Box for Floral Mini-Album–Continuing to Work on the Insides

Having painted one side of the box pieces with black acrylic, today I painted the edges and a border around the other side of each piece, ready for matting later.

After this I began embellishing the black surface which will be the inside of the box. I wanted to try Angela’s (Felix the Crafty Cat) technique to produce an interesting texture: she scrumpled up some waxed paper and then unfolded it, and ironed it onto some card, which made a gorgeous pattern in wax on the paper, which was revealed when she applied some Distress Oxides with a blending tool, the wax pattern acting as a resist.

Unfortunately it didn’t work for me. I have a roll of freezer paper that I thought was waxed, but however long I ironed it, very little came off onto the card. Afterwards I read the label on the box and it said “plastic coated” so obviously this was why it didn’t work. I tried with some scraps of what I thought was waxed paper that I’ve saved for other purposes, mostly the backing sheets of self-adhesive labels and things like that, but had no more success with these than with the freezer paper, so I gave it up as a bad job. I shall contact Angela and ask where she got her waxed paper!

I proceeded to apply Worn Lipstick and Seedless Preserves Distress Oxides to the black painted surface of the mount board, using Inkylicious Ink Dusters and then spritzing the pieces with water and drying them with my heat gun. I am quite pleased with the result.

I shall tear up the strips taken from the music table napkins and apply those with gel medium, and add more inks and possibly some gilding flakes and spatters, building up the layers until I am happy with the result.

Not a bad evening’s work for today, and I hope to do a bit more tomorrow.

WOYWW 485

I’m sorry I didn’t make it to our weekly round-the-desks nosey fest last week – I fully intended to, but in the end was too busy with other things.

Great news this week – I’ve spent some time in the studio!

First of all, a general view, showing how much tidier it is, after I spent quite a long time tidying up, putting things away, and putting some things aside that I no longer want.

The white unit in the foreground is one of my pull-out units. This one belongs under the main desk, but it’s never in there because that’s where I generally sit. You can see another one under the fan. They are on casters and can pull out, giving me a place to sit and an extra work surface. When the builder was making my studio, I asked him to make me several of these, to go in the different zones where I can sit to work. I can only sit in one place at a time and it seemed a shame to waste the space, and they can be pulled out when required. If I want a large flat surface, I can pull them all out and put them together.

There’s still quite a lot of tidying and sorting to do, but at least I can move around in there now.

Here’s my desk, taken last night.

I’ve done two more backgrounds for the box for the album about Mum, 12 x 12’s from the ghastly paper stack I’ve had hanging around for years. These two identical ones were done with a combination of Distress Inks, Distress Oxides and Infusions. I don’t think I’ve got quite as much coverage as I did when altering smaller pieces for the album itself so I may add a bit more to these. I think I’ve probably done enough pieces to cover the outside of two boxes now. I am keen to get this project finished because I am full of ideas for things I want to be doing, and having gone off the boil with this one for a while, it’s a bit of a duty rather than a pleasure to get it done, but I am trying to be good and get it out of the way before I tackle anything else (such as getting down to some of my other UFOs!).

I’ve done a bit more on the scarf embellishments. I think I’ve crocheted enough flowers now, and have started on the leaves. No photos yet as I’ve only done one so far! Not much time this week to pursue this.

Cooking

Dried Apples

Last week, I sliced up a lot of our apples and tried drying them in the oven at 50 deg. C over a long period. I wasn’t sure how successful this would be. To start with, a huge amount of moisture came out of them and I could see it running down inside the oven door! I opened the door and mopped up quite a bit, and left it open a crack for about half an hour till it was cleared, then shut it again and kept it going. I turned the oven off overnight and gave it another boost the next day.

I had sprinkled ground cinnamon over them, and the kitchen smelt absolutely marvellous.

Here are the apples as I was turning them over.

Here they are in a box. Some of them got a bit over-done but it doesn’t seem to have affected them apart from looking very dark.

We’ve already made inroads into them. They don’t look particularly appetising – more like dried up old mushrooms! – but they are absolutely delicious – chewy, very sweet and flavoursome, and extremely more-ish!

Sourdough

Two more successful batches on successive weekends. Here is the last one, baked on Saturday night and cut on Sunday morning.

Look at that lovely open crumb! This is what we are after with traditional sourdough. Nice glossy holes.

It is so delicious. This loaf was made with half-and-half whole wheat and white flour. I’ve more or less given up on the rye flour now, apart from feeding Esmeralda (my starter) with it – she seems to like it! It tends to make the dough extremely wet and sticky, and difficult to handle. My dough-handling technique has improved a lot and I’m getting a good structure and a decent amount of oven spring now, and producing pretty consistent results week by week – no more flying saucers lately!

When you feed the starter you have to take some out or it becomes spent and stale and stops working, as the yeasts have eaten what they need. Some people throw this excess starter away but this seems an awful waste of excellent nutritious food to me. I discovered some recipes online, including a truly fabulous one for sourdough crackers, which I am now making on a regular basis. Here is last week’s batch.

They are quite quick and easy to make, and so crisp and delicious. These are made with rye flour because that’s what I feed Esmeralda with. They are a lot more satisfying than regular crackers, and are great with the kefir cheese that I make. There is no sugar in them, just flour, salt and water and a dash of baking soda, and coconut oil (a healthy saturated fat). I have found the secret for making successful sourdough crackers is to roll the dough out very thinly so they get really crisp. Yummy!

This week I also made a fresh batch of curries for the freezer, having run out a while back – Madras curry, chicken korma, and curried vegetables, all frozen in small portions so we can have our own “takeaway” selection when we want!

This week I must make more soup, and some roasted vegetable quiches if I have the time and energy.

Kitties

Lily and Ruby aren’t quite so keen on going out in the garden these days, since the weather went off. Ruby always gets very dirty feet! Hope you can see them in this photo! That front paw is supposed to be white…

They have really settled down now they are grown up, and now that it’s cooler, they love to spend time with us in the evenings, sitting with us. We have both been looking forward so much to this – up until fairly recently they were still such babies and our sitting room isn’t really kitten-proof. Now, they have the run of the place and can (mostly) be trusted!

When I am busy preparing meals etc., they settle down with my hubby, and like Beatrice and Phoebe before them, tend to sit one on each knee.

However, when I finally sit down, they prefer to come to me, because on the recliner with a nice soft blanket (not just for warmth for me but to protect myself a bit from their claws), they can get a lot more comfortable and can cuddle up together, and are less likely to fall off.

This picture was taken later that same evening. I hate having to tip them off when I need to get up! Ruby is usually nearer my feet, and if she lies on them, she is soooo heavy and my feet get very uncomfortable! (Note the wet patch just behind Lily’s left ear – well washed by Ruby!)

A couple of evenings ago my hubby was trying to get them in for supper and they were both making a terrific noise outside, rushing around and obviously very interested in something behind the pots in the patio. We went out to look, and there was a toad there! They will need to be a lot quieter and more restrained if they are ever going to make successful hunters – the racket they were making would have scared any prey off well in advance of the onslaught! Happily the toad lived to croak another day and the kitties eventually came in for a more civilised meal.

Health Update

I have now seen the support garments lady and she’s measured me up for new pants – I’ve gone down a size since the last prescription over 18 months ago because I’ve lost weight. My current ones have lost a lot of their stretch and supportiveness so they probably aren’t doing much good. You are supposed to have new ones every year but I didn’t arrange it at the beginning of the year because I knew I was due for surgery and you can’t wear them for several weeks afterwards, and also I didn’t know if I would change shape during that time, so a new prescription is long overdue. I am now awaiting the arrival of the first pair and if they are OK, they will make up two more for me to make the total of three that I am allowed in one year. They are extremely expensive (bespoke, specially designed for people with stomas) at around £80 a pair, but the cost of three pairs is nothing compared with the cost of a hernia repair operation. Thanks to our wonderful NHS, I get them on prescription, free of charge.

I am pretty convinced now that my hernia has returned. I still haven’t had my CT scan appointment and the support garments lady said she would ask the stoma nurse to chase this up for me. Everything takes soooo long…

Apart from that, I’ve been OK, although extremely tired during the week after the conference. Going back on my rivaroxaban (anti-coagulant) soon sorted out the thrombophlebitis in my leg and I’ve had no more pain, which is a relief.

Other Activities

Last week I resumed my little Bible study group again after a long break. I stopped it after my hubby broke his leg and Mum died, and then I was so ill earlier in the year, and after I had recovered, I had a lot of catching up to do, so we decided to leave it till the autumn to start again. It’s so nice to be getting together again and we have a new member, too, which is very encouraging. I need to spend quite a bit of time during the week preparing for these meetings, and designing the visual aids which I show by connecting the computer to the TV by cable.

After the recent conference, our local Torbay Friends of Israel group has now started having regular evening meetings at the same conference centre (which is only about 5 mins away from us by car) and we had our first meeting on Sunday. I was too tired to sing for them but will no doubt do so at future meetings. We have another Erev Shabbat (Sabbath Eve) meal coming up this Friday (the leader does one each month) and on Thursday I shall be making the challah for that (the two plaited loaves made from enriched, sweet dough – delicious!).  It’s very nice to be able to do something to contribute to the meal. Our leader is a full-time wheelchair user and he does the whole thing himself, cooking a lovely chicken casserole (other people provide the puddings) and lays up a beautiful table each time. Usually about a dozen of us attend and it’s a very special evening. I sometimes sing during those evenings too.

Yesterday afternoon I was back at the conference centre, spending the afternoon with a friend who is down from Bournemouth for a conference – we always try to get together when she’s down and has a free afternoon. We had such a great time! I only see her about twice a year so we make the most of it.

So all in all, it’s been a very busy fortnight chez-Shosh.

Floral Mini-Album Pt 13 More Work on Page 1

Recently I made a new mini-album, about my mum who died in December. I was unable to publish anything about this until now because it is a present for her best friend, who sometimes visits my blog, and I wanted it to be a surprise for her. I wrote a series of blog posts as I did each stage of the project, so I didn’t forget what I did, and they will be published in sequence now the project is finished and has been given to our friend.

If you want to see the finished project, please click here.

Returning to page 1, it definitely needed more work as it was rather boring – this is what it looked like:

I distressed around the edges first of all, using Barn Door, Dusty Concord and finally Black Soot Distress Inks, and then added some Infusions – Violet Storms and Violetta. I was really not happy with the result, which just looked a bit of a mess in my opinion!

Here is the page laid in place, to see what it looked like beside the inside of the front cover. Hmmm.

So I decided to add some Distress Oxides. I didn’t want to smoosh the page on my craft sheet as I would have very little control and I didn’t want to mess up the other side of the page either, so I decided on a new approach – did I invent this? Probably not – I expect others have done the same, but for now I shall call it Shoshi’s Directed Smooshing! What I did was rub the ink pad on the craft sheet as normal, and spritz it with water, and then pick up the ink on a small acrylic block and use this to smoosh onto the surface of the page. This actually worked pretty well.

I started with Wilted Violet, but it was all too pink-purple and I thought it needed a bit more orange, so I added Spiced Marmalade, which looked OK until I dried it with the heat gun, when it promptly started to turn green!! Too much else already on the page and it was obviously reacting with it. So I tried adding some Fossilised Amber and that did help a bit. The final one I tried was Fired Brick which didn’t really show up at all. This was the result. Hmmmm again.

You can see that during this session, I also made the tags to go in these pages, cut from remnants of the same paper used to line the inside of the front cover, to try to tie the two pages in together. With the tag in place on the page, it doesn’t look too bad.

Here is the page, again laid alongside the front cover. I think this will have to do – I’m not over-thrilled with the result.

With all the water treatment and repeated drying with the heat gun, the whole page got a bit buckled, so it had the heavy books treatment overnight in the hope that it would flatten it out OK.

I think it will be OK once I get lots of embellishments on it, which will distract one’s eye a bit!

Note added later: With time, this page really grew on me until in the end, I am very pleased with it. Sometimes it’s best not to jump to conclusions but to sit with it for a while and then decide.

WOYWW 478

Yayyy! This week I made ART! Here is what is on my desk today – the results of my labours on Monday.

For the first time in about six weeks I managed to make something in the studio. After finishing the two copies of the Floral Mini-Album about Mum, I wanted to make boxes for them, but only managed to finish the albums before going into hospital in March to have my hernia operation. Mum’s friend, the recipient of one of the albums, told us that at present, she is keeping her album safe in a biscuit tin! We are meeting up with her on Thursday but unfortunately I haven’t had time to finish her box.

On the left of the photo is the mock-up I made of the first box some weeks ago, from mount board and masking tape.

On Monday I got out what was left of the awful paper stack I used to make the album, that I was able to improve so much with lots of ink etc., and selected a few sheets to be used to cover the box. I am so glad I didn’t throw that paper away because it’s amazing the transformation you can bring about with some Distress Inks, Distress Oxides and Infusions, after which it becomes really quite useful!

This is the only one that I photographed with the original unaltered sheet because I had several sheets of this.

Here are the others.

All these 12 x 12 sheets are pretty wrinkled as a result of being so wet – when using Infusions particularly, they need a lot of spritzing with water. However, once they are ironed, they should be much better, and failing that I can leave them under a pile of heavy books for a while.

I haven’t got enough of any one colour to make the two boxes identical, but it doesn’t matter.

I need to get some metal corners and some feet, and possibly some sort of a clasp for the lid, and I need to decide exactly how I am going to embellish them, but they will be something like the front cover of the albums, probably.

I have now resumed uploading the blog posts about the construction of the mini-album after a bit of a break. I am keen to get this completed now, but I’ve been so busy with other things lately that it’s got a bit neglected. You can scroll down to see the latest ones if you are interested.

Also in my studio this week is more chaos, because someone we know who collects and sells old sheet music has recently had a clear-out and has offloaded a box of his rejects onto me as I said I might be able to use some music paper in art. I had no idea there’d be so much.

At the bottom of the box were 6 large volumes of Scottish songs from the 1800s – beautiful books, far too nice to throw away, but I may be able to alter them and use them for art journaling etc., keeping some of the pages unaltered as there are plates of beautiful Scottish scenery and people in Highland dress etc., and the dedication page is to “Her Majesty Queen Victoria.”

I have also got all that wonderful craft stuff a friend gave me a few weeks ago, still not sorted and put away properly. I’ve got far too much stuff in the room and I’m getting a bit swamped at the moment! I need to have a serious blitz and get tidied up a bit.

Following on from a couple of times recently when a book and a memory were restored to me, in amongst all that music was a book of elementary piano pieces for children on a sea theme called “Sea Idylls” which I used to play when I was a child! I just had to keep that. I loved those pieces, and so nice to have a copy again, even if I haven’t got a piano to play them on, and even if I could remember how to play the piano!! (I shall have to get my musical friend to give me lessons…) There seem to be quite a few lovely things from my past, coming back into my life again at the moment.

Kitties

More fun and games with Lily and Ruby. They’ve both gone off the trolley completely now, and I’ve managed to persuade Ruby that sleeping right outside the bedroom door isn’t a good idea or she risks getting trodden on. At the weekend they discovered the kitty hammock in the sitting room, and once they are in from the garden, this is where they make a bee-line. They snuggle up together so happily in there. There’s a bit more room than on the trolley, and it’s a lot more comfortable (being designed with kitties in mind). They won’t know what’s hit them when winter comes and the heating is on!

See this post for full details and lots of pictures!

Meantime:

As usual, Ruby has something of herself draped over her sister.

Sunday morning:

Love those tails!!

They have NOT enjoyed the sudden change in the weather and I’ve told them that life isn’t all sunshine and butterflies but into each life, a little rain must fall! They are still dashing out when they get the chance but they don’t like the rain.

Lily watching blood and gore, violence and death on TV before the 9 o’clock watershed.

Food

Last weekend I made my best sourdough bread yet. Details in the same post from the other day. Slightly reduced hydration which made the dough a bit easier to handle, but not much!

The texture is still a bit dense but if I increase the hydration again just a bit, I should get some nice glossy holes. This time I did a lot more proper stretching and folding, and this gave the dough more structure and it didn’t collapse when I turned it out onto the baking sheet. The two small loaves rose very well. I shall attempt some more this weekend.

Esmeralda (my sourdough starter) went completely bananas after I’d made the bread and fed her up again. Despite putting her back in the fridge to sleep it off for the week, I found her erupting all over the place when we got back from church on Sunday morning. It looks positively geological, doesn’t it.

She got reduced again and I cleaned out her jar, and since then she’s behaved very well. What I took out has been made into some more crackers (not too successful as I rolled them out too thick, but I’ll do better next time).

On Friday we are going to our friend’s for another Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath) meal, for which I’ve offered to make the challah again. This delicious pair of plaited loaves is traditional and always goes down a treat. It’s enriched with egg and is quite sweet, and very soft and scrumptious, perfect served with a sprinkling of salt in the traditional way. We are out for lunch with Mum’s friend on Thursday so I’ve got to fit this in somehow. However, it’s not nearly so critical as sourdough when it comes to proving times so I can safely go out and leave it.

Shopping

Last Thursday my hubby took me shopping in Totnes, which used to be our nearest shopping town, and full of ethnic and hippie shops which I love – all my favourite sort of clothes! I bought a few more things and told my hubby that I’d better not go back for a while or I won’t have any money left!! We only did the top bit of the town. It’s extremely inaccessible for wheelchairs or buggies because the street is very narrow, with tiny narrow pavements, and the hill is extremely steep, and all the shops have steps and narrow doorways, but it is soooo gorgeous!

In one shop we found a lot of fabulous stuff from Bali, and I simply couldn’t resist buying this trio of little carved and painted wooden cats.

We went into a whole food shop run by an Indian lady and I got chatting with her about kefir because I wondered if she’d like to take my excess kefir grains off my hands. She was very interested and said that several customers had asked if she sold kefir starter kits. I said she could have the grains and I didn’t want anything for them, and arranged that my friend (who came over yesterday) would probably be willing to drop them in for me as she lives just round the corner from there, and she is going to do that for me. While we were in there, another old friend that I don’t see much of these days, came in – so well met! She invited us back to tea at her house after we’d all finished our shopping, and we sat on her patio under the big umbrella, enjoying the sunshine and catching up. It was so nice!

So it’s been another busy week. In between I’ve tried to rest. Yesterday I was fighting off a major headache all day, which was probably brought on by a combination of doing too much, and a change in the weather.

At least I got back in the studio a bit this week.

Floral Mini-Album Pt 12 Waterfall Inside Front Cover

Trying to catch up with updating the posts about making the Floral Mini-Album! Originally I was doing this on a daily basis but I’m afraid that slipped somewhat… I have now started working on a box for this so thought I’d get back to updating this blog with the album posts.

Recently I made a new mini-album, about my mum who died in December. I was unable to publish anything about this until now because it is a present for her best friend, who sometimes visits my blog, and I wanted it to be a surprise for her. I wrote a series of blog posts as I did each stage of the project, so I didn’t forget what I did, and they will be published in sequence now the project is finished and has been given to our friend.

If you want to see the finished project, please click here.

In this session, I returned to the inside of the front cover and began work on the waterfall mini. I found several very good tutorials for constructing these on Youtube – I needed to refresh my memory because it is a very long time since I did one. The last one I did was a special birthday card for my hubby back in 2010.

These are the pieces I have cut for the construction of the waterfall. If you look carefully, you can see that I have already sored the lines on the long narrow piece, ready to attach the square page pieces.

The smaller rectangular piece is the back piece; the rectangular white piece is to reinforce the back piece, and the long strip is the band that goes around the back and holds the waterfall in place. The square pieces are the pages.

The first step was to make the mats for the six pages for each album. In each of the next few photos, you can see the original pink card, and each step beside examples of the previous step, to see how the alteration progresses.

I was keen to achieve a colour scheme to reflect the background paper, co-ordinating the colours, but at the same time giving a bit of contrast in the texture, so I began by smooshing with Barn Door Distress Ink, in order to introduce some splashes of red in the pink.

It’s amazing the transformation of these rather boring papers that can take place with a few layers of different inks.

The second step was to smoosh each one with Wilted Violet Distress Oxide. This gave me the purple splash that I needed. Again, you can see some of the original card underneath, and the previous stage on the right.

I found that this treatment did more or less get rid of the text on the pieces, but I didn’t mind if a bit is still visible as it just added to the texture. Anyway, much of the surface of the squares will be covered with photos.

The final step was the double distressing of each one. The next photo shows phase 1 of this, using Dusty Concord Distress Ink.

Phase 2 – using Black Soot Distress Ink.

The finished mats attached to the pages.

I was now ready to begin constructing the waterfall. The next photo shows the addition of double-sided tape between the scored lines on the back piece. I used the red tape because it is stronger than the regular tape. You could use wet glue.

Starting at the bottom, I added the pages one by one, lining them up carefully so that they were even, and removing the backing from the tape as I attached each page.

Here are both waterfalls with all the pages added.

Propping up the waterfall and photographing it from the side, you can see how the pages overlap and how the scored back piece works – the scored card curves and causes the pages to “roll” over.

The back piece is reinforced with another piece of card. Here, I have added red double-sided tape and marked the centre, and I have cut the small piece of card for the tab, folded in half and glued at the folded end.

The folded tab attached. The reinforcing piece is sandwiched between the two open ends of the tab which is attached with Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive. This needs to be strongly attached, because it is by pulling on this tab that the mechanism works. After attaching the tab, I was able o stick the reinforcing piece down onto the back piece, again using the red double-sided tape.

Both waterfalls with their pull tabs attached, top and bottom views.

Constructing the mechanism. The long narrow strip is glued under the back and the sides folded around. This is hard to explain and it much easier to understand if you follow a video tutorial on this – plenty to choose from on Youtube.

In this photo, you can see that I have applied Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive, and when I fold that piece down, it will be strong and secure.

If I do this again, I shall make sure that the long strip is the same colour as the waterfall because in this case, the folded edges of the white card were visible at the sides of the waterfall. I had to paint them with black acrylic paint where they showed, and they miraculously disappeared!

The completed waterfall, ready to install.

It was at this point that I realised that when the mechanism was worked, the undersides of the pages would be visible, and would require mats. This photo shows the pieces already cut and waiting to be inked.

I began the process by smooshing them with Barn Door Distress Ink. This pink and orange paper seems to resist the ink even more than the other pages I have used with this treatment, and it took me ages doing all this inking because it kept beading up and pooling on the surface of the card and it took a lot of drying with my heat gun.

Smooshing again, this time with Dusty Concord Distress Ink.

Finally, smooshing with Wilted Violet Distress Oxide to get the effect I wanted.

Double-distressing the edges of the mats, using Dusty Concord and Black Soot Distress Inks as before.

The page back mats installed.

I am pleased with the subtle stripe which is still visible, and which make a gentle contrast between the page mats on the fronts and on the backs of the cards.

I attached the whole waterfall piece to the inside of the front cover using orange double-sided tape so that it would be firmly adhered.

Pulling on the tab, the mechanism works perfectly! It has a nice definite feel to it, which I am sure is helped by the addition of the reinforcing piece on the back. To close it again, you just push the tab in an upward direction and the pages roll back into place. It’s very satisfying to play with!

I am pleased with the rich colour scheme of this page.