Gift Wrapping with Bigz Bow Die.

A very quick post on the Bigz Bow Die.
 My sister wrapped up MY birthday present in the wrapping paper you see here. 
I thought  it was too pretty to throw away so I have  recycled it by wrapping her birthday present in it, I figure she liked the paper enough to buy it for me so she'll love to get a present wrapped in it  :~)  

There are some beautiful images on this wrapping paper.
That would make fantastic stamps sets.

I have added  a big bow to this parcel using  the long since retired Sage Shadow card stock. It seemed to go with this paper better than any other colour in my vast stock of card And the Bigz Bow Die from Stampin' Up!

 First I cut 4 strips 3/4" wide and I inked the edges of the strips  slightly, then  the edges of the bow to make the card strips look as though it has the edges of a real ribbon. 

I added the bow to the centre of my faux ribbons and using a hot glue gun I applied the shank-less button to the centre of the bow,  just for a little glitz.

P.S If you want to know what's in the parcel...... I 'll only say it's a new S.U. product she'll love using.

Wedding Invitations

 It's been a while since I have posted anything . To be honest my craft room is in such a mess it's almost  impossible to work in there. Since I lost my airing cupboard to a new boiler all the linens have be stacked up outside the  craft room making virtually  impossible to get in there. The problem should be resolved tomorrow as my new bespoke  linen cupboard arrives. But enough of my  domestic babble and on to my latest creations.
I was asked  last week to knock up a few samples of wedding invitations as cheaply as possible.  So I have been forced into clearing a small space on my work bench to create the invitations below.

I don't know the bride to be so mum is giving me ideas as to what  her daughter may like.
Instructions so far  are  they are going for a beach/ travel themed wedding and the chosen colours maybe blue and/or yellow.
For the invitation above I have used bashful blue card stock and ribbon and the scallop shell from the Natures next stamp set  stamped onto whisper white card and heat embossed with silver embossing powder.

The second one is the swallowtail background stamp from SU heat embossed, again using silver embossing powder on whisper white card stock.


The third one Marina mist card stock and the scallop shell again with silver embossing powder.

Mum also mentioned Butterflies  so I have used the

Swallowtail stamp to create these two invitations. I can't say they are my cup of tea but I do find that other people tend to like the card I make, that I don't like. (Very strange)                                   Here I have embossed the butterfly in white and daubed  pool party ink all over the embossed image

.

 I have more ideas brewing in my head and during the summer I shall be making more samples.

Another project I am working on is a mini album of my NEW GRANDSON. He arrived 9 days early taking us all by surprise.
I will post photos of the album when it's completed.

Jemima Puddle Duck Egg Decorating Competition 2013.

 I can't resist posting this a little earlier than I had intended.

Every year there is an egg decorating competition at for staff at work. I was politely told some years ago I wasn't allowed to enter as it was thought I would win every year.

 I was never sure if this was a serious or a joke, so in all of my years there, I have only ever entered this competition once...... and funnily enough I won. 

This year the theme is book characters.

I was in two minds whether to enter or not.

But at lunchtime today I thought blow it, 

I will enter and then set about boiling some eggs.

I really wanted to have ago at turning an egg into  Jemima Puddle Duck.

And here she is...

Having cooked half a dozen eggs  and while the eggs were still hot, I moulded some air dry clay into the shape of the neck and head of a duck and a pair of wings.  I smoothed the base of the neck as best I could onto the hot egg. Then I positioned the wings and blended the top of the wings into the base of the back of the neck. Surprisingly, No glue was needed. The hot egg also helped the air dry clay to set quicker.

 I made a slot in the head for the beak to slide into later. I also folded a small piece of scrap card and wedged  it between the chin and the chest  to support the head while the clay was drying. As I wanted the head slightly cocked to one side, not drooping on her chest.

At this point lunchtime was over so I hot footed it back to work.

 On my return home I painted the egg and the clay white and allowed it to dry while I set about making the bonnet from blue card and ribbon.

I used a large bead  about the same size as the ducks head for the fittings to prevent squashing the head.

The beak was made using the five petal flower punch. I punched out the flower then cut two of the petal off and folded in half and trimmed away the points off the petals.

 For the eyes I punched two tiny black circles highlighted them with white paint and added a drop of crystal effects to each circle and allowed them to dry.

 For the webbed feet, I punched two flowers using the boho punch. I only needed three petals for each foot so I cut away the excess petals. I lightly sponged the edge of the beak and feet with pumpkin pie ink, curved the beak slightly and folded the feet to give the impression of ridges  in the feet.                                                  The ruffled ribbon was created by running a line of machine stitching up the center of the ribbon. I gathered it by pulling the bobbin thread until my ruffle was the desired length.

 Using a hot glue gun, I ran a line of glue at the base of the bonnets brim and quickly applied the ruffle. I did the same at for the ruffle at the back of the bonnet only using a much shorter length of ribbon.

Now you'd think the scarf would be a piece of cake to drape on the egg and getting it to look the way it does the pictures..... Think again, there is no way you can get a piece of fabric to wrap round a duck the way it does in these books.

 I ended up cutting the fabric into two squares and a rectangle and sticking the pieces together  with snail adhesive to achieve the look and even then it wasn't perfect. I come close to cursing Beatrix Potter for this, but then I remembered all my trips to the library as a child to get her books out.  I loved those books. I couldn't wait to finish one book so I could go back and get the next one.   Fortunately for me the library was only two streets away from where I lived, so I was a frequent visitor.

Enough of memory lane and back to this egg, once the scarf pieces were stuck in position I ironed  it and the stamped rain drops all over it and to add a little bling,  I stuck some very tiny sparkles in amongst the rain drops.

To get Jemima to stand,.. I used a hot glue gun and stuck two  1 pieces together and the glued them to the base of her nest,  then applied a large dollop of hot glue on top of the pennies and placed her on top of the glue. By doing this it raised the egg off the base giving the impression  of legs.

NB.  Her feet, I stuck to the base NOT on the egg.

To make the base I cut a circle about 4" across and ran a thick line of glue about 1/2 an inch away from the edge all the way round and began sticking the screwed up waste paper from cutting the the reeds pushing it lightly into the glue.

I used a selection of  punches, a tiny leaf, a sprig of leaves punched out in different  shades of  browns and green and tiny flowers of cream. 

The whole project took about three hours not including drying time.

Well the competition is on Thursday I'll let you know how Jemima does gets on.  There have been some superb entries over the years so she could be up against some stiff competition.  Keeping fingers crossed for a win, but having said that, 

I really don't need to win a chocolate Easter egg  As they say  ...............Chocolate makes my clothes shrink. :)

Happy Easter one and all.

Nite  x

Waterproof Boot for a Dog

Last weekend poor Molly  had nasty mishap while out for a walk she jumped into a paddling pool to retrieve her ball. Unfortunately somebody had thrown broken bottles in there which resulted in Molly cutting her leg quite severely. So spent the afternoon at the emergency vet having her leg stapled together. Not an experience I want to go through again. Not only was it distressing for Molly,  it was upsetting for us and made a big dent  in the bank balance. Anyway having been stapled, bandaged, injected and robbed blind, we went home. Molly had been given a drip bag to go over her foot to keep it dry. Which made a clomping sound as she walked, which she found unnerving, it didn't stay on too long either. So My next project was to make a boot that would be big enough to cover the entire bandage, that would be as waterproof as possible, that wouldn't make a clomping sound and one that would stay on.

This is was the second design and it seems to work brilliantly.

I used an old raincoat which I didn't like much  and cut out the  shape you see here.                     I did some gathering stitches along the curved edge of the longest section and pulled the them up until side matched up with  the shorter side. The purpose of this was to bring the seam up over the top of the dogs foot to prevent water from seeping in through the seam.                                                                  I then folded the fabric over and stitched the two curved edges together continuing to sew to the top edge, not forgetting to  insert the wrap around strap about 3" down from the top of the boot.                                                                 I did add a small shaping dart in the top gusset afterwards, but to be honest this is not really needed and can be a hindrance if the bandage is really bulky.                                                                   I used these wonderful Kam snaps on this project. I am really impressed with these. I used two male studs on the far end of the strap and four female sockets on the other end making strap of the boot adjustable to fit over various size legs and  thicknesses of bandage. But Velcro stitched onto the strap  will do the job just as well if not better.      I have to say that even the vet was very impressed with this creation.

Everything Eleanor

This card came in the post from my upliner Amanda to mark my 3rd Anniversary with Stampin' Up!
I didn't expect to recieve this as I thought she may have forgotten about little old me.
I can't get to many of her training sessions so I very rarely see or hear from her. You know the old saying .....Out of sight out of mind. So this was a lovely surprise.
I think this has to be my favourite card from Amanda.  I really love the colours she has used and the flourish stamp in the Everything Eleanor stamp set.
Thank you Amanda.

Traction Man by Mini Grey and Laura K

Now for something totally different.

A couple of days ago I was asked by a colleague to  decorate a shoe box,  she wanted it to resemble toy packaging for an action figure.

As she will be reading the  book "Traction Man" by Mini Grey to her class.

It's a lovely book with fabulous art work. The story is a little bizzare. But I am sure the children will love the adventures of Traction Man.... My Hubby did! Especially the bit about the knitted green jump suit.

I personally  had never heard of Traction Man, so I borrowed the book to give me some ideas what it was all about and how to decorate the box.
Low and behold the illustrator (who I am guessing is Mini Grey) had made my job relatively easy as she had a picture of the packaging in the book.

All I had to do was produce something similar so the children will think this the real deal , so to speak.

Jenny only asked me to  decorate  the shoe box.

Upon seeing the figure she had brought in with it,  I thought

kids being kids, are not going to think much of a decorated shoe box with an everyday figure, wearing a white woolly  jumper and a pair of green  trousers in it.

So  me being me thought I would take the project a step further and attempt to make the  Traction man outfit  to make it a little more realistic and exciting for them.

Some off cuts of curtain lining I had been hanging onto finally came in handy.  I  painted the multi coloured zig zag design onto the fabric with acrylic paints for the trousers and wrote the words POW!.  ZAP! & BAM! onto a second piece of fabric and outlined them with orange paint, then filled in the background with blue paint.

Once the paint was dry I proceeded to cut out and sew the pieces together.

I didn't have any red trim for the neck line and armholes. So I used white stretchy binding.

I used some black grosgrain and an old shoe buckle for the belt.

I made a false bottom for the box to bring the figure nearer to the acetate window.

I sponged clouds onto the background and  punched  two holes through the false bottom (at the figures waist)  then threaded  a length of clear elastic through the holes to secure the figure to the background.
Then wrapped the shoe box in the brown paper , the stuff Stampin' up!  use in the packaging of our  orders (after I had ironed it of course)  I stuck some old stamps on it and with some  rubber stamps I stamped  a couple of post mark images over the real stamps and addressed it to school.
 It looked quite authentic by time I had finished.

Next week Traction Man will arrive at school in the post.

As he arrives in the post in the book.

The children will  hear the story and will then be writing their own stories based on the character Traction Man .

Creating the figure makes the character more real to them. Which hopefully will have an impact on their story writing. 

I am quite pleased with the way this project  has turned out.
 I am quite sure Jenny will be very surprised to see her figure dressed as Traction man and hopefully  she 'll be pleased with the finished project too.

Emma 's Birthday Cake.

 

 Just   a quick update on stamping on icing.  I did decided to give this a whirl on the dress of this Barbie cake I made for my son's partner Emma.

I was pleased with the way it turned out and I think Emma liked it too. The strange thing was she had no idea that I was making her a cake let alone what the theme for my cake was.   So when she turned up wearing a Barbie T shirt all we could do was laugh.

The cake was a rich chocolate sponge with lots of chocolate/ cream cheese  cream inside.

I tiled the cake board to give the impression of a floor and painted marbling on the tiles with a little food colouring. I used  Stampin' up s grosgrain to edge the board.

 After stamping the flourish  image from Stampin' up's Creative elements s randomly over the icing,  I stuck loads of little sugar pearls  over the skirt.  The whole the  thing took me three days to complete.  But I did bake  two batches of cakes as I wasn't happy with the first batch and there was an awful lot of cleaning and sterilizing tools and stamps  going on in between.

 And here is the Birthday girl herself moment s after the waitress brought  the cake over to our table.                She really didn't want to cut the cake. Reluctantly she did.

Happy Birthday Emma!! 

 We hope you have had a Great Day.

Washer Necklace

Morning Crafters, This idea was featured in an SU  publication and I have been experimenting with it . I have tried two different ways of creating this washer necklace.
This one was created by covering the washer with versamark ink and white embossing powder and heating until the powder had melted and cooled down.
 Using a sponge dauber  and Stazon  Saddle brown ink,  I covered the entire surface with ink ,  while the ink was still wet , I very, very lightly daubed  a couple patches of  Stazon Timber brown ink and allowed it to dry completely. 
I chose Stazon ink because it does what it says on the can... It  STAYZ ON .  The last thing I wanted to happen was for my inks to run when I added the crystal effects.
 If you don't like the effect you have created you can always clean off the ink with Stazon cleaner and start again.
I  added a  very delicate gold corner peel off  and stuck it to one side of the washer and trimmed back the excess.
Using  the dark brown Stazon, I stamped a couple of flourishes on opposite side to the peel off and allowed the ink to dry.

Then I covered the whole thing in a thick layer of Crystal effects and allowed it to dry over night on a completely level surface. This is very important as the liquid will run to the lower side if your surface is not completely level.
When completely dry,  I looped the cord through the washer and added a lobster claw fastener  onto the ends  of the cord.

The second version was done by punching out a circle from glossy paper  the same size as the washer  and punching a second hole in the centre  (the same size as the hole in the washer)  glue the paper onto the washer and repeating the process of  daubing, stamping and adding the peel off and crystal effects.  (as above).                                                       

I have to say the easiest option was the paper. But it doesn't cover the edges of the washer as the embossing powder did,  so you can still see the metal edges of the washer.    If  I do this version again,  I think I would paint the washer  edges  first.                                              I have also done a couple of these using patterned paper rather than  daubing and stamping white paper.  Which is far easier and quicker . Instead of using a peel off   I used tiny gem stones but I added them too soon to the crystal effects and they sunk into it,  so they no longer sparkle.  Hence I have not photographed them.   Next time, I think I'll wait until the crystal effects has almost dried before adding them. ........Ahh,  We live and learn.

Well I think I have covered everything.... I hope I haven't made too many mistakes on this post. If any thing is unclear feel free to send me your questions I'll be more than happy to answer.

Laura X

Faux bronze wall plaques

This is just a quicky post as it's getting late.
During half term I did a class at Nancy's craft shop on making wall plaques from a beer mat, tissue paper, wool/string and punched flowers.
Basically you apply glue to the beer mat and  spread out some  scrunched napkin tissue over the glue leaving in the wrinkles to give texture.
When dry  you add bits of string, wool, thread, punched shapes fine gravel, tiny seed beads. Whatever takes your fancy.
 Allow it to dry  then paint with black acrylic paint,  once dry you lightly brush bronze paint over the raised areas with a stiff brush to highlight the raised areas.

This project reminded me of a project I did some years ago, which involved an awful lot of toilet tissue. 

It was a photograph album  which holds the photo's of one of our Christmas  plays.   It's still knocking around somewhere .

I will have to find it, photograph it and post them  here.

It was a very effective photo album considering it was made from toilet tissue,  in expensive too. 

Maeve's 50th Card

Here I have CASED MY OWN WORK!!!!!
If you remember I made  my name badge for the Stampin'up regional training in Reading  a couple of weeks ago. I thought the name badge  would work well on the front of a card . So this week I have been busy doing just that and here is the result.
I have to say this was quite time consuming and fiddly in part but as it was for a friend and colleagues 50th birthday it had to be a little bit special .
I used the Baroque motif stamp set with choc chip ink to over stamp the crumb cake stripe DSP.
 Rich Razzlwberry card stock was chosen  for the rose and the rosette, Old Olive card for the leaves daubed with Bravo Burgundy ink.
 I used the 5 petal flower punch and rounded of the tips of the petals to make the the rose.
Under the rose there is a 5 petal flower punched  in Old Olive card stock and  again inked with Bravo Burgundy. The smaller leaves were cut using the little leaves die from SU, they too have been  inked.
 I used a silver metal frame from the hodge podge  kit secured with a couple of tiny brads. I printed off the personalized greeting and hot foiled it in silver.

Then added a small knot of  the Victoria lace and a couple of sparklies.

For the  card box I used the new simply scored score board this is so cool. Box making is a breeze now.

I tried a different way of making the flowers for these as I wanted them a smaller size and not as tall as the rose on the card.

To make these flowers  I used  small  and medium heart punches .

For the pillow box,  I used the pillow box die, Martha Stewarts  doily  punch for the lace edging,  the four labels stamp set and punch, the tiny tags stamp set, little leaves die, rich razzleberry and crumb cake card stock.

 In the  pillow box is one of the glass bead and crystal  bracelets I have been making recently. I tried to match up the beads with the Rich Razzleberry card as you can see it is close but not quite as close as I would have liked.

Maeve loves purples, plums and pinks so I hopefully she will love these.
 You can tell if I am pleased with something I have made as you get more than one photo of it. lol

Name badge.

What  a busy day it's been,  it began with a very early start for a Saturday that is , would you believe I was out traipsing across a farmers field at 7.30 with my hubby and the dogs. I really wanted Molly to have a good walk before I went off to the Stampin'up regional training in Reading, an event I look forward.

This year  we had to make our own name badges and a project  using our purchase from the new summer mini catalogue, which comes out on on Tuesday.

I really found these projects difficult because I seemed to have lost my crafting mojo since I injured my neck a few weeks ago. I was starting to stress out over doing these projects until Thursday night when I came up with this idea for a name badge. It was inspired by a stack of beer mats I had started to cover with the intention of turning them into a mini scrapbook.
Once I had completed the centre I felt it looked unfinished which is when I came  up with the idea to mount it onto an oval shaped fan base.  This seemed to give it the frame it needed. I was pleased with the result and it did get a few lovely comments from other demontrators.
I used the five pettal flower punch  and punched 5 flowers and rounded off the tips before curling,  daubing and assembling the flower. The card is Rich Razzlebury daubed with bravo burgundy,  crumb cake DSP and a tiny piece of old olive  which again was lightly daubed with bravo burgundy. I used the Baroque Motif stamp set to stamp the background flourish.  I added a few sparkles and a smal lace knot to finish it off.
I am very ,very tired now so I am off to bed I will post my mini scrapbook page tomorrow.

Baby blossoms card

As promised here is another little card using  the small oval embossing folder and from S.U and the baby blossom stamp set. I am so impressed with my  free hand  positioning of the  leaves.  You may think I used the  stamp-a-majig,  ha ha .

But I promise you I didn't.

 I used pretty in pink, ruby red and old olive inks for this double stamping technique.Below I used Marina Mist and Pacific point.

here's a Baptism card made for a friend. I used one of the images from Joanna Sheene's CD Baby Love. and the matching backing paper.

The greeting was printed and then hot foiled in pink but it doesn't photograph very well. I foiled the verse and cross image on the inside in pink too.

Black and Ivory wedding invitations.

These black and Ivory wedding invitations caused all sorts of problems. First I couldn't find anyone selling black and Ivory card .

So I decided to make the card myself.

Then I hit another problem the card had to be a decent weight to ensure it wouldn't tear or curl outwards with the weight and tension of the ribbon and button pulling on it.

When I found what I thought was the perfect card......it wouldn't go through my printer.

Eventually I decide to try stampin' ups very vanilla card stock it worked a treat, I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier.

I got through miles of ribbons . I was shocked at just how much ribbon these were taking and a bit annoyed at having to make several trips into town to buy more.

The next problem was the black card.

I wanted a heavier weight so that I could make a fairly sturdy box for these invites.

My usual supplier didn't have any , but it turned out that a colleague did!!! Bless you and Thank You Allison.

And here are the matching menu and place cards . .......Well some of them.

The menu looks slightly lighter in colour in this photo, but it is exactly the same colours as the place card.

You can click on the photo s for a larger view.

Pink and Navy Floral card.

This one is a bit more involved. It might make a nice Mother's Day card.

The boho blossom punch used again here this time it hasn't been cut down to make hands or feet.

The Christmas ornament punch has had the point chopped off and the hanging bit snipped out with a small circle punch to form a vase. I used white craft ink and a stamp from an SU stamp set that is longer available, (so it doesn't really matter that I can't remember the name of it) to stamp the pattern on the vase and the background. The leaves are the branch from the bird punch.

The pink paper is SU's designer paper.

Punch art ideas

Two more punch art items the bat wings were made from two of the middle size oval punch from SU. I cut away the wings with a small circle punch. The body and head are just circles with a dimension in between.

For the penguin I used the word window and a circle for the hat.

Ovals in all sizes for the body and wings the head and eyes circles.

The feet were created with the boho blossoms punch.

Mr Piggy

This gorgeous fat piggy was made using four circle punches and the five petal flower punch (all from SU)
I daubed the edges with creamy caramel ink using a sponge dauber.

The fence was created using the train tracks wheel stamp and white craft ink (both available from SU) I filled in the little gaps in the fence with a white gel pen. Stamped my foliage, daubed and drew in the grass and the daisies.

Can't quite think of an occassion one would use this card for apart get well soon. Perhaps it should read
" I hope you're cured soon."

So If anyone has any other suggestions , please tell, I would be delighted to read them.

Clare's card

The stripey pink paper is from Stampin' up, as is the cupcake stamp set I used to make this card.
The stamp set is called crazy for cupcakes and it's about the only stamp set I remember the name of.
The lacey edge was punched with the new lace edge punch from stampin'up.
I used Stampin up markers , copic markers and a white souffle pen to colour the cakes and stand.
The card stock is SU's pretty in pink.

For Clare, Happy Birthday

It's Clare's birthday today and she will be receiving this little bag with some gift vouchers later today.

I think I am safe posting this before she gets this.

I expect she is far too busy to be reading my blog.

I used the Stampin' up's Stripey paper for the bottom section of the bag and added a

co ordinating pink card flap. A sticky foam pad as the closure and a flat back pearl to represent the fastener.

The bird punch from stampin' up came in handy again for the foliage for the spiral rose.

Pale pink grosgrain was used to make the handle.

The template was purchased from our local craft shop.

Snowflake Christmas card

The acetate window sheets were used for this see through card.
I stamped the acetate with Stazon using the serene snowflake stamp set .
I stamped the navy card with one of the larger snowflake stamps in the set, but this time I stamped it with shimmer paint . I applied the paint with a sponge dauber to the stamp taking care not to flood the stamp with paint.
I set one of the new stampin' up jewels in the centre of the snowflake and then placed three more jewels on the far side of the card.
I used the new stampin up lace edge punch on the side of the card.
This was then layered onto whisper white card and mounted on to the acetate base card.
I cut two pieces of whisper white card the same size and stuck one inside the card for the greeting and one on the back of the card, by doing this you hide the adhesive strips and it also gives you somewhere to stamp your,..... "Handmade by Joanna blogs"

"Time for bed "said Zeberdee....... and tonight, I will go willingly zzzzzzzzzzzzz