Mixed Media Boxes for Lavender Sachets

Today I started making the little boxes to contain my lavender sachets, which I am making as gifts for my fellow chemo-ites.

The other night I was indulging my Pinterest addiction and came across the template for these boxes. They were originally designed to be made up in fabric, and the design is available as a free download along with some other small quilting projects, but I thought I could make them from card and embellish them with mixed media.

First of all, here are the completed foiled dragonfly sachets.

Since they were quite rich looking, with gold embellishments, I wanted to create an exotic style box for them, and I must say I am delighted with the result!

I decided to use watercolour paper to make the boxes, because it is fairly thick and strong, and takes a lot of moisture without falling apart. Some while ago, I rescued a whole pile of sheets of watercolour paper from my hubby’s bin – they were what he considered to be failed watercolours, some of which were incomplete. Nearly all the sheets were unused on the back, and if I had been him I’d have kept them to paint on the backs! I have used quite a lot of the blank backs to dry teabags on.

For these boxes I decided to use the painted side, because it had the makings of a reasonable background with a bit of work! Here is one of them after I drew around the box template twice, and cut one out.

This watercolour was rather appropriate because of was one that my hubby did in Granada, and the boxes have a distinctly Islamic look to them!

The first step was to wash over the piece with a large, wet brush, to try and mute and blend the paint a little. It was surprisingly resistant to this treatment, so I added some of my own watercolour, nice and wet.

For the next step, after drying the piece well with my heat gun, was to rub my Versamark pad randomly over the surface, and I then added some sticky embossing powder, shaking off the residue. I recently acquired this stuff and it’s brilliant for loads of things. It behaves like ordinary embossing powder, but when you heat it, it melts into a sticky glue. Here it is, before heating.

Here is the first step in the foiling process, with the foil being peeled back.

The foil didn’t go onto all the sticky surface, so I repeated the process several times, until I was satisfied there was enough foil on the surface. I dusted it with talcum powder to counteract any remaining stickiness on the surface.

The foil sheet, as you can see in the photo where it is being peeled back, now has patches with no foil on them. However, this does not mean that it is used up and should be thrown away – on the contrary – if you use it to foil over a sticky surface, any remaining foil on the sheet will be applied, leaving gaps of stickiness on the surface, and you can use another sheet of a different colour to fill these gaps, giving a gorgeous variegated effect (this is a technique I have yet to try).

The next step was to distress the edges, and I used Forest Moss distress ink, applied with an Inkylicious Ink Duster.

I then took a glue pen and drew a line around the edge of each piece, and embossed it using gold embossing powder. Here I made a rather disconcerting discovery. I have a Chinese takeaway box into which I had emptied a large pot of gold embossing powder several years ago, and when I embossed with it today, it came out a dark greeny-brown colour! I had no idea that embossing powder could have a limited shelf life, but this stuff is certainly no use for producing gold any more! I shan’t throw it away as it might be useful if I want a dark greeny-brown colour. Fortunately I had a small tub of gold which was more recent, and I got the effect I wanted.

I added a bit more distressing with the Forest Moss distress ink to give a darker, richer effect and to show off the gold of the foiling and embossing better. You can still see some of the original watercolour paint, giving subtle variations in colour.

For the insides of the boxes, I smooshed some Forest Moss distress ink onto my non-stick craft sheet and spritzed it with water. I also spritzed the pieces, and smooshed them around in the ink, drying in between and re-applying, until I was happy with the result – a nice random background.

I painted the surface with regular matt gel medium, using a foam brush, and then added some gold gilding flakes, pressing them well into the surface with my brayer.

I finished off the insides by distressing around the edges with Forest Moss distress ink (I forgot to photograph this, but you can see the effect in the photos below).

The boxes are assembled by bending the two tabbed pieces upwards and holding the tabs together, and then folding up the other two pieces, one by one, threading the tabs through the slits. The shape of the tab on the top holds the box closed.

Here are the two completed boxes, together with the foiled lavender sachets which will be put inside.

The completed boxes.

I am very pleased with this effect, which looks like rich gold-embossed leather. The original watercolour background gives subtle variations of colour on the outside of the box. The foiling, using the sticky embossing powder, has worked extremely well – I didn’t have a lot of joy with this technique using fabrics but it’s great for paper or card.

Foiling Success, and More Calico Lavender Sachets

I’ve now had the chance to complete the foiling project which I started the other day.

I applied the foil glue to the fabric by painting it onto a rubber stamp and stamping carefully onto the fabric. To get a good impression, and because the foam on the cling mount of the new stamps is rather hard, I used a foam mat under the fabric. I left the glue to dry fully, and then laid the foil, shiny side up, over the glue and rubbed it firmly with the back of a fingernail, peeling the foil back carefully to check that I had not missed any.

This is the result.

I am quite pleased with this. These small rectangles can now be made up into more lavender sachets. This fabric is rather thin, so I may need to back these pieces with calico before making up.

I am very pleased with the Jones Tones foiling kit that I bought. There are some cases when you really do have to use the right equipment for the job, and no glue in my possession was working properly. I am keen to try more foiling in future as I love the effect. I have discovered that you can also apply foil using iron-on interfacing and I am eager to try this technique too.

Last night I completed five more lavender sachets made from calico, onto which I had stamped different images using archival inks in a selection of colours.

The top one, with the blue butterfly, has been edged with pale blue ribbon. All the others were edged with finger-crocheted yarn (finger-crocheted because I couldn’t be bothered to go up and find a crochet hook!).

I have now completed a total of fifteen lavender sachets – I am not sure how many I shall need, but I’ve got a few more pieces of fabric cut and ready to make up, so I shall complete those and hope it’s enough! Next step is the little boxes to put them in, and these will have to be made in my ARTHaven as I really can’t bring all the stuff I need downstairs! I am hoping to get these completed by Friday, when I go in for my second chemo treatment, so that I can start giving them to my fellow chemo-ites.

New Stash, and More Lavender Sachets

New Stash

For my birthday, my friend Shaz sent me a beautiful card with white heat-embossed dragonflies on it, and I asked her what stamp it was, and she told me it was a set from Papermania, and how very reasonably priced it was, along with some others she thought I might be interested in. I promptly went and had a look, and yes, you’ve guessed it, I succumbed! Thank you Shaz!

Like Shaz, I have now cut the stamps to separate them from the original single stamp.

Now that I shall be doing more with textiles (this was my plan for this year, but so far it hasn’t materialised in any large degree) I thought I would finally get around to getting myself a decent craft iron. Ages ago I found one online but it was consistently unobtainable, and the website said they would inform me when it was available again, but it never has been… In the meantime my hubby lent me his little travel iron but I have to say it was rubbish and didn’t heat up enough! Anyway, this is what I have now bought for myself, and it’s a really powerful little iron, with steam facility too.

As you can see, it comes with its own little drawstring bag and a tiny jug to fill the water tank with (this opens via the oval rubber cover at the front end of the top of the iron).

The design is very ergonomic, and it feels very nice in the hand. All the controls are recessed below the surface so there’s no danger of operating them inadvertently.

Finally, the iron has a little clip on the front, and you can wind the cable around the iron and clip it firmly. Nice design!

I also bought myself a nice ironing mat, which has a foam back and a metallised surface to reflect the heat back. There’s no way I can carry our ironing board upstairs to my ARTHaven, and this is the ideal solution. Here it is, folded over so that you can see the back as well as the front. The foam back makes it quite non-slip as well as giving a nice spongy surface, and the whole thing can be folded away when not in use.

It is resting on one of my large ultra-heatproof mica mats from Presspahn. See my sidebar for details of these – I wouldn’t be without them, especially after warping so many cutting mats with my heat gun! They will withstand much higher temperatures than I’m ever likely to generate in my studio, even if I were to get myself a butane torch! I have now brought one of the small ones downstairs and it’s under the cutting mat on the table in front of the recliner, should I want to do any sewing downstairs which might require pressing.

The final thing I got recently was a Jones Tones foiling kit. I have a couple of sheets of gold and silver foil that I bought at a craft show ages ago, and the other night I tried stamping and foiling on some fabric to use for my lavender sachets, with complete lack of success! It wasn’t easy to find good answers online but eventually I discovered Jones Tones who do quite a few foiling and other products, and I thought this little starter kit was quite a good idea – for a very reasonable price I’ve got quite a few different coloured foils and a small bottle of glue.

You have to put the glue onto whatever surface you want to foil, and leave it to dry completely, and then place the foil shiny side up over the glue and rub it, and the foil transfers onto the glue but not elsewhere – there’s a transparent layer on the top of the sheet from which the foil is transferred.

I tried painting some of the glue onto one of my new dragonfly stamps, using a foam brush, and this is the result so far:

Not very impressive, I grant you, but we’ll see how well the foil transfers once it’s dry.

Lavender Sachets

Three more completed lavender sachets.

The one on the left is plain red fabric with a strip of quite stiff, open-work lace laid over the top. The little red checked wooden charm was in my stash, and I added some black ribbon and the signature heart charm that’s going on each bag.

The middle one ended up a bit lumpy because I had quite a job stitching down the three ribbon flowers – these wired flowers were part of the gorgeous box of crafty stash that my friend Marlene sent me for my birthday. The one on the right has a collection of wired beaded flowers and some pink stamens that were also in Marlene’s parcel, and some sequins and beads. Both these green bags have gathered ribbon around the edges.

Today I’ve done some more printing on calico using archival inks – this time utilising most of the colours that I have.

First of all, more sepia ones, this time using some small seashell stamps.

The next one is one of Ryn’s leaf stamps.

Using one of my new butterfly stamps. OK, I’ve got loads of butterfly stamps, but can one ever have enough butterflies??!!

Finally, something I’ve been wanting to do, random stamping of tiny butterflies in different colours. These two little stamps are part of a larger set that I’ve had for ages.

Time to get these new calico ones stitched and made up!

A Quilty Hug

Recently, I gained a new online friend in the form of Maria, who started commenting on my blog. I mentioned how she has donated quilts to a favourite charity in the USA, Happy Chemo! in my last post. She contacted me and said she would like to send me a quilt for comfort during my chemo sessions. As you can imagine, I was overwhelmed by this kindness and accepted with alacrity, although I felt I did need to remind her that I was located in the UK and that the postage may prove too much, but this did not deter her one bit!

Today, my beautiful quilt arrived, and I was so excited that I could hardly contain myself as I struggled to open the box and reveal the treasure within!

Here it is.

Isn’t it stunning and beautiful? I am so, so thrilled with this marvellous gift.

In with the parcel, Maria had put this hilarious postcard for me – a little education for an ignorant Brit, from a full-blooded Southern Belle, on how English should be spoke!

I hope all y’all are as moved as I am by my new friend’s generosity and kindness. She knows only too well what it is like enduring the rigours of chemo, and how much a quilty hug can mean. Hop over to her blog and just take a look at all the beautiful quilts she has made. Not only is she a very skilled quilter, but I love her turn of phrase – she’s an excellent writer too!

Reading about her, and about Happy Chemo! challenged me to do something to bring a little cheer into the lives of my own fellow chemo sufferers, which is why I have started making my little lavender sachets to give them, to bring them the healing and comforting scent of English lavender from our neighbour’s garden.

As I endure the rigours of chemo in the months ahead, I know that as I look at my beautiful quilt and feel its texture and warmth, and revel in its colours and patterns, I shall be comforted and lifted out of myself, and even when I am feeling at my most poorly, to know that I am loved and cared for, and that people all around the world are praying for me, and I have more blessings in my life than I could possibly deserve, and how impossible it is to count them all.

When we hear everyday on the news of all the awful things that people do to each other in this world, it encourages me no end to know that not everybody is like that, and that there are people who reach out across the world and perform acts of kindness to bless others that they hardly know. I have been challenged a lot of late with the knowledge that I really do very little for other people, and how I could be using my own God-given skills and talents to bring some sunshine into the darkness of the lives of others. Thank you, Maria, not just for this wonderful quilt, but for giving me the push I needed to start doing this in a small way. May God bless you.

Kitty Squad, Lavender Sachets and WOYWW 313

What’s on your workdesk (this) Wednesday? I have to say there’s not much on mine, because I’ve been too exhausted recently to sit up in my ARTHaven studio, and have decamped downstairs so I can be creative with my feet up! My poor hubby, what he has to put up with. Look at the state of our sitting room.

Zooming in where I am doing most of the actual “work” (if you can call it that), here is what my table looks like when I’m busy.

I have two things on the go at the moment. I always find the smaller the project, the more stuff I need to make it. First of all, I have started a project using my new Stampotique Originals stamp “Kitty Squad.” I bought this last year, and because health issues overtook me in the New Year, this is the first time I’ve used it.

The first thing I do with Stampotique Originals stamps is to unmount them from their wood blocks. I hate wood-mounted stamps. They take up far too much room, and it’s difficult to see exactly where they are going to stamp. So I broke out the adhesive remover and found some EZ-Mount Foam and set to work. Very sticky job, and it gets all over my non-stick scissors from Tim Holtz, too. Anyway, job done, I started to stamp whole sheets of card with this stamp.

Then I fussy-cut them out. What a job. I still haven’t finished. Here are some of them laid out randomly on my brown masterboad/background sheet. (It can only be called a masterboard if one intends to cut it up and use it in projects, something I can never bring myself to do.)

They look a bit like bugs… More photos later, when I reveal what I’m going to do with all these kitties. It’s an experiment and I have no idea if it will work. Still, fussy cutting is quite therapeutic!

My other project is to make little lavender sachets for all my fellow chemo “cows” sitting patiently in the milking parlour, chewing the cud and waiting for their chemo infusions to finish. It’s a bit of a glum experience, and my friend Maria in the US has told me about her cancer-survivor friend who started “Happy Chemo!” by giving people small gifts. I felt inspired by this and thought what nicer than to give each person a lavender sachet to sniff. Lavender is so calming and healing and lovely, and last year, our neighbour gave me a whole armful of clippings from her lavender hedge and there is still masses left over after making quite a bit of infused lavender oil.

I’m good at pretty, but not so good perhaps at the more manly style, so I decided that alongside the pretty ones, made with scraps of lace and ribbon and pretty embellishments, I’d make some plain calico ones for the chaps. I have never stamped on fabric before (except for a brief experimental foray into stamping on teabags), so I used sepia archival ink, using my other new Stampotique Originals stamps, “Medium Bee with tiny bee.”

I love the look of the sepia on the unbleached calico.

My plastic tray full of goodies for making the bags. I’ve also got several large boxes and quite a few smaller ones littering up the place (see first photo) with all the stuff I “might need” for this project!

These are the seven bags I’ve finished so far. Each one has some form of embellishment, and each one has a tiny heart charm sewn on which reads “made with love.” You will notice that each bag has a little loop. You can hang this over your thumb for sniffing purposes, and later you can hang the bag on a clothes hanger if you want.

I have a lot of recycled embellishments, including bits and pieces from sabotaged cheap jewellery from the village fete. Some of my little bags have a disc of abalone shell from a necklace I took apart. The iridescent colours of these shiny shell fragments are beautiful. I’ve also got a couple of plastic “charms” that came out of a Christmas cracker – bright red plastic – which I have painted with black gesso with the idea of rubbing gilding wax on them – great for this project.

I couched some white cotton cord (which I smooshed in some Gathered Twigs distress ink on my craft sheet) around the edges of the calico bags, and frayed the ends of the loop to create tassels.

I’ve still got a lot of them to make. Eventually each one will be tucked into a little box – I found the design online and downloaded the template – a pretty box cut from a single piece and assembled in such a way that it remains closed until the recipient desires to open it. I am going to use thick watercolour paper to make these (probably) and they will be embellished with mixed media – each box will reflect the design and/or colour of the sachet within.

It was my birthday on Saturday, but as with my hubby’s birthday on 19th and our 29th anniversary on 24th, it was a low key affair as I didn’t feel up to celebrating. Let’s hope that we will be able to celebrate big time next year! My friend Marlene sent me a box of crafty goodies for my birthday which I unfortunately put away before I remembered I hadn’t photographed it, but there were lots of fabby embellishments, gems, rubber stamps, die cuts, etc. etc. What fun! Some will be incorporated in the lavender sachets project.

We went to a stoma open day today (yes, such things DO exist…) – see my Gutless Bag Lady blog if you are interested (link top right of this blog). My stoma is now settled enough for the nurse to set up a prescription for me (saw her last Friday, when I also saw the surgeon, who is well pleased with my progress). Oncology appointment tomorrow, and then my next chemo on 12th June. It’s all go. I am now feeling a lot better after the first treatment’s effects are starting to wear off, and I’m trying to take full advantage of these “good” days.

Sorry not to be able to take part in the WOYWW 6th anniversary ATC swap, but I am hoping to send one to each of the people who have very kindly sent me an ATC to cheer me along my road to a cancer-free life!

Happy WOYWW, everybody, and may chaos reign in our creative spaces, and may God grant us enough of His creative spirit to enable us to bring a small modicum of beauty out of that chaos during the coming week.