Fairy Dragon Eggs ~ the Cobs way.

I said last week (in The Wand of Doom post) that Little Cobs (my Grandson) and I had done another crafty project together, which I’d share in another post, and I’m here today to share that crafty project, along with some others which I started off, and he finished.  All of what you are about to see were made with Little Cobs.

It all began with me mentioning that I knew that Fairies had Fairy Dragons which they rode on, and which protected all of Fairy Land from any dangers like fierce dogs or Ogres(!),  and,  I said,  those Fairy Dragons laid eggs, from which Baby Dragons were born!

Little Cobs, naturally wanted to see a Fairy Dragon Egg.  Hmm.  Now I’d seen on Pinterest and on someone else’s blog, some ‘Dragon Eggs‘ which were just incredible.  But … not suitable at all for a small child, as they were made from drawing pins (thumb tacks).  Knowing Little Cobs as I do, I knew that he’d pick those pins out one at a time until there was a trail of them through the house!

So I had to come up with another idea.  And I did.  And …  that original idea turned into another one, and then it made me think of something else … and on and on until …  well …  I’ll share the photos, and then you’ll see.

It all began with a polystyrene egg …  which I painted first to take away the white (but you can get away without doing that bit, if you want to try this out).  Then, using glue gel in a syringe, I fixed assorted Candi (made by Craftwork Cards) and overlapped the Candi  dots, to make the ‘Dragon Scales’.

Photo showing the egg, half way through the making process.

Once I’d  finished fixing all the Candi dots in place, the egg looked like this ….

A Dragon Egg . . .  but it needed ‘the Magic!’

The glue gel needs 24 hours to dry – and unless you’re really careful, I’d suggest covering the egg with the Candi dots in two sessions.  It’s not a quick to do project, so don’t think you’ll get away with it being finished in an hour.  You get quicker as you get used to it … but it’s still a good couple of hours or more to cover an egg.

The egg looked impressive exactly like that – and Little Cobs loved it … but it needed some Fairy Magic to actually bring it to that special place that children love.  So …  out came the Buff It – by Pinflair.  (one of my most favourite crafting items in my craft room – I absolutely love it!).  I told my project manager (aka Little Cobs)  to choose three colours of the Buff it – which took him ages, – that kid likes to change his mind a lot!  lol.  I gave him a cosmetic sponge and showed him how to get just a little bit of Buff It on the sponge, and gentle swipe it over the Dragon Scales on the Egg.  And when we’d finished,  this ….  is what had happened …

 

He was absolutely delirious with joy at this egg.  He didn’t want to put it down.  He took it to Grandad so that it could be admired.  He showed it to the Dog, and even to Alf Capone (one of the cats), who I interpreted for (I speak several languages – English, Dog, Cat, Horse, Rabbit and [mostly] Gobbledygook), and said that Alf was very impressed and believed that it really was a Fairy Dragon Egg – adding that Alf would know this because he played with the fairies every single day!

 

From there, we went on to colour another Egg I’d pre-made ready for him, this time using all Pink Candi dots . . .

…  as you can see we coloured that one totally in Antique Gold Buff It – and you can just see the pink of the Candi Dots peeping out from between the scales, which kind of gives it a sort of rosey glow about it.

…. this picture (above) is of the exact same egg, but stood up (balanced on a glitter shaker lid), with a penny coin, so that you can get an idea of the size.

So, those Candi dot eggs completed,  out came some more polystyrene eggs, only this time I did something totally different with them, and Little C and I coloured them up  … and here’s what they look like…

This effect of a lumpy, bumpy egg came about by using a heat gun.  Now if you try it yourself be aware that you have to be REALLY careful with the heat.  Firstly … DON’T HOLD THE EGG IN YOUR HAND while using the heat gun on it.   And don’t hold the heat in one place for too long.  You have to keep the heat moving around and know when to stop heating.  As soon as you begin to see a result that you like, then stop.

Little Cobs wanted to use only Pearl coloured Buff It on this bumpy egg,  but I said that it might look a little boring so talk him into letting me add just little bits of colour, here and there, and blended them well, so that it looked as if it had that lustre of a real pearl – or the colours of Mother of Pearl.

My Project Manager made the executive decision of BLUUUE! (said like that too! lol) – for this egg.  Again, this lovely effect was done using the heat gun – but very gently.   Once we’d coloured up the egg and Little C had ‘polished’ it to a sheen, it was just fabulous… in fact, it reminded me of a Chocolate Easter Egg, wrapped in foil and waiting for me to break it open and eat!

And finally . . .  I wanted to do something that wasn’t Dragon …  something with more ROAR and GROWL and ARGGH!  . . .  and thought that perhaps I could get a result that was more grungy and pitted – in the hope of making a Dinosaur Egg!

 

This result came from carefully heating the egg in places for a while, then coming back and heating that bit again, then again and again – until the desired result came about. It was still bumpy in some places, but more grungy in others.  I have no idea what a Dinosaur Egg might look like, but this, I decided was what our Dino Egg was going to look like. 🙂

The Project Manager decided upon brown and green for the Dinosaur egg,  and to be honest,  I think he chose the perfect colours for it.  They really worked as Dinosaur colours.

All in all we had an absolute ball of a time with these eggs. Great Crafting projects and lots of fun both in the making of and in the colouring up.

Oh crikey!  … almost forgot ... all of the papers you see in the photographs is all Graphic 45 paper – from one of their more recent collections:  ‘Fairy Dust’.

And that’s all there was to it!  😀

I still have two special eggs to show you – but those will be for another time.  I think I’ve kept you here long enough, and that bit of coffee you’ve got left in your cup must surely be cold by now.  Shall I get you another?  Or do you have to rush off?

Thank you so much for coming.  Happy Monday!  I hope your week ticks along nicely, with no problems which make you pull your hair out, and no troubles like finding out you’ve got the work or the shops and forgotten your purse or keys.

May an Angel pass over your house and sprinkle your home with love, peace, joy and all the stuff which will give you contentment.

Have a blessed rest of your day, and a truly lovely week.

Sending squidges ~ 

 

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Happy Mothers Day!

I couldn’t post this until today because I had to make sure that the surprise wasn’t spoiled.  I don’t think anyone would have shown my gorgeous Mother in Law a picture of her card,   but … well I felt it would have been kind of a bad luck thing to have posted it before today.

Cards which I’d embellished to within an inch of their lives and worked for hours on over a period of days, had gone missing in the post before now, so I decided that I would make a pretty, ladylike card this time, but I’d make it so that it slipped into a regular envelope, as I thought that maybe I would be in with a chance of it getting there.  And …  we had a text message from my lovely sister-in-law (Mr.Cobs sister)  letting us know that the card had arrived.  WHOO HOO!

Taking photo’s of this card were nigh on impossible.  I made it so that it had a ‘see through’ front, made from Acetate.  So I tried various things in the hope of getting a decent photo which would show that see through bit.  I failed miserably. 

What you have here are a selection of photos which are pretty rubbish but they’re the best I had out of about 20 photos.

To make the card:  I removed a section from the front of a scored and folded 6×6 and replaced it with the acetate.  I then fussy cut into some papers for the top and bottom of the card front, and added some more fussy cut roses and leaves for the ‘spine’ edge.  Added a sentiment to the front, and then turned my attention to the inside. 

The inside is actually a large die cut central section, which you can take out and use on the card by itself, but I so liked it as it was that I fixed it in place using strips of double-sided tape, and then trimmed it to size and adhered it to the inside.

I was so happy with this card when it was finished as it looked so pretty and I knew my much-loved mother-in-law would like it as it was a little bit different – having the see through front.

As a gift to make her smile and say Thank You for being such a wonderful Mother, we’ve sent her an arrangement of pretty cottagey type flowers, all yellows and lemons and greens, which we arranged to be delivered today, Sunday 26th March ~  which is Mothering Sunday, here in the United Kingdom.   The colours of the floral arrangement were so cheerful and bright that they made me smile, so I knew they’d make her smile too.

Although I know that Mothering Sunday happens on different days in different parts of the world, it’s Mothers Day here, so to all of the Mothers around the world, I wish you a very happy, warm and loved up Sunday.

To those who aren’t Mothers, through choice or circumstance, I wish you too a happy, warm and much loved up day.

And… just because it’s Mothers day …  we have:  Jokes!

A mother mouse and a baby mouse are walking along when suddenly a cat attacks them. The mother mouse shouts “BARK!” and the cat runs away. “See?” the mother mouse says to her baby. “Now do you see why it’s important to learn a foreign language?”

~   ❤   ~

Son: “Mom can I get twenty bucks”   . . .  

Mom: Does it look like I am made of money?  . . . 

Son:  “Well isn’t that what M.O.M stands for?”

~   ❤   ~

Q: Why is a computer so smart?

A: Cause it listens to its motherboard.

~   ❤   ~

Q: Why did the cookie cry?

A: Because his mother was a wafer so long!

~   ❤   ~

Q: What did mommy spider say to baby spider?

A: You spend too much time on the web.

~   ❤   ~

All mothers have intuition.

Great mothers have radar.

~   ❤   ~

And finally … 

here’s a card idea that I know would have made my mom laugh like a drain … so … this one is both for my Mom,

and for your amusement.  😀

Have a truly lovely Sunday, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing.  Stay safe,  play nicely,  and …  be good to each other.

A Classic in Times Nouveau, on an Easel.

I broke out the Graphic 45!  I did.  I really did.  Graphic 45 in their Times Nouveau collection, and made a Tag Card,  on a Graphic 45 large tag, and it’s all held onto an Easel which has a working stand, which ‘folds’ out from the back and holds the card like an easel would hold a piece of art work in a Gallery.  It has two hidden tags (one you can see in the picture above) and a little something special on the back, for writing the message.

I wondered if perhaps we could do another GIVE AWAY for this card – if anyone would like it.  I’ll explain in a minute how to enter the give away if you’d like to, but first … I thought I’d better show you how I made the card.

• SHOPPING LIST (roughly’ish’ – if I’ve forgotten to mention anything just point it out in a comment and I’ll let you know.)
• Pinflair Novelty Easel Card – minus the ‘canvas’
• 1 x Graphic 45 Lrg. Tag from a Regular Tag Album (9 pack)
• Kraft Mannequin from a pad of 45 (2 sizes: large, smaller, & either plane or foiled in gold and silver) by Craftwork Cards
• News Print card by Anna Marie Designs
• Olive Spot  and larger spot in black card – both by Anna Marie Designs
• Graphic 45 Times Nouveau Classic Collection – plus some chipboard tags and stickers from this collection.
• Very pale mint spot from stash.
• Tiny black with off white spots paper from stash.
• Ribbons and twine are all from stash.

How I made it:-  Take one black card tag … cover it on one side with Newsprint card,

Add a tiny piece of very pale mint spot paper, and a larger piece of olive spot card.  Making sure you leave a section for a tag to ‘hide’.  (shown by the bit of white and grey leaf card)

Add a piece of Graphic 45 Times Nouveau in the dog-tooth design.  (Again building in a section for a tag to hide in – not shown in this picture (above) but you’ll see the tag hiding place in the next photo)

Can you see where the little hiding spot is on the right hand side now?   Here in this photo (above) I’ve added some black card with very tiny white spots on it;  a mannequin which I distressed and wrapped in a little length of green organza;  I added a fussy cut rather stylish lady, which I mounted on first black larger spot card, then again on small spot card – just for the contrast;  A vintage Car – again fussy cut, but this time from some papers I had in my stash.  I then popped the chipboard ‘Swanky’ tag onto the card and pushed two pearly hat pins behind the card, so that they peeped out a the top of the chipboard tag.

Then came some finishing touches …  Added ribbon, made a bow and added netting in two colours and a couple of flower from my stash;  some tiny pearls around the neck of the mannequin and tucked some sequins into one of the folds of the organza so that they would catch the light.  I then made some little tags using both spot papers and some Graphic 45 Paper, . . .  and then came the easel for it to be displayed on  …

There is a little ‘making’ to the actual easel – but it’s nothing which is difficult.  They’re fabulous easels, and so beautifully made.  Everything is cut ready for you, and REALLY well cut too.

I had trouble lighting this card.  I tried it with the flash, without the flash, with desk lamps, with ceiling lights … and every combination of the previously mentioned ways.  I would say that the true colours are somewhere between the last two photographs above.  The one on the easel seems to have a little too much of a yellow tinge to it.  Where-as the photo before it is rather pale and wiped out by the flash I think.  It looks like it needs to be taking iron tablets.  lol

OK… here’s the  *instructions*   for entering for the give away for this card if you would like to throw your name into the mix and be in with a chance of winning it . . . .

TO ENTER THE GIVE AWAY HERE’S WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO

You MUST be a follower of the blog –  The Cobweborium Emporium. (This is because I have to keep in mind that I’ve made great friends with almost all of my blog followers and so have a great loyalty to them and would want one of them to win the card.  I think this is fair).

IN A COMMENT BELOW YOU MUST TYPE THIS WORD IF YOU WANT YOUR NAME TO BE INCLUDED  …. and that word is:-  GIVEAWAY.  ← Exactly like that.  One word.  Type it at the start or end of your comment.

You have to put it exactly like that –  one word, in capital letters.  Simple – and it makes sure that I don’t miss anyone.  🙂

And that’s it.  That’s all you have to do.  Simply make a comment with the word GIVEAWAY either at the start or the end of your comment.  It couldn’t be easier, could it!  Oh … and …   Please  DON’T  put your real name or address in the comments box.  I need to look after your privacy and security.  If you win, I’ll organise how to get your address afterwards.

To make sure that all is fair,  each entrant will be assigned a number in the ‘time order’ in which they make the comment, and  I’ll get the Random Number Generator to choose the number, and do a screen shot of the R.N.G and post it so that you can all see which number was generated.

I’ll ‘run’ this giveaway from today (Wednesday 5th October 2016), until next Tuesday – TUESDAY 11th OCTOBER, and it will end on that day at 6pm UK time.  Just a week – so that no one is kept hanging around waiting for the result. (We don’t have zones in the UK, we just have one time zone for the whole of the UK – so you’ll have to ask (perhaps) Google to work it out for you so that you know what time that would be where-ever it is that you are.)

This is open to ANYONE IN ANY AREA OF THE WORLD … so long as your country allows a card posted to you from outside your country through your customs. You won’t be asked for any postage or any monies what-so-ever.  This really is just a little fun between us friends.

Well, Wednesday has found it’s way to us all again.  I have a plan for today already ear-marked:   I’d love to show you, if you don’t already know, how to make your own professional looking Christmas Crackers.  Not from a kit …   not those kits you buy for making Crackers, which are from thin card and don’t look like proper Christmas Crackers at all.  I want to show you, if I can, how to make firstly a regular Christmas Cracker …  and then how to spice them up a little and make them into something way more special.  The problem is … can I do it in pictures?  I’ve only ever shown folks how to do this face to face, sitting next to each other so that they can see exactly what I’m doing.  And … I still don’t know how to do the video thing … and load a video onto YouTube – which perhaps would make things easier.  But … I’m going to give it a try and see if I can make it work, and hopefully I’ll be able to share the secrets with you.

So anyway ...  what are your plans for today?  Going anywhere?  Making anything?  Cooking something?  Sewing?  Knitting?  Anything?

Do share the information with me because I can then come to your blog and badger you if you don’t post the results of it for me to drool over!  🙂  lol – just joking.  Actually … no, no I’m not.  I feel, as your friend, that it is my duty to come and badger you.  So yes, I shall come and badger you and poke you with the end of my stick!  It’s a tickling stick and so will make you laugh!

If you’re still reading,  (well done),  I wish you an absolutely WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY!  May the day be bright.  May the winds be gentle.  May your day be easy.  And, until we meet again, may your God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Have a blessed day my friends,

 

The falling leaves drift by my window The falling leaves of red and gold . . .

Well, actually, they’re red, gold, orange and brown .. but I couldn’t think of a song that mentioned all those colours.

I don’t normally do multiple cards at once unless it’s Christmas, but I made these two cards on Saturday  . . .  well now that’s not entirely true.   I almost made two …  but I still had to decide what to do with the pure white card background behind the little girl with the umbrella.   Pure white just didn’t cut it.  So in the end I put in a pale, watery blue sky, and then below it I made it look like that fine, murky, misty, spray, wet you right through rain, so that it would suggest that this really was brolly weather. (brolly – a kind of shortening of word in the UK for Umbrella).

The papers used are all from Craftwork Cards.  I think it’s their Rose Heritage Range, if I remember correctly.  (It’s in my craftroom and I don’t want to make the trip across the decking, in the cold, and in my jammies – because the motion sensor lights will come on and that makes me feel like the last act of the night, [X-Factor?] … and like I should do a song, a dance and a bit of tap just to impress the judges.  It’s pretty paper and in a great variety of prints – which all ‘go’ together well.

The little girl is a stamped image, onto the white Stamping Card (by Clever Cut – aka Stamps Away), then stamped again onto the blue rosy paper and again onto the pink rosey paper.  Her hat and coat are cut from the blue paper.  Her boots and umbrella are cut from the pink paper.  Her scarf is something I added (it wasn’t part of the stamped image) as it kind of added a little movement to the image.

I added a little blue ric-rac ribbon and finished it off with a decorative frame of pink gingham.  (These can be found at The Works (UK only store) – in various sizes and shapes, all very cheaply – normally a pack of 6 totally different ones for around £1.  (sorry to folks outside the UK))

The second card is an Autumn card.  Although Autumn is meant to start at the beginning of September, (here in the UK)  but for me personally it doesn’t really feel like Autumn until October is here.  So when October the 1st arrived on Saturday my mind and heart was instantly switched on to Autumn.

I love the Autumn – the colours, the beautiful skies, the time to get out your warmer clothes and rake the leaves.  Children coming in from playing with little pink noses, as if they’d been pinched.  Hot drinking chocolate.  Snuggly, tucked in and that beautiful moment that it gets too cold in the house so you pop the heating on just to take the chill out of the air.  Yummy!

So … I made an Autumn card.  Not for anyone in particular, just because I wanted to.

The white scored and folded card is a gently hammered card in a lovely weight.  The dotty card is by Anna Marie Designs.  I stamped a ‘naked tree’ directly onto the card using memento ink pad and then stamped different leaves in different colours onto white stamping card, and then cut all the leaves out and coloured them in different colours.  I added just a few stamped leaves directly to the tree, just to give it a little depth.  The leaves were adhered to the tree using tiny double-sided sticky foam mounts, and I kept four stamped leaf images to one side so that I could use them as a pile of leaves …with one leaf being swept up and away by a gust of wind.

At this point, although I liked the card, it was missing a bit of the magic of Autumn, so I got my selection of WOW glitters out and chose three different colours.  An orange, a brown and a gold, and, using a glue pen with a fine nib, I added the various colours of glitters where I felt they should be.

The sentiment which I stamped onto the card is paler than I would normally have stamped it, but I wanted the tree to be the main event, so stamped the words, which read: Autumn…  the year’s last loveliest smile – in a soft brown.

Both of these cards were based on two cards I’d seen in a magazine quite some time ago.  I loved the originals and kind of stored them to memory.  They popped back into my head last week as I began to think about Autumn, so I scribbled myself a ‘post it note’ and stuck it to my big glass mat on my desk, to remind me to make them at the weekend.  I LOVE post it notes.  I don’t think I would I’d remember anything if it weren’t for post it notes!

So .. we have a new week and a new month  …  not only do I wish you a Happy Monday, I also wish you a Happy October.

Here are some facts about October that you might not know …

• The Anglo-Saxons called October Winterfylleth, meaning the ‘fullness’ of winter.
• The Welsh for October is Hydref (originally Hyddfref), a word signifying the lowing of cattle.
• The ‘October Revolution’ in Russia in 1917 took place in November, but at the time Russians had not yet changed from the Julian calendar.
• The Hunt For Red October, with Sean Connery, is the only film with ‘October’ in its title ever to win an Oscar (for best sound editing).
• More US presidents have been born in October than in any other month.

• October in the UK is the Awareness Month for Lupus, breast cancer, national cyber security and domestic violence.

• On 1 October 1982, the world’s first CD (Compact Disc) player went on sale. It was developed jointly by Sony, Philips and Polygram.

• In the US, October is National Pizza Month, Popcorn Month, Pork Month and Sausage Month.

• October is not mentioned in any Shakespeare play or sonnet.

• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869, in Porbander in western India.
• On 3 October 1906 the ‘SOS’ signal was established as an International Distress Signal by an agreement made between the British Marconi Society and the German Telefunk organisation at the Berlin Radio Conference. The signal was formally introduced on 1 July 1908.
• Also on the 3rd October,  in 1990 :  East and West Germany re-united and became one country.

I hope that October came into your home gently, and that as each day of this month comes along, it’s filled with little moments of happiness.

As Anne of Greengables (Anne Shirley)  said:  I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.  And I am.  October is one of my favourite colours.

Thank you so much for coming and having a coffee with me.

Sending you love and an October sort of squidge, from me, to you.  ~

Challenging myself to be Gorjuss!

If you’re anything like me, you will look at the freebies which come with crafty magazines, admire them and tell yourself that you’ll make a card with them, or scrap-booking page or do something wonderfully crafty with them … and you pop them to one side.  From there they make it to a drawer.  Then to the bottom of said drawer.  Then you find them when you’re looking for something else and remember you were going to make something with them, so you put them on one side ….  and the whole thing goes round and round like a merry-go-round.

Well I told myself that I was to actually make something with my freebies from now on, so I began with these Gorjuss images.  Now I’m not a Gorjuss sort of girl.  I like the images and think those little girls are just so pretty and so well drawn.  But they’re not things I would normally craft with as I don’t kind of have a real ‘feel’ for them.  I think they’re kind of ‘too sweet’ for me.  (My daughter is the total opposite.  She LOVES Gorjuss cards etc.).

I sat and looked at the images , telling myself that I HAD to make four cards or I was NEVER  leaving that craft room (not even for a visit to the little girls room).  So I did.  I made four cards.

All the cards are made on a 6×6″ card base, dècoupaged,  matted and layered. 

This first card is dècoupaged (although you actually can’t see that it is in this photo) has the addition of Black Lace Washi tape, and some black Stickles at the corners.  The envelope is decorated up with a bumble-bee on the flap.  I wanted to put a foxes head on the flap of the envelope (as a nod to the fox in the Gorjuss picture) but couldn’t find the darn stamp.

This second card (above) is again dècoupaged, and I simply drew the wriggly lines around the lovely pale mustard layer, to sort of frame the whole thing.  The envelope is decorated in the same way, with patchwork hearts to echo the little heart she has in her hair.

Card three (above), dècoupaged, matted, layered and decorated using a very fine nib pen, and I added some buttons using lilac Stickles to bring out the lilac in the Gorjuss girly picture;   a teeny mushroom picture which I glossed and added a ribbon too.  The envelope is decorated with a dragonfly.  (I couldn’t get the light right for this card.  The pink spotted background is actually more delicate and pale than it looks in the photo).

Finally … card four.   Dècoupage, matted, layered, with the addition of a little ribbon and some Stickles. The envelope has a rabbit’s head on it, to acknowledge that the Gorjuss girl obviously likes rabbits because she’s holding one!

They’re not my usual type of card and I was absolutely outside my comfort zone, but I’ve done my personal challenge and made something with some of my freebies instead of adding continually to my stash.  But I’m glad I challenged myself to do them.  However – the challenge is ongoing.  I still have more freebies stashed away, and I’m determined to use them! (You have been warned.) 

All that remains is to wish you a very Happy Monday, and I sincerely hope that you have a lovely start to this new week.  Make a memory today.  Find one good thing which happened during the day and think about it when you go to bed tonight.  Go on … make yourself smile

Have a truly blessed day, my fellow blogging friends and readers.

Happy Anniversary!

Well my goodness, it’s been quiet around this blog for the last month, hasn’t it!  I won’t bore you with the details, suffice to say:  Life sometimes gets in the way and it can take up valuable crafting time.  How dare it! 

“What a darn cheek”, I hear you say.   I agree.  How VERY dare it, indeed!

I’ve been trying to fit a little crafting time in, and one of the things which was on the list of ‘To Do’, was an anniversary card for my truly lovely neighbours.  Big M  (aka Mr. Cobs)  learnt that they were going on a fabulous holiday to celebrate their wedding anniversary, so he shared the news with me and of course … I instantly went into ‘must make a card’ mode, and this, dear readers, is what this lovely blog post is about.

I’ll put in as many details as possible in case this card inspires you to make something similar for someone you know.  But if I leave anything out, please feel free to ask in a comment.  Comments are moderated (to delete ‘spam’ before it gets onto the blog) – so your ‘question’ or comment won’t appear on the blog straight away.  But I will reply asap, I promise, cross my heart, hold up my pinky finger and say “Honour Bright”.  (yerrsss….  Shirley Temple was a part of my growing up.  My mother loved the films).

Anyway … let’s get on with it, shall we?

The ‘base’ card I used was a 5×5″ ready scored card (by Craftwork Cards), in a beautiful soft biscuit colour, with white polka dots.  I began by cutting half of the front of the card off, diagonally, and then on the reverse of the cut off piece of card, I sprayed it with plain cold water from a very fine mist spray.  I let the water penetrate the card and after a moment or two, I curled the card round a little tube, to give it that lovely curve you see in the photograph above.  If you do this – hold the card there for a moment, to kind of ‘set’ the curve and give it a memory of where you want it to be.  Then set it on one side to dry while you get your papers chosen and cut to size.

For this project I chose papers from Docrafts ‘Papermania’ in their Parisienne Blue range.  The doily is also from this range.  I cut a 12×12 into 6″ squares, then cut one square diagonally, and also cut a doily in the same way.

I fixed the triangle of paper and the doily to the curved piece of card first, (you might find this easier to do if you drape the curved card over the edge of your desk and work with it that way),  then fixed a 6×6 sheet of the paper to the card, as shown.

I attached the curve back onto the card again, and using strong red tape, I taped it down to the front of the card. I then punched two holes through the curved piece of card, and the card front (now attached, beneath it) and then ensured the curve stayed exactly where I wanted it to be by using a tie of thin organza ribbon through the punched holes.

My attention then turned to the back, and I made a card stand for the back, so that the wallet card would stand up when it was finished.  (Imagine a school photograph, which has one of those stiff fold out bits on the reverse, enabling you to stand the photo up without a frame.  The card stands I make are the same sort of thing).  I then finally fixed the ‘loose’ front in place, along the inner bottom, thereby creating a wallet style card.

I added some metal, vintage style corners in place, using some strong glue and my craft clamps.  (Bought some time ago from The Range for next to nothing.  I HIGHLY recommend them!)

Corners fixed in place and not moving, ….  then came the fun stuff!

The Roses came from my stash.  I buy flowers anywhere I find them.  If I see flowers which I know would work perfectly on cards (or albums etc), I buy them straight away.  Finding the right flowers when you need them can be a task and a half sometimes, so I try to have a selection already in the craft room so that I have them when I need them.

The roses I chose for this card are a kind of delicate to touch, silky flowers and I fell in love with them because of their softly folded petals and the way they curled at the edges.   I tucked them into the curve of the card and added silky green leaves wherever I thought they were needed.

I made a big bow using some wide, pretty blue Organza and added a satin ribbon from the Parisienne Blue range on top, to layer,  and also tie the biscuity colour of the card into the ribbons, and finally, I added a large rose to the centre of the ribbons and fixed it in place.

Next came the tags which I wanted to tuck into the pocket.  I used some beautiful royalty free images and also stamped a ‘post card’  onto some card, then vintaged it up using a warm brown ink pad and duster brush.

All around the edges of the tags I kind of sprinkly, embossed some very fine, golden embossing powder to give them a bit of pizzazz.  The stamped message that you can just about see on the tag behind the postcard above reads: 

Marriage
1. A legal commitment to live as
husband and wife
2. Wedlock
3. A close and intimate association
4. A pledge.

Which kind of sums it all up in a few words, doesn’t it?.  I loved it!  It was perfect for this tag.

And finally …  this card would never have fit into a regular envelope, so I made it a matching box, which I lined with contrasting papers from the same Papermania Parisienne Blue range …

The card was ready and waiting for my neighbours when they came home from their holiday.

Thank you so much for coming and spending some time with me.  I’m sorry that it’s been a bit quiet around here, Thank you to those of you who so kindly kept me in your prayers and sent me messages.  You touched my heart in so many ways and kept me plodding along.  Thank you.  I want to say I love you, for it.  And I do – but not in a creepy way you understand!    . . . aw, you know what I mean.  (chuckling to myself here).

Have a truly blessed rest of your day.  I hope your weekend is fabulous and that the sun shines warm upon your face  …. just not so hot that it melts you though!

Heaps of love and squishy stuff …

Two Hand-made Plant Pot Cards for Autumn Gardeners

As any gardener will tell you, gardening doesn’t stop when the summer sun does, and it was this thought that made me realise that there were very few gardening or ‘plant growing’ cards for gardeners in the autumn/winter months to be seen on the high street (or on hand-made card makers blogs that I’ve come across) at these times of year, so I thought I’d make some cards for those of us who garden and pot all year round!

Card one:

I decided upon warm terracotta and copper tones for this first card and hand painted the little pots on some Neenah card then cut them out and shaped them (just with my fingers) to give them that dimensional look.

The deep ruby-red flower is made from felt with three glass beads in the centre, and I teamed it with two lovely burnt orange skeleton leaves.

The little Bumble Bee actually started off life as a photo corner –  ones which I’ve had for a gazillion years! (ok, I might be stretching that a little, but I’ve had them so long that I can’t even remember when I bought them nor where from).

The rim of the pot is made from coppery coloured corrugated card with the addition of a little brown and dotty ribbon, which brings a bit of happy whimsy to the pot rim.

I added a little smile to the inside by adding another hand painted pot, to which I added a ‘seed packet’ –  cut from some cardstock which had little seed packets all over the page.  I fixed the seed packet at an angle so that I could ‘sprinkle’ seeds falling out of the packet and into the pot.  The addition of the sentiment  ‘Sow Lovely’ finished the little inside scene off.

Card number two:

The second card began life in the same way (as a Craft Card terracotta pot shaped base) but for this card I cut out papers for the rim and the base then coloured them up so that the pot took on a much deeper colour than a normal terracotta pot in order to give it a more autumnal feel.  I added three half daisies along the rim (with Candi to the centres) and added the Happy Birthday sentiment so that they looked as if they were tucked behind it.

The watering can at the bottom of the card is actually a wooden one, which I coloured silver by using a silver marker pen, and added a flower to the centre.  The dragonfly, (like the bumble bee in the first card), began life as a photo corner – and again, I’ve had them for ever so can’t tell you where I bought them from – but they’re so adorable and I’ve used them lots of times.  I hope that I can still get those from somewhere because I’ll buy them in a heartbeat.  They’re perfect for that little accent when you need one).

This time, the inside of the card was a pop up – in the shape of some flowers….

These flowers started life as:

…7 x 2″ square pieces of decorative cardstock,   folded and then trimmed to shape, then cut, coloured . . .

. . . and then glued to turn them into ‘cone’ shaped flowers . . .

Then they’re re-folded and glued together in a specific way in order to make them close up and open again as ‘one’ pop up.  Once the flowers were in place I added the little heart shaped sentiment to the inside, on a belly bar, over some printed gardening themed text paper.

And that’s all  there is to it! 

Two cards, both really simple,  but both with friendly little smiles to brighten the birthday of someone who still likes to garden even when the sun isn’t there!

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit and check out my blog, it’s really lovely to see you here!

Have a wonderful Friday, and a truly fabulous weekend, doing whatever makes you happiest.

 

Putting the Boot in! (That’s the Wellington Boot Card of course!)

I love shaped cards, but rarely make them and I don’t know why!  They’re such fun and can bring a different sort of look to the line up on the mantel shelf or windowsill.  So when I saw some card blanks shaped as Wellington boots (and flower pots – but those are still to come) I couldn’t help but make the instant decision of buying them and a pad of fabulous garden potting shed papers.

However – I’ve never been comfortable in making  ‘quick’ cards  (as I call them).  You know what I mean?  – cut and stick, and finished!  I need to make cards which have stretched my creativity in some way.  I need to put my own unique bit of art on a card in order to make it ‘Hand made by Cobwebs’.  So on this card I decided I’d like to put some hand painted plant pots.

All the plant pots you see in the above photograph of the Wellington Boot Card, were stamped out using stamps I’ve had for donkey’s years, and after stamping, they are all hand painted by me, onto some cream cardstock, then each one was cut out, manipulated so that each one curved like a real plant pot would,  and then added to the card individually – using Pinflair glue gel – to help the pots keep their dimension,  and Anita’s Tacky glue.

I know that I could talk you through the steps for making a card like this, but I thought it might be more entertaining to simply show you how to make a card like this by taking photographs.  So I took a gazillion and have chosen the best.

I haven’t taken a photograph of the blank card (you’ll see the back of the card in a photograph so that you can see what they look like without anything on – so it seemed a waste of space to put a ‘blank card’ photograph!),  so I’m going to explain the first step:

The cards start out life as a blank, ready-made and scored card made from Kraft Card.  I chose a paper which I liked, then drew around the boot shape directly onto the paper, and carefully cut it out then fixed it to the front of the boot.  It was at this point that I added the garden string – and this was so I could gauge where to place the plant pots.  From here I then went on to stamp the plant pots onto a scrap of cream, high gsm cardstock from my scrap draw,  . . . .   and from here, dear reader, I’ll let the photographs take over the story of how I made this card  . . . . .

It was at this point that I then ‘assembled’ the front of the card.  I used the one large pot with the lavender/lilac (Memento  Grape Jelly)  coloured flowers for the front of the card – which you see stamped above.  I’d already added stalks to the flowers using a rich, green, fine tipped pen, and I then carefully cut around the pot and the flowers as one, and shaped them then fixed them to the card.  The other pots were also fixed to the card at this point.   I then hand painted the shadows of the pots which you can see on the card below (but I also added a little shadow to some of the pots on the cream card so that you could see this shadow clearly – see above photo, number 7)

I wanted to do something with the envelope as it looked so boring in comparison to the card – so I thought some more pots might look cute  . . . .

Of course … me being me,  I couldn’t just leave it to look plain inside the card.  You know me – I have to give a little something more for the inside a card so . . .

And that’s all there was to it!

Oh … I nearly forgot …   I added a sentiment to the front, curved over the string, and made it look like it was riveted in place,  (so that it looked like it had some sort of garden potting shed function), and used a little bit of brown grosgrain ribbon for a bow.  Finally – I added a little, metal,  vintage bird house which I tied with a bow of bakers twine and fixed it beneath the brown ribbon.

Ta dah!  One Wellington boot card, which would be suitable for either a lady or gentleman who likes to garden, grow, or maybe even has an allotment!

Thank you so much for coming and visiting the potting shed today, I’ve really enjoyed your company.  I have a couple of other potting shed cards to share with you, but we’ll leave that for another day, because I’ve no doubt that you’ve got plenty to do and I really shouldn’t keep you.  (Although I’d love to, you understand!)

If you’ve already clicked to ‘Follow Me’,then you’ll get an email from the website here to let you know when I published the next visit to the potting shed, and if you’ve like this one then I think you might like what’s coming next time.  {winks a cheeky wink}.   But for now – take very good care of yourself and I’ll see you next visit!

Have a blessed rest of your day.   Sending love ~