Bargain Craft Supplies at Bird's Yard - and some ideas on what to do with them

It's sale time at Bird's Yard (Chapel Walk, Sheffield city centre)! The designers have been having a sort of their supplies and have brought them in to make a 'pop up craft shop' full of bargains.

It started with me having to move a cupboard in my house that was full of supplies. After emptying it (and wondering how so much stuff could fit in one cupboard) I realised there were things I'd had for years, that although pretty, weren't being used. So the idea was sparked and here it is.

Here are some of the bargains you can find if you call in, and some ideas so they will get used.

Craft Supply Sale, Bird's Yard, Chapel Walk, Sheffield - Thursday, Friday, Saturday this week 10.30-4.30

Ceramic animals

Galabeer and the Dog have brought a large selection of Wade Whimsies at £1.50 each of 3 for £4. They're lovely to collect or here are some ideas on how to get crafty with them...

Fun jar lids. Find the tutorial at House to Home

Paint them to make fun decorations at Doodle Craft

Buttons

There are a selection of vintage buttons from various designers starting at just 50p!

And The Life of Jennifer Dawn has lots of quick and simple ideas on how to get crafty with them...

Inspirations from Vintage Greeting Cards

I love to make greeting cards using vintage papers from all kinds of sources. Sometimes an image is so beautiful I just cut it out of a book (a damaged or unwanted one) and use it in a card. Sometime I use book or music pages to make shapes and patterns to create designs. I also like to look at original vintage cards for inspiration...and here are some that I bought recently.

These wedding and engagement cards look to date from the 1960s and 1970s and feature gorgeous colours and interesting details. There's lots about them that I like and these are some of the details that will be inspiring some new designs from me.

Tips for Crafting with Paper Ephemera

A few weeks ago over on my ephemera page on Facebook I started a series of posts called 'Thursday Tips' where I share a little tip or trick that I've learn through my own crafting. I thought, now I've posted a few of them, that I'd collect them here to create a little article.

I also like to post projects I find, things I make, ephemera I have for sale and anything other vintagey and papery I find! If you'd like to discover a new tip every Thursday do head over to my page take a look.

Thursday Tips

When you've finished cutting up old book pages use a circle punch to make small colourful circles with the scraps. I save them until I find a suitable projects for them. These 1/2 inch circles are left from a 1960s book I cut the pictures out of.

                            


Use a black (or other colour) fine liner pen to create a stitch effect border around paper embellishments for cards and scrapbooks to make them stand out and look defined.
                           

 
To help add definition to pieces of paper you might be layering in a card making or scrapbooking project, gently run an ink pad around the edges. It gives a slightly muted soft edge to help it stand out.

                           


When cutting out small details from paper use a small, sharp pair of scissors and keep them still. Turn and move the paper with your other hand. This makes for a cleaner and sharper cut.
                             

Ephemera doesn't just have to be old paper (although that is my favourite type!). Technically it's any item that was produced to have a short, one off purpose and not meant to be kept and last a long time. I find it useful to keep a box to put all these kind of items in so I've always got plenty of ephemera ready to go when I'm feeling crafty!

                            

If you're making paper beads using strips of vintage (or other) paper, use a quilling tool to make the process easier. Just slot the end of the paper between the gap in the middle of the tool and roll up! It's a lot quicker and neater than rolling paper around cocktails sticks like I used to do.
                                         


If you're doing some stamping over vintage book pages try stamping the pattern as normal (the darkest green in this picture) and then re-stamping without adding more ink going backwards to create a worn effect to match the vintage style.

                                   


If you're making something with vintage papers and there's a tear or mark on it, cover the blemished part with a postage stamp. (This is why my vintage map cards have stamps on!)

                                        


If you're decoupaging an object and are making paper strips to cover it, use a ruler to tear the paper rather than cut it with scissors. Tearing the paper instead of cutting it gives it a softer edge so it lays flatter to the object you're gluing it to and using a ruler means the torn paper will be straight!

Fun With Felting

Felting is something that always looks fun and there are some amazing creations out there, but it's never something I've tried before. Until today! Sue from Apple Harvest very kindly invited me to play with her wools and show me how to make a flower. This is what we got up to...

Lots of gorgeous colours to play with!

Some of the 'tools' needed - hot soapy water, bubble wrap and a rolling pin

You have to keep rolling and turning the wool until it 'knits' together. It was also useful to use the end of the rolling pin to bash the flower too! One it's holding itself together, we rinsed the flowers in cold water then pinched them together and put them on a radiator to dry.

This red flower was my first attempt and didn't turn out quite as flower like as I was hoping! I was happier with this purple and pink creation though...

But Sue's creations are what you really need to see to show you how it's done...

5 Upcycling Tutorials Using Various Materials

As my mum keeps telling me, 'upcycling' has been around for years (even though 'back then we didn't call it upcycling, it was just something we had to do', usually followed by how lucky me and brother were when we were children!). Now though the emphasis is on creativity as well as necessity and there are lots of great ideas out there about how to upcycle.

Paper is my favourite material to work with, but here are some other wonderful ways to re-use and upcycle...

Pencils

This tutorial from Design Mom shows you how to create this fun and colourful jewellery from old pencils. Perfect for using up those last bits of pencil crayons that are too short to get in the pencil sharpener! 
 

 

Tin Cans

There are always plenty of tin cans around, but instead of putting them in the recycling bin what about making a colourful bird feeder for your garden? This tutorial can be found at We Made That.

Zips

A fashionable idea for when a zip on a garment breaks - turn it into a ring! Useful DIY shows you how.

Toy Animals

A very clever (and fun way) to use toy plastic animals from Thinking Closet. One they've finished been played with you can turn them into place card holders. They could also be used as note or photo holders too. I'd try to match the animal to the guest!

  

Glass Jars

There are lots of great ideas around for using old Mason jars but I particularly love this one from All Things Heart and Home. Here a string of LED lights are used to make a chandelier effect.

Now I've got my inspirations I'm off to rummage through some things that would be otherwise thrown away and get making!

3 Ways to Use Comic Book Speech Bubbles in Crafts

I can't throw any bit of a book away that has some use. Even the smallest pieces can be used to great effect. I've had a few comic book annuals to play with lately and I couldn't resist cutting out the speech bubbles to make things with.

Here are a few crafty ways I've put them to use...

Add them to pictures on cards or in scrapbooks...

Make them into bigger speech bubbles for cards and tags...

 

Make food toppers...

Queen's Notebook.com

These are just a few fun ideas to use up your little scraps. If you don't have any comic books to cut up, pack of quotes are available at Pink Flamingo Ephemera - and if you buy them over the Easter weekend you can get 10% off any order! Just use code EASTER10 at the checkout before the end of Monday 21st April 2014.

Crafty Ideas from the Life of Jennifer Dawn

Blogs are fantastic ways to share ideas, know how and information. I love sharing my ideas and posts at link parties (take a look at these) and taking a look at all the other creative makes, tutorials and inspirations you can find there.

I sent Jennifer at The Life of Jennifer Dawn some of my ephemera packs to get creative with - and she's come up with some amazing makes! It's great to see someone else's take on supplies I use and get inspirations from these, and hopefully you'll get some inspirations too.

Simply click on the images to find the tutorials over at Jennifer's blog...

Upcycling...how I choose my materials

Before I even knew what it was called I was upcycling. I've never been able to throw away things which could be useful or were just too pretty to get rid of. Even as a child I'd save bits of paper, stamps, sweet wrappers (and anything else that caught my eye) and turn them into pictures, cards and decorations.

I've never been a hoarder, everything is clean and tidy and has it's place. As my collection has grown I realised I needed to put it to more uses than just fulfilling my own needs, and that's when I started Pink Flamingo Handcrafting. I first started making and selling items using what I already had, but as my little business has grown so has the need for materials.

Ephemera - everyday objects that would usually be thrown away

So now I have to actively look for items to upcycle as well as collecting bits and pieces that would have been thrown away. I often get asked where I find things and how I use them, so I thought I'd share my ideas on this subject here.

A selection of broken books from a recent trip to an antiques centre

As a book lover and English Literature graduate, I can't bear to cut up books which are still readable, entertaining or informative. I'll often see books that I'll look through and think the pictures would make gorgeous cards, but the book itself (for example a cook book) is still perfectly useable. In that case I always put it back and hope it finds a good home.

Other books though aren't as lucky. Over the years they've been well loved, read, played with and ...well, look rather worse for wear. These are the books that I like to 'rescue'. If their spine is broken and the pages are falling out then I won't feel so guilty about tearing it up; if a child has lovingly scribbled all over the pages trying to draw their own versions of the pictures I know another child won't want to read it; if the book's been left lying somewhere forgotten and half the pages have discoloured and curled then I know I can rescue the good bits.

A puzzle book's not much use when all the crosswords are complete!

Of course, I only use the parts of the texts which are undamaged to make sure that my customers get great quality cards and gifts.

So, that's how I choose the materials I use in my work. And if you ever want to know exactly where the papers on your purchase have come from, all you have to do is ask me (I have a terrible memory for some things, but books always stay in my head!).

Vintage Pages Collection - a new collection from Pink Flamingo...

I love to make cards using vintage papers. There's something special and pleasing about finding unique papers or rediscovering nostalgic patterns and turning them into something unique to share with loved ones. I often create cards using pictures taken from old books and either simply use them directly on cards with a few hand drawn details, or incorporate them into a design.

This lets me create true one off greetings that can't be replicated - an idea I love! But lately I've also been thinking about designs that can be reproduced to create a collection. So I took some designs I've made before and added some new ones into the mix to create my new collection - Vintage Pages.

What I love about my new collection is that although the designs are replicated, each one is still a one off.

That's because each one is handmade using original book pages so will feature unique details in its writing or pictures.

Sending cards is a way of showing that you've thought about someone and care about a special day, occasion or achievement in their life, so I wanted to put that same level of caring and thoughtfulness
into my cards. I've carefully chosen the texts I've used to relate to the images I've created, and where possible, the occasion they could be suitable for.

If you order of any of these cards online you can also add any personalised you'd like to make it extra special. Or look out for them in selected shops!