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.

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!

Box for Floral Mini-Album–Lid Construction

Today I finished constructing the lids for the two boxes.

After mulling over whether to leave the insides of the lid flaps plain black or whether to try to match the inside of the box, I decided in the end not to be lazy but to refer back to my previous post on the subject and try to replicate the same appearance. Of course, I’d used up all the table napkin fragments, but these flaps are so narrow that they didn’t really need them. I am glad I took the trouble to do this because it will give a better finish in the long run.

On the right in the above photo, you can see one of the clasps lined up against the pattern I made for the front flap mat. This was trimmed down from the original pattern for the front flap. From the outset, I wanted the mats to be trimmed away from the clasp pieces so they would have a nice black border, as there would be around the edges.

Here are the front flaps with the clasps attached. I used small antique brass coloured brads, and also a fairly thick layer of Pinflair gel glue to fill the concave back of the clasp, to ensure that it remains firmly in place.

I cut all the mat pieces for the lids – the tops, the side flaps and the front flaps, and double-distressed them with Vintage Photo, and then Black Soot Distress Inks.

After assembling the boxes, I added the mats to each piece. These covered the construction strips, leaving just a 1/8 inch border all round.

I cut a similar mat for the bottom of each box, this time from plain black cardstock, and stuck them down. All the mats were stuck with a combination of double sided tape and glue stick.

I put the lid in place on the box and lined up the second part of the clasp so that it was engaged with the first part (already attached to the lid front flap). Holding it in place, I marked the position of the three holes on the front of the box, for securing the clasp piece. After this, I painted the area with black acrylic paint, because again, a small border of black will be showing around the clasp when I cut the shape from the box front mat.

The boxes so far.

I have not yet attached the lids. I made the hinges from 1-inch wide strips of Tyvek painted with black acrylic paint and they will be attached with double-sided tape as before.

All that remains to finish the basic boxes is to cut and stick the mats for the front, back and sides of the box. I also want to cut small pieces of card (offcuts from the lid mats as they are a reasonable match) to glue over the backs of the brads on the inside of the box and lid, to give a better finish and to prevent them catching.

Once the construction is completed, I shall add some embellishments to the tops of the boxes, and also the metal feet that I bought on Ebay.

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.

Infusions Birthday Card for my Hubby

Panic stations! Suddenly remembered I hadn’t made a card for my hubby’s birthday at the end of this week, and I’ve got a very busy week ahead. I thought I’d better get my skates on.

My Infusions mini-album, that I have been working on for the past few weeks, has generated quite a few reject pages, and some perfectly good ones which I decided on balance not to include. These are still hanging around on my workdesk and will eventually find their way into my stash for future use, and I chose one today that I thought might make a nice card – it was one of the ones I made with Polyfilla through my own brick stencil, as I only needed one for the album.

I have a few tiny scraps left from my Infusions mask and spray 12 x 12 sheets that I made last year, most of which were used up on the Mamhead mini-album for the end-papers and cover. I have a few of the flowers and leaves left, and also a few of the Heartfelt Creations stamp/die cut combos I made some time ago, so rootling around in that little lot, I came up with enough materials to put together quite a nice card.

I began by looking out the pack of jute fibre I bought from Ebay ages ago. This is very fine and wasn’t quite what I wanted when it first arrived, but I thought with a bit of persuasion I could coil it up and make it do more what I wanted! Being a natural fibre, it absorbs ink pretty well, so I began by colouring a few strands, using Distress Stains in Walnut Stain and Vintage photo. I stuck the ends together with Scotch Quick Dry adhesive to make the whole thing a bit more manageable.

Once they were coloured, I wrapped them around the handle of a fat paintbrush and spritzed them with water. I held them there for a few minutes and gently dried them with my heat gun – a bit like setting hair!

When I pulled them off, they looked like this:

I was quite pleased that they had held their shape so well. All that was required was to tease them out a bit, ready for use.

I stuck the bundle onto the card with a little strip of masking tape.

I selected two of the Heartfelt Creations flowers which I’d already hand-embossed, and stuck them down onto the card with Pinflair gel glue, covering up the masking tape on the jute fibres.

I had cut a few leaf trails for the Mamhead album and I coloured these with two Distress stains, Forest Moss and Bundled Sage.

This gave a nice mottled effect which was a bit more natural-looking than a flat dark green.

I ended up needing another of the large ones, but this didn’t take long to do afterwards.

Assembling the piece.

I attached the leaf trails using soft matte gel medium, and added some Orange Peel Stickles (glitter glue) to the centres of the flowers. This was how it looked at this stage.

The Stickles and Pinflair glue take ages to dry, so I left the piece out overnight.

Next day it was dry, so I could complete the project. I folded a piece of white A4 card in half and inked the edges with Antique Linen Distress Ink – the white card was far too stark and bright. I found the last of some mottled brown card that I had in my stash which I’ve been anxious to use up, and cut it to size to mat and layer. The cut edges were very white so I inked those with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

I also distressed the edges of the inside of the card with Antique Linen Distress Ink.

Time to use my wonderful new Tonic stamp platform for the sentiment inside! I tried it out the other day when I made my copper and sepia card. This time I used it side-to-side so I could put my card in. I did a few trial runs with scrap paper to make sure the stamps were correctly positioned.

The materials for stamping the sentiment. I used the Stampin’ Up “Memorable Moments” stamp set which is useful because you can mix and match the stamps. I used Pumice Stone Distress Ink, and as this is fairly pale, I stamped it three times. One of the great things about the stamp platform is the ability to stamp again in exactly the same place – very useful if you get an incomplete impression first time. I’ve never been that great at stamping, and I’m so glad I bought this new gadget!

I thought the inside of the card looked a bit bare, so I got out my bricks stencil and taped it in place, and used an Inkylicious Ink Duster and Antique Linen Distress Ink to create a bit of interest.

The finished result. The brickwork nicely echoes the theme of the front of the card.

The finished card.

The little strips forming a partial frame were in the box of scraps left from the Infusions 12 x 12 pages and I thought I might as well use them up! There’s not much left of that paper now. The Happy Birthday sentiment was in my stash – I think it was part of a pack of odds and ends I received as a gift from a friend some time ago.

A detail shot of the topper. My hubby loves his garden so I hope he will like this floral card. I don’t think it’s too girlie!

Phew! What a relief! Completed it in time!