Hochanda

Hello again everyone, I have a completely different post for you this time! I keep buying all this ‘stuff’ and it’s so nice I can’t bring myself to use it … but it’s starting to get out of control and taking over my home!! So I’m challenging myself on 2 levels – 1) use up my stuff; and 2) try something new. Well I had some empty candle jars so I thought this would be a good way to use up some stuff and try something new at the same time and this is what I came up with. I am over the moon with the results as it’s the first time I’ve tried anything like this. What I used: ·       Empty candle jar ·       Decoart white gesso ·       Starlight paints ·       Decoart metallic paints ·       Imagination Crafts rice papers ·       Imagination Crafts fabric glue ·       Twine ·  ...

The Festival of Quilts is Europe’s leading patchwork and quilting event and this year I had the privilege of attending with Hochanda . Attracting more than 25,000 visitors from all over the world, honestly there were bus loads rolling in daily from Australia, it was truly an international event. Prior to the show, I was unsure what to expect but to put it mildly I was blown away by the entire experience, from the organisation and layout of the three halls down to the incredible talent on show. Celebrating quilting in all forms, there were over 300 exhibitors providing endless stalls to purchase all your quilting essentials , incredible galleries displaying what I can only describe as the most ore-inspiring quilts I have ever seen. One that stands out for me was The Women’s Quilt . It was made up of 598 patches, a patch to commemorate 598 women killed as a result of domestic violence between 2009 and 2015. The quilt is ...

Hello Crafters, This week we received an amazing gift from a family member and I set about making an appropriate card to say thank you. This needed to be something very special and what better way to say a special thank you than to use the gorgeous Sue Wilson dies for a card in the style of the wonderful Phill Martin.                   Despite looking rather elaborate, this 8x8 card is easy to achieve and uses relatively few supplies (as above). The first step in making this card is to get all of the die cutting out of the way. I find this much more time efficient than stopping to cut out the bits you need at each stage. Using the Sue Wilson Ornate Pierced Squares from the Noble Collection, cut out the ornate focal point for the centre of the card in cream cardstock. Then roughly cut a spare piece of cream card, which will sit behind this feature when the card is constructed. You will als...

Hi Crafters, I thought I’d share with you one of my favourite crafts – needle felting! Needle felting is very tactile and has loads of cross-crafting potential. Needle felting is created by taking wool roving (pre-spun wool) and matting that wool together by repeatedly ‘pricking’ the wool fibres with a special type of needle or needles. To help matt the fibres together the needles have barbs, the barbs look like little thorns that catch the fibres as the needle is pushed back-and-forth repeatedly through the fibres. The more you needle the roving – the denser the felt will be. You can use one needle at a time or for larger areas, or speediness – a multi-needle tool. As the wool is felted it can be sculpted to make many creative items … figurines, decorations, embellishments for cards and clothing. The goldfish that I made is a simple introduction to needle felting as it uses a polystyrene egg to form the body of the fish and cookie/clay cutters as templates.   For...

Hello again everyone, Today I’m sharing with you how to create a contemporary Nordic Christmas card using the new Nordic range from Crafter’s Companion. This card is really easy to make and although I’ve used fabric you could easily use scraps of paper instead. I have purposely not used even pressure when stamping the script stamp to give a more distressed look. I tend not to add sentiments to my cards until I’m going to use them so the sentiment could be placed anywhere on this card. Here is what you will need: ●      Card blank - I’ve used 6x6 here ●      Hessian ●      Nordic themed fabric ●      Used drinks can ●      Bird mixed media die from Nordic range ●      Script stamp ●      Co-ordinating ribbon ●      Twine ●      Button ●      Sue Wi...