Recycled Mini-Album Pages–Wedding

Lovely to be getting back into the recycled mini-album project again! After yesterday’s effort (please scroll down to see previous post), today I completed a page I have been looking forward to doing – the wedding.

I wanted to use the line “White lace and promises” from one of my favourite Carpenters’ songs, “We’ve Only Just Begun,” so I definitely needed to add some lace to my page. I was able to find lace, ribbon and crochet flowers from my stash – little bits of this and that, in keeping with the recycled theme of the album.

I went online to find out the best way to stick down lace, and the general consensus of opinion was that the red-backed ultra-sticky double-sided tape was the best, but I did add a little gel medium along the top of the large piece of lace to keep the shape as I manipulated it to fit the curved border of the page. To prevent the stickiness of the double-sided tape in the holes in the lace, I brushed it with talc.

I stuck down two photos using soft matt gel medium, tucking the right-hand one under the large lace, and then stuck down some narrow lace around two sides of the left-hand photo with the ultra-sticky double-sided tape, gathering it around the top and corner, and brushed it with talc as before.

I cut two pieces from the edge of a small doily and fixed them down at the bottom of the photo on the left-hand side, using soft matt gel medium.

Then it was time to work on the border for the left-hand page, and I continued the alternate stripes of black and white, with titanium white acrylic paint, and tidying up afterwards with my white marker, and some black acrylic paint,making them a bit wider than before, and adding some flowers in between, using my white marker pen. I also added some dots, and some wavy lines and dots around the photos, and ultimately some little white flowers and hearts on the pages.

From my stash I found a short length of narrow creamy-white ribbon and used my bow maker to create two bows – the larger one was a double bow (wrapping the ribbon round the bow maker twice before forming the knot), and glued these down with hot glue, twisting the ribbon and leaving the ends free.

At this stage, I also added some silver gilding wax to the doily pieces.

The final step as far as the embellishments were concerned was the addition of a few crochet flowers. I made a lot of these some time ago for my stash, and found some that were small enough – some are quite large, and with several layers, making them too thick for this project.

Again, these were fixed down with hot glue. I added some liquid pearls (white opal) to the centres and left them to dry overnight.

The final stage of the project was to add some text, and I did this with my white marker pen, putting the date and venue, and adding the words “White lace and promises” on the right hand side of the page.

The completed page.

Here are some detail shots.

This will be the most feminine page in the whole album, and I have so enjoyed creating it!

Natural Dyeing, New Stash and Future Plans

In preparation for my upcoming felt making classes, I need to dye some Merino wool rovings, and decided to do a small amount, by way of an experiment, using avocado skins and pits (stones) which I have recently seen on Youtube. I thought I would put in some other bits and pieces too, while I was at it, and these will come in useful for future textile projects if the result is successful.

Here are the items I chose.

In the middle at the back you can see the Merino roving, and across the middle, some different types of lace. Some of these are cotton, and some synthetic, which will take up the dye differently. At the front is a small quantity of hand-spun wool – some of my earliest attempts, done many years ago and lurking in my “yarns for dyeing” box. They are nice and slubby and uneven, and may be incorporated into the felt.

Here is the dye bath. I used just one avocado pit and half a skin – the remains of my lunch today! You don’t need much if you are only making a small dye bath for a small quantity of materials.

Since these are natural foodstuffs, I have no qualms about using a regular cooking pan in the kitchen, but when I use my synthetic dyes, I work in my ARTHaven and use the microwave up there, to avoid contamination with food preparation equipment.

You can see that the outer shell of the pit has come off and is now resting inside the skin. The colour of the dye bath is darkening nicely after simmering for about 20 mins. The longer you leave it, the darker it gets, in the same way that the longer you leave the materials steeping in it, the darker they will get.

The materials have to be wetted through, and I prepared a bowl of warm water with some vinegar added – this should help the dye bind with the wool, but I am not sure what effect it will have (if any) on the other materials. I also added some gentle organic dishwashing liquid to remove any residual grease from the wool (especially the hand-spun yarns) and to aid the penetration of the water into the fibres – soap reduces the surface tension of the water, hence the bubbles!

Again, since these are regular kitchen substances, I am happy to carry out this process with my ordinary cooking equipment and supplies.

After wetting for at least half an hour, the materials can be lifted out of the bath, rinsed, and added to the dye, and left until the desired colour is achieved. I ended up adding another couple of half avocado skins because I didn’t think the dye bath looked quite dark enough, and after simmering for another 20 mins or so, it looked better. (For some time now, I have been saving the skins and pits and freezing them, so I can use them when I want. Good thing I like avocados, isn’t it.)

The materials in the dye bath. You can see what a gorgeous shade of dusky pink is generated by the avocado. Not quite what one would expect! Although you can remove it from the heat at this stage, I left it simmering, with the lid on.

The materials after being removed from the dye bath. These were now rinsed thoroughly and left to dry. First, the lace:

It’s interesting that the nylon lace at the bottom has taken up the dye more strongly than any of the others. The motif lace at the top is a lovely subtle shade, and the crochet cotton one underneath has hardly taken up any dye – it doesn’t show up clearly on the photo, but it’s more or less cream. The third one down is slightly darker than the top one.

Now for the wool.

The little skeins of handspun wool at the top have turned out very well. They feel a lot softer now the residue of natural lanolin from the fleece has been washed out. The roving underneath is slightly paler (probably because it’s less dense). I had to handle this very gently while rinsing it because any agitation would tend to make the fibres felt together, and I don’t want that to happen quite yet!

In a day or two, there will be a photo of the materials after drying thoroughly, and ready for use.

Today, my much-anticipated parcel of new stash arrived! I was glad that we cancelled our outing today – I was much too tired after yesterday’s long day in town, shopping and having my eyes tested, and needing to rest to be ready for tomorrow’s jaunt to Bath. I was therefore here to sign for the parcel.

Opening it up, I found the contents very prettily wrapped in tissue paper with a ribbon and a nice little tag.

Opening it up, here is what was revealed.

There are several stencils, and a large bee stamp, wood block mounted, so I will need to unmount this and apply some EZ-Mount Foam. The alphabet stamp, which is going to be so useful in my mixed media work, is unmounted, and will need to be treated likewise, before cutting it up to separate the individual letters. I also ordered various metal embellishments, carefully chosen as I could see they would be suitable for making moulds. On the right, at the back, there is some more Golden acrylic polymer which I get through quite a lot of – it is brilliant for thinning acrylic paints to create glazes, without losing any of the adhesion of the paint, which can happen if you use water to dilute them. There is also some fabric medium, so that I can convert ordinary acrylics into fabric paints, and a bottle of liquid pearls.

In the centre, the oval blue thing is not a bottle – it’s the punching button on the Envelope Punch Board! I think this is going to be a lot of fun to use, as well as being very useful. It comes with two charts indicating what size of paper to use and how to score the different sized envelopes – one chart is Imperial and the other metric. I have never really got on with envelope boards before and had more or less given up the idea of making envelopes, until I discovered this new tool which everyone seems to be raving about – it will be a good investment, I am sure, saving lots of money in the future as I will no longer need to buy envelopes! Not to mention the fact that you can make them to match your cards, and also that the board can be used for making all sorts of gift boxes.

In upcoming blog posts you will no doubt see a lot of these things in use.

Regarding the stencils – when I eventually get my Cougar cutting machine going again, I shall be making more stencils. However, I have had problems in the past, cutting very small shapes, because the small pieces tend to lift and get clogged around the blade, preventing decent cutting. I do not mind buying the odd stencil that I know is going to be difficult to cut!

Other new stash that I have got: yesterday I trawled through several charity shops and came home with some great stuff. I got some T-shirts and a couple of checked and striped men’s shirts and table linen (for the fabric), and some doilies, and the most magnificent satin quilt with some embroidery down the centre (all real bargains). This last item I do feel a bit reluctant to cut up, but I did buy it for this purpose so must steel myself to the task! I shall be blogging about these things in due course. They will all be cut up and repurposed. I am planning to get my sewing machine going in the New Year (if I finish my recycled mini-album by Christmas, which is what I am hoping!) and along with my teabag art, I am planning on making some altered clothing, especially using T-shirts as the basis, onto which I will add layers of other fabrics, and lace trims and embroidery, and possibly some paint. I have seen a lot of this online and am keen to give it a go. I may even incorporate some of my felt!

The first module of the felt course starts next Wednesday evening, the day Mum returns from my sister’s. It lasts for five weeks. There is another module in February, also for five weeks.

All I need now is a ready supply of energy and lots of time. I hope that’s not a pipe dream!

Edit: Photo of materials after drying overnight.

Unfortunately the photo doesn’t show the colour of the lace very well. The lace at the top (cotton crochet) has taken up virtually no dye, but the front two pieces are actually more pink than the photo indicates. The Merino roving has felted slightly, but fortunately I can still pull the fibres apart.

Christian Bereavement Card

Recently, a good friend of mine finally lost her battle with cancer and passed away at her home, surrounded by her family. She was so young and full of life, and was a wonderful Christian believer, as are her husband and two children – in fact I was privileged a number of years ago to witness the whole family being baptised together. She and her husband were part of my Bible study group for several years, and we had many wonderful times of fellowship together.

I needed to make a very special card for this very special family, and have given it some considerable thought and prayer. For Christians, although the loss of a loved one through death affects us as much as it does non-Christians, and we have to go through exactly the same grieving process, the Bible gives us hope of everlasting life, and reunion with those we have lost, and I wanted to reflect both these aspects in my card.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 says, “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.”

One of the songs we used to sing together was “We will dance on the streets that are golden” – a picture of the heavenly Jerusalem, and I decided to use this as the theme for my card.

The first step was to make the golden pavement and draw a dancing figure on a piece of recycled watercolour paper. (This drawing was adapted from an image I found online.)

The golden pavement was made from a piece of gold mirror card. I drew some perspective lines on the back and then hand-embossed the card from the back with a large embossing tool, and picked out the lines between the paving stones with a smaller embossing tool from the front, working on a piece of fun foam. I outlined the drawing with a waterproof black marker pen and then added some colour with my Derwent Inktense Pencils, blending them with a water brush.

The next step was to cut out the dancer. Here is a mock-up on the white base card.

I then began work on the drawing on the base card, to form a “Heavenly City” background. I added a few Zentangles, notably “Float Fest” to give the suggestion of more domes extending into the far distance, and began colouring it with Inktense pencils as before.

At this point I got a bit carried away and forgot to stop and take any photos! The next photo shows the finished card front, complete with an emerald rainbow (as described as being around the throne of God in the Book of Revelation), and the addition of little spots of Stickles glitter glue in various colours to represent the jewelled foundations of the Heavenly City showing through the transparent gold paving. I also made a separate banner from the recycled watercolour paper, with the words “Dancing on the streets that are golden” and stuck this down. For the banner and for the dancer, I used Scotch Quick Dry adhesive, which is a good strong wet glue. As usual, the photo doesn’t do justice to the golden, glittery effect!

As this is a bereavement card and I wanted to convey my feelings for their loss, the front of the card needed to reflect this, and although the above shows my friend in glory, free at last from all pain, and carries the hope of reunion in the life to come, the present also needs to be addressed.

I decided to make an overlay from translucent parchment paper with a message on it, but through which you could just glimpse what was beyond. Looking through my stash, I was delighted to find some parchment that I had printed for another project, and made the mistake of not choosing the “borderless” option on my printer, which left an unprinted border, so I couldn’t use it. It is fine for this project, though, as I had already decided to make a paper border to cut out and stick down around the edge of the parchment, which will cover this unprinted part. You can see that it is a subtle blue colour with some butterflies on it.

Working on the border. I chose a piece of A4 100 gsm copy paper which has a lovely smooth finish, and folded it in half. The back could be cut away to leave a small amount to stick down onto the back of the base card and form a hinge, and this would also hold the parchment piece in place. Again, I used my waterproof black marker pen to create a text border. I chose a verse from one of my favourite hymns, which we had for Dad’s funeral last December, “Teach me, my God and King” by George Herbert. The verse I chose is as follows:

A man that looks on glass,

On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heaven espy.

This is so appropriate for the situation! We can look at our circumstances and our loss, and we can also look through it, and see the hope and beauty beyond. The parchment paper can act as the “glass” which we can look at, or we can see, “through a glass dimly” as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, the golden bejewelled image beyond; and in our case, we can also turn the page and see it in its full glory.

In the next photo I am working on the border. Between each of the words I have used a tiny drop of bisque Liquid Pearls – this stuff is gorgeous!

Here is the finished border. At this stage I had not yet applied any distress ink because I was waiting for the Liquid Pearls are dry. The next step would be to cut out the middle, and stick it down onto the parchment, and then create some slips of paper with some Bible verses on them.

Here is the text border complete, having been distressed with Old Paper Distress Ink, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster – these large soft brushes are ideal for this kind of thing because they are so gentle and do not snag the edge of the paper. Laid on top is one of the text pieces that would be attached to the parchment overlay.

Here is the parchment overlay with the first text, which I have hand-written direct onto the parchment, and the other cut-out piece ready to stick down.

For the main text across the centre of the overlay, I spent some considerable time selecting and cutting out a series of letters from magazines and newspapers (like a ransom demand!) and arranged them into words. In this picture I am beginning to cut the words out. I was quite pleased with the result because the letters added a bit of colour to the front of the card.

Here are the words stuck down onto the parchment overlay. I used 3M spray photo adhesive – a recommendation I found online – but it wasn’t easy to get the pieces to stick initially, and once the glue was dry, I had to apply a small amount of Scotch Quick Dry adhesive with a cocktail stick to make sure each piece was securely adhered. Parchment paper can be quite difficult to deal with.

Here is the parchment overlay together with the text frame, both of which have now been trimmed down the left side, ready to apply to the base card.

On the inside of the card, I wrote the Aaronic Blessing from Numbers chapter 6, and afterwards embellished it with some more bisque Liquid Pearls, and wrote the greeting on the other side. Having thought long and hard about what text to add to this card, in the end I felt that the Bible said it better than I ever could!

I attached the text frame to the parchment overlay with 3M photo adhesive spray, and this was attached to the base card using the red-backed ultra-sticky double sided tape.

Here is the completed card. You can see the golden picture underneath the parchment overlay. You can see that I have also added some embellishment with a black marker pen around the cut-out words, directly onto the parchment paper, to give the design more cohesion and to link this central text with that at the top and bottom of the card.

The finished card with the overlay turned back. I wish the photo did the gold pavement and the Stickles better justice, as it is very shiny and sparkly.

I feel very privileged to have had this lady as my friend. She was such fun, and so full of life, and had such a strong faith. She and her husband brought up their two children in the love and fear of the Lord, and they are now being launched into the world in their chosen professions, well equipped to be good citizens, and to cope with everything that life will throw at them, with God’s help. My love and prayers go with them all.