WOYWW 469

My desk this week, taken on Tuesday evening because today is my birthday and my hubby is taking me out. (65 today… officially an OAP for heaven’s sakes!) I am writing this in the small hours of Wednesday morning.

We were out yesterday too, and I took the album I made about Mum (bottom right) because I wanted to show it to someone. This was a rush job, and the only thing I didn’t have time to complete was a box for each of the two copies – Mum’s friend says she is keeping hers in a biscuit tin for now! I thought I’d make a start on it so that at least I’d have something to protect the album when I was carrying it about yesterday. It is made of pieces of mounting board stuck together with masking tape. I will have to disassemble it again in order to cover it but for now it has served its purpose.

Between the box and the album you can see progress on another heart ornament like the one I made for my hubby’s anniversary card. A friend asked me to make it for her to give to a family member who is getting married – funnily enough the couple’s initials are the same as ours, so I didn’t even have to alter the design!

At the bottom left are some paper table napkins from where we went out today, with a beautiful peacock feather design on them. I just had to rescue them and do something with them – not sure what yet!

UFOs

Also on the creative front this week, I have decided to tackle some of my UnFinished Objects! Remember the socks I knitted for the homeless last autumn? I completed one pair, and only managed 1 1/2 socks of the second pair before my hubby broke his leg and my life went pear-shaped from then on. I have now turned the heel of the second sock, and once they are finished, I’ll ask the person at church who initiated the sock project if he could make sure they go to a good home – even if 6 months late! If I can get this finished, then I can put my boxes of knitting yarns away again. They are cluttering up the far side of my studio and starting to drive me nuts.

They look a bit knobbly but that will all come right once they are blocked.

Garden

A couple of days ago one of our neighbours gave me a present that he’d made to cheer me up after being ill. It was two things to put in the garden – a beautiful little plaque, and some scallop shells strung together which he said would go on the gable of our summer house. He fished these shells out of the Exe estuary where the fishermen had dumped them after scraping the flesh from them. He drilled holes in the tops and tied them together with string.

Here’s the summer house after my hubby put them up. They make nice bunting, don’t they.

The string was a little bit too long, so my hubby cut off the excess and hung it over a branch of the apple tree so that the shells were touching each other – they make a lovely sound when the breeze moves them.

The contraption around the tree is a piece of stiff wire netting edged with pipe insulation (to prevent injury to my hubby while he is gardening). This is part of the kitty defences that he’s devised, to stop them getting out of the garden. If they can climb the apple tree, they would be able to get onto the roof of the garage or the summer house, and thence over the fence and onto the road.

Here is a close-up of the slate plaque.

He told me he’d cut a roof slate into two halves, and chipped away at the edges to give that lovely effect. He painted the design through a stencil with acrylic paint, and sealed it with an acrylic seal to make it weather-proof. He is apparently now selling them on Ebay and they are going like hot cakes!

What a lovely gift!

By the way, you can see more about the narrow-boat painting I did on the flower boxes hanging on the summer house here, if you are interested.

Kitties

This week we started letting them out into the garden, as they are now officially grown up (a year old). At first they were very wary and tentative, but soon started to grow in confidence. The only problem is, we have an awful job persuading Lily to come in again – we’ve never had such a disobedient kitty – she will only do what you want if it happens also to be her own idea! I suppose all kitties are like this to a certain extent but she has it to an extreme degree! You can see videos of their coming out here and here.

Another rite of passage is the cessation of a midday meal now they are no longer growing so much. At lunch time they sit by their empty bowls and look up accusingly at me as if to say, “Where are our din-dins?” I tell them kitty din-dins are for babies and they are now all grown up and don’t need them! They’ll get used to it. I feel so sad, no longer buying kitten food and deleting it from my Tesco favourites!

Having a nice rest with my hubby. Sleepy Rubes.

Finally, two fun birthday cards! For those not in the know, the “Don’t tell him, Pike” is a quote from the vintage TV comedy “Dad’s Army.”

On the back it said “Am I my brother’s kipper?” Lol!

That’s all for now, folks. It’s been a busy week! Hope you’ve all enjoyed the WOYWW anniversary ATC swap, and I look forward to seeing everyone’s efforts.

Anniversary Card for Marlene

Today is my friend Marlene’s wedding anniversary so I have made her and her hubby a card. I wrote this post on Wednesday but had to hold it in reserve until I knew she’d received it so I didn’t spoil it for her! This is the sneak peek on my previous post, and I can also reveal what the “funny stuff” is too!

This card is made from part of the masterboard I made recently with the gold embossed seahorses on it.

The layout of the card and its basic design were inspired by a gorgeous birthday card I received from my friend Shaz a couple of months ago – she had made a fabulous background using the new dragonfly stamps we both recently got, with a fresh green colour scheme, also using the water droplets stamp from Designs by Ryn which I have used in my masterboard. (I love this stamp!) She stuck the stamped strip onto the base card and ran a scored line down either side of it which really set it off, and placed her stamped sentiment on the bottom right of the card. I thought this was a really cool layout.

I cut my base card from two-thirds of a sheet of A4 white cardstock folded in half vertically. Before sticking down the strip of masterboard, I scored my lines from behind and then inked the base card with Peacock Feathers distress ink which exactly matched the colour of the masterboard. I like the way the scored lines pick up the colour more boldly.

These are my two sets of shell stamps that I used for the masterboard and for this card.

I stamped the seahorse to the right of the design using sepia archival ink.

Here is a detail of the embellishments on the card.

I lightly coloured a scrap of white cardstock with Tea Dye distress ink, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster, and stamped several shells on it, using sepia archival ink. Using my glue pen I picked out the highlights on these shells and heat embossed them with gold. After fussy-cutting them out, I hand-embossed them from behind into a piece of fun foam, using a ball embossing tool, to give them a bit of dimension.

Now for the “funny stuff.” Despite what one or two people may have thought, this has nothing to do with angels! Years ago we were given some pot-pourri which used to be in a large bowl on our sitting room table. It consisted of quite large lumps of stuff (shell fragments, bark, pumice, wooden fish etc.) and once the smell had gone, I recycled some of it for other purposes, and included in it was this tangle of red dyed twiggy stuff which I thought was too good to throw away and could be used for embellishments.

I teased out a small quantity of this to represent either coral or red seaweed on my card.

Last Christmas my hubby bought me several small panettone loaves from Lidl. Each one came in a box with a little ribbon handle and I saved all these ribbons! (I do love recycling stuff to use in my projects.)

They are not very long, but ideal for embellishing once the plastic tags are cut off. I stuck this down around the masterboard strip with double sided tape, using it to anchor the funny stuff, and was delighted that the two colours in the ribbon co-ordinated so well with my card design. The sentiment was from the Memorable Moments set by Stampin’ Up, stamped onto a small oval die-cut from my stash that somebody had sent to me. I embellished the edge of this by rubbing it with my Versamark pad and gold heat-embossing it.

To cover the lump in the ribbon over the funny stuff, I stuck down the embossed shells using Pinflair gel glue.

Here is a digital montage of the card resting on the masterboard.

Happy Anniversary Marlene! I am glad you like your card!!

New Stash, and Gold Seahorse Masterboard

Today I did some art in my studio for the first time for ages! I have several occasions coming up which require cards, and I need to make some fairly quick ones without too much work involved, because energy is in short supply, and I shall be having my third chemo treatment on Friday and who knows how I’m going to feel after that!!

So I thought I would make a masterboard and cut it up and make several cards from it.

I got some very exciting new stash today! First of all, I’d ordered some thin metal angels’ wings from Etsy, along with some vintage mini-bouquets, and they arrived this morning.

I am intending to make moulds from some of these wings, so that I can replicate them in different materials (polymer clay, Friendly Plastic, etc.) depending on how well the moulds go – the metal is very thin and it might be hard to press it down evenly into the moulding putty. Notice the attached haloes on the larger wings! You can bend the halo forwards so that it hovers above the angel’s head! The mini-bouquets are very pretty and I thought I could split these apart and use them for angel embellishments.

Later in the day, the most exciting parcel arrived. I decided not long ago to get the complete set of Dylusions paints. I am so fed up with ruining decent pens by writing with them over acrylic paint – there’s something that reacts and causes the ink in the pen to stop working, and once that happens there’s nothing to be done – the pen is ruined and just has to be thrown away. I read a review of these new paints and was pleased to learn that they are designed specifically for art journaling and of course writing is an essential part of that discipline, and the paints do not cause the pens to clog. I have watched a number of Youtube videos over the past few days and can see how versatile these paints are, and how you can blend them, and create great backgrounds with them. The colours are identical to the Dylusions sprays but their usage is different, and you an get quite a bit more control with them.

I began my masterboard by creating a background from several of these paints. These are some of the materials I used for this masterboard.

I applied the paints using a baby wipe, picking up the smallest amount of paint each time, from inside the lid of the jar. The card I have used for the masterboard isn’t very good quality – it’s A3 office grade card, so I would probably have got better results with the blending if I’d used better quality card. Layer 1 was done with London Blue.

Layer 2 was created with Vibrant Turquoise. With the blending not going quite as well as I’d hoped, I decided to go for a swirling pattern.

Layer 3: Cut Grass.

Layer 4: Squeezed Orange – just a little, between the swirls where there wasn’t so much colour.

Layer 5: Lemon Zest – a very small amount, just to highlight the Squeezed Orange.

For layer 6, I mixed together some Vibrant Turquoise and some White Linen to produce a paler shade.

Creating Layer 6:

Time for some stamping. I used the water droplets stamp from Designs by Ryn, with Ranger Cobalt Archival Ink.

At this point I felt that the whole thing was much too bright and the water droplets were too dark, so I decided to apply a wash with some White Linen paint mixed with some water.

I applied this with a foam brush over the entire surface of the masterboard, but it left quite a lot of streaks, so I took a fan brush and made swirling brush strokes through the wash, which gave a better effect.

The wash completed. I am much happier with this result. The colour is much more subtle and the water droplets not so obvious.

Time to stamp the shells. I used Distress Inks for this, but they didn’t go down onto the acrylic surface very well, and took quite a bit of drying with my heat gun, but in the end I was quite pleased with the result.

I began with the little starfish from the Seven Gypsies set, using Tea Dye Distress Ink, but this came out quite pale with a slightly greenish cast over the turquoise background.

For the scallop shell I used Gathered Twigs Distress Ink:

and for the other shell, Rusty Hinge.

The shell stamping completed.

Time to add the heat-embossed seahorses. The seahorse stamp came from the same Seven Gypsies set as the shells.

The gold embossed seahorses complete. I completed four at a time.

I think you can see how nice and shiny they are in the photograph. I wanted to add a bit more sparkle, so I applied some variegated copper gilding flakes in small patches, using a glue pen, and stippling them on with a brush, and then brushing off the excess.

Here is the completed masterboard, showing the shiny seahorses and gilding flakes.

I am very pleased with the new paints. If the quality of the card had been better I think the blending might have gone better, but I like the way the colours go together, and how you can control them, and lighten or darken the effect with the addition of white or black, and other colour mixing, giving you the full range of colours. In their raw state the colours are very vibrant and not a bit subtle, and I think for most of the time I shall be mixing them for a gentler, more subtle effect. The addition of a white colour wash certainly improved this piece, I think.

Boxes for Calico Lavender Bags Part 1 Shells and Leaves

The first of two posts for today – too many boxes and photos for a single post!

I made quite a few lavender sachets out of calico, stamping on the fabric with archival inks – I deliberately kept most of these fairly plain because I wanted some that might be more suitable to give to men.

Seashell Boxes

The first ones were stamped with seashells, and I made these boxes for them.

I began by cutting a number of box shapes from watercolour paper, and inked them with Old Paper distress ink as the same basis for them all. This gave a softer effect than the stark white of the watercolour paper. For subtle inking I prefer an Inkylicious Ink Duster to a blending pad as you have more control, and can build up the colour gradually.

For the seashell boxes, I then added some Wild Honey distress ink.

I then stamped them with seashell stamps, stamping twice for each application of ink on the stamp, to give a dimensional effect.

I distressed the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink, using one of my home-made blending pads made from an old wood block from which I’d unmounted a small stamp, and some Cut ’n Dry foam. I did this on the inside and the outside of each piece.

On the inside of the boxes, I applied some regular matt gel medium with a foam brush and added some variegated copper gilding flakes, pressing them down well with my brayer.

The completed boxes.

 

Leaf Box

This box was stamped with all the stamps in the Designs by Ryn set, to match the bag I made using one of the stamps from the set.

I began by inking the box piece with Bundled Sage distress ink.

I added some Peeled Paint distress ink onto the outside…

and onto the inside.

I wanted a more mottled effect on the outside, and a smoother effect on the inside.

Then I added Forest Moss distress ink to the inside of the box in subtle patches in the middle, and more boldly with my blending pad to the edges of the piece.

On the outside of the box, I stamped the three leaf sizes onto the piece using Versamark, and then heat embossed using clear embossing powder.

I then worked over the surface of the piece with Forest Moss distress ink, so that the paler green underneath the embossing would be revealed, and cleaned the ink off the embossing with a piece of kitchen paper.

On the inside, I mirrored the stamping, but this time using gold embossing powder.

The completed box.

Please continue to the next post to see the rest of the boxes for calico bags.