Fabric Brooch Cards

My fabric brooches have developed a lot over the years. One of the first craft fairs I visited featured brooch cards, I bought one and thought what a good idea it would be for me to develop them myself. At the moment I have four fabric brooch cards. 'Thinking of you' features my crocheted poppy and 'With Love' my embroidered heart felt brooch that was originally a pendant. 'To Someone Special' includes my original crocheted flower brooch and 'All Good Wishes' features my virtuous fabric flower brooch.

Get well soon with sympathy

Older customers at the craft fairs I attend have suggested that I create a selection of 'Get Well Soon' and 'With Sympathy' cards. They had reached a time in their lives where a lot of their friends and loved ones were either sick or dying. I created my own botanical flower drawings, backgrounds and lettering to use on the cards. My customers were right, they do sell quite well.

Virtuous cards and scenters

I began my virtue project in 2007, back then it was part of my WebFlowers project. I started with the seven contrary virtues; Humility, Generosity, Chastity, Temperence, Patience, Kindness, Diligence. These virtues are contrary to the seven deadly sins; Pride, Greed, Lust, Gluttony, Anger, Envy, Sloth. When I started developing ALF Creations @ the Star Heart Cafe I wanted very much to incorporate the virtues into my arts, crafts, and writing.

My virtuous cards include the Star Heart Virtues : Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, Joy and Faith and the manly virtues; Valiant, Loyal and Earnest. The first four virtue haiku cards I created as part of my 'typographical challenge' are Humility, Kindness, Patience and Diligence.

My virtuous scenters include my lavender star hearts and virtuous flowers which are inspired by these words from St Paul.

'Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Forgive as the lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love.' Colossians 3:12-14

50 Greeting Card Greetings

These fifty greeting card greetings are from my ten ALF Creations collections of cards. My first collection of cards which I developed around 2007 was called 'Versatility'. Some of the cards are based around Amy's childhood pictures, these are Amy Occasions, ALF Occassions and Four Seasons. Other cards have been developed around website designs I was working on from 2005 to 2007 these are 'Vesatility' and 'Passtimes'. I also have a variety of collage cards, these are 'With Virtue', 'Manly Virtues', 'Christimas Collage' and 'Empathy'. Lastly I have 'Fabric Brooch Cards' with the greetings 'All good wishes', 'Thinking of you', 'To someone Special' and 'With love'.

This table was full of my cards in a charity craft event in December 2016.

Manly and Feminine Virtues

The virtues are for everyone and my ideas for the feminine virtues and the manly virtues grew out of a picture of three girls I drew as a teenager and nothing really deeper than that.

The three girls became Patience, Kindness and Modesty and had their own Star Heart Dolls and cards.

Ins[pired by the girls I then worked on my virtuous three boys, they also have their own cards and Cross Line Dolls. The boys have the names of virtues sometimes used as boys name in their own right; Valiant, Earnest and Loyal.

 

Summer Crafts for St Mary's

 
 I've not had so much to do with the church, or my crafts, this year, but I still wanted to donate some of my lingering makes for the 2018 St Mary's Summer Fete.

    

On her 50th birthday my friend set me a craft challenge, to turn these three items into a selection of knitted purses and pouches. I'll see how I get on; watch this space, but don't hold your breath.

Richard's Things Notecards

One day, when I was waiting for the gas engineer to arrive, I took the opportunity to produce twenty drawings to illustrate my song 'Richard's things'. With the aid of Movie Maker I was able to put the drawings into a montage to accompany my demo recording. Recently I put my 'Richard's Things' drawings onto note-cards. I have sold a few of these cards on my 'ALF Creations @ the Star Heart Cafe' craft stall.

Typographical Challenge

When I was working on my fabric brooch cards, Richard pointed out that the cards would look better, and more handmade, if I wrote the greetings out by hand, rather than relying on standard word processing fonts. Since then I have been improving my lettering work, which has culminated in my Virtue Haiku greeting cards as shown above. Below are more of my lettering projects and two books on the subject which I have found very inspiring.

More hearts and flowers

My original heart felt pendants and crochet flower brooches were not at all popular at my craft events in 2013. Since then I have developed them into fabric brooch cards and lavender scenters, which have both proved to be much more successful.

ALF Christmas cards

After designing my own grown-up Christmas Cards in 2015 I went through Amy's old drawings and found six that I thought could be developed into lovely child-like Christmas card designs. Together with mine they form the basis of a ten card collection.

ALF Christmas Cards

I worked out that the best time of year to work on Christmas ideas was in January. You are not caught up in the pre-Christmas rush, the taste of Christmas is still in the air, there is a bit of a lull in many other areas of life and the memory of the festive season is still fresh. I started on my batch of Christmas cards in January 2015.

And Amy's were developed in October 2015.

Amy occasions

Amy started drawing when she was about four and when she was five she produced the story and drawings for 'The Legend of the Dream Box'. Some of my favourite of Amy's pictures have found their way onto ALF Creations greetings and note cards.

Xmas gifts for St Mary's

I spent a lot of my spare time in September and October working on my crafts, which has been pleasant and rejuvenating but also quite tiring. I made ten new Star Heart dolls following my visit to Shepherd's Bush, I also created more fabric brooches, in particular more crochet poppies, also new cards and more lavender scenters including new owls and swallows. I am also aiming to produce a new ALF Creations book of poetry, but I am still working on that idea.

Below are the crafts I have produced for the St Mary's Christmas Bazaar which will take place later this month. They include all twelve ALF Christmas card designs. I also have more crafts I have made for a charity event to support Trinity Homeless, which is taking place in early December, I will share these nearer the time.

    

Star Heart Virtues

While working on my virtue project I came up with six Star Heart Virtues inspired by the words and concepts I was dealing with. I have based a collection of cards and dolls on them. Joy is represented by a pink rose, Faith an orange cross, Grace a yellow book, Hope a green leaf, Peace a blue bird and Love a purple heart.

Donations for a Summer Fete

Unfortunately I will miss the summer fete at St Mary's this year as I will be on holiday in North Wales. I enjoy Summer fetes, Christmas bazaars, Spring and Autumn Fairs as they are a good opportunity to create and showcase various ALF Creations as well as contribute to a good cause. This summer I am donating cards, lavender scenters and a large Star Heart Doll. I hope my doll goes to a good home, I call her 'Love', and a lot of love has gone into her.

 

Crafts for a Spring Fair

I am hoping to do a craft stall in the spring and have been working on new crafts to put on it. I have redeveloped my fabric brooches into fabric brooch greeting cards. I was also knitting over Christmas and have produced more gadget and gift pouches and also new purses. I also worked on bookmarks, new notecards and greeting cards. I have worked more on the details of my Star Heart Dolls and lavender scenters. It's always good to work on my arts and crafts and being able to  donate some of my earnings to charity makes my endeavours feel even more worthwhile.