Tattered Time Mini-Album Part 1–Planning

Yesterday evening I started a very exciting new project – my very first mini-album! This is something I have been planning for such a long time, and although I am in the middle of the Card Factory (which is actually more of a chore than a delight…) I really felt the time had come to make a start. I shall be slotting other things in between, so this will be an ongoing project, like my Fine Art Album and my art journal, and other things that I pick up as the mood takes me.

Let me backtrack to the beginning. It was in September 2011, over a year ago, at the Creative Stitches and Hobbycrafts Exhibition, that I saw, and fell in love with, the DCWV “Tattered Time” paper stack and just had to buy it. Ever since then, I have wanted to use it for something but was terrified of messing it up, and every now and then I would get it out and go through it, and stroke it, and put it back on the shelf again! I also did a bit of Youtube research to see what other people did with it, and so the germ of an idea began, to make a mini-album with it, but this has been very much on the back burner since then.

More recently, and particularly since my dad has been deteriorating, I have been thinking about his life, and all the things he did and loved, and looking at the Tattered Time papers again, realised that they expressed so much about him. He has always had a passion for clocks, and has collected and repaired them most of his life. He and I have always been very close, and have shared so much fun over his various interests, and I used to “help” him in the workshop when I was small, watching him work, holding things for him, and learning so much. We shared an interest in typewriters when I began my secretarial course – there are pages relating to this – and of course his major passion for music, which is also represented. These are just a few of the things which will be included in the album.

Since I bought the Tattered Time papers, I have also acquired the Tim Holtz “Lost and Found” and “Crowded Attic” stacks – I have used a few small elements from these, but for the most part, they are intact. There are some elements in these collections which will mix and match quite nicely with the Tattered Time papers.

As I have thought about this, the ideas have been coming in leaps and bounds. Just recently, going through lots of old family photos, I’ve come across so many of Dad in his young days etc. My plan is to make a paper bag album, and to add lots of photos and journaling, and also to make some “mechanical” interactive elements to reflect his love of engineering and all things mechanical.

It’s just my personal opinion, but I have never been a great lover of scrapbooking layouts which incorporate photos and papercrafting – somehow to me the elements don’t mix that well, and if one isn’t careful, it can end up looking rather bitty and messy – there are glorious exceptions, of course, but for the most part it leaves me cold. The Tattered Time papers are so glorious that I really don’t want to cover them up with photos, so my plan is to celebrate the papers, and showcase them to the best of my ability, and to hide the photos and journaling on tags and inserts etc., and make it an interactive experience to look at them.

Over the past few days I’ve been doing some intensive research on Youtube into how to construct these albums, and there are some superb tutorials – also on bindings and closures, and I have now more or less decided on what I want to do. Unfortunately most of these tutorials come from the USA, where they have access to a lot of stuff we just can’t get here in the UK – in particular the bags. I have managed to source some, but of course they are a different size, so I cannot follow the tutorials exactly, as regards measurements, and will have to improvise, but this will make the project that much more my own.

Last year, I made some bag skirts for Christmas gift bags. I ordered several sizes of these bags from Ebay, and the seller made a mistake and sent me far too many. When I contacted him about it, he said it would be more hassle if I sent them back, and told me to keep them, and I have often wondered what I was going to do with them. This evening I decided to use some of the medium sized ones to make this album.

These bags are fairly thick, so I hope they are going to work OK for the album. I had to remove the handles, which are made of twisted paper, and quite attractive, so I thought I would save them, maybe to use as embellishments in other projects.

(They are lying on my new scratch paper – not much on it yet so it looks a bit strange!)

I am not going to give a tutorial on how to make up these bags into an album, because it has already been done very adequately on Youtube. I have decided to follow Kathy Orta’s first-class multi-part Youtube tutorial which she made, using the Tim Holtz “Lost and Found” stack, as she makes full use of the bags and their gussets for an album full of pockets for tags. The first part shows how to deconstruct the bags for the album.

Here are my bags with the gussets prepared:

and showing how the gussets fold up to form pockets.

Most paper bags come with a serrated top edge. In this picture, I am trimming this off, so that the bag measures 11 1/4 in from the bottom, with the gusset folded up. This means the finished dimension of each page will be 11 1/4 in wide and 10 3/16 in high.

I have prepared six bags in this way, which should be sufficient to complete my album.

Watch this space to see how this project progresses. Depending on what else I have to do, and how I am feeling, it may not progress very fast! However, once I get going, there may be no stopping me…

Altered Boxes Part 1

For the upcoming church exhibition and sale in our village, I have decided to put in some altered boxes as well as my mirrors and flower paintings in the small Ikea frames (these are now finished but I haven’t photographed them yet). At the recent craft show I bought a number of boxes for altering, which I have primed with water-based white decorating primer. I’m making a start on some of the small boxes:

because they should be relatively quick to do. For the first one, I have taken some rather bright pink scrapbooking paper and painted a section of it with the new Tim Holtz Picket Fence Distress Stain that I bought at the craft show, to soften the colour slightly, and to give it a weathered, chalky look.

I cut a narrow strip to go around the box, and tried the lid, which wouldn’t fit over the box plus the paper, so I put the lid on the box and drew round the box, to show me the upper limit to which I could cover the box.

The strip for the box was cut about 1 1/4 inches deep, so that I could fold the excess underneath the bottom of the box. I cut another strip for the lid, this time 1 inch deep.

The colour of the paper wasn’t quite right for the roses I’ve got (left over from another project) so I lightly inked it with Scattered Straw Distress Ink, using an ink duster. This had an unexpected result – the Picket Fence Distress Stain acted as a slight resist, emphasising the streaky appearance, which is actually quite pleasing.

Then I stamped the two strips with a swirl stamp (from the Stamp Barn – I got this at the craft show) using Versamark, and heat embossed them with gold embossing powder.

To finish them off, I distressed the edges with some Victorian Velvet Distress Ink, using an ink duster.

The inside of the box and lid I painted with a couple of coats of black gesso, continuing down the outside of the box to the line I drew,  marking the position of the lid.

After this I dry-brushed a little gold acrylic paint over the black, using a small flat brush, and making small random brush strokes. The effect I wanted to achieve was the inside of Chinese lacquer boxes.

Here’s a detailed shot of the inside of the lid.

By snipping the excess paper diagonally, close to the base of the box and the top of the lid, I was able to fold the resulting tabs over and stick them down. They were anchored down firmly by the discs on the top and bottom of the box.

I used my Martha Stewart Circle Cutter to cut two circles from the pink scrapbook paper for the top and bottom of the box, and a circle from gold mirror card to mat and layer for the lid. Finally, I hot glued two pink roses and a couple of leaves onto the lid to embellish the box. Here is the final result.

I’ve done this one in an evening. Hopefully I’ll get plenty more done in the next week or so. I’ve got lots of ideas for different styles.

Creative Stitches and Hobbycrafts Exhibition, 2011

My lovely hubby took me over to Exeter yesterday for the annual Creative Stitches and Hobbycrafts Exhibition. This is a general craft show with lots of different crafts being featured, but still lots of opportunity to stock up on the mixed media and papercrafting supplies, and to watch demos etc. He left me there, and spent the day with his brother, and did some shopping of his own, which he was pleased with.

It was a very special day for me, because I met up with my friend Wendy for the first time! We’ve been following each other’s blogs and emailing each other, and being on forums together, for ages now, and when she told me she would be down here on holiday, we agreed to meet up at the show. What fun we had! We looked at a lot of things together, and then went our separate ways, bumping into each other every now and again. On one occasion she came up to me with an absolutely beautiful card she’d just made, when she attended one of the workshops. I hope she’s going to blog about that!

Here are some of the photos I took of the day. On one stand, someone was demonstrating the Spellbinders Grand Calibur machine, and I was amazed by the fine detail on some of the samples – flowers and swirls, some cut in vellum and layered. So pretty and delicate, and so intricate!

Glitter time!! I was sad that the Glitter Man wasn’t there this time – on my first visit to this show last year, he was there in his pirate’s cave with his treasure chests full of the biggest quantity of glitter that I’ve ever seen! The display this year was impressive, though.

It’s a real pity that photos don’t pick up the amazing glitteriness of glitter!

I found a wonderful stand with loads of Tim Holtz stuff on it, run by a delightful man who really knew his stuff – he didn’t just sell the stuff, but also used it. He had made a big display board showing all the colours of the Distress Stains. He’d taken a tag for each colour, and stamped one of Tim’s background text stamps on it, and coloured it with the respective Distress stain, and then mounted a dress form from Tim’s die, which was distressed with a matching Distress Ink. Finally, he’d added a row of small roses along the bottom of each dress form shape. It was a beautiful display which we were all admiring (wish I’d thought of photographing it), and he told us it had taken him 3 weeks to do, and 4 bottles of wine! He also told us he knew Tim quite well, and what a lovely man he is, very unassuming and humble, and it appeared that he really didn’t know what all the fuss was about – he just got on with doing what he is so good at! His success certainly hasn’t gone to his head. He recommended that if any of us ever got the chance to go on a course with him, we should. That was very nice to hear, I thought.

I’ve been thinking of getting some Distress Stains for a while, and was hoping to get a good deal at the show, which I did. If you bought 12, you got 3 free ones! I also chose two more that I wanted. I didn’t see any point in buying them all, because some of the colours are very similar, so I got a representative selection.

There was an Inkylicious stand at the show, and they were selling the Ink Dusters. I told the man on the stand that I’d done the first Youtube video on them, and he was very pleased – he said they’d been too busy to set up the website on them yet, but hopefully it would happen soon. He said he’d look on Youtube, and also on my blog, which was nice. I mentioned to several other customers how good they were, and how they’d revolutionised my ink blending.

Back with the eggcrafting ladies again, as at previous shows:

This time I caught them in the act – eating chocolate cake!! They were very happy to see me and remembered me from the past 2 shows. They know how I love to photograph the eggs, and publish their beautiful work around the world on my blog! They were happy to oblige, again, and showed me the salient points of some of the new creations on the table. There was a mixture of old and new designs – it’s such an intricate craft that they cannot hope to make a completely new display for every show.

I just love the little pink umbrella over the ducks by their pond! And here is one of several beautiful eggs.

This had to be the star of the display – the Royal Wedding Egg.

The lady on the right in the photo above made it, and she lifted it down for me so I could see and photograph it better. She had dressed all the figures herself, and made the carriage axles, and even made all the horses’ harnesses herself too. This piece was just stunning – out of this world. Here are some detailed shots.

I then went on to the sugarcrafting stand, and I must say they’d excelled themselves this year! The flowers were so realistic that I could hardly believe they were made of icing. The focal piece was a wedding cake decorated in rainbow colours, which amazingly had been done by a lady in her seventies. The intricacy of the work was incredible.

At the entrance to the show, there was a display of this wonderful wedding cake.

I wouldn’t even know how to begin to do such a thing!!

Today I unpacked my lovely box of goodies. Each time I go to a show, they allow me to put my box in the office, and when I buy things, I can leave them there, as it’s hard to carry a lot of stuff around. My box was only just big enough! I stocked up on various things like glue and plain white cardstock. You were given a polywallet to fill as full as you could, which cost a set amount. I bought 2 white packs of 300 gsm (about 60 sheets in each), really cheap.

Here’s a picture of most of what I bought – I haven’t put it all out.

L-R, back-front: a Martha Stewart Circle Cutter (more later), some feathers, some Claudine Helmuth sticky-backed canvas (haven’t tried that yet, but love the effects you can get with it), some gold and silver mirror board, some gold and silver foil (and a small roll of copper), a DCWV paper stack “Tattered Time” which is soooo gorgeous that I probably won’t be able to bring myself to use it!! and some more Glossy Accents. Front row: a few rubber stamps, replacement Cricut blades, some really gorgeous embellishments which I shall also be able to use to make moulds out of, lots of regular Pinflair, and Pinflair photo glue, some Spray and Sparkle which Wendy recommended, some of the Distress Stains, some glitter (fabby colours! – only I wished I’d waited before buying them, because the loose glitter was cheaper), some fine paintbrushes and a sepia pen, some embossing powders and some wire (and other beading bits and pieces not on the photos).

These are my new Tim Holtz Distress Stains. Today I made the labels for the lids so that I could easily identify them in the box I’ve chosen for them.

This is my new Martha Stewart Circle Cutter. I saw one of these online the other day and thought what a good idea they were. You can cut circles ranging from 1 in diameter to 5 1/2 in, in very small increments, which means you can also cut very thin rings. The central transparent disc fits in a groove in the white ring, and rotates in a ball race. You put the blade into the hole of your choice (they are all marked) and holding the ring, simply rotate the disc, and the blade cuts the paper underneath.

Last year, when I got my ARTHaven set up, I was thinking of buying one of those Making Memories rotating tool caddies, but they were too expensive, and so I decided to make my own. I was going to get a small lazy susan base, and mount some vertical cylinders onto it, to take my various sized tools, but I never got round to it, partly because I couldn’t find a suitable lazy susan base. Last month, at our village fete, I found a small fabric caddy, brand new, going for a song, so I bought it and have been using that.

This afternoon, when I had opened my Circle Cutter, I was wondering where I was going to store it, and I was idly turning the disc in my hands and noticing the ball race it was running in, and I got a brainwave. Here is my small lazy susan base! I popped my fabric caddy on top, and hey presto, killed two birds with one stone – got a rotating caddy, and also found a convenient place to store the Circle Cutter!!! That sort of thing gives me a very good feeling!

Finally, here are the papier mache boxes I bought for altering. The first one is rectangular, and came filled with 24 small round boxes, very cheap!

The other large box is square, and I also bought several smaller ones in different shapes – a round one, two ovals, and some heart-shaped ones. Lots of scope for altering!

Sorry this has been such a long post this time, but I think you’ll agree I’ve had a good time! I am so enjoying my new purchases, and finding homes for them in my ARTHaven. I need more storage space!!

Views from Shoshi’s Settee–This and That–and an Exciting Day Tomorrow!

Today is the 27th anniversary of my becoming a Christian. If you want to read my testimony, I blogged about it exactly a year ago today. I am so grateful to God for everything He has done for me in my life, and above all for sending His Son to die in my place, taking the punishment for my sin, and opening the gate of heaven for me for the future, and giving my life purpose and meaning for the present.

I’ve tried to have a rest today, because tomorrow will be a long day – my hubby is dropping me off at Westpoint, Exeter, for the Creative Stitches and Hobbycrafts show. I love craft shows and can’t wait! It’s going to be a very special day for me because my crafty friend Wendy from Wales is going to be there and it will be the first time we’ve ever met, because we’ve only been friends online.

I’ve bling-ed up my wheelchair in honour of the occasion! Since I got my new one, I haven’t decorated it at all, apart from putting some sparkly spoke guards on it – I did bling it up for Christmas in a simple way, but nothing since. I rummaged through the bags under the stairs and found most of my wheelchair bling (can’t find the newest flowers!) and I’ve redone it with my original flowers, with the black sparkly Christmas stuff underneath, and of course, MY LIGHTS!!! I also added some rust-coloured sunflowers that a friend gave me years ago, which I’ve never used before, and I thought they gave a nice autumnal feel to my new bling. I also put on some of my black and silver Christmassy bits, so when the time comes, all I’ll have to do is strip the flowers off and add a few more bits of Christmas bling, and some baubles on the back.

If you look closely, you can see the lights. They aren’t terribly bright, and they probably won’t show up much tomorrow as the lights will be so bright, but in the evening in subdued lighting they look gorgeous!

Last time I went to a craft show with flowers on my wheelchair, everyone loved it and it generated lots of smiles and happy comments! It helps break down barriers and stops people being embarrassed around disability (shame that still happens, but it does…).

Yesterday I went through the stuff in my ARTHaven to make a list of stuff I need (need, not want lol!) from the craft show. Last time I took a little note book with lists of stuff I’ve got in the back, for example what colours of alcohol inks, stickles, etc. that I’ve got, and in the front is a list of all the stuff I want to look out for, and as I go round, if I buy any new colours of anything, I write them down so as to avoid buying the same thing twice – in the hustle and bustle of the show, it’s not always easy to remember what you’ve bought from the different stands! I also take a box with me. The staff are very happy to let me put this in the office, and I can come out with my purchases and put them in the box, because it’s difficult for me to carry a lot of stuff.

While I was sorting out my list, I also sorted my rubber stamps. I have kept them all in empty CD cases up till now, but I have separated some of them out and put them back in their original packaging if I’ve kept it – this way I know what make they are. Now I am blogging about my projects, it’s important to say what the stamps are, in case anyone is interested in getting them. It makes them a bit less convenient to use, but I rather like the feel of them in their flat packs with the pictures of them underneath!

All I’ve done today is change the bed sheets and get the laundry on, wash my hair and have a nice long soak in the bubbles, and at the risk of having a bad night, I’m going to try and get to bed a bit earlier than 3.30 a.m. as I’ve got an early start tomorrow and I’m going to need a lot of energy to keep going all day!

Our middle nephew and his wife and daughter popped in for a cup of tea with us this afternoon – they are down in our area visiting. I haven’t seen their little girl since she was a baby and she’s now nearly 2! She is so pretty, and so full of energy, and didn’t sit still for a moment!

I probably won’t blog about the show tomorrow, because I’ll be too worn out, but watch this space, and hopefully I’ll have some good photos of the day to share with you.

Creative Stitches and Hobbycrafts Show - Continued - Fabulous Faberge

Because it made such an impression on me, and because I took more photographs here than anywhere else at the show, I thought I would devote a separate post to one particular stand.

This was the egg craft stand. I have always been fascinated by the work of Peter Carl Faberge and the exquisite eggs he produced for the Russian Royal Family, and all egg decorating has always delighted me. Years ago at the embroidery group I used to belong to, we had a visiting speaker from this group, and I bought one of her eggs. I was so delighted to find the stand at the show, and the two ladies there were very pleased that I wanted to photograph the eggs.

This is the display of beautiful eggs, some of which these two ladies had decorated.

Here are some pictures of individual eggs which particularly took my fancy, although I could have photographed every one, they were all so beautiful.

This is a Christmas sleigh, and it's hard to believe, at first glance, that it began as an egg!

Isn't it just exquisite? It even has some little gifts, and tiny bells.

This one is suspended from a swag of little flowers.

This pink fairy egg has a tiny light inside, which diffuses through the eggshell. It was beautiful, even under the bright lights of the show, but I could imagine how much more lovely it would be in more subdued lighting.

This charming egg was decorated with applique'd lace, and through its heart-shaped aperture, you can see that the interior is filled with fine fluffy pink filaments of feathers!

This next one was the most fascinating of all. So much of the egg has been cut away that it's hard to realise that it is made from an egg! The remaining section is such an interesting shape, and as you move, the shape flows and changes against the spaces between. It has given me an idea for a paper sculpture based on a moebius strip, which, if suspended freely, would turn in the air and produce equally interesting shapes... In the centre of this egg is a tiny quail's egg, topped with a jewel.

Finally, there were a couple of eggs which were replicas of Faberge eggs produced for the Russian Royal Family. This first one is one of my favourites of all the Imperial Easter Eggs: the Imperial Rose Trellis Egg.

It is shown here opened to reveal the interior. The lady who made it described how she made the little pillows for these eggs; she cut a baby sponge in half, and hollowed out the top, and then covered it with satin or velvet before embellishing the edge with braid. What a beautiful way to display such amazing, miniature works of art!

The final one I photographed was another Faberge replica: the Red Cross Triptych Egg, made in 1915 to commemorate the older two royal princesses becoming Red Cross Nurses during World War I. Here it is closed:

When it is opened, it reveals a tiny triptych, with the Crucifixion of Christ in the centre, flanked by icons of two saints, St. Olga and St. Tatyana, namesakes of the two princesses.

Aren't these just the most amazing works of art? I am lost in admiration not just for Peter Carl Faberge and the fabulous treasures he created, which bring to mind one of the most tragic families in history, and symbolise a lifestyle of great opulence in stark contrast with their impoverished subjects, which was about to be lost forever... but also for the creativity and craftsmanship of modern-day artists, who continue to delight us with the beauty of their work.