Today I would like to share with you the card I made for the recent House Mouse competition that was open to all members of Joanna Sheen's forum. I am delighted and still very excited at being runner-up.
I decided very quickly the image that I was going to use, and upon selecting the image decided I was going to embellish the card with some lengths of wool. Whilst putting the decoupage together, I decided to dig-out my knitting needs and have a try at knitting one of the little chicks with the jumper on. I didn't have a pattern of course, so it took a few attempts until I got one that I was happy with. I then added some plastic feet, some black beads for eyes and made the little beak out of some card. I made 3 chicks in all.
It was then that I came up with the idea of having the knitted chicks in a shop window, like little manequins, displaying the clothes for chicks. So I also knitted some little hats and scarves to display in the window. Having knitted the chicks I was able to determine the depth that the window needed to be and cut this out of some pearlescent card stock. I then cut out the four windows and added some acetate. I searched for a suitable image for in the window, and then attached this to the cardstock before attaching 2 of the little chicks and the other accessories. Of course a name was needed for over the shop window, so I decided on the name 'La Chic Boutique'.
The middle section comprised of some pearlescent paper with the corners punched out, a little image from the cover sheet of the decoupage pack, and then I punched some holes all around the edges and threaded through some lengths of wool.
The back of the card represented the back room of the shop, where the Happy Hopper is knitting all the clothes for the little chicks, which will then go on sale in the shop. I searched for some images of balls of wool which I then adjusted to the size of the back section of my card. The decoupage was applied to this section.
I then knitted a few more rows, which I then transfered to a couple of pins which I had cut the sharp end off, as these represented the knitting needles. I then wound up the rest of the wool into a little ball. This was then attached to the back section of the card.
It took many hours to complete the card but I was very pleased with it once it was finished. It was good fun to make too.
