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

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

The start of something new.....

......well as you probably know I'm head of Sheena's Design Team 'The Inkoids' and a few weeks ago I had an idea.......the team get a bit worried sometimes when I come up with ideas I think!! Lol!  Anyway I thought it would be a good idea if as a team we did regular projects using Sheena's products but instead of just from the current release like we usually do these projects would be using things from her large catalogue of stamps, dies, folders etc.  So much of what Sheena designs is drawn with the idea that they will coordinate with past releases so we thought we'd like to do  some projects showing just that.......showing how all the releases mix together to form a library of creativity.....gives us a good excuse to play as well! So every Monday and Thursday one member of the Inkoids will be publishing a project on their blogs/facebook page etc.

Thought as it was my idea I better kick it all off, so I have a Christmas card to share with you today using last years Christmas Perfect Partner stamps and dies (Baubles, lights, holly), this years Booklovers Christmas stamps (background holly, wording), Man's Best Friend stamp set (the dog) from The Little Bit Sketchy range, the Rock stamps (grunge band set, background stamps) and some Pebeo Foiling.

I started off by stamping the dog from 'Man's Best Friend' using Watering Can Archival Ink onto a piece of Sheena stamping card (approx 7 1/2")......

Then using some cut 'n' dry foam and some distress inks (barn door, wild honey, twisted citron, pumice stone, hickory smoke) I blended the background keeping most of the bright colour to the top left corner where the decorations and lights were going to go. The opposite corner I kept pretty neutral just adding the merest hint of colour. I also started to add some background stamping to the coloured area using some of the stamps from 'Grunge Band' .....

I painted the dog using a mixture of Walnut Stain and Pumice Stone Distress Ink, also adding some reds and yellows to his head and chest to indicate reflected light from the decorations......

Added a few 'light spots' by doing a bit of faux bleaching......splash on a few water droplets, leave for a few seconds and then blot with some tissue. Then I stamped some holly (from Christmas Child) around the edges and some wording (from Christmas Notes). Both were stamped in Watering Can Archival and then some colour added to the holly using distress inks.......

At this point I flicked some droplets of Pebeo Gilding Liquid over the surface and put on one side for it to 'dry' (needs to go clear before you can add the foil). To make the decorations I die cut some Holly, Baubles and Lights from last years Christmas Perfect Partner range then stamped them with the corresponding stamps (except the baubles, I left them un-stamped) and coloured with Distress Inks. For the baubles I blended over distress ink and then lightly highlighted the embossed areas with gold gilding wax. To give some more shimmer I very lightly rubbed over some of the embossed areas with Pebeo Gilding Paste and once that was dry (clear) I added some gold foil highlights.  Gives the baubles a nice vintage look I think......

To finish off I added to foil to the droplets of gilding liquid I had applied earlier, layered up the panel onto first some black card and then some gold mirror card before mounting it onto an 8" white card blank.  I used 3d glue gel to attach all the die cuts, shaping them to give extra movement before sticking in place. The final touches was to use a Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle pen on the lights and some gold Stickles on the edge of some of the holly leaves.

Thanks for stopping by,

Donna xx

Had a request.....

.....for a step by step on how to put the Sweet Pea's together that are part of Sheena's Perfect Partner range. So here goes, I warn you there are lots of photo's so you might want to make yourself a cuppa and get comfy!!

So first of all here are a couple of pictures of the finished flowers used on projects, the first shows them stuck directly onto a card, with some stamping and a bit of stencilling in the background.....

 This next one they are put together in the same fashion but I inserted a wire at the beginning so I could have wired sweet peas which I then used on this MDF plaque that I put together to use as a workshop project.....

So here we go with how to do them first of all lets sort out how many and which layers you will need. The first row shows what you will need to cut and stamp (lost the calyx stamp....whoops!!) for a small/single sweet pea. The second layer shows you what you will need for a larger/double flower...

 Just a quick point before we move on, these stamp die combos's are designed to be an exact fit so although you would nut normally stamp this way by far the easiest way is to die cut your petals and then lay your cut petal onto the inked stamp and gently press with your finger. This is the same with all the Perfect Partner stamp/die sets....

Now you've got everything cut and stamped you need to colour, I've used AquaTints but any wet colouring medium would work well. I say wet because these are made from copier paper and by wetting them you are able to manipulate and shape the paper to get a more realistic look and the water and shaping messes with the fibres of the paper so when it dries it's remarkably rigid. Therefore it's easier to use a wet colouring medium.

So lets start assembling, I'm doing these as wired flowers but the method is the same for unwired.....just leave out the wire and don't make the holes! So take a piece of 26 or 28 gauge wire and form a tiny hook at the top and make a hole in the centre of the middle petal as shown....

Insert your wire and add glue as shown, then fold over the smaller petal to form the very centre of your flower. As I said if you don't want to wire just do the same thing but without the wire, also you won't want as much glue. Once folded over it will look like the second photo.... 

Now add some glue to the other petal, but only at the bottom as shown, you want it to gently hug the centre not grasp it tightly!!! ;) Gently fold over the outer edge of the outer petal as shown.......

 

That is how you will form every centre regardless of the size of flower you are making. So if you are making a smaller/single sweet pea take your centre and add the outer petals as shown. Positioning the petals either side of your centre (again if you are wiring you will need to make a hole for the wire), adding a tiny bit of glue and then gently squeezing together.  Again don't add to much glue, you only want them to be attached at the bottom or the whole flower will look too solid.

Now you need to add your calyx by simply shaping it slightly, adding a tiny bit of glue and sliding it up tight behind the flower allowing the points of the calyx to bend backwards though away from the flower....

So you have a finished sweet pea! However it's sitting straight on the wire, and sweet peas nod gently so just give the wire a slight bend immediately behind the flower and you'll get a much more realistic look.......

If you want to make a larger/double sweet pea then take your centre created just as before, take your larger petals, shape them slightly then them fold back on themselves and position as shown below.......

 To glue in place simply sandwich a little glue between the petals and then put a tiny bit either side of your centre and squeeze your petals into place.........

Then you simply add your calyx as before.  If you are making unwired flowers then you're now finished and all you need to do is stick them in place on your project. If you are wiring your flowers you will want to tape them together using a florists paper tape............

Still with me? Lol! Well hopefully you'll be able to follow the steps, they're actually pretty simple and quick to make once you get the hang of it and make such pretty additions to your projects.

Thanks for stopping by

Donna xx