Not only have I been working away like a busy bee on envelopes and my shop keepers dummy display, I’ve also been busy making more paper garlands and coming up with a neat way to package them up. My old sewing machine is on it’s last legs though and the tension control is not what it used to be – sounds like it’s a bit incontinent in it’s old age and I guess it is a little – every now and again it just looses control of the thread and I end up battling away with a pin trying to untangle knots.
I think I need to it back to the sewing machine man in Edinburgh for a little TLC, to get oiled and tightened and cleaned – the machine is about 50 years old or older even, so it needs the occasional M.O.T. to keep it running smoothly and I hope it’ll keep on going for many years to come.
But help is at hand – I posted up a message on freecycle yesterday asking if anyone has a sewing machine they no longer use. I don’t need anything fancy, just something small compact and simple. Amazingly a couple got back in touch almost straight away saying they had a small Singer sewing machine that needed a loving home – so I’m off to pick it up tomorrow. I can’t wait. It sounds really small and compact which would be ideal.
I’ve just taken a few quick snaps of the packs on my windowsill to show you the lovely packaging I’ve made:
The ones pictured above are my love heart paper garlands made from recycled sheet music and as you can see come in a variety of thread colours – red, green, turquoise and pink so far – there might be more by the end of the week. Each garland is approx 5 metres long and requires a whopping 10 meters of thread, so I’m running a little low of thread at the moment and need to stock up with some more. Isn’t my packaging lovely? Again I’m using ethical biodegradable cornstarch bags and card – so the card can be recycled and the bag thrown in the bin and you can have a clear conscience knowing that it will degrade naturally and cause no major impact on the environment.
The love hearts measure approx 1″ across and I’ve particular attention to get them all lined up and facing the same direction. One of the garlands has them all lined up side by side, but I decided they looked better end to end. I’ve also made love heart garlands from recycled envelopes – these look lovely and for some reason I sewed all of these with blue thread. Lots of blues, white and greys with the occasional red or orange detail on the security patterns.
Moving onto circles, I’ve also made lots and lots of paper garlands from recycled maps – in all sorts of colours of thread.
and sheet music… and envelopes…
These garalands are all made with small 1″ circles, but I also make them from 2″ circles. The ones made with 2″ circles are still approx 5m long. I started off with a Beano Annual and deliberately chose bright yellow thread as this colour features quite a lot in the Beano illustrations.
Then I moved onto music and made load of these with different coloured threads:
Not quite sure how I’m going to display these at the craft fair as I’ve not got any boxes that fit and when they are bunched together, they bulge at the bottom – will get my thinking cap on and see if I get any bright ideas. It would be nice to have some examples hanging up so people can see how they look when hung but what I might do is tie a few 1m lengths together so that I can display the different types all together as I’m paranoid in getting tangled if there are too many hanging up.
I’m hoping people will love them as much as I do.
