Box for Floral Mini-Album–Completing the Construction (I Hope!)

Today I think I have completed the construction of the two boxes – that is, if I have no further problems!

I cut two further pieces of Tyvek to make hinges for the inside of the boxes, to cover the gap and to strengthen the hinge further. I inked these to match the inside of the box as far as I was able.

The inner hinge in place. It’s a shame there’s a visible overlap but it can’t be helped.

In order to prevent the lids opening too far, I added a restraining ribbon on each side. This is narrow black gros-grain ribbon and I stuck it on using Pinflair gel glue. I attached the lid ends first and let them dry, and then glued the other ends to the inside of the box sides, clamping them in place until the glue was dry.

I cut further small pieces of black cardstock and inked them to match the inside of the box, and these were stuck down over the ends of the ribbons, to cover them and to stop the ends fraying.

Then I experienced some major problems. The metal corners started falling off, and so did one of the feet.

I had a feeling I might have problems with the hot glue. I pulled them all off (apart from the remaining feet which so far seem to be secure) and then spent ages pulling off the glue that remained on the boxes. The glue didn’t seem to have stuck onto the metal. Pulling it off (a combination of scraping with a blade and pulling it off with tweezers) did damage the papers on the corners a little, but I painted all the corners with black acrylic paint, and once this was dry, I re-attached the metal pieces using Pinflair gel glue and left them to dry overnight. I am not confident that this is going to work much better but we shall have to see. If it doesn’t work, I am not sure what I am going to do. I may have to dispense with the metal corners altogether and make corners out of black cardstock but I hope it won’t come to that, as I’ve still got all the embellishing to do and I have to finish this project on Wednesday!

Red and Black Box for Lavender Sachet

My second post for today – and there’s another to come too! So watch this space.

Another box to go with my lavender sachets.

For this box, I cut the shape from some plain red cardstock.

I wanted to mimic the effect of the black lace web over the red sachet, so I used my glue pen to draw the design on the outside of the box, and embossed it with black embossing powder.

For the inside, I thought it would be fun to echo the little red checked heart charm on the sachet, so I made a small heart template which I drew around with pencil on the inside of the box piece, and then painted with stripes of white acrylic paint, making sure the paint was watered down sufficiently that it wasn’t too opaque. This gave the gingham effect when I painted the vertical stripes over the horizontal ones.

I outlined them with a black Faber Castell pitt artist pen, to define their outlines a bit more.

Here is the sachet with its box.

The box partially opened, showing the sachet inside.

The box fully opened, with the sachet.

Finally, here are the five boxes that I have completed so far.

Mixed Media Boxes for Lavender Sachets

Today I started making the little boxes to contain my lavender sachets, which I am making as gifts for my fellow chemo-ites.

The other night I was indulging my Pinterest addiction and came across the template for these boxes. They were originally designed to be made up in fabric, and the design is available as a free download along with some other small quilting projects, but I thought I could make them from card and embellish them with mixed media.

First of all, here are the completed foiled dragonfly sachets.

Since they were quite rich looking, with gold embellishments, I wanted to create an exotic style box for them, and I must say I am delighted with the result!

I decided to use watercolour paper to make the boxes, because it is fairly thick and strong, and takes a lot of moisture without falling apart. Some while ago, I rescued a whole pile of sheets of watercolour paper from my hubby’s bin – they were what he considered to be failed watercolours, some of which were incomplete. Nearly all the sheets were unused on the back, and if I had been him I’d have kept them to paint on the backs! I have used quite a lot of the blank backs to dry teabags on.

For these boxes I decided to use the painted side, because it had the makings of a reasonable background with a bit of work! Here is one of them after I drew around the box template twice, and cut one out.

This watercolour was rather appropriate because of was one that my hubby did in Granada, and the boxes have a distinctly Islamic look to them!

The first step was to wash over the piece with a large, wet brush, to try and mute and blend the paint a little. It was surprisingly resistant to this treatment, so I added some of my own watercolour, nice and wet.

For the next step, after drying the piece well with my heat gun, was to rub my Versamark pad randomly over the surface, and I then added some sticky embossing powder, shaking off the residue. I recently acquired this stuff and it’s brilliant for loads of things. It behaves like ordinary embossing powder, but when you heat it, it melts into a sticky glue. Here it is, before heating.

Here is the first step in the foiling process, with the foil being peeled back.

The foil didn’t go onto all the sticky surface, so I repeated the process several times, until I was satisfied there was enough foil on the surface. I dusted it with talcum powder to counteract any remaining stickiness on the surface.

The foil sheet, as you can see in the photo where it is being peeled back, now has patches with no foil on them. However, this does not mean that it is used up and should be thrown away – on the contrary – if you use it to foil over a sticky surface, any remaining foil on the sheet will be applied, leaving gaps of stickiness on the surface, and you can use another sheet of a different colour to fill these gaps, giving a gorgeous variegated effect (this is a technique I have yet to try).

The next step was to distress the edges, and I used Forest Moss distress ink, applied with an Inkylicious Ink Duster.

I then took a glue pen and drew a line around the edge of each piece, and embossed it using gold embossing powder. Here I made a rather disconcerting discovery. I have a Chinese takeaway box into which I had emptied a large pot of gold embossing powder several years ago, and when I embossed with it today, it came out a dark greeny-brown colour! I had no idea that embossing powder could have a limited shelf life, but this stuff is certainly no use for producing gold any more! I shan’t throw it away as it might be useful if I want a dark greeny-brown colour. Fortunately I had a small tub of gold which was more recent, and I got the effect I wanted.

I added a bit more distressing with the Forest Moss distress ink to give a darker, richer effect and to show off the gold of the foiling and embossing better. You can still see some of the original watercolour paint, giving subtle variations in colour.

For the insides of the boxes, I smooshed some Forest Moss distress ink onto my non-stick craft sheet and spritzed it with water. I also spritzed the pieces, and smooshed them around in the ink, drying in between and re-applying, until I was happy with the result – a nice random background.

I painted the surface with regular matt gel medium, using a foam brush, and then added some gold gilding flakes, pressing them well into the surface with my brayer.

I finished off the insides by distressing around the edges with Forest Moss distress ink (I forgot to photograph this, but you can see the effect in the photos below).

The boxes are assembled by bending the two tabbed pieces upwards and holding the tabs together, and then folding up the other two pieces, one by one, threading the tabs through the slits. The shape of the tab on the top holds the box closed.

Here are the two completed boxes, together with the foiled lavender sachets which will be put inside.

The completed boxes.

I am very pleased with this effect, which looks like rich gold-embossed leather. The original watercolour background gives subtle variations of colour on the outside of the box. The foiling, using the sticky embossing powder, has worked extremely well – I didn’t have a lot of joy with this technique using fabrics but it’s great for paper or card.

Foiling Success, and More Calico Lavender Sachets

I’ve now had the chance to complete the foiling project which I started the other day.

I applied the foil glue to the fabric by painting it onto a rubber stamp and stamping carefully onto the fabric. To get a good impression, and because the foam on the cling mount of the new stamps is rather hard, I used a foam mat under the fabric. I left the glue to dry fully, and then laid the foil, shiny side up, over the glue and rubbed it firmly with the back of a fingernail, peeling the foil back carefully to check that I had not missed any.

This is the result.

I am quite pleased with this. These small rectangles can now be made up into more lavender sachets. This fabric is rather thin, so I may need to back these pieces with calico before making up.

I am very pleased with the Jones Tones foiling kit that I bought. There are some cases when you really do have to use the right equipment for the job, and no glue in my possession was working properly. I am keen to try more foiling in future as I love the effect. I have discovered that you can also apply foil using iron-on interfacing and I am eager to try this technique too.

Last night I completed five more lavender sachets made from calico, onto which I had stamped different images using archival inks in a selection of colours.

The top one, with the blue butterfly, has been edged with pale blue ribbon. All the others were edged with finger-crocheted yarn (finger-crocheted because I couldn’t be bothered to go up and find a crochet hook!).

I have now completed a total of fifteen lavender sachets – I am not sure how many I shall need, but I’ve got a few more pieces of fabric cut and ready to make up, so I shall complete those and hope it’s enough! Next step is the little boxes to put them in, and these will have to be made in my ARTHaven as I really can’t bring all the stuff I need downstairs! I am hoping to get these completed by Friday, when I go in for my second chemo treatment, so that I can start giving them to my fellow chemo-ites.

New Stash, and More Lavender Sachets

New Stash

For my birthday, my friend Shaz sent me a beautiful card with white heat-embossed dragonflies on it, and I asked her what stamp it was, and she told me it was a set from Papermania, and how very reasonably priced it was, along with some others she thought I might be interested in. I promptly went and had a look, and yes, you’ve guessed it, I succumbed! Thank you Shaz!

Like Shaz, I have now cut the stamps to separate them from the original single stamp.

Now that I shall be doing more with textiles (this was my plan for this year, but so far it hasn’t materialised in any large degree) I thought I would finally get around to getting myself a decent craft iron. Ages ago I found one online but it was consistently unobtainable, and the website said they would inform me when it was available again, but it never has been… In the meantime my hubby lent me his little travel iron but I have to say it was rubbish and didn’t heat up enough! Anyway, this is what I have now bought for myself, and it’s a really powerful little iron, with steam facility too.

As you can see, it comes with its own little drawstring bag and a tiny jug to fill the water tank with (this opens via the oval rubber cover at the front end of the top of the iron).

The design is very ergonomic, and it feels very nice in the hand. All the controls are recessed below the surface so there’s no danger of operating them inadvertently.

Finally, the iron has a little clip on the front, and you can wind the cable around the iron and clip it firmly. Nice design!

I also bought myself a nice ironing mat, which has a foam back and a metallised surface to reflect the heat back. There’s no way I can carry our ironing board upstairs to my ARTHaven, and this is the ideal solution. Here it is, folded over so that you can see the back as well as the front. The foam back makes it quite non-slip as well as giving a nice spongy surface, and the whole thing can be folded away when not in use.

It is resting on one of my large ultra-heatproof mica mats from Presspahn. See my sidebar for details of these – I wouldn’t be without them, especially after warping so many cutting mats with my heat gun! They will withstand much higher temperatures than I’m ever likely to generate in my studio, even if I were to get myself a butane torch! I have now brought one of the small ones downstairs and it’s under the cutting mat on the table in front of the recliner, should I want to do any sewing downstairs which might require pressing.

The final thing I got recently was a Jones Tones foiling kit. I have a couple of sheets of gold and silver foil that I bought at a craft show ages ago, and the other night I tried stamping and foiling on some fabric to use for my lavender sachets, with complete lack of success! It wasn’t easy to find good answers online but eventually I discovered Jones Tones who do quite a few foiling and other products, and I thought this little starter kit was quite a good idea – for a very reasonable price I’ve got quite a few different coloured foils and a small bottle of glue.

You have to put the glue onto whatever surface you want to foil, and leave it to dry completely, and then place the foil shiny side up over the glue and rub it, and the foil transfers onto the glue but not elsewhere – there’s a transparent layer on the top of the sheet from which the foil is transferred.

I tried painting some of the glue onto one of my new dragonfly stamps, using a foam brush, and this is the result so far:

Not very impressive, I grant you, but we’ll see how well the foil transfers once it’s dry.

Lavender Sachets

Three more completed lavender sachets.

The one on the left is plain red fabric with a strip of quite stiff, open-work lace laid over the top. The little red checked wooden charm was in my stash, and I added some black ribbon and the signature heart charm that’s going on each bag.

The middle one ended up a bit lumpy because I had quite a job stitching down the three ribbon flowers – these wired flowers were part of the gorgeous box of crafty stash that my friend Marlene sent me for my birthday. The one on the right has a collection of wired beaded flowers and some pink stamens that were also in Marlene’s parcel, and some sequins and beads. Both these green bags have gathered ribbon around the edges.

Today I’ve done some more printing on calico using archival inks – this time utilising most of the colours that I have.

First of all, more sepia ones, this time using some small seashell stamps.

The next one is one of Ryn’s leaf stamps.

Using one of my new butterfly stamps. OK, I’ve got loads of butterfly stamps, but can one ever have enough butterflies??!!

Finally, something I’ve been wanting to do, random stamping of tiny butterflies in different colours. These two little stamps are part of a larger set that I’ve had for ages.

Time to get these new calico ones stitched and made up!

Birthday Card for my Hubby

My hubby’s birthday is on Tuesday, and I am so glad that Mr. Mojo and Mrs. Muse have decided to return from their unexpected long holiday and come to my rescue, so that I could make him a mixed media card! He has been so brilliant over the past months and I want to show my appreciation for him in every way that I can.

I am still taking baby steps creatively, and didn’t want to take on a huge project, so I thought it would be good to use some of the things in my stash to make his card. Here is the finished card.

Last year I had a session making alcohol ink backgrounds on the backs of some A5 fliers we’d picked up at the county show (I love recycling!) – they were on shiny paper.

I also embossed some co-ordinating pieces of card to go with each background.

For this card I chose the background using gold, silver, copper and pearl mixatives. This one had a nice co-ordinating card which I’d embossed with the Cuttlebug folder “Diamond Plate,” which is good and manly!

Rummaging through my stash, I found the Friendly Plastic gear wheels and other hardware that I’d made some time ago. These were painted with black gesso which makes a good base for adding gilding wax.

Also in my stash I found a few tissue paper hearts that somebody sent me once in a collection of die-cuts, and I chose one in a colour appropriate for this card, to lay down as a background under the embellishments, adding some gilding wax lightly applied with my finger.

Finally I made a faux porcelain sentiment for the card. You use UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) for this technique, building up the layers – I had several printed oval shapes  with “Happy Birthday” printed on them in a suitable font in my stash from a previous project. I used Versamark and my heat gun for this, and unfortunately it made the card curl a bit; I think it would probably distort less if one immersed the whole thing in UTEE in the meltpot, so I must remember this next time I use this technique. (Last time I started with a thicker piece made from several layers laminated together, and I think that distorted less.)

Here are some detail shots of the card.

For the “metal” hardware, I used a mixture of silver, gold and copper gilding wax. Of course, the metallic appearance doesn’t pick up too well on the photos.

On the above picture you can see that I have also applied some glass bead gel medium using a palette knife, and lightly applied some gold gilding wax with my finger, for a bit of added texture and to tie the design together.

I have had the large “blue steel” gear wheel in my stash for ages – I think it was a die-cut, and I cut it from a piece of card from Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate box! It has a lovely metallic shimmer to it. Across the bottom I added some glass bead gel medium with a palette knife and lightly rubbed this with gold gilding wax.

The inside of the card. I can’t remember where I got this sentiment stamp – it is part of a set of clear stamps I bought when I first started, and I didn’t keep the packaging. I don’t like clear stamps as much as rubber ones, and have only a few.

I inked the inside of the card, and the edge of the card base on the front, using Gathered Twigs distress ink and an Inkylicious Ink Duster. The card front was matted and layered with some brown cardstock. The Friendly Plastic embellishments were stuck down with Pinflair gel glue; the heart was attached with regular matt gel medium, and the large gearwheel with Scotch Quick Dry adhesive, and the remainder of the elements with my ATG glue gun. The faux porcelain sentiment was attached with two small brads through the matting and layering before I stuck that down onto the card base.

There is a lot of texture and thickness on this card! It’s a good thing I have a large supply of very heavy white cardstock for card bases or they’d never hold up, the amount of stuff I always put on my cards!