Diamond Painting Tool Kit

This post is for (long time lurker) Marie who asked me where Marc got the little pick up tool set I used used on my subtle jewelled cards - http://itsallfiddlefart.blogspot.com/2020_09_22_archive.html. 

I had a mooch and found that it's categorized as a 5D Diamond Painting Tool Kit and if you put the words into an eBay search quite a few come up that are available from UK companies priced at around  £5.99, but it's worth shopping around to see if you can get one even cheaper.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DIY-5D-Drill-Diamond-Embroidery-Painting-Art-Tools-Kit-Cross-Stitch-Accessories/402347458826?hash=item5dadc7010a:g:U6QAAOSwMoRfJn9h

Knowing Marc I reckon he got his from China for considerably less, at around the £2 mark, it just depends if you are happy to wait two or three weeks instead of a couple of days.  

I have bought quite a lot from China this year because of the prices and bulk available, i.e 40 mini wood peg dolls for £4.91 and in some cases the parcels have arrived within two weeks.

One of my favourite buys this year has been a bag of 150 wooden laser cut Halloween shapes for just £3.97 inc P & P.  I haven't used them yet, but again I am thinking badge/pin brooches or a nine square card?

Charity Shop Finds - Jewelled Lamp Shade

I am having a bit of a barren spell at the moment, which is really annoying, especially after having a really productive month or two, where it seemed I had Christmas almost in the bag, however a few days and a couple of weekends away, followed by the desperate need to sort The Towers out from floor to ceiling in favour of crafting has sadly dammed the creative flow ......... so for a little while I might only be posting once a week, on a Monday, until the dam breaks, it might not be a crafty post, it might be a charity shop find or object of desire, just to keep things going until I get the old fiddle fart urges coming back ........ of which, I am sure, they will!

Marc and Rick gave me an old fashioned, painted, wooden lamp stand, something I have wanted for quite a while as the Ikea lamp I bought not long after I moved in to The Towers didn't really go.  The lampshade with the lamp wasn't my style, I have set my heart on something vintage, fringed and beaded, so I know I will have to bide my time and save those pennies as it aint going to be cheap. I  did find exactly what I had in mind at the recent Malvern Antiques and Flea Market, but as I picked it up to admire it, the stall holder shouted "Sorry Love that's already sold!"  Just my luck, but while I am still looking I am simply going to put one of those new vintage filament style light bulbs in it to shine the light.

BUT, I thought you'd like to see this,as it made me smile, found in my favourite charity shop in Evesham, Vale Wildlife, where the prices are perfect, and allow you a bit of whimsy, without breaking the bank.

Ta da ....... behold this wonder confection, in deep purple with a very shiny gold lining and the reason why I picked it up, forty eight long strands of beads, clear and coloured, the red ones oddly glass, while the others were plastic.  If it had been a bit bigger I might have left it where it was for a while, but then again, you know me and proportion! 

In the end the smaller, clear beads were really grubby and consigned to the bin, as I  have spare strands from other beaded, chandelier type lampshades bought in the past, you can't keep everything ........ but for just 80p I can live with that!!!!!

Revisiting my Ancient Silhouette Machine With a Very Simply Text Design Birthday Card

This card measures 6ins x 6ins and uses a smooth, white, pre-scored blank from a bulk pack bought from Hobbycraft.

A horrendously simple card today, made for my Brother In Laws birthday, but which revives my ancient Silhouette machine, last used seven years ago to make the cheese wedge favour boxes for Tom and Laura’s wedding. http://itsallfiddlefart.blogspot.com/2013/05/my-lovehate-silhouette-relationship-and.html

For the card I just covered the front of the card, which seems to be my go to idea these days, with what I thought was a bright and cheerful design from one of my Works giant origami paper pads ……..

 

……. and then found a suitably simple birthday sentiment from my Silhouette library to go on it.

If I told you that after seven years of in-action the very first design, a bat, I cut came out perfectly, you’ll then understand my frustration when I proceeded to spend almost the rest of the day wondering why it refused to cut anything else out second time around …… again, as the link above told me, it was all about the registration marks!!  Aghhhh

However, once sorted, all I had to do was stick the design on to the covered card, adding an assortment of different sized silver stars, to make the job a good ‘un. It was a very steep re-learning curve, with a new, updated Silhouette programme to navigate on top!

Now, what, you may ask, possessed me to get out this ancient tool again? Well, to be honest, I gave it away a couple of months ago to a lady in Evesham who was putting together craft packs during lockdown and I asked if she’d be interested in it,  she was and everything was quickly packed up and gone.  Then I’ll be honest, I had a look at the designs I’d accumulated in a past crafting life and felt a few pangs of the minutest regret, but then, as it happened, the lady got back in touch with me a few months later, asking if I would like it back or if she pass it on, I chose to have it back and then vowed to myself that I would try to use it again.

And yes …… I do have the Scan and Cut Marc gave me and yes, I am still frightened of it, which is stupid! Marc admits, he’s forgotten a lot of what he had learned, he has the new all singing, all dancing WiFi version of the Scan and Cut now, so next time we are together we seriously need to play, I know it is easy, all I have to do is sit and watch the basic Scan and Cut tutorials on YouTube making copious notes, before I even get mine out of the box again.

I am always desperate for certain letters for cards and begrudge buying alphabet packs knowing I will then be stuck with letters I won’t use and no vowels, this would be an ideal first project.

I will keep you informed as to how I get on ………..

Decopatch Necklace

Just for laughs today, I present you with one of my less successful projects/ideas

I fancied a big colourful necklace, but didn’t want to spend a lot ……..

…… so when I found the necklace above in a charity shop for just 50p I thought hmmmm perhaps I could Decopatch it, but in using the Decopatch paper straight on to such dark coloured beads served only to darken the effect of the thin Decopatch paper.

So, I painted the beads very roughly in white and in the process also got it all over the smaller beads. In hindsight I don’t think I was really “feeling” this idea at this stage, however, I persevered, covering the beads with the chosen paper using PVA glue.

When it was dry I had the brainwave of then varnishing it with some old (and I mean really old) Modge Podge Glitter, this just made the beads feel rough and to be honest decidedly grotty! 

No, I haven’t worn the necklace (yet?), but from a distance the paint on the smaller beads could possibly look as if they were meant to be and the necklace on the whole could pass muster, if you didn’t touch it!   It’s always good to have a disaster or two now and again to keep you on your toes, but this was not my finest crafting moment and I am afraid is now consigned to the dressing up box!

Subtle Jewelled Cards

These cards measure 6ins x 6ins and use smooth, white, pre-scored card blanks from a  Hobbycraft bulk pack. .

A funny sort of post this morning, I love these cards for me, but I also think they may be a little too subtle?  They are pretty, but is that enough and I am not to sure if the photos really do them justice either.

As soon as I saw this paper from this Snowy Daze paper pad from The Works (£2) I knew I wanted to simply add tiny silver stars in the centre of all the printed stars and then tiny nail art gems or small silver flat back domes to some of the strands of circles at regular intervals.

I covered the front of the cards with the paper ................

....... and then added the stars, silver flat back domes ........

...... and gems on to the design using a little pen thingy Marc gave me from China. You fill the metal end with a waxy sort of material and then it picks up the tiny stars and gems up as if there is no tomorrow, ......

.......... without this tool bejewelling the cards would have been impossible!

I think they work fine  as a gift cards, but for Christmas cards, I am not so sure ............

........ any suggestions on how and where to add a sentiment would be very gratefully received.......

........ thank you!

Halloween Shadow Box

 I have never tried anything like this before ....... but I think I like it!

Made using a Poundland shadow box type bathroom picture, found on the sale shelf for just 50p, well, it would have been rude not to buy at least four, as I had used them before in the past after realising their potential.

I also used papers from a pack of 20cm x 20cm Halloween origami papers (from Amazon) and a pack of Jolees Boutique 3D embellishments, 99p from eBay.

The orange spots on black design was originally my first choice for the background, but the black on  the embellishments got sort of lost in it  .........

...... so I swapped it for the black on orange design and then, on a whim, added a strip of the orange on black, which made it look sort of quirky.  I discovered, when I opened the pack of embellishments, that the figures were jointed, which was a brilliant bonus and meant I could really pose them in the frame.  I edged the shoes and parts of the bodies, arms and legs with a white gel pen just to help show them up a little more.

Adding the large purple stars didn't work that well, the proportions were wrong (?), so I swopped them for much smaller green and silver ones.

While the scene was drying, I took the plunge in colouring the frame, inside and out with a black and orange Sharpie pen.  It looked alright until I started to put it all together and found that a corner of the frame had come undone and with all my fiddle farting some of the colour was removed, however, I liked the effect, so proceeded to scrub it all very gently with a scourer!

I then started to get carried away with the Halloween spirit adding three spiders to the frame ......

........ swiftly followed by a scattering of burnt orange and silver stars and a few clusters of white spots using Ranger white Glossy Enamel ........

....... before finally going the whole hog by deciding to cover and then suitably muddy up the back.

Job's a gud un ....... I am so chuffed with how it all turned out!

August Bank Holiday Malvern Flea And Collectors Fair

Following just a few weeks after Lu's and my trip out to the Malvern Antiques and Collectors Fayre, we decided to give the August Bank Holiday Flea and Collectors Fair a go too and despite neither of us actually making any considered purchases, the £5 admission was well worth a wonderful day of ooooing and ahhhhing.

This mirror was soon on our radar, with Lu rocking a tasteful cocktail theme in her kitchen, but at £25 it would have been a a bit of an extravagance.

It was very much a day for mirrors, my passion, but I didn't even bother to look at the price of this beauty as it would have been undoubtedly well beyond my means.

As my own version of a barbola mirror is still at the flower painting stage I took these pictures as a reference as to how the original flowers were painted.  The materials used on these mirrors is so fragile, finding one undamaged is pretty difficult, but despite this ones battered state they were still asking £10 for it.

This hand painted glass panel and mirror, although with no age to them, got me wondering if I could do something similar, what sort of paint do you think they used?  I am thinking acrylic, but would that stand up to cleaning, any suggestions would be very gratefully received before I find myself a small charity shop mirror to have a little play with.

This mirror also caught my eye, it looks like it may have come off something bigger as the proportions don't look quite right at the bottom, but in the right setting it could look quite stunning.  If there were two I could see them either side of a bed, above a set of small, wooden bedside drawers?

And now for the kitsch.  I know there is a name for this sort of "ornament", possibly Vallauris (???), it's so bad it's good, just my sort of thing, but with nowhere to put it, it had to stay where it was!  I think it was about £12.

Lu and I also spotted this coffee table at the same time, in fact we are pretty predictable at what we both point out on stalls, in the right room this would be perfect, just not ours, at the moment. 

And finally the one that got away ....... this wonderfully kitsch nativity scene set in lucite (?), if it had been somewhere between the £2 and £3.50 mark it might have come home with me, but at £18 I don't think so! I am not sure if the lucite/resin had discoloured over time or it was meant to be that colour .....  but I doubt if I'll ever see its likes again!!

While we were going round we saw that they were recording an episode of Bargain Hunt. We saw the Red Team with their expert but the Blue Team eluded us.  We also didn't see what they were buying, but I'll be honest there was so many stalls to look at and take in, goodness only knows how, where or what they bought to sell at auction for a profit, they looked pretty cool, calm and collected where I think I would have been running around like a headless chicken.

I said at the beginning of this post that I didn't spend any money, but I didn't leave empty handed, because as we left the showground I spotted some acorns, more importantly acorn cups. They were only small, as it was only just the end of August and I don't think autumn had begun then (or had it?), but since I had used the last of my acorns from about three years ago I proceeded to fill my lunch bag. I could still do with a few more slightly larger ones, but this was a most excellent start to my new collection, now slowly drying out on the window sill.  Happy days!

7th - Wool Anniversary Card on an Easel

It was recently Tom and Laura's 7th wedding anniversary, which, when I looked it up, found that the traditional gift to give was "wool", so it was a no-brainer that sheep immediately sprang to mind as the theme for a card

Well, it was my intention to make a card, but then I re-found one of the mini blackboard easels that I got ages ago from The Works (99p and still available) and decided to use one instead.

The wooden sheep embellishments are from Trimits, found on eBay.

I coloured them with a white Posca pen, gave them grey ears and feet and then small, black, flat back domes for their eyes and noses, which gave them a completely different character.

For the background, which I stuck onto the easel, I used a heart and knitted design paper, edged with faux stitching using a black fine liner pen.

However, when I added the sheep my thoughtful choice of paper just disappeared into the background,  a lesson you would have thought I'd learned by now  ..........

...... and then even more so when I added the small nail art flowers ........ doh!

So perhaps, in the end, a plain, green grass background would have bought the sheep out more and looked more effective, rather than me getting all clever!

Still I liked the easel .......

......... an idea that I have used in the past, and as I have a few more left I think I might make one or two Christmas ones, perhaps for Bertie and Iris's festive bedrooms as a lasting memory of Christmas 2020, along with whatever else it might bring.