What’s On My Kitchen Table Wednesday

No shopping today, and no room in my craft room for this mammoth project ……

I foolishly agreed to make 100 favour bags (plus a few extra) for a friends wedding … mouth, brain, engage?????

Fortunately, my lovely sister Jan has agreed to help me.  In our first session we achieved  lot more than we anticipated, managing to punch out all the shapes we needed, (400 of everything!)  and even managed to stick a few bits together.

The idea is to have four covered mints in each packet, two of each colour way.  The colour scheme is blue and ivory, one set of mints will be covered as below, the other set will be in the opposite order - i.e. cream flower on blue circle etc.

They will be put in a tall, slim cello pretzel bag, with a blue bow and cream tag.  In the centre of each flower will be a clear flat backed gem. I will post again when we have moved on a stage.  We must be stark staring mad!!!!

Stampin’ Up Bird Punch Card

My new Stampin’ Up Bird Punch has arrived,  it’s just so beautiful. I’ve wanted it desperately since Lisa showed it to me in a a preview brochure.

This is my first play with it, I’ve kept it very simple, I am not sure it really needs the pearls or if they are in the right place.  …. the handwriting is mine.

I am going to set aside an afternoon when all I do is try to come up with lots of other ideas on how to use it.

I can’t believe the beautiful punches that you can get now, when I started crafting they were very basic, I just wonder what other fantastic ideas we will see in the coming years.

For Stampin’ Up products check out my mate Lisa’s blog http://stampincraftfairy.blogspot.com/

More Information …..

I left a question on UK Scrappers in the hope that someone would know who makes these peel offs, well Weaselwise came up trumps who has told me that they are produced by Magenta, they are called Birdie (POM 3396) and Woodware import them. All we need to know now is where to get some more from ….

Gone Fishing Birthday Card

 

I’ve never bought any decoupage stuff until now ……. my mate Lisa bought the ‘SMIRK For Him’ decoupage pad at NEC Hobbycrafts in March, I was unimpressed ….. until I saw how hers turned out ….

And now I’ve just had to buy a pad too.  I find coming up with cards for men really hard, but I am thrilled with how this card has turned out.  I have used Dovecraft Masculine 6 x 6 papers (DCDP58) - £2.99  as the  background .

And then added a real fishing fly to the gentleman's hat, a tiny button on his waistcoat and a small black sticker to the fishes eye.

Little Ali Stamp

I have had a couple more queries – the stamp I used in the “Little Girl Looking at The Mona Lisa” post is by Stamps Away - called Little Ali (D1114) – I got it from NEC Hobbycrafts show about 2 years ago – it is a clear stamp and would have cost no more than £3.00.

I don’t have a clue who made the black bird peel offs, it was an impulse buy at NEC Hobbycrafts in March – I wish I knew, as I would like to buy more! 

Where possible I try and put the name of the manufactures or where I bought the products but sometimes I use stuff I have had for years but just leave a comment if you have a query and I will try my best to help.

I Don’t Do Peel-Offs ……..

I don’t do peel–offs but I just couldn’t resist this set of little birds, how cute are they?  I just love the effect, maybe because they are black and not the usual silver and gold. My opinion has been changed and I shall certainly look more closely at other  black peel-offs in future.

Newspaper Card Queries

 

I have had a couple of questions about making my newspaper cards, I will do my best to answer them:-

“The Birthday Times” is in Old English MT, size 52  “Exclusive” is in Arial Black – size 48 and the date is Times New  Roman – size 22, I usually do all the other text in Arial Black but the size varies to suit the pictures and/or embellishments.

I always do the “Exclusive” as a simple decoupage layer so that it stands out.

Once you have the top right you are most of the way there, as that part tends to stay pretty much the same.

I design each card on A4 Portrait in Publisher and when I am happy with it, save a copy as a jpeg.  I then open a new page in Publisher in Landscape and insert the jpeg of the design, sizing it to approximately half the page (A5)

I then copy and paste the design several times, cropping the parts I want to make into  simple decoupage layers, until I get a printed sheet as below.

I mat and layer the main design on silver and mount it on an A5 sized card (I cut my all own cards)  adding the layers and other embellishments like stars, glitter or Anita’s 3D gloss finish.

This may seem a little long winded but it works for me.

Butterfly Birthday Card

I think this style/design of card has been done many, many times before, but I thought I would have a go too.

It’s made using the Martha Stewart punch I got at the NEC in March.

The papers come from a double sided mini stack which meant that all the patterns were in proportion to the punch and all the colours matched already – which saved me a lot of time.

I’ve added two small matching Anita’s gems to the middle of each butterfly for extra sparkle.

Simple, quick and very effective.

Place Setting Card

This card could be used for all sorts of occasions…..

…………. an invitation or a "thank you" for a meal ..........

I have used dolls house cutlery and a paper plate, all found on E-bay. It was quite hard to find modern cutlery that is silver with modern coloured handles, but I was thrilled when I found this set.

Cream and Black Patchwork Butterfly Card

I know I keep coming back to the same card layout, but I love experimenting with different papers and embellishments to see the different effects I can get.

 

I love using papers with a word print.  I have used a mixture here, one is a scrapbook paper Craftshouse -Allsorts in Aniseed (CWAL06), and the other is taken from a really old dictionary I got from a car boot sale, the pages have really aged beautifully and the paper is quite delicate to use.

I have used an ivory linen card as it more subtle than white and have added small flat backed pearls to the butterflies for texture.  The butterflies have been punched using the Martha Stewart butterfly trio punch.

What’s On My Desk Wednesday

Shopping and Advent House progress ….

As usual the spoils from my weekend shopping are still on my desk waiting to be used or put away – on Sunday I went to my first car boot of the year …. not a lot to be had, except for …..

….. this tidy pile of narrow ribbon – a 100 yard reel of brown, 2 x 40 yard reels of black and teal, and 5 x 6 yard reels of white (x2), blue, cerise and dusty pink – all for £5.50, I was dead chuffed!

I also had this very beautiful and very me bracelet for 20p!

After the boot sale I nipped to Asda and got these two toothbrushes for 10p – what a bargain …… but you’ll have to wait a while to see what I am going to do with them!

And do you remember these?  Galaxy Counters … yum, yum, yum, I use to love these when I was a kid …..  now they will be a workdesk staple!!!

Tesco Advent House Progress …..

Last week I said my drawers were sticking (??!!) after I had painted them, well, I sanded them down a bit and they are now sliding perfectly, BUT I now need to touch up the corners where I sanded them a little too diligently, aghhh!

I have also covered one with paper, as a tester, a bit fiddly, but after 5 or so I hope I will have perfected the technique.  I have given it one coat of Modge Podge Sparkle, but it could do with another couple of coats, and the little knobs I made from Poundland beads and square gems have turned out a treat, just another 22 drawers to go …..

Bingo Birthday Card – 40 Today

I thought that this was a different sort of card for a ‘special’ birthday, that could be adapted for any age.

All I’ve used is three bingo cards from a bingo card pad, a raffle ticket, some gold peel offs and an old wooden bingo counter from an ancient bingo set I got from a carboot sale. That’s all there is to it.

Looking at the Mona Lisa Card

Everyone knows by now that I buy stamps but I am not very confident when it comes to using them, and so they tend to sit unused in my drawer for ages (…..years).

Well, I loved this stamp when I saw it, it’s so different from all the Magnolia and doe eyed poppet stamps that are so popular at the moment, but I hadn’t a clue what on earth to do with it ….

Then I had a eureka moment …..

Birthday Cards With Chickens On Them!

How often are you asked to make a card featuring chickens?

In my case rarely …….. but then this week I have had two requests for cards featuring them ……

I have used digi images from different sets from http://www.scrappindoodles.com

The chickens are sooooooo cute!

To add extra dimension and interest I have added googly eyes, Anita’s 3D gloss finish on the beaks and micro glitter on the wings.
In answer to several questions, I made the template for these cards using Publisher ages ago, the basic design stays the same but the centre section and colours change with each card, sometimes it is quite tricky fitting in the wording, but it's a popular design for people wanting a really personal card.

Boo – Spider Card

This is one of my less is more cards – I’m not the world’s best stampers – but I dabble now and again.

The stamp I have used is Hero Arts A315 Scary Spider and all I have added is a pair of wibbly wobbly eyes!

Pins/Brooches Using Wooden Embellishments.

There are so many beautiful wooden embellishments that deserve more than just being put on a card ….

So I’ve taken a few of my favourites and have added very small (1.5cm) pin/brooch fastenings to the backs using a strong glue.

And ……I have resisted the temptation to add anything else to them.

Tesco Christmas Advent House

I know it’s very, very early, but as the weather was so lovely at the weekend, I decided to make a start on one of my Tesco Advent Houses, as I am sure I am about to embark on a labour of love, that will take a long time to complete ……..

My lovely sister made it her mission to find me several houses in the run up to Christmas last year, even imploring young male assistants to have a look in the back of the storeroom “just in case” – well the girl done good, but I didn’t have time to do anything with them until now ……

 

The warm weather gave me the incentive to get started, I chose to spray the body of the house with a white enamel effect paint – and the garden was the ideal place to do it as the process was very fumeified.

…… And while I took advantage of the warm weather, I hand painted the outsides and tops of drawers, twice, sitting at the garden table. I left the fronts unpainted, as I plan to cover them with assorted Christmas papers.

However, after all this painting I found that the drawers aren’t sliding out as easily as they did…… so I now need to sand all the drawers down a little in the hope that it rectifies the problem – roll on the next sunny day……

But, if that doesn’t work and because my fingers are a bit podgy to put in the spaces at the top of the drawers I have made some little knobs (I looked at using dolls house door knobs but they were a bit expensive)…… I may not use them, but I have them as an option.  I used some of the square wooden necklace beads I got from Poundland (see yesterdays post) and have sprayed them with several coats of paint. I intend to stick on a pale blue flat backed gem over one hole and glue the opposite side onto the drawer.  But that is a little while off ….. my next task is the sanding …….