Tuesday 14 June 2011

Something New

So you may remember that one of my Not Really Resolutions for this year was to finally get all my photos from my holiday in France last year in an album of some sorts.

I didn't want to just put them in some plastic sleeve photo album but I equally didn't want to go down the route of mega-serious scrapbooking involving bits of lace and embossing powders. So (as I usually am in my life) I decided to try and tread some kind of middle ground and create something that was part photo album, part diary and not boring.

I'd had a couple of ideas of how I wanted it to go, I purchased a big map of the region while I was out there, along with a notebook that I wanted to use as the basis for things but I still wasn't feeling it was special enough.


Then one of The Stitchettes told us about something cool she'd seen - that people were embroidering on to postcards and the like, either random patterns or as a kind of doodling or as a way of adding fun details. This idea took route in my brain and stayed there until eventually, with a bit of a quiet day ahead of me a couple of weekends ago, I got all my tools together and made a bit of a start.


My tools consisted of:
- Photos
- Notebook
- Map
- Thread box - specifically red, blue and white embroidery threads
- Ruler
- Scissors
- Pen
- Glue
- Pointy stick thing for putting holes in things (gosh I wish I knew the real name for this but it's brilliant, I got it from Hobbycraft)
- Cup of tea

You know those times when you pick up something that's new to you and you just run and run with it and get incredibly over-excited about it? This was definitely one of those times. I ran with things like a wild embroidery woman.

I've tried out a few things so far. Things like putting borders around photos....


...And adding embellishments to other photos...

For this one I drew the flower on with pen and then put strategic holes in it with the pointy sticky thing 

...And I've used it to add fun parts to the diary side of things. Instead of just a boring list of places we went to, I used the threads on a postcard to pick out all the places we went...


...And I used the embroidery instead of the pen. Look! It's like writing!...


...And for picking out detail already on photos. You can't see it very well on this photo but I've picked out some of the girders on the Viaduc de Garabit in red thread to make it come alive a little bit...


All in all? I've been having a lot of fun. And hell I'm not even a little bit done with it yet. As with a lot of things creative, I had a mad splurge and then haven't really touched it for a week (but I had to pay attention to my ripple blanket, it's been so neglected lately!). But everything's all laid out and ready for me to start again when the mood grabs me.

Mostly I'm just excited. Like, really excited. 

Can you tell?

12 comments:

  1. What a great way to journal your holiday. I spent last year in Italy but I lost some of my photos when my computer died shortly after returning :(. I'm thinking of back up plans for all future holidays.

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  2. What a brilliant idea! I especially like the overstitching on the girders picture, and the lines leading off the map.

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  3. What a lovely idea (and one that I might possibly steal...). I saw a handmade card on Flickr which had a stamped image which was then stitched over - I'm definitely going to try that. I've got one of those pokey things for making holes in card and it was packaged as a "pokey tool". Worth buying for the name alone.

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  4. What a great idea! Can you show a pic of the pointy stick thingie so I can know what to look for in Hobbycraft pls, as have been wanting to embroider my own cards for ages. Ta!

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  5. What a great idea...I might have to steal/borrow/copy some of those idea's (that sounds bad - is it?)
    Clare
    xx

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  6. Wow how cool! Very creative :) I think you might have needed a bun to go with your cup of tea tho ;) xx

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  7. ooh that is marvellous. I've never seen anything like that before. Fantastic!

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  8. Ooh I like this, never seen it before and yet it's so simple and ... obvious really (like all good ideas). Another thing to add to my 'things to do one day' list!! x

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  9. That's a great idea- did you pick out the road in red on the map as well?
    And yes, I CAN tell how excited you are. Incidentally I have a Royal Mail package being redelivered on Saturday ... can you tell how excited I am?
    xxxxx

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  10. Hi! Love your blog:-) Have never commented before, but felt I had to this time: the 'pointy stick thing for putting holes in things' is one of my absolutely favourite 'things', and I've finally learned to remember its real name: it's an 'awl'! I don't think the name is good enough for it, it's just such an aw(l)some tool!:-) Happy stitching!

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  11. Hey that's cool! I've seen cards you can buy of maps with a needle and thread supplied so you can sew on your route, esp if you are travelling around the world or something! I love the idea of scrapbooking photos but I can never motivate myself to spend the time doing it!

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