Friendship Day Cards

In Finland Valentine's Day is often called Friendship Day, and it's a day which is not only for lovers, but also for friends that want to send each other a little greeting. This year I made some Friendship cards, and I thought I'd share the process with you. I enjoy making cards like this, and you've seen similar cards on this blog before (e.g. here). Basically the motif is composed of a background square of some colourful material (fabric, paper, paper fabric, coloured baby wipes) on which I place an image I've cut out from cardstock or stiff drawing paper.

I started with the background. This time I decided to use my brand new thermofax screen to print some faux script on fabric. To make it extra festive, I decided to use metallic foil for the print. So I used foil glue instead of paint...

and when the glue had dried to a sticky surface, I put foil on top and rubbed the foil with my fingers and then a bone folder to make the foil stick to the glue...

and then I pulled off the foil sheet. I love the effect of gold script! (But not to photograph it - impossible in the lighting conditions we have right now!)

I then cut the background fabric into small squares, and glued them onto blank folded cards.

Then it was time to create the main motif. I drew a heart on a sheet of paper...

and scanned it into my computer. It was then easy to import it into a text-editing programme (MS Word in my case), and to change the size to the right measurements. That is to say, you don't have to draw the image to the final size. Draw it bigger, and scale it down with your computer. When the image had been resized, I duplicated it to fill a whole A4 page, which I then printed onto 180 g/m2 drawing paper.

I cut out the heart shapes and added little double-sided sticky pads to the back of them, to make them stand out from the background...

and attached them to the card. Finished!

I hope you'll find this card technique inspiring. Of course, if you only make one card, you can skip the scanning and printing stages, and just use your original drawing. Happy Valentine's Day!

- Annika

Baby Wipe Shibori Revisited

For the last couple of weeks I've kept my sewing machine and fingers busy. I finished a skirt and a blouse that've been hanging around in my sewing basket for quite a while (how satisfying!), I've experimented with paper fabric (and there will be more, rest assured!), I've made a batch of cards, and I've sewn some small purses for an upcoming craft fair. I'll get back to these projects in my next blog entries, but this time, I thought I'd share the cards with you.

A friend asked me if I could make her some cards, and that inspired me to make a whole bunch of them in a technique I enjoy. Here's a sample:

You've seen the backgrounds before, in this blog entry, which was a direct result of this blog entry. As you can see, I've made good use of my shibori-style baby wipes. I've drawn the motifs myself, scanned them, printed them on cardstock and cut them out, before attaching them to the cards with thick double-sided tape for a 3-D effect.

(Oh, and of course I added a bit of glitz with craft foil. That goes without saying.)

Thanks for dropping by! - Annika