Crafty As L

Recently, I attended a workshop to make a book cover, which was run by Helen Murchie, one of the ladies from my textile group.   It was a really fun workshop and I learned loads. To begin, we painted Bondaweb with water and then acrylic paints.   As we were on a time constraint, we dried the pieces from the underside with a hairdryer, which was a very messy process.   For future makes, I would paint them and leave to air dry – a perfect project for this hot weather! After placing the Bondaweb paint-side-down onto black acrylic felt, it was covered with baking paper and then melted onto the felt with a hot iron. Once cooled, the Bondaweb backing was carefully removed, revealing the paint pattern on the felt. The next step was great fun and involved scattering threads and sequins all over the painted felt.   This was then covered with organza, covered with the baking paper and heated with the iron on a medium heat, to melt the adhesive onto the organza, sandwic...

In the Visible Image fans Facebook Group, each month, lovely Jane organises an ATC swap and gives a theme to follow.   This month’s theme is “All About Books” and gave me the perfect excuse to use a page from one of the French novels I got from a swap box whilst on holiday in France – I left them an English book! To begin, I blended Mustard Seed, Peack Feathers and Salty Ocean Distress Oxides through the A to Z stencil. I glued the ATC onto the back of the stencilled page and carefully cut around it and set it aside to dry.   From the remaining page, I tore a strip and glued it onto a 5¼” square of white card.   Once dry, I stamped and clear heat embossed some of the elements from Free Your Imagination . I wanted the book pages on top to be white so I stamped them again on a scrap of paper, fussy cut the two centre pages and glued them in place. Using the remaining scrap of the stencilled page, I stamped and clear heat embossed the sentiment.   I cut out eac...

  My friend’s daughter has just finished her degree course with First-class honours together with having her dissertation published in a journal.   What an achievement!   For her congratulations card, I used the diamond pop-up card for the base, dimensions of which can be found here . The pop-up section would be the black mortar board cap, so I chose yellow for the card base and black and white for the layers.   I die cut a book and some glasses to decorate the left triangular mat.   The right was decorated with a die cut number 1 and a degree scroll, finished with a tiny piece of ribbon.   The black cap seemed a little plain so I used the stars from Lawn Fawn’s Tiny Backdrops stamps with Versamark ink and heat set with clear embossing powder to add a little interest and texture.   To make the tassel, I wrapped some black embroidery thread around a piece of card and tied the threads together at one edge, then removed the treads from the card. ...

This card was a commission from a friend for a card for his wife.  The brief was “she likes books”.  I don’t have any stamp sets or dies featuring books and, whilst there are some available, the cost was rather high just to make one card.  My drawing skills are minimal but I figured I could draw a few books since they’re basically just rectangles so I set about sketching a doodle-style bookcase, adding a few stamps that were the appropriate size. After this sketch was approved by my friend, I started on the proper version.  I wanted to watercolour the images so drew out the shelves on watercolour paper and stamped the various images in place using Versafine Clair ink, which is waterproof. Using a waterproof fineliner, I then drew in the books. Once the drawing was complete, I pulled out my paints and spent a pleasant half hour adding some colour to the images. For the central focal panel, I had planned to use the Cricut to cut out so...