Retro Dressmaking Card

This card measures 17cm x 12.5 cms.

Remember all those old tape measures I plundered?  Well this is my first project using them, and it’s quite a different style for me……

I’ve cut out illustrations from this very old McCall's sewing book to make a background collage.  I bought it for no more than 10p from a car boot sale. It must date back to the 1950’s judging from the designs in it, which is why I bought it in the first place.

After making the centre collage panel,  I glued on the fabric tape measure and made a rough bow,  then matted it on black card.

I was going to leave it at that, but then remembered some brass sewing charms I had been given, so I added them to the corner of the card, continuing the sewing theme.

I’m not sure if I will let this card go ….. but it’s one tape measure down, and about another twenty three to go!

Flower Collage

This is a bit fancy for me!

It started when I saw a flower made with the stamped image of a watch face as the centre….. that got me thinking, as I have a box of watch faces on my shelf (it’s a long story, but I once went to an antiques fair and a gentleman had a few watch faces in a dish on his table, when I asked how much they were he said “A fiver, but you’ve got to take the whole lot”  …….. the whole lot turned out to be two big washing up bowls full of old watch bits ….. it was a fantastic find.  I used most of the bits at school for collage, but kept the faces).

The flower, made using a scalloped circle Nestabilities die set, had been stuck to the tele on my desk for months as I didn’t know what to do with it, until today …… I have used a spacer and pearl brad to hold everything together.

The wooden heart with music on was meant to be stuck on a peg, for another project, but it sort of went with what I was doing ant the music paper was from some old score books that I rescued from a skip!

This was all made while I was trying to tidy upstairs ….. sometimes I get an idea in my head and just have to go with it.