Crafty As L

Apologies for my late blog post.   It’s been a frantic few days for our family as my sister had to rush Dad to the hospital late on Thursday night, calling me to the hospital in the early hours of Friday as he was really not in a good way.   It transpired that he had a huge gallstone and inflamed gallbladder but they were reluctant to operate.   Medical management was chosen but today it became apparent that this was not working so he had to have surgery.   He is almost 87 so this was not done lightly but the operation was successful so hopefully he’ll make a full recovery.   I needed something relaxing to do whilst he was in surgery so made today’s card. This stamp set from Colorado Craft Company’s Anita Jeram collection features a snoozing cat, which very much reminds me of Scooby, one of our tribe.   He loves a bit of “paws up” napping! As usual when I’m planning on using alcohol markers for colouring, I stamped and clear heat-embossed to start. I ...

A few weeks ago, I attended a 3-hour glass fusion workshop at Making Space , run by Elisa Dodd.   Unlike my previous fusion workshop when I made my wave , which was tack fused and textured, this panel would be heated to a higher temperature and be fully fused and smooth. The homework before the workshop was to find a scene that we wanted to make and I opted for a lighthouse and drew my design onto tracing paper. After a few scoring and cutting practices using plain glass, the proper cutting began.   I simplified my design so that I had fewer pieces to cut.  The design was built onto a piece of plain glass, under which was my tracing paper so I could attempt to follow my design.   The cutting didn’t always go according to plan though! Once the basics of the background and building were in place, it was time to play with frit and stringers.   Frit is tiny pieces of glass that can be sprinkled on.   I used it for the clouds, waves and seaweed on the rock...

The brief for my Visible Image DT post this week was to make shaped card and to use stencils.   My last post used stencils to do embossing but this time, I’m using them in their traditional role.   For the shaped card base, you can use almost any shape and layering die sets are particularly useful for this. To begin, I selected two dies for each card, one for the card base and the other for the decorative panel. I cut the heart panel and blended Wild Honey and Picked Raspberry Distress Inks through the Entwined Butterflies stencil and set it aside to dry. For the next panel, I blended Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink through the Lava stencil. The next stencil, The Cat’s Whiskers was placed over the top and Gathered Twigs Distress Ink blended through the gaps. After peeking under the stencil, the cat’s face didn’t seem to stand out enough so I went over the face using texture paste in black for the face and gold for the eyes. Once the pastes were dry, I outlined t...

A couple of weeks ago, I received the sad news that one of the Project 71 veterans had passed away.    Poppy was such a happy, vibrant character who made the most of all that life gave her.   I was her carer a few years ago on a veteran’s trip to Jersey and we had such a laugh together – memories that I will treasure. I wanted to send Poppy’s daughter a sympathy card and it had to feature a poppy, of course.   I started by stamping and clear heat embossing the sentiment and poppy, positioning it slightly off the panel. The purpose of the clear heat-embossing is so that I can colour using alcohol markers.   I also added a few scribbles with a black fineliner around the base to ground the poppy. The lovely script stamp in the set was stamped directly onto the card base. After matting the poppy panel on some green card, the panel was mounted onto the card base. I’ve recently been introduced to the Luna Lapin series of books and wanted to make myself a me...

A few weeks ago, I attended a 3D Wired Embroidery workshop taught by Ella Richards, one of the ladies from Solent Textile Group .   Ella had brought along some gorgeous examples of her work, featuring leaves, insects and fuchsia flowers which were very inspirational.   I had never done any stumpwork before so it was a baptism of fire. The idea was to make a 3D flower in the style of an evening primrose and we were set homework to complete beforehand.   I chose to make a pink and white variation and after tracing the petal and leaf outlines onto white cotton fabric, I painted the fabric using watered-down ink-pad reinkers.   The flower only has four petals but I added another to be my test petal.   The fabric was mounted into an embroidery hoop and made drum tight. The next step was to couch wire around the edge of the petals.   Couching is the term for attaching a thick decorative thread or wire onto fabric using a series of tiny stitches, sewn perpendi...