Corfy's Corner My little corner of the web.

One of my all-time favorite crafts is working with plastic canvas. Plastic canvas is a plastic mesh that can be decorated and held together by yarn, thread, embroidery floss, dental floss (well, maybe not), etc. Typically, plastic canvas projects include tissue box covers, coasters, and magnets, although I try to be a little more original. There are lots of patterns available for various projects, but I like to make up my own.

If you are not familiar with plastic canvas, it is a sheet of plastic (surprise, surprise, surprise!) that has square holes in it. There are at least three sizes of holes... 7-mesh, 10-mesh, and 14-mesh. The mesh measures the number of holes per inch (ie., 7-mesh has seven holes per inch, or 49 holes per square inch). I prefer to work with the 7-mesh because it is small enough to do almost anything, yet big enough that I can use yarn instead of thread or floss.

I won third place at the Decatur County Fair in 2000 with the Bible Cover that you see above. Bible covers have turned into my specialty, since I have done five of them. This is just the latest one. The picture on the front cover was done with the help of a plastic canvas software program that converted a clipart into a pattern. The rest of the cover is entirely my design.

My Bible cover encases all sides of the Bible, and even has a zipper closure. To the left is a picture of the binding. Notice the colored "dots" toward the top. Those are actually Bible ribbons, or bookmarks, that I incorporated directly into the cover. The colors of the ribbon corresponds with the bracelet that I have seen several people wear with the colors of the beads representing different meanings (i.e., the red is for Jesus's blood, the white is the clensing of our sins, etc.). Since I have never seen a "clear" yarn, I decided to represent clear by making that ribbon the same color as the background. I did not make handles for the cover because the plastic canvas really isn't sturdy enough to support the Bible. Over to the right, you can see the back of the Bible cover with my ribbon sticking out of the pocket. The pocket is wide enough to hold most church bulletins without having to be folded a second time.

Below is a picture of the Bible cover opened up. You should be able to see the red Bible ribbon, or bookmark, marking this page, and the zipper should also be easy to make out, even if it is unzipped.

As I have said, I have done a series of Bible covers. The first one that I did was for my wife (we were still dating at the time I made it for her). That one had the addition of a pen holder on the front, but I think that it gets into the way. I did three as wedding presents to three different couples. Unfortunately, I only have a picture of two of them, one to Rob and Kelly and one to Andy and Anne. I did another one just for me, although it does not have a pattern or writing on it. It is just a plain color with the Bible ribbons added. As I said, the one for the fair was done with the help of a software program, the one for me does not have a picture, and Gayle's has a pen holder, but other than that, they are all basically the same.

I have done other projects than just Bible covers. When I got the ring to propose to Gayle, I did not like the box that it came in, so I made up my own ring box (seen here with her engagement ring). The "flip" action of the box inspired me to make an original Star Trek style communicator. My first project was a totebag that was rather simple in design and fell apart on me quickly. Fortunately, I still have it, but it is not very useful anymore. My second project was the Ghostbusters symbol traced off of the soundtrack record album cover. When I received business cards and wanted something to carry them around in, I decided to make my own carrier rather than spending $15 to buy one.

The largest project I have taken on to date, however, was a gift to my best man at my wedding. He and his roomate in college used to always talk about wanting a bubblegum ball machine for their room. Well, I found a pattern for one and made it up. The bubblegum ball machine doesn't work that well, but it does work at dispensing a bubblegum ball or peanut M&M or something similar of size.