WOYWW 117

Thanks again to Julia for organising another blog hop around our messy desks midweek (some more messy than others, I have to say!) – link on my sidebar for anyone who doesn’t know what this is all about and who’d like to join in the fun.

Not much of interest on my table this week, I’m afraid. We had our village fete on Bank Holiday Monday and I bought a few bits and pieces for my ARTHaven (I may post about those another time as there’s some fun stuff!) and included was the little fabric caddy thing on my table that I’ve started putting my tools in. It’s a lot better, and a lot prettier, than my old jam jar!

The rest of the stuff on the table is as a result of my having a clear-out today. Now I’ve finished my painted ATC cards I want to start some new projects, and I’ve got a parcel of goodies arriving in the next day or two and will have to find homes for some new things, so today I started to tidy up a bit. Why is it that when one starts tidying, it always goes through a phase of being even more UNtidy?

I labelled quite a few boxes today and sorted things into them – I get my face creams mail order and they come in 2 sizes of small, strong cardboard boxes with a hinged lid, a bit like the open one on the table but deeper, and they are ideal for putting bits and pieces in. They are dark blue so can’t be easily written on, so I’ve temporarily stuck white labels on them and written on them, but eventually I am hoping to paint them and make them look more pretty.

I also sorted out my hand-made paper flowers and leaves and put them into the little jars on my pegboard over the table. You can’t see those in the photo unfortunately. I spent ages winding up all my florist’s ribbon so that it would take up less room and all go in one of my small boxes with the flower-making tools, and while I was winding and getting sore thumbs doing it, I thought of all those nurses in the hospitals in World War I (my grandmother was one of them) who spent so many hours rolling bandages. I wonder they didn’t get RSIs doing that!

So – nothing terribly productive this week apart from my nappy liner experiments which you can read about in a previous post.

Before I go, could I please ask you all to read my post of today, entitled “Help for Crafty Karen”? I’d be most grateful!

Happy WOYWW everybody!

My Mum’s 90th Birthday Present

I have been soooo busy recently that I’ve had very little time even to look at my blog, let alone post anything. I have a number of fairly tight deadlines to meet, with everyone seeming to have special birthdays, anniversaries etc. during the first half of this year.

Having pulled out all the stops for my mum’s card, I suddenly realised I hadn’t really thought about a special present for her – she said she didn’t want a fuss made about this birthday but I didn’t feel I could let it go without making a special effort, because even if she doesn’t think 90 is special, I think it’s a great achievement to reach such a great age, and in such good health as she enjoys, and I wanted to make it special to let her know how much we appreciate all she is to us.

We’ve got her a lovely rose bush called “Blessings” which she will enjoy in their garden, and also some Thornton’s chocolates and fudge which she is very fond of. I thought it might be fun to make a box to put the little bag of choccies in, and decided to make a cylindrical box out of acetate, and print a design of sweet peas on it, which led me to the idea of hand-painting a silk scarf for her, with the same sweet pea design, and wrapping this round the choccies in the box instead of using tissue paper.

This is the sweet pea design I created in Serif DrawPlus.

This was a real rush job because I only thought of it at the last moment, and had to order the silk scarves. I already had silk painting supplies, and set to work, beginning with the gold gutta outliner, but it was too old and had gone lumpy, with the result that it kept clogging the nozzle of the bottle, and then squirting out uncontrollably, causing endless frustration and a ruined scarf, and many wasted hours. My dear hubby made a special trip into town to pick up some more for me, this time in a tube which was actually much easier to use.

The next day I was able to start the actual painting. Not only did I struggle with drawing the outlines nicely – my hand is not as steady as it might be – but when I came to paint, I must have left gaps, or been clumsy with my brush, because in several places the paint has bled onto the silk outside the outlines – any proficient silk painter would turn their nose up at my paltry efforts (it’s been many years since I did any) and it certainly wouldn’t win any prizes, but knowing my mum, she will be thrilled with it anyway! I made her one with daffodils on it years ago, and she still loves it and wears it a lot – she is my most uncritical fan!!

Anyway, I’ve had to accept it as it is because I haven’t got time to do it again, and no guarantee that I’d do it any better the next time… Here’s the result.

What I did was to take my original design, adapt it and scale it up on the computer to 36 inches wide, and then desaturate it and use various filters to emphasise the outlines and simplify the shading, so that I could print it out and use it as a pattern for my painting. Obviously I had to print it on quite a few sheets of paper, and I made the template for half the scarf, turning the frame around over the design when the time came to paint the second half. Here is the half-design.

As for the box, I created the border design and templates for the lid and base in Serif DrawPlus, converted them to svg files and cut them with Jiminy Cricut. I printed the sweet pea design on inkjet acetate which has a slightly rough coating on it to absorb the ink. When making the box I put this surface on the inside, and lined it with a plain sheet of acetate to protect the surface.

I inked the base and lid, and the border pieces randomly with Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Spun Sugar, Milled Lavender, Pine Needles, Broken China and Dried Marigold, to match the pastel shades of the sweet peas. I had a terrible job gluing the whole thing together as nothing seemed to stick to the acetate, and in the end I used Pinflair glue, running a thin line down the length where the vertical “seam” in the acetate had to be, and squirted a good amount around the inside of the base and lid, and simply jammed the tube of acetate into it and left it to dry overnight, which seemed to do the trick – I gave up trying to glue the inside surface of the pierced border design. The lid was lined with a strip of acetate to make putting it on and off the box easier – without it, the edge of the border kept catching on the box, which would have made it difficult to use.

When I’d finished the box, I thought the top looked rather flat, so I designed a cut file for a 3-D sweet pea to be cut from card and inked. This is the first “Penny Duncan-style” flower I have ever done and it was fun to do. I made up several mock-ups in plain white card so that I could tweak the design until I was satisfied with it. (Unfortunately this photo doesn’t show it in as much detail as I’d like, but you can get an idea.)

The cut file includes an open flower, a bud, some leaves and a calyx each for the flower and bud. These parts are cut out on the Cricut and assembled using the hot glue gun and wire wrapped with florist’s tape. In due course, once my mad rush is over, I intend doing a video tutorial on this, and will soon be uploading the cut file to my SkyDrive album for free download – just give me a chance to complete my ridiculously long to-do list first!!

Here is the completed box, with the scarf inside.

This is a detail of the lid:

It’s her birthday tomorrow, and I can’t believe I’ve actually finished all this – I did the final bit of silk painting last night, and heat-fixed the dye with the iron, and today I’ve wrapped everything up. To decorate the parcels, I’ve made some little bunches of flowers made from florist’s ribbon, following the instructions I learnt at the last couple of craft shows – last time I bought the starter kit including a DVD of instructions.

I’m not terribly good at it yet, but I’ve no doubt I will improve with practice! These are little white daisies with yellow centres.

These are tiny purple roses:

and finally some grape hyacinths:

Here are all the flower bunches together, including another blue one which I did to put on a friend’s present.

Here is a picture of all the things I’ve made for my mum for her 90th birthday, and her Mothering Sunday card.

Finally, all is packed up and ready to go! I’m so looking forward to seeing her on her birthday tomorrow (actually it’s today now! It’s gone 3 a.m.!)

We will have a cup of tea with them and spend a bit of time with them tomorrow afternoon, and then celebrate her birthday jointly with Mothering Sunday when we take them out for lunch on Sunday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!

Soon I shall be posting about my next project which I’ve started – Wonderwoman’s 50th birthday present – I’ve had great fun doing a bit of crackle glazing on a small wooden mirror. I’ve got until 6th April to complete it! Watch this space.

Another Valentine Card

We had lunch out with our friends David and Gisele today, and afterwards we came back to our house, and I showed her my ARTHaven and the card I’d made for my hubby for Valentine’s Day. She told me she had had a horrendous work week and hadn’t even had time to think about Valentine’s, let alone get a card or present, and she asked me if I could “knock something up.” This isn’t the normal way I work so it was a bit of a challenge, but I rose to it, and we did it together. She said more or less what she wanted, and I got going!

First of all I rubber stamped the butterfly background using two sizes of stamps and Tattered Rose Distress Ink, sometimes printing off the excess ink onto a piece of scrap paper first, to give a subtle, misty look, and then inked the edges with Spun Sugar Distress Ink. I then made a heart template and drew round it onto red card, reduced the size and drew round it again, and handed it over to Gisele to cut out. She loved my Tim Holtz scissors and I told her they were the best scissors I’d ever owned! I stamped these two hearts with a darker red ink pad, using the same butterfly stamp. I heat embossed the same butterfly shape with gold embossing powder, and stuck the larger heart down with double-sided tape. Gisele was fascinated to see the gold emerge as I heated the embossing powder – I remember how thrilled I was the very first time I saw it, and actually it still gives me a thrill! It looks like magic as the dull, grainy powder is transformed into pure gold before your eyes! The smaller heart was stuck down with dimensionals.

Gisele then chose some lace out of my lace bits box and I stuck this down with double sided tape before adding the ribbon and the bow. Again, she enjoyed seeing the bow being made on the bowshaper I bought at the show. She chose the little embellishment to go on the bow, which was one of the jewelled flower stamens I’d bought in the cake decorating shop. I then matted the card onto red card – A4 folded to A5 size, and the final touch was the little gold butterfly adhered with my hot glue gun.

While I was stamping and inking, she was busy making a ribbon rose – I had bought some gorgeous 2-tone green and pink wide, wired ribbon at the show, and showed her how to pull up the wire on one edge to form a ruche, and wrap the end of the wire round the base and cover the base and wire with florist’s tape to form the stem. She said she would like to put it on the envelope, so I found a plain white envelope and proceeded to decorate it to co-ordinate with the card.

Again, I stamped butterflies at random with Tattered Rose Distress Ink, and inked the edges with Spun Sugar Distress Ink. She chose some silk leaves from my stash, as she felt those went better with the fabric rose than paper ones, and I stuck it down with my hot glue gun. The final touch was another butterfly embellishment, this time in pink, again stuck down with my hot glue gun. Just room for her to write his name on the envelope!

We talked about butterflies and how we love them, and agreed that they are a symbol of freedom and beauty, and also transformation and growth, all important aspects of any marriage. On the card, she wanted to butterfly embellishment to look as if it had just flown up from the smaller heart, to symbolise that a real expression of your love for someone is that you don’t hold them down and control them, but allow them to be free – when they choose to stay with you, that love is really worth something!

At lunch today, I had no idea I would be in my ARTHaven today, or that I would make another Valentine card this year! We had such fun together in my ARTHaven, sharing ideas and having a good laugh too, and together we created this lovely card for her hubby. We both agreed what fun it was, working with someone else, and we are going to try and do it again soon. She saw my florist’s ribbon kit that I got at the show, and the flower which the man on the stand had made, and really admired it, so I said we could make some of those together – I want to make a tiny bouquet to go in a window card for my mum for Mothering Sunday.

Mini-Bouquets

Today I made this card:

I used some very pretty patterned paper given to me by a friend, and cut the window using a Spellbinders Nestability die, the edges of which I decorated with Fruit Punch Stickles. I inked the edges of the pale pink paper behind the window with Spun Sugar Distress Ink, and adhered a mini-bouquet of tiny flowers made from florist ribbon into the window.

I made these mini-bouquets yesterday:

I was trying to follow the instructions of the man at the craft show on Thursday but what he made look so easy really wasn't easy for me!! In the end I found my own way of doing it, rolling florist tape with the shredded florist ribbon to make it stick together a bit better, and dispensing with the barbecue stick up the middle altogether, as this left a big hole which made the ribbon roll unstable. After completing the roll, I continued wrapping the florist tape around the base of the flower, and continued twisting it downwards to create the stem. When they were done, I squashed the petals flat to open up the little flowers.

When all the flowers were complete, I bound them together with more florist tape, and incorporated a wax paper triple leaf behind each bouquet - I have had these for ages and don't like them very much for most things, but as a background to these mini-bouquets they work very well, as they are flat and stiff. I tied a thin ribbon round each one, and then they were ready to apply to cards.

I'm beginning to wish I'd bought that man's flower making kit and DVD after all! They were a real fiddle to make, and it took me a very long time to perfect any sort of technique that worked, and in the process I wasted a great deal of ribbon! That didn't matter too much as the ribbon is very cheap, but it was a bit frustrating.

Next time I'm in town I shall buy some more from our local florist. Florist ribbon is great for lots of things - it shreds well, and it is very good for doing iris folding with - if you choose 2 shades of the same colour (e.g. paler and darker blue), you get a lovely effect as the two colours relate to each other. (Time I did some more iris folding - haven't done any for ages!)