A Trip To HobbyCraft

Whilst our hubbies were away having fun, my Mum took me for a little shopping trip to HobbyCraft... well, while the men are away, the ladies will make them pay *lol*
I specifically wanted chipboard...
"Do you have any chipboard" I asked an assistant who was milling around.
"Ummm....." he replied
I asked again: "12 by 12 chipboard perhaps - for making mini albums and scrapbooking?"
"Ummm...." he replied.
"It's like layered paper - very popular these days... Docrafts - Papermania - sell mini chipboard albums... any inkling yet?" I was trying to be helpful.
"Ummm..." he replied - his eyes becoming a little glazed as he looked around, avoiding my gaze, and trying to figure out how to escape this mad woman who wanted an alien and rare material ...
"Look, it's like cardboard, it comes in 12 by 12 sheets - sometimes white and sometimes what the manufacturers call 'bare'... do you have any in stock do you think?" I was being polite and not too frightening - honest!
"Ummm..." he replied. Then (astonishingly) added "No". He sounded sure. "Definitely not" he said.
"You don't stock it at all?" I asked.
"Nope" was his almost grunt-like reply. "We don't sell chipboard". He said 'chipboard' like it was a foreign word that tasted funny in his mouth... like he'd never heard of it before!
"Oh, well... never mind. Thank you anyway" I sighed dejectedly.

I walked around the corner of the aisle, looked up... and saw 12x12 chipboard! I grabbed it like it was pure gold ... I may have even been muttering such words ike "My precious" as I stroked the packaging with a mad glint in my eye.

"Hmph!" I thought... loudly *lol* "Hold on a minute, Mum" I said to my poor mum, trying to keep up with the insane thing her daughter had suddenly become "I'm just going to find that rather helpful assistant" (I don't do sarcasm all that well).

I strode up in front of the young man, held aloft my precious... uh, I mean I sort of shoved the chipboard in front of his face, and declared for the whole shop to hear "LOOK!"
The poor assistant (who thought he'd shaken me off some minutes beforehand and was now rooted to the spot in sheer terror) stood dumbfounded and mute as I shook my treasured (and as yet unpaid for) chipboard around in front of him and cried "THIS is chipboard. You actually DO sell the stuff... papercrafts aisle - for your future reference". I beamed him a huge smile, turned my heels and waltzed off mumbling something under my breath about how I should be paid to be there instead of useless six foot tall teenage boys.
I then made the mistake of looking around to see if the message had hit home... and saw him giving me such a withering and hateful look that I just wanted to hide. Oops... take note ladies... this is your first lesson in how to really annoy HobbyCraft staff and risk being barred from the only such shop in your area :D

Another Mini-House

I've been a bit blue lately... Hubby went abroad with my Dad for a week and I really missed him! I sat around the house moping, and didn't even look at scrapbook paper (shock, horror!).

Anyway, before he went away on holiday I finished making a little Christmas House based on the BirdHouse Mini I had made following Laura's instructions. The Christmas House is a lot smaller, and the album/book inside is a lot different.

Everything was made with paper except for the little robin on the back window sill (that was an old Christmas Cake decoration from when I was a little girl). The slipping snow on the roof is made from white paper, inked and then glazed. I overdid the glaze in some areas so that it would drip and look like it was melting snow.

Even the door had a little wreath and a letter box that opened. Of course, everything was stickled :)

The snowman was papier mache - quite a difficult task, as he is only about an inch and a quarter tall!

The tree took me hours! It's made from about 400 little punched leaves all glued to cardboard 'skirts' glued around a tube of cardboard. I thought it would be so frustrating making this... but it was so therapuetic!

More about the birdhouse mini...

Following on from my previous post (of a slightly inebriated blogger *lol*), I thought I'd add a few details about the birdhouse mini I made.

The outer papers are all MME, and the inner pages are made with double-sided heavy-duty papers from Prima.

The fake hole in the front of the birdhouse was made using inks rather than black cardstock, as I wanted to make a 'hole' that looked slightly more real - so I inked heavily in the centre of some card with Black Soot Ranger ink, and then used tissue to blend it outwards. I used wooden pegs for the feet - cut off and painted, I thought they looked so sweet and fitted in perfectly!

The lttle brown bird was bought really cheaply, but had gold wings attached and these just had to go! I padded out the wings and tail with feathers from my budgie to replace to gold sequin-like wings I had ripped off (that sounds so cruel!). I didn't pluck out the feathers from my budgie, I might add rather quickly here *lol*... they were picked up and saved from when he was shedding naturally :)

Just a quick reminder that the original design by Laura Denison is found here.

I chose to make my birdhouse a bit more plain than Laura's - but that's what is so great about her designs - they are so adaptable. I'm thinking of making several of these - from a wedding chapel to a tool shed - but it could take me a while :)

Still Here!

I have been so busy lately! I haven't done any layouts lately... but I have completed the utterly adorable and gorgeous Birdhouse Mini from Following The Paper Trail (Laura Denison). It is GORGEOUS!

Of course I adapted the design of Lauras to suit my own tastes - but she is sheer genius to think up something like this. The only slight problem I have at the moment is CallieCat thinking the bird is there for her enjoyment only, and she keeps trying to eat the poor thing.

I made all the ivy leaves myself - all hand cut individually and gesso'ed and gel-penned to within an inch of their lives *lol*.

Anyways... I'm shattered right now, as I've been out all evenng celebrating my babygurls' 21st birthday (gin should be banned for over 40's *lol*) so I'll sign off, get perfectly sobered (#1 son making me black coffee as I type *lol*), and try posting again later.

Summer Of 94

I sorted through a few of my photographs, and chose five to do layouts with - and I finally finished the first one. The photograph was taken at the New Forest in 1994, and is of my eldest child - my son. He's just been made liaison officer for a writers club - so I'm quite proud and puffed-up at the moment.

I used My Minds Eye papers throughout - using a few scraps along the way for photo matting and the corner detail. The Perfect Pearls was a bargain from my local craft supplier at just over £1, and is Emerald Green. I decided with this layout not to pick the colours of what my son wore that day to reflect in the paper choices, but to use the pale browns, bright greens and grey colours of the background of the photograph instead. I thought this might make the photograph stand out more, so I could be less 'flouncy' and feminine with my embellishments, and let the photo be the main focus of what I hoped would be a more masculine-feeling layout.

As you can see, all those pretty flowers I had made are sat in pots, still waiting to be used *lol*

Lastly... yep, more flowers :)

I finished the centres of the last flowers last night, deciding to make some mini-scrunchy-roses for the centres. I think these look a little like fancy dog roses...

I used the 'Flower W/Centres' sizzix die in my faithful little sidekick, and inked up five layers for each bloom - bottom two layers in 'Antique Linen', then two layers in 'Weathered Wood', and the top layer in 'Tattered Rose'. Then I scrunched 'em all up, followed by a careful unravelling of them all. Not really a good idea for people with rheumatoid arthritis *lol*

Next step was to twist each petal of every bloom very carefully (I use long-nosed tweezers), as the inking had made the petals slightly damp-ish, and then I set Razzer onto them... drying them all throroughly.

From here, it's just a matter of layering them up and then making the little scrunchy-roses for the centres. These were made by inking up old book paper (I used the Ranger Distress Ink again in 'Antique Linen'), and punching out 1.5cm flower shapes. Layering up five flowers to make one rose, and scrunching up each layer over a small brad used to hold the flowers in place, followed by a blast from Razzer - I tend to use the heat gun on these little blighters until I can smell burning - I like this tatty aged look it can give.

Wait for the roses to cool, and then loosen them a little with your fingertips (or any tool you like to use). Last job with these mini-menaces *lol* is to just ink up the edges to match the colour scheme you'll be using them with. I chose 'Weathered Wood' for the centres of my dog roses.

I really liked the soft colours on these, and am looking forward to creating a layout for them to appear on soon :)

Roses (yes, more paper flowers)

These are more of the flowers I made yesterday - the glue is still wet, as you may notice in the photographs... but I never claimed to be a patient person :) I wanted a damask-like rose to use on a scrapbook page, so it had to be flat enough to use on a layout, but still look 'flouncy' enough too.

I used two dies (Sizzix Flower Layers, die #1 - Flower w/centre, and die Flower Layer #3), cut them from the pages of a book I use specifucally to tear up, and Cosmic Shimmers 'Plum Pudding' and Vibrant Violet'.

I used two of each flower to make the rose. First, the bottom (larger) flowers were die cut, spritzed, then scrunched up and carefully unfolded.  Then I used a cocktail stick to roll up the edges before blasting them with Razzer.

I used the Plum Pudding Cosmic shimmer for these bottom two layers, and a mix of the Plum Pudding and Vibrant Violet for the next two layers of the smaller flower. The smaller flowers weren't scrunched, but had the same process of a cocktail stick used to curl the petals on them, and dried with a heat gun.

Next it was simply a matter of layering them up. I always use Scotch Quick-Dry Adhesive - just my personal preference when sticking paper to paper... I think it has excellent hold, and it does dry clear as well as being photo safe and acid free.  Each layer was slightly off-set to the one below, making a nice layered effect.

I made my own tiny roses for the centres - using a six-petal round flower punch - each flower measured 1.5cms, and three layers were used, plus a 2-petal cut-off for the centre of each rose. Tutorials for these paper roses are widely found through the internet - youtube has many examples.  I also made some mini-scrunchy-roses using the same 1.5cm punch, and decided that when I make these Damask-like roses again, I'd definitely prefer the scrunchy centres, as they fit the look much better. All the mini-roses were coloured with the Plum Pudding Cosmic Shimmer Spray.

Well that's about it... though I do have one more type of flower to finish which I will blog whenever I decide what the centres will be :)

Just one more little extra thing though... this was layered up using leftover flowers, and I loved the colour combination using the Plum Pudding mixed with Vibrant Violet, and another flower that had been spritzed with Mango Blaze but had also managed to pick up a little Lava Red from some paper. Anyway, I loved the final flower (5 layers), with an added centre of the scrunchy rose.