Plain tiles

We had a lovely visitor to Stamp Club last month who showed…..oooh, all sorts of wonderful items. She was supposed to be demonstrating the art of decorating bamboo tiles but the enthusiasm for all sorts of decorative items she brought – and the way she talked, digressed, wandered around a subject –  all meant that we were treated to an exciting variety of ideas, a mind-boggling array of samples and a fab shopping spree after she’d finished demonstrating.

Nobody actually got around to playing with their own tiles that evening – I had so many ideas in my head and, of course, none of the right ‘tools’ with me – so I was happy to be able to bring it home and work on it here.

I decided I would make a pendant with the tile and I would make it as a birthday gift for my mother-in-law from her great-grand-daughter. By adhering a photo of Millie to the tile I figured this proud great-nana would be able to carry the apple of her eye around with her and show her off to everyone more easily than usual.

Firstly I chose some colours of alcohol ink and using an applicator tool changed the overall appearance of the tile. The photo needed to be quite small so I cropped a birthday photo down to a usable size and glued it (dilute pva) to the coloured tile. After that had dried I added a silver heart, several colours of micro beads (red and gold to go with the colours of the tile, blue to match Millie’s eyes) and then a small silver flower. These seemed a little bright so I added a little blue ProMarker to tone them down.

It took me longer to choose the beads to finish the necklace than to do the decorating of the tile! Hope Nana likes it – and appreciates that Millie is such a clever little one-year-old

Foiled background

Here is a random selection of cards I’ve made recently, most don’t need a great deal of explanation but I’ve added a few words which you’ll see when you click a photo. If there is anything you’d like clarification on then please don’t hesitate to contact me.

This first one uses the Michael Strong Cloisonné Fan stamped on acetate. A layer of heavily textured purple paper with a flash of silver across it – at  jaunty angles (to hide the fact that I can’t always stick things on straight!) – and a couple of jewelled brads makes for one very heavy card! I do love the finished result though, guess it’ll need hand-delivering to someone special.

The Foil Background

Fans

New Home

Sympathy

Close up

Grand Calibur

Full Card

Grand Calibur

Die Cuts Galore

15 Challenge

Fan & Corner

Mother's Day

Sketch Challenge

Star Book

My lovely next-door neighbour, Harry, recently celebrated his 80th birthday so I made him a special card.  He really does deserve something a bit special – he is the oldest paper-boy in the district . He always gets our weekend papers for us and we do appreciate that.

I’ve made several variations of star cards/books but this was quite the easiest so far. I am very happy with the end result but I think, if I do another, I’ll make the pieces a little smaller – the images seen through the openings are a bit too far away to be viewed easily.

I have a lot of trouble with ‘manly’ cards but enjoyed the challenge of making 8 different ones here!

I chose a lovely deep burgundy red for the inner part, soft grey for the middle and white for the 3rd layer and made openings in three of the white & grey units to peer through to the middle. I used my Spellbinder Nestabilities in the Wizard to make the decorative openings in the white card and just cut a rectangle in the grey ones with a craft knife.

Colour choices

Openings

First Page

You can see here the large scalloped oval I cut out of the white card and the rectangle cut from the grey. I used a ‘wordy’ stamp on a panel I’d cut out for one of the other pages and smudged some purple ink around it for interest (I used the same ink throughout to continue the look). The grey panel had a large music border stamped on it – a nod to Harry’s charming wife, Joan, who is very musical – and some more nautical-looking images on the white piece. I edged the white and grey card with the purple ink and the burgundy card with silver, all through the whole book.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

First Page

Second Page

I kept this really quite simple, the poppy stamp is one large square stamped image which I cut into the two panels. I coloured them with pens and a water brush and then mounted them on a layer of mulberry paper.

Poppies

Page 2 finished

Third Page

Dragonflies! What a lovely insect they are to stamp . To make sure that the inner image would be in the right place, I layered the grey on top of the burgundy and paper-clipped a scrap length of card to show where the top of the rectangular opening was. I then moved the grey out of the way, inked-up the large stamp and lined it up with the top of that piece of scrap. Hindsight – next time, I’ll stamp before folding!

Lining-up

Stamping

Silver embossing

Can it be seen?

Stamped layers

Ready to stick

Third Page

Fourth Page

This one wasn’t supposed to have a cut-out but I thought I’d try something. I used one of the Spellbinders pendants to cut an opening in the white panel and then just embossed the same design on the grey. Whilst it was still in the die, I coloured it with the purple ink and then covered it with the piece I’d cut out and air-brushed some colour round it with my Promarker Letrajet. I used a lovely decorative stamp from Joanna Sheen for the white page – trying to remember it was for a man!

Embossed pendant

Cut-out

Ready to stick

Fourth Page

Fifth Page

Pretty self-explanatory, I think . The main image was stamped and then dusted with mica powders – it’ll get no handling in the centre where it is so there was no need to seal it.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Fifth Page

Sixth Page

I added a different colour to this page for a change. Didn’t really like it whilst in progress but, after I added the ribbon to the left side (it’s a lovely blue/purple iridescent) and the starfish bubbles, I liked it better. The ship is cut out and raised on 3D foam pads. My neighbours love to go abroad so this is the travel page.

In progress

Sixth Page

Seventh Page

Whew! Nearly finished. Just in case Harry forgot how old he was I made sure to remind him . What a pity my handwriting is so scruffy – hard to believe I won calligraphy competitions. I think that the advent of computers has just made me lazy – I almost never hand-write letters now and it shows that I’m getting out of practise.

Nearly there

Seventh Page

Cover

I covered two pieces of heavy card, a little larger than the inside pages, with a dull gold paper and adhered some ribbon between to tie it closed (and open). The image was stamped onto glossy card which I coloured using alcohol inks and I layered that, and the sentiment, onto some of the same burgundy card I used inside. If you look closely you may spot a little paper piercing. The three square brads were added …….just because I’ve got stuff and I really should use it .

Front cover

Closer view

Kings & Queens

Further to the “Book Exchange 2008“, we did another Round-Robin at stamp club but this time we didn’t get to chose our own themes. The titles were drawn out of a ‘hat’ and allocated to the name which had just been drawn as well. My theme was Kings and Queens and I had four other stamp club members in my ‘group’ who got to work on the book.

We could purchase a ready-made book or make one – I used my Bind-it-All to make a book with heavy watercolour paper, each page slightly larger than the previous one with punched and coloured edges peeping out.

I made the cover from heavy card with stamped images decoupaged on with dilute PVA – these were a set of images from Lost Coast designs – and then coloured with alcohol inks. The large glittery letters were stuck on in front of the smaller gold letters cut out with some Sizzlet dies and spelling-out the title of the book.

Inside the front cover I stamped some crowns from Graphicus and decoupaged some further ‘regal’ images. The listing of participants made me get out my calligraphy pen and gold ink to try and stay in keeping with the theme……hmm, thinking about it now…….. maybe I should have used an old-English font!

The first page is always done by the owner of the book so I used those same crowns as before for a centre image for the grid technique surrounded by all sorts of other relevant images. The facing page mainly used a stamp set from Rubbadubadoo which includes the Snow Queen and the Ice Palace.

Rhiannon was very inventive with her ‘Pearly King and Queen’ and the chess pieces while Janet went with the theme of the Lion King and Pharaohs. Joan chose to be ‘King for a Day’ and Gloria showed why she is the ‘Queen of Clubs’ with her playing card theme (you probably know that Gloria is the founder of our stamp club and lots and lots of others!).

The book currently has pride-of-place in the library, on view to everyone who comes to the house as they have to pass through there to get to the kitchen (which is where everyone always ends up!).

Inside cover

Participants

My page

Rhiannon

Janet

Joan

Gloria

Back cover

Spot the Mackintosh Crest

Challenge Card

I’m trying something different…… throwing out a challenge to the ladies at my local Stamp Club. We meet once a month and I took a whole bunch of items with me last month and shared them out giving everyone two months to see what they can come up with.

The items I took were empty cat food foil trays, fancy plastic cocktail sticks and cleansing wipes. The trays were given to me via an offer on our local FreeCycle, the cocktail sticks I have had in my stash for well over 20 years (bought them when we lived in Southern California and we’ve been back a loooooong time now!) and the cotton wipes are actually just the ‘rough’ side of them – they come apart very easily and, as they were falling off and I was throwing them away, I decided that there really must be something I could do with them.

Here are some close-up photos of the items before I started doing anything to them – well, I did cut open the foil tray and start flattening it.

All had 3 of each

Cleansing pad

Cotton discs

Cocktail sticks

Tray

Altering Bits

I have recently been bought a Wizard and have succumbed to the lure of Nestabilities (not many – yet!) so had a play with the scalloped ovals and then a Sizzix embossing plate. Once I’d got them cut out I coloured them with some alcohol inks, chopped the ‘legs’ off the cocktail sticks and coloured them with the same inks while I was at it. I don’t have a photo of the latter on their own but you can see them when I’ve added them to the card with some fine gold wire curled around them.

Frames

Closer

Large Scallop

Embossed

Coloured

Sticks & Wire

Cotton Discs

As I added colour with the alcohol inks to these they distorted and became ovals instead of circles – not a problem as they echo the ovals I’ve punched out of the tins. They were very ‘floppy’ so I painted them with a few coats of pva and let them dry. I then embossed them with a clear/sparkle powder and stamped into them with a large stamp just to add a bit of texture.

Adding Colour

PVA

Embossed

Closer

The Card Design

A very popular card these days is this Tri-Shutter Card which I found at Crafts By Carolyn (who, in turn, links to Ellen from whom she got the idea) who has kindly posted downloadable files so you can make your own – thanks girls!

I cut the base from some plain card I had in stock and decided to decorate with a double-sided scrapbook paper. I coloured the edges of the card (which will be showing) with some brown inks, very roughly, and after cutting out all the small pieces I attached them patterned-side-up to what will be the front of the card.

Card supplies

Scrapbook paper

Inked edges

Papers glued

Different angle

The Back

As I was doing some ‘stamping’ for the reverse of the card I also used the reverse of the scrapbook paper. It’s a beautiful colour and I thought the black versafine ink was suitable for the sentiments and other stamped images. Also on the back I used some of the side pieces left from punching the ovals from the trays – smoothed them out and then ran them through the Wizard with a Fiskars Texture Plate in the feather design. I just cut small rectangles and rounded the corners before mounting onto some black card for definition. I stuck two of the cotton discs onto the large panel and curled some black wire into loops which I then anchored with tiny black brads.

Reverse

ART

Fiskars plate

Close Up

Faffing About!

Sometimes you can spend so long just faffing with details! I don’t think any card has ever taken so long to assemble but maybe that’s because I was chronicling it along the way? At Port Sunlight Stamp Festival I fell in love with a collage stamp set and so used the main image on the front of this card, again using the reverse of the scrapbook paper and layering on black card and adding some more tiny black brads. Behind it you can see I cut the scalloped shape in half and mounted that on the scrapbook paper and black card as well. I glued one of the embossed ovals to the centre panel and used some flower brads to attach it more firmly – they were gold so I dipped them into embossing ink and then black embossing powder and melted it.

My new stamp

Front

Brads

Finishing Touches

I have some wonderful glass mosaic tiles in lots of different colours so decided to add a few to the front, just glued them in place with some PVA. I then thought it may be nice to have a dangler from one of the creases so threaded a large bead (toned-down with a little alcohol ink) onto black cord and on the end of that used two small scalloped ovals – cut from the trays and slightly coloured – glued back to back. On the reverse of that panel I had to mount the stamped image onto some card as well as its paper and use raised sticky pads to get around the thickness of the cord there. I finished by wrapping some fancy yarn around a couple of the creases just…… well, just because!

Mosaic collection

Chosen colours

Tiles added

Dangler!

Front of card

Daisy Card

Last weekend I attended the Happy Stampers Spring Stamp Festival at Port Sunlight. As usual, there was a competition, this year entitled ‘Fresh as a Daisy’. It had a size limitation and the stipulation that it contain mainly stamped images, of course.

Over the years I have entered this occasionally (won once) and always enjoy the making of a card for this event. By just being given a ‘title’, it means you have to think a little about what exactly you’re going to do rather than being given detailed instructions.

I didn’t think I had any daisy stamps in my collection until I started searching. The main image on my card is the Daisy Tag Plate from Elusive Images, stamped onto watercolour paper and ripped along the edges. The body of the card is two junk CD’s hinged together, I coloured all sides of the CD’s with alcohol inks and then stamped miscellaneous small daisies in green versafine ink over the front and back.

I covered the hole in the centre of the disc with a punched circle from another stamping of the daisy – purple on purple and edged with purple. I did something similar inside the front cover and just a plain disc of purple paper to write a greeting on inside the back piece. On the inside of the front disc you may be able to see where I tried stamping the daisy script, it’s only faint but adds a little ‘texture’.

My crop-o-dile was used to punch the holes for the hinge and for the eyelets – I’ve included close-ups of these as someone was asking how to get them neat. It’s so easy to mangle the reverse of an eyelet if you use too much pressure, just a light squeeze is needed and, if it’s not quite right, then another light squeeze until you’re happy. It punches through the disc sooooo easily though, I love that tool.

I used some purplish eyelets on this project and dyed some beige cord with the alcohol inks to match the disc.

I apologise for the glare on the photos, the tag is very reflective! It was made with Fantasy Film and some fibres between the two layers. I stamped the tag  ( “Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them”, Eyeore) with green Staz-on and cut it out of the fantasy film sandwich. It’s attached to the cord with a jump-ring which is what you can just see through the eyelet close-up!

Hinge

Back cover

Inside

Eyelets

Closer-up

Coloured Cord

Tag

Front

Janet’s Entry

This shows the differing interpretation of the theme! My good friend Janet, who I went to the Festival with, entered the competition for the first time this year. I wanted to get a shot or two of the whole table-full of entries but, as permission hadn’t been asked of each entrant, then I was advised not to. Shame really, I have no idea which card won, nor of the runners-up – I shall ask the organisers if there’s a way they can show the winning entries in future.

Anyway, Jan used her Carols Cube (not only available here, of course, this is just where we both bought ours!) to stamp the daisies before cutting them out and glittering – wouldn’t be Jan’s if it weren’t glittered! The flourishes are from Elusive Images (I think!) and she’s used lots of daisy brads to attach the layers. You can just make out the lovely card she used for the base, it’s got some beautiful swirls of colour and shimmer all over it and she used the technique I taught at Stamp Club for the fold which prevents cards doing a ‘Bambi’ as I mentioned in another post about some Diamond Anniversary cards.

Bambi!

Daisies galore

Flowers

We have quite a few parties and unofficial meetings at our house and some visitors like to drink wine! Not me, of course, anyone who knows me will confirm that I never touch a drop!!!

One of the problems I find is that people tend to put a glass down somewhere and then can’t remember which one is theirs. So, I made a bunch of coasters which slip onto the bottom of each glass and every one is slightly different – if only people could remember which colour/gem they are it would be a great idea!

The Coasters

Now I take no credit for coming up with this idea, there are many of them available around the world – but I did design these myself to be stitched completely in the embroidery hoop with no extra sewing steps needed.

I used some black fleece fabric and the edging is all done with a variegated pink thread. The flower design is a different colour on each coaster and – when I ran out of obviously differing colours – I added some large stick-on gems.

The coasters also serve as…well, coasters! Guests can put a glass down on any surface without worrying about leaving rings etc.. very useful really even if they still don’t remember which is their drink.

Glasses

Close-up

All unique

3 of many

Same three

How to store them

This was the next issue, how do I keep them in the glasses cupboard neatly? Have you seen those dispensers they have for cups in cafeterias? That’s the sort of thing I wanted but on a much smaller scale, of course.

I wandered round the workshop looking for inspiration and found it in the guise of left-over drainpipe from the plumbing work we’ve just had done. There were a few pieces about 9″ long and a perfect diameter for the coasters so I grabbed one, got out my hot knife and cut a wide slit down the length of the pipe. It wasn’t easy and it’s not as neat as I would like but, as it’s hand-crafted, I decided it would be OK.

I also found a sweetie tin (travel sweets) which was a good size for the pipe to fit around and then dug out some braid, my alcohol inks and good-old crop-o-dile.

Pipe and Tin

Supplies

Decorating

I didn’t take any photos during the making of this but if you’ve used alcohol inks at all you’ll know to put them on the applicator with some blending solution and just dabble all over the item in question. That’s what I did, both inside and out and also on the braid to take away the contrast and on the brass paper fasteners (brads). I punched holes around the top of the tin, marked where the pipe sat on top of that and punched the holes to correspond and used the brads to hold it all together. The braid is just stuck on to hide the rough edges along the front and inside to hide the brads.

I know that the top of the pipe seems to fold in on itself, I guess that’s because the tin is just slightly too big and is stretching the bottom outwards. Never mind, it works and it looks quite nice sitting in my cupboard amongst the wine glasses…..which I never use myself, honest!

Back and brads

Braided

Inside

In use

Easy access

Sloping!