Birthday card

Today I made a birthday card for my nan that will go with the altered spoon.

The background is a spellbinders embossing folder that is edged with spun sugar. I then cut and edged again with spun sugar a label shape and stamped the sentiment.

The leaves are from the spellbinders foliage die and the flowers are made from the free die from the latest tattered lace magazine. I was quite pleased as I've never been that great at making flowers. I then matted and layered it on to gold mirri and then pink card.

The insert was made with craft artist with the roses digikit. I tend to make all my inserts in craft artist as they come out beautifully and the sentiment was found on the Crafts U Print.

Altered art or just stirring!

Well this weekend I made an altered wooden spoon, this will be a birthday present for my nan next month who will be 84. She has everything that she wants and always likes my makes, I thought this would be something no-one else will get her.

I used a bog standard wooden spoon and dyed it with Peacock Feathers distress ink straight from the stamp pad using cut 'n' dry foam, it was then given a few coats of spray varnish to seal.

First I wrapped the handle with lace ribbon and the edge of the bowl of the spoon with light green organza ribbon in a ruffle effect. I made the flower using the Create and Craft free members gift from a few months back that was from Craftwork Cards.

The with love label came from a Hunkydory kit and is hot glued on with a button and a bow. I used satin ribbon on the back to form a loop for hanging and put a small butterfly topper on the back of the bowl of the spoon.

 

I also made a rosette pumpkin for a swap I'm doing but it is awful! The less said about that the better!

Still under the weather

Another slow crafting week for me, still under the weather from this flipping cold! I did manage to get a Christmas card done on Saturday. I was watching Phil Martin on Create and Craft TV and he was demonstrating his new stamp sets and made a half embossed card with his new bauble stamps. I like the idea so had a go with my own stash......love Phil's stamps but saving my pennies for the NEC next month! Here is my take on his card:

I stamped the stocking with clear ink then covered in primary red embossing powder.....note to self.....need more Christmas metallic embossing powder....... I then half embossed the card with my Spellbinders dotted embossing folder. I stamped the snowflakes on with Red Brick distress ink on the non embossed side. I added some dark red satin ribbon, the top of the stocking was coloured with a zig glue pen and white glitter added, this was then mounted and stuck on the card. For the sentiment I cut 2 mats and rounded the corners and added a peel off. I will need to get some Christmas sentiment stamps when I am at the NEC I think.

Most of Sunday was spent like this:


Curled up on the sofa, being lazy with Dobs!

Gaptastic cowl finished at last!

Well not much crafting from me this week as I've picked up a bout of lurgie that is doing the rounds at work.

I finished knitting up my Gaptastic cowl last week but had to wait for a sewing needle I bought to arrive to sew it up which I did on Sunday.

I am happy with it despite my miserable looking face, I put that down to the lurgie! The pattern is on Ravelry or if you're not a member it can be found here

My version is knit in James C Brett Marble Chunky in the grey colourway. I did not knit mine in the round as the thought of hundreds of stitches filled me with dread! So mine was knit flat with 48 stitches (I think). If I were to knit this again I think I would cast on less as its a bit wide.

Its a very monotonous knit, but something easily done watching the telly and does knit up quick in the chunky yarn. I ended up using a ball and a half for this knit. Its very warm and snugly!

Adventures in Coco

I have had the Coco top from Tilly Walnes on my to-do list since March! Well this weekend I finally got around to making it. I went to Birmingham's rag market for my fabric I love this place you can get everything and usually at bargain prices. I picked up 2 lots of stretch fabric for £1.50 per metre each! £9.00 for the 6 metres I bought, bargaintastic.

The grey, red and black fabric has a texture to it, I think you can just about make that out???? and the green and black spot is just flat. I thought I would have a crack with the grey fabric first.

I have purchased the pdf version of the pattern, this way I can print it and cut it out multiple times. I am constantly on a diet so my shape yo-yo's a bit. If I can get a pdf of a pattern I much prefer this to tissue paper. I don't mind the hassle of printing and sticking before I cut my pattern out.

I had already cut my pattern out a few days ago so I washed and dried both bundles of fabric. I lay the grey fabric on my cutting table aka, my living room floor! Oh how I dream of a big enough craft room for a cutting table.........

Pattern pinned and Dobbie is giving it an inspection and tells me to proceed.....very nice of him!

Here are my pieces cut out, again Dobs has to get in on the act. Now whilst I love the pattern on this fabric and also love the Coco pattern I am not a fan of cutting knit fabric as it has a tendency to move when you cut it so my cutting is not the best. I hope my wobbly lines can be sorted out in the making up.

I set about making up the Coco today (Sunday), the instructions are very easy to follow and Tilly has a sew-a-long on her blog here. I did not take any making up pictures, sorry for that but my sewing is not the neatest, something I need to practice on especially with knit fabric that wants to keep moving.

This was a lovely and simple pattern and I can recommend it for beginners and old hands alike. I can see many more Coco's to come. Here is my finished article teamed with black legging and my new brown winter boots. No dog this time! LOL

Pixscan Mat First Impressions.

I have to say I was very excited when I received my Pixscan mat. I had to order the one for the portrait as the one for the Cameo was out of stock everywhere!So this afternoon I grab my mat and a coffee and got cracking. I ended up a tad disappointed.

First, when I opened up Silhouette Studio no Pixscan icon. Searched for new update and it said "no update available", a quick Google sorted that and I downloaded the new software. Calibrated my Sony Z2 camera no problem it found it straight away, yay!!!! So I stamped 3 stamps in Stayzon ink on to plain white card (I am not the worlds greatest stamper)

I placed the card on the mat, I ended up having to cut down my paper to fit within the black border and took a photo with my phone and emailed it to myself and downloaded to my desktop. Selected import from file in the software, it took about a minute to import it but it found it no problems. You then follow the steps for a normal print and cut file, opening a trace and ensuring all the images are selected.

Once this was complete I sent it to the Silhouette adjusting the cut settings for the cardstock and the bar to accept the smaller mat. The Cameo automatically detected the registration makes and cut away but for some reason it looks like the detection was off as when the stamps were cut it was a little off....

So I decided to try a preprinted sheet from a book that I had as a free members gift from Create and Craft, photo'd, emailed, downloaded and imported no problem. This was the page

Now the problem stared when I traced, because the backing paper for this was textured the trace picked all of that up, no matter what I did I could not get just the pennants to trace. I got a tad fed up and turned it off as I had nothing on plain backing to have another go with. I think further research is required.

I think this will be an excellent bit of kit when I can get the hang of it. I am not a stamper as I hate cutting out so this will open up new avenues for me. 

On a brighter note I have made 2 new cards this week, both decoupaged and both have a mini envelope in them which contained money. The envelopes were made with the Envelope Board from We R Memory Keepers, excellent bit of kit!

Well that's all for now, I'm off Googling and YouTube-ing!

Fifty Shades of Sewing?.....Well No.......

So I cranked up the new Jones sewing machine and tested it to see if will do the shirring that I bought it for and I'm really please to say that it does and quite brilliantly to! However, sewing loads of straight lines is very boring so that soon got kicked to the curb and ill get back to it later. I'm about a third of the way down the bodice.

So what to do on a boring Sunday afternoon? I know try a rope the hubby in to a bit of crafting! How to do this, well break out the duck tape and expanding foam and create a body form! So I'd seen this on YouTube a bunch of times, this is a good video:

 

 

So we broke out the grey and pink tape and got taping! Covering me neck to bum in tape, yes excuse the hair, it was in need of a wash, lol.

 

 

 

 

It was then cut off and the back taped up and we put the first layer of expanding foam in it, we then ran out of foam! Off down to B&Q for 2 more cans. The is the body form pinned up drying.

 

It was then filled with more foam and stuffed with a few carrier bags from the supermarket. Before the foam set apiece of wood was inserted to form the stand.

 

 

 

 

Its a bit wonky in some places......well I'm not sure I'm that wonky but I can live with it. Not that all the foam has set I'll be measuring the bust, hips and waist to see if they are close enough to me. Anyway it was a fun afternoon none the less, if a bit silly!