Personalised Cards

I went to the treacle market in Macclesfield a couple of weeks ago and while i was there i found a company which creates personalised name prints for children using a range of different themes. I took a business card from them and had a look at some of their products. It will soon be the birthday of my counsin's baby and so i was looking for something individual to get him, however instead of spending lots of money on something, i decided to have a go at designing something myself.

It needed to be something appropriate for a young child and so i decided to use a space theme because who wouldn't want to be an astronaut at the age of 1!

I looked at the characters in his name: SAM and thought about how i could incorporate the theme into it. 

I downloaded a good sans-serif font from Dafont and installed this onto my computer and opened it up on illustrator. I coloured the characters in a deep blue colour both fit for the space theme and for a boy and started to shape the A into a rocket, removing the counter and replacing it with a porthole. I also added an antenna to the top of the A and fire to the bottom.

I found the S and the M much harder to add to, however i decided to keep the A as the main character and simply add some hanging stars from the other two letters, i think it looks more symmetrical. 

I have some card blanks at home and so i have been playing around with my printing settings and have managed to do some test prints of the image which i'm pretty impressed with. I think it will make a lovely, personalised card for a birthday.

More sewing.

I am really starting to enjoy using the sewing machine now, I find it easy to thread and I have been looking into making different patterns.
I've found some really lovely places to buy fabric from in Chesterfield and Bakewell. The Fabric shop on Chatsworth Road has some really good value material and a wide range of different patterns and designs. 

I bought a small amount of material from a 'bargain box' just to play around with, but i have since used this to make four different objects on the sewing machine. 

I did have a few problems with the thread becoming stuck in the material and therefore jamming the machine and needle, but after sorting this out i managed to quickly start making again. 

Having not had much experience with a sewing machine before, i am pretty impressed with the results of my first few objects and have bought more material so i can hopefully work on some bigger projects and increase my knowledge of using a sewing machine. I think learning this skill is quite important, not to mention enjoyable!