KaiserCraft Drawers Finished

I decided before decorating these drawers, that they would be for my youngest daughter Beth - a little gift because she's worked so hard at college. The trouble is that her tastes are somewhat eclectic... she's into naval/sea themes, shabby-chic, vintage, old maps, steam punk, market, british, quirky and grunge... sometimes all at once at sometimes not at the same time!

So... how do I make and decorate a little set of drawers for a young lady with a huge range of tastes? I started with her favourite (sometimes) colours of blue and green... and kind of made it up as I went from there.

I had in my head some sort of idea where the drawer set would look like it had been found under the sea - like treasure. For this I needed the finished product to have some sort of patina or rusty effect.

I started by painting the chipboard shelves (glued together with aliphatic resin) with a mixture of: gesso, poster paint, white glue and dye. This dries really quickly, and after an hour, I rubbed back some of the 'paint' to reveal the chipboard base. Next I rubbed 'weathered wood' distress ink onto the exposed edges. I knew that I would use silver alcohol ink for the top layer... so I needed something under that to look rusty and worn. I just sprayed the shelves lightly with cosmic shimmers - a brown and a navy. then it was a simple matter of choosing papers for the sides and the back. I sealed everything with a modpodge mixture (gloss and matt - it's all leftovers!) and whilst that was drying I made up the  three drawers. I wrapped them in plain white copy paper, and then wrapped the front and sides with paper to match to shelves. I inked the edges with the same distress ink as used before. Mod podge out again... and I had to wait until this evening to finish off, as I caught a tummy-bug!

Here's the drawers waiting for the finishing touches:

Beth loved them as they were - but I wanted something a bit more 'finished'.

I used matching brads to decorate the front of the drawers, and then went slap-happy (or is that 'smudge-happy'?) with the alcohol ink in silver. A little chipboard piece (edged in silver alcohol ink too), and some baby blue liquid pearls, and Beth's little set of drawers is all finished. She's chuffed to bits with them :) She's just lucky that there isn't a room in the house that matches the blue and silver theme except for her room... because I quite like them too :) My favourite bit is the way the ship on the side actually starts at the front on the drawer, though I am quite pleased with how the patina effect turned out - not bad for making something up as I went along *lol*

Waiting For A Photo Layout

This is a first for me... although I made my daughter a layout (in a box) with inter-changeable photographs, I've never actually designed and made a layout where you can add any photograph you like later on. As another "first", it's also about as close to a layout with whitespace as I could possibly manage. Talk about unfussy - this whole layout consists of just 11 elements. It was inspired by a stamp that I had bought very cheaply for a pound at Pickwells.

Pretty, huh?

I wish the photographs could do this layout justice - it's a beautiful bright yellow cardstock that's been inked with "Old Paper"  and "Antique Linen" Distress Inks... and I know that 'whitespace' is supposed to be a lot of... well... empty space (*lol*)... but I wanted a slightly patterned yellow paper, and didn't have any - so I added a few inked flourishes.

The scallop-edged yellow cardstock was backed with plain cardstock ... but I had no plain black, so I had to ink around the edges of another colour with "Black Soot" Distress Ink. I could have cut an aperture from the yellow cardstock - but it was so much easier to just cut out a black piece of card into an oval and stick it on. The main flourish is made up of two pieces that I printed out and then cut out leaving a white border around (took AGES!), and originally I planned to have just one or two butterflies on the right of the page... but I preferred three in the end (just can't help myself... adding bits and pieces!). Please just ignore how badly I cut things out... me and scissors are not the best of friends :)

I added another butterfly near the flourishes, really just to fill an awkward space. The bumble bee and ladybird weren't really needed - but they were so cute :)
The original idea was to have the flourish on the right - the same as the stamp... but I cut out the wrong flourish (I had printed two of them, mirror images of each other) and really couldn't be hassled to cut the other one out too, so it was all flipped around to accomodate my litle mistake :) Everything except the black oval was attached with little foam pads, and now all I have to do is choose a photograph to put into the layout.

Think I'll make a few layouts based on these design - choosing different pastel colours for the background cardstock. Pale pink and baby-blue next, I think :)

My Rosie-Posy

Callie-The-Very-Heavily-Pregnant-And-Oh-So-Annoying-Kitty cat has finally removed herself from between myself and the computer, and I can finally post my most recent layout.  Gotta forgive the kitty - she's due any day now, and is just attention-seeking and wanting lots of time with her furr-mummy (that's me! *lol*)

So... for the layout...

This started off with a set of papers I had in my stash drawer for so long, I thought I'd never use it. The faded rose-hues matched perfectly with the flowers I had made... and so it was finally opened and put to good use! The paper pack is "Rose Pink" (PK004) by 'Crafty Bitz', and I used two sheets of the papers:

Pink Roses (PA027)

and a plainer sheet with hues of peach and green (PA028)

Out came my La Blanche swirly stamp again - how would I ever craft without this? *lol*

I used Distress Inks in Tattered Rose (TIM20240), Victorian Velvet (TIM27195) and Brushed Corduroy (TIM21421) to ink up and distress the edges (and for the swirly stamping too), and I used the 'Angel Mist' Cosmic Shimmer and a couple of masks that I made on the paper too - not that it can be seen in the photograph.

The lettering is PaperMania glitter alpha chipboard (PMA355200)... but everyone knows "I don't do glitter", so I coloured them with copic markers (browns and rusts) and added a bit of distress ink too. Of course, I have to mention that beautiful, beautiful vine.

This is a "Dusty Attic" (Australian company) border vine shape (DA0459) - it's a laser cut die that you colour yourself .... and I got mine from an amazing online shop called "The Craftz Boutique" , whose customer service and online shopping experience is second-to-none.

I coloured the vine with the three distress inks I chose to co-ordinate with this layout, and then spritzed it with the Angel Mist Cosmic Shimmer Spray.  This layout was (as usual!) finished off with hand stitching... but although there's quite a bit, I really enjoyed completing this layout and trying out the different stitches.

Well, that's it from me for a while... the cat is back and mewling like she's ready to drop her kits. Poor kitty - she can't jump or even walk at the moment, she's so huge! I just wish she didn't crave my attention 24 hours a day. Waking up at 3am with a hugely pregnant cat sat on your chest and licking your face is not the most pleasant of experiences :)

Make Do And Mend

A few days ago I looked after BOTH my beautiful grandchildren for three days - I'm shattered! lol

Alistair is growing so fast - none of his babygrows fit properly... so I did what my Nan did before me - 'make do and mend' - I cut the feet off - of the babygrow, not my grandson. Alistair loved being in the garden (under the shade of a Lilac tree) with the sun shining. Lily kept checking him when he was sat in his pram, often commenting on his "nakey feet".

I seem to be going Do-Crafts crazy at the moment - I have such a lot of 'stuff' from Do-Crafts, and I'm trying to see if I can use the papers and embellishments in a style more suited to me. I've had a go at the less-fussy style (which I've really loved trying), and now I've tried making these modern-feel papers fit in with my distressed, shabby style with layered flowers and stitching. I used two Distress Inks with this project - Broken China and Wild Honey, and Tim Holtz came into play with the title too - it's the "Once Upon A Time" die cut letter strip (sizzix # 656916). My mum had a hand in this layout too - all the little 'frills' are tatting lace flowers, which my mum makes (these are her 'tries' - when she practises a new tatting loop - or when she has a little thread left over and she wants to use it up).

So here's the Do-Crafts run-down...

I started with a Creative Papercraft Kit - Baby Boy (PMA107109) and used only these papers. I liked the mix of blue with a very yellowy-orange ... it was a colour combination I hadn't thought of using, and yet I really liked the way it all went together.

The flowers all started off as simple, plain blue paper shapes from several Papermania collection: Capsule Collection ~ Blueberry Pie (PMA 3681106), and just the blue flowers from both the Henbury Lane (PMA 3621200) and Summer Bloom (PMA 3621101) petal pouches. I sprayed each petal layer with a water and gum arabic solution, then left them to dry off quite a lot. I did my usual petal twisting, and heat set each one with a heat gun. Then it was just a matter off deciding which ones to layer with which (took me quite a while - I am SO indecisive!). I brushed each finished flower quite heavily with Wild Honey distress ink - which I though matched the papers really well. I think one or two of the largest flowers are Prima E Line Mixed Vintage (item # 300258) - once again, just a couple of blue ones. The buttons are just a few chosen from  the PaperMania button collection in yellow (PMA 7162).

My Martha Stewart punch was used for just one edge along the matting and layering of the photograph - I quite liked the idea of just this one side being punched. The layers are stitched to each other and to the background paper using bright blue and yellow embroidery threads. I stitched a lot around the page - it was just too bare for me, and I thought it needed 'something'. I also stitched around Alistairs feet on the photograph to highlight his cut-up babygrow. 

Well, that's all there is for this layout... I now have a whole day to look through the photographs of my beautiful Lily and decide which ones I'm going to scrapbook... this could take a while! lol