Happy Anniversary! I pegged on a Chalkboard.

Before we begin …. 

This little chalkboard is proof, if more proof were needed, that I’m a ‘fricken’ rubbish photographer.  You see … in real life, this little chalkboard is so sweet.  So lovely.  Incredible in fact.  Something I was so proud of making,  and still am proud of making.  But in  all  the photos (and there were a LOT of photos taken) there wasn’t one good one. Not one.  🐻  (I wanted an emoticon with steam coming out of the ears but couldn’t find one, so you have a grumpy bear instead).

It was Mr.Cobs and his enchanting  sweet  charming  wonderful  captivating  rubbish photographer wife’s (me) 36th Wedding Anniversary recently and I wanted something other than just a normal card for him.

I know, 36 years!  I heard you gasp when you read it the first time.  It’s hard to believe isn’t it,  because I look so young in my Gravatar photo. What can I say …  he was a cradle snatcher, but I’ve grown accustomed to his face now so I won’t bother causing a fuss.

I went in search of something which would stand up on the shelf or coffee table, but which wasn’t made from a card or paper product.  I found the very thing. A little Chalkboard!

It came as four unprepared pieces – so that you can do whatever you wish to them.  A front and a back piece – which are identical.  And a frame front section which goes on top of the front piece – so forming the frame around what will become the chalkboard, and finally – a smaller piece which will give you the little shelf for the chalk.

I waded straight in and painted the section on the front piece, in black paint to make it look like the black of a chalkboard.  While it was drying, I glued the ‘chalk shelf’ to the frame.  Once the paint was dry, I then fixed the frame onto the front (chalkboard painted) section, and held it tightly using some craft clamps and clips.

I painted the legs, frame and back of the chalkboard in Amish Blue paint, then once dry I coated it in a crackle glaze – which I bought many years ago (about 25 years ago) by the bucket-load, (well no, about 15 large bottles of it).  It was a new thing on the market then and I loved to crackle crafty stuff.  I had a couple of bottles left . . . . 

I got a bottle out of my cupboard while chewing on my lip, telling myself that it would be no good.  It would have gone off after all this time.  BUT … IT HADN’T!!!   Ohhhh Joy thy name is Crackle!  I duly painted a coat of the crackle glaze, and once dried, I gave it another coat of the Amish Blue.  I didn’t want the ‘white peeping from behind the blue, or black or red etc’ thing that everyone seems to do.  I wanted a crackle which I could rub some antiquing medium into the cracks so that it had that old cracked varnish look like you find on things in posh shops.

Once everything dry, I added some white stencilling paste around the corner of the chalkboard to give it the suggestion of chalk dust sitting on the side.

Then I turned my attention to fixing the chalkboard back and front together – with soft white string as you can see in the photo’s.  And also make the ‘note’ which I wanted to fix to the board.

 

Next was the turn of the decorative paper flowers to the lower left corner.  White paper roses, some Prima blue daisies, and Prima pink roses.  Moss, and a few other bits of floral decorations and the corner was done!  (The twigs and the teeny pine cones came from my garden).

I added the sentiment – on some lovely striped paper from DoCrafts, in their Floral Muse range (which I ‘vintaged’ using brown ink and a duster brush), and fixed them in place using the two pegs (now glued to the board) and a dab of glue to the back of the ‘note’ to make sure that it didn’t try to make a get-away!

In case you can’t read it, the note says:   Happy Anniversary!  You are my best decision EVER!

 

And that’s all there was to it!

Explaining it makes it sound really complicated, but it really wasn’t.  Truthfully.  If I made it then any idiot with some glue, paint and a brush can do it.

Oh … and yes, he really was.  My best decision,  ever.

After the three photographs you’ve seen here …. (and remember, these are not good) …  this was the next best one….

Look how blurred that is!!!   When I first opened up this last photo, I initially took my glasses off and rubbed them with the hem of my t-shirt which I had on!  I thought it was my glasses…. then my eyes …. and only after that did I realise that it was my fantastic talent for taking shocking photos.   (And if you think this one is bad you ought to see the ones I WOULDN’T show you!  lol).  But … if you look really carefully to the top bar, over the chalkboard, you can just about see the fine cracked varnish affect I got from using the same colour over the top of the crackle glaze, and then rubbing antiquing medium into the cracks to make the cracks show up.

Ah but anyhoo …

Before I go I have something I just have to share this with you.  Mr.Cobs reads a little selection of newspapers on-line and he popped over to the Daily Mail to glance down the main home page to see if there was anything he’d missed from elsewhere.   I came in from my craft room to find him laughing so hard (yet trying to keep it under control) so much that I thought he was about to have a fit of some description.  He eventually calmed down enough to show me what he was laughing about.  When I looked at it I too began to giggle, then laugh, eventually having to grab a tissue to wipe my eyes so I could continue to read.  I thought that I would love to share this with you because … well, there’s so much in life to give us a frown right now that if I can make just one of you smile even a little then grabbing the link to this would be very much worth it.  So, with my love, and with the advice of making sure you too have a tissue ready ….  I share this link:  Daily Mail UK – Answers Children gave for Tests.   It will open in another window for you. 

Enjoy!

Thanks for coming for a visit, I love to see you, but then, you know that already.  ❤

Have a blessed day.  Be good to each other.   See you next time.  

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Just a Spoonful of Sugar helps the Medicine go down …

Go on, admit it.  You’re singing it now,  aren’t you?  <actually Laughing Out Loud to self here because I am too! fnar fnar.>

You’d think that since I’d been so poorly for the last … oh, I dunno – gazillion months?, (certainly seems that long), that I would have thought about making a ‘get well’ card sooner than this!  But no.  My brain just didn’t seem to switch on to this idea until a couple of days ago.

Inside my head I’d been singing the Mary Poppins song:  ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’  and thought this would be an excellent idea for a different sort of ‘get well’ card.

In my excitement I ploughed straight in and forgot to take photos of the ‘building stages’ – so the earliest one in the building process which I have, is this one:

. . .   yes, I know, it’s a rubbish photo.  Sorry about that.

The card was made using Tattered Lace Panorama Concertina Sides and Inners, which build up a card and give it a depth and ‘distance’ feeling by the use of zig zag folds on the sides of the card (are all die cut), which stay concertina’d,  and which have little slits through those zig zag bits, and help you to build up the layers on the card.   It sounds terribly complicated but once you’ve built your first one you suddenly see how easy it actually is.

As you can see in the photo, I used two shades of blue card to line two of the inner parts of the card, and gave the last ‘inner’ a bit of white on white treatment with the addition of a circle of ‘twirly bits’ using a Tonic die.

I then added the ‘front’ to the card – which I’d already covered in some Pion paper, and then got to work on the idea which I had in my head.

I thought the play on the words of the song  A Spoonful of Sugar  was a brilliant idea to use, so I went in search of my collection of little bottles and chose one which looked the right fit for the card, and once part filled, I corked it and added a teeny little label which I’d made on the ‘puter.  I paid a visit to my metal embellishments storage chest to get a teeny-weeny spoon, and then added them to the centre of the card.

At the same time I’d made the ‘sugar’ label on the computer, I’d also made some ‘plasters’ (or ‘band aids’ for USA folks), and a miniature ‘prescription’ which looked as close as I could get it to look like a prescription you’d see here in the UK, given to you by a doctor.  You can see just about half of it close up in the photograph above.  I added the plasters and prescription to the card front and then went on to choose a flower.  (Everyone who’s poorly should get flowers!)

But … what sort of flower?  Just an ordinary type of flower?  Noooo… it had to have something odd …  so … I chose a spotty Gardenia.  Measles perhaps?  lol  (flower by Anna Marie)

The little ‘twirly bits’ you see coming from beneath the flower are very fine cuts of the same Pion paper which is on the front of the card.  I twirled these paper cuts so that they spiralled, then just carefully pulled the spirals out so that they were just the right length.  They look so effective when seen with the naked eye.

These Tattered Lace die cut Panorama cards are cut in such a way that, once put together, they naturally stand up straight all by themselves.  However, because they’re panorama, if they’re up straight then I figured that unless your eye line is on a level with it then you won’t get a proper look at what’s inside, so I built a stand for the card and fixed it to the back, just in case the recipient wanted to have the card displayed at an angle.

In order for a ‘greeting’ to be added to the card I thought I’d add a tag (and because I love tags).  I cut some white card into a tag shape then covered both sides with some more of the Pion paper so that it matched the card perfectly.

To one side of the card I fixed the words of the chorus from A Spoonful of Sugar, and added a little ‘apothecary’ type bottle (which I’d changed to blue on the ‘puter).

I left the other side of the tag just plain Pion paper so that a greeting could be added.

….  and then added two more apothecary type bottles to the back of the card, just to bring some fun onto what would normally be the ‘boring side’ of a card.

I found all of the apothecary jars on The Graphics Fairy – and I thoroughly recommend the site for royalty free images for use on cards and other crafting projects.  (All of the apothecary jars I changed to shades of blue so that they matched the card – but you could easily change them to whatever colour you choose for yourself).

And that,  as they say in Television Land,  is all there was to it!

Oh!  Apart from ….  The Tattered Lace Panorama Dies do leave the sides of the card ‘open’ – so that you can see the clever mechanism which helped you make the card.  Now I don’t mind anyone knowing how I made it … but I just think that it kind of looks ugly.  To me it looks unfinished.  So, if you look carefully, you can just see how I’ve chosen to ‘cover’ the sides.  I use a toning blue shade of Organza ribbon, which I cut to the right length and then seal the ends (so that they don’t fray), and attached the ribbon to the sides of the card in order to give a more polished or ‘finished’  look to the card.  You could, I suppose, just use card, cut, scored and folded then glued into place.  So if you don’t have the organza then cardstock would probably work just as well.

Thank you for coming and sharing some time with me.  I really love your company, so thank you so much for coming to take a peep at this card.  I hope you like it as much as I do.  It was a really fun make and didn’t take long to get it all to come together.

Have a truly blessed rest of your day.  Sending you a crafty squidge ~

 

 

 

 

Delivering: A Bunch of Roses – via a vintage style card!

Although I know it’s a little early for Roses to be popping up in the garden (at least, it is here, in England) I simply couldn’t resist these papers any longer and had to get my hands on them.

The papers  – beautifully named: “You Were Never Lovelier” – are acid and lignin free scrapbooking papers.  All of them are of the ‘oooooOOooo’ and the ‘aaaaaaAAaahh’ type of paper!

I knew I wanted to make a cross-over type card, so set to work with my cardstock and guillotine.  I LOVE cross-over cards – I think because it enables me to really ‘dress up’ a card.  I also adore embellishments, and I particularly love making tags, so making a cross-over card gives me chance to almost have a party with embellishments strewn all over my desk!

Once the basic shape was built, I cut and added the papers and the beautiful vintage, crocheted lace.

The card itself has three large soft, pink, (fabric-type) roses, some paper roses, and some filler flowers.  The little wooden bird-cage (available in almost all crafty outlets) I painted with Gesso and then tinted over the top of it.  The string of pearls which winds itself along the card and around the flowers – are just ‘craft pearls’ on a string, and you can buy these for very little, again in lots of place, but I recently saw some in The Range (here in the UK) in a bag filled with a choice of either white or cream; LOTS of pearls and I’m almost sure that they were less than £2 (English pounds).   To fix these pearls into place – I use Cosmic Shimmer glue – sparingly.  You don’t need tons of glue.  Just a bit here and there.  (You can click to view the photographs in a larger size – but don’t forget to click ‘back’ so that you can come back to continue reading).

The crocheted cotton lace I used on the card is genuinely vintage lace.  I bought it as part of a bag full of lace on Ebay about five years ago.  The lady I bought it from was parting with some of her Grandmothers sewing stuff after Grandma had been called home.   She told me that her Grandmother used to keep any lace from things which had worn out, got damaged etc, and due to be thrown away (or used as dusters/cleaning cloths etc.), and she would use the lace on other clothes or all sorts of things.  But the Granddaughter wasn’t a sewing gal and had no room to keep things, so she put the bag filled with lace on eBay and I was lucky enough to win it.  (I was thrilled down to my toes when it arrived and wrote a thank you email to the lady who I’d bought it off, telling her how wonderful the lace was and how honoured I was to be the new owner of Grandma’s lace.).

I made three inserts for this card, and all three can be ‘viewed’ on both sides.   You can see one side of the tags in the photograph above, and the other side of the tags in the photo below:

The long, tall tag in the centre of the photo above is a bookmark.  The little tag laying to the right hand side of the photo (on your right as you look at the photo) is a postcard on both sides of the card.  And the final tag – the large one at the right of the centre – has an ’empty’ postcard on the one side – which is blank so that  a message can be written from the sender of the card – and on the reverse side it has a beautiful poem by Helen Steiner Rice – which I ‘built’ on the computer using the fabulous image of the roses and the poem.

close up of the large ‘fabric type’ roses

Close up of the butterfly. I hand stamped onto some cardstock then glazed & once dry I added the tiny gems.

The tags fit neatly inside the fold over card, and the card itself has a stand on the back of it, (die cut on my Big Shot) – which stands the card in the same way children’s school photographs stand up.  They have that fold out stand on the back, with a little curved piece which folds down and holds the stand firmly so that the card stands up apparently without any help!  (I looks just like a magic trick when you see one of these cards standing up all by itself.  All it’s missing is the flick of the wrist and swish of the wand! Oh … and  ‘abracadabra‘!  lol)

Obviously the card couldn’t go into a regular envelope, so I made it a box:

The sentiment on the little tag in the top right corner, was stamped – firstly with brown ink, then with black – which helped to give it a more vintage feel.

The card fits perfectly into the box . . .

This would be a lovely card for Mothers Day – or a Birthday, or a ‘hello’ card, a ‘cheer you up’ card, anniversary card,  or an ‘I love you and wanted to show you’  type of card!  It’s one of those cards which fits all the regular types of ‘card days’.

The big ribbon bow on the front of the card … isn’t tied into an ‘un-equal bow’, – it’s very much a balanced bow, but the angle of the card,  combined with the angle I’ve taken the photographs at,  has made it look like the bottom loop of the bow isn’t as generous as the top loop.  It’s sadly a trick of the camera/eye.  (and the nutcase holding the camera who’s rubbish at taking photographs!  <sigh> tsk tsk). lol

But … if I may be serious for a moment: 

I know the blog has been a bit quiet over the past couple of weeks.  Apologies for that.  Poor health is to blame, – but I’m hoping that my doctor will, this week, get the results of a gazillion tests and x-rays I had to have done, and that he will finally be able to tell me what the heck is causing this horrible  ‘chest infection’  (or whatever it is) and will be able to ‘fix’ me once and for all!

Thank you so much for coming to share this card with me.  I’m thrilled that you do.  Honestly.  But …  what really brings me out in fun bumps (aka: goosebumps) are ‘comments’.  It’s such a joy to put a name to a visitor, so please, don’t be shy.  Do tap your fingers on your keyboard and say hello!  :o)

Sending crafting love your way,  and wishing you . . . .  a truly blessed rest of your day!

I’m entering this card into the following challenges:

• http://ribbongirls.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/march-card-challenge.html?m=1
• http://eclecticellapu.blogspot.co.uk/   – in the Go Green category