WOYWW 328

Yesterday was the first day for ages that I’ve been able to get in my ARTHaven and do anything. In the morning I tidied it, which took me ages as it had become a complete dumping ground again, as always happens when I am not using it.

Anyway, yesterday evening I spent some time in there, working on some purple things – I need to make a get-well card and present for our neighbour as she recovers from an accident she had several weeks ago – she knows my situation and that I haven’t been able to do anything so she will understand why this is so late!

Here is my desk today, anyway. You can see the little box I made last night, together with the other papers I prepared ready for making her card, and a couple of other cards too. On the left is my box of dies. I got some new ones recently, with one lot left still to arrive – basic frame shapes to help me make some quick cards.

Behind the opened box you can see the white box template. I made a whole lot of these for my fellow chemo-ites and each one contained a lavender sachet. The lavender was given to me by our neighbour last year and I have wanted to give her some produce from that for ages. I am also going to give her some of the lavender oil I made, and possibly some soap if I’ve got the energy to make it!

Scroll down to my previous post to see the making of the little purple box. It’s great to be using up some boring stash that just wasn’t shifting – I am determined to use up stuff that I don’t like! With a bit of altering, I end up liking it, so it’s worth it in the end.

Here’s the little box.

It will contain a lavender sachet, probably made from purple fabric with possibly some gold embellishments on it. The box has butterflies inside – she loves butterflies, and I shall put some on her card too.

Healthwise, not been doing so well since the last treatment, despite the reduced dose (although very glad to be feeling quite a bit better today) – my mood took a nose dive over the past week which was a bit alarming as I am now so close to the end! I think I’m back on track again now though. It wasn’t helped by a tummy upset last week, which set me back, and I also had some bad nights not sleeping properly. I just got fed up with feeling ill all the time and desperate to get my life back again! My poor hubby had to put up with me which wasn’t very nice for him so I am going to try to do better.

To help me get through the final month, I have made a countdown calendar to post daily on my Cancer Diary page on this blog, and seeing the days being crossed off one by one is helping. I finish in exactly one calendar month! Then the recovery period but that won’t be so bad, knowing that I won’t have to go through it again.

Also trying to remember to count my blessings and be grateful that compared with our lovely Shaz, my journey has been a relatively easy one. I have been following her hubby’s new blog where he’s been keeping us up to date daily with news of her progress in hospital What a rough ride she’s been having, and we do wish them both all the best! Today she went up onto the ward which is a huge step in the right direction. So delighted to hear this!

It’s nice to be back creating again. Have a great creative week everybody, and happy WOYWW.

Purple Stuff

For the first time for ages, I felt well enough to spend a little while in my ARTHaven doing something creative! This morning I actually managed to tidy up in there, and it really needed it, as it had become a dumping ground again. After that I was too tired to do any more, and had a visitor this afternoon, but this evening I decided to make a start on a project I’d had in mind for a while.

Our neighbour had an accident a few weeks ago and when she first came home, I wasn’t well enough to make her a get-well card but decided better late than never! I wanted to make her one of my lavender sachets in a little box, as I did for my fellow chemo-ites when I first started my treatment. This is what I have made.

As well as making her a get-well card, I also have a couple of other cards to make, and decided to do it all as one project. Ages ago I was given some stash by somebody, which included this rather uninteresting pink and purple paper with flowers and butterflies on it – it’s fairly heavy paper but not quite thick enough to be called card, and in my opinion extremely dull, which is why I haven’t yet used it! I thought now was the time to get it out of my stash and on the move, so with a bit of alteration I was sure it could be improved.

I sprayed the first sheet with Crushed Grape and Bubblegum Pink Dylusions spray inks.

Blotting off with the second sheet.

Both sheets blotted and dried.

Preparing to spray the third sheet, this time with Crushed Grape and London Blue Dylusions spray inks.

The sheet sprayed.

After spritzing and blotting off, it joined the first two sheets, dried and completed. The pale pink one (which had had flowers punched out of it) was also spattered with water droplets and blotted off.

I took the darker sheet with butterflies on it (which had been so covered up with ink that they were now extremely subtle! – i.e. virtually invisible!) and stuck it down onto a sheet of plain white card with spray adhesive to thicken it up a bit and make it substantial enough to make a box. I used my box template to draw around, and cut out the shape.

Here is the reverse side ready for inking with distress inks.

I used the two paler colours (Shaded Lilac and Salty Ocean) to go all over it first, using Inkylicious Ink Dusters. I wasn’t too bothered about getting a very smoothly blended finish because it would be covered up later.

Preparing to stamp with Versamark and heat emboss with clear embossing powder to act as a resist.

After the butterflies were stamped, and preparing for the second inking.

After the second inking with the darker shades, and buffed to clean the ink off the embossed butterflies, which now revealed the lighter shades of the first inking.

Preparing to gold-emboss the outside of the box. This stamp set is Tim Holtz’s Bitty Grunge set of background stamps – unfortunately the corner of the box is across the name of the set!

After gold embossing. I wanted a nice random, mottled effect.

The final step was to go around the outline with my gold Uniball Signo pen.

The completed box, closed.

Partially open.

Unfortunately with all the heating involved during the embossing process front and back, the layers started to come apart a bit, which wasn’t helped by the flexing of the flaps to close up the box, and you can see a slight crease on the flap that is open in the above photograph. Before finally assembling the box I ran over it vigorously with my brayer again, and I hope it’s going to stay stuck together!

Here is the box fully opened.

I shall use the rest of the paper to make some cards, which will be part of this ongoing “Purple Stuff” project. Watch this space!

Final Two Lavender Sachet Boxes

Warning: LOTS of pictures!

Today I had a lovely morning meeting up with my two friends whom I met while we were all in hospital together. We were all very pleasantly surprised to see how well we each looked! Only one of them is undergoing chemo as I am – the other’s cancer was sufficiently confined for her not to need it. The one who is having chemo has the same oncologist as me, and she has her treatments on the Mondays following my Fridays; we are receiving the same infusion and are at the same stage on our journey, so we can compare notes and support each other along the way. Like me, she has had her dose reduced, and is feeling the benefit of that. We had such a lovely chat and laugh together over a cup of coffee, and I gave them the little gifts I had made for them.

I had two lavender sachets remaining from when I made them for my fellow chemo-ites on the day unit, and decided they would be for my two friends, so I needed to make little boxes for them. I am so pleased to be feeling so much better this week, and yesterday I spent the evening in my ARTHaven working on the two boxes, and managed to complete them in time.

Both are made from watercolour paper which is great when you are likely to be using a lot of water, because it is designed to take this level of punishment without disintegrating. It is also heavy enough to make a nice sturdy little box. For both, I used clear embossing as a resist, and different Distress Inks, with a combination of blending with Inkylicious Ink Dusters, blending pads, and smooshing with water, to give a nice random effect.

The Green One

I smooshed the outside and inside of the box using Evergreen Bough distress ink on my non-stick craft sheet, spritzed with water, and pulling the piece through the ink to get a good random effect, drying in between and repeating until I got the result I wanted.

Then I heat-embossed the pieces, using a stamp from my new Chocolate Baroque set called “Harlequin Fragments” using clear embossing powder. I did not put the stamp on an acrylic block but used it unmounted because I didn’t mind it having a less defined look. I stamped once on each of the four flaps.

To bring out the resist, I inked the piece using Pine Needles distress ink.

For the inside, I repeated the process, but this time used silver embossing powder. I chose a stamp from my Floral Doodle Dallions set by Stamp attack for a motif for the centre of the box.

The final step was to distress the edges of the inside and outside of the box, using Forest Moss distress ink and a blending pad. This added a slightly yellower green to the mix because it was too blue and didn’t match the lavender sachet so well.

The finished green box.

The green sachet.

The Blue One

I began by covering the entire surface of the outside with Tumbled Glass distress ink, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster.

The stamps for this were from the Stampin’ Up Papillon Potpourri set. I chose a larger and a smaller butterfly, and again, stamped with Versamark and clear-embossed the images to create a resist. I chose another stamp from the Floral Doodle Dallions set for the centre.

The next colour of ink to be added, again with the Inkylicious Ink Duster, was Salty Ocean.

The final colour was Faded Jeans.

Once this was done, I wasn’t entirely happy with the result, which looked a little flat and boring, so I decided to have some fun with it, and experiment with coarse sea salt. I spritzed the surface well with water until it was very wet, and sprinkled the coarse grains of salt randomly over the surface and left it to stand for a few minutes.

Then I dried it gently with my heat gun, holding it well back so as not to re-melt the embossing, and so that the piece did not curl up and dislodge all the salt grains. I spritzed it again, and repeated the process. This was the result. A lot more interesting, I think you will agree.

For the inside, I again began with Tumbled Glass distress ink, covering the entire surface but not going for too even an effect.

This was followed by patches of Salty Ocean distress ink.

Finally, Faded Jeans. Again, keeping it fairly blotchy.

I then repeated the process with the sea salt.

You get gorgeous swirls and patterns with it, and darker spots around the place where the salt grain was.

To complete the inside of the box, I added some silver gilding flakes, being careful not to cover up all the patterns from the sea salt.

As a finishing touch, I went around the edges of both the inside and the outside of the box with a silver gel marker.

The finished blue box.

The blue sachet. On both sachets I have used little embellishments recycled from other things. In this case, the two little discs of abalone shell came from a cannibalised necklace I bought once at a village fete.

The Two Boxes, Complete

Both my friends were very thrilled with their little gift! For the one having chemo, I slipped one of my lavender chemo cards inside.