I am the proud owner of … a Ranger Melt Pot. Ohh I love this toy so very much, but I hadn’t played with it for ages, until last week, when the urge suddenly hit me and I got all the equipment out and played around until I decided what to make. You saw the card I made with the pretty leaf of all seasons on it, which I posted about on Monday of this week, and I promised to post about the other things I’d been busy as a bee making, and here I am, sharing as promised.
The photograph at the head of this post doesn’t show all the pendants I made, so I’ve taken a selection of photos, some grouped, and some single ones, so that you can get an idea of colours and sizes, and also how you can hang these pendants.
I really love the Ranger Melt Pot, however, I found out on Monday (From Beverly of More Ink Please blog) that Ranger no longer make the Melt Pot. Something to do with the amount of quantity they require their customers to order – and it’s made the tool too expensive for lots of stores to carry. So rather than relax the rules, (and lower the price a little) Ranger, it appears, decided that they would no longer make it. So I’m sorry if I get your creative juices flowing for a Melt Pot, when they’re no longer available. However … you might be able to still buy one if you have a search around.
Right … now the bad news is over, let’s have a bit of fun shall we? I realised the other day that we haven’t done a GIVE-AWAY in ages! So how about we make this post a Give-away, and the winner can choose whichever pendant they would like to have, and I’ll package and post it out to who-ever wins.
All you have to do is ... in the comment section of this post, if you wish to be entered for the Give-Away, just say the word GIVE-AWAY at either the start or the end of your comment. (Putting it at the start or end of the comment makes it easy for me to find when I’m searching and adding up how many people would like to be entered – so that I can enter that number into the Random Number Selector so that it can choose the winner). You can, if you want, simply say just ‘GIVE-AWAY’.
I’ll leave the Give-away open until Sunday at 6pm UK time (if you need to work out what time that is where you live, Mr.Google is very obliging – lol).
Right … enough of me blathering on. Let’s get cracking with these pendants. I made them all with the help of my trusty Melt Pot, and I haven’t given them names here, but just kind of labelled them so that you can tell me (if you’re the winner) which pendant you’d like! (Oh .. and I should say that this is open to all followers – you don’t have to only live in the UK. I’m happy to post these over-seas).
They’re all different shapes and sizes, and I’ve tried to put them next to each other so that you can gauge the difference in sizes. However, I have remembered to include a rule so that you can actually see the size.
slightly closer up so that you can see the deepness of the blue and some of the patterns which happen as the liquid is poured.This heart has SO much depth to it. I added some mica gold dust to the pot and it is this which I managed to catch as if ‘floating’ on the top. The golden swirls which you see below the surface in this shot, come from some Pearl crystals which I very gently ‘dragged’ through the liquid.A different shot of this same large heart, so that you can get a view of how the light can change the look of the colours.This has the colours of Emerald, Gold, Russian diopside and … a whole load of other greens which are winding through the focal ‘gem’Against a dark background so that you can see how they look against darker colours of clothes.
Now onto the little pendants. They may be smaller, but they pack their own punch!
The ‘Little Golden Green Triangle’ – at the bottom right of this photo (above), has what looks like gold dust sprinkles over the top of it. Sadly the photographs just don’t show it properly, but it’s really quite beautiful to the naked eye.
I forgot to include this little green oval (above) in the photo of all the little pendants, so here it is alone. It looks like it has golden strands threading through it. It hasn’t. But it really does have a lot of depth to it.
The little ovals, have two hoops – one at the top and one at the bottom. You can use these either as a bracelet – or as a pendant, as I’ve made. The top hoop is for hanging the pendant. The bottom hoop can have things hung from it, such as a bead, or a little bunch of beads; a tassel; a pearl; or, as I’ve done here as an idea – you can hang something else from it. On the photo above, I placed an Angel with her own hanging hoop in line with the hoop on the pendant, so that you can see how it might look to have something there.
You don’t even have to have a chain to hang your pendant on. How about some baby ribbon, as in the photo above? Soft on the neck too! The choice is yours. I’ll supply the chain, or the ribbon (in your choice of colour), so that when you receive your pendant, it’s ready to wear straight away!
The Little Golden Green Triangle.A slightly lighter blue Little Triangle.
Please note that all the measurements on the rule are in CM (and MM) as that’s what we work in here in the UK (much to my disdain. I grew up with inches and I still can only visualise in inches – but then, I’m practically older than dirt so it figures. 😀 ) … but again, if you ask Google it will give you the conversion.
Some of the pendants (particularly the blues) look, in the photographs, as if they have an oily finish, or like they’re wet with something. It’s just a trick of the light. The way the flash has hit the surface and bounced back. None of the pendants are oily, wet, greasy or have anything on them. It’s just the lighting hitting them in the ‘wrong’ way. (And I’m a rubbish photographer!).
We’ll end where we began, with a small selection. But remember that not all the pendants are shown in this photo. But if you look down the post, you’ll see photo’s of ones which aren’t included in the photo above.
Remember … don’t forget to include the words ‘GIVE-AWAY’ either at the start or end of your comment so that I know to include you.
If you’re reading this on the main front page of my blog and can’t see where to post a comment, then please scroll all the way up to the title of this post, and next to it, just over a little way to the right of the words, you’ll see a pale grey flag. Click on that flag and the post will re-load on its own page, where you’ll find the comments section at the bottom of the page, below where the post ends. 😀 Late date/time for entering is this Sunday -19th March 2017, at 6pm UK time.
Thank you so much for coming to share a coffee with me. Want a fill up of that cup? Biscuits?
Have a truly blessed rest of your day, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. Be good to each other.
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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You can do this on every post, in every category on the board.
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!
The Melt Pot by Ranger is highly recommended by the Cobweborium Emporium, as a great addition to the craft room.
I saw the Ranger Melt Pot demonstrated on Create & Craft early in 2013 and thought it was a lovely bit of kit – but the price, at the time, put me off buying it and so I put it on the ‘I’d like one of these’ list.
A fellow crafter mentioned that a craft store near her had the Melting Pots on special offer just for that week as well as free postage and packing. It was such an incredible deal that I ordered one straight away, along with some clear ultra thick embossing crystals, just to give me something to start with.
It arrived really quickly and although I unpacked it from the packing box I left it in its actual proper packing for weeks!
I think I was a little scared of it. It seemed such a major product . . . but after weeks of uhmming and erring … I opened the package and decided NOW was the time to put on my big girl knickers and play with this magical machine.
From the moment that I made my very first bit of Ranger Melting Pot magic – I was well and truly HOOKED.
“Hello, my name is Cobwebs and I’m a Melting Pot Addict.”
I thought that I’d developed some sort of super power which turned solid objects into a liquid. You pour a some Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel into the pot, put the lid on and VOILA! You take the lid off and where there was a solid matter there is now liquid magic.
I’d set myself up to make something simple … a tag or a topper. Small enough to not really care about making a total pigs ear of it, but something that I could use if it turned out to be a joyous success.
I turned the melt pot on, poured some crystals into deeper well part of the dish and put on the lid. It takes just a minute or two for the UTEE to melt into a see through liquid, at which point I took the bit of chipboard card which I’d already prepared. It was about the size of a business card – to which I’d added a chipboard bird shape with a little double-sided tape and ‘stroked’ a little teal coloured gilding wax (from Creative Expressions) around the edges of the bird and the card, as a sort of highlight.
I then held the chipboard tag in my tweezers and carefully, gently placed/dropped it face down into the melted crystals in the melt pot. I left it there for just a moment, then carefully lifted it out and let it drip for a few seconds, before laying it flat (on it’s back) on my heat-resistant mat.
I gazed at what I’d made and couldn’t believe how something so mundane as two bits of chipboard card had taken on a look of something really rather ‘arty’ and expensive.
I had a little test tube of tiny glass beads on my desk, and I opened them and added a few glass beads to the still wet liquid. Wow! … this was really turning out to be something quite lovely.
I waited until the tag had cooled and ‘set’, then picked it up, snapped off the dribbly bits around the sides and dragged the sides of the tag over the lipped edge of the hot walls of the melt pot pan – to smooth out the edges and make a clean-looking finish, and then dropped the tag, again, face down, into the pan again and gently pushed the back of the tag with my metal tweezers to ensure that the whole of the face of the tag was in contact with the UTEE melted crystals.
I picked up the tag with my tweezers and again allowed it to drip a little, then put the tag down on the heat mat to set. ……………… I looked at it and …. I was well and truly HOOKED.
The Melting Pot became a passion. I dipped things, poured the liquid on my heat-resistant mat and pressed rubber stamps (only use red RUBBER stamps – as most other stamps can’t be used) into the poured liquid. I used metal cookie cutters which I’d so far only used for polymer clay, and pressed the cutters into the poured hot liquid in order to cut shapes. I used glass beads; little wooden flat backed adornments; old, rusty looking metal sayings (such as: believe; TRUE LOVE; beautiful soul; wish … that type of thing) and everything suddenly took on a much more magical, amazing appearance. I coated paper flowers which I’d cut out using some Sizzix dies and they became something delicate, but so much more amazing than just paper flowers. I dipped leaves off silk flowers. I dipped a short length of cotton into the clear crystals and then carefully draped it over a Tag which I’d made, to add some more texture and depth.
The limit to what you can create with the Melting Pot is only the limit which your creative mind puts on it.
BUT … that’s not all….
You can colour the clear melted crystals – either with solid colours: black, white, blues, purples, pinks, greens, silver, gold, bronze …. by using ultra thick embossing crystals (I use Cosmic Shimmer brand).
You can add Melt Art Heat It Inks or (my own choice of liquid colourants) Cosmic Shimmer Melt Inks – either of these inks are safe to use in your Melt Pot inks. They’re especially made so that you can add these inks directly into your Melting Pot. Any other inks ..well I honestly wouldn’t know if they were safe to use, but I personally wouldn’t try them unless I’d checked with Ranger themselves first.
Inks + Melted UTEE + HOT Melting Pot = a possible dangerous happening. So don’t take chances.
Either of these mentioned inks will add colour, but leave your project translucent – so you’ll be able to ‘see’ through it, like you could see through a coloured piece of glass. But … if you add white UTEE to the blend then the colour changes to an opaque colour.
You can add ‘pearl’ ultra thick embossing crystals, which gives the translucent colours a special finish which looks like someone waved a magic wand over the project and the magic twinkles which came out of the end of their wand got stuck in the liquid and are held there forever more.
What other things can you make?
Rings… you can use silicone moulds to make flowers, roses work well. The liquid cools quickly – in minutes and you can then simply glue the flower to a ring base (which you can buy on Ebay or from various places which sell jewellery making items.)
Pendants… using moulds, or even simply pouring the UTEE out onto your craft sheet and pressing a metal cookie cutter into the hot liquid then leaving it there until it’s cooled a little (remember to poke a hole by pushing in a bamboo stick and holding it there – then once everything has cooled a little you can (while it’s just still warm) peel away the outer setting UTEE and push out the inner UTEE shape which you’ve made.
Or – you can use a bezeland make pendants like this one which I posted about in the Melt Pot category of my blog.
Adornments for your cards– again using Silicone moulds or fashioning things from paper, card, metal, wire or all manner of things – like these flowers simply made from shaped wire and dipped into the melt pot,
Or … how about some Christmas decorations … maybe some snowflakes … can you imagine the beautiful snowflakes you could make to hang off your tree using a mould like this one ….
….. although – these would look fabulous as card adornments – and the recipient would have a gift from you at the same time … a snowflake for their tree! What a great card for a neighbour or for teacher at school!
BUT .. the fun doesn’t stop there with the Ranger Melting Pot …
If you buy a project pan you can melt beeswax in your Melt Pot. You must buy this project pan though – as the melt pot without the project pan gets too hot for beeswax – the addition of the project pan cools the temperature down to just the right amount for beeswax.
You could use the beeswax to make art from (for example) napkins. Either make a canvas from a pretty napkin (single ply only – so separate the picture from the rest of the napkin, otherwise the napkin layers begin to bubble). Or … you could decorate a candle and personalise it.
You can also use the Melt Pot to cure Fimo!
There is so much that you can do with this fabulous machine and I’ve only touched the surface of its talents.
I whole heartedly recommend this crafting tool. But remember – just like you might have a microwave in your kitchen, or perhaps a potato masher maybe – you don’t use those tools every single day, so don’t expect to use your melt pot every day. You’re a crafter, and that means that you’ll use various things, papers, cards, tools and your melt pot, as and when you need them/it. And that’s ok to do that. You might not use your heat gun every day, but you bought it! You might not use your die cutting machine every day, but you have one and wouldn’t be without it. It’s the same thing.
Finally ... I just want to add that I haven’t been paid to make this recommendation. Nor have I been given any products or items; no machine (I bought my own); no UTEE crystals; no moulds, or anything. Nothing what-so-ever.
My recommendation has been made purely on my own experience of my own Ranger Melting Pot … or magic Cauldron (as I affectionately call it).
If you buy one.. then don’t sit and look at it for weeks, waiting to build up the courage to use it. Get it out of the packaging, read the leaflet and then make something. Just make something small. Nothing that is going to stress you out, and nothing that you’ll expect anything big from. Just make a tag or a card topper, or maybe a paper flower. Make something. Get used to it. But most of all …. USE IT. You’ll love it. OH… and the best bit? If you make something you don’t like, you can re-melt it and start again.
Fits my motto perfectly:
If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you ever tried.
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 