New Home Card

This card measures 11cm x 15cm and is made using a white linen effect,  hand cut blank.

Hmmmm,  very less is more today.  I have had these laser cut house buttons forever and decided it was about time they were used!

So I took a few scraps of paper,  making a template for the hill, so that when I want to make a few more repeat cards it will make the process quicker.

And then ……. saints preserve us, I decided to get out my old sewing machine to do real and not my usual faux stitching round the edges!!

Ok ……………. so my stitching is a bit wobbly ….. but then,  I would say it was a deliberate move to add a the simple shabby chic charm wouldn’t I???

Guest Crafter ….. The Equally Lovely Denise

When Tom and the Lovely Laura visited their wedding hotel The Lovely Laura were very taken by the bunting that had been put up in the courtyard for the wedding that was taking place …… and as I had just been given a mountain of Sanderson fabric samples it was a no brainer as to how to use it …….

Initially I gave the Lovely Laura’s mum, the Equally Lovely Denise the fabric to cut out the pennants in preparation for another of our “Wedding Club Crafting Nights”, but as the mess accumulated in her lounge, Denise decided that instead of spreading the mess chez moi,  she might as well bite the bullet and complete the task herself  …… all 300 double sided yards of it …. oh my life!  The Lovely Laura had declared that her mum has finally lost the plot …… but it’s gorgeous and I am secretly very, very pleased because sewing is not really my forte, the very thought of it makes my gums itch! It’s going to look so beautiful and I can’t wait to share all the pictures with all of you when the happy day finally comes!

Guest Crafter–Maisie

The other day I received a vey special “Thank you” card for some bits and pieces I sent Maisie,  who you will remember was the creator of the beautiful embellished pink mirror I featured a couple of weeks ago ….

And once again I feel I need to up my stakes as a crafter ….. this girl is just too good for my liking!!!

And I certainly think Gran should turn young Maisie’s writing into a proper font, so I can have a copy!

http://www.myscriptfont.com/

Memory Box–Madeleine Bird Card

This card measures 4ins x 4ins and is made using an hand cut ivory linen card blank.

Can I say I love this card?  There is nothing much to it really, I think it is just the colours ….. put together using scraps of paper with patterns that match the dimensions of the bird. To add a little depth I have used self adhesive foam pads behind the birds body and wing.

I’ve used my Stampin Up Bird punch for the branch and a tiny daisy Papermania punch for the flowers, embellished with a few clear flat backed gems and a bit of faux stitching.  Done and dusted!

Memory Box Madeleine Bird, Style No. 98424

It Comes To Him That Waits ……

Do you remember the retro mirror I spotted in a local charity shop window but baulked at the price tag of £10, back at the beginning of March?

Well,  I went back all these months later and it was still there, on the floor, in the corner,  under a pile of plates …………… but this time marked down to £5, how often does that happen in a charity shop …..?

Well,  I was at the counter before you could shabby chic!  I don’t have a clue what to do with it …. but I am going to take Marc’s advice and just hang it in situ for a while and see what comes to me …… to be honest, all it really needs is a bit of a rub down and then just needs a couple of coats of spray paint, but a more “on trend” colour and leave it at that ….. why over egg the pudding of a design I just love?

Little Wish Bottles.

I made these little wish bottles for the GCSE Food girls at school.  Every week for the past two years they have been cooking the most delicious food which they asked me to help evaluate …. it was a hard job …. but someone had to do it!!!

I wanted to give them a little something to say “thank you” and to bring them good luck for their exams in the coming weeks.  The bottles came from The Works and cost 99p for a pack of 6, all I added were a few stars and a tiny piece of paper on which I wrote “wish”

How Happy Does Maisie Look?

Marc sent Maisie, my guest crafter of a few days ago a mahoooosive collection of flat back gems ……. 100’s and 1,000’s of them!!

Just look at her little face!

And then bless her, she sorted them all out into colour and sizes, a job that would have sent me absolutely bonkers!!

I am a great believer of giving children things to create and make things with ….. not just great piles of computer games and dvds and toys that need batteries, they don’t have to be anything expensive …. just a few pens, paper or card, glue, scissors, old magazines and material and interesting bits and pieces.  When my kids were small … when the weather was warm I used to unravel a roll of wallpaper in the garden and give them pots of paints,  not caring less if they covered themselves as well as the paper ….. they were absorbed for hours and hours!

They always had a dressing up box too, but not filled with ready made character outfits, I used to give them a bag of pennies and we would go to the Thursday night jumble sales across the road at the church hall where they would buy the clothes and anything else that caught their imagination ….. Happy days!!!

Brides Keepsake…… Jewelled Lucky Horse Shoe/Heart

Please excuse the glue globs on some of the photographs, it was still wet in my eagerness to get this post written.
I don’t have a clue what to call this ….. when I had the idea I was thinking about the lucky horse shoes you give to a bride outside the church/registry office …. but heart shaped!  If that makes any sense at all?????

I saw this string of vintage decorative hearts in Home Bargains for £2.99 and knew immediately what I wanted to do with them, and as there were four hearts altogether, it was a no brainer, as you just can’t even buy one wooden heart of such quality from craft establishments for that price!

I decided to use one of the small hearts, which measured approximately 5.5ins x 5ins for this project and then raided my cupboards for a whole variety of embellishments including paper flowers, cabochons that I had been sent from WholePort, fabric and crocheted flowers, plus flat backed gems and flowers and pearls …. you name it, I used it  as my desk proves!

Like my jewelled mirrors I built  up the design, adding gems to the fabric flowers and filling all the gaps with small pearl beads.

I think it is all the fiddle fart, very sticky building up and filling gaps are what makes all the difference when looking at the finished heart. I used a narrow cream ribbon to hold it by, threading it through the existing hole at the top, with the bottom hole being easily covered up by all the embellishments.

I now really want to make a couple of horseshoes for summer weddings, which I think could go down a storm at work.  Marc gave me one when I last went to see him ….. now if only I could find it amongst all my bits and pieces …. I can see it in my minds eye, I just cannot remember where I squirrelled it safely away,  DOH!!

Memory Box–Madeleine Bird Die

This card measures 4.75ins x 4.75ins and is made using a hand cut Kraft card blank.
I love birds on cards, they are so versatile for so many themes and decided to treat myself to this Memory Box Madeleine Bird die No. 98424 (£5.99).

I’ve kept everything very less is more, using old music paper for the background.  Although it doesn’t show on the photo, I have mounted the birds and their wings on self adhesive foam pads for extra dimension. A bit of faux stitching and a flat gem eye completes the effect.

I can see me using this die over and over again, I want to try it using felt and delicate patterned fabrics when I have got a little more time to fiddle fart …. I am not the best or most patient of sewers, but I am thinking brooches …. ???

A Painting For My Mum’s 80th Birthday

Rather can give you an almost daily blow by blow account of the painting I've done for my Mum’s 80th birthday,  I thought I would deliver it to you all in a single post as a fait au complet, outlining the stages I went through before the great unveiling !

Because it was much cheaper I ordered two (one and a spare!) 48” x 36” canvases from  http://www.canvas-store.co.uk/ which arrived within two days of my ordering them, as did the set of Royal & Langnickel acrylic paints (£5.29) from Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Royal-Langnickel-Colour-Acrylic-Tubes/dp/B001880N9Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365961557&sr=8-1&keywords=Royal+and+Langnickel+acrylic+paint

However, when I went into The Works to get a palette,  I saw this Boldmere starter pack of much larger tubes of acrylic paints for just £7.99,  which was far more economical, and I couldn’t  resist, especially as I now had two canvases to paint.

So armed and stocked up  ….. I set to work ….. sketching the design out roughly first …..

…. and then gradually filling the design in ….. the above only taking me a couple of very chilled hours while listening to Radio 4 on a Saturday afternoon.
And the last three pictures are the final stages which took me another weekend. It’s the detailing that takes the time ….. outlining first in black. then in white Posca pen …. and then painting over again in the places where I thought needed it.
The trouble at this stage was finally deciding when it’s finished  …. because I could have fiddle farted forever, adding a line here and a swirl there, but I am happy with it now (very top picture) ….. all I need to do is find a rather large piece of wrapping paper and ribbon big enough to go round it!

Mini Canvas and Easel

This mini canvas measures just 7cm x 7cm and came in a pack of 4 from Poundworld.

I used my Whisper Pens first to put down the basic shapes of the flowers, I was worried that the ink might bleed into the canvas, but as you can see it didn’t, however my Stabilo fine liner pen wasn’t too keen on the rough, unyielding material …. but I got there in the end.

….. just a little trinket for my desk at the moment, but I might turn it into a sort of alternative card for someone special when the next birthday comes along.

Framed Word Art

I love some of the “Word Art” that is around at the moment, but it’s a bit pricey ….. and with most things that I see, that I like,  a little voice in my head says …. “I could do that” …………

So in this case I did!!!  I already have piles of old sheet music rescued from a skip so all I had to do was trim some everso slightly to A4 size.

Then using Publisher I set out the words …. nothing fancy …. using Ariel Black in font size 110 …. and printed it onto the sheet music, then all that was left to do was pop it straight into an A4 certificate frame from Poundworld …… and Bob was my Aunt Fanny …. simples!!!

From what I have seen, I think that song lyrics are usually printed on music sheets, while other quotes/sayings are printed on pages from old books ..... I am now thinking that pages from old altlas could look good too .....  so I may be found hunting round in some more skips .........watch this space!

Like most ideas …. one thing tends to lead to another …. and I wondering  if I could make a set of  notelets along a similar vein ……

Altered Hand Painted Mirror

You wouldn’t believe how many reincarnations this mirror has had to go through to get to this completed stage, in fact this is the second version, the first one ended up in the bin!

The mirror is from Ikea – “Malma”  and measures 10ins x 10ins
Like the very first mirror I altered I used a mixture of Promarkers and Sharpie pens to do the flower doodling, drawing the basic shapes first and then using a black Sharpie for the outlining, finer details and to fill in the gaps.

To be honest, at this stage, after a couple of coats of quick drying, gloss varnish the mirror looks pretty OK, but me, being me,  just had to fiddlefart some more …. which is where I went wrong with my first mirror, hence the bin!

I really like the effect of adding a white outline, but getting the right pen that stayed put while being varnished was a problem, the first couple of pens I tried dissolved immediately ….. however I found that a white “Pilot Super Colour Permanent Type Ink” held fast …. wooo hooo, but although it is labelled as “extra fine”, I would have really preferred it to be even finer …… but that’s me being very picky!

The final stage was to mix a generous sprinkling of iridescent micro fine glitter to the varnish,  which gave the mirror a delicately sparkly fairy type look, which was exactly the effect I wanted, but unfortunately the pictures really don’t pick this up or do justice to it.  The white outlines are also much subtler from a distance, giving the mirror a softer effect not looking half as harsh as they do in these pictures. As you can see compared to the first jewelled mirror I did (behind) the detail is much finer, I have also resisted adding any gems at this stage …. for now I am going to leave it as it is and then perhaps revisit it in a couple of months time ……

Altered Poundshop Clock

I cannot believe I didn’t take any pictures of this clock as I was working on it, what am I like?

The clock came from the Poundland Mothers Day range, Marc spotted it on the website and said it would be perfect for altering.

The only thing that needed to be done to prepare it was to remove the wooden motif and then a bit of sanding to smooth over where it had been.

After that I just doodled basic flower and leaf shapes straight onto the clock using Promarker pens, then outlining and adding detail to them in black,  as well as filling in any gaps,  before applying a couple of coats of quick drying glossy varnish.

When the varnish was dry I couldn’t help myself by just outlining the design again in white using a white Pilot Super Colour pen before a couple more coats of varnish with a little ultra fine iridescent glitter added for a fairy lustre effect.

And finally ……. small, very sparkly flat backed gems round the dial ….. done and dusted and now sitting in one of the partitions of my what not shelf on my desk.

I just wish I had bought a couple more of these clocks ….. because now I can think of lots of other ways to decorate them ….. I am thinking way ahead to Christmas …. and can just see one painted with a blue sky, stars, glittery snow and a couple of cute snowmen standing at the bottom …… !

Framed Jewelled Heart

This project has been in the making since Christmas when I asked for a deep box frame from Hobbycraft for an idea I had for my newly decorated “guest room”

http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/innova-editions-white-deep-box-frame-40-cm-x-40-cm/567512-1001

I had made a friend a small jewelled heart on canvas a while back and always said that I would make myself another bigger version when I had the time ……  famous last words as that was at least three years ago!

The first thing I did was to cut the heart out in white card to fit the centre of the frame ……

….. which I then covered with all the clear, turquoise, green and pearl flat backed gems in various shapes that  I could muster …. I thought it would take forever but a couple of hours did it …. as I watched Emmerdale, Corrie and Grand Designs …..

I used Crafters Pick “The Ultimate” glue which I found dried pretty quickly, this in turn made me work pretty quick too!  The fiddle-farty bit was filling in some of the smaller gaps which were left when I had almost finished, I dropped seed beads into them after I gave up on tiny flat backed gems using a cotton bud as being just too fiddly, even for me!

To add a little more dimension to the heart in the frame I used foam sticky pads to stick it on to the background ….. and really that’s all there was to it …. simples!

I have a four more smaller box/shadow frames from Ikea to use up now, but as of yet haven’t had any other brain waves as to how to fill them …… but that, I expect, is only a matter of time!