Easter postcard (5)

Here comes a further variation of the woven Easter egg postcard. It is so much fun to come up with ideas for weaving that I did this last woven egg with sequins added. This is for those of you who like it a bit more glamorous.

Easter Postcard with Woven Egg and sequins

Material and instruction like in Easter postcard No. 3. You also need some sequins fitting your chosen colour scheme. Proceed just as in postcard no. 3, but weave more loosely. After finishing the weaving, add the sequins. I made groups of three and spread them evenly over the egg.

All these variations are meant to show that you can let your imagination run free and come up with the most beautiful ideas yourself. Have fun!

Easter Postcard (4)

This Easter postcard project varies the theme and technique of Easter Postcard No. 3. It is woven again, but more colourful as you can see. I sort of liked the idea to wrap it in a warm and cosy plaid, especially as it's extremaly cold outside with biting wind and not nearly feeling like spring or Easter.

Easter Postcard with Plaid Egg

Materials and instruction see Easter Postcard No. 3, only add some more colours and weave more loosely so you can see the warp threads, too.

Easter Postcard (2)

This is the second Easter postcard. I wanted to further experiment with weaving, this time in wool.

Easter Postcard With Wool Egg

Material: 1 sheet of white paper
                1 sheet of green paper
                mending yarn in turquoise (or another colour of your liking)
                adhesive tape
                spray glue

• Print the template for the egg on the white sheet of paper.
• Cover the dots with adhesive tape for more stability. This is the back side of the postcard, so it won't show.
• Pierce all the dots.
• Start weaving by doing all the vertical lines. This is the warp.
• Begin with the weft at the bottom of the egg. As you can see, I applied two different techniques: plain-weaving and twill-weaving. You can find the explanation here. To achieve the herringbone effect you have to change the direction of the warp thread you are weaving under: to let the pattern 'move' to the right, weave under the next warp thread to the right in every row, to move to the left vice versa.
• Suture all ends neatly on the back.
• Cover the green paper with spray glue and press thoroughly to the back of the white paper.
• Fold carefully along the middle with a bone folder.

You can further vary your design by using different colours for the weft and creating stripes.

Easter Postcard (1)

As outside everything is still black, brown and muddy, I wanted to do projects that give a 'springy' feeling by using spring green and other bright colours. I began with some Easter postcards. You can see the first one above. I actually used some blades of grass I found behind my garden.

Easter Postcard With Grass-Blades

Material: 1 sheet of white paper
                1 sheet of spring green paper
                some dried blades of grass
                spray glue
                bone folder

• Cut vertical lines 3 mm apart so they build the shape of an egg into the front of your postcard. You can order the template here.
• Cut strips of paper 3, 6 and 8 mm wide.
• Weave the strips into the vertically cut egg-shape, alternating the width and occasionally using the blades of grass, too. You have to handle the grass very carefully, because it's so brittle. I used a small kitchen knife to help threading. The last strips are a bit tricky, too.
• Cut off the excess length of the strips on the back, yet not too short.
• Spray glue onto the green paper and press tightly onto the back of the postcard.
• Carefully fold along the middle with a bone folder.

Tea Light Lamp

Today it is so dark, you can leave the lights on all day long. So I decided to spice up my tea lights by making these lamps.

It's a bit time-consuming to do them because between the different steps you have to allow for the several layers to dry. As there is wax involved it is not advisable to use a blow-dryer to shorten the process.

How to:

Material: 1 sheet of paper
                tea light holder from the Swedish furniture store (the blue and yellow one ;))
                watercolours or acrylic paint
                a white candle
                paper knife

• Measure the circumference of your tea light holder and add 1cm for comfort plus 1 cm per side to overlap.
• Fix the paper to your work surface with masking tape and rub it thoroughly with your candle.
• Apply a coat of watercolour and let dry.
• Fix the colour with diluted glue, taking care not to smear the watercolours. Or use acrylic paint so you can leave out his step. Let dry.
• After drying, cut in appropriate strips. Prepare two templates of a fir tree in different sizes and cut the contours into the paper strips. Take care only to cut one half of it lengthwise.
• Carefully fold back the trees along the edge of a ruler so there will be small wholes to let the light shine through. Now the tree halves add up to a hole tree.
• Fold the short sides 1 cm from the edge.
• To close the circle cut one tree exactly in the middle with its center in line with the fold. Also cut a bit from the tree top down- and from its base upwards, leaving about a third of the length uncut.
• On the opposite fold cut a rectangle about 2 mm longer than this uncut piece and 1 to 2 mm wide.
• Turn down the 'flaps' of the tree and pull gently through the rectangular slit. Unfold the tree.

When making these lights, it occurred to me that they resemble the bark of birch trees. So I made another set, where the colours are even closer to the original, glued some spring green tissue paper on the inside and cut birch leaves instead of fir trees.

These go even better with the spring like temperatures outside. Plus they will make you forget about the darkness and the soggy wheather.