Explosion Box Pt 7

I've almost finished the explosion box now. I've just got to make one final pop-up mini-card to go in the last empty slot inside - I'm very grateful to Carol of Extreme Cards and Papercafting Blog who, despite not having time to do a full tutorial at the moment, has very kindly emailed me some photos and instructions which I shall do my best to follow if I get time tomorrow.

I've decorated the outside now. The sides still bulge, but it can't be helped - and I've noticed that other people's bulge as well, so I don't suppose it matters! I did the panels with 2 different Spellbinders Nestability dies and rubber stamped the butterflies. There are some more butterflies on the top as well.

The large flower I made, following some excellent instructions on Youtube from Dawn of Stampin' Up - very easy to do and great fun too. You just cut 8 scalloped circles from card stock, ink the edges and then damp them down well with a water spray. You then screw each one up into a tiny ball, and carefully flatten them. They are very fragile when wet. Then you make a hole in each one, and thread them all onto a brad, and pinch each layer upwards separately. After that you gently tease them down to "fluff up" the flower. I'm too impatient to wait for things to dry, so I speeded up the process with my heat gun, and then I sprayed it with glimmer mist for a final lustrous finish. The other flowers were purchased ones, but I added a quick spritz of glimmer mist just to finish them off.

The ribbon round the sides of the lid is from an Easter egg and there was just the right amount! (Shoshi never throws anything away…) I think the little decal I made shows the bow off better than without.

Adding the panels to the sides, with small extensions to cover the edge at the base, and then sticking on the final base, means that the outer flaps of the box don't flap down absolutely flat when you "explode" the box. This actually gives a better effect.

If I manage to finish the last pop-up, I'll post a photo.

Explosion Box Pt 6

Explosion Box update: I managed to make the lid tonight. I had to redo it, actually - my first attempt was way too flimsy, and not deep enough, and it wasn't strong enough to stop a major explosion of the box!!

This is what it looks like at this stage:

As you can see, the sides are quite bulgy because of the amount of stuff inside, all straining to get out! I am going to have to reinforce the sides with panels glued on. I already intended to put decorative panels on the sides, and these may have to be in addition, as they may not be big enough to strengthen the sides. The decorative panels will be enhanced with the Spellbinders Nestability dies you can see on the table beside the box, and there will be some stamping in the centre of each.

The top of the lid will be decorated with paper flowers and butterflies, and I've got a very pretty length of red and gold striped ribbon off an Easter egg which is just long enough to go round the sides of the lid.

There are one or two drawbacks. One is that it's quite hard to gather all the flaps together in order to put the lid on - an extra hand would be useful! Also, one or two of the flaps occasionally get caught against each other during the explosion process, which rather spoils the effect. This is due to the raised decoration on them. Probably a simpler design would work better, but we shall have to see!

Explosion Box Pt 5

Over the past few days I've made good progress and have pretty well finished the inside of the explosion box. Here's a general view of it:

and here it is, looking straight down on it:

You will see that I've completed the waving flowers. Each one is double-sided, and stuck onto a strip of clear acetate which is quite springy, so that when the box is "exploded," they wave about in a jaunty fashion! The strips were cut from the packaging around an Easter egg. (Not much gets thrown out in this house, I can tell you!!!)

Also you will see that on each flap of the box, there is a small pocket. I have made tiny cards to go into each of these. Whenever my friend and I email each other, we always send "Shalom" (Hebrew for "Peace") to each other, in abundance, so I decided to make this "a box of Shaloms" - there are seven altogether, and it will be her task to find them all!

Here are pictures of some of these little cards. The lines on my cutting mat visible in each picture are one inch apart, to give you some scale.

This, and several of the cards, have been given a bit more dimension by the addition of some shading - in some cases being lightly brushed across with a stamp pad, and others with some chalks, and the edges touched with a little "Rub-and-Buff" which is a metalic paste in a tube which you apply and then buff to a shine when dry.

This one is a photograph of an embroidered plaque I did several years ago, with the Hebrew and English letters spelling "Shalom," with the "L" letter combining in both - I really enjoyed mixing the embroidery threads on the needle to give the graduated rainbow effect:

This one has a number of small red hearts suspended inside from gold thread. These hearts are like sequins but without holes - I think they are called table confetti, and they are available in lots of different shapes, and are very useful for embellishments. I stuck them together in pairs with the end of the thread trapped between, and the other ends go through a slit in the crease of the card and are glued between the two layers so they don't show.

This one is a graphic I've got of a triptich of lilies, again greatly reduced to fit on the tiny card. Inside are strips of card decorated with chalk and gold, with Bible verses on them, and some cut out and applied flowers from some decorative paper I have.

My friend will have to look hard for this "Shalom" - a butterfly has landed on it! The inside has a seven-flower popup, but I made the flowers out of card rather than paper, which has made them a bit stiff, so it doesn't open very easily, hence my fingers holding it! Card would be fine for a larger card, but for such a small one, if I did it again, I'd use paper.

I did quite a bit of the text on the computer first - on my desktop publishing software, printing out a sheet of card with several frames containing text with different fonts and styles, measuring each frame carefully so that it was the right size for the project, and then cut them out and embellished them. I do this quite a lot with my cards - you get lovely results with the fonts, and I quite often emboss them with gold, too.

Work still to do: The lid, and some panels on the outside of the outer box, to strengthen it and also for decoration. I've found a marvellous Youtube video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEbGqao5Gcw - giving instructions on how to use a Cuttlebug embossing folder for the background, and a Spellbinders Nestability die to make a plain oval with an embossed surround in the centre - it's quite complicated and has to go through the Cuttlebug machine several times to complete it, but it's exactly the effect I want, so I'm longing to try it. I can't do the panels until I've completed the lid, though, as I won't know how far down the sides of the lid will come. More pictures to follow!

We are hoping to see my friend on Thursday, to take her out for a meal for a belated celebration of "our" birthday, and I shall give it to her then - always assuming, of course, that I finish it in time!!

Explosion Box Pt 4

I had a very bad day health-wise yesterday, after all the activities on my birthday, so I didn't touch the explosion box for a couple of days. However, today I felt a bit better and had a good long session working on the inner box:

Here is the inner box in place on the outer box:

and finally with the sunflower placed in the centre. It is not fixed yet.

Doing a mock-up of the final assembly has thrown up one or two problems. The central rose bud on each flap of the outer box is too thick, and prevents the box from closing now the inner box is in place, so these have had to be removed. I shall probably replace them with a matching flat flower. The outer rose buds are fine, and have the effect of preventing the inner box flaps from fallling down absolutely flat, which looks a lot better.

I have also discovered that cutting the inner box flaps exactly the same height as the outer box flaps was a mistake - the thickness of the card raises the inner flaps up a bit too high when the box is in the closed position, which will mean that the lid won't go on fully. They will therefore have to be trimmed by about 1/8 in. which is a bit unfortunate as the borders around the design on each will no longer be the same at the top as at the sides... Can't be helped but at least I'll know if I do another one. It's all a learning curve!

The paper decorating the inner box flaps is "Cor-dination" paper - made of 2 layers of different colours. I put each one through my Cuttlebug embossing machine, using the only 2 embossing dies I own so far - "Swiss Dots" and "Jamara" on two of each of the flaps. I inserted the flaps into the Cuttlebug folder opposite ways up, i.e. one pink side up and the other white side up. After embossing, I sanded each one with a sanding block, and the underneath colour was then revealed where the surface of the raised embossed part was rubbed away. I thus ended up with one pink-on-white and the other white-on-pink for each design, which is quite effective.

I have also enhanced certain elements with Glimmer Mist spray which gives a gorgeous iridescent finish.

Further work to be done: Each flap has a pocket on it, and I am going to make a small card for each one, with little messages on them. Some of them will be mini-pop-up cards. I also have to finish making the lid - so far I've only got the basic structure made of a single layer of card, which is not too robust. This will be decorated with further flowers. I also need to make panels for the outside of the outer box flaps, which will probably be embossed and stamped. I am waiting for a Spellbinders Nestability set to arrive, which I am hoping to use for this.

I also need to make the springy flowers on their strips of Easter egg packaging! Mustn't forget to do those as they will add to the fun!

So... Still quite a bit to do! My friend is coming home tomorrow from her few days away, and I have emailed her suggesting we meet up and take her for lunch the following week, to allow her time to recover after her return. This will give me another week to finish it! This should be ample time, but I do have to factor in the days when I am not well enough to do anything.

I am thoroughly enjoying this project, especially now that it is coming together and starting to look like something!

Views from Shoshi's Settee - M.E.

I haven't been able to do much on my blog for a day or so because I was totally exhausted after my birthday. I had major pay-back yesterday and lounged around on the settee all day in one of my new kaftans and my hubby had to do all the meals etc.

One of the major symptoms of this disease (M.E.) is "post-exertional malaise" - an exacerbation of some or all of one's symptoms and an overwhelming exhaustion, not while you are doing things, but delayed until the next day or even later. It can go on for any length of time; some people, after overdoing things even a little on one day, can be put in bed for a month as a result.

It is absolutely wrong for people to believe that we are "just a bit tired" all the time. I read somewhere that "fatigue is to M.E. what being a bit forgetful is to Alzheimer's." Unless one has experienced this degree of exhaustion it is hard to understand. I describe it as "having my plug pulled out" - just like when the plug is pulled out of the bath, and the water all runs away, so my energy drains away until there is nothing left.

For this reason, the current trend to rename this illness as "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" shows a complete lack of understanding. A "syndrome" is merely a collection of symptoms, after all, so it does not describe a specific disease, and the name also emphasises "tiredness" to the exclusion of the many other and varied symptoms to which we are all prone. In my opinion, the term "CFS" trivialises this severe, chronic and extremely debilitating disease for the benefit only of those who wish to politicise the illness, re-brand it as psychological, and save themselves the money which we need in order to make ends meet because we are quite unable to work. Medical insurance payouts are considerably less for psychiatric illness than for organic disease.

With the ongoing research and the recent breakthrough in the discovery of the involvement of the XMRV Retrovirus in M.E. patients, let us hope that M.E. will soon achieve the status of "respectable" illness in the same way as M.S., which was once known as "the faker's disease." Meanwhile, we in the M.E. community continue to press for public money to be spent on real, biomedical research into this devastating illness, and the abandonment of the psychiatric paradigm.

Birthday Barbecue

I've had a really nice birthday today.

We went on the barbie and amazingly the sun shone but it was quite windy so not that warm. After we'd eaten, several of the blokes went off to look at a vintage lorry belonging to one of them, and then I belatedly remembered I'd got my camera, so here's a picture of a somewhat depleted party:

That's my friend Gisele on the left, then her mother in law Heather, whose house it was, then a very nice other guest who's name I've forgotten, and then my hubby wearing a borrowed straw hat because he forgot his own hat!

Here's me sporting my Indian suit - Gisele made me take my glasses off because they'd gone so dark you couldn't see my eyes:

I got the Indian suit on Ebay really cheaply back before Christmas, but it hasn't been warm enough to wear it until now. It's quite thin soft material and lovely to wear. It's nice and loose so covers all my lumps and bumps lol! I think they are very flattering and feminine, and I've always enjoyed ethnic clothes. Indian fabrics are just gorgeous.

Here's a lovely one of me with Gisele - two friends! She's from Brazil and is soooo lovely!

She's a professional singer - a good one. She speaks 4 languages and is accomplished in so many ways! We get on so well and I'm proud to have her as my friend.

This is part of Heather's garden - I thought the stone bunny was so sweet!

This is one of Heather's chickens with her enormous brood of chickies - they're getting quite big now but still very cute:

and here are 2 of her ducks:

Finally, here's me posing in one of my new birthday kaftans - the red velvet one - I was a bit cold when we got home and thought I'd change into it. I've tried to hold my arms so you can see a rather nice detail: there's a little tassle hanging from each of the sleeves!

It's very luxurious and soft, and makes me feel very special when I'm wearing it! I'll get my hubby to take me in the other one soon. It's very exotic and rich looking!

I got very tired today because I didn't sleep that well last night. I could really have done without the driving today but it couldn't be helped. After the barbie we went to see a house belonging to David (Gisele's husband) which they are doing up ready for sale or reletting, and although it was very nice, and an interesting design, it was on about 4 floors with only one or two rooms on each, so it was all stairs! I was beginning to feel pretty done in by that time. When we got home I crashed on the settee and slept deeply for quite a while, and I do feel better now, although the stiff neck I developed part way through the afternoon has got worse - can't think where that came from!

It's been a lovely birthday.

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.

Views from Shoshi's Settee - My Birthday

It's now after midnight (2 a.m. to be precise!) so it's officially my birthday!!!!!

My hubby went out to a barbecue tonight - I cried off as I was pretty tired, it was raining which makes it difficult with my Rolls Royce (wheelchair) and when we went to those people before it was very noisy and I didn't really know anyone. They were very nice, but it was just too much effort to invest in something like that.

We are going to friends for a barbecue tomorrow anyway. Last time we went it rained, and the forecast isn't good for tomorrow... Well, what do you expect? It's a Bank Holiday weekend and it always rains on Bank Holidays!

Anyway, I shall enjoy my birthday!

When my hubby got back this evening, since it was actually my birthday by then, he gave me my presents. Yes, presentSSSS! Plural!!! The kitties and the teddies gave me some choccies (Lindor - I love those!) and my hubby has given me not one, but two, beautiful new kaftans. They are actually Middle-Eastern abayas. One is very dark brown chiffony material over a creamy-beige lining which shows through slightly, and it is covered with the most glorious embroidery with tiny hologram sequins which reflect the light. I do love my bling!! The other one is dark red (my favourite colour) velvet, also with beautiful embroidery. I haven't tried them on yet but they look nice and big - they should be quite baggy. I spend a lot of time wearing kaftans as I find it hard to get up in the mornings, and always get dressed after breakfast. If someone comes to the door I feel better wearing a kaftan than a dressing gown - mid-morning I feel as if I ought to have my hair in curlers and have a fag hanging out the corner of my mouth if I'm still in my night things! If I'm in a kaftan I do at least look dressed even if it's covering a multitude of sins! They are lovely and comfortable to wear (the kaftans, not the sins!) and they really suit my style and personality. I've always loved ethnic clothes.

When I can get some photos taken, I'll post them.

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.

Cuttlebug Machine and Explosion Box Pt 1

I have been looking forward to a forage into Totnes for over a week - and managed it today. My hubby was out all day so I didn't have any deadlines to be back for meals etc. I met a friend in town and we had a cappuccino together, and then I Let Myself Loose in the fabby fabby card making shop we've got - I usually try and keep away, or tie my credit card in a big knot before going anywhere near it as it's such a big temptation!

I've been thinking of getting a cutting and embossing machine, and have done a bit of research online, and had more or less decided I'd get a Spellbinders Wizard, but wanted to see it (and possibly some other machines) in action before committing myself, and was sure our local shop could help.

The man who runs it is extremely knowledgeable and I thought in the first instance that I'd ask him what he thought about which machine was best. I told him I was thinking of getting a Spellbinders Wizard, and he immediately said, "I wouldn't recommend it. I do stock them, and I've sold 5, and 2 of those came back! I've sold over 300 Cuttlebugs. I can show you them if you like." I did like, so he got the shop's Cuttlebug out and showed me how it worked, and I had a go myself. It was soooo easy and the results were stunning! I didn't feel it necessary to see the Wizard after that, especially after what he'd said. He said he thought the Cuttlebug was best, and was cheaper than the Wizard too. He confirmed that all the dies are interchangeable, so I'd be able to use the nestabiltiies etc. with it. I'd only gone in for advice, and came out with a Cuttlebug!!!

I am absolutely thrilled with it. One feature which practically sold it to me was a super little design extra - it's very compact when folded, and when you fold the 2 platforms down, they automatically activate a suction plate on the bottom so the machine doesn't move! Somebody's really thought about it...

While I was in there I stocked up on quite a few things. I've started a rather ambitious project for my special friend in Plymouth who shares the same birthday as me - this year she's 80. I've decided to make her a combined present and card, in the form of an "explosion box" with loads of fun things in it. I've decided to put a pop-up sunflower in the centre, which will jump up like a jack-in-the-box when you take the lid off, and I've spent all evening making it! I've been trying to find a spring to make it work, without success, and eventually looked up "how to make a jack-in-the-box" on Google, and found a very ingenious "spring" made of folded paper strips which is brilliant, but it bends too much. I've enclosed the bottom part in a tube to support it, and I'll decorate that with leaves, I think.

I embossed the brown centres of the 3 sunflowers with my new Cuttlebug (Swiss dots design) and they look great!

The theme of the box is flowers, because she loves her little garden. I'm going to attach some flowers on strips of acetate (cut from old Easter egg packaging) which will wave about when the box opens, and there will be pockets on the various flaps of the box, which will have little tiny pop up cards and fun messages in them. The colour scheme is mostly pinks and greens.

I was also absolutely delighted to find on Ebay the other day, a large set of rubber stamps of varying designs, and stamp pads and a few other odds and ends, in a nice carrying/storage case. I reckon the whole thing was probably worth over £50 and I won it for £6!!! It's now on its way. I've not done much in the way of stamping, and am very keen to get going with it.

After my busy day in town (which ended with a weekly food shop in Morrisons) and spending all evening working on Pam's box, I'm feeling on a bit of a high, and hope I haven't overdone it - I need to be on good form tomorrow because we're going out for a meal with my mum and dad.

I'll keep you posted with the progress of the box, and post some photos too. Meanwhile, here's a photo of another card I made back in 2005:

It was for another special friend from where we used to live, when she was 70. As you can see, it's quite "3-D." I love butterflies.