the Friendship book. I used oven paper and a vintage French embroidery magazine, all sewn together as a wrapper. I stuck some cut out words all over it.


Then I tied it up with some plaited braid I made out of all the scraps I had left over from making the book.


This time I made a tag too, again with paper and fabrics and other bits and pieces.
You can get the general idea of the size of the book by the photo of me holding it in my hand.

The other day, someone did me a favour so I made this quick thank you card, took me all of 20 minutes! Which makes a change!

Friendship fabric book now finished!!

Hoorah, the cover was finally done today, so thats it, I'm done! It has taken me about a month to complete the whole thing but I have enjoyed every minute of it. I did not rush it, only a couple of hours a day, sometimes more sometimes less, I just went with my 'mood'


The closure is a glass bead which I removed today and placed a brass keyhole thingy on it and then sewed the  glass 'button' back on. I wrapped fine copper wire around the Sun ornament, placed it onto a flower I made ages ago as the colours were right, then onto a horrid gold sequinned star which has nice fibre and gold sequins bursting out of the edges, then a couple of white feathers and an odd bit of fabric left over from making the closure. Oh yes, and added 2 blue roses with a bit of bronze coloured mica painted on.


The 3 little roses type flowers I made by twisting odd bits of fabric and organza that were left over, still have'nt got the hang of this method yet.


The spine: I photographed the word 'Friendship' from my Dictionary, photoshopped it then sewed it over with bronze organza, which I then edged with some  lace. Topped off with a couple of antique style brads.
And, that is about it.
Tomorrow I am going to make some fancy wrapping for it before I post it to my friend on Monday.


The whole 'book' is quite sparkly, which really does not show on the photos. These latest photos, I messed around with alot, blurs, textures, masks thanks to an inspiring site: Kim Klassen  Great and really simple tutorials on creating these effects. I am still surfing her site. Some PS sites with tutorials are not very relevant I find but most of Kims tutorials are things we'd all like to do with our photos.

Friendship book page H & cover

Still not finished! The H page is done, which did ot photograph very well, but you get the idea.
For the cover I used some sumptuous raw silk beaded fabric. I think its bridal fabric. I love bridal fabrics, why dont they make them in different colours?  In order to move it away from the bridal look I drew on it with coloured fabric pens and coloured in some of the pearls. The closure I made from gold raw silk, its padded and I machined over the top and added some blue embroidery. That is not a button by the way, it is from a disassembled Christmas decoration lol.


And no it is not finished. I want to add some embellishments to the front, probably ribbons and another upcycled jewellery piece in the center. 
The weather has been fabulous today so I have been doing things outside instead of crafting indoors. Hopefully I shall get it completed tonight. I already have some ideas for wrapping it up in fabrics and 'stuff'


By the way the H page in particular and the closure was my very first attempt ever at embroidery.

Fabric Album 3 pages done

It is New Years Eve, and I cannot believe that my last posting was December 17th, prior to Christmas, ages and ages ago!
So I thought I'd better start showing what I have been doing all this time.
For a long time I have wanted to make one of those vintage tattered fabric albums or book. Only one way....get on with it.
This one is not yet complete, I have only finished 3 pages of 6. It is going to be a friendship book for someone I have known for many many years. She and her family visited in 2010 and I did not realise just how much I missed her company, I have'nt seen her since moving to France in 2004.


The idea is to make a page for each letter of her name, 5 pages plus the cover.
Today I am going to show you the first page.


T is for Turquoise, Time and Treasure

4 way blue fabric card

I will confess straight away that I found this theme/design/layout 'somewhere' on the net, loved it so much I wanted to try it. I have no idea where it was or by whom. So if you know who, let me know because I'd like to add a link in recognition of the inspiration.
Of course it is not exactly the same, but pretty close, the 'back' is all my own work however. It's Bobs nieces birthday next week so I made this for her. She is having her 1st baby next month,she is in her mid-thirties, so I will be making my first 'baby' card, or fabric art, depending what inspires me at the time. No-one knows what sex it is so I cannot even start to think of a colour theme for that one.

Back to this card though:  I guess in reality it has 8 sides. I had my first go at fabric printing on my laser jet. I did cheat a bit as I used some heavy duty canvas sticky tape. I just stuck it down onto the printer paper, then cut it off.
Not a stick of wallpaper on this one! Because there is both paper and fabric covering both sides of each 'page' I decided not to put card on it, it makes it feel lovely and soft, but it is not floppy. Same for the envelope. Yes I realise the envelope is totally a different colour, but it was the only blue tissue paper I had. To see how I got the splattery effect on the tissue paper see the previous post to this one.

Every page is completely covered in fabric, except for the 2nd, which is vellum. Feathers from my garden, inked in turquoise.

This is the sort of back of the card, it folds up so that the happy birthday sentiment is the front, if that makes sense?
The blue heart is fabric too, on paper, and is padded. The 'Made for you' page paper is some horrid blue paper which I tea dyed, as I did with all the tulle used in the card.

This is the front of the envelope. If you can image really hard lol, its a scene with distant hills, fencing, grass and a lake. Maybe not? Too abstract? I tried to create a birds nest in the 'tree'. The word Fran, is the Ladies name....Francesca.

The rest of the photos, are just the page details: