An Altering Project

There are a few things I need to make over the next few weeks, so it’s studio time again. I can’t reveal too much detail yet, but later I will be able to tell you more. In the meantime, I can safely share the early stages without giving away too much.

Recently my hubby bought four small frames and then realised they didn’t have any glass, which he didn’t like, so he gave them to me, and I thought they would be lovely to alter.

I took them apart and pulled off all the embellishments for use elsewhere. Each frame had a tiny clothes peg with a message attached, and the whole thing tied onto the frame with some gorgeous jute string which is definitely going in my stash! The shiny card can also be used for something else. Not much gets thrown out chez Shosh.

The next step, when I get time, will be to paint the frames with gesso in readiness for altering.

I am awaiting the arrival of some supplies for this project from Ebay, and can’t make real progress till they arrive. I also have several wallpaper sample sheets,  and I have decided to use one or more in the project.

The patterns are quite large, but there are some lovely bits I can cut out, and some nice texture for backgrounds, and the colours are gorgeous. I decided to make lots of paper flowers, mostly roses, and to try and match up the colour to co-ordinate with the wallpapers.

I spent a long time cutting several 12 x 12 sheets of flower pieces on Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine, using American Crafts Cardstock in white, which cuts beautifully with Sheba, and although less strong than watercolour paper, is strong enough not to disintegrate when wet, and thinner too, which is ideal for the flowers that I make. Here they are, all laid out ready for colouring. The pieces in the bowls are individual flowers, and the others on the desk, stacked up in piles, are the pieces necessary to make individual roses in two sizes and styles. All these flower patterns are svg files from Penny Duncan, and I use them regularly – easy to resize as necessary in Inkscape, and then cut out.

For this flower factory, I began with the roses. I selected a variety of different colours from my collection of Distress Stains. The idea was to produce a nice subtle mix of colours to co-ordinate with the wallpapers, and I knew it would take several layers.

I began with Worn Lipstick, smearing some on my non-stick craft sheet and spritzing it with a bit of water, and roughly painting both sides of the required number of flower pieces to make some roses.

The next colour I chose was Victorian Velvet.

After this was Seedless Preserves.

You can see how the colour is darkening, and with subtle variations. It was all looking a bit pink, so the next colour I chose was Weathered Wood, which is a lovely slate-blue colour verging on grey, which I thought would make them more purple and dull the colour down a bit.

It needed more of a brown look, so I chose Pumice Stone, which is a very useful colour in the Distress range – added to any colour, it has the effect of dulling it down.

It still needed to be duller, and more grey, so the final colour I chose was Hickory Smoke. I do not have this colour in my Distress Stains collection, so I smeared the Distress Ink pad on my craft sheet, spritzed it with water, and used that instead.

This was the effect I was looking for. At each stage, I dried the flower pieces with my heat gun, before proceeding to the next colour. When the pieces are wet, they are very fragile, especially the ones with the slit. The final step was to distress the edges with Hickory Smoke Distress Ink, using a home-made ink blender.

Once they were fully dry after the final colour, I hand-embossed each petal, some cups and some domes after deciding which side of the piece should be on top, according to their eventual position in the rose.

The first of the small dark roses completed. Each layer is stuck with hot glue.

Time to move on to the larger, shabby roses – what Penny Duncan calls her “Grungey Rose” pattern. These have more interesting tips to their petals, and the roses are more open and natural looking. Each flower requires the same number of pieces, and the method of construction is the same. Here are the pieces in the middle of being coloured, using the same succession of colours that I used before.

The pieces after embossing.

Here are the three dark-coloured shabby roses that I made.

Having documented the colours I used and how I coloured the pieces, I can refer back to this post and repeat the process, should I need some more.

Both sizes of rose together.

I really like this subtle, dark and dusky purple – actually not purple but a mixture of colours to give interest and depth. Laid on top of a couple of the the wallpaper samples, they are a pretty good match, I think.

I shan’t know how many of these roses I shall need until my supplies arrive from Ebay, but that shouldn’t take more than a few days.  At least I’ve been able to get ahead a bit. Watch this space!

Card and Present for a Centenarian

On Saturday we are going to a party to celebrate a friend’s 100th birthday. She is a truly remarkable lady and you’d never guess she was this old! She gets out and about and joins in everything, and is a real character. I really wanted to make her something special for her birthday but didn’t have much time to do it, so this week I’ve pulled out all the stops and really cracked on, and at last I’ve finished, bar a few finishing touches.

The Card

In February I went to the Craft4Crafters craft show in Exeter, and bought some lovely dies by Die’sire (Crafters’ Companion) – these are supposed to be to create easel cards but I thought this lady might not know how to work them, so I decided on doing a straightforward card for her, using most of the elements. I chose the gorgeous butterfly card set.

Here is the topper in the early stages. I forgot to photograph every stage, but I chose some paper and card from a wonderful collection that a friend gave me for my birthday – she was so delighted that I was already starting to use them. The base layer is a dull gold card with bright gold text, “Congratulations” all over it. I chose a piece of green and white floral card for the next mat layer, and on top of this, a decorative paper with pink roses on a green and white background. These two mat layers were cut with the two frame dies from the set, and I distressed the edges of the top layer with distress inks and a bit of water spattering.

Here’s a more detailed shot. Originally I was going to use one or both of the wide ribbons in the previous photo but on further consideration, thought they were a bit too wide, so I chose a narrow pink organza ribbon, and a slightly narrower green satin one with a picot edge instead. I also selected a few flowers left over from the Floral Mini-Album project, which would tone in nicely with this card.

I selected some sentiment pieces from my stash, which I had cut some time ago on Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine. I coloured the text pieces with Worn Lipstick Distress Stain, and the shadow pieces I first coloured with Dried Marigold Distress Stain to give a nice rich base colour, and then added Treasure Gold gilding wax.

I layered the pieces, sticking them together with spray adhesive. Behind, you can see my home made spraying booth.

Turning to the inside of the card, I coloured it very lightly, using Inkylicious Ink Dusters and Distress Inks, first working in from the edge with Evergreen Bough, and then covering the whole of the middle with Antique Linen. After this, I stamped a selection of butterflies with Versamark and heat-embossed them with clear embossing powder. I then continued to colour the paper, first with Old Paper Distress Ink, and then a little Spun Sugar, concentrating on the areas where the embossed butterflies were. I rubbed these with very slightly damp kitchen paper to remove any ink from the embossing, and added some water spatters which I allowed to sit for a minute or two before blotting them off. The final touch was to add a bit more distressing around the edges, this time with Bundled Sage Distress Ink and a home-made ink blender.

The result is quite subtle, I think, and the embossed butterflies echo the theme of the card.

Here is a mock-up of the front of the card with all the elements laid in place.

The two little leaves were from my stash. Every now and then I cut a whole sheet of different elements on Sheba, from white card, and store them away, ready for when I need them, and I can colour them individually according to the project. This time I used Bundled Sage Distress Stain.

To add a bit of interest, I daubed a little Forest Moss Distress Stain onto my craft sheet and with a very fine wet brush, added a deeper colour to pick out the veins of the leaves. I spritzed them lightly with water and blotted them to soften the effect a little, and then dried the leaves with my heat gun. They were stuck down with Scotch Quick Dry adhesive.

Here is the finished card with the final elements added. I left it out overnight to allow the glue etc. to dry.

Before attaching the topper to the base, I attached the two layers of ribbon, fixing them on the back of the gold “Congratulations” card with double sided tape, and attaching a small piece of each, folded over to form two tails, with glue dots. The top of this was covered with the paper flowers, which were attached with hot glue. The leaves were stuck down with Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive.

The butterflies in the die set all have the ability to have their wings folded upwards, and whenever I do this, I always add a blob of Pinflair glue gel under each wing to keep them up and stop them getting flattened. This glue dries crystal clear and you really don’t see it. It also doesn’t lose any dimension as it dries, making it ideal for uses such as this. It is a very three-dimensional glue.

I added a few dots of Holly Stickles down the bodies of the butterflies, and in the centre of the smaller pink flower. Both the Pinflair and the Stickles glitter glue need time to dry before they can be handled. Unfortunately the Stickles dry a lot flatter than they appear when first applied, which I think is a shame because I love the 3-D effect you get with them when they are wet.

I stuck down the sentiment on the front of the card and inside, using Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive.

Now all that remains is to cover a box that I’ve got, which will serve as an envelope – the whole thing is rather thick, with the roses and the raised butterflies’ wings.

The Present

A small cross-stitch plaque with the word “Shalom” in Hebrew and English letters. The tall stroke of the Hebrew letter “lamed” extends to become the English “L”. I worked this cross-stitch with two strands of stranded cotton on 22-count Aida fabric, working in the small clip-frame which has a hanger on the top.

Beside it you can see the original one which I made for myself.

When this photo had been taken, I had completed the cross stitch but had not yet done the outlining back stitch in black, using a single strand of stranded cotton. This really helps the design stand out against the background, as you will see if you compare the two plaques.

I created the original design on a programme called EasyCross, several years ago. Unfortunately this software does not work fully with Windows 10. I was able to print out the design (top right in the above photo) but the colours weren’t right, and it was covered with very distracting diagonal dotted lines. I ended up colouring the background with coloured pencils to show me where to change. Before I did this, I found I was making numerous mistakes, and the bottom half of the design had to be fudged a bit but it’s worked out OK. The graduations between the rainbow colours were achieved by mixing threads on the needle – one strand of each colour. In the original, I worked alternate stitches of each colour for the transition, and I can’t decide which I prefer.

I have bought a new cross-stitch designing programme called WinStitch (there is also an Apple version called MacStitch). Unfortunately the old EasyCross files won’t open in this programme but at least I can print out my original designs and copy them into the new programme. This will take a long time but it will be nice to have them available again. I haven’t done any of this for such a long time and now feel I want to take it up again, and I was very pleased to find that an alternative programme exists to replace the now defunct EasyCross. A shame this programme has been discontinued because it was very good indeed.

Here is the completed plaque.

This is the reverse.

To finish off the back, I trimmed back the edges of the embroidery fabric and glued it to the inner ring of the frame with tacky glue, leaving it to dry for a while, held in place by a series of plastic clamps that I’ve got.

I stuck some cream polycotton fabric onto a piece of self-adhesive pelmet Vylene and used the inner ring of the frame as a template to make a paper pattern to cut it out. Unfortunately I had to cut this by hand and it’s a bit shaky round the edges! I think what I need to do is to scan the inner ring, and use this image to create a template in Inkscape, which I can cut on the cutting machine, which would give a much neater result.

To neaten it a bit, I ran some tacky glue around the junction between the two frames and stuck on some gold Lurex crochet thread, finishing it off with a small bow that I made on my bow maker. This was stuck down with a tiny blob of Pinflair gel adhesive, and again, this was left to dry overnight. I have also signed the back and dated it.

I am busy tomorrow morning, but I have every hope that I shall finish off this whole project in the afternoon, and get it wrapped ready for the birthday party the following day.

Wood Effect Anniversary Card

Today is our 32nd wedding anniversary. Where did the years go?

Having been so ill recently, I only managed to give my hubby a bought card for his birthday, and that was bought for me by a friend! I thought I’d better push the boat out a bit and make an effort and make a nice card for him for our anniversary.

At the County Show last Friday I was fascinated by a little wooden tag attached to the most expensive chopping board (if it hadn’t been for the price I’d have bought it because I fell in love with it!) – the little tag was made of laser cut veneer, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I could make something similar in card, and this would be the basis for my hubby’s card.

I began in Inkscape, working on my Apple Mac which is connected to the Cougar cutting machine (called Sheba). I found a free svg file online of nesting hearts, and I cut a dozen heart-shaped frames using two of the nesting sizes – unfortunately I forgot to photograph these till it was too late, but this is the paper left after they had been cut out. I ended up with a dozen smaller hearts (the bits that fell out of the frames) and most of these will go in my stash for other projects. In this photo you can also see the A4 piece with a window cut out for the front of the card.

I seem to end up using American Cardstock card for most of my cutting projects because it cuts like a dream. However, it’s not quite robust enough for a card base with lots of embellishments so this would have to be reinforced later on.

Again, I kept forgetting to photograph my progress. For the front and back of the tag I cut two hearts the same size as the outside of the frame, and these pieces also had our initials cut in them, as well as some little geometric flower petals like on the tag at the show. Propped up against the paint pot, you can see the completed frame, and the thickness I was able to achieve by laminating several layers of card together. When the edges were painted they looked like a bit of plywood! See below for the painting technique to replicate woodgrain.

The initials on the right were the pieces that fell out when I cut them from the hearts, and would be used to embellish the inside of the card.

I had intended to leave the initials in the hearts hollow as well as the petals, but you could see through and the one on the reverse was confusing, so to overcome this problem I stuck a small square of gold card on the back of each piece, so that the initials were gold, and opaque.

I glued the frame pieces stacked together to give a laminated and more rigid frame for the embellishment. In this picture you can see the linen carpet thread I used to suspend the embellishment, and the two heart pieces (front and back) ready to be attached to the frame.

Here is the first piece attached to the frame, with it’s little square of gold card glued on, to make the initial solid, and the hanging thread.

Here is the finished tag, with the side with my hubby’s initial on the left, and mine on the right.

I am so pleased with this little heart embellishment – it reminds me of some olive wood Christmas tree decorations I’ve got. I think one could take this idea further and make them in different shapes. They have a Scandinavian or Eastern European feel to them. I’ve wanted to make something like this for ages and thought of using mounting board but this is too thick to cut with Sheba, and you couldn’t cut them by hand. The laminated frame idea works well, or one could just laminate solid shapes. You could still have a design pierced through. They might make nice little Christmas gifts, or perhaps wedding favours.

Moving on to the card base, I painted the whole of the front with beige fluid acrylic, and then with Desert Sands Infusions, taking care to paint broad vertical strips to represent the wood grain, as I did on the heart pieces.

Turning to the inside, I created another type of woodgrain background, this time with Distress Stains, to make a lighter background as a contrast. Normally I don’t much like the unevenness you get with these (the dauber bottle isn’t my favourite form of delivery) but for woodgrain the effect is ideal. I used a combination of Antique Linen and Old Paper. This is the technique I used for one of the pages in my Floral Mini Album.

Here is the main card base, and the piece I cut and coloured with Distress Stains to be stuck on the back of the card front. The hanging string would be sandwiched between these two layers. You can also see the two thin circles I cut from gold card, to frame the hole, both front and back, to give a nice finish to the card.

Here are all the materials I used to create the embellishments inside the card. I used a couple of the hearts cut from the middles of the frame pieces, and coloured them to look like wood, as for the front of the card, but this time, to add a bit of bling, I also added a light touch of Treasure Gold (gilding wax). For the sentiments I simply used some peel-offs that I’ve had in my stash for years. They were very small, but I like the effect of the gold on the woodgrain, and I didn’t want anything competing with the rest of the design.

The edges of the hearts were distressed, and they were glued together and stuck down, and some shading added. The initials were what was cut out of the front and back of the embellishment. I daubed them with Antique Linen and Old Paper Distress stains, and they also had a light dusting of Treasure Gold.

I cut a piece of plain white card and stuck it to the back of the card base for extra rigidity. Even though it was just the back, I distressed the edges with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink to take away the starkness of the white card.

Here is the finished card lying flat.

Here it is standing, so that you can see how the embellishment turns and moves as it hangs freely in the aperture of the card.

The completed inside of the card. You can see the embellishment through the aperture of the card.

I think this faux wood effect has come out very well. When I  have used Infusions in this way before (see this post for an example), I used Desert Sands Infusions straight onto white card, and it came out very orange – not a problem if you want it that way, but I wanted a more subtle approach here, so I used the Infusions on a painted substrate. You could make faux woodgrain in this way with any colour you wanted really.

Another reason I like this effect is that it is very suitable for a card for a man. It is strong and more sombre but it also has a natural effect. I used a similar theme on my hubby’s anniversary card in 2016, but this time with a woodgrain effect created with an embossing folder.

I seem to be in a bit of a brown phase again at the moment, after the bright colours of the Floral Mini-Album! I can’t wait to try replicating the effect of the absolutely fabulous wooden moths I saw at the County Show…

WOYWW 468

Yaaayyy! I’m back!

Sorry to be absent for so long but those who follow my blog will know that I have recently been seriously ill. However, I am now well on the road to recovery, and celebrating lots of milestones along the way – finishing my antibiotics, getting my own breakfast, starting to prepare simple meals, and generally getting back into the swing of things again. Thank you to everyone who sent good wishes for my recovery.

A major milestone was yesterday – first session back in the studio! It was driven as much by necessity as desire, because tomorrow is our 32nd wedding anniversary, and having failed my hubby miserably by resorting to a bought birthday card for him recently (shock horror) and what’s more, one that was bought for me by a kind friend, I really felt I must make the effort to make him a decent card for this occasion.

Here is my desk today.

A little explanation is necessary. Last Friday (another milestone) I made it to the County Show, which you can read about here. This was something I’d really been aiming for and it helped my recovery to have a deadline to work towards – I was darned if I was going to miss the best day out of the year because I was poorly again. Anyway, amongst the exhibits was a stand with beautiful hardwood kitchen boards (I was sorely tempted to buy one but resisted because I didn’t really need one, and not at that price) and attached to the most expensive and beautiful one was a little die-cut wooden tag that really took my fancy.

I immediately thought that I could replicate something similar with card.

I cut the pieces with my Cougar electronic cutting machine and stuck a small square of gold card behind each initial. To make the thickness of the ornament, I cut about a dozen heart-shaped frame pieces and laminated them, and threaded a string through the top before sticking the front and back pieces on, completing the piece. I will be doing a blog post about this project once it’s complete.

On my main desk photo above, you can see various cut pieces of card, and the card base being made. To create the woodgrain effect, I painted the pieces with beige fluid acrylic, and once this was dry, painted the surface with Desert Sands Infusions, using a flat brush and broad vertical strokes.

The heart ornament will be suspended in the middle of the circular aperture, and will hang and turn freely when the card is standing up. I’ve got quite a bit more work to do today to complete it – it needs quite a bit of reinforcing, and I want to add a bit of gold embellishment to the front of the card as well. Watch this space.

I shall soon resume uploading the blog posts about the process of making the mini-album about my mum. Next projects in the pipeline are to make two identical boxes to keep the two copies of the album in – Mum’s friend eagerly awaits hers as her copy of the album currently resides in a biscuit tin! – and to complete the long-overdue Infusions Mini-Album which has had to take a back seat for far too long.

As well as it being our anniversary, tomorrow is also our kitties’ first birthday!

I cannot believe that they are now officially grown up, and I had a little pang when I bought their first pack of adult cat food this week, marking the end of their kittenhood. I feel like a mother sending her child off to school for the first time… A real sense of bereavement as they were such adorable babies and the kitten stage lasts for far too short a time. I am glad I’ve got all the videos of them, though. They are both so big now, and very heavy – I find it quite difficult to pick them up – that is, if naughty teenage Ruby will even let me near her which isn’t often these days – she’s turning into a real independent little Miss. We will soon be letting them outside for the first time, something which always makes me anxious with new kitties. Hopefully my hubby’s kitty defences around the garden will be 100% effective – 99% won’t do because kitties are designed to find that 1%, you can bet on that.

It is so good to be back, and just in time to celebrate WOYWW’s 9th anniversary. Sorry not to be taking part in the ATC swap, but I wish you all joy in your giving and receiving of each other’s miniature works of art.

Happy WOYWW!