More bits and bobs!

Hello. I hope you are having a good day. I have a card and a brooch to show you today. I've used one of Tonic's dies to cut out the flowers for this hydrangea floret...what do you think?

My mum loves hydrangeas...as do I....talking of which..I cannot wait for our new house to get built so we can start planting up the garden.

My other make today is this paper, glitter and resin brooch...also made with Tonic's flower dies. I layered about 8 layers of card and glue to make this. The top glitter layer has been cut from home-made glitter card. I used the daisy die to cut out the centre of the pink flower, then cut a daisy from gold and dropped it into the space. That way it is inlaid into the design. I made the dragonfly box in a previous post in a similar way...except I had to save all the tiny black bits I had cut out from the wings and glue them in...it was a lot more fiddly.

I always like to back my paper brooches with felt to hid the glued on brooch pin and give a more professional finish. The die cut through felt no bother at all....so , a felt flower brooch will be coming up soon too I think.

Have a great day.

Bits and bobs

Hi there, I'm just dropping by to show you a couple of  things today. First one is this delicate card that appears to have no visible means of support. I used acetate on the back so that I could retain the delicate appearance of this die cut. Such a delicate pretty die this one.

OK, so there is not much room for a long message, but enough room for a few kind words.

I made these little wooden drawer pulls for a project and then decided they were too big for the project in mind. However,  I am sure they will get used sometime in the future. But it has made we want to experiment some more making my own decorative pulls for drawers, so you may see more in the future.

Time flies...must dash. My little girl will be crashing through the door any minute looking for her lunch.
Have a lovely day

Vintage Hobbies catalogue - an MDF mini shelf

I love collecting vintage ephemera to use for craft projects, This little unit is one of Tonic Studios range of mini furniture. This particular unit is called the Tivoli unit which you can also make up with 4 rows plus 24 mini drawers. This time I opted to leave out a couple of shelves and make it up as a little shelf unit to store some of my craft supplies. It's the perfect size!

The paper |I used to decorate this unit is taken from a 1936 Hobbies catalogue that belonged to my great grandfather. It wasn't in mint condition so I didn't feel too bad cutting it up for this, and now I can enjoy looking at it on my craft desk. Hobbies  are still very much on the go and have been trading since 1895. They sell all sorts of interesting bits and bobs . My dad says he can remember when his father taught him how to create fretwork using patterns from Hobbies, and it was that which initially got him into woodwork. He then went on to train as a carpenter and he still loves to make things today in his 80s.

There are so many ways to decorate these little units...I hope this has inspired you.

have a lovely day

Bleach, freezer paper and Diecuts

This design has been made with bleach on the front of my black tshirt. I have been busy in my lab/craft room experimenting with bleach, a spray bottle and some freezer paper. Freezer paper will be familiar to you if you have ever done any quilting. It is a very useful paper which can be used to make templates and stencils. It can be ironed on to your fabric to create a temporary screen through which paint, or in this case bleach, can be applied.

You will need....

Freezer paper. Look for your nearest quilting supply shop, or buy it on Amazon.

You will also need a bottle of cheap liquid bleach and a small spray bottle.
I used Tonic Studio Mist it empty sprayers spray Ultra fine x 3 343e

These are a fantastic bit of kit and I have used them before with diluted watercolour paints to make spray effects on my cards.

First, I drew a love heart shape on the matt side of a piece of freezer paper. Then using these Entwining trellis flowers from one of the latest sets from Tonic Studios, I drew around them roughly where I wanted them to fit on the paper. It doesn't really matter if it doesn't look pretty at this stage, there is bound to be a bit of repositioning and rubbing out going on.

Once you are happy with your placement, Cut out the flowers with the dies as you have laid out.

Carefully press the completed template with a medium dry iron onto your tshirt or fabric where you are going to create your effect.

Now...make sure you are wearing old clothes and eye protection - just to be on the safe side. Vinyl gloves wouldn't hurt either !

I mixed up a solution of  roughly 60% bleach to water in one of my spray bottles. I then placed a piece of cardboard inside my tshirt to prevent the bleach from going right through to the back of the tshirt. I masked off all areas I didn't want to bleach....you can use old plastic bags and masking tape for this...

Then I carefully sprayed all over my design with the bleach solution.  I suggest you try this out on scrap fabric first, so that you know how your bleach is going to behave - your fabric may even need a stronger solution.  Now...here is where I was not patient enough...so please....wait until it is totally dry before you remove your freezer paper. My design bled because I was not patient enough, but I think it kind of adds to the hippy look with my t shirt.
I tried this on some denim using the flowers I had cut out and a heart shaped hole , but the bleach solution was not strong enough to make as much of an impact as it did on the tshirt. This might have also been due to the fact it was brand new fabric which I had not pre washed because often new fabric comes treated in some way which makes it less accepting of paints and dyes, so perhaps this influenced the bleach treatment too.

So, now you are armed with this idea, why not give it a try. You can use the freezer paper with spray fabric paint as well. It is a fun and easy way to jazz up a tshirt. You can check out this past post where I have used spray fabric paint with Tonic dies.

I hope I inspired you to try something different today.

Another glittery card

This is my parents anniversary card...lots of glitter ! I'm putting together another little mdf unit at the moment, so no glitter today just glue, paint and paper!

 My dilemma of the day is which shade of white to go with for painting the whole interior of our new house. It seems early on to pick a colour seeing as we haven't even broken ground yet, but we want to get everything priced, so I have decided ...I think...to go with Dulux Egyptian cotton, which has nice soft grey tones but will look slightly different in different lighting.

Hope you have a lovely day

A Glittery card

It's as well my little girl doesn't read my blog...here's her birthday card for the end of May !!!  I went to town with the Tonic Nuvo Glitters on this card. What 9 year old girl doesn't love pink flowers and glitter ! There is just so much you can do with these fantastic new dies. I've layered them very simply - using diecut homemade glitter card - the glitter is just sparkling and twinkling and looking gorgeous...but...oh, the options there are with all the different sizes of flowers. These are the kind of dies I'll be using time and time again. 

Righty-ho ...onto my next project now. Catch you later

A New Week

 Goodmorning. It's the start of a new week here in the Highlands. The sun has been shining this morning and it certainly makes you feel a lot more motivated than on the dark wintry days when the sun never bothers to peep out.

I've still been gluing and glittering. Here is an empty honey jar that I glitzed up with my Tonic Studios glitter.

 To get the glitter heart shape on the side of the jar, I die cut a scrap of self adhesive vinyl with a heart shape and stuck this on before applying my mod podge and adhering the glitter. I gave it two coats of glitter. Then carefully peeled away the vinyl to leave a perfect heart shape.

For best results top coat the glitter with a gloss spray sealant so as to not dull the glitter.

I wonder what's next for the glittter treatment!

Have a lovely day !

DIY Glitter Card...make your own custom colours.

Glitter card is lovely to use...die cuts sparkle and bring a special touch to a card, but I can never find the colour that I want, when I need it. Solution - I made my own glitter card.

 I always keep a jar of watered down tacky glue. I use it when I make mini books and do decoupage. This time I used it to make glitter card. I worked on peices of card approximately 1/3 of an A4 size so that I was not overwhelmed with glitter. I coated the card evenly with my"Digit -al" glue spreader aka my finger. Then I sprinkled the glitter on, and tapped off the excess and left it to dry. The glitter sticks really well to the card - make sure you leave it long enough to dry out...at least an hour and a half I would say...but even longer would be better.

As you can see, I don't bother going right to the edges with my glue so as I have something to hold onto when I am tapping off the excess. You now have your very own homemade glitter card which you can use as any other glitter card. It die cuts beautifully and this now means you can create very detailed glittered die cuts. You can even mix your colours as I did for my butterfly necklace and dragonfly box. Remember you have to work quick and clean up each colour after using so that you don't end up with a mixed coloured mess to clean up.

It's not as tricky as you think...and the results are beautiful.

Let me know if you try it.

Doda
xxx

A Glittery Post

Tonic Studios are just about to release their latest line....glitter and crystal drops! I've been having a lovely glittery time here in my craft studio experimenting with Tonic's new range of Nuvo Glitters. This necklace was made by gluing together 8 layers of card, the top layer is coated with glitter. You'd be surprised at just how rigid and strong card can be for jewellery making. I've topped mine with a layer of UVA cured resin, but you could just as easily use a 2 part epoxy resin, or even a dimensional glaze like Diamond glaze to finish off your piece.

To place the wire through the centre of the pendant, I cut the two central butterflies in half and then cut a thin sliver of card away so that when they were glued down, they created a channel for the wire. I place the wire in position before gluing the rest of the card sandwich down. I find Tonic's tacky glue is excellent for this job,
I also decorated a box...because...well, I love little boxes!

I used Tonic's new Nuvo Crystal Drops to add another pretty detail on the box.

The strip of glitter around the box was added using double sided sticky tape. The glitter sticks to it pretty well.

The top of the box was sealed with several layers of a gloss lacquer but in retrospect, I think it would have been good to use a resin too as I think the lacquer dulled the glitter a little. Do you like the way the glitter dragonfly is inlaid into the black glitter? I'll let you know how to do that in another glittery post soon. 

Well, I must get on...so many things to cover with glitter ;-)

Doda

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