In my last post I said how difficult I found making ‘Sympathy’ cards, I think because it’s so difficult to accurately gauge the deep, all-encompassing pain which descends upon someone when they suffer the loss of a loved one. So it came as quite a surprise to find myself making yet another ‘sympathy’ card, – this one very much different from the last one.
I had my Ranger Melting Pot (aka The Cauldron) out the other day and made a few things, putting most of them on one side for projects at some other point. One of the things I made was the Angel Wings you see on the card above. I got the little box out where I’d stored them along with the other items I’d made and the moment I picked up the Angel Wings and held them in my hand … I knew I should make another sympathy card, this time using them as the feature embellishment on the front.
I laid the wings onto my desk and looked at them for a minute or so. They were lovely – but there was something missing. Took me a moment to figure it out. Wax. They needed high-lighting in pearl wax so that the individual feathers came to life and caught the light. It took just a minute to do – but they looked so lovely once I’d polished them to a shine. (Nicer than in the photographs – but sadly I’m not a great photographer so please make allowances for me being rubbish with a camera!)
I went through my stamps to find the right one which would be suitable to use – and although I stamped out several of them (wasting card like it was going out of fashion) – none of them were right. They were either the wrong sentiment, or they were the wrong type face for the words. In the end I decided that I’d print my own words, using my computer and my printer. That’s when the ‘fun’ began.
It took me a very hotone and a half frustrating [insert appropriate swear word] hours just to get that sentiment from the computer to my card! I had to work out where I needed to place the typed words on a word type document that I was looking at on the ‘puter screen – which would mean it would be in the right place when I put my card through the printer.
(Again – this resulted in more card being put into the ‘trim off the rubbish bits and put the rest into the ‘scraps’ draw’ pile. Grrrr!)
Seriously – it was frustrating to the point that my sensible mind telling me to: “just give up woman, you’re not going to get this right!” – the problem was → – I was determined that it wasn’t going to beat me.
Then suddenly all the planets aligned. There was a Star to the East. My Lottery Numbers came up and …. well no, actually that didn’t happen . . . but it certainly felt like it did when the printer delivered the perfectly placed sentiment, with the right font, right place and right colour. TaDAHHHH!(Was that a choir of Angels I heard singing? At this point I really wouldn’t have been surprised.)
I attached the wings to the card using a mix of two glues – one an ‘instant’ fix – which was the hot glue gun. The other one a glue which needs time to dry, but dries clear and holds well. Then it was time to deal with the inside.
I didn’t feel it needed me to add words to the inside of the card, but instead leave it blank inside so that the sender could write a short, or long note of condolence depending upon how they themselves felt.
Instead I decided upon a single creamy white Angels feather, tied with a bow of satin ribbon, attached to the inside of the card.
And that was it.
It’s quite a simple card (or would have been, was I not so technically challenged!) and once I’d got the positioning right of the sentiment, it was easy to pull it all together. However – I think it’s perfect in its unfussy, simplicity. It conveys the right feeling, in the right way, but it doesn’t go over-board. I think I got the balance just right on this one and I love the finished card.
I think I got the balance just right on this one. I really love the finished card and hope you like it too.
Have a happy Sunday. I hope the weather is kind to you and that peace rests in your heart and soul today, where ever you are.
I love making cards, it’s one of my favourite things to do, however, there is one type of card that I find ‘difficult’ to make – and that’s ‘In Sympathy’ cards.
How do you second guess someone’s pain? How do you know what they’re going through, so know how to address the traumatic time they’ve found themselves in?
I realised today that I hadn’t made a ‘sympathy’ card for my blog, so thought I’d put myself to the test and make one.
I wanted to make something which would be the right card for several options. If someone wasn’t a believer, then I didn’t want to push a religion upon them by saying that I was praying for that person – as some folks are so anti-religion that a card of that type could cause the person concerned to feel offended – so in the end I decided to opt with the sentiment you see on the card above.
The card is (was) based around those little blue flowers you see running down the card on the right hand side. If you’ve already seen my post in the ‘Ranger Melt Pot’ category, then you’ll know that I made those flowers especially for this card. I wanted to make Forget me Not flowers to put on this card, and I wanted them to be blue. So I set about making them using the Ranger Melt Pot. Once made, and with the addition of a little gilding wax (and a polish) – the flowers were perfect, so I set about making a very simple card – but one which you could feel the love which the card was made with.
Made on a brilliant white 6″x 6″ scored and folded card; I partially embossed the front of the card using an embossing folder from the Sheena Douglass range.
The sentiment is a stamped image from a collection of Stamps made by Heartfelt Creations,which I stamped in black, then die cut (using a Spellbinders die) and gently inked around the very outer edge, using the same black ink as the sentiment was stamped with.
The butterflies were die cut using Tonic Dies.
The addition of a short length of black satin ribbon and the card was made.
click on the picture ↑ to make it bigger so that you can read it.
Thank you SO much for visiting. I hope you like the card, and the post too!
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Wishing you all a truly blessed Thursday. Have a wonderful day.
“You made flowers? What sort flowers?” I hear you ask.
I did. I actually heard you ask ‘what sort of flowers’. (Ok, well maybe I didn’t, but you were thinking it I bet.)
I needed to make some flowers, but I wanted them to be light in weight, and not able to be flattened out by the postal system, like a paper flower would be. So I got out my Cauldron aka: Ranger Melt Pot, and decided that I’d hubble, bubble some flowers up. I looked through the silicon moulds I have which I could use and decided upon the one in the photograph above.
But … I didn’t want to just make one line of flowers. It felt like an extravagance to get the cauldron going if all I was going to do was make that line of flowers at the top of the mould above. So I got a few moulds out with the thought that I could make a few bits and keep them on one side for another time.
There. That would make it worth while!
Half an hour later the flowers were made and this is what they looked like:
Actually … there’s more than the three in that photograph above, but I wanted you to see what they look like before I’d ‘fancied’ them up a tad. They’re pretty, and I love how the colour turned out. I used white ultra thick crystals and mixed in some Cosmic Shimmer Crystal Colour Drops, in Azure Blue to obtain that colour – I just added a drop at a time until I felt that I’d reached the colour I had inside my head.
Although the flowers were pretty, I wanted them to have some ‘oomph’ – a bit of a noticeable punch so that they weren’t so ‘flat colour’ looking.
This is how they turned out with some Gilding Wax applied gentlywith my ringer finger. . .
The three on the right have had some Gilding wax applied, and the three on the left are exactly how they were when I turned them out of the mould.
What did I want a line of blue flowers for? Ahh… go and check out the Handmade Cards category on this blog and you’ll see what I did with them!
A handmade card, but with a story behind the making of it.
Last weekend I had my cauldron Ranger Melt Pot out with the idea of making ‘something’ (I knew not what at that moment in time). I didn’t have a plan. I just knew I wanted to play with my Melt Pot. Everything was on my desk, ready and waiting for me to conjure up something which I could make in my Ranger Melt Pot category here on my blog. But what? WHAT?
I sat back in my chair and had absolutely no ideas. My mojo had gone out for drinks and not invited me.
Ah well, I said to myself, you’ve got the thing out now, so just mess around, and who knows, something might come from playing and making a mess. I stamped out an image of some Angel Wings, embossed and then distressed them using denim ink and lavender ink. Cut them out and then shaped them to given them some depth and ‘apparent’ movement. I printed out some words onto some lightweight card – thinking that I’d put the wings in the Melt Pot and mount them onto the card. But .. I decided that I’d do it the other way round. So I cut out the words into a big ’round’ – using my EK circle cutter, – and then distressed around the edges of that circle with the same inks I’d used on the wings.
Turned on the melt pot and once my crystals had melted I began to move the large circle around in the molten liquid. I advise CAUTION when using a melt pot – keep tools in each hand so that you’re not tempted to touch anything. I use a pair of long-handled craft tweezers in one hand and a bamboo skewer in the other. It doesn’t stop the urge to touch – but it makes you touch in a safe way, with the tools rather than your fingers.
Once I’d coated the front of the circle,I removed it from the liquid and just let it drip for a moment, then laid it flat to let it ‘set’ and go cold. Unfortunately – the lightweight card was too lightweight and it curled all around the edges and curved in places. It wasn’t what I wanted. I cleaned up and left the coated surface on one side.
Then a couple of days ago I looked at it again and told myself to try using it and see what I’d come up with. So here’s what I did:
Originally I chose a white 6×6″ card but changed my mind and used a 6×6 craft card instead; and some white feathers. I placed the wings on the circle where I felt they looked best, but the circle still seemed like it was missing something. So I chose a tiny glass bottle with a cork stopper, and put the tiniest of white feathers inside it, along with a teeny pinch of iridescent glitter, just to draw the eye to the feather, as I knew it would stick to the feather and the inside of the glass jar. It looked really lovely – so I glued the jar to the disc, and fixed the wings in place.
I felt that the wings looked a little flat, so I used some Anita’s Gloss and carefully coated the wings then put everything to one side while I worked on the card.
Using brown and a shimmering gold (not mirror) card, I cut out circles so that I could mat and layer the wings/words/glass jar onto them.
I chose some blue ribbon in a shade which echoed the blues of the distressing around the edges of the wings and the disc, and using some permanent tape, I fixed the ribbon running it over the back and front of the card, exactly at the ‘half way’ mark.
I fixed the first layer of the cards onto the front of the card.
… then matted and layered the other discs in place, sometimes tucking a white Angel Feather into the layers. Once the wings were dry and the glued bottle was fixed in place, I fixed some feathers onto the top layer then applied the disc topper which I’d made on top, adding just one smaller feather tucked under the outter edge of the wings.
Three close-ups of the teeny tiny white Angel Feather in the bottle. It was really hard to capture the feather – so I chose the best three photos of a large bunch of rubbish ones that I took.
Of course – there HAD to be a surprise inside the card … (you knew that, didn’t you! lol)
On the front page of the insert is a psalm from the bible, which speaks of Angels: I stamped it onto some white paper, and distressed it a little, then fixed it to the craft paper insert
In case you can’t read it, it says: He Shall Give His Angels Charge Over Thee, To Keep Thee In All Thy Ways. (Psalm 91:11).
Then on the inside, middle of the insert . . . .
. . . a pair of white feathered Angel Wings, and a stamped image of a feather, drifting freely.
Once finished, I really like this lovely card – which began with a disenchantment with the way the topper turned out, but I’m really glad that I made it into a card. It looks a little flat in the photo’s, but to the naked eye it has a depth and a wonderful warmth and gentleness about it. And to be quite honest – if someone sent me this card I’d be chuffed to bits. Seriously chuffed to bits!
I hope you like the card too.
So anyway … enough of me and my crafting. What have you been making or doing? Leave me a message with a link to your blog and I’ll come and take a look and leave you a message too.
You can leave messages on any post or article on my blog by . . .
scrolling up to the title of that article which you want to comment on and …
looking for the little grey speech bubble to the right of the title. (Hover your cursor over the title of a post then move it to the right and the speech bubble will turn from pale grey to a deep red colour.
Click on that speech bubble and the comments for that article or post will open up for you to read (if there are any) and, if you’d like to, make a comment.
Wishing you a totally fabulous weekend. May your Angels surround you and protect you from any harm.
In part three of this ongoing ‘explanation’ of Tag Art, I’m hoping to show you not to be discouraged by some of the fabulous pictures of Tag Art which you’ll find on the internet, particularly on Pinterest. The Tags I showed you last time (in part two) were simple enough to bring together without breaking out in a sweat or giving you the feeling that you could never achieve anything like the little flower tags which I produced last time. This tag, which you’ve had a glimpse of (above) is just as simple as the flower tags! There are just a few extra bits and pieces on it and a couple of ‘techniques’ which are so easy that I know a child could cope with them. Aw, enough talk, let’s get going shall we? ….
If you decide to create along with these photo’s then remember that the theme of your tag doesn’t have to be ‘Alice in Wonderland’, it could be any thing you want. Rabbits … Cats… Dogs… Travel … Balloons … even colours! But to start with you might find it easier to get the results you’re after if you start off with an idea or subject in mind where you can find up to roughly five or six different things about it which will pull the whole thing together and make the tag have some sort of ‘dialogue’. A kind of ‘story’. Things which relate to each other in some way.
I started with … a few tiny cards and some tags …
I’d had these little cards for a while, given to me by another crafter, but I’d never had a chance to use them. The Tag itself was from a pack of cheap tags which I’d bought on impulse for about 60p from The Works (UK cheapy book & stationery store). The tags were a little too thin individually, so in order to ensure that they would take the weight of some embellishments I glued three tags together with Collall glue – which I love for crafting as it dries quickly.
Three tags glued and ready … time to dress this tag up!
Let’s get our finger tips mucky!
Because I knew I wanted to have a gentle Steampunk look to the tag I ‘distressed’ the edges of the tag with some die from my quick drying ink pads. I started off with a warm, rich brown (which you can see in the photo above), and using a make up sponge (yes – just cheap make up sponges that you can buy in the £ shops – I just use them and throw them away), I fold over the sponge and dabbing it onto the ink pad to pick up some ink, then gently blend it around the edges of the Tag. At this point I should advise that the best place to do this blending is either on a blending mat (see mine in the photograph above) OR on a glass mat.
I know you can buy expensive glass mats for crafting (I even have one) but you don’t need to pay the prices that they charge for those. One of those glass kitchen chopping boards that they sell for just a few pounds work in exactly the same way.
After blending the brown, I then changed to a black ink pad and very lightly blended a narrow pale smudge of the black ink around the edges. It just gives it a depth.
Shall we stamp?
I’ve got an assortment of different stamps and chose one which said ‘Believe’, mounted it onto a rocker block (but a mount of your choice is fine) and using a cheap ‘Ink it Up’ embossing pad, I stamped the word out onto the Tag – but because I wanted a distressed look to the stamping I didn’t press too hard, so that the eventually embossed image would be a little bit patchy. I then chose a teal/navy type colour to emboss the word with, went to work with the heat gun!
Well would you Believe it!
… and this was the result. Because the word was a tiny bit patchy, I made sure that you could read what the word was by inking around the word using a very fine tipped Staedtler pen.
A close up so that you can see the pen lines.
Now at this point I’ll just interrupt proceedings to say … you should ‘tag’ your Tag Art just as a fine painter would sign his signature on an oil painting. You don’t want someone else telling folks that they’ve made that incredible tag when it was really your sweat and tears which made it, do you!
Here’s what I use to ‘tag’ my Tag Art:
Tag the Tag Art!
I bought this as an unmounted rubber stamp about six years ago – I think through Ebay. But you really don’t need a specialised stamp. You could either just sign your name on the reverse of your tag – or if you want a stamped image, there’s a plethora of general stamps which have a variety of different tag shapes – and you could choose one of those, which would give you the opportunity of naming your tag and signing it inside the frame of the stamped image, which would give it the importance it deserves!
You could, if you wanted, get a stamp made for yourself with your own design. (But check Ebay for cheaper alternatives!)
Right, we’ve glued, blended and generally got the tag all ready for some decorations. Let’s get going on those shall we?
My ‘theme’ for this tag was to be decided by those little playing cards.
I could have done a tag about magic tricks … perhaps some white gloves to go with the cards? … or hmm.. what ‘thing’ has playing cards featured in it? I wondered…. ahh… Alice in Wonderland! Ok.. I found my theme. What did Alice in W. have in the film? A mirror(both in AiW and in Alice through the Looking Glass) … Roses! – the song: “we’re painting the roses red …” … A bottle with a tag saying ‘Drink Me’! Ohhh… now we’re getting somewhere!
The Mad Hatter! The White Rabbit!
The ideas came thick and fast… I had to write them down because my memory is shot to pieces!
Ok … got the ideas.. now I had to come up with the goods from the stock I had in my craft room:
I’ll make the mirror … and the little bottle which Alice drinks from!
Initially I thought I would use a little glass bottle on the tag, to represent the bottle Alice drinks from, but I didn’t have a bottle small enough .. (well no, actually that’s not true. I do have some, I just couldn’t find the darn things!). I got out my cauldron melt-pot and some supplies:-Silicon moulds – one in the shape of a little bottle, and the other in the shape of a mirror. Pearl Ex Powders to give some gentle, shimmering colour to the mirror and bottle, (you can use general Mica powders if that’s what you personally use). Cosmic Shimmers Clear Ultra Thick embossing powder. Cosmic Shimmer Melt Pot Ink in red. And some Pearl Ultra Thick embossing powder. I set to work:
“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. Fillet of a Fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog . . . . “ etc etc etc (words courtesy of Shakespeare)
A peep into the Cauldron – I mean – the Melt Pot!
You know what the best thing is about the Melt Pot? If you ever don’t like what you’ve made you simply throw it back into the pot, melt it and start again!
See that little pink blob in the well at the wide end of the melt pot? It was a bottle which over-flowed the mould, so when it had cooled – just a minute or two – I put it back and did it again!
The cauldron has done its work. Aw, don’t you just love magic spells? (lol)
The little rose that you see in the photograph above was one which I made when I last had my melt pot out. I’d got some extra cream/white coloured liquid left so I used it up making a few flowers. Originally the Rose was actually this creamy white colour:
I should have taken a photograph of the rose(s) before I coloured them but got craft happy and totally forgot! tsk tsk! I used some Creative Expressions gilding wax on the roses and then brushed some lovely rose-red and warm rose-pink mica powders onto them to change them from their original creamy colour to the red. (sings:)“Painting the roses red, yes painting the roses red. Not pink Not green. Not aquamarine . . . ” etc etc etc
The Mad Hatter has visited and loaned me his hat!
Next was the Mad Hatters hat. Quite a distinctive hat. Now I’ve recently been bought a gift of a Tonic Die which cuts a Top Hat … so I was lucky with this. BUT … you don’t need to have a die which will cut a hat. The hat is a simple enough shape but if you’re not confident with drawing one then just find an image on the internet and print it out onto cheap printer paper and you can then just draw around it onto your black card stock and cut it out. Simples. I cut the matte black part of the hat above on my die cutting machine, and then I drew around the actual hat die itself onto some dark mirror board, (which I then cut out with scissors) so that I could sit (glue) the matte black top hat on top of it and give the top hat a bit of ‘life’, where the light caught on the edges of the mirror card.
10/6 ? – cheap at half the price!
I added a little dark ruby-red rayon seam binding (regular ribbon would work just as well), made the 10/6 price tag & added it to the hat band with a dab of glue.
The hat pin is made from the cut off end of a cocktail stick, which I coloured in silver paint, added a black round bead to the end and then tucked it behind the ribbon with a little glue to keep it in place. For a bit of twinkly sparkle, I added the ultra twinkling flat backed embellishment. But … although the hat looked the part, I felt it looked too ‘new’. It needed to look dusty or a bit old and shambles sort of thing … so in order to get a look of ‘dusty’ – I dribbled a very light line of white pva glue and sprinkled a little Flower Soft onto the glue and left it to dry. It was the nearest thing to dust that I could manage in a crafty way.
So .. We’ve now got the Mad Hatters Hat … but where should we put this? It’s big, so I want it to go in the right place – but I don’t want it to shout louder than the other things on the tag … so where shall I put it? How about here? … or Here? …
… or should I put it here? …
… or do I think this way looks right? Yup … The Mad Hatters Hat should be at the top there. (oh.. see what I mean about it looking too ‘new’ without the ‘dust’? This photo was taken before I’d added the The Flower Soft, which gave it that certain ‘thing’ which it was missing)
Yes … right there. That’s exactly where it should be!
SO: –– We’ve got the mini playing cards …. for the Queen of Hearts playing card soldiers …
mini playing cards
The Red Roses from the song: Painting the Roses Red …
“painting the roses red, we’re painting the roses red!”
… The little bottle with the tag on it saying: Drink Me! Which I made in the Melting Pot …
Drink Me … oh do Drink Me!
And … hmm… well I made a little hand mirror but somehow it doesn’t look right. It’s too showy. Too (almost) bossy. It’s trying to be the star of the show and that just isn’t right.No.I decided that the mirror just wasn’t right … so I had a bit of a search round the craft room and came up with the very thing which was missing ….
The White Rabbits Watch! I’m late, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late, I’m …. over-due, I’m in a rabbit stew ….” eeek!
Aw, of course! It was the White Rabbits fob watch which was missing!
I played around with things until I felt they were in their rightful places and then one at a time I fixed them into place. Some with good old PVA glue, others with foam pads, and the rest with my faithful friend: hot glue from my trusty glue gun.
The Alice Tag – May 2014
I added a aubergine coloured ribbon and VOILA! One almost Steampunk (but not quite), Alice in Wonderland Tag.
The Tag could now be used as a fancy gift tag on a gift to someone special. It could be framed in one of those box frames. Mounted to the front of a card and given for someone’s birthday. Put into a box just for you to look at. Put into an album or folder which you keep all your tags in. Or anything that your imagination can come up with. You could even sell it on Etsy; Ebay; Facebook; Craft Fair… or any other place which you might sell your art work.
Or you could do what I do … I have a huge clothes peg (the type you use to pin your clothes to the washing line, but huge) – which is meant as a memo holder or photograph holder. I use two of them in my craft room and pin bits of artwork to them. I use one of them to pin the latest bit of something which I’ve just made, and that way I get a moving bit of artwork which never stands still!
This is it, pinched in the pincers of the peg … on my craft desk. (yes that’s all my junk specialist, important equipment behind it which I’ve blurred out so that you can see the tag rather than the junk gorgeous, crafting stash stuff.)
Alice in a Tag made by Cobwebs
And ..shall I tell you a secret? … This tag was made totally from stash in my craft room that I already had. Most of it I’d had for ages. The newest thing (apart from the Tonic Die I used – which was a gift) has to be that little fob watch. I’ve had that about nine months (roughly). It was a cheap and cheerful pack of four different watches for 99p. See … you really don’t have to go to any big expense to make Tag Art. They pretty much make themselves!
Well, there endeth Part 3 of‘Tag Art – right from the beginning’. I hope you’re not asleep across your keyboard! But if you are ….
WAKE UP AND GO AND CRAFT SOMETHING!
Tsk tsk … can’t have you sleeping when you could be crafting, now, can we?
Thanks for taking the time to come, visit and have a read. Have a really great rest of your day. ~
P.S.Don’t forget to leave me a comment. Let me know if you have a go at making a tag, or, if you have any questions at all, please ask away! I’m not one of those crafters who won’t share information. I’m more than happy to help other folks with their craft projects.
The Ranger Melt Pot about to go into action! (with a little help from Cobwebs!)
The Cauldron (aka ‘The Ranger Melt Pot’) came out to play because I had an idea for a handmade card, but wanted a pair of Angel Wings to go onto the card as an embellishment. I’d got feathered wings, but I felt that they’d give the wrong feeling to the card, so I scouted round to find something different .. that’s when I remembered that I had a pair of silicon moulds of Angel Wings. I dug them out and checked them over for any damage (I hadn’t used the moulds in … ohh … I can’t even remember the last time I’d used them!), and then got out the equipment to make the wings. Heat mats (biscuit coloured one and the black one you see in the photo), Cauldron, spatula to stir, mica powders, and Ultra Thick Embossing Crystals – in clear and white. Then I set to work.
I always put more than I think I’ll need of the crystals into my melt pot as I’d hate to find that I run out of liquid before I’d filled my moulds, so I also put on my desk a couple of other silicon moulds so that any left over liquid could be made into other adornments for other cards some other time.
Crystals were popped into my Cauldron and within minutes I was ready to pour out the magic mix. (After I’d said a magic spell, waved my wand and flew my broom around my craft room three times with my cat perched neatly on the end, naturally).
The Silicon moulds I used for the wings were bought from America but I’m pretty sure you’d be able to now buy something like them here in the UK. They’re roughly 3 inches in length so ideal for a card adornment. I brushed the tiniest amount of mica powder into the silicon mould before I poured the liquid, so that the feathers on the wings would be highlighted with the faintest of colour.(You can just about see the Mica powder in the photograph above).
At this point I get so excited about the stuff I’ve just poured that I totally forgot to take a photograph of the moulds in use – so you’ll have to imagine what those moulds look like filled up with magic potion I mean: Ultra Thick Embossing Crystals in their molten state.
It takes literally just a few minutes for the liquid to set – but beware it does stay a little hot/very warm for a few minutes longer, so be careful. And this (below) is what the Angle Wings look like when I popped them from their moulds . . . .
You can see where the feathers picked up the Mica powder which I’d brushed into the empty mould before I poured in the molten liquid UTEE. Pretty isn’t it. You can see from this picture that you really don’t need to use very much Mica Powder at all. If you compare the photograph of the empty moulds before I poured the UTEE into them, and then see how the set UTEE has picked up that Mica Powder really well.
I was right to get another mould or two out as I did have some extra liquid left over, so I made some flowers with the left over UTEE . . .
I’ll lightly colour up the flowers and centres with a little wax to highlight and pick out the details. – my favourite wax is Metallic Gilding Wax from Creative Expressions – shown in the photograph above.
BUT … if you do make something with your own Melt Pot, and you have left over molten UTEE then you can simply pour it out onto your heat-resistant mat and let it set for a few minutes (and go cold), and you’ll then be able to pop that blob of set UTEE into a bag and save it till you want to make something in that colour next time. You see … you never waste anything with the Melt Pot. You just re-melt anything you’re not happy with or that you have left over, and make something lovely and new next time you’re playing!
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 CauldronMelt 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.
. . . ‘inthe beginning’ was the start of the journey . . .
links hands in front of herself; looks down at her shoes Feels the start of a hot blush coming to her cheeks. Takes a deep breath in and says loud and proud . . .
“Hello my name is Cobwebs, and I’m a Crafter.”
There, that’s my confession out of the way, – now we can all sit down and eat cakes. YUM!
I’ve been a arty farty crafty all my life. From painting on a large scale, (spring flowers in a grassy meadow – on a school reception wall), right down to very small scale ATC’s which are miniature works of art measuring just 2 1⁄2 by 3 1⁄2 inches (or 64 mm × 89 mm in metric measurements).
Amongst many thingsI love to craft, make and work with, are:
hand crafted greeting cards.
needle felting – so relaxing – and amazing too! But painful if you get a bit cocky and look at the TV while doing it. (don’t do that – it hurts!);
Ranger Melting Pot – known here in the Emporium as ‘The Cauldron‘.
Polymer Clay – from the tiniest of flowers and Fairy Shoes (yes – fairy sized shoes) all the way up to long 12″ in length wands, a mixture of wood and clay and various ‘adornments’.
But . . . there’s more than just the few things I’ve listed above.
Please take a look around here on the Cobweborium Emporium blog – and perhaps even click to *Follow Me*, just by:- simply clicking the button over to the right, towards the top of the page. By doing that you’ll get an email to tell you when I’ve added something to the blog which you might like to take a peep at. (Yes, it’s that simple! You just click to follow me and then enter your email address. You won’t receive spam or rubbish, just an email to tell you a couple of lines about the new article I’ve posted on the blog here, and a link to click if you want to, which will take you straight to the new article!)
I plan to put as much effort in as possible into this ‘ere blog and hopefully have a little fun with everyone at the same time too … and I hope to bring you something(s) that you perhaps you might not have seen before as well. Oh . . . and you can leave comments too on this blog, so feel free to introduce yourself and say hello. I’d love to get to know the folks who are reading.
Have a truly blessed rest of your day! ~
P.S . . . You can find all the categories on The Cobweborium Emporium blog by looking over to the right in the column>>>over there >>>and finding:- ‘Categories on this Blog’ (the listed ‘names of categories’ underneath that title are all clickable and one click on any of those categories will take you directly to the category you’ve chosen).
You can alsoclick on the individual category names along the black bar – towards the top of every page. (except the Home Page, that’s not along the black bar – that’s over to the right with the others).
The Art of Cobwebs 