Monday 27 November 2017

Button Flower Tags

I am not sure about these tags at all, hence the reason why they have just lingered in my “done nothing with” box on my desk for a bit too long.
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The tag base is a thinner than usual, wooden children’s domino which I have covered with a scrap of self adhesive, floral, cotton material from The Works.  I then drilled a hole in the corner for a jump ring and tie attachment.
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The small buttons also came from The Works, the flower left over from a previous project. I then simply added a punched foliage spray and a little doodled faux stitching round the edges.
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The back was similarly edged, leaving plenty of space for a message/greeting etc. 
At the moment the tags don’t really work for me, I can’t put my finger on “what’s missing/wrong” though, perhaps a discreet scattering of small, flat backed gems in the centre of the printed flowers, a gem in the middle of the centre button, or some matching coloured beads on the tying thread????  I guess they will probably stay on my desk for a little while longer until I can work it out, or perhaps they will just come into their own when put on a parcel wrapped in a matching plain paper?????

Monday 20 November 2017

Guest Crafter – “Auntie Beth”

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I recently spent a long weekend in Bude, staying with my “Auntie Beth”. 
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Her house is a five minutes walk from the beach, and full of her seasidey craft creations that I thought I would share with you.
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Beth has experimented with a few embellished, jewelled mirrors and picture frames, some of which I have featured in the past.
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And while I was there she was also experimenting with decorated pebbles, decoupaging them with scraps from her completed colouring book pages and then varnishing over them.
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I understand that Hide and Seek Painted Rocks is the latest world wide craze that’s now hit the UK, in fact  I spotted a ladybird painted pebble that had been left on the beach while I was there. http://metro.co.uk/2017/08/29/move-over-fidget-spinners-the-latest-craze-is-painting-rocks-6886535
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The charity shops of Bude also yielded their treasures, Beth found this real porthole in one of them, it was ***** heavy but perfect for her seaside abode. I am not sure what she paid, but it was a real find, but I could see Marc taking real a fancy to it!!!!
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My “find” was not quite so dramatic, a H & M Frozen dress for just £2  which made a certain little madam a very happy bunny!

Monday 13 November 2017

Simple Lettered Thank You Card

This card measures 5.5ins x 5.5ins and is made using a hand cut white linen effect card.
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The adhesive chipboard and domed letters came from packs of alphabet stickers from B M Bargains and Home Bargains (69p - £1.49)
I started by placing the A in “Thank” roughly in the centre of the card, adding the other letters on either side afterwards.  I also aligned the “O” on the row below with the “A” and repeated the exercise. By placing the letters in a higgledy piggledy fashion it looks less formal and saves having to try to make sure all the letters are level and equally spaced apart.
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The design is brought together with groups of three doodled dots using a black fine liner pen and red flat backed gems. A quick card taking no more than 15 minutes to put together.

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Monday 6 November 2017

Save The Date Wedding Cards

As I have said, of late I have not been doing a great deal crafting due of other commitments, particularly at weekends, and it has to be said that this looks set to continue until the New Year at least, however, there has been one exception as my nephew and his fiancée have asked if I would make their Save The Date Cards for their wedding in September 2018.
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I have to admit to being a little nervous about doing this as I know their standards and expectations will be high, however when Amanda sent me this picture (above – click for link) of what she had in mind, I relaxed just a touch as the basic idea appeared to be relatively simple and that I could leave them to source, create and then add the sticker pictures themselves when the cards had been made.
I went on the site and found that templates for 2017, 2018 and 2019 are all available - http://somethingturquoise.com/2015/01/16/diy-instagram-save-the-dates-3/, however, knowing Joe and Amanda I wanted to be able to offer the option of being able to make whatever changes to the original design they may have in mind to suit their own wedding theme, be it the card size, wording, font, font colour etc. so I made my own template based on the original idea using my ancient but precious edition of Publisher 2003.
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I was chuffed when I was able to download a free font that was as near to the original as I could muster from https://profont.net/fonts/tradition-sans-xlight-font-download.html
There was then a lot of fiddle farting on my part in an effort to get everything evenly spaced and centred especially on the calendar section, but I reckon after about two hours I had come up with something I could quite easily alter to suit Joe and Amanda.
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I then printed and cut the two sections out putting them together in a variety of different ways ……….
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…….. I couldn’t help  a few mat and layering ideas on grey, navy and gold mirror on the Save Our Date section and as a backing to the whole card, which should fit a 7” x 5” envelope, but you will notice, NO faux stitching!!!
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I  also varied the text colour and thickness of the text boxes and hearts, on a choice of white or ivory linen effect card, although, in the end, I think they will go, more or less with the idea they first sent me ……
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Amanda had mentioned rose gold coloured paperclips, which I did purchase to try, but I have to admit I am not too sure about the colour against the ivory card, however before I can do anything else I need to wait for Amanda and Joe to come back to me, as far I know at the moment it’s between two of the above. Once I have had the say so, I will then make up the shortlisted ideas again but much more “professionally” and then perhaps do a little more research on other paperclip colours and designs available …… I have seen some arrows that could look good and I am thinking that metallic turquoise could also look stylish, but I need to be mindful of keeping costs down!  Anyway, as soon I as I have reached the next stage of approval and then production I will be sure to let you know.