Bridget Larsen’s Winter Lurgie Buster

Thank you, Bridget, for sharing your recipe for this cold remedy recently.

Our neighbour has been going through a bit of a rough patch recently and I thought she needed cheering up. Last week I made her the turquoise birthday card I showed you on my blog. My hubby told me she’d got a cold on top of everything else, so I decided to make up some of Bridget’s Winter Lurgie Buster (my name for it!) and give her a jar. To make it more of an attractive gift I covered the top of the jar with some pretty fabric and made a tag for it.

To create the background for my tag, I took some pale yellow card and embossed it with a Fiskars Texture Plate (Honeycomb design). The Cuttlebug sandwich for these texture plates is as follows: A plate, texture plate (RS up), cardstock, tan embossing mat, C plate. It’s quite a tight fit but it goes through OK!

I took my Stampotique Large Bee stamp (I’d have preferred the Medium Bee but I don’t yet own this!) and stamped it using sepia archival ink, after which I fussy cut it out.

The honeycomb embossed card was inked with Spiced Marmalade distress ink and then fussy-cut around the edges, following the embossed hexagon shapes. I swiped the surface gently with a blending tool, using Vintage Photo distress ink, to define the honeycomb shapes. I also folded a small piece of card in half and inked it with the same coloured distress inks.

I cut a lemon shape from the same card, and inked it with some Wild Honey and Spiced Marmalade distress inks. Then I went on a texture hunt! I tried various things, and nothing gave me that nice dimply mottled lemony texture, until I found my garlic press in the kitchen, and thought that the hard plastic projections on the back might do the trick. With this garlic press, after pressing the garlic, you open it right back so that the plastic projections push the remaining garlic back inside the press. (Funny how much of my kitchen stuff seems to end up in my ARTHaven, isn’t it!)

Anyway, using my little hand-embossing tool, this seemed to do the trick.

Now time to make the leaf. I hand-cut a shape out of the same card and inked it using Evergreen Bough distress ink, and then hand-embossed it from the back, using my large embossing tool. Turning it over, I drew on the veins using a Ranger Cut ’n Dry nib in its holder, and Forest Moss distress ink, and embossed them from the front with a finer embossing tool. These fibre nibs are brilliant, because you can use them to draw with distress inks, and you really don’t need to buy the distress markers!

I wrote some text inside the tag, using a sepia permanent marker, and attached some baker’s twine to the top.

The finished tag. The lemon and leaf were attached with hot glue – quite a lot, to help maintain the embossed shapes. After inking it with Wild Honey distress ink, I stuck the bee down with Scotch quick dry adhesive.

The tag attached to the jar with the baker’s twine. I cut the fabric circle from some gorgeous cotton fabric in my stash, with nice small-sized sunflowers on it.

Hope it brings some comfort, physically and emotionally!

Views from Shoshi’s Settee–This and That–and an Exciting Day Tomorrow!

Today is the 27th anniversary of my becoming a Christian. If you want to read my testimony, I blogged about it exactly a year ago today. I am so grateful to God for everything He has done for me in my life, and above all for sending His Son to die in my place, taking the punishment for my sin, and opening the gate of heaven for me for the future, and giving my life purpose and meaning for the present.

I’ve tried to have a rest today, because tomorrow will be a long day – my hubby is dropping me off at Westpoint, Exeter, for the Creative Stitches and Hobbycrafts show. I love craft shows and can’t wait! It’s going to be a very special day for me because my crafty friend Wendy from Wales is going to be there and it will be the first time we’ve ever met, because we’ve only been friends online.

I’ve bling-ed up my wheelchair in honour of the occasion! Since I got my new one, I haven’t decorated it at all, apart from putting some sparkly spoke guards on it – I did bling it up for Christmas in a simple way, but nothing since. I rummaged through the bags under the stairs and found most of my wheelchair bling (can’t find the newest flowers!) and I’ve redone it with my original flowers, with the black sparkly Christmas stuff underneath, and of course, MY LIGHTS!!! I also added some rust-coloured sunflowers that a friend gave me years ago, which I’ve never used before, and I thought they gave a nice autumnal feel to my new bling. I also put on some of my black and silver Christmassy bits, so when the time comes, all I’ll have to do is strip the flowers off and add a few more bits of Christmas bling, and some baubles on the back.

If you look closely, you can see the lights. They aren’t terribly bright, and they probably won’t show up much tomorrow as the lights will be so bright, but in the evening in subdued lighting they look gorgeous!

Last time I went to a craft show with flowers on my wheelchair, everyone loved it and it generated lots of smiles and happy comments! It helps break down barriers and stops people being embarrassed around disability (shame that still happens, but it does…).

Yesterday I went through the stuff in my ARTHaven to make a list of stuff I need (need, not want lol!) from the craft show. Last time I took a little note book with lists of stuff I’ve got in the back, for example what colours of alcohol inks, stickles, etc. that I’ve got, and in the front is a list of all the stuff I want to look out for, and as I go round, if I buy any new colours of anything, I write them down so as to avoid buying the same thing twice – in the hustle and bustle of the show, it’s not always easy to remember what you’ve bought from the different stands! I also take a box with me. The staff are very happy to let me put this in the office, and I can come out with my purchases and put them in the box, because it’s difficult for me to carry a lot of stuff.

While I was sorting out my list, I also sorted my rubber stamps. I have kept them all in empty CD cases up till now, but I have separated some of them out and put them back in their original packaging if I’ve kept it – this way I know what make they are. Now I am blogging about my projects, it’s important to say what the stamps are, in case anyone is interested in getting them. It makes them a bit less convenient to use, but I rather like the feel of them in their flat packs with the pictures of them underneath!

All I’ve done today is change the bed sheets and get the laundry on, wash my hair and have a nice long soak in the bubbles, and at the risk of having a bad night, I’m going to try and get to bed a bit earlier than 3.30 a.m. as I’ve got an early start tomorrow and I’m going to need a lot of energy to keep going all day!

Our middle nephew and his wife and daughter popped in for a cup of tea with us this afternoon – they are down in our area visiting. I haven’t seen their little girl since she was a baby and she’s now nearly 2! She is so pretty, and so full of energy, and didn’t sit still for a moment!

I probably won’t blog about the show tomorrow, because I’ll be too worn out, but watch this space, and hopefully I’ll have some good photos of the day to share with you.

Explosion Box Pt 3

Update on the Explosion Box: A friend on the Brainfog Forum suggested I sewed the folded paper spring to stop it extending too far and flopping over, so I've done that - just up 2 opposite corners. It still flops a bit and may possibly need sewing on all 4 sides, but I think it's acceptable. Here's a picture of it lying on its side to show the stitching:

I haven't done a lot on the box itself as I've spent most of the time cutting out some new unmounted rubber stamps and sticking them on adhesive foam ready for use with perspex blocks. This is an extremely arduous task which has made my hands very tired - cutting the self-adhesive foam is also extremely sticky and made a mess of my scissors! I cleaned them off very successfully with StazOn cleaner. (That's quite funny - it doesn't stay on when you clean it lol! - it's the StazOn brand - the cleaner is to clean StazOn ink off stamp pads! Sorry - just the way my mind works... It's a solvent for alcohol-based inks and I thought it would deal with non-water based glue too, and it did very well.)

Here's a picture to show the extra bits I've put on the box:

It's a good thing my friend is away at the moment as I'm terribly behind with this project and there's no way I could finish it in time for the actual birthday!

We've got quite a busy day tomorrow and I may not do anything on this project - I'll see how I am after we get back from the barbecue we're going to.

Explosion Box Pt 2

Today I've made real progress on the explosion box which I am making for my friend's 80th birthday. This picture shows how far I've got:

This is the outer box as it will be when "exploded," i.e. when you take the lid off. The sides fall flat, exposing different designs on each flap. Each of these flaps has a piece of card stock glued round 3 sides, with the top being open - I am going to make a tiny card to go in each one, probably with pop-ups or other moveable features, and probably a little greeting on each. I am in the process of decorating each of these flaps. The outside will have panels adhered - I have ordered a Spellbinders Nestabilities set of rectangles which I hope will come in time, so that each panel will have an embossed frame.

This next picture shows the central feature, which is a pop-up 3-D sunflower, like a jack-in-a-box. I've had a lot of trouble with this. Originally I intended using a metal spring to make it pop up, but couldn't find anything suitable. Eventually a google search on how to make a jack-in-a-box produced the folded paper mechanism. The trouble is, to make it pop up high enough, it is far too bendy, and the sunflower flops over. To counteract this, I've enclosed the bottom of it in a square tube made of card stock and decorated with drawn and applied leaves. It still flops a bit and I'm not sure what do do about that, if anything. It may be better when the whole thing is assembled.

The final two shots show the sunflower temporarily in place.

Attached inside the outer box will be another box, set at 45 degrees to the outer one, so that when its sides fall outwards, they will occupy the spaces between the outer box's flaps. They will of course be smaller. They will also have little compartments for tiny greetings cards. Surrounding the central sunflower will be several acetate strips cut from an Easter egg pack, on the end of which small paper flowers will be attached. These will be springy, and will dance about as the box explodes open.

I am planning to decorate the top of the lid with some embossing, and some paper flowers. I found a lovely pack of flattish pink and mauve paper flowers with a few leaves, slightly embossed and very pretty, in the card-making shop the other day, and I'm also planning to make one bigger flower, and these will decorate one corner, and incorporate a small tag with my friend's name on it. I am hoping the weight of the flowers will keep the lid on, against the pressure of the pop-up sunflower underneath - if not I shall embed some flat metal washers in the design somewhere hidden out of sight to give it some weight. I may also put some in the base to give the whole card enough weight so that the lid can be lifted without having to hold the box, thus allowing it to explode freely. Not having made one before, I'm not yet sure how it's going to perform.

I'll try and put on some more photos as I make further progress.