Book Box

While browsing through some blogs from Norway I came across a delightful design for a Book Box on the Papirdesign-blog which was a box made as a decoration for Easter by Monica. I contacted Monica who told me that she had learned how to make this at one of the Papirfest classes but she gave me the following link for a excellent and easy to follow tutorial.
http://whiffofjoy.blogspot.com/2011/01/book-box-tutorial-by-michele-roos.html
Thank you Monica and Michele.

It is my dear friend's birthday soon so I decided to make a card to go inside the front cover of my box and to put her present inside the box. The box is embellished with pretty papers, ribbons, charms and beads. In the center of the front cover I stamped a pretty image then embossed it with pearlescent powder. I then used the same stamp to emboss a triple layer of UTEE and final layer of the matching pearlescent powder while hot on a Formica kitchen counter sample tile and placed it exactly over the first stamp to raise the detail. Now to buy the present, something pretty, some jewelery perhaps?

Carte a Jouer #14

This fortnight's challenge over at http://carteajouer.blogspot.com/ is a theme of a keyhole and if I have understood the french it is with some sort of embossing. First I took the one-eyed Jack and masked his face with painter's low tack tape. I painted the whole card with black gesso. Covered the whole card with versamark watermark ink and gave it three layers of UTEE. When cooled down I covered it again with versamark watermark and then perfect pearls in two shades of blue. Again I heated the UTEE with my heat gun until it was liquid on the surface then quickly stamped a rubber stamp with tiny hearts into the UTEE. To help with the release of the stamp I had also covered it with versamark watermark before stamping. Finally I poked around with the tip of my scissors to find the painters tape and removed it and its coating of UTEE from the card leaving the Jack's face image showing through. Next I cut out a small piece of cardstock into the shape of a keyhole and repeated the whole process on this embellishment but used green/gold and red perfect pearls. I edged the keyhole with gold leaf pen and the background card with silver leaf pen and attached the keyhole to the card with E6000 glue. The words "One Eyed" are stickers.

Church Birdhouse, Bat Cave and Woodpecker House

So as you can see I am hooked on making birdhouses. I made the Little Country Church birdhouse with the instructions from the same book and the Little Country Cottage house. The other two were from some other books I got from the library adapted to my style. The bat house cut a piece of wood into the shape of a bat to add to the top and the woodpecker house I added bark to the outside after varnishing the box with 3 coats of polyacrylic. The books I read said that the woodpeckers like a deep box that looks like a tree and if you add some wood chips inside it will encourage them to nest in it. Well here's hoping that I get some birds to nest in my boxes, and some bats to use their cave, with the mosquitoes here in the summer they will be a definite plus.

Art n Soul Challenge - Postcard with metal element

The challenge for this month is a 6" x 4" COLLAGED POSTCARD AND YOU MUST incorporate METAL somewhere. I printed one side of a piece of cardstock with the word Postcard at the center top and 4 lines for the address down the right half. For the front I took a piece of heavier cardstock, in fact a cereal package, and rolled pink, white and lilac acrylic paint in all directions across one side. I next stamped a pattern on this in a darker purple, unfortunately this does not show through the lace that I then covered the card with. Pink and purple flowers were then hot glued onto the right hand side of the card. I cut a piece of metal tape into a lattice pattern with my cuttlebug and stuck it to the right of the flowers. I stamped and embossed the word "ADORE" onto an oval piece of cardstock and edged it with pearls and flower ribbon. The front and back pieces are then glued together. Hope my swap partner likes my contribution.

Cottage Birdhouse

I recently got a book called "Making and Painting Victorian Birdhouses" out of the local library. I am hooked!!!! I drew the templates for this little cottage on a fencing panel and my partner very kindly cut the pieces of wood for me. I nailed the box together and painted according to the pattern and roofed with 3M non-slip tape to look like roofing shingles. For my first attempt at making a birdhouse I am very pleased. Next project is a Country Church :-)

Carte a Jouer #13

Just made the background for the next challenge and I am so happy with the end effect that I had to write about the process here.
PRINCIPLE OF THE CHALLENGE: http://carteajouer.blogspot.com/

Thème : Oiseau Topic: Bird
Technique : Fond coquilles Technique: Bottom shell

I covered the playing card with white gesso and then with a roller applied random spots of glue over the surface. I broke some egg shell and rolled it over the glue until it stuck. Next I painted some brown Winsor & Newton Ink over the whole surface. The ink was absorbed at different rates into the egg shell and gave some dark patches and a variety of lighter ones. To give it some shimmer I sprayed it with "Wheatfields" Glimmer Mist which gives it an iridescent green finish, the texture is fantastic on this card. I just noticed what looks like a tiny bird on the right hand side of the card just below the middle. Now it is ready for embellishment. I stamped a bird and painted with felt brushes and covered with crackle accents so that the finish would reflect the cracked egg shells. The flowers are stamped on a separate piece of cardstock, embossed with clear powder and then painted with Lumiere paints. Again I glazed these with crackle accents. The edge of the card is finished with gold leaf pen.

Miniature Rose, at home at last.

Here in the south of Florida it is very hard to grow roses and this delightful miniature rose has been transplanted three times now trying to find a suitable place for it to thrive. Under the bird cages seems to be the place. They get shade from the fierce midday sun and plenty of water each day when I clean out the bird cages. On a still afternoon the perfume fills the air of the patio it sits alongside. Perhaps I will buy a few more to put here.

My Vegetable Garden

It's only small and grown in pots and containers because of nematodes, but it is already supplying me with tomatoes and red and green peppers. The cold weather at the beginning of January set it all back a bit but now it is doing fine. Along with the lettuce, cucumbers and eggplant (aubergine) I have a selection of herbs that includes parsley, tarragon, sage, thyme, chives, dill and cilantro, everything I need for my limited cooking repertoire. Trying to grow without the use of any pesticides so I have planted nasturtiums and marigolds around the outside of the low perimeter fence which keeps the wild rabbits at bay. I will be trying some of the green methods of pest control, I hope they work well.

Carte a Jouer #12

This fortnight's challenge was to make a shaker card with a romantic feel to it. The base of the card is made of two "6 of hearts" cards and a piece of corrugated cardboard. A window is cut in one playing card and the corrugated cardboard so that the hole is in the same place and the same size. These two pieces are then stuck together. I then stamped the image on the remaining playing card and attached it to the back of the corrugated cardboard with the image showing through the hole. Sticky tape lines the inside edges of the cut out hole to prevent the tiny pearl beads (the shaker part) from disappearing into the corrugated cardboard. See the link to Carte a Jouer to the right for a better illustration of how this is done, Isa has photos http://carteajouer.blogspot.com/. I covered the top playing card and into the hole with a single layer of a pretty paper napkin using decoupage medium. The single layer napkin shows the playing card hearts slightly through from underneath. I placed a few pearl beads in the hole and stuck a piece of clear thick plastic just larger than the hole to the front of the card. I framed the lady with four die cut corners and then gold leafed the die cuts and edges of the card.

carte a Jouer #11

Firstly let me apologize for the quality of the photo, the gold ink kept on reflecting the flash. The challenge this fortnight is to use a zip to make a rosette. Funnily enough my partner had a zip fail in his jeans this week and he threw them out so I rescued the zip, ( he said that I broke it on purpose to use in the challenge). The two separate sides of the zip I then gathered with thread and closed to form the rosette and sewed beads onto the outside of the inner zip. the center is a rose that I made from silk ribbon. I made another rosette from tape with music printed on it for the base layer. The background is painted with three colours of acrylic then stamped and edged with gold ink.