Penguin inspired braclet

A work colleague asked me to make him a special gift for his penguin fanatic daughter.


So this Christmas I scoured the Internet and found these penguin beads and some silver coloured penguin charms.



I just needed a few additional silver beads and threaded them onto a pandora style bracelet to complete the present.



Hope she likes the gift after all the efforts 'Dad' went to.

Calorie free Christmas cake

I asked one of my friends "what would you like for Christmas this year ?" , her reply was " a calorie free Christmas cake and some peace "






Whilst at a recent craft fair I spotted a lovely template from Scary Mary that was just the ticket.






It was for a cake in a box... So it thought the perfect gift for Arlene ...a Papercraft cake and I could decorate it in whatever "peace" theme, I thought appropriate.






The template was easy to construct and decorate. I chose a simple white and gold theme and decorated the cake with some doves to symbolise "peace"






Obviously the template could be used for a variety of other themes including birthdays and christenings.





They are available from Scary Mary designs by clicking http://www.scarymarycards.com/shop/keepsake-kits/deluxe-wedding-keepsake-kits/deluxe-celebration-keepsake-kit/deluxe-celebration-keepsake-kit-1-pack-detail

Home foiling

If like me your a little magpie'ish ( I know, not a real word ) you will have eyed up cards with foiling and dreamed of creating you own designs without the limitations of stamps.
The key component to the hot foiling process is "Toner"  this is the powder used by laser copiers to "print"  but before you cry out in dis-pare you don't have one your friendly photo copy shop has. Foiling uses the toner that has fused (stuck) to paper and remelts it making it sticky allowing the foil to stick to the printed design
Having watched a demonstration of a foiling machine at a craft show.  I remembered the laminating machine which lay gathering dust in the spare room. While looking up laminate machines (which can be picked up from as little as £11) I wondered what the difference was the answer would seem to be not a lot both do the same thing "heat".
Having said that the rollers inside can be very different, some laminate machines  don't have solid rods inside and are made up of a number of separate wheels to feed the pouches through this can result in a ripple effect in the finished sheets. having considered this difference the other consideration was "how hot" I was lucky the Rexel machine I already owned has a temperature control which allowed me to have very good control for my experiment.

first I printed out a number of little pictures with a laser printer to play with having set my laminating machine   at the 150 micron setting (it seemed as good enough place to start as any).




 It didn't go so well some how I ended up with a rectangle of foil instead of my flourish so I turned down the temperature a little and tried again.

This turned out a little better but far from brilliant so down went the temperature
again a little too far it seemed as I was missing bits up and down went the temperature for a while and it seemed I would never get it right when I decided to put an extra piece of card into the carrier sheet to press the foil a little and........result !  An un-crinkled perfectly foiled flourish.



I'm sure you will agree for the home crafter the results are excellent Here I have photocopied some flourishes onto some papers that came free in a magazine

    

                                                                                 
                                                   
                            

                              

                                                                         
                  

Primary doll stamps

Got these lovely new prima products from local craft shop and made these lovely tags


The girl is a new prima doll stamp I have used Tim Holtz tape over the tag with some old lace.

Turquoise card

Here is my latest card making.
Lots of floral detail on this, mostly elements made from the Martha Stewart light clay and moulds we got recently from create and craft.



Love the way the flowers and swirls came out and especially like the way they don't weigh the card down

Tonic demo with Ruth Hamilton

Thelma and I attended a demo day at our favourite craft shop Paperwoks at the Linen Green.
we were instructed by Ruth Hamilton ( i have included a link to her blog below) who also taught us how to use the tonic studios flower punch and stamp sets . There are 4 flower sets, had to have them all of course.
Here are the paper flowers I made after attending the demo day.




And here is a link to Ruth Hamiltons blog where she shows all the other cards she demonstrated yesterday
http://apassionforcards.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/yesterdays-demo-at-paperworks-dungannon.html

T shirt making

Following on from yesterday's blog... I have attached photos of the finished
T shirts that were designed by my niece's Grace and Holly.

Grace designed this one, with stitched detail on ribbons, paisley swirls and her name in hot fix rhinestones.




Holly decided upon a red t shirt with animal print hearts and gold gemstone starbursts and a purple ribbon waistband.


Totally unique and handmade, and boy are they pleased with their efforts.

Not available on the high street!!

Lily's craft attic juniors

Today my little niece's came over for some "makings"
It was a bit of a craft festival with jewellery making, sewing and t shirt desinging.




The one above was made by Grace. A simple red rosé button placed i. The centre with white buttons, pearl beads and plain red buttons either side. These were suspended on a simple choker frame.
Just in case a girl changes her mind and needs a different design.




Holly made the design above, again just purple beads and buttons suspended on a wire choker style frame. The middle flower pendant I made using fimo clay.




Then we decided to make a flower styled bracelet. We used two toned pink organza material cut into strips. A simple running thread was stitched along one edge and pulled into a ruffle. The flowers were then attached to the silver bracelets with the hot melt glue gun.




You can check out our other makes on tomorrow's blog.

Girlie fairy card with bookmark

My niece is an avid reader so I decided to make her birthday card this year with an added bookmark.




I chose the pink lacy design for obvious reasons and particularly liked the two girls on the topper. Nearly as cute as Grace and her sister.




The girlie bookmark is only lightly attached with a foam pad so she can remove it easily.

Extreme textiles

I recently purchase a set of extreme knitting needles from Rachel John.
This weekend I decided to knit a cushion cover with some loom end yarn.




The yarn was very wide but worked very well with the 24mm needles.


I also made the other 2 cushions in the background. The big buttons were a car boot mind for a few pence.


The three cushions all have different textures and compliment each other perfectly and also match my chocolate coloured leather sofa.
Not bad for a few quid.

I have included a close up of this weekends cushion so you can see the nice texture in the fabric yarn as it is hared to see in the main photos.



Thanks for looking.

Jacob baby card

Today my PA had a new baby boy and I made him this card.




Card created using washing line stamp. Coloured with promarkers

Peg stamps with animals .. Found in my craft stash... No idea where they came from, sorry

Button embellishment

As you may know form my previous posts I have purchased a new set of super large knitting needles and a Tunisian crochet hook whilst at the NEC craft show in March and I am In the process of making a large pouffee for my sunroom.

Whilst I have started to construct my floor cushion I have already had a few little stragelly bits left over... Now what could I do with these...

The material is the off cuts form the side of the loom and is a by product of the weaving process, hence there are little outside bits on each ball of 'yarn' that are a bit shall we say ragged, but otherwise nicely textured and coloured.




I ran a simple running stitch down one side of each thin strip and simply gathered them into a simple ruffle and secured at the back. I love the way this material holds its shape too. After finally remembering where my stash of antique buttons where I selected a few odd ball buttons and attached one of each into the centre of the ruffles.

Nice finish, if I do say so myself ... Just shows... One man's scrap is another mans treasure..... Enjoy

Mike birthday cards

It was my husband's birthday today and I made him this card.


It's hard to see the detail of the embossed dog detail, so I have added a close up below... The card is inspired by our German shepherd dog Zeff, who did his best to chew the cord of the heat gun whilst I made it.. So I guess he did help with the card making.




My sister also made my husband this clock inspired card as he is quite fond of collecting watches.



Love the detail on this card and the addition of the back of a real watch back

Indigo blu inspired mannequins

Having watched the indigo blu program's on c&c .. Yes I finally gave in and ordered the slap it on kit



and the mannequin.




I decided to have a go myself with a patterned green and pink theme

Materials I have used on this project ..

spare pieces of deco patch papers to cover the bodice
some ribbon for the waistband, stand and neck scarf
green tissue paper for the under skirt
Buckle embelishment
Scrim .. For the shoulder wrap
Lacey wool for the skirt

Here's my effort

Indigo blu inspired mannequins

Having watched the indigo blu program's on c&c .. Yes I finally gave in and ordered the slap it on kit



and the mannequin.




I decided to have a go myself with a patterned green and pink theme

Materials I have used on this project ..

spare pieces of deco patch papers to cover the bodice
some ribbon for the waistband, stand and neck scarf
green tissue paper for the under skirt
Buckle embelishment
Scrim .. For the shoulder wrap
Lacey wool for the skirt

Here's my effort

Water colouring

I decided to try a little water colouring as a background technique.
Then I used a floral stamp with three different green inks to create a misty effect.
I also used a gold ink pad to stamp the stem only part of the stamp just to add a little highlight.


The paper is watercolour, backed onto plain grey card stock.

Exploding box

Tonight we had a class in making exploding boxes.



Here is my first attempt, paper is from Papermania.




I distressed the edges using a memento dye ink, colour is Bamboo Leaves