Spring has a Sprung

Wow! What a fabulous Easter weekend it has been with wall to wall sunshine and soaring temperatures. I can't believe that on Tuesday it was snowing, and absolutely Baltic, but 4 days later it was so hot in my garden at 5.30 pm that I had to go indoors to cool off.  The down side is that I'm working this week and I chose NEXT week to take a holiday, but the weather is due to change.  Pah.

I have a tip to share.  I hate having to shake my half empty glue bottles to get glue to the nozzle, such a pain and doesn't help my dodgy shoulder. But, during a kitchen clearout last weekend I came across a couple of egg cups that are made from coiled wire.  I think they actually came out of Xmas crackers a couple of years ago but have never been used.  I had a eureka moment, gave them a tug to stretch them out, and now they hold my upturned glue and glossy accent bottles perfectly.  No more shaking the bottle.  You often see these eggcups in charity shops, so have a look for them next time you are browsing.

So, Time for Tim's April tag.  I've skipped the March tag as I didn't have what I needed to complete it,  will get back to it shortly, but Aprils tag was something I could tackle despite not having the stamps he used.  I had to hand draw the flowers, and didn't have the word dies, so improvised.  I also drew in the stitching as my cheap and cheerful mini sewing machine will be in the bucket soon if it doesn't shape up and behave itself.  I have a wheeled tool that puts holes in the paper as it turns, (have no idea what it is called but I guess it is for piercing stitch holes in leather) so my 'stitches' are nice and regular.

I drew bluebells on my tag, rather than the rose and daisy that tim has used.  To me, Bluebells are so Scottish, and just coming into season.  I like how my tag turned out.

Oops

Desk Tidy (or, I live in hope of a tidy desk)

Why is it 'tidy' and not 'tidier'?  Just saying.

I posted pictures of this item on my Facebook, and a few friends said I should blog it, so here it is...

My friend Alison gave me an empty whisky box recently.  The box wasn't very big (it had held 3 quarter bottles) and had a lid that opened on the slant.  Nice and sturdy too.  

The slanted lid gave me the idea for a desk tidy, so I cut the lid off and intended to stick it to the base as it was. But then I got the idea that I could make an extra compartment between the 2 pieces and so I extended the sides with a 3/4 inch slice of foam board.  I could've made it wider, but this was just the right width to accommodate my craft knives and pokey tools etc, without them falling over.  I also added 3 pieces of greyboard on the base.  Okay,  I could have used one piece of board for the base, but was using up some gash! This was painted black with acrylic paint. 

I also used some foam board to make a couple of dividers in the tallest compartment and some greyboard for dividers for the new middle one.

After a coat of black acrylic paint around all the edges I cut pieces of paper to fit each surface, inked the edges with black soot distress ink (Tim Holtz) and stuck those on with Scotch quick dry glue.  I covered the tall dividers in the same way and glued them in place.  The papers I used are from Graphic 45 and are a mixture from their French Country, Typography and Steampunk Spells collections.  I love that they use the same colour pallets in the various collections so you can mix and match.

I covered up the rough edges where I'd cut the Lid apart with some Tim holtz tissue tape,  patterned like a black measuring tape.

That's about it, not a difficult project and took me only a few hours, including coffee breaks.  The only other thing I did was poke and glue a couple of Tim Holtz memo pins through the side of the top compartment, into the foam dividers. This not only strengthened the divider but the ring of the memo pin is a handy place to hold my tiny detail scissors and skinny ink drippers which would otherwise fall over.  

Ta dah! As they say.

Tim's February Tag.

Here we are, a new month so a new tag from Tim Holtz.  If it is February then it must be luurve.  

 Tim used ephemera pieces to cover his tag, and I did use a couple of those but mostly I have used cut outs from the Seasonal Stash paper stack. 

Work in progress.

I didn't have the metal foil frame for the felt heart so used a random chipboard one from my stash and silvered it up with some silver rub n buff.  If I was doing this again I would use the frame in portrait rather than landscape orientation as I don't like the space above it, and make the heart bigger.  I used the movers and shakers mini heart, but it's not big enough I don't think.  Another addition is the 'Passion' rub on from 7Gypsies, and as I didn't have a word band that fitted the theme I used a 'Togetherness' word stick that I've had in my stash forever but never used.  No idea who made it as I tend to take everything out of the packaging when I bring it home from the shop!  Bad habit if you want to blog about your endeavours....

The last step for this tag is to spritz the tag with distress pen spritzer to add some splatter.  I'm absolutely rubbish at this, can't get it to work at all, or if I do manage to get ink onto paper it's just in a small area and too heavy, not lightly splattered as it should be.  This tag has a blotch of splatter on the cupids, and not anywhere else.  GRRR.

Anyway, here's the finished tag.

I do like the wire wrapped heart on the arrow.

Cheers.

Postage Stamp Frame for my Mum

I made another postage stamp box frame for a picture of my mother when she was about 3, so circa 1929, as a twin to the one I did earlier for my dad.

All the same bits an fixings as before, except that the letters are a mix of tim holtz grunge and a mini scrabble piece (maker unknown as they were a gift from a crafty friend) and a little plastic cherub button from Hobbycraft.

The tiny rosebud flowers are actually rolled up strips cut from the wavy edged paper left over from when the frames where cut out.  Waste not want not.

 

And here they are together.

Sweet.

I Heart...

I bought a five aperture frame in the post xmas sale at M&S outlet store a couple of years ago (cheaper than cheap!) and immediately got inspired to create an 'I love...' piece, based around little polystyrene hearts I got in Hobbycraft, a different themed heart in each box.  It started well, decoupaged old map paper (from 7 gypsies) on one (for travel), music tissue paper on another, paper flowers (nature and wildlife) grungy metal (science and industry)...and then got stuck.  Couldn't think how I could do the night sky/space on a heart.  So it all got stuck away in a box, languishing for want of inspiration.

And then in December I went to Liberty of London and saw some fantastic beaded birds and animals

That's it! !  I covered the heart with stretch netting to represent the fabric of space and time (actually from inside the cushion covers of an old sofa we threw out- recycling at its best), painted it with mod podge and black paint, and then used pins to stivck various glass beads.  I made a telescope out of kebab sticks, rolled paper and jewellery findings, and covered a little plastic rocket with embossed metal tape which turned out a bit Wallace and Gromit, so very cute.

Here are all the frames:

Travel

The background papers are a mix of tim holtz and Graphic 45, and I made the battered suitcase out of foam rubber and strips of leather.  Wish my suitcase looked like that, but it is pristine as it hardly ever comes out of the storage cupboard due to me having married a reluctant traveller!

Science and Industry:

The background to this one is a bit of broken printed circuit board out of a redundant piece of audio equipment my hubby was ditching.  Light bulb is tim holtz ideaology as are die cut and embossed metal cogs.

Night sky/space

Quite proud of that telescope.  I used slightly glittery midnight blue paper behind this one. Hard to see in photo.

Music:

The music box is a die cast pencil sharpener (car boot), and the little dancer is from Prima.

And finally Nature and Wildlife:

Little plastic elephant and a cigarette card I got from car boot sale.  The butterflies are cut from Graphic45 Old Curiosity Shop and paper flowers are a mix, don't know makers.

Each frame has a related tim holtz ideaology word band attached.

Here's the whole thing

 

and some of the details

It took a while, but I really like it now it is finished.

Postage Stamp for my Dad

I had to take the day off work today because the cold I've been fighting off since Hogmanay finally caught up with me and I felt awful this morning, achy and shivery.  A couple of extra strong Lemsips later and I'm feeling a bit better, but still coughing like a drain.

Not one to look an unexpected day off in the mouth, I finally got around to making a little frame for a favourite picture I have of my dad when he was about 2 years old, which would have been circa 1922.  I used the Tim Holtz Alterations Postage Stamp Frame to make a small box frame, with paper from Tim's Vintage Shabby paper stash.  I also used the dies Elegant Flourish and Honeycomb, and a small heart from Movers and Shakers Cupid set.  Some ideaology in the forms of a word band and memo pin, a bicycle (probably Prima, but out of packet so not sure) and some flowers and ribbon hand coloured using distress pens and inks finish the frame.  

I've got a picture of my mum at a similar age that I think I will do another frame for, as a matching pair.

The letters are Victorian or Edwardian bone squares from a partial set that has been kicking around my family for as long as I can remember.  Something that was used in the schoolroom I think, and as my grandfather was a schoolteacher that would make sense. They have lowercase on one side and uppercase on the other.

The frame is about one inch deep.

12 Tags of 2015 #1, January, and a NY Resolution.

Gosh, here we are in 2015.  Happy New Year everyone. 

New year, new tags from tim.  

I shamelessly copied this first one, with hardly any differences except for a couple of wee ones.  I had the alpha parts numbers and the chitchat stickers, but not tissue paper (stamped my own using white tissue paper and black soot ink pad, and various stamps) nor the distress glitter nor some of the paints and spray colours, so improvised with what I had.  The whole point really.  

Here it is on my tag board, at peg number 1.  I took off all the previous years' tags as can be seen by the faded areas on the board, but they will slowly be covered up as the year, and Tim's tags, 

progresses.  That's one of my resolutions, to complete every tag.  I started with good intentions last year but it didn't finish well.  :-(

I love the glitter on this one, luckily I had gold glitter that wasn't too brash.

And a close up..

I really like the shadow effect on the chitchat stickers. That's so clever.  It gives the whole tag depth.

I wonder what this year will bring?  Health and happiness to all I hope.

Cheers.