TUESDAY TUTE: FRAZZLES!

Feeling frazzled? Lots of us are, with the school year nearly underway and all the fall and winter holidays on the horizon. So let’s make a card, and not just any card, either. Let’s make a Frazzled card!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Blank card and envelop
• Fabric large enough to fit the card, front and back (fabric samples work well)
• Button
• Rayon or other embroidery thread
• Glue or double sticky tape

The first thing you’re going to do is choose your fabric. If you have one of those fabric sample books flip through it until you find a piece you like. They’re nice, because they have a paper backing around the edge, but any piece of fabric you like is good.


Take your blank card and open it out flat, and lay it on the fabric, with the side you’ll write on down, and what would normally be the front of the card facing up. That’s because you’re going to trace around all four sides of the card now, and if your pencil slips you don’t want the marks to show on your finished card.


You can see that my fabric is already nearly the size of the card, but that’s because I had a fabric sample that size. Once you’ve marked your fabric, cut it with pinking shears just outside the marks. You want the fabric to be a little larger than the card. If you have enough fabric, cut a strip as long as your card is wide, and maybe an inch wide.


Now choose a button that coordinates with your fabric. Flat buttons work best, but buttons with short shanks can be used, too.


Fold the fabric piece you’ve cut in half, so you’re looking at the front of your finished card. Take the button you’ve chosen, and play with positioning it a bit. Maybe it will look best centered on the card, or maybe near one of the corners. Maybe it wants to sit, centered, near the lower edge. Just move it from place to place until you like what you see.

Thread your needle with the embroidery floss, but don’t tie a knot. Rayon thread is crinkly, and will give shine and a lot of texture. Other option are regular floss, or yarn.

This is where the “Frazzled” part comes in. You’re going to sew the button to the fabric, but not from the back like you’d usually do. Push the needle in from the front, and pull the floss through until an inch and a half or two inches is left, sticking out of the button. Bring the needle through the other hole in the button, and cut the thread, again leaving a tail an inch and a half or two inches long. You can leave longer tails if you like; it’s all up to you.

If your button has four holes, do that twice.


Pick up the thread tails and tie them in a knot.


You’re almost finished!!

Glue the fabric to the card. You can use rubber cement if your fabric has that paper backing. Otherwise, double-sticky tape is the way to go, as the rubber cement may show through the fabric.

Glue the extra strip of fabric you cut to the flap of the envelope.


Here’s my card:


Frazzles are really very tactile. You’ll find people want to stroke them, and play with the shiny floss ends. Well, I do, anyway!

Musical Notes Stationary

I mentioned in my last post that Mom and I had done a couple of crafts while I was there. We didn't get to as many as we'd planned, or hoped for. We're bad that way. We always think we have more time than we do. I guess that's why we usually do five days to a week, not the two and a half we had this time!

So we did one craft together, stationary made from old sheet music. It's an unusual design, a triangular envelope that folds over a sheet of writing paper that's attached to the inside of the envelope. Each letter is sealed with a sticker, in this case a bar or two of music.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Front of the Envelopes



The paper we used for the writing sheet was that old-fashioned erasable typing paper, and I really like that you can see the music through it. We tried the front of the envelopes both with and without the "TO" and "FROM" and decided we like the printed version better.

To make the envelope, just take a large sheet of music, and measure out a square, using the width of the sheet to determine the length of the four sides. Cut the square on the diagonal to make two right triangles. Measure the longest side (hypotenuse), and divide by three to find where to fold the side points in. Fold the top point down until it touches the V made by the other two points.

The sticker we made by cutting out a bar or two of music and gluing it to a mailing label. Next time, I think I'll glue the little bit of music to a black or red background to make an edging, and make the sticker stand out better.

I do like this stationary! Now I want to do a different type fold...