The Fairy Wedding Dress ~ hiding inside a little Altoids tin!

You are invited to a very special Royal Wedding….

 

No, don’t get excited. It’s not a delayed in the post invite to THAT wedding, because THAT wedding happened a week ago.   This is a different wedding altogether! 

❤  ~  ❤  ~  ❤

I’ve been trying to share this Fairy Wedding Tin for the last week,  and … well life got in the way and the rest is history.  But here I am now, doing the sharing!  Whoo hoo!

Chatting with another blogger, (Gillyflower)  in comments on my  last Altoids (size) Tin Transformation (<– clickable link)   a couple of weeks ago,  I told her that I had plans for a Fairy Themed Tin …. and began it straight away.  So this is me, sending you an invitation to come and share the secret of the tiny, all handmade (by me), ‘Fairy Wedding Dress hidden inside a Tin’!

Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?

The Front of the Altoids size Tin is the first page of a three page ‘book’  which is an introduction to what’s inside the tin!

The front of the tin is the beginning of the story.  There are another two pages to the ‘book’, which are held closed by a small hidden magnet.

It says:   The Fairy Prince asked the Fairy girl to marry him, and she said ‘Yes’!  So with lots of excitement, a Fairy Wedding was planned.  With the finest silk spiders put to work, spinning the finest webs to make the finest Fairy Wedding dress.  On the opposite page is a tiny sketch of a wedding dress.

Then …  you open the tin to see the Wedding Dress of the Year (well, almost), which was all hand-made by Cobwebs.  er …. using Cobwebs …  ah,  no … er,  umm  ….  aw… just open the tin!

I wanted to do a fancy arty type of photo.  Black and white, but the dress and tree in colour.  Not sure it’s worth the effort, but it was an enjoyable few minutes of play-time.  😀

All the papers you see lining the inside of the little Tin are Graphic 45 ~ Fairy Dust.

The bodice of the Wedding Gown was made from lightweight, air dry clay.

That’s an English Penny you see at the base of the tin, in the centre.  An English Penny is (roughly) the same size as an American penny.

The tin measures 9cm tall,  and 6.cm wide, which is approx or just over  3.5″  in inches tall and 2.36 inches wide,  and it’s just over three quarters of an inch deep.

The Fairy Ballet Shoes you can see hanging from the knob, next to the mirror, are also made by me, and are roughly about a third of the size of a penny.

The dress isn’t dangling on the floor of the tin, as it looks in that last photo.  I can actually put my finger between the ‘grass and flowers’ and the bottom of the wedding dress … which you can see in the next photo .  .  .

… can you see the grass and flowers beneath the dress, in the above (bit fuzzy) photograph?

The dress is festooned with soft pink and red flowers, with bits of greenery here and there.  It has a sparkly ribbon around the waist, and a petticoat made from white cheesecloth fabric.   The skirt of the dress is topped off with two layers of pure white, fine, Tulle. The shoulder straps on the bodice are satin.

The tree which the dress is hanging from was made from a Pine twiggy bit which I found in my garden, which has been drying out for weeks in my craft room.  I didn’t have any plans for it at the time I picked it up (and thanked nature for it), but I knew I’d use it in some way, and ….  this Fairyland Wedding altered Tin is the perfect place!

I really enjoyed making this lovely altered Tin, and would love to make one like it again at some point.  But making a different sort of dress next time.  I have a million thoughts about what sort of dress and how it might look.  But … this tin was quite an intensive make.  All stops, starts and stops again, as I waited for bits of things to set / dry etc, – and I will freely admit that patience isn’t one of my strongest virtues.

 

Anyhooo  … that’s me done and dusted for this lovely Monday. I’m so glad that I finally got to sorting the photos out, and getting to share this Altered Tin with you.

I’ve spent the weekend just gone, trying to catch up with other peoples blog posts that I’ve missed.  Now I think I’m up to date …. but just in case my ‘Reader’ is telling me porky pies, and I’ve missed a blog post of yours, please do let me know in a comment so that I can come and catch up!

Thank you so much for coming, and for having a coffee moment with me.  I love seeing you here.  I’m sorry I’m sometimes missing in action – I have some health issues which are being a proper pain in the ‘you know where’. (not literally, you understand.  I have no problems with my ‘you know where‘).  But …  let’s not bother about the health issues, for they are like dragons.  They’re only scary if you think about them too much!  So we won’t.  😀

As always. . .  I love your company and love to chat with you, so please feel welcome to comment.  Let me know what you think.  Let me know what’s going on in your life.  And … if you’re in the United Kingdom, then today is a Bank Holiday – so let me know what you’re planning to do with this day off work (if you have the day off work – ’cause some folks aren’t able to.).

Have a magnificent Monday, whatever you’re doing, and a truly blessed, wonderful week.  Sending much love to you ~ 

Goosey Gander ~ an ATC/ACEO – painted for World Watercolour Month

There are films that I watched as a child which obviously nestled their way into my heart and made a home there.  Or … perhaps it was some of the characters from the film(s) which had nestled into my heart….

I sat at my desk, paintbrush in hand and waited for inspiration.  I’d been singing inside my head for a couple of hours the song from Aritistocats – the one where they sing over and over  “Every body, every body, every body wants to be a cat” – as Thomas O’Malley’s friends (all cats) all play the instruments and sing the Jazz song.

Ok… you’re singing it now.  sorry about that.

Well … there are two characters in The Aristocats which are my most favourite – Amelia and Abigail Gabble.  The two faaaabulous Geese, who have a particular walk, and a particular piece of music which accompanies that walk.

I knew what I needed to paint …  but I had a choice.  Paint the Goose which I had pictured in my mind … or  go and look for a photo of Amelia and Abigail so that I could be reminded of how they actually looked.

Somehow looking for a photo felt like cheating, so I was going to have to remember what they looked like from memory.

I knew there was something fancy about them, and I guessed at a big ol’ ribbon tied around their necks….  like this . . .

‘Goosey Gander’.  An ATC / ACEO Painted for #WorldWatercolorMonth

But I found out that they didn’t have ribbons tied around their necks ….  they had their bonnets tied around their heads!  Aw bummer.  I’d already painted the goose with a ribbon by this time… ahh, I decided that I’d keep it exactly as it was.  So I did.

For those of you who’ve forgotten the Miss Abigails and Miss Amelia’s walk …  I’ve been to YouTube and collected a video …  You don’t have to watch this all the way through … you’ll get the ‘walk’ within seconds.

… I apologise if you’re now going to humming that tune for the rest of the day.  But hey .. if I’ve got to suffer, then you can come and join me! lol  😀

If you want to see that walk from the back I have another offering…  but I have a tale to tell before you watch it:-

Mr. Cobs recently painted our decking – which looks fabulous and I’m thrilled with it.  The cats were kept off it while it was drying.  However – Miss Maisie (neurotic at the best of times) took a dislike to the decking paint and to show her utter contempt, she developed a special walk, which I christened  ‘The Decking Walk‘ – – a walk which is a seriously odd thing to watch and funny in the extreme!  She pulls this wild face look – ears back, eyes the size of saucers and she crosses the decking to get into the house as if she’s trying to lift up her back paws and only walk on her two front paws.

Sadly … she cannot do the  required two feet walk.  So the resulting walk is bally hysterical!!!  Seriously so.

I knew that I knew this walk from somewhere but just couldn’t place it … however in trying to find the video of the ‘Goose Walk’ by Amelia and Abigail,  I suddenly had this LIGHTBULB moment inside my brain as I watched the beginning of this video…. – Watch the little white female kitten doing the walk …  THAT’S how Miss Maisie walks over the decking …. even though the decking has been dry for SEVERAL weeks.  She still feels the need to do  ‘The Decking Walk‘ …  so please watch and enjoy.  (again … you don’t have to watch the whole video … just a bit of it.)…

 

I ask myself alllll the time,  “why me?“.   Why do I get all these funny animals?  All of them are ‘broken’, like plants on the ‘hospital table’ at the garden centre.  No one else wants them so muggins here takes them home and loves them.

Anyhoo ...  back to Goosey Gander.  She’s a little ATC in size – so  2.5inches by 3.5inches and painted all in watercolours.

I took photographs in different lighting to try and get a decent photograph which captured the colours.  This photograph was taken with light flooding in from the window.    #WorldWatercolorMonth

This photograph was taken with the flash on.  #WorldWatercolorMonth

… and this photo was taken with the desk lamps turned on and shone on it.  #WorldWatercolorMonth

You can see the difference it makes to the colours, and to the way the light plays on the the painting, kind of picking out details that you could ignore in other photos.

Ack … let’s not get into a photography lesson eh?  LOL.

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

Wishing you a very happy Tuesday  edit to change it to : Wednesday.  (It’s a good job that the fabulous  Tom Merriman  is awake, commenting on blogs, and wished me a Happy Wednesday. I was convinced that it was Tuesday today!).  May the hours pass peacefully and may you find some smiles hidden within the moments during your day.

Have a truly blessed day my friends.  ~

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Let’s Light up the Christmas Village

I’ve been finally making Christmas cards (did I hear someone say “about time too!” at the back there?!).  At the moment I seem to be having a love affair with white and most of the cards I’m making are, in the main, white.  Maybe with a touch of colour from a ribbon, or some such, but on the whole I’m loving the white, so I’m going with it because it’s the path of happiness – and, I’ll admit, ease, because ease is what I’m aiming for right now.

I’m here sharing the card which, inside my head, as I planned it out, I could see how easy it would be to do what I wanted to do.  The planning was easier than the making, for once I got to the making, cutting, piecing together, sitting back and thinking it out a bit more and trying again …  well, I’m willing to share with you that I left this all in a pile on my desk twice and walked off to do something else because I fell out with it – due mainly to my lack of patience I think. (And a die which took six passes through the machine – I have no idea why because the second time I cut it out, it cut it out properly on the very first pass! doh!)

I know that looking at this first photograph, you’re perhaps wondering why I was having such a struggle with this card.  After all …  it’s just a fairly simple card, with a black silhouette of a village scene, and a couple of die cut ‘wreaths’ in white.  Ahh …  but it’s not…

Getting any clues from this silhouette now?  (sorry about the fuzzy photo …  the camera didn’t want to focus on the village, it wanted to gaze longingly at the flame on the t.light, like some love struck nincompoop!)  Shall I give you a clue?  ….  ok …. look at the colour of the card, compared with the colour behind the (black) silhouette.

“Ahhhhh!”   . . .  I hear you say

OK … well this one will give it away ….

The t-light is actually a battery operated t-light,  so safe to use with (or in this case inside) a card.

Made using a 7″x 7″ folded white card;  parchment (for behind the silhouette) and die cut wreaths which I overlayed, in different positions, and used one for the inside of the card also, in order to finish off the inside, around the parchment, in a decorative fashion.

If you look really carefully at the house on the top  ‘snow’ drift slope (over to your right as you’re looking at the photo above) you can see some ‘smoke’ coming out of the chimney pot!  Sadly, what you can’t see in any of the photo’s, even though I tried my very hardest, is the snow which I drew on the back of the parchment, which you can actually see even if the t-light isn’t lit.  It just wouldn’t make itself known to you in the photos.

Taken with the t-light inside lit, and a desk lamp on, so that you could see it as you’d see it if it were on your shelf at home.

To be fair – I could have made this easier for myself to make, had I not wanted to die cut a wreath into the card itself, so making it able to see the light from the flickering t-light through a die cut wreath shape as well as a silhouette through the ‘picture’ window, and also wanting to use acetate to suspend the village scene in the window.   Yes … I really could have made this SO much easier on myself.  And believe you  me …. I’m going to on the next one, I’m telling you!

Well that’s me done and dusted for today.  All that’s left for me to say is:   Happy Monday.  May today bring you a cup filled with happiness,  with a few spoonfuls of joy, and as many dashes of love as you can fit into your hours.

Say something nice to someone today and make them smile.  I bet it will make you yourself smile more than you would believe.

Sending warm squidges to you in your corner from me in mine.

What a Dream Scrapbook Page!

I have a ‘bought for the purpose’ scrapbook which, although it has a (sort of) ‘padded’ binder (cover) – in the centre of the cover it has a little cut out section where you’re supposed to slide a photograph into the ‘hole’ (from a little slit on the inside cover) so that it shows you what the scrapbook is about.  Problem was that even though I loved the cover of the scrapbook, I felt that the ‘photograph’ section on the front was, well, a little too twee.  A bit (kind of) predictable.  I didn’t want a photograph on the front, I wanted something better than just a photo.

So I cut out that bit on the inside cover, and so got a ‘hole’ right through the front cover.  (Think of a serving hatch into the dining room from the kitchen).  I then cut up a scrapbook page saver, (one of those plastic page holders which you put your ‘made’ pages into to protect them) and carefully glued a square of that soft, pliable plastic to the front of the cover and then hid the glue with some pretty pleated ribbon.

Then … I made something which I was far happier with which would show through that window.  I made  … Page One of my scrapbook.

Page One of my Scrapbook

Such a simple idea.  I kept the page white, but draped bakers twine across the page and attached it to little gold brads, which were to be the ‘drawing pins’ (thumb tacks) which held the bakers twine in place.  Once I was happy with where the bakers twine was place on the page, I then glued it in place with some Anita’s crafting glue.  (It’s white when you put it on, but dries clear).

I then cut out some little white ‘flags’ – from some thin cotton sheeting – basically the same weight as light weight shirt cotton,  –  which I then glued to the bakers twine and made Bunting!

I glued a little white doily  to the centre of the page and while that was drying I made a little dream ‘diorama’ out of an old tin which I’d got when I purchased some ink powder.  I’d saved the tin, not knowing what for, but knowing that it would come in useful one day.  (I am SUCH a ‘crafter’).  😀

A couple of years ago I’d seen a picture of a little tin which was a tree ornament.  It looked so pretty that it had stuck in my memory.  When I decided what I wanted to use to fill that central space on page one – but something which would also ‘begin’ my scrapbook and give a taste of what was to come   – the word ‘dream’ came to mind and so did the ornament.  And that’s where the basic idea began.

The cover of the album is basically a mix of greens with a contrast of pink and white polka dot all put together in a  (kind of) patchwork, – and with butterflies flying in various places on top of it all.

So the tin had to be complimentary to the cover, and since butterflies were going to be putting in an appearance further into the scrapbook then it was natural that they should be on the first page too!  So I began with a scrap of pink polka dot paper, which I hand cut into a round to fit into the base of the tin.  I then used some white glue, and glued some flower soft, in a mix of pink, green and white, into the bottom quarter of the tin.  I wrote ‘dream’ on some paper and distressed it a little, then cut it into a banner and back it with some green card.

Thankfully I have a selection of butterfly stamps, some of them are really teeny tiny – so they worked perfectly with the tin and it’s lid.  Just the right size in fact.  The one inside the tin I stamped in an emerald green colour, but then coloured it in with a lovely fresh spring green.

But the butterflies which are outside of the tin, flying free (so to speak) I stamped using a grey memento ink (I think I used ‘silver’ actually) – and didn’t colour those, because I wanted them to look delicate, and pale to match the white of the whole page.  I added some glue ‘squiggles’ and sprinkled some ultra fine glitter onto it – to sort of represent the flight path of the butterflies as they flew.

Pale silvery butterflies.

 

I glued down the lid using a little hot glue, and covering two of the pale butterflies, so that they looked liked they’d flown under the lid.

But I did have one slight worry.  If the album, at some point in the future, had something heavy put on top of it, then I worried that the metal rim of the open tin might just puncture the plastic cover I’d put on the front of the album.  If it didn’t puncture it – it might mark it permanently and it would then spoil the look.  So I had to come up with an idea to solve that problem – just in case it ever did happen!  (That’s me.  I have to have a plan for everything  in case something bad happens.  If it does, then I have a plan.  If it doesn’t then that’s great – but at least I had a plan! lol).

I got out the trusty hot glue gun again, and sorted through my white buttons to find some which had a vintage feel about them.  I knew I needed to be careful about choosing the right ones – because the wrong buttons could spoil the whole thing.

Buttons found – I squidged a generous (but not a huge glob!) amount of glue onto the back of a button and carefully placed it on the rim on the tin, holding it there for a few seconds while the glue began to set.  Then I did the next one.  Then the next.  Then … and so on until I’d glue four buttons, in descending sizes, on one side, and one further button on the opposite side of the rim of the tin.  I left them over-night to see if they would do what I wanted them to do.

The following day I put my hand flat palm down, on top of the rim to see if, when I pressed, they stayed in place.  They did.  I then knew that these buttons would spread the weight of anything pressing down on the top of the album and so wouldn’t damage the plastic on the cover.  Yay!  I love it when a plan comes together!

I wrapped some rayon seam binding around the outside of the tin, in a fabulous warm olive-green colour, and then finally added a little rich, royal purple polka-dot bow to one side.  The finishing touch.   I loved the scrapbook already – and I’d only just began!

Page One  was ‘finished’.  I stood back and looked at it.  It was perfect.  It looked vintage.  It had a friendly feel about it.  It spoke of a promise which I knew was to follow in the pages, so far unmade, but I knew the plans I had for those pages. 

Yes, this was going to be a scrapbook I loved.  I could feel it.

 I know that Scrapbooking is a fairly new type of photograph/memory saving way of doing things to the UK.  Here in the UK we’re more used to photograph albums which we buy and pop our photographs into.  But in the last few years Scrapbooking has taken off and it’s becoming more popular.

So .. do you scrapbook?  And if you do … do you blog about your pages?  If so, please leave me a comment and put a link to your scrapbooking page or to your blog in general, because I’d love to come and see your scrapbooks, and I’ve no doubt that others who visit this page would love to visit your blog too!

Have a truly lovely rest of your day!