a Valentine’s Day themed project seemed in order.  I had promised to dream up a simple idea for the NFWI website and with time a little on the short side, I looked for a tried and tested pattern for a little card to tuck in a pocket, lunchbox or amongst meeting papers.  I knew I had that pattern somewhere, but finding it was another matter.  This was something I made pre-computer days and since I can’t google my filing cabinet of craft worksheets and class handouts, it wasn’t going to be easy to find.  Did I have time to go through all of those?

I do, however, have a box of templates from all kinds of projects I’ve done and it wasn’t too difficult to find the one I was looking for.  All I’d need to do was to trace round it, scan it into my computer and create a pdf.  No problem.  I might even create some cutting files for those with Silhouettes and Cricuts too!

See what happened?  I thought that perhaps I’d better try it out to check that it all folded neatly together and actually worked as it was supposed to.  It’s a good job I did, because it didn’t.  The central square was no longer symmetrical because, I guess, the template had been traced round so many times that it wasn’t quite precise any longer.

So, I fiddled around with the pattern, using my Silhouette to cut it out and sometimes, not choosing a large enough piece of scrap card to fit the shape.  I can tell you, joy was not abundant in my studio yesterday morning.  The frustration of not being able to create something simple but perfect gets to me every time!

Eventually, I decided that the best thing to do was to redraw the pattern from scratch; to stop trying to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear and find some squared paper and a ruler and go back to basics.

So very nearly there.  Still, if this is going out into the wide world, it had better be as perfect as I can get it, and this isn’t.  See that pointy bit at the bottom of the heart?

A few minor adjustments and it was done.  Didn’t seem much for a day’s work really, but this is how it is.  It’s a good job I don’t charge an hourly rate, isn’t it?!

If you’d like to download a copy of the pdf pattern it’s here.  Leave me a comment if you’d like the cutting files and I’ll share them with you, too.

Have fun!