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| Cards you can make without leaving the house |
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Useful stuff ~
Cards you can make without leaving the house
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Although there are now countless card making embellishments on the market, I've always taken a great deal of pleasure in rummaging around at home to see what scraps I can find which could have a clever dual use as a card making adornment.
Even the most unlikely things could come in useful. When inspiration comes, designing a card based on some recycled scrap or other gives you a great sense of achievement, is often cheap or free and can be made in the comfort of your own home without a mad dash to the shops for that essential missing item. Cards like this may well come to your rescue when you need something last minute for Aunty Mabel who's visiting that day or for your new neighbour as a welcoming afterthought!
Me, I just like to be clever and make something look like something else!
I hate seeing lists of things on websites and in books that can be used in card making without actually giving suggestions or examples of what you can do with it. I've included a list below of items that might come in useful, together with ideas for their use and some cards. We will add further cards to the card ideas pages when we come up with anything half decent!
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| Kitchen |
Foil trays - the sort you get your Chinese takeaway in. Cut squares/rectangles and emboss simple designs on them with an embossing tool or biro. Christmas designs suit this technique well - try Christmas trees, a holly leaf, candles, Christmas puddings and stars. Stick your embossed panel to card with double sided tape.
Cocktail sticks - Make into little knitting needles by trimming off one end and gluing a large-holed bead to it. Part knit booties, for example on regular knitting needles and transfer to their cocktail stick counterparts for a lovely baby card. If you're not confident at knitting something as complicated as booties, try a stripey football scarf instead.
Birthday candles - Slice down the middle with a craft knife (best done by standing it on its end). Makes a simple 'Happy Birthday' message. I also thought these twirly candles looked like sweets when cut. Don't leave the card in the sun or above a radiator though!
Lentils/other pulses, seeds, grainy herbs (such as rosemary) etc. - Use double sided tape, sheets or shapes to make patterns or words and shake the seeds etc over. Spell out 'Happy Birthday' in narrow double sided tape and stick different seeds, pulses etc to each letter for a great card for the chef in your life.
Drinking straws - Use as 'lolly' sticks (see picture), plant and flower stems and for making feather dusters (see new home card below). This miniature sweety-type lolly was made with a translucent rubber (eraser) cut to size with a craft knife, a piece of drinking straw and a piece of plastic packaging (from a box of cakes I think), wrapped with clear sellotape.
Dusters, sponges, Jaycloths - Use to make into miniatures for new home cards like the one shown. Tiny pieces of yellow sponge can be used to look like 'pineapple' on a pizza. Use slices of pale yellow and dark pink sponge to look like a slice of cake.
This card has been made using a little rectangle cut from a scouring sponge and a square cut from a yellow duster, rolled up and tied with a scrap of red ribbon. The feather duster is made with three feathers pulled from my own feather duster pushed into a thin drinking straw.
Corks - Cut little pieces from the curve of a full size cork with a craft knife to look like little corks on a celebration card, teamed with a die cut wine or champagne bottle.
Lolly sticks - Cut off a 2-3cm length and paint to look like an arched door, perhaps for a new home card.
Crisp bags - Did you ever shrink crisp bags when you were at school? There was a craze for doing this when I was first at senior school to make badges, but this was back when all crisp bags were made of plastic. Nowadays most of them are foil lined - I've had a go at shrinking these but it just doesn't work! However, there are a couple of brands that are still in all-plastic bags. I had limited success with Space raiders (went long and thin but shrunk OK-ish) but Frazzles produced the best results - perfect shrink nearly every time.
To do this, pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees or so, leaving a baking tray in it so that heats up too (seemed to work better this way). Place your crisp bag onto the baking tray, shut the door and watch it shrink through the glass - should shrink straight away as long as the oven is hot enough. Remove the baking tray using oven gloves and flatten down the crisp bag, if necessary, with the oven glove while the bag is still warm.
Mount them onto your cards with sticky pads - great for hard-to-make-for older children and teenagers.
I've tried the technique with other plastic sweet bags but with no luck yet. If you've found something that works, please let me know!
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| Garage/shed/garden |
Nuts/bolts/washers/nails etc. - This card was very popular at Craft fairs, both the Happy Birthday and the Happy Fathers Day versions that I did (if this card looks familiar, it featured in another retailer's magazine a while back!) It has a natural banana paper background and has rectangles of sandpaper cut to make the backing for the letters. You can make it with unused sandpaper or even the good parts of used stuff. All the bits and bobs are stuck with Aleene's tacky glue.
Seeds - As with the lentils and herbs etc above, you can spell out 'Happy Birthday' with narrow double sided tape and press a variety of seeds onto the letters to make a card for a gardening relative.
Flowers and leaves - Press flowers and leaves for use on your cards. Pressed and dried ivy leaves look great sprayed gold or silver on Christmas cards (see below). Press between sheets of blotting paper or even a couple of layers of loo roll (kitchen roll is no good as it has a texture that transfers onto the flower or leaf) in a flower press or inside heavy books. It takes around two weeks for items to dry properly.
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| General |
Sea glass - We had quite a collection of this in the house from previous trips to the beach (my daughter loves to make collections of everything she finds!) I wrapped silver beading wire around it and used aqua mica crinkle paper and white pearlescent card to make this card. Sand and small shells from the beach could also be used with double sided tape to make words or patterns.
Balloons - If you cut the top off an uninflated balloon, it looks like a little swimming hat. Team with a rolled up or folded square cut from a flannel to look like a towel, you can make a great card to give to a child keen on swimming, as a congratulations swimming card or as a thank you card for the swimming teacher at the end of term. The fingers of rubber gloves could also be used for this.
Jigsaw pieces - Spray gold or silver and use two pieces that fit together to make an unusual wedding or engagement card. Could also be used sprayed red, or teamed with red to make Valentines cards.
Business envelopes - the type with the blue pattern inside. Use these for making origami shirts and ties (see our Card Ideas) or for Iris folding.
Waste paper - Good paper, such as waste printer paper, can be used to make your own unique paper. Newspaper, heavily printed or glossy paper is no good but other paper and leaflets that come through the door can be used. Colour co-ordinate your collection - keep similar colours together so that you can make a pink paper, for example, using any pink printer paper and other scraps of pink, red or burgundy mulberry paper. You'll need a deckle and mould which you can either buy or make yourself. Further instructions can be found at the following link:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A828380.html
Sheet music, maps from out of date map books - Use the original if in good enough condition or colour copy/scan. I've copied old Christmas carol sheet music from the library onto cream printer paper for this card and used it as the backing for my gold-sprayed pressed ivy leaves (see above). Maps can be used as a backing paper, perhaps on a card for someone keen on walking or orienteering.
Buttons - Use pretty pastel pink, blue or white ones as pram wheels on a baby cards. Pale pink or white shirt buttons with two holes look like faces - just draw the mouth/eyes in with a fine permanent marker pen. Perhaps coloured buttons could become animal faces - a pink one could be a pig, a brown one could be a monkey. Use felt or fimo for noses and ears.
Broken jewellery - especially children's. Re-use any smallish beads and novelty items on your cards. Take a look in your jewellery collection to see if you have any single ear-rings or costume jewellery that you no longer wear. You can trim off ear-ring posts with wire cutters or small sharp scissors.
 Fabrics - Even if you don't think you have spare fabric lying around the house, think again! Take a good look at all your old clothes that are destined for the charity shop. Even if the fabric itself is no good, have a look at the buttons and trim to see if there is anything worth keeping. Any lace, ribbon or braid could be saved. Children's clothes may well have pretty novelty buttons on.
I had a length of patterned sari material in the loft that my sister had bought in a charity shop because she liked the look of it but never used. This became the backing for this Indian style card. The elephant embellishment is a metal button with the shank cut off. Sheer scarves might also be suitable for this.
Tights and stockings - Stuff light coloured tights with cotton wool or wadding to make little heads. Use goggle eyes, buttons and wool on to make the facial features.
Children hair toggles and decorations - You often get lovely novelty items on these. When the hair band is long since broken or no longer required, persuade her that your need is greater than hers!
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| Computer based resources |
As well as all the bits and pieces you can find around the house, never forget that your computer holds extensive resources for making cards.
Internet. If you want a particular backing paper, for example, do a search on the web to see what you can find. We have plenty of free downloadables on our website if you just take a look through our Card projects. There are also other sites that have patterns and objects that can be downloaded and printed, many for free and some for a small cost.
One of my favourites is www.printmini.com. There is a vast array of miniature items and patterns on there to be printed including camouflage print, wallpapers, wood effect, brick pattern, playing cards, eye charts, newspapers, miniature christmas cards, money, board games, CDs, sheet music, road signs, tags and even miniature ruled paper and graph paper (for those teacher's thank you cards at the end of term!)
Graphics programs. Try making your own patterns, objects and backgrounds on a graphics programe such as PaintShop Pro, Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator. Simple patterns can be created using just Microsoft Word.
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| In summary |
Use your imagination! Next time you're stuck indoors, take a look around your home and see what goodies you can find.
© Sandie Goble/Mad about Cards Ltd, July 2005. Updated June 2006.
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