Crocheted Flowers


The crocheted flower on this card is glued over a hand-cut butterfly shape I copied from the green one on the first row here. Not an exact shape, but I like how it turned out. :)

Funny how things change, though. I used to read Sweet Dreams pocketbooks during Home Ec class, and my embroidery and crochet projects were done by my mother. Well, I may start them for a bit, then she would finish them. I was that bad about these domestic-y things. I still am in a lot of ways. And what do I do now? I hand-stitch on paper and make crocheted flowers for my cards and scrapbook pages.

A few weeks ago, I was practising my crocheting skills (because there happened to be a crochet hook and a ball of string I both use for completely different reasons) which is just alright as it is, but there's one thing about it that I despise a lot: counting. I started this because I saw a card with crocheted flower and I thought, that looks so nice! At first, I didn't count my chains so I ended up with a variety of .... er... designs, if you can call it that. Shoved them into a drawer and forgot all about it. Then after a couple of months, I'd really wanted some of those on my niece's 7th birthday album that I'm working on so I decided to have a go at it again and... breathe.... count! Yay! I got to kindergarten, at last! So, below are a few of the flowers I did.



Now, don't expect anything more complicated than this. This is as complicated as I could get. :)

If you know me and you know my attitude towards crocheting, you'd think I would just buy ready-made stuff to remedy my want. But the thing is, I'm easily bored about these things, and I've known that since I was a kid. Therefore, I know that if I buy a package of them and wouldn't be able to use them in one go, I know that I won't use the leftovers anymore in other projects. Besides, I really, really don't want lots of unused things in my stash. I have an extremely small space and I don't want to cram it. It's already crammed as it is.

Same thing with alpha stickers or rub-ons. It's either I cut the letters out if I want dimension, or print what I want to say from the computer, or just write it by hand. It's more economical and besides, what do I do with the leftover Zs? If you prefer the stickers or rub-ons or stamps, it's ok because they are alright too. This is just a personal choice. I don't mind those extra time doing them because it's fun. It's creative fun!

June Update: Mulberry Paper

I love mulberry paper. It's thin. It's textured. And can be adhered very, very easily if a bit messy. But that's ok! I make sure that the surface to be adhered to is painted with white acrylic first so the softness of the color shows. These utility and patient card boxes for a dentist/friend are wrapped in light yellow and lavender mulberry paper, which are similar to her clinic's color scheme.

I tried cutting out paper flowers out of them too, and it turned out gorgeous. I love it. I think I'm going to experiment on different shapes and layers of flowers and butterflies in various colors. These are a couple of thank you cards for my friends, Linda and Katja, who are two of the most generous people I know. Love you, ladies! I'll send them out when I could get out. :)



Ms. Ilyn is a licensed architect who decided that teaching arts and crafts, or making them, is way more fulfilling than dealing with contract documents, estimates and technical specifications. She taught Architectural Drafting and Painting to High School Students for five years, and Arts for Pre-K to Grade 3 Pupils for three years. Now, she's back to dealing with the nitty gritty of architecture, but the meditative aspect of papercrafting remains unchanged.

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