Decorated notebook.....

....have to say I love the 8" scrapbooks you can get in Hobbycraft. Spiral bound, plain covers, decent weight paper inside, useful as scrapbooks, photo albums, art journals .......they're perfect for decorating! Had one of the Kraft ones sitting on the side and when I was doing some workshop prep the other day I thought I'd have a bit of a play :) So here's what I made, going to be a little 'just because' pressie for a friend.........

Took a few photos whilst I was making it so I could show you how I did it, just in case you fancy having a go.  Obviously wouldn't have to be on a book cover you could do the same thing on a canvas, box or even on a piece of card and mount it up onto a greetings card.

Right so first just to make life easier I carefully removed both covers, if you go gently you can do it without stretching the spiral binding too much and it certainly makes the decorating easier :) Then I grabbed a load of die cuts (from the Perfect Partner Time Traveller Range - All Geared Up and Make Time, from the Perfect Partner Country Cottage Range - Florists Friend and from the Perfect Partner Festive Fancies Range - Festive Ivy) and laid them on the cover, playing around with them until I found an arrangement I was happy with. Then I glued everything in place using tacky glue. Don't worry if your glue squidges out a bit because you're going to put a thin coat of gesso over everything so you won't notice it and its more important that everything is well stuck down. So now I had a front cover that looked like this....

and because it would have been rude to leave the back cover unadorned I popped a little decoration on there as well.....

Then I gave both covers a thin coat of white gesso and I wasn't precise with application just very roughly brushed it on. However try not to let the gesso pool around the die cuts too much or you will loose some of the texture. Next I brushed over with a very watery coat of brown aquatint; made from mixing a little of the red and green from the bright and beautiful set together. Now my secret weapon when I'm doing this type of thing is a baby wipe! After I've applied the colour I use it to soften the blend and remove areas of colour if needed.

I know it doesn't look terribly pretty at the moment but hey it's just the start! So lets get some more colour on and accentuate the texture by adding some shadows. Using the teal and the red colours from the bright and beautiful I mixed up a blue/purple colour and started to add some shadows around the edges and in between the die cuts.... 

Then it was just a case of building up more colour, even dribbling colour down in areas....was going for a shabby, distressed, vintage look so I really wasn't too precise! Mind you, you've probably noticed that!!

Also started to add colour to the greenery, wasn't bothering with the cogs etc because I was planning on getting the gilding wax on those......

Now gilding wax; I've used the Empire Gold and Antique Gold from Pebeo and if you haven't used this before......less really is more with this wonderful stuff! You really don't use or need a lot so go sparingly! Its far better to build it up slowly :) So I took it over the cogs and lightly over the leaves which highlights the embossed veining nicely which hopefully you can see in this picture..... 

Next I took some of the Pebeo gilding paste (the one in the little tube) and used it to outline some of the leaves then once the paste had gone clear it was ready for some gold foil. To finish off I stamped some wording (from the Time Traveller range) and then re attached the covers onto the spiral binding. A fun little project using a few simple techniques but creating a pretty (well I hope you think so) book. 

Thanks for stopping by

Donna x

A little tutorial.......

...I've had loads of people asking for instructions on how to make the wired flowers that they've seen me make using some of Sheena's dies. I put a tutorial on a few months ago for the Sweet Pea but I'm going to try and do one a week (she swallows hard and crosses her fingers......which makes typing hard!), so thought I'd start with the orchid.  I've used the 'Graceful Orchid' die which is from Sheena Douglass's Perfect Partner range, there is a matching stamp that goes alongside it but I haven't actually used the stamp here.  So this is what we're going to be making ..........

So lets start at the beginning as well as your die cuts, you're going to need 26 or 28 gauge covered florists wire and some Stemtex, which is the paper stem tape that is used by many florists. It is a tape which as you stretch it slightly whilst winding it down the wires will stick to itself. It comes in a variety of colours, the one I'm using here is Moss Green.

Now when you're going to wire one of these it's a slightly different method of assembling than when you're putting together an unwired one. The main difference is you will be using two sets of petals because you will be sandwiching the wire between them, thus giving you the ability to bend the petals into whatever form you want.

This is what you're going to need to cut for one flower, oh and no fancy paper or card here just plain and simple copy paper. Not only is this cheap but is also perfect for the job (I usually use 80 or 100gsm, whatever the local supermarket has at the cheapest!), anyway as I said here is what you will need to cut......

...as you can see you will have two sets of petals, one throat (the slightly fancy oval shape) and two middles (the long pointy bit). Now to colour them I'm using AquaTints (Beautiful Grunge set) but you could use any wet colouring product. I say wet because you'll want to get the petals wet in order to enable you to shape them and so you might as wet colour and wet them in one! Oh and in case you've not done any of this before wetting and shaping the copy paper 'messes' the fibres up and so when it dries it really is remarkably sturdy!

Now I would suggest that you Google whatever flower you are going to make, to get an idea of colouring. That doesn't mean you have to try and paint it as an exact match but it will give you an idea of where to put the colours and also an idea of how the flower 'goes together' in nature. Right so now it's time to put this baby together. Working while the paper is still damp (be careful because it's more fragile but it's more easy to work this way) start by taking one of the middles, apply tacky glue (any fast grab, dries clear glue) and then lay a piece of wire down the middle as shown.....

Now lay your other matching piece down on top and press together to make sure it's well stuck.....

Now bend the wired middle into a gentle curve. Next take the throat piece and first of all cut into the petal as shown.....

Cutting into it just helps to achieve the correct shaping.  Now using a ball ended modelling tool or even the end of a fat rounded paintbrush handle shape the throat so the sides curve up and the frilly front bit of the throat hangs down. The photo's below show you the shape you're aiming for......

Now you need to join your middle and throat together which because of how you've shaped it is a very simple thing to do.  Take your middle and apply a little tacky glue to the top as shown....

...then wrap your throat piece around it as shown below (hold for a few seconds to allow the glue to grab).....

....and from the front it will look like this......

Now you might notice two lines of white glue in the middle.....well orchids tend to have two raised lines running down the centre of the throat. So if you have any flowersoft or as I have used here a product called Sugartex Pollen (it's an edible product used in cake decorating but perfect for the job here!) add a couple of lines of glue as shown and then sprinkle on your 'pollen' and you will have something like this.....

So now for the petals. First of all you're going to need to cut them into separate petals because we're going to wire them as individuals not groups. Can I give you a word of advice.......try to keep them together in groups so you know which petal goes with which! They are all slightly different shapes so it'll make life easier if you do!!

Okay so this next step you're going to do with all five petals. It's basically the same process you did with the middle. Take a matching pair of petals, apply glue to one of them then lay your wire down on top as shown (note the wire goes almost the full length of the petal)....

Then lay the other petal on top, sandwiching the wire.....

Shape slightly by lightly curving the edges and then bend the wired petal as shown below. Repeat with the four remaining petals.

Still with me? Sorry for all the photos but I wanted to make it as clear as possible! It's not as long winded as it might seem its actually quite quick to put one together. Just want to give you a couple of tips about using stemtex before we go any further, firstly I would suggest you cut the tape down the middle to reduce the width. It makes it less bulky when you have multiple stems to tape and also makes it go further ;) Also as you wind the tape stretch it down slightly at an angle as shown below, the stretching makes it stick and pulling it down at an angle keeps it neat.

Right so lets get this flower wired up; start by taking the set of two petals place them side by side and using a piece of the stemtex you're going to tape them together......

Now take the remaining three petals, position as shown and tape together.....

Now slide the throat section we made earlier into place (slide it up between the base two petals and pull in tight) and tape again to secure..........and voila........you have a wired orchid :)

To make a stem of orchids simply make more than one and then tape them together to form your stem. Here's a couple more pics of another stem in a different colour........

Well hope that's been helpful! Will be back with a rose tutorial next week :)

Thanks for stopping by

Donna x

Crafters Companion 11th Birthday Week Blog Hop

Yay! Who doesn't love a birthday party!! Crafter's Companion are celebrating their 11th Birthday there's lots of information and fun going on on their special Birthday Facebook page, why not pop over and join in the chatter  and they've organised a fun 'pass the parcel' blog hop as part of the celebrations as well.

The blog hop starts today and finishes on 30th October at 9pm; you can hop and comment as and when you like but as this is a Birthday blog hop there have to be pressies......wouldn't be a birthday without pressies.......so each day Crafters Companion will announce 'where the music stops' and you will have a certain amount of time to pop over to that blog and leave a comment. Then a winner will be picked from all those who have commented within the set time frame and they will win the actual item that has been created by that particular blogger.

The projects everyone has created for this blog hop feature products launched during the birthday week, details of all the products, tv show times etc can be found in this e-brochure.

I've used Sheena's fabulous new Time Traveller collection which is part of her Perfect Partner range, this launches on Monday 24th and if you like Steampunk then you are going to love this collection!! I've used it to create this 8" mixed media calendar canvas......

I intended to do a step by step with photo's but I was bad and got so carried away making it that I forgot to take most of the photos! So I'll just talk you through........hope that's okay!! 

I started off by laying die cut pieces onto the canvas to get an idea of composition and taking a photo (yes actually took one of this stage!), I'll often do this, it's an easy way of remembering a layout....

Then I glued everything in place, apart from the propeller flowers, the dragonfly and the calendar, using tacky glue. You need to make sure all your background bits are well glued down, don't worry if a bit of glue shows because you're going to gesso over the whole thing. Once everything is glued add some areas of sand texture gel in areas around the canvas and set aside to dry.  After a few hours the glue and texture paste should be dry and you can coat the whole canvas with a layer of white gesso. the reason you need to paint with gesso is that it helps to seal everything but more importantly it unifies the surface meaning that when you add the colour it will react in the same way all over the canvas.

Whilst the gesso is drying you can get the propeller flowers and dragonfly ready. (NOTE: Dragonfly is not part of the time traveller collection its from an earlier collection but I adapted it with parts of the collection to create a mechanical dragonfly) So first off give all the parts a quick coat of gesso and add a few tiny areas of texture gel and dry with a heat gun. Then using the red and green AquaTint from the bright and beautiful set mix up a rusty brown and roughly paint splodges of colour on......

Next using the teal colour from the same set paint the remaining areas.....

Give them a quick dry with a heat gun and then add a little pebeo gilding wax, King Gold and Antique Gold. I also added a few areas of clear sparkle pen, now you need to be light handed with this, just a few tiny areas.....less really is more in this case. A few spots just give the appearance of metal shining through too much and you lose the look. Then all you need to do is glue all the bits together to make your flowers.....

The background canvas should now be dry so using the same mix of red and green, paint over the whole canvas. Keep the colour very pale and use a baby wipe to help blend and wipe away areas of colour that look too strong. Use some gilding wax to highlight the cogs and texture paste, then catch the edges and some of the texture with some black permanent ink using a bit of cut n dry foam. Once you're happy with the background you can glue your flowers, dragonfly and calendar in place.  I then added some stamped sentiments from the collection and because you can never have too many cogs (well that's my excuse) a few more cogs but this time cut from black card and coloured with gilding wax.

Hope you like it :) Don't forget to check out all the other blogs and remember when the music stops there's a prize up for grabs!! Here are all the other blogs on the hop.......

1 Crafters Companion

2 Linda

3 Bianca

4 Angela

5 Donna - ME :) You're here!

6 Rach

7 Loti

8 Mel Jess

9 Marie Jones

Have fun everyone :)

Thanks for stopping by

Donna xx

New Embossing Folders....

.....and my turn to do the 'Inspiration Post' from the Inkoids. Sheena has some great new embossing folders launching on Hochanda this coming Saturday 3rd September......launching on my birthday, wonder if that's a good sign?! lol!

Now these folders, 8 in the set, are actually part of the Day of the Dead range but they are all so versatile that they could be used for just about any occasion.  So thought I'd share a card using two of the folders together and teamed with the ivy die from last years Perfect Partner collection.

So lets have a quick run through as to how this was made :) So I started with a piece of black card and then roughly dry brushed on some Dyna paint; the colours I used were 351 Silver, 356 Violet/Blue, 358 Green/Blue and 350 Blue/Black. If you're going to do this technique then at this stage make sure you don't apply the paint too thickly or you'll never be able to sand it back! So once I'd put the paint on this is what I had (told you it was roughly applied!)

Next step was to emboss it using the folders, firstly I used the 'Castle on the Water' folder .....

Then I used the 'Storm Brewing' folder but when I put it through the machine (I use the Big Shot) I only embossed the top part, the clouds and lightening, so as not to over emboss the castle...

Once its embossed take a sanding block and sand back to reveal the black card. I've used a 300 gsm black card (Crafters Companion Matt Black Card) but if you're losing a lighter weight then just be a little careful.  Once sanded you should have something like this...

Then with some black gesso and some white gesso add some highlights and shadows to add more definition and shape.......

Mount this onto a silver miri mat, then a black one before attaching to a white card blank.  I cut and embossed three bits of the ivy and lightly applied some silver gilding wax before gluing in place with some 3d glue gel.  To finish off I used the pebeo gilding paste to thinly add some accents to the edges of the castle, the lightening and the edgers of the waves then once it had gone tacky I added some silver foiling.

Hope you like the card :) Sam will be putting another 'Inspiration Post' up on Monday, so don't forget to check it out if you get a chance. 

Thanks for stopping by

Donna xx

Shows, Christmas and some canvas fun!!

Guess what I'm going to hit you with...... a bit more Christmas! Sheena has a couple of shows this Saturday at 2pm and 6pm on Hochanda and she's got some of last years Christmas Perfect Partner stamps and dies on.  They were such a lovely collection and it's always fun to revisit an old friend :)

Was watching some Pebeo shows the other day and it reminded me of some paints that I first used over a couple of years ago when Sheena brought them to air along with a collection of flower stamps...Pebeo Prisme Paint, it's a wonderful paint that splits and creates great patterns as it dries all on its own, no effort required!! So out came the Prisme, the good old favourite Dyna paints, some Pebeo foil and  of course the Pebeo Gilding Wax and at the end of a the afternoon I had this Christmas canvas......

So let me give you a brief breakdown of what I did.  I started off by painting an 8" x 12" canvas with black gesso, then I made myself a spruce stencil by using the Spruce die to cut a shape from a piece of card. Then using a bit of sponge I applied some Dyna paint, I used the Green/Yellow and the Green/Blue colours.

 
For those of you who haven't used Dyna paints before they are thick acrylic paints packed with interference mica so will show different colours depending on the colour of the background they are painted onto and as they are moved. Once I'd finished stencilling on the spruce I then sponged a little extra colour around just to soften the look slightly. Then I die cut some baubles from some ordinary card and from some old corrugated cardboard and ripped a bit of the surface away to show some of the corrugations.  You can see the effect in the picture below where I was placing things just to get an idea of composition.....

The corrugated baubles I painted with black gesso, then dry brushed some dyna paint on.  Once it was dry I then lightly applied some silver gilding wax and glued them in place on the canvas.  The ordinary card ones I also stuck in place but I outlined those with the gilding paste and then filled them with the Prisme  paint......just use a pipette and drop a little paint on and let it spread up to your raised line of gilding paste.

I also dropped a few dots of the Prisme paint randomly over the canvas and also splattered a bit of silver paint from a Pebeo paint pen. I used the gilding paste as well to 'pipe' the strings for the baubles.  Once the gilding paste had gone clear I applied some silver foil.....NOTE that if your Prisme paint is still tacky when you do this the foil will also stick to that as well. So if you don't want that just be careful. I let it happen because I liked the effect......

 

I finished it off by stamping and heat embossing a few festive words. This was such a lot of fun to create, love playing with lots of different paints! If you've never had a go then why not have a play yourself......trust me you'll be back to being a kid again with painty fingers!! :):)

Don't forget to tune in and watch Sheena, there will be lots of cool samples to see from the team :)

Thanks for stopping by
Donna xx