When I visit my local Joann's or Michaels Crafts Stores, I take the time to scour each department. You would be amazed at what materials you might find in the most unlikely departments. As manufacturer's strive to offer unique materials to scrapbook artists, beaders and sewing enthusiasts, you find more and more cross promotion of materials than ever before.
When I ran into this 12 x 12 sheet of "paper," in the scrapbooking materials section. I was amazed to discover that it was not in fact paper at all, but burlap, printed with a damask motif. I was immediately inspired and bought not one but two sheets. Wondering what to do with it, I decided to cover a favorite hard bound journal that looked a little worse for wear.
I determined the size I needed and trimmed the sheet with a rotary cutter and self healing cutting mat. I pressed 1/2" seams with my iron and pinned them in place before sewing them down with my sewing machine. To keep the burlap from unraveling. I sewed a zig zag stitch all along the edges of the sheet.
The fun part? Coming up with a design for the cover. I decided that this damask journal cover would be perfect for applique. I doubled the cover and drew a 4" circle on the front, which I cut out with scissors.
I fused some black canvas to my favorite fusible webbing, lite steam and seam and die cut the motif out using my Sizzix Bigshot die cutting machine and die.
I then sewed a 5" square of natural canvas to the back inside of the journal cover to create a sort of reverse applique.
To embellish the cover, I decided to embroider the flower and details by adding this silver braided thread from Kreniek.
I used sewing thread to couch down the embroidery thread.
I continued until I was satisfied with the design.
Here is the sewn damask journal cover in progress.
I added a vintage brooch from Melissa Francis which I purchased at Scrapbook.com. I also added some stamped sentiments and these buttons by Buttons Galore and More from The Haberdashery Collection.
The perfect companion to my burlap damask journal cover. A pencil case with embellished pencils.
I used a fabric marking pencil to measure a 2" x 8" strip from the natural canvas. I doubled the fabric and cut the strip out.
I then cut 1 1/2" squares from the burlap damask and black canvas and sewed them to one side of the strip.Before sewing together, I added The Haberdashery buttons to the top.
I sewed the strip together with the right sides in on the left, bottom and right, leaving the top open for turning and insertion of the pencils.
I painted the pencils black and added buttons tied with hemp to each of them.
I stamped sentiments to regular typing paper cut them out and decoupaged them to the pencils.
These pencils are the perfect companions to my my sewn damask burlap office journal cover.
While I was drafting this post, I ran into this project from The Dairy of A Natural Girl. She also found the same printed damask burlap and made these super cool candles with the material.
And the morale of the story, the next time you are in your favorite craft store, don't just pass up on the beading section just because your not a beader. Look around, you might find something that inspires you to use in new and different ways!
Live Life Creatively,
this is such a cool project. And I tend to wander in those stores just for funsies. Now, I'll pay more attention!
Posted by: charlene | April 16, 2013 at 07:08 AM