The Monday Project - Tortoise New Home Card

Has anyone seen Augustus? He's pretty suave I think, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. So when Rachael asked me to make a card inspired by Augustus, it all came together fairly naturally. So without further ado may I introduce little August - and his arrival is just in time for the first Monday Project in August (see what I did there?)

you will need:

Tortoise templates

Natural/ Kraft card blank, about 6" x 4"

Lighter green card scraps (approx 4" x 6")

Darker green card scraps (approx 3" x 4")

Mixed olive green small buttons (1cm and smaller)

Fine black pen (or a good biro, I'm not fussy)

double-sided tape, glue, and a few small sticky fixers.

Rubber stamps for a greeting

Here's How To:

Make sure your card blank is folded in half. Then put it to one side, and trace and then cut out your templates.

Stick your tortoise body onto the card blank, keeping it low. Draw around the tortoise body with your black pen, and draw on a face. You can see where I've done this in a few steps time - to be honest I forgot and stuck on the shell before doing this, and had to be careful not to get pen on the shell. Do as I say, not as I do, I guess.

Score the fold line on your tortoise shell, and fold firmly. Stick a length of double sided tape on the shorter part of the shell, and stick onto your body, placing it in the obvious position. Press down firmly - and you should have created a flap.

Next, using your glue (and we use Gutermann HT2, my fave of all glues - seriously, I should get shares in the stuff I harp on about it so much), randomly glue buttons all over the shell. Be careful not to glue any directly over the fold line, because (sorry if I'm being too obvious here) you won't be able to fold it.

Get a scrap of green card (doesn't matter which colour) and write on your greeting. It needs to fit into the top right hand corner, so bear this in mind when composing your text. Decorate around the edge with your black pen - faux stitch lines are always a winner with me.

Stick on some sticky fixers - I like the greeting to be a little raised always - don't ask me why, but I always do. Stick on to your card and you're done.

Under the flap is left for any secret messages you may have, because a tortoise always keeps it's secrets under it's shell. Everyone knows that.

The Monday Project - Save The Date Button Cards

So I don't know anyone getting married at the moment, but last year I had to design my brother's wedding invitations and things. Of course, my first thought was: buttons. Bizarrely, my brother isn't into his buttons so much (I know, right?), so this ended up a no-go. Nevermind, ignore my brother and his non-button love, here are some save the date cards that embrace the button love.

You will need:

Plain Card

Patterned Card

Small Button selection - to match your colour-scheme

Needle & thread - to match colour scheme

Corner Rounder Punch - optional

Computer & Printer (or rubber stamp, or beautiful handwriting and a steady hand)

Paper trimmer

Sellotape and double-sided tape

Here's How To:

Set up on your computer the information you need in a fancy font. (Remember you can download hundreds of beautiful fonts for free off the internet, to get exactly what you're after). Copy & Paste over the whole page (you can get about 12 to a page). Print onto your plain card. If you don't want to use your computer, you could get a stamp made up, or you could do it all by hand if you're a confident calligrapher.

Cut each card out - you should end up with a finished size of about 6cm x 8cm. When you cut, cut close to the left hand side of the writing, and leave a gap on the right. Measure and cut the patterned card to about 1cm larger than your plain card.

At this stage, with your corner punch, you can round off the corners of either one or both of your cards. Experiment, see what you like. Oh, and check out the top picture, can you spot the deliberate mistake? Hmm..

Next, thread up your needle. You don't need it for the wrapping around the card, but it'll make life easier for putting the buttons on. And it helps to have your tape in an easy dispenser too, if not, three hands may be an option you'd like to consider!

Stick the end of the thread onto the back of the plain card, on the other side of the blank part. then wrap roughly three times around the card. Fix on the back with a bit of sellotape(fig. 1 & 2). On the fourth time around, thread on your buttons. Place them where you want on the card, and pull the thread tightly to the back. Fix again with tape.

Now, with double-sided tape, centre this card onto the patterned backing card. Stick down firmly, et voila. You're done. Repeat 150 times (or however many guests you have!)

By the way, the names 'Marjorie & Edward' and their wedding date were randomly generated by Rachael- but if by chance someone happens to be called that and is getting married on that date - they can totally steal this idea ;)

Buttonly Loveliness

Whilst at Stitches trade show I was looking at these oh-so-inspiring books from Autumn Leaves, Designing with Color, Designing with Detail, and The Designing With Recipe Book. I think, quite possibly, and this is really saying something - that they do the best layouts with buttons I have EVER seen. Here's a company that's not afraid to use buttons liberally throughout their projects. Take a look at their new creativity inc. website. Here are a few of my favourite projects from there. this one, and this one, this one and here's another, and finally...

How much do you love them? How's that for inspiring buttonly loveliness? There is another layout in Designing with Detail which isn't in their gallery, but which inspired this card:

The main card is about 6" x 6", the one on top is about 0.5" smaller on all sides, and on this one I lightly drew diagonal lines with my ruler about 1.5" apart, then stitched up them with my sewing machine - I don't think hand stitching would work very well - or at least, not mine! - then on each cross-section I stuck a button - I would have stitched them but for some reason I didn't, I wished I had after, as some of them stuck out a bit too far. On each button I had tied a little knot of ribbon or string or thread - I like the fact that they are different on each one. Then I stuck on the other piece of card which I had used a rub-on 'hello' and stitched around it. I was pretty pleased with it, although I will have to love the person I give it to a lot as it took a little longer than most of my cards. I used little buttons from 'purplicious' & 'vintage' theme bags.