Springtime

 

 

Hi Everyone,

 

The clocks have gone forward, we have lost a whole hour, but what a lovely Spring morning it is, a lovely day for all the mums to put their feet up and be pampered as its Mothers Day here in the UK. A perfect day also to share with you a springtime altered book box I did recently. The inspiration for this project was taken from techniques shown in the March edition of Craft Stamper by Anna-Karin.   I was drawn to the colourful little blue tit she had created and could not resist putting myown twist on the project. 

 

The book itself was one of the brown papier mache ones and it was given 2 coats of gesso and a good tickle on all the edges and spine with  treasure gold.  The background was dry embossed, coloured with various distress inks, and then over stamped with a grid stamp.

 

The flowers are a mix of tattered florals and punched centres cut from card stock that has been pre- inked and stamped and they are sitting on a burlap flower with Kraft leaves.

 

 

Here is a close up of the blue tit, he was die-cut using the Bigz caged bird die, dabbed with embossing paste, painted and then dry brushed with black to reveal the detail of the texture.  The ornate frame is cut from mount board to give it some backbone, it was coloured with broken china stain and then given a coating of  sticky embossing powder and sprinkled with tumbled glass distress glitter.

 

 

The inside of the box was kept quite simple, just painted and lined with frayed burlap.  A piece of textured card was coloured with distress inks and stamped with archival black, finished with a craftables butterfly die-cut and a ribbon to tie it all together.

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On the close up here you can see the lovely summer grasses stamp and the sentiment, both of which are from Woodware

 

 

Yesterday me and Anne were escorted to the Happy Stampers show at Port Sunlight by Mr Anne and Mr Mo.  The bribe was breakfast at the garden centre and a promise not to spend too much.  We were both very good! we kept to the first part of our promise, and the boys went to walk off their hearty breakfast leaving me and Anne to concentrate on not spending to much money!  we did have a lovely time and met up with lots of crafty friends throughout the day and say hello.  

Right off now to enjoy the sunshine,  have a lovely day everyone

 

Mo x 

 

 



2.5 March Tags...

Hi Everyone,

I got a chance to do my March tags yesterday as the Grand Prix season is underway so whilst my DH was glued to the tellybox, I sneeked upstairs to play with one of my new stamp sets that I picked up on a visit to Art from the Heart on Saturday. I was not able to get hold of the bird & feathers stamp that Tim used, but I fell in love with Mariposa Butterfly on the Classics 17 set and come up with these.

The steps followed were pretty much as Tim's Tag which can be seen HERE

 The main image was stamped using walnut stain DI.

 

 I distressed the background with frayed burlap and then went around the edges with Walnut stain.
 I then gave it a little spritz & flick with water and dried.

The top row of butterflys were done using a couple of dabs of each colour ie Spiced marmalade, Weathered wood and Broken china onto the stamp and as you can see it gives a subtle effect with all 3 colours blending.  Next I started to colour the 2 main images with distress pens direct to the card on the left and watercolour pen on the right.

 

 

Next came another fun bit using my new spritzer than I purchased when me and Anne went to Harrogate last Saturday.  I used the Weathered wood distress pen and Tims doileystencil to get the effect, as Tim would say the effect looks pretty cool!

 

  The tags were finished using tissue tape, coloured twine, word bands and Vintage ribbon coloured with distress stains for the bows.

You may have noticed in the title I mention 2.5 tags... well here is the .5, yes its my little atc using the same techniques to go into my display. 

 

 

3 down 9 to go

 

 

Thank you as always for dropping by today, if you like these please do comment I really appreciate your feedback.  Till the next time bbfn

Hugs Mo x 

Faux Leather Books

Hi Everyone,

So sorry, I have been AWOL from blog land for a whole month, but back now to show you my little faux leather note books.  I spent a crafty day with Anne a couple of weeks back now and one of the things we were playing with was Kraft card, glycerin and water to make faux leather sheets.  The step by step for this technique is put together really clearly by Sheena Douglass  Here.

 

These two books are made from just one A4 sheet of Kraft card, and I still have one more piece to do another one.  The books vary slightly with the way they are kept closed. 

With the larger red butterfly one below I have sewn a wooden button onto the front with hemp and then pulled it through and  attached a couple of beads and leather charms on the end.  

 

 

 

You can see from the photo below that I have covered the stitches from the front with a hand made with love label. Obviously by doing this you can see the button was an afterthought and maybe it should have been under the fabric, but I think the label would still be required to cover the small bulge made by the stitching.   You can also see the pages themselves a little clearer here, I made them from cartridge paper and put together 3 sets of 4 held together with hemp sewn through to the back.  The cartridge paper is really nice quality so was nice and strong to take the hemp.

 

Below is the inside of the smaller brown book, don't you just love that owl fabric, I picked it up from a really nice fabric shop at Lady Heyes Craft Centre near Frodsham.  The fastener for this book is just elastic cord threaded through a button and tied together.  As you can see this is detachable from the book and just simply wrap around the book and the button to close. 

 

 

This one is not the best of photos, but it shows the back of both books, the owl on the back of the brown one is so much better than the one on the front, doesn't that always happen? I attached a couple of beads to the spine of this one, I think they look quite nice.

 

 

So there we are two little books very little cost, and both quite different.

I am off to Harrogate tomorrow with Anne for a mooch around the craft show, and of course we can't go to Harrogate without paying a visit to Art from the Heart.  I have a wish list as long as my arm, and I just know it will get longer the more I see, ooh! I can see my bank balance suffering already.  

Thank you for your visit today, I promise I will be back soon bbfn. Hugs Mo x