Trend: The Circus – Craft Gossip

image by My Cute Stamps

A really fun trend I’ve seen popping up in stamping and paper crafting is the Circus. Use bright primary colors for fun cards and layouts, they are perfect for children’s birthday party invites or for a card for anyone who is young at heart. Here are some fun stamping products I’ve found with a circus theme.

My Cute stamps has an adorable clear circus set:

image by My Cute Stamps

Basic Grey also has a wonderful clear stamp set called Build a Clown:

image by Basic Grey

Tim Holtz has a very fun ATC (artist trading card) sized stamp called Circus Freak:

image by Simon Says and Stampers Anonymous

and he also has an unmounted circus set:

image by Alphastamps and Tim Holtz

here’s a wonderful fun book by Lisa Kettel called Altered Art Circus:

image by Amazon and Lisa Kettel

And here’s an entire website devoted to the theme called Jim Marcus’ Circustamps:

image by Laura Jacobs and Circustamps

and lastly here’s a cute card I made using Close To My Hearts Life’s a Jungle set:

image by Heather Holbrook

-Heather

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I’m always tempted by the pretty velvets at the fabric store. So much texture! And the way the fibers catch the light! But sewing on velvet is trickier than you’d think. That nap that lends beautiful texture also likes to slip and crawl. That nap can also spell disaster if you cut a piece the wrong direction. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t use buy that velvet and sew it into something gorgeous, you just need to go into your velvet sewing project prepared. And Melissa at Melly Sews has a post that takes you step by step through sewing on velvet.

Velvet is such a luscious fabric, especially for winter sewing projects. Of course there are velvet Christmas sewing projects – stockings, tree skirts, santa hats – but velvet is beautiful for all winter. Think of all the gorgeous velvet dresses, evening bags, hair accessories, even pillows and other home décor that you see all winter long.

Melly Sews’ post gives you the tips and tricks you need to know in order for your velvet sewing project to end up a success. There are types of projects better suited for velvets, and kinds of projects to avoid. She describes the different types of velvet available. And she also tells the best way to lay out and cut your pattern pieces from velvet fabric. Her tutorial also covers marking, pressing, and of course sewing that beautiful fabric. There’s also a video included in case that’s your preferred method for learning.

Head over to Melly Sews to learn how to sew on velvet fabric.

And if you want to learn more about that lovely blue velvet dress shown, she has a post that tells more about it including 2 ways to style it depending on if you want to be more dressy or more casual.

[photo credit: Melly Sews]

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