Spring/Summer 2007

Well, as our confidence gre, we decided to be a bit more adventurous. In April, we used wire and beads to make embellishments. I was useless at this, but Amanda was much better. I had found some patterns for butterflies/dragonflies and Amanda had made flowers before. I had not realised how difficult this would be for some of my ladies who had some difficulty with dexterity. And my poor efforts looked rather deformed....

Being brave, and following a botched attempt and a brainwave, we decided to make exploding boxes in May. I found it hard to cut the 'cross shapes' which make up the body of the box, but used Colossal Card strips in varying shades, to make the outers - using 6 strips of card - 3 pairs of gradiating size (largest 9 x 3 inches, scored at every 3 inches, then 8.25 x 2.75 inches scored every 2.75 inches, and the smallest 7.5 x 2.5 inches scored every 2.5 inches). The sample I made for my Mum (for Mothers Day) she still has today. Much much easier than cutting out all those straight lines that I could not do with my cutting systems. Then, its a case of sticking the corresponding strips together at the central square point with DS tape (to the bottom of each one, except the very bottom one) and making the lid. This project went down very well - I got it out of the Docrafts Creativity mag, and just utilised my ideas to save time and money - the strips were on offer and only cost me £3 for the pack of 100.

For June, we went back to using shaped card blanks - this time using butterflies, shoes, bags and fans as well as shirts for the Men. Not as good as the last one we did (where the Craftwork blanks were a treat) but still a very pleasant evening.