Hello and welcome to The Capricious Crafter blog! Who or what is the capricious crafter? Well, that would be me, Becky, a sixty something child of God, wife, daughter, aunt, great aunt, friend and lover of crafting, cooking, reading, travel, and more. My husband and I have been married almost thirty years and are looking forward to his retirement at the end of 2014. Our plans are to buy a new camper and hit the road as much as possible. Oh, the possibilities are endless for our future!

I am a child of the 1950's and that is definitely my favorite 'era'. I collect Fire King items from the 1940's and 50's, clear glass or crystal glassware, especially pitchers, cream and sugar sets, etc., as well as old dishware and serving pieces, vintage fabrics and so much more!

I have been crafting for as long as I can remember, and definitely from my early childhood. I remember my mother teaching me how to make paper dolls from the Sears catalog and 'shirt cardboard' from the cleaners. And now I still love playing with paper! My primary crafty passion is paper crafting items such as mini albums, cards, tags, etc., however I also enjoy crocheting, some sewing, embroidery, mixed media art and art journaling, felt crafts and so much more.

My purpose for this blog is to share the crafts I make, foods I cook, decorating and caring for my home, new products I try, treasures I find at estate and yard sales, my collections, and anything else I come up with. I hope you will join me on this journey ... it's going to be a very 'capricious' ride!

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Sharing ... Challenge at Anything But a Card!

It has been a really long time since I took part in a challenge, but today this one spoke to me!  It is Anything But a Card's "Anything Goes ... with a Holiday Twist" challenge.  I have been working on some very cool Christmas themed goodies, and thought this one would be cool to share with you today.


 Our budget is extremely tight this year, but I still want to decorate and make gifts, and one day a couple of weeks ago I had this great idea to use the cotton muslin I had in my stash and make some muslin ribbons (wound on the spools) for a gift.  They are very easy to make and uses few 'ingredients' to make some pretty ribbons ...
  • cotton muslin, preferably cut into 1 yard lengths
  • scissors
  • holiday themed stamps (and an acrylic block if you are using unmounted stamps)
  • pigment inks 

 ... and that is it!  Take your length of muslin and find one of the two 'selvage' edges.  That is the edge that is more tightly woven to keep the fabric from fraying.  Then, about 1/4 to 1/2" from the edge, make a short cut ... about 1/2" long, down from the already cut edge of the fabric.  Grasp the corner and the side next to the cut, and just rip it down, all the way to the end.  This will do a couple of things ... get rid of the selvage, and give you a straight, raveled edge, which is what you want!.  Now, go in about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2" and make another cut, and pull down to tear off the narrow strip of fabric.  It's kind of fun once you get into the rhythm!


Next, lay your strip of fabric out flat and get out your stamps and inks.  Use whatever designs, words, etc. that you want.  If you have some mini alpha stamps you could even make a personalized ribbon for each person on your list!  On the picture above I used the sentiment "May Your Holidays Be Merry and Bright".  If you have small stamps you can put several together like this ...


Once you have your ribbons stamped, you can wind them onto cute thread spools, or just wrap them around a tag or piece of card stock.  I even covered some buttons and attached them to some printouts of some vintage button cards to match the ribbon.  A bow with a matching ribbon on top would be a really special way of embellishing a gift.


Buttons for covering can be found at your local fabric store, but I ordered a big bag of them a couple of years ago from an ebay vendor.  I simply stamped images on the muslin and covered them according to the manufacturer's directions.

I also made some more prim / shabby styled ribbons and buttons that are on my Etsy shop for sale right now.  You can click on the image in the first column to the right if you are interested.


These ribbons and buttons are reusable and could be used for years, and that is good for the planet!  Thanks so much for visiting today, and I hope you enjoyed my project for the Anything But a Card challenge!

Blessings,


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