Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Craftea - Vintage Valentine Making

A couple years ago I had my little Craftea group of friends over for an afternoon of Valentine making.

I spread out all my supplies -- doilies, stickers, photocopies of old trading and postcards, stick-on alphabets, tissue paper, sequins, buttons, poems, glue sticks, cardstock, etc. After showing the group a Valentine I had previously made, they went to town creating their own 'vintage' Valentines.

In the next post is a description of the process of making a reproduction of an old, pop-up Valentine.

Jan with her card:

Elaine's colorful card:

Helene is pleased with her creation:

Wendy sent her Valentine to her mother, who loved it and said it reminded her of making Valentines as a child with her grandmother.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Vintage Valentine Crafts

Here is my handmade reproduction pop-up Valentine on the little shelf, and underneath is a cool picture frame I found at a large craft store chain. It holds six 4x6" photos and works well for changing out my collection of old postcards and trading cards with the seasons. The cards just slip right in and out.


Instructions for making a repro vintage Valentine. Take an 8 1/2 x 11" piece of scrap paper and fold in half down the middle (top to bottom) and once again along the lower third of the paper. Draw a swirly line on the right, from top to bottom. Cut out through both thicknesses and the left and right sides will match. This is your template.

Crush two pieces of decorative tissue paper (larger than your template) in a ball, then flatten them out again. Do this twice. With a glue stick, adhere the tissue to a piece of cardstock on both the front and the back. Let dry.

Trace around your template onto the tissue-covered card stock and cut out. Using a bone folder press along the line where the vertical and horizontal parts of your card will meet, about 1/3 from the bottom edge. Fold along the pressed line.

If you wish, attach a paper doily frame to the back of the card. I cut a hole from the center of the doily so the pretty tissue paper on the back side would be visible.

To attach the central photo, old postcard or trading card (photocopied, of course), you need to make a support for it. To do this, take a narrow strip of card stock and score along four lines, depending on how tall and how deep you want your support to be. This one, below, is about 4" tall by 1/2" deep (and 1" wide). Therefore, the original piece of cardstock was approx. 1"x 9".

Basically, you are making a box that does not have sides. The back of the box is glued to the vertical part of the card, and the bottom of the box is gluled to the horizontal part of the card. This enables the card to be folded flat, but the artwork will be raised off the card when the card is opened. A little hard to explain, but I hope the photo helps.

Belore I attached the trading card to the support I glued vintage lace around the four edges of the card.


Banners can be made in all shapes and sizes in Microsoft Word:


Glittered sticky letters are applied to the banner. I used a pin to apply them:
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A second banner, with more sticky letters applied, and photocopied Victorian scrap for the card:



The finished card, with various elements glued to the central pop-up support and elsewhere on the card. I used littly foam sticky dots to give the additional elements dimension.



The underside of the bottom flap contains a poem and more Victorian scrap.



My heart to you is given:
Oh, do give yours to me;
We'll lock them up together,
And throw away the key!
Frederick Saunders)

You can find lots of funny, tender and sweet poems on the internet. Copy and paste them into a Word document in a pretty font. Then tear them and attach to your card.

Come live in my heart and pay no rent. (Samuel Lover)

The back of the card features another poem.


Happy Valentine's Day!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Valentines Are Everywhere!

Many years ago I made Valentines from two small red heart doilies. Using embroidery floss I sewed them together with a chain stitch all the way around, but leaving the top open. I sent these to several friends and put tiny things inside like stickers, notes, poems, tissue paper snowflakes, even beads and other tiny objects captured inside small paper hearts.


Here is one of the 'snowflakes' with heart cut-outs.


An old candy box I found in an antique mall for $1 !


A heart shaped sewing kit:




Friday, February 4, 2011

Oxford Fiber Arts Festival

The First Annual Oxford Fiber Arts Festival was so successful I only had time to take 3 photos! I was at the make & take table most of Saturday. Here is a photo of Audrey with her granddaughter after they finished making a long felted bead. There was a lot of stuff for kids at the festival, which contributed to our success -- make & take, yarn 'bombing', alpacas and angora rabbits.


I took a hand painting sock yarn class on Sunday with Penny of Sky Loom Weavers (one of our vendors who came all the way from Texas). One of my skeins came out pretty good, the one at the bottom of the warping board, which I made with dyes in colors of rust, daffodil, brick red, and magenta, something like that. Not sure about the second skein, on the left in the photograph. I just kind of picked favorite colors and splattered them all over the skein. It will be fun knitting something with both skeins.



Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Vintage Knitting and Crochet

The First Annual Oxford Fiber Arts Festival was successful beyond our wildest hopes! Carolyn's opening talk on Friday evening was attended by about 40 - 50 people. At least one person came from as far as Memphis to attend and brought a 1970's crocheted vest to show after the talk, which still fits her very well!

I was so busy all weekend I only took three photos! This one of the table of vintage knitted and crocheted items Carolyn and I set up as a display. Most of the items are from Carolyn's collection, very few from mine.



Many people came up after the talk to tell Carolyn how much they loved it. A few people brought vintage items to share with the audience, including Mary Lou who brought this amazing shadow box of a pair of knit socks which her great, great, great, great grandmother made in the first half of the 18th century. Mary Lou said that her ancestor sheared, carded, spun and knit the socks to enter in a fair, and she knew exactly how many stitches were in the socks! Her photograph is also in the shadow box, and some of the extra yarn.