Julie's blog
Monthly Archives: December 2014
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Doilies
Posted at 11:38 am , on December 10, 2014
I love doilies. Call me old-fashioned but I’ve always been drawn to them – paper doilies, pretty linen doilies; often with delicate hand-embroidered flowers on them – I’m not fussy. The dictionary defines them as ‘a decorative mat of lace or lacelike paper, laid on or under plates, originating in the 18th Century and named after a London draper, called Doiley’.
I define them as something incredibly useful for crafts. I don’t actually use them for serving cakes or biscuits – I cut the paper ones up instead and use them as a decorative mount for photos or pictures in frames, like this one from my first blog…
….or they can be usefully employed in cards, as in this little glimpse of one on a lovely card I bought in Brighton recently, when we were filming one of the shows.
Tiger have some fab green and blue paper doilies for sale (good Crafty Beggars colours) and of course with Christmas nearly upon us, silver and gold doilies are more in evidence in the shops. These always seem to be a bit tougher than the standard white doilies, which is a help.
I made this keepsake box recently and as it’s a tad risqué in its style, I wanted some black lace to adorn the inside. Frantic scrabblings in my ribbon box yielded not so much as an inch of black lace, and as I’m incredibly impatient and didn’t want to wait until the shops opened the next morning, I daubed a white doily with a black felt pen and used that. It kept tearing whilst the ink was wet (and it won’t withstand tough handling now it’s dry) but at least I finished it – and my tried and trusted doily supply came in useful yet again! Look out for full instructions on making Keepsake Boxes in February’s ‘Make of the Month’ :0)
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