Of Summer Memories

Hello!  Happy Wednesday.  Wednesdays are such friendly days.  Even the name:  “Wednesday”  – sounds sort of made up.  Giggly.  Silly.  Like it’s not a real name at all, but one that someone inserted into the middle of the week, just to see how gullible we really are, and how many of us would notice.

And while we’re on that subject .. did you know that the word ‘Gullible’ isn’t in the dictionary?  No .. no it’s not.  Go on… I’ll wait here while you check.  …  …  … … … … .. .. . . . . . . . ..  .  [three minutes passes and I hear footsteps coming back down the hall]  . . . . . .  So,  did you check?   Well those of you who believed me …  and either checked in the dictionary which you keep handy there in the house, or those of you who remembered that you’re on a computer and can ask Mr.Google these things, ….  aw, you GULLIBLE lot!

You do know that the rest of us are all having a giggle now, don’t you?   ahh.. but we love you.

Annnyhoo ...  it’s down to business, and todays business is crafting.

I made a quick card which I titled Summer Memories, and I did this because I’m fed up with Christmas coming all too fast.  At today’s date, (23rd Nov.2016)  we have 4 weeks and 3 days until Christmas day arrives.  FOUR WEEKS AND 3 DAYS.  ARRRRGH!!!

It feels like it was only a couple of weeks ago that I was wearing shorts to craft in.  Now I’m wearing my ultra warm jogging pants and a warm top and even, sometimes, a scarf around my neck!  What the DIVIL is going on here people?

So to do something which was totally opposite of Christmas…  I made a little card of Summer Memories.

summer-memories-2

I began this card by giving the glass in the door some dimension by using Anita’s 3D Clear Gloss over each pane.  But then, when it was finally dry, it still didn’t feel like memories.  So I thought I’d give it a watery sort of effect – like looking into a pond or something like that, so that it wasn’t all quite so sharp and in focus.

summer-memories-3

Once dried, I loved the effect.  It gave you a focus on all the summer bedding plants, but all the other things like the step, door, porch, bricks .. were all in the background, in a sort of soft focus.

I matt and layered the picture then fixed it to the card front, added the title ‘Summer Memories’ onto the bottom of the picture,  and then added four metal corners to draw the eye in towards the photo.  And that’s all there was to it.

summer-memories-1

This card made me think about what my favourite memory of this summer was…  and I came to the decision that it was some poppies which grew in our front garden.  Big, bright and beautiful.  Warm almost sparkling red, and smiling.  When I pulled my car onto the drive I could see them growing against the wall, and I would sit for a moment, smiling at them.  They almost seem to talk to each other in whispers, and I imagined that they had soft, gentle little voices, and one, I imagined, had a lisp. Yes … those Poppies will be my chosen memory to share of Summer just gone.

What about you?  What memory of Summer just gone would you like to share?  Do tell.

Have a wonderful Wednesday.  Don’t get stressed or annoyed.  Just let the day flow over you and keep a pocketful of joy in your heart, which you can dip into all day long.

I hope today brings you a few smiles along the way.  Be nice to each other.

sig-coffee-copy

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Experimenting with Cobs and Astrid. AKA: Testing the Stickability of Anita’s 3D Clear Gloss.

Craft Product Recommendation  Of The Week!
Craft Product Recommendation
Of The Week!

Regular readers of my blog will remember that I have already blogged a Recommendation on Anita’s 3D Clear Gloss many moons agoHowever a fellow blogging buddy [the wonderful and immensely talented] Astrid,  wrote and asked me how well Anita’s Gloss stuck things.  I couldn’t answer this truthfully as I hadn’t tested the Gloss for ‘stickability’ so we’ve been testing it (via emails – as she lives at one end of the UK and I live at the other) – and I’m back here sharing the results with everyone – so that you all know too,  – and I’m  Recommending this product again as Craft Product of the Week,  simply because of the great results I got from this  ‘costs way less than that other particular brand of Glossy stuff which you can buy from the hobby retail outlets‘.

I’ve taken before and after photo’s … but … they aren’t brilliant in standard.  It’s dark and dingy weather here, and no matter what lights I had on or off, I couldn’t get a decent photo.  So … my apologies for the rubbish photos, but they’re the best out of a bad bunch of over 40.

The ‘before’ photo – so that you can see what types of things I chose to stick with the Anita’s 3D Clear Gloss:

Combination of items I experimented with to test out the 'stickability' of Anita's 3D Clear Gloss
Combination of items I experimented with to test out the ‘stickability’ of Anita’s 3D Clear Gloss

You can click on all of these photographs in order to make them load bigger – but remember to click ‘back’ in your browser so that you come back to this page to continue reading.

I scribbled on the scrap card so that I could show you what I stuck and where I stuck it.

  • The Glass Beads selection of 7 types,  are (as you’re looking at the photo) bottom left and bottom centre.
  • All the 8 various different metal charms are top left and then trailing down into the middle of the card.
  • Top right are a mixture of flat back plastic (pink) pearl.  Flat back glass Dew Drop (in clear pink), and a little mix of plastic gem type stones.
  • Bottom right is a  green plastic button

The metal charms:  Some are flat, but others are undulated or are more of a rounded back, and the Angel (in the top left corner) is hollow back – but I wanted something larger so that I could pour liquid all over it to see what happened – so this seemed like a great one for that test as it was all bumpy.

Anitas Experiment 10.11.14 2

The Angel you can see close up in this ↑ photograph, and you can see how I totally smothered it – just so that I could see what happened.  The two ‘Made with Love’ little heart charms – I put a smaller dot of medium on the uppermost one, and a large blob of the medium to stick the lower positioned heart – just so that I could test one against the other for stickability.  The ‘doughnut’ or ‘polo mint’ embelli just had three tiny little dots of medium on it.

Anitas Experiment 10.11.14 4

The glass beads:  I chose two different sets to squeeze a little (and it was only a little) of the gloss over them, to see how it behaved and so that I could compare it to the to the other glass beads which I simply lay on top of some of the 3D Gloss which I’d squeezed out a tiny bead, and spread it slightly, then popped the glass beads on top of it and with my finger, I gently pressed to make sure that the beads were in contact with the medium.  I then left them all over-night.

Anitas Experiment 10.11.14 3

The following day, everything was stuck firmly.  I turned it upside down and gave itdarn  good  shaking.  Nothing fell off.  I set it flat and holding on to the card, I pushed each of the items very firmly.  Nothing moved.  I took my index finger and flicked each one repeatedly with a good flick, over and over,  and I know that with some other glues this action would have been enough to send some of those things flying across the room – but nothing moved.

Anitas Experiment 10.11.14 5

The Glass Dew Drop was a real surprise to me, as I’d not found anything (up till now) which would stick those little b*ggers securely – but this 3D Gloss had done the job.

But the real test was to try some really rough handling.  So since I hadn’t been able to move any of these things by the type of basic rough handling (which I would say they might possibly encounter on a postal journey) … now I wanted to really tug on them.  I wanted to force them to part company with the card:-

Anitas Experiment 10.11.14 6

The smothered Angel … she really was very well stuck and I broke a fingernail getting her off – but she didn’t come off the card, the card came off the card with her.  She was still stuck to it.

The little metal heart which was stuck on more lightly than the other – also stuck fast.  The metal hand – again so well stuck that it pulled the card off rather than it was pulled off the card.  The metal charm I thought would be the easy one was the irregular shaped open heart with the arrow through it – but again – it pulled the card off with it.

The Dew Drop was probably the easiest – but that didn’t part with the card, it again took the card with it.

I couldn’t get the plastic gems off at all. (and didn’t want to risk another fingernail).

The glass beads … the only ones I got off  ‘easily’ (but not really) were the big charcoal coloured round ones – but again – they brought the card off with them.

If you click on the ‘after’ photo above it will open up much larger so that you can see the results for yourself.  (remember to click back in your browser again though so that you come back here).

All in all – I was stunned and amazed at what a great job it did of this ‘stickability’ test, and because of that I’m repeating my Craft Product Recommendation so that you can see for yourself the results of this test which Astrid and I decided needed to be done!

Link to my previous recommendation about this product:  https://thecobweboriumemporium.wordpress.com/2014/04/12/anitas-3d-clear-gloss-my-recommendation-of-the-week/

Link to the wonderfully talented  Astrid’s Artistic Efforts  blog (you’ll fall in love with her too!):- http://astridsartisticefforts.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you so much for sharing a little of your time with me, here today.  I really appreciate your company, and if you’d like to leave a comment, please do – even if it’s only to say hello!  I so love to hear from folks who come for a read.

Have a truly fabulous Tuesday.  Do something today which makes you happy!

With all my love ~

Cobs siggy sml

 

Sunday Arrivals!

 On Platform 1 A Beautiful BOY!   

  On Platform 2A Gorgeous GIRL!  

Two beautiful new souls to cherish and love!

On reading one of the blogs I follow, I found out that one the writers of a blog, who had been MIA (Missing In Action) for a couple of weeks,  had a very good reason for being away from her computer:  She’d had a baby! A beautiful, baby girl!  After congratulations had been said I thought that it would be a lovely thing to make a baby card for the mommy and her new bundle of love and scrumptiousness, so I sat at my desk and gave it a bit of thought.

The first thought I came up with was that if I was going to make a card for a new baby girl, then to be totally fair, I should also make one for a little boy too.  So here I am again, sharing (this time) two cards for the price of one!

I decided on Beatrix Potter –  Beatrix holds a big place in my heart – so made two very different cards, but around the same ‘theme’.

Firstly  Just arrived  –  On platform 1:   A New Baby Boy.

New Baby Boy 1

Made on a 6″x6″ white, pre-scored & folded card by Papermania I love their cardstock – 300gsm weight – so it will take practically anything you ask it to.  The backing paper is from a range of Beatrix Potter papers & toppers which I actually got free with a magazine over a year ago, and hadn’t used at all (I think, because I loved them so much,  I wanted to keep them!)  When I went through the papers I fell instantly in love with this backing paper and knew it was going to be the basis of the New Baby Boy card.

The Gingham Check card which I used to mat and layer behind the Hunca Munca, cradling her baby, topper, is from a range by Anna Marie Designs.

New Baby Boy 2

I added the fabulous ‘New Baby‘  duckling tag and then chose some ribbon to match the card.  In the photographs the ribbon for some reason looks lighter than it is in real life.  I think it’s possibly the way the flash on the camera caught the satin of the ribbon and washed out the colour a little.  Little blue bow applied to the top left hand corner.  I then added a strip along the bottom of the card of Potter paper ribbon, and then resting just along the top of that I added a blue blossom twig (again by Anna Marie Designs)  to represent a branch, to which I knew I wanted to add a little metal, antiqued bird house (which has a baby bird perched up on the roof – which you sadly can’t quite see  properly in the photo).

The bird house has a hanging loop on top which was too ‘tough’  for me to snip off with my jewellery tools, so I added a tiny bit of ribbon through the loop and tucked the ends under the New Baby topper, gluing them in place with a dab of Anita’s all-purpose.

Of course – me being me, I had to take the decoration into the inside of the card….

New Baby Boy 3

I added a pale blue insert to which I added a matching blue ribbon at the top of the page, and at the bottom I added a tiny topper which had daisies, grass and leaves on it, and it just finished off the card nicely.

~ ~ ~  Just arrived on Platform 2:  ~ ~ ~

A Gorgeous Baby Girl

The new baby girl who began my thought of making a baby card was born on the 9th July 2014 and her name is Alea Francesca.  (You’ll find a link to the momma’s blog at the bottom of the page).

Because I had Alea in mind, I felt as if I ‘knew’ who I was making this card for and ….  well I just went to town on the whole girliness!

New Baby Girl 1

Again made on a 6″x6″ 300gsm card, by Papermania.  To which I added a 6×6″ piece of pink with white polka dots card (by Anna Marie Designs).   I added a small paper doily (Dovecraft) – which I actually stuck to the card with foam tape, as I wanted it to be raised slightly from the card so that I could add flowers which where kind of tucked under the doily.

I’d already chosen the topper that I wanted to use – Mrs. Rabbit and her baby bunnies – but I wanted to give it a little more importance – so chose a frame from a selection by Trimcraft (their Santoro range).  I cut some pink, gingham check card (Anna Marie Designs) to fit the back of the frame exactly, and mounted the topper onto that then fixed it to the frame using Anita’s all-purpose glue.

The addition of the ‘Congratulations’ gave the card it’s sentiment.

New Baby Girl 3

Then it was time to fix some flowers.  All the flowers you see are all paper flowers.  I’ve had them all for  . . .  – ohhh,   yonks!  I use paper flowers all the time so used to buy a pack of them every time I did any crafty shopping, consequently I don’t currently have to ever buy any – and probably won’t for a while!  But paper flowers are pretty much generic so any you have would likely work if you’re hoping to make a card ‘like’ this one for yourself.

New Baby Girl 1a

To the bigger flowers I added a button for a centre and sprinkled a tiny amount of glitter dust so that it would stick to the glue which popped up through the button holes.  To the smaller Blossom flowers which had no ‘centre’, I added a teeny flat-back pearl in a colour which matched or complimented the colour of the flower (flat back pearls by Anita’s – the Gemstone Pearl Wheel).  Other blossoms came with their own stamen centre.

The pink and white popcorn type of flowers (look above the Congratulations topper – just above the blossoms there) are by Anna Marie Designs.

Then came the butterflies.  With all those flowers there just HAD to be butterflies!

I’ve had a big bag of plain coloured butterflies in my stash for about 8 years and never used even one of them.  I don’t know where I got them from or why,  and I actually put them in a box to go to the charity shop, along with a few other crafty things which I wasn’t using.  However, I got them back out again because I wanted paper butterflies for this card.  So I chose colours and sizes and then stamped a butterfly on top of the card shape in order to give them the correct butterfly markings.  I creased and folded them a little to give them ‘flight’, and then used Anita’s 3D Clear Gloss to give them all a glossy coating – as if I’d clear embossed them a couple of times (only without the pitting which you can sometimes get by doing that).  

butterflies1

I couldn’t catch this glossy coating properly in a photograph.  I either got ‘white out’ – where you couldn’t see the butterfly at all, or nothing.  So you’ll just have to imagine a photo of the whole card showing the butterflies with their glossy shine!   But I did manage a ‘montage’ of the butterflies from the gazillion I took while I was trying to capture one whole ‘good’ photo – so this montage kind of shows that the butterflies did have this lovely glossy accent.

Birdhouse Baby

The addition of some really lovely warm, rosy pink ribbon and a little antiqued, metal bird house completed the front of the card.

Inside … I just simply added one tiny thing …New Baby Girl 2

…  a silver star, right at the top of the pink insert.  Is it because the new baby is a star?  Is it a wish star?  It’s a star which will have meaning to the new mummy and daddy – and to the baby as she grows up and looks back over her baby cards.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, are the two arrivals at Platforms 1 and 2, todayNot by train, you understand.  No no.  As is the tradition in all new babies, they came by Storknaturally!  😀

Thank you so much for reading, looking and for visiting,  but before you stop reading:   can I just please just give you a link to the blog I referred to up in my post above – so that you can see the wonderful new life which is the little girl who started off my thinking of Baby Cards.

Please click to visit the blog and if you can …  leave a comment of congratulations for the new mommy.  After all – we all love acknowledgements on something we’ve done which we’ve worked on, and I can think of no finer thing in life than a new baby, which someone has worked extremely hard on producing (and then some!)  and can think of no better thing on which to receive congratulations.

http://artatzazuta.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/celebrating-life-2/

Thank you SO much for taking the time out of your day to come and visit.  I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your kindness, your support and your friendship.  For those of you who follow me – thank you.   For those who don’t but are visiting:  Click to ‘Follow Me’!  What have you got to lose?  You won’t be sent loads of rubbish or spam.  You’ll just get an email to let you know when I’ve made a post on my blog  so that you don’t miss amything.  No spamNothing which asks you your date of birth or even your location!   All you have to do is put your email address into the space provided so that the system knows who to send the email to.

Have a truly, blessed Sunday all. 

Sending you love, smiles and joy ~

Cobs siggy sml

*Toadstool Toots* ~ Saturday’s Superduper Sweety! ~

* Toadstool Toots * Saturdays Superduper Sweetie!
* Toadstool Toots *
Saturdays super-duper Sweetie!

Meet  Toadstool Toots.  Isn’t she just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen sitting on a Toadstool?!

To Create:   Die cut a 6 x 6″ card with a Scallop edge on three sides.  I used some polka dot card from a range sold by  Anna Marie Designs  which I again scalloped using a die in my Big Shot machine.    I keep all my dies in die cut folders on magnetic sheets and I can’t quite remember who made this particular set of scallop dies, but looking at it I’m going to guess that it’s  Spellbinders.

*Toadstool Toots* is a little girl from an Art Pad selection of images, from a range by Lili of the Valley .     She isn’t named Toots by LotV – I christened her that, and it seemed to suit her!  

I then die cut Toadstool Toots, again with a scalloped die,  but this time a smaller size,  so that she matt and layered onto the card nicely.

Toadstool Toots Card 2
Toadstool Toots at The Cobweborium Emporium

I wanted to ‘lift’  the picture a little so applied some Anita’s 3-d Clear Gloss to the toadstool which Toots is sat on, to give it a plumpcious look, and also gloss it so that it picked up the light and glinted.  I stamped a tiny tag (a simple hand cut tag from a bit of card) and 3-d Glossed that too.  Once these were dry I finished off the card with a ribbon bow and added some candy dots on each corner.

The die cut vines were made using a Marianne die on some cardstock which I’d got lying around in my ‘leftovers’ draw.  A crafter never throws anything away – especially not cardstock!

It never fails to amaze me how much of these bits of left-over paper and card that I actually do use.  I will frequently poke around the drawer to find a bit of something in the right colour, rather than use a brand new bit of card or paper.

Lili of the Valley do have an angel policy, so if you decide to buy their pads from looking at this card, then please make yourself aware of their policy before buying, so that you know how many cards you’re allowed to make and sell, and also the other guidelines which they have as a company.  They have their Angel Policy on their website (clickable link above – their website will open in a new window).

Their  art pads are great quality and the card stock they’re printed on is excellent.

Anna Marie Designs ~ I’ve bought from Anna Marie several times and always find that she has some quite affordable, different embellishments than I see on the high street.  There is a clickable link in her name above.

*Toadstood Toots* at The Cobweborium Emporium
*Toadstool Toots*
at
The Cobweborium Emporium

Thanks for visiting and spending a few minutes with Toadstool Toots.   She’s as cute as a button and I love her to pieces.  

Cobs siggy sml

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