WOYWW 454

I am still working on my mystery project so I can’t show you my desk as it is at the moment, but on Monday I took a break from that and made a Valentine card for my hubby, and I can show you that.

I wrote in detail about it here. I followed a tutorial on Youtube for the pop-up which was very successful.

I am writing this in the small hours and my hubby has gone to bed, so he hasn’t received it yet and I can’t tell you how he likes it!

Just to keep your interest in my mystery project going, here is another sneak peak of some more background papers.

Kitties

I still haven’t had time to edit my recent videos, but here is another photo.

My hubby has been sorting through a lot of old photos and papers and sticking them into scrapbooks and this plastic box came down from his office, and as you can see, it is no longer available!

Health Update

Still no date for my operation. I am watching for a letter daily. I think the hernia is getting bigger and Kermit, my stoma, is definitely not a happy bunny. Yesterday I had to change his bag twice – I am now doing it every day, instead of twice a week which I was doing when everything was working properly. This is the only way I can keep on top of the skin irritation I’ve been getting because he keeps retracting. I am also getting some pain and discomfort from the hernia.

I’ve had a couple of bad days with my ME this week as well and have had to rest. It’s a pest because I’ve got a lot I want to do at the moment! At least things are a lot more back to normal than they were, with my hubby being much more mobile now, and using his boot less and less. He is doing his exercises and gradually building up his strength again after being inactive for so long.

Pancake Day

Yesterday was Pancake Day, Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent begins. Because my hubby isn’t allowed sugar, I couldn’t cook traditional sweet pancakes, so I cooked an old favourite recipe from my favourite recipe book which I had for my 21st birthday. Chicken and walnut pancakes – deeeelicious! There were a couple of spare pancakes left over so I had these for pudding, not with lemon and sugar, but drizzled with maple syrup. They went down a treat.

I made a double quantity and the rest has gone in the freezer for another day. I also cooked enough chicken to make a chicken, bacon and pasta bake which I shall make later today – this will be suitable for the low residue diet I shall be on for a while after my operation. I’ve now cooked up quite a few dishes in readiness and the freezer is getting very full!

Did anyone else make pancakes yesterday?

An Exciting Day Coming Up

Tomorrow, I am being taken to a craft show. It’s several years since I’ve been to one, and this year I really wanted to go, but couldn’t see how it would happen if my hubby wasn’t able to drive me. I asked a friend if she was going, and she said she was, and she is taking a couple of other people as well, so we’ll be a car-full. I am so thrilled to be going, and so looking forward to it.

It’s the Craft 4 Crafters show held at Westpoint, Exeter (where they hold the Devon County Show). It’s always brilliant. I’ve been through the online list of exhibitors and made a note of the ones I particularly want to visit, and I am also making a list of things I want to pick up if I can. You often get good prices at shows, and it’s always great to see things “in the flesh,” especially if you buy most things online. I shall stock up on the basics (cardstock, double-sided tape etc.) and I also hope to get some more Distress Oxides, and maybe a few more punches and dies.

It will be a long day so today I must make sure I don’t overdo things so I’m in a good state to enjoy it to the full!

Pop-Up Valentine Card for my Hubby

Recently I found a video on Youtube with a number of pop-up designs for Valentine’s and I thought it would be fun to make one for my hubby. This time last year I was in hospital for Valentine’s and didn’t make him one, but he gave me the biggest one I’ve ever seen, and all the hospital staff thought it was brilliant!

Anyway, this year, I’ve managed to escape being in hospital for Valentine’s although I am waiting to go in, so there’s no excuse for not making one for him this time!

I began by making the simple pop-up mechanism from white cardstock.

This is the outside of the pop-up, folded. You can see some of the construction lines.

I thought I would use some of the scraps from my mystery project for this card. Here they are, being smooshed with Fired Brick Distress Ink. This particular paper is an absolute pain to ink because it seems to have rather a waxy surface that resists liquid, and it takes ages to dry with the heat gun, too, but it’s a paper stack I’ve had from the very beginning, and I’ve never liked it much, so I thought it was high time I used it up, especially that nowadays I’ve got enough experience to know how to improve it.

For the pop-up piece, rather than leaving it stark white, I smooshed it with Worn Lipstick Distress Oxide to give a marbled effect.

After this I distressed the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink – I thought that a touch of brown would prevent the card from looking too girlie.

I also distressed the sides of the pop-up, masking off the surrounding areas with some scrap paper.

Then I took one of the inked scrap pieces and cut it into half-inch strips, which I wove in and out of the pop-up to create the basket.

When the weaving was finished, I trimmed off the bottoms of the strips, and left the tops at random lengths.

I have only got one heart punch, and it makes very small ones. I punched out quite a few from one of the scrap pieces, punching them as evenly as possible so that I could use the waste piece to embellish the front of the card. Then I made some intermediate and larger hearts, drawing round a little template I made and then fussy cutting them.

I also cut some hearts from some scrap gold card to mat the hearts, and also added stickles (gold and orange peel) to some of the hearts, and began to glue them onto the pop-up with Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive.

I punched the corners of the pop-up with my multi-shaper punch. It’s not designed as a corner punch, but with some careful lining up, I was able to achieve the result I wanted. I also distressed these punched corners with Vintage Photo Distress Ink to match the rest of the pop-up.

At this point I forgot to take any photos for a while. I mounted the pop-up on some pink cardstock, and on the outside, front and back, I added some red cardstock that I distressed around the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, and I also added some of this ink in the centre with an Inkylicious Ink Duster. I layered a heart cut from a scrap onto more of the scrap gold card, and this embellishment was mounted in the centre of the card with a large foam pad.

I attached the punched heart strip onto a piece of gold card using Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive, and then applied the whole embellishment to the red mat with double-sided tape, folding the excess punched layer around the back, before matting the whole thing onto the pink card base.

Here is the completed pop-up, with cut and punched hearts on the woven strips and also stuck down onto the back of the pop-up to give a dimensional effect. I hand-wrote the sentiment.

Finally, the completed card with the envelope I made from more of the pink cardstock, using my envelope punch board.

The edges of the envelope were distressed with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

WOYWW 246

What’s on Your Workdesk this Wednesday? (Click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar to find out all about this.) As usual, there isn’t much on mine, I’m afraid. I have had a bit more time and energy over the past fortnight and have actually managed a few sessions in my ARTHaven, and mostly I’ve been working on my teabag art. I am making some videos as I go along, and have spent quite a lot of time editing them, and once I’ve finished they will be uploaded.

On the desk you can see some dried teabags on the left, and some of the teabags which I have emptied and started colouring with distress inks on the right, some with stamping. I have also been experimenting with making acrylic film (I’ve made a video of that, too) and there will be more info on that in due course – you can see the piece I’ve made, and the design has been created using the tea out of the teabags! (Waste-not, want-not…) In the centre, in front of the little cream tin dish, is a collection of very pretty rubber stamps that I am using on the teabags, using a gold stamp pad.

As requested last time I was around, here are the pictures of the Zentangle Valentine card I made for my hubby. (More details here.)

Inside the card:

My hubby enjoys kite-flying when he gets the chance.

I have also been getting the software sorted to run Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine, again. She’s been set up across the corner in my ARTHaven for several months but I have not yet had her running. Now that I have my new iMac, I am going to run her from that, and I needed to get Inkscape (vector drawing software) and Signcut (the software that sends the cutting instructions to the machine) installed, now that I have the Mac manual for setting up the machine.

Other news – our older kitty, Beatrice, has had a lumpectomy between her shoulder blades and has spent the past week in post-operative sleep – generally cats sleep about 18 hours a day, but I think she’s probably clocked up 23 hours a day. She seems exhausted, and she’s been very clingy and can’t get close enough to us. Phoebe, our other cat, has spent much more time cuddled up with her when she’s on our laps, which is not something that usually happens, so she’s either jealous and doesn’t like all the attention Beatrice is getting, or she’s trying to comfort her and keep her warm!

The vet said that it was important that she didn’t scratch at the wound, and suggested getting a baby’s T-shirt to cover it up. My hubby went to Mothercare and bought the only thing that was small enough – a twin pack of prem baby-grows, which happen to have little frilly skirts on them! Doesn’t she look dinky?

We are still waiting for the lab results on the biopsy – the pre-op needle biopsy suggested that it was probably not malignant, but the lump was very hard and it was difficult to get enough of a sample, and the procedure caused her some discomfort. They needed to do a proper section to be sure, and we are hoping that now it is removed, she will make a full recovery and require no further treatment. If it was malignant, she will have to have a scan (a CAT scan perhaps??) to see if it has spread anywhere else. We really don’t want her to have to go through a lot of aggressive and unpleasant treatment.

Have a good week, everybody.

Edit: We’ve just received the great news that Beatrice’s lump was not malignant. The vet got it all out, and all is well. Now we just have to wait for her to make a full recovery, and hopefully several more years of her gorgeous company.

Valentine Card 2014

I have had several people ask me to post about the card I’ve made this year for my hubby, so here it is.

The finished size is A5, and the words spell “Love” in several languages – English, Romanian, Italian (and other Latin languages) and Hebrew. The colour was added using my Derwent Inktense pencils. The design was inspired by a doodled heart I found on Pinterest: http://www.flickr.com/photos/helloangel/9826670843/

Inside:

This is the first time I’ve made him a Zentangle card and he was very pleased with it! When he gets the opportunity, he enjoys kite-flying.

Valentine Card for my Hubby

Following on from yesterday’s post, I have now completed the card for my hubby for Valentine’s day, based on the digital layout I did last year, using Serif CraftArtist:

The first thing I did was to cut out the three layers of card with heart apertures, using Sheba, my Black Cat Cougar cutting machine. Since learning from Black Cat forum members that setting the blade higher results in better cuts, I cannot believe how much better Sheba is cutting, and how much less force I am needing. I am now setting the blade two CDs’ thickness above the media on the mat. Of course, the card I am using has proved itself to cut very well – I have used 3 colours from the Tim Holtz Distress Core’dinations stack, not because I want to avail myself of the benefits of Core’dinations paper, but because the colours were more or less what I wanted – Aged Mahogany, Victorian Velvet and Milled Lavender. The effect is slightly less mauve than the digital layout.

I printed out a background on some 100 gsm paper, from the same digikit that I did the layout from – “Valentine’s Day 2011,” and cut a small piece from that, which I stuck behind the aperture in the Aged Mahogany paper, which is the back layer. (I also printed out a sheet of this background on some heavier card to go on the back of the finished card, to counteract the weight on the front of the card, and to finish it off nicely.)

I cut out some small hearts from red cardstock that I had – from an online paper mill, unknown weight but cuts really well – I cut 3 different sizes, ranging from 3/4 in down to just under 1/2 in. Some of these would be stuck down, and others would float above the surface on narrow acetate strips.

I thought I was going to have to make some new flowers for this project, but I had four pink roses left from my mother’s 90th birthday card that I made last year, and also various odd flowers that I’d made at various times, and with the addition of a few leaves and some dark red and white feathers, these would provide the embellishment for the bottom of the card.

Here’s a mock-up of the card pieces and the flowers.

Assembling the card was interesting. I wanted a good, deep dimensional feel to this card, to follow through from the digital layout inspiration. I used a double thickness of double-sided foam tape between each of the layers, and when they were all stuck together, I ran some double-sided tape around the edges and adhered some narrow pink satin ribbon with pretty picot edges to cover the rather unsightly edges.

Before I stuck it all together, I stuck some of the small hearts onto the background paper in the central heart, and stuck the rest onto narrow acetate strips, which I then glued between the layers, using Scotch Quick-Dry adhesive – a wonderful new find, thanks to Lucy on the Black Cat forum – it really does dry quickly, and it gives a very good strong bond, too. (Can one ever have enough different types of glue? One needs so many different ones for all the different things one does!)

The flowers and feathers were stuck down using hot glue, which has to be my favourite glue for this sort of thing, as it gives a more or less instant, very strong bond, and really is the only thing for making, and sticking down, flowers.

I had some difficulty cutting the small scalloped heart with the word “hugs” in the centre, as there was really too much detail to cut very small without the detail blade for Sheba (which I haven’t yet got). In the end I made it 2 inches across, and then made a mat layer for it in gold mirror card to show off the cut better. (I have just learnt how to do nesting shapes in Inkscape!) This embellishment was finished off with a small bow to match that on the floral embellishment, and also a tiny charm I bought at the recent craft show.

Here is a picture of the main design of the card. It measures 6 inches square.

To mount this whole design, I matted it onto some dark red card, and created a narrow mat layer in gold mirror card, which in turn was glued down to the main card, also made of the same dark red card. As the finished card is 8 inches square, I had to make this of two pieces, but the join is round the back, and mostly covered by the back printed background piece, so it is not obvious.

Here is a picture of the finished card.

The following pictures show various close-up shots, showing the detail of the embellishments etc.

The last two photos show the ribbon covering the unsightly edges of the layered card and foam tape.

After all my misgivings about not being able to make my dear hubby a special card this year, I have managed it after all! He is so wonderful, and does so much for me, and I am so grateful to have him as my lifelong companion and soul-mate, and I wanted to make him something special to let him know how much I appreciate him. I hope he likes the result!

Digital Scrapbooking Challenge

I’ve signed up to the Daisytrail site, a community for users of the Serif digital scrapbooking software. My friend Wendy recommended I have a look at all the gorgeous projects people have uploaded, as part of a challenge. Daisytrail recently provided a free digikit for Valentine’s Day, which is fairly limited, and the challenge was to make a layout using only stuff from this kit and nothing else (apart from a photo if you wanted to put one in), which they thought would be pretty challenging, but it’s amazing what people have done with it:

http://www.daisytrail.com/challenges.html?id=91

This evening I decided to download that kit and have a play around with it. When I uploaded it to my gallery on daisytrail, I discovered that the challenge doesn’t actually end until tomorrow, so I thought I might as well enter!

I don’t think I’ve ever done so much stuff for Valentine’s Day before in my life. I made a card for my hubby, and a hanging bon-bon basket, a card for my friend to give to her hubby, some ATCs for a swap on the Crafter’s Companion forum, and now a digital scrapbooking challenge entry! What fun it’s been.

I am getting seriously concerned that this is going to become a totally out of control addiction, however!! I’ve got “real” crafting that must be done – special birthday cards, Mothering Sunday, etc. etc. Once I’ve got the ironing done and my credit card statement checked through, I’m going up to my ARTHaven and getting stuck in – energy permitting! – but not tonight – it’s now nearly 2.30 a.m. and time for bed, methinks.

Another Valentine Card

We had lunch out with our friends David and Gisele today, and afterwards we came back to our house, and I showed her my ARTHaven and the card I’d made for my hubby for Valentine’s Day. She told me she had had a horrendous work week and hadn’t even had time to think about Valentine’s, let alone get a card or present, and she asked me if I could “knock something up.” This isn’t the normal way I work so it was a bit of a challenge, but I rose to it, and we did it together. She said more or less what she wanted, and I got going!

First of all I rubber stamped the butterfly background using two sizes of stamps and Tattered Rose Distress Ink, sometimes printing off the excess ink onto a piece of scrap paper first, to give a subtle, misty look, and then inked the edges with Spun Sugar Distress Ink. I then made a heart template and drew round it onto red card, reduced the size and drew round it again, and handed it over to Gisele to cut out. She loved my Tim Holtz scissors and I told her they were the best scissors I’d ever owned! I stamped these two hearts with a darker red ink pad, using the same butterfly stamp. I heat embossed the same butterfly shape with gold embossing powder, and stuck the larger heart down with double-sided tape. Gisele was fascinated to see the gold emerge as I heated the embossing powder – I remember how thrilled I was the very first time I saw it, and actually it still gives me a thrill! It looks like magic as the dull, grainy powder is transformed into pure gold before your eyes! The smaller heart was stuck down with dimensionals.

Gisele then chose some lace out of my lace bits box and I stuck this down with double sided tape before adding the ribbon and the bow. Again, she enjoyed seeing the bow being made on the bowshaper I bought at the show. She chose the little embellishment to go on the bow, which was one of the jewelled flower stamens I’d bought in the cake decorating shop. I then matted the card onto red card – A4 folded to A5 size, and the final touch was the little gold butterfly adhered with my hot glue gun.

While I was stamping and inking, she was busy making a ribbon rose – I had bought some gorgeous 2-tone green and pink wide, wired ribbon at the show, and showed her how to pull up the wire on one edge to form a ruche, and wrap the end of the wire round the base and cover the base and wire with florist’s tape to form the stem. She said she would like to put it on the envelope, so I found a plain white envelope and proceeded to decorate it to co-ordinate with the card.

Again, I stamped butterflies at random with Tattered Rose Distress Ink, and inked the edges with Spun Sugar Distress Ink. She chose some silk leaves from my stash, as she felt those went better with the fabric rose than paper ones, and I stuck it down with my hot glue gun. The final touch was another butterfly embellishment, this time in pink, again stuck down with my hot glue gun. Just room for her to write his name on the envelope!

We talked about butterflies and how we love them, and agreed that they are a symbol of freedom and beauty, and also transformation and growth, all important aspects of any marriage. On the card, she wanted to butterfly embellishment to look as if it had just flown up from the smaller heart, to symbolise that a real expression of your love for someone is that you don’t hold them down and control them, but allow them to be free – when they choose to stay with you, that love is really worth something!

At lunch today, I had no idea I would be in my ARTHaven today, or that I would make another Valentine card this year! We had such fun together in my ARTHaven, sharing ideas and having a good laugh too, and together we created this lovely card for her hubby. We both agreed what fun it was, working with someone else, and we are going to try and do it again soon. She saw my florist’s ribbon kit that I got at the show, and the flower which the man on the stand had made, and really admired it, so I said we could make some of those together – I want to make a tiny bouquet to go in a window card for my mum for Mothering Sunday.

Valentine Bon-Bon Basket

I am grateful to Carol on the Extreme Cards and Papercrafting blog:

http://extremecards.blogspot.com/2011/02/froebel-weaving-valentine-candy-basket.html

for sharing the design for this gorgeous little hanging basket of sweets. I know I shouldn’t be encouraging the hubby to eat such things – I’m actually trying to encourage him to lose weight, but I couldn’t resist this, and everyone deserves spoiling sometimes.

Here are another couple of shots to show the sides in more detail.

I cut the shape and the strips from the .svg file I downloaded. The basket shape had slits cut in it, through which you weave the strips of coloured card. I also made an extra .svg file the same shape as the basket but without the slits, to be cut from red card to line the basket so that the backs of the woven pieces don’t show.

I’m going to hang it on his desk lamp so he sees it when he gets up. What’s the betting all those little sweets will be gone by lunch time?