Never Stop Making Wishes!

Going through the moving of my sewing desk,  along with numerous boxes of crafty stuff which I did last week,   I came across a long forgotten little blackboard which I bought from one of those pound shops for … yes you guessed it,  a £1.  I can remember that I bought it with something in mind to do with it, however that ‘something’ long ago made its travelling plans and went on a walking holiday out of my right ear and never came back.  So … seeing the blackboard again made me think that I really needed to do something with it.  So I did!

Like the dope that I am   … I forgot to take a photo of the blackboard in its original state, (DOH!)  so I took a photo of the back of it so that you could see the plain wood and what colour it was.

It’s a soft wood, and quite light in weight, so not something that will pull a wall down if you hang it on a nail!

The front … I painted the frame in a deep wine red colour.  It took the paint really well and dried pretty quickly, which I was glad about because I was eager to crack on with the project.

While waiting …  I knew I wanted to put some flowers on the frame, so set about making some roses.

petals in No.1 are waiting to be formed.  Petals in No.2 have been shaped into ‘cup’ shapes.  And finally, No.3 is the completed ‘rose’ flower.

I cut out a variety of sizes of the same flower – one was to be a larger flower and I wanted two others to be slightly smaller.

Once the shapes were cut, I then popped them into a cardboard box which I’d lined with some cling-film (cling wrap), and I lay the ‘petals’ of each flower on it, and then spritzed them with some Cosmic Shimmer sprays, to turn the petals into the colours I wanted them to be.

While these were drying, I went back to the blackboard and did the ‘words of encouragement’ you see in the photo.

Bit of a blurry photo, but the only one I got of it hanging on the wall of my cottage. (The flash wiped out the colours a little and left everything looking ‘flat’)

Once the rose petals were dry, I then shaped them into ‘cup’ shapes, and assembled them, shaping the petals as I went along.  Once all assembled, I then spritzed them again, very lightly, where needed, to adjust each rose colour so that it looked like it had grown on the same bush as the others.  (there’s method in my madness! lol).  Finally, I added a tiny sprinkle, here and there, of chunky ice crystals (like glitter, but not) – just to give them a bit of sparkle.

I die cut some leaves, and a bit of deep ‘greenery’ filler and then built the floral decoration in the top left corner, making it sit upon a little soft cream coloured crocheted doily.

And that’s all there was to it!  Ta Dahhhh!

Happy Monday! 

May I just take this moment to say hello to some new followers.  I won’t mention each person by name, but you know who you are.  🙂  Thank you for joining and coming to visit.  Please feel free to chat away in a comment on any post you’d like to.  Don’t feel shy.  Everyone here is amazingly friendly and you’ll fit right in.

If you can’t work out where the comments section is …  go to the top of the post you want to comment on and find the title of the post (eg: for this post the title is  Never Stop Making Wishes) … just over to the right of the title is a pale grey speech bubble which will turn darker when you hover your cursor on it.  Click that speech bubble and it will take you to the comments section and you’ll be able to read and write there.  😀

So anyhoo ….  This is the last Monday in April….  so let’s make it a great day!  Plaster a smile to your face and each time you catch yourself without your smile, paste it back there and try to keep it there.  If nothing else it will make people wonder what you’re up to!  lol

Have a truly lovely day my friends,  and …  be good to each other.

Sending squidges by the bucket load ~

 

 

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

A Frosty Nights Seasons Greetings

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling:  “How could it be so?”
“It came with out ribbons! It came without tags!”
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,”   he thought,  “doesn’t come from a store.”
“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

Where I live,  my neighbours and I are surrounded by huge pine trees.  80 feet (plus) tall.  Now I have to admit that I love them, they give my garden some wonderful cool shade in the summer months, and offer protection in the winter.  However there’s a downside to these fabulous trees – because in the autumn and winter months they shed pine needles like crazy and bury all our gardens under a deep carpet of them,  – and they also shed pine cones.

(Which my dog loves!  She sits in the garden, staring up at the trees, waiting for the pine cones to drop, …  and the minute they do, she chases round the garden to collect them and promptly brings them into the house as a present for me.).

I wanted to make Christmas cards for some of my neighbours which had some sort of personal ‘thing’ about them,  so I chose my stamps to include a pine cone  and also a silhouette of a large black cat …  as a representation of one of my cats – who all my neighbours know.

I’m owned by three felines.  One is a very old lady who’s almost 19 years old and the ‘boss’ (and how!) of the trio, and the two others are loveable rascals of two years old who love nothing better than to play Cowboys and Indians at breakneck speed through my cottage!.  One of these youngsters is a beautiful, huge,  luxurious,  black velvet coated beastie, called Alfie.  He’s way too heavy for me to pick up – but not overweight;  long, tall, sleek, powerfully built, adept at walking along the edge of a high fence with such elegance, which makes his muscles ripple like that of a panther.  However, he’s a big softy, who loves a chinny tickle, and who has the teeniest meow you’ve ever heard!

To make this card;  I began by masking off a circle on the card, which was to be the moon, and also masked off where I wanted to put in a snow drift so that it added depth to the card.  I blended three ink pad colours;  two blue Memento Archival Ink pads, and a tiny touch from a black Ranger Archival ink pad.  The photographs haven’t captured the true colours of this card.  The blues are a little darker than they show here, making the whole scene very much like the sky at midnight, on Christmas Eve.

Once the sky and snow drifts were in place I then went straight into stamping:    I Stamped the Pine trees on the snow drift, and then the crescent wreath shape, using the second generation stamping method which I’ve talked previously about in the Christmas cards which I posted about over the past few days.

a section of the card, in close up, to show the second generation stamping method. (click on photograph and it will open up, in a much larger size, but remember to click ‘back’ on your browser window so that you come back to this post to continue reading).

I wanted to add a tiny bit of colour , so stamped some small red flowers to represent Christmas Poinsettia flowers, and stamped the pine cones in a dry brown colour.

Next came the Seasons Greetings sentiment – which I wanted to be in gilding flakes, so I stamped the words using  Cosmic Shimmer Flake and Glitter Glue,  and then used Cosmic Shimmer Gilding Flakes to gild the stamped words.

Following this I added some glitter to the snow drift and the wreath, using a fine nibbed glue pen and Wow glitters;  and then used a Graph It white marker pen to add snow ‘dots’ falling against the dark sky,  and also added  ‘snow’ onto some of the branches of the wreath, where snow would have settled naturally.

And that’s all there is to it! 

I had fun with this card – and I have to admit that I really love the finished article.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing a few minutes of your day with me.  I’ve loved have your company.

Have a truly fabulous, blessed,  rest of your day.

The Armour of God – ‘Shield of Faith’ Pendant

The Armour of God – Shield of Faith Pendant. handmade by Cobwebs at The Cobweborium Emporium http://thecobweboriumemporium.wordpress.com/

The Shield of Faith

I made this pendant for a young relative who is religious and who has always like this type of steampunk style jewellery.  She’s always been the one who stands out from the crowd, so I thought this combination of everything which speaks of her faith, combined with her love of the ‘alternative’ style of jewellery might just hit the spot.

 

tucked into the presentation box was this little book style leaflet which I put together, and which quotes the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians 6:10-18.  For those of you who may have just glazed over …  (lol) ..  if you want to understand what I’m going on about then perhaps check out Wikipedia, and in its search bar just put  ‘Armour of God’.  It will take you where you need to be in order to read. 

I didn’t want to start quoting biblical passages here as this isn’t a religious blog, it’s simply a post in my Craft blog, about an item of jewellery I’ve made, but it just happens to have a religious theme to the pendant.  (But if you’re not in the least bit religious – it’s just a great Steampunk pendant!)

I have to admit that I’m fairly new to my Ranger Melting Pot  (which I’ve christened  The Cauldron).  I bought it and then sat looking at it for several weeks, terrified of it.  It seemed so ‘major’.  Such a professional looking item which required someone with way more skill than I had.  But … eventually I talked myself into getting the darn thing out on my desk and plugging it in.  From that moment I was hooked.  AND HOW!!

If you’ve never used one, then I highly recommend it.  It’s the most fascinating, amazing, awe-inspiring bit of kit and you honestly don’t have to be a brain surgeon to get it working for you in the way you want it to work.  I’ll be making a post about this machine in the ‘Products I Recommend‘ category on my blog, very soon.  So if you are interested in possibly purchasing this bit of kit then check back and I’ll put together as comprehensive post about it as I can muster and get it up and ‘live’ by the end of this current week.

But .. back to the pendant:  The necklace which it hangs from is made from a length of velvet ribbon in a rich warm green (it had a posh name for the colour, but my memory is rubbish so that name has gone by the by).  I turned this length of ribbon into the necklace you see in the photograph by the addition of some jewellery ribbon ends – which are like little clamps with teeth which grip the ends of the ribbon so that it’s held firmly.  I added some jump rings and then two lobster claw clasps.  Voila – one necklace ready and waiting for a pendant.

  The pendant:  I did a rough sketch of what I had in mind and then set about making it.  I chose the hobnailed bezel you see in the photograph and then searched through my stash for a cross which was the right shape and size to fit into that bezel.  Once I’d found it, I then wanted to make it ‘glow’ in such a way that it showed clearly through the poured liquid which was to complete the pendant.  So I used some Cosmic Shimmer glitter and flake Glue which I dabbed all over the cross, waited just a moment or two for it to get to a tacky stage and then covered the cross in a mix of silver, rose gold and yellow gold gilding flakes, so that it had a multi toned effect – but you couldn’t really see where one colour finished and the other began.

Then it was time to turn on the Melt Pot.  (hears the notes to The Twilight Zone in the background)….   Into the Cauldron Melt Pot I poured some clear Cosmic Shimmer Ultra Thick Embossing Crystals – not too much, but enough to make what I guessed was enough to fill up the bezel and then a little more, just to be on the safe side.

I added some inks – Cosmic Shimmer Melt Inks,  … don’t use any other inks in your melt pot because other inks aren’t meant for the Ranger Melting Pot and if you get the wrong inks then the whole molten liquid can explode – you have been warned, –  which, because I used CLEAR Ultra thick crystals, the inks simply coloured the clear [now] liquid in the melt pot.  The colour remained transparent but the more ink you use, the deeper the colour gets.  I then added a little pearl shimmer ultra thick crystals, which gave the liquid a look as if some sort of magic was happening somewhere in that mix.

I poured a small amount of the hot molten liquid into the triangle bezel and quick as I could, I then ‘set’ the cross into that tiny bit of liquid while it was still in its ‘un-set’ state.  I needed to do this so that the cross was held in the place where I wanted it to be, so that it didn’t float around the bezel when I poured more liquid on the top.  I gave it a moment or two to cool off and then I sprinkled some tiny specks of gold gilding flakes over the inside of the bezel and then carefully poured more of the molten liquid over the cross and carefully filled up the bezel to just the right level so that it was domed a little, but not so that it was close to over-flowing.  All I had to do then was wait.  Not long.  Just wait a little while for the whole thing to cool down – which honestly doesn’t take long at all.  Maximum ten/15 minutes for it to be totally cold.

And there you have it.  One Steampunk pendant … or pendant with a religious theme (depending upon which way you want to look at it).

There is a little more to the Cauldron  Ranger Melting Pot which you need to know if you’re going to invest in one.  Either click to ‘follow’ me (that way you’ll get an email when I post something new on here) so that you won’t miss out on the post in ‘Products I Recommend’ which will be about the Melt Pot, or remember to keep popping back and checking my blog out so that you don’t miss it.

Have a great day all  ~