Completing the Flowers and Leaves for my Altering Project

WOYWW visitors – please scroll down to previous post.

I have now finished making the flowers for my mystery project, and I have also made some leaves.

I made a selection of single-piece flowers and layered some of them for a bit more interest.

I used Orange Peel and Turquoise Stickles for the centres of some of them, and for the rest, I added a nice big blob of hot glue and sprinkled this with orange Flowersoft equivalent – this stuff is called Soft Magic from Carole’s Crafts, in light orange – I’ve had the set of these for ages and can’t remember where I got them. I don’t use it very often and it does make rather nice flower centres. It’s one of those supplies that lives in a drawer and gets forgotten about!

Here are all the turquoise flowers I have made.

Moving on to the leaves, I cut them all with the left-hand die from this Die’sire Classiques set, “Assorted Leaves.” I don’t much like the second die and haven’t used it yet, but I bought these dies at a craft show early this year, for the first die which has proved very useful.

I cut all these leaves from scraps of American Crafts white cardstock so I didn’t have to break into another whole sheet. I then hand-embossed them all with two sizes of embossing tools into a piece of fun foam.

Colouring two sets of leaves, one to go with the turquoise/terracotta flowers and the other with the brown flowers.

For the terracotta ones I coloured them with Rusty Hinge Distress Stain, painting on the ink in a random, blotchy way, and then repeated the process with Gathered Twigs Distress Stain, and finally distressed the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink, using a home-made ink blender.

For the brown ones, I used the same method, first with Pumice Stone Distress Stain, followed by Gathered Twigs, and finally with Antiqued Bronze Distress Stain for a subtle shimmer, and again, distressed the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

Here are the brown leaves, together with a selection of brown flowers.

These are the terracotta leaves, together with a selection of turquoise flowers.

I am now ready to continue with the rest of the project – I have already made good progress – and I will be able to show the finished results in a couple of weeks’ time.

I have made far too many leaves and flowers for my immediate use, but will use up the excess for other projects – most probably when I alter the little frames that my hubby gave me recently.

Chutney Labels and a Great Meal Out

Today our friend took us out to lunch at the Cott Inn, Dartington. This is an old-fashioned Devon pub in a beautiful country setting, which offers first-class chef cooked meals. We were not disappointed!

Today was the day I was working towards, to complete the boxes for the Floral Mini-Albums I made earlier this year. Our friend’s copy of the album has now left its biscuit box home forever and is now proudly ensconced in its new box! She is delighted with it and I am so happy with her response.

I decided to give her another little gift – a pot of my home-made apple chutney from the Bramleys off our tree in the garden. It’s the first time I’ve made apple chutney and now it’s had time to mature, it’s turned out superb, though I say so myself!

Rather than just giving her a plain jar, I decided to make some labels for it and pretty it up a bit, going for a rustic look.

I used dies from two different sets to cut the two labels.

The larger tie-on label was cut from recycled book packaging from Amazon, and the smaller stick-on one was cut from 100 gsm copy paper. Both were distressed with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I drew a little apple on each label and coloured it with coloured pencils. I cut two circles of cream polycotton fabric from my stash for the lid, and tied on the larger label with jute string.

The outside of the lovely pub where we met for lunch.

Inside:

The food was quite delicious and beautifully served. My dish was described thus: “Free range Devon chicken breast, goats’ cheese, spinach and watercress mousse, prosciutto, crushed potato, spinach, red onion marmalade, bruised baby gem, chorizo cream sauce.” Wow!

This is my hubby’s beef and stilton pie. I love the way the mashed potato is served!

Our friend chose a fish dish.

I love the way the chef has chosen different plates to suit the varied dishes, and in particular I like the way the lines cut in the crispy fish skin are echoed by the lines on the rim of the dish, the metallic glaze of the dish also reflecting the silvery effect of the fish skin. Very artistic!

Our desserts.

The others had a scoop each of locally-made ice cream and I chose the lemon tarte which was accompanied by lemon sorbet in the shape of a lemon! Again, the perfect dish to set off this dessert.

I should have photographed my spiced carrot and sweet potato soup, too. The two pieces of ciabatta were cut diagonally and set on their ends in the most attractive way.

All very creative and extremely chefy! We will definitely be returning here.

It was raining when we arrived, but as we left, the sun was shining. What a lovely day we had.

Box for Floral Mini-Album–Completing the Project

I am happy to say that so far at least, the metal corners have remained in place on the boxes, after my second attempt at sticking them on, this time with Pinflair gel glue in place of the failed hot glue. Today it still felt slightly tacky, and I am sure that it will soon be dry and holding the metal embellishments firmly in place.

Today I began embellishing the boxes, in a similar style to the albums that they will contain.

I got my dies out and cut more of the Moroccan tile trellis one in gold mirror card. Before cutting them, I covered the back of the card pieces with double-sided tape, which I tend to do for complex or small dies because it makes applying them to the project so much easier.

I love this die. It’s not just really pretty, and a brilliant foundation for applying flowers and linking them together, but you can cut it up and use just bits of it, or join it up in a different arrangement if you want.

I then die-cut quite a few leaves from a selection of dies – I’ve got quite a few flowers left over from the album project but unfortunately I’d used up all the leaves.

I cut them from scraps of cardstock in different shades of green. I didn’t have to cut into any whole sheets. Even quite small scraps are adequate for this so it pays never to throw anything away!

After this I gave them a bit of variation with three shades of Distress Stains.

Most of them I left flat, but the simple leaf shapes I hand-embossed into a piece of fun foam with a ball embossing tool.

Hot glue comes into its own for sticking down paper flowers and hand-embossed leaves. The centres of the flowers were embellished with Stickles. I love the effect these colourful glitter glues give, adding a subtle touch of bling. (Unfortunately I took the next photo before I’d remembered to do this!)

The completed boxes.

The side of the box.

Detail of the embellishment on the top of the box.

Detail of the front of the box.

Detail of the side of the box.

The box with the album inside.

That just about wraps up this project. I am so pleased to have finished it in good time for Thursday when one of them will go to its new home.

Floral Mini-Album Pt 14 Working on the Small Tags for Pages 1 and 4

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.

This session is about the work I’ve done on the tags to go in the pockets on pages 1 and 4.

Beginning with page 1, I cut the large and small frame from the new frames die I got at the recent craft show (see what a bargain I got!!), from a piece of scrap gold card, and stuck these down with Crafter’s Companion Stick and Stay spray adhesive. There will be photos or embellishments stuck in these frames eventually.

Note added later: Crafter’s Companion Stick and Spray adhesive isn’t very good – I find things lifting after a short while, and I’ve found that applying Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive or any other good wet glue with a precision applicator is the best way to attach delicate die-cuts.

I then turned to the tag I’d started making, which goes in the triangular pocket on the bottom left of page 1. In this photo you can see the original paper and the inking I did with Barn Door Distress Ink, stage 1 of triple distressing around the edge – a nice generous layer applied with a blending tool.

Stage 2 in the triple distressing was with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

Stage 3 was with Black Soot Distress Ink, just on the very edge.

The pieces matted onto the back of the tags. You can see my double-sided taping equipment – following a brilliant technique I saw on Youtube, if you put a credit card flat on the piece, lined up with where you want to cut the tape once it’s stuck down, you can tear the tape against the card and it cuts it really cleanly. By doing this, you don’t have to put the roll of tape down and pick up the scissors and faff about cutting the tape. I peel back one end of each bit of tape just a little and fold it outwards, and peel the backing off once the piece is lined up correctly – this gives you a bit of wriggle room.The glue stick is really useful for this, too – for the centre of the piece, if you want to add a bit of DS tape or ATG adhesive – once it’s down, you can’t remove the backing, but if you remove it, and then run the glue stick over the tape, this also gives you some wriggle room and as one person said on Youtube, this actually makes the DS tape stronger once it’s dry. This technique is also very useful when the piece of DS tape is too short to use the first method – just pull off the entire backing strip and run the glue stick over the whole length of tape.

Here are the two tags, the left one showing the front side, and the right one showing the back, one for each copy of the album.

Here they are, inserted into the triangular pockets on page 1.

I’m actually quite happy with the background I did on page 1 now, especially with the addition of the frame and the tag.

Moving on to page 4, I made myself a little bracket shaped template in order to make the tags to go in the pocket on that page. The rather dull grey-ish paper from the paper stack was improved somewhat with some double distressing, first with Dusty Concord and then with Black Soot Distress Inks.

Here is the tag in place in the pocket. I like the shape of this, because it echoes the brackets you get on the beginning of each stave of music.

Here is page 4 lined up with page 5, to show how the double-page spread will look.

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.