Serious Mother Talent

They say that an apple never falls far from the tree and when it comes to crafting, there must be some truth in that old cliche. However, if my mother was the tree, then she was a mighty oak.

All of my life I can remember her making things even when she had a house to run and FIVE daughters to raise. She had a fine arts background, but her real talent lay in a variety of crafts. She was an extraordinary seamstress. Vogue patterns were a doodle, her smocking was exquisite and her needlepoint was simply stunning.

But her talents didn't stop there. She was also a fabulous miniaturist. She had this incredible ability to make the most realistic figures out of polymer clay. Not content to restrict herself to doll houses, she and her husband designed and built whole scenes. How about a scuba diving boat ON the water and a whole bunch of divers exploring a coral reef UNDER the water. Fish, coral, bubbles the whole lot all handmade.

Above is one of her earlier creations. We lived in Pennsylvania and my father was an avid hunter, not just for the sport, but to provide much needed food for our table. And without being to eco about it, my parents used every part of an animal that could be used short of making needles from the bones.

These are pheasant feather vests and shoes. My mother glued every single one of those tiny feathers on by hand! When the light hits it, it shimmers and flashes an irridescent beauty that has to be seen to be believed.

My mother loved to make things...

Paverpol, But Not as We Know It!

WOW!!! Just spent two days working with polymer clay artist and Paverpol wizard, Birdy Heywood. Always wanted to get my head around working with Paverpol, but wasn't a huge fan of the spindly figures I'd seen...then I happened on Birdy Heywood at the Bluewater Hobbycraft Show a few weeks ago and was knocked out with what she was doing with Paverpol and Fimo. Stunning pieces of art!

I couldn't wait to sign up for a class!!!

Now, I can't say that my first effort is a "stunning piece of art", but it ain't half bad and I'll be proud to own it and that fact is largely down to Birdie's excellent tutoring. She is a wealth of information stacked on top of years of experience. She is one of those wonderful craftswomen that is happy to share her knowledge and skills, but equally willing to let you pursue your own vision of what you hope to accomplish. All of which amounts to my idea of a perfect learning environment.

I had the extra bonus of getting to work along side Birdy's friend, Maggie, who was constructing an incredibly intricate Heron. All in all, a terrific way to spend a couple of days. My masterpiece is still curing so no pictures yet, but wanted to sing Birdie's praises before the rest of my life runs me over...thank you Birdy and Maggie!

Just a plain ol' loverly day

Stampbord Mosaic class at the Craft Barn yesterday was just plain lovely...getting to work with the two Liz's, Barbara and Jackie who all turned out lovely pieces, getting a chance to catch-up with Sandy and Sarah back from their adventures at the NEC, finally caught up with Carol and great to see Jane again...it's been way too long.

A decoupage Kinda Day

Caught myself yesterday just in the nick of time! NEARLY posted a WOYWW. What was I thinking?

It's one thing to show-off finished stuff, it's quite another to expose the chaos behind the final result. I admire other folks brave enough to put their reality out there, but I need my fantasy persona kept intact.

So, it's a tidy little bit of decoupage without the behind the scenes muck and such. These pictures are of the project example done up for a class that was held at the Craft Barn last year.

All you need is a:

• little wooden box
• 12 x12 sheet of Graphics 45 Once Upon a Springtime paper
• acrylic paint in matching/complimentary colours and suitable brushes
• PVA glue
• sharp craft knife and scissors
• decorators varnish (waterbased) satin

Then just paint the box and let it dry. You'll notice that this box is splatter painted with a trusty old toothbrush using contrasting colours.

Carefully cut out the images you like and apply images to the box with PVA glue. Always check that all your edges are securely glued down and then give the whole box a thin coat of PVA to seal.

Allow to dry and then apply one or two coats of decorators varnish. This is waterbased so brushes are easy to clean.

If your box is going to get handled a lot, you might want to consider using a harder wearing varnish such as a good quality yacht varnish.

And just a reminder: Never display decoupages boxes in direct sunlight unless you really, REALLY like the faded look because they do and they will FADE!

Acetate and Alcohol Inks

No flowers in the garden? Solution...make some! Saw this done on YouTube ages ago and thought I'd have a go myself. Gotta say, this is one truly easy, seriously simple, ever so effective technique. Added plus...acetate is incredibly robust so these will stand up to quite a bit of wear and tear.

All you need is:

A sheet of acetate
Sizzix Tattered Flowers Die and any die cutting machine that can take the Sizzix Dies
A selection of alcohol inks in colours that you like 
Two decorative brads
Glossy Accents

Method:

1) Cut 2  pieces of acetate to fit the die and run it through your machine so you have two of each of
    the shapes to construct two flowers. Or...cut any combo you chose.

2) From the scraps, hand cut or die cut leaves

3) Ink the acetate in your chosen colours. Aim for some variation between the different elements so
    you get some contrast between them when they are layered

Then for the magic fun...

4) Apply your heat gun. As soon as heat comes in contact with the acetate, the acetate will begin to
    curl up

5) Use your fingers or the end of a pencil to manipulate the direction of the curl

6) Layer the acetate flowers and use a small hole punch to pierce through the stack.

7) Push your brads through and fix

8) Lastly, apply a small amount of glossy accents to your leaves and fix to the underside of the
    flowers

I haven't indicated what adhesive to use to fix the finished flowers as this will depend on the surface you want to fix them to (cardstock, acetate, wood, metal) and your personal "stick-it down and keep it down" preference.

AADD

Stumbled across "Janice" during one of my way too frequent and way too lengthy bouts of blog surfing and discovered that she has provided me with the perfect diagnosis for my ongoing affliction...

AADD or ARTISTIC ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER! 

My symptoms fit perfectly:

Need to make a birthday card for a good friend. Wait for inspiration...wait...wait...OK, got the basic idea in my head, find suitable piece of cardstock, find rubber stamps start searching for the right ink pad...

While searching, stumble on silverclay stuff...think maybe it would be nice to make her a little gift as well...maybe she'd like a pair of earrings so start dragging out the clay, rollers, cutters, blow torch...but then suddenly can't recall whether she wears silver or gold??? Some friend I am.

Then just happen to notice lovely colours of polymer clay just sitting there...think maybe she'd rather have a polymer clay pendant and I do know the colour combinations she loves to wear or...

maybe a friendly plastic brooch so start going through the friendly plastic stash...hold on, think again...maybe a Stampbord pendant and earring set would be more her??? Dig out the crop-a-dile, jewellry findings and chalk inks and start inking...

But come to think of it, she's always admired the decoupaged boxes. Right decoupage box it is! Bring out the papers, the scissors, the glue and start cutting out...

Sudden hesitation...she admired the decoupage boxes but she seemed really taken with the Grungepaper bookcovers and bookmarks I showed her ages ago.

That's it! She's a huge Scrabble fan. I'll make a leather look, Grungepaper book decorated with scrabble tiles for her to keep her game scores in...PERFECT!

Collect up half a dozen bottles of Glimmer Mist, line the picnic table with newspaper and start misting.

Leave to dry and go through all the embossing folders to find the one I want, hook up the Vagabond on the kitchen counter because by now the studio is in such a state I can't get in the door... 

Already to go and realise that I need to find a little book to cover...Open door to studio and enter Health and Safety Hazard. Think I know where I put the two dozen books I've bought in the past because as we all know, you can never have too much or too many (but that's another disorder for another day)...in the process manage to cause a major avalanche, but no books...try to think again where I could have put them and think again, turn in circles...hopeless gap in brain! Give Up!

Now, of course, the whole morning is gone and I'm suppossed to meet her for lunch in 10 minutes...just enough time to stop off and BUY A BLOODY CARD!

Treatment plan might be in order!



A Bottle of Bubbly for Valentine's Day

Champagne for Valentine's Day...Definitely! But, how about a bit of added WOW factor inclusive of a sparkling slipper to drink it from? You are looking at a "Dressed Bottle".  Dressed bottles can be decorated for any special occasion: Christmas, weddings, birthdays, anniversarys or just because.

For any dressed bottle you will need:

A bottle : Champagne, wine, spirits, whatever you fancy
Two large squares of tissue paper (As you can see, I used red and black)
A meter square of material (I particularly like using sheer fabric for the shimmer)
A small terracotta pot (the size should fit snuggly over the top of your bottle. I have been know to
                 take my bottle into Hobbycraft to make sure)
Two variations of wired ribbon (length depends on type of bow you want)
Hot glue gun
A meter of thin wire (I tend to use florists wire)
Acrylic paint
Decorators' varnish (gloss, satin or matt)
A Topper (This is the decoration that sits on top of the bottle. Toppers can be anything as long as it
                  is not too heavy and not too unbalanced as it has to sit on top of the bottle without tipping
                  it over) I used a very light weight glittered, mesh shoe I found in TKMax
Other embellishments : I used three red, beadded hearts

The How To:

1) Place the fabric on a flat surface (I tend to work on the floor for some reason???)
2) Place the two pieces of tissue paper at different angles on top of the fabric
3) Place the bottle in the middle of the paper and fabric pile
4) Draw the fabric and paper up the bottle and tie off at the neck with the florists wire (Make sure
    that you tie the wire as tight as you can) Then pull the fabric evenly at the top to ensure a tight fit
    around the bottom of the bottle
5) Paint the terracotta pot in a colour to compliment your colour scheme. Allow to dry and then
    varnish with gloss, satin or matt decorators' varnish
6) Tie your wired ribbons around the neck of the bottle and into bows of your chosing. I often create
    bows separately and hot glue gun them to the bottle.
7) Hot glue your topper to the centre of the terracotta pot and place on the top of the bottle

To chill: simply take the topper off and place the whole bottle in the refridgerator.
Then remove the bottle, replace the topper and you have a lovely centrepiece.

To open: take the topper off and open the bottle. Pour carefully so as not to get too much liquid on your tissue paper or fabric.

To display: Once the contents of the bottle has been consumed (Warning: if you give these as a gift, this part is important to explain as people think opening the bottle will ruin it. It won't) give it a quick rinse and allow to dry and then fill the bottle with dry beans or rice to weight the bottle and then replace the topper. Sometimes, depending on how the bottle opens, it will be necessary to put a little Blue Tack or similar stuff inside the terracotta topper to keep it fixed to the bottle.

Storage: These bottle are incredibly durable. Folks have been known to pack their Christmas bottles away and bring them out for table and mantel decorations for years. Just wrap the bottle and topper separately in tissue and store. When you take the bottle out of storage all you have to do is fluff up the fabric and paper and give the wired ribbons a tweak, plunk the topper back on and they look as good as new.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Stitch by Stitch

I'd say this was a bit different from the previous efforts. For a start there's not a single piece of Stampbord in sight. And I'd say this a slightly better effort as I seem to have figured out how to make the photo larger and therefore easier to see.

"Stitch by Stitch", the title of this piece, is a bit of a joke given that the one craft material I don't mess with is fabric and the other stuff that tends to go along with it like needles and thread. I can't sew a button on to save my life. Well I can, but the end result is just plain nasty.

The irony is that my mother was an artist and craftswoman of exceptional skill and creative talent. She could draw and paint, she made exquisite miniatures and her sewing and needlework are things of legend. So, this mixed media piece is as close as I'll probably ever get to anything sewing related.

Materials Used:

Wooden House

Sewing Room Alterations Die

Grungeboard or Grungepaper

Large Wooden Spool

Bobbin*

Thimble*

Buttons

Lace, ribbon and small pieces of fabric

Small piece of measuring tape

Small pieces of cream coloured cardstock

Dolls House Miniature Sewing Box, Machine and Patterns x2*

Claudia Hellmuth's Sticky-backed Canvas

A found hotel toiletries Sewing Kit

Acrylic Paint : Red, Brown, Dusky Pink and Mauve

Distress Inks : Walnut Stain, Vintage Photo and Barn Door

Brown fine line felt-tip pen

PVA glue

Red Double-sided tape

* All found on ebay sites selling doll house miniatures or sewing supplies

This little wooden house makes the perfect substrate for a bit of an exercise in mixed media fun.

1) The front edges, outer sides and roof were all painted in red acrylic paint and then  distressed

     using Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

2) The internal sides were distressed using Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Inks.

3) Die cut the dress form twice, once with Grungepaper and the second time with Claudia

    Hellmuth's sticky backed canvas and the spool. (You can use Grungepaper or Grungeboard)

4) Paint both the first dress form and the spool with brown acrylic paint and distress the edges with

    Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Inks

5)  Distress the edges of the Sticky-backed canvas dress using Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain.

     Remove the backing and apply the Sticky-backed canvas dress to the dress form.

6) Wrap the spool with thick thread. I used book binding thread.

7) Paint the little wooden sewing box in colours of your choice. I used a dusky pink and mauve.

8) Cut small 4 pieces of card and wrap with pieces of fabric to make the bolts of cloth.

9) Cut two pieces of card stock to fit in the spaces shown above and distress the edges with Barn

     Door and, you guessed it...Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain.

10) Using a fine felt tip pen write the sentiment in tiny little lines to make it appear as if the words

      have been stitched and use the same technique to go around the edges. Use personal friendship

      quotes that appeal to you (Just tap friendship quotes into Google and you will be spoiled for

      choice). Then glue into place with PVA or other clear drying adhesive.

11) Glue other embellishment into place except for the large spool in the bottom section.

12) For the large spool, take a piece of patterned paper and cut a strip wide enough to fit on the pool.

      (It can be as long as you like) and write a personal message of friendship to the person you like

       enough to give this to. Affix the beginning of the note to the spool using doublesided tape and

       then wrap the message tightly around the spool and tie up with a pretty piece of ribbon. 

      giving it to

13) Using double-sided tape, affix the lace to the edges of the house. I was, and still am, in two

      minds about whether I like this piece with or without the lace trim?

14) Colour a piece of measuring tape with Barn Door Distress Ink and affix to the dress form. Tie

      a piece of ribbon around the waits and glue to the side of the house and you're DONE!

I Dreamed Again of Venice

Geez, I am waiting for the day when I sit down to put a picture on this blog and it takes less than two days to remember how I did it the last time. You will see from the previous post that the last attempt ended in abject failure.

By that was last time...this time we have lift-off. This little miniature canvas uses the Venician set from Katzelcraft. Now, I am not a huge fan of "sets" of stamps. There will be one I really, really want, a couple of "might use one day" and the rest you could turn into tires for all I care. This set was one of my rare exceptions.

For this piece I used:

1 small canvas
Stampbord: 4 inchie pieces and 1 domino size piece
Etching tool
Stamps: Venician set by Katzelkraft
Black acrylic paint
Black Soot Crackle Paint
Versa Magic Chalk Inks is light to dark shades of blue
Stazon Black
CD Marker pen in red
Crystal teardrop and 2 small crystals
Ultimate Glue or any clear drying glue
Black broad tipped pen
3.0 Artline Calligraphy pen in black

1) Paint the canvas with black acrylic paint and allow to dry
2) Apply Black Soot Crackle paint randomly over sections of the canvas and set aside to dry
3) Colour each of the Stampbord pieces with the same shades of chalk ink.

I tend to cover the whole piece with the light shade of blue and then apply the darker shades to the edges of the pieces. I used shades of blue justed because, but use the colours that you like best. I liked the effect of colouring all the Stampbord in the same shades, but I'm gonna try doing them all differently one of these days.

4) Lay the stamp on a flat surface, ink the faces on the three different masks with black Stazon, place the Stampbord pieces over the faces and press down firmly. Don't be too heavy handed or you risk losing the detail in these images.

Note that the image under the domino piece has been stamped so the square inchie appears as a diamond shape.

5) Etch your chosen potions of the stamped images. WARNING: Unless you want a seriously weird and rather spooky result, resist the temptation to etch eyeballs!
6) Paint the lips using the red CD marker pen
7) Glue any additional elements to the Stampbord and allow to dry
8) Colour the edges of each stampbord piece with the broad tipped black pen the press the edge of the calligraphy pen firmly into the top edge of the Stampbord and draw along each side of each piece to create a thin frame/border.
9) Glue the Stampord to the canvas

and DONE!

I feel something a little different coming on for next time...

Still Working on This

Demos and Dining Room Tables

Forgot to say what a lovely time I had demoing Stampbord at The Craft Barn on Saturday. I got to meet so many lovely new people and spend some time with old friends.

I'm in deep dodoo. The Husband built me a lovely studio and the deal was that I would keep all my craft crap out of the house and off the dining room table. I am currrently failing to keep my end of the bargain.

Note to Self: Must clear off the diningroom table by noon tomorrow!

Love Stampbord Love Trees

First picture up! I'd celebrate with a glass of champagne, but it's only 10.30am so I'll force myself to settle for another cuppa tea.

Stampbord pieces are coloured with Versa Mark chalk inks. Chalk inks have a creamy texture that give you a bit more time to blend clours. You can use Distress Inks or watercolours, but these will absorb much more quickly. Images are stamped with black Stazon. Stamps used are from Crafty Individuals.

The Stampbord pieces at the top are inked with shades of blue Versa Magic chalk ink and stamped with black Stazon. The tops of the branches are etched using the scratch tool to remove the ink and allow the white clay surface to come through like moonlight on tree tops.

Lay the stamp image side up and lightly ink with Tattered Rose Distress Ink. Then press the stampbord onto the stamp. This will allow you to see where the horizon line is on the Stampbord.

If you don't trust yourself to remember where you placed the Stampbord on the stamp, I suggest you mark each side of the stampbord with a light pencil mark before lifting it from the stamp so you can line up the horizon line again when you're ready to stamp the image again with Stazon.. Allow to dry. It only takes a few seconds or blot with paper towel if your really in a hurry.

Then colour the foreground with shades of brown and the sky with winter sunset shades using small pieces of craft foam. I used Mango Madness, Pink Grapefruit, Turquoise Green, Ocean Depth, Night Sky and Eggplant. For an extra touch of drama, take the edge of the craft foam and run it across a Red Magic Versa Mark ink pad and run this edge over the sky scape at irregular intervals.

Next, ink the stamp again with black Stazon or any other permanent black ink pad and carefully line up the horizon line. Press the Stampbord piece onto the stamp, and apply gentle pressure over the whole piece and lift carefully.

If there are any parts of the image missing simply colour them in with a black, fine line copic marker. Using a wide tiped black marker, colour all four sides of each piece and then using a 3.0 Calligraphy pen (I used Artline), press the edge of the pen firmly on the top edge of the Stampbord and run it along the edge. This creates a dramatic frame for the piece and helps the colours really pop.

Paint the background canvas in complimentary colours. I used acrylic paint, but you could use oils if you prefer. Allow to dry thoroughly and the glue stampbord to the canvas (Ultimate glue or the red doubled-sided tape works very well) and I added a few black buttons as an embellishment.

Helpful Stampbord Hint: If you don't like your background colours, simply take a baby wipe and  rub the Stampbord surface. This will lift most, if not all the chalk ink from the Stampbord. Allow to dry and start again. If you're really quick and rub a bit harder, you can often remove Stazon ink as well.
                                                        ***********************

As this is my first attempt at explaining a process via a blog. Any and all constructive criticism for how to improve a "How To" post will be very welcome. I used an existing picture for this post as I wasn't even sure it would work. Will try and post larger images and hopefully some step-by-step pictures as I get to grips with the process.

Watch this Space...Truer word were never spoken

Am now facing the fact (AGAIN) that coming to grips with a new bit of technology is going to take longer (read: a lot longer) than I anticipated. This could be my "To Do" for all of 2012. *sighs*

In the Beginning...

For all of you that have been asking and encouraging me to start a blog, well...I'm going to have a go. Mind you, I've just spent the last half hour getting a profile picture up on here only to discover that IT ISN'T. Great start huh?

I would say, "what this space", but the risk is it will be exactly that...a space!