'X' Marks the spot Tag

Yet another tag for the Sunday Challenge over on UK Stampers Forum. This week was the letter 'X' - marks the spot (rather than Xmas or Xylophone).

The base tag is plain black card cut to the tag shape. This was then stamped with a grid stamp from Tuscan Rose inked with Versamark ink and heat embossed with Seafoam White embossing powder.

Then a moth stamp from PaperArtsy was inked with Versamark and heat embossed with Chinese Red EP on the same black card before cutting out the moth. The letter X was a chipboard letter which was inked with Versamark and double heat embossed with Red Sparkle EP.



The leaves (PaperArtsy) were inked with Versamagic Chalk Inks in three shades of green (Sage, Aloe Vera & Tea Leaves) in the bottom left of the tag. The top of the card was stamped with a cloud of sky stamp inked with two shades of blue (Aegean Blue & Sea Breeze) Versamagic Chalk Ink.

The words were stamped with a set of alphas in blazing Red Stazon on a strip of pale green card.

The tag was assembled with the moth on foam pads on the leaves, the X with and the word strip with Glossy Accents. A hole was cut and a blue eyelet applied with the crop-a-dile and some woven silk fibres tied through. The path of the moth to the leaves from the X was hand drawn in dotted line with a white Sakura souffle pen. The tag was edged with Versamagic perfect plumeria chalk ink.

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Crafty Class - 'Ohh Little Bird ! '

My friend and great source of inspiration Gail Milburn (Gails Blog) has, out of the goodness of her heart been very kind to me !

I was taken by a fabric bird that she did in the style of Jenni Horne in an article in the Summer 2009 edition of Sew Somerset inspired by an original by Betz White.

It's a long time since I did any hand sewing even though I only used blanket stitch on this one, but Gail sent me a piece of driftwood that she had collected from the beach (to use as a perch for my birdy), the patterns for the body pieces, the florists wire, the fabric (calico in this case) and the polyester fibre filling ! In fact everything I needed to make one. I had no choice really, did I?

So I set about making my little bird. I have set out my instructions in a class and the steps clearly show how you too could easily make one and call it your own by personalising it in your own unique style.

Class Instructions

You will need the following Materials:

• Bird Pattern (Click to request copy via email)
• Florists Wire
• Polyester Wadding
• Plain Calico
• Driftwood or Wood Dowel
• White Gesso
• Stazon Inkpad (Jet Black)
• Rubber Stamps
• Fabric Paints (Stewart Gill)
• Thread (Metallic Gutermann)
• Sewing Needle
• Decorative Brads
• Sequins (Gutermann)
• Stickles Glitter Glue
• Any Other Decorative Elements
  you want to use

Step 1

First take the template (Request by email) , which has all the parts to make your birdy
which consists of 2 body sides, one throat piece & 2 wings. Cut out the pieces on the template (they are actual size) and pin them to a piece of plain calico. Use a sharp pair of scissors to carefully cut out the pieces then remove the pins and save the pattern pieces for further use. If the cut calico frays a little, don't worry ........ once painted this will stop any further fraying and you can then trim them along the edges to make them as neat as possible.

The cut out calico pieces

The calico pieces then need a liberal coat of white gesso applied with a brush. The wings need it
on both sides. This primes the calico ready to take the stamping and paint and
also resists excessive fraying of the calico.

Step 2

When the gesso is dry take your selected stamps and using the Stazon jet black inkpad stamp the calico as desired. I used a selection of stamps from the ones shown. The finished stamped calico pieces are then shown.

The stamps I used.

The stamped pieces.

Next paint the stamped calico in any colours of fabric paint that take your fancy. I used a selection of Stewart Gill paint, both metallic and transparent to colour my calico. I used Pearlise and Metallica colours to do my thing ! Most fabric paints can be heat set, but I didn't do this (only necessary if you are going to be washing)

The painted pieces

Step 3

Next step is to attach the wings. I used two red metallic swirly brads through the wings and the body pieces bending over the legs of the brad on the inside to secure. I also added the teardrop crystal brads for the little fellas eyes at this stage. Once done, I then took some purple sequins and sewed these in place over some of the stamped circles on the breast body piece.

The pic shows one completed body piece and the breast body piece complete with
sewn on sequins.

Step 4

Next we need to sew all of the body pieces together leaving a small gap through which we will stuff the birdie with the polyester wadding. I sewed the back first using two strands with blanket stitch and the turquoise metallic thread.

My sewing is not perfect but with the metallic thread I don't
think it needs to be perfect

Here's another closer shot of the sewing.

Then I sewed in the breast piece taking care to position the throat correctly so the bird was not unbalanced.

This pic shows the back and breast piece sewn in.

This shows detail of the sewing of the breast piece.

The rest of the sewing was then completed, leaving a gap at the birds bottom end to allow me to stuff it with the polyester wadding. I did this with a ball tool until the bird was firmly filled and had shape. The final bit of sewing was then done to close the hole through which the stuffing had been done.

This pic shows the wadding ready to be stuffed

This pic shows the stuffed bird which has gained a nice plump shape !

Step 5

At this stage it's best to add any other embellishments that you desire. I just added some dots of Stickles glitter glue to outline the flowers, wings and flower centres. You could add faux gems, metal charms for example.

This pic shows the dots of Stickles I added.

Once these have dried it's time to add his beak and legs.

Step 6

Take a small length of your florists wire and simply bend into a U or V shape with your fingers or craft pliers. Cut off this shape from the wire with wire cutters and simply push into the bird between the stitches in an appropriate spot where the beak would be. The wire will stay in place as it is embedded in the wadding inside.

This pic shows the beak made of bent florists wire ready to be
cut off.

This pic shows the beak pushed into place in the wadding.

The legs are made by taking another suitable length of florists wire and bending it with the pliers into a V at right angles to the legs. This is then simply pushed through the calico of the breast piece, threaded through to the other side and pushed out again through the calico. Take care not to deform the V shape when you do this as the V acts as a stabiliser and stops your birdie flopping backwards or forwards. This is a bit fiddly but experiment until you are happy. The calico is very forgiving if you have to try it a few times before you are happy but only make one pair of holes to avoid damaging your little bird..

This pic shows the V with the legs ready to be threaded through
the breast piece of the bird.

This pic shows the legs threaded through the breast piece of
the bird.

Step 7

Finally we need to make the perch and attach the bird to the perch. Take your piece of driftwood or a piece of dowel cut to approx. 5 inches. Wind the ends of the birds legs around the central area of the wood tightly and cut off any excess wire with wire cutters. Then take another two pieces of florists wire and wind round the very ends of the wood to make the swing for the perch on which your little bird is sitting. This needs a bit of trial and error to get right but you will end up with your little bird firmly attached to a perch on a swing.

Well that completes the class. Remember you need to make it your own by using your own colours and embellishments. As you can see there are endless possibilities and variations that you could achieve, but whatever you do enjoy making one of your own. Hope you have found the
tutorial enjoyable and if you have been inspired I would love to see what you do
make.

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'Swirls' Twinchies

Here are a set of twinchies done for a swap on UK Stampers Forum. The theme this month is swirls.

I used a single swirl stamp from The Artistic Stamper and black card for the base. I inked the stamp with Versamark ink and stamped randomly on a 6 x 4 inch piece of black card. I then first heat embossed with a gold opalescent Pearlustre embossing powder. I then stamped again with the same stamp over the original embossed images and used violet ep this second time and finally did the same again with blue ep. This layered up the ep's over each other and left bits of the black card showing through in places.

I then edged all these spaces with a white opaque pigment pen. The card was trimmed into six 2 inch squares and these were edged with purple chalk ink.

This close up shows a little bit of the detail and I liked the layered look I achieved.

Sid xx

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Foliage Inchies

Here are my inchies for this months swap whose theme is 'Foliage'. I have used part of a fern image from PaperArtsy. I stamped in Versmark and heat embossed with three different shades of green embossing powder.

The background colours are whispers dye inks applied with cut'n'dry foam. I have also infilled with See D's morsels leaf stamps in the same dye inks.

The inchies have been edged with Krylon gold pen.

Sid xx

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'S' is for Spooky Tag

Here is my tag for this weeks challenge over on UK Stampers Forum. This weeks theme was 'S' is for Spooky. Wanted to create a dark and bleak effect on this one.

I began with a dark brown card trimmed to size. I first used a stamp of a bare tree (PaperArtsy) and inked the stamp with Versamark ink and heat embossed with detail silver embossing powder. I then used a cloud stamp (A Stamp in the Hand) and inked this with Brilliance moonlight black ink and stamped the cloud background. The moon (A Stamp in the Hand) was stamped in Brilliance moonlight white in a gap in the clouds.

The bird stamp (PaperArtsy) was next inked with black Stazon and stamped onto white shrink plastic 3 times, and trimmed and shrunk with the heat gun. The stamp was then inked with Versafine onyx black and stamped along the bottom of the tag. I used a Stewart Gill Artaglio stamp inked with Brilliance starlight silver to fill in the gap under the words.

The chipboard letter S was coated in Versamark and heat embossed twice with Marcasite embossing powder. The tag was then assembled by sticking the shrunk birds on the tree as shown with Glossy Accents. The chipboard letter S was stuck in place followed by some K&Co black letters (mounted on foam pads) to spell out 'Spooky'. The whole tag was edged with Brilliance graphite black. A black eyelet was applied with the crop'a'dile and 4 short lengths of silver metallic cord were tied through the hole.

Sid xx

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Clowns - Love 'em or hate 'em

Circus Clowns are one of those weird things that you either love or hate. Most of us have childhood memories of the circus and my own memories (being brought up as a kid in Blackpool & The Tower Circus) were that I was petrified of them. They always managed to put the fear of God in me for whatever reason.

With that in mind I recently bought a set of 'build a clown' acrylic stamps (Basic Grey) and as part of my monthly swap with Diane over in the USA we decided to do a Triptych ATC this month, hence the inspiration for this one.

I started off with pale blue base card and cut two ATC sized pieces. I then cut the arch shape freehand across both bases and cut the top ATC in half lengthwise to make the 'doors'. The front panels were made from a background I had made previously with mica sprays. I used a polka dot stamp from Tanda to stamp the dots on the fronts and the insides in vintage sepia Versafine ink. The flowers on the bottom of the fronts was a border stamp (?) inked first with black cherry Stazon ink. The clown stamps were inked with onyx black Versafine and the clown was built. The words were stamped similarly on the inside right 'door'.

I then used Nick Bantock inks in cerulean blue, prussian blue and damson plum applied with cut'n'dry foam to colour the inside of the card. The clown itself was coloured with Copics and a flower stamp was inked with prussian blue and stamped around the clown.

Next the hardware was added. I used two brass hinges and attached the doors with eyelets applied with the crop-a-dile. The door knobs are two brass effect brads.

Final touches were added with Stickles glitter glue in crystal and diamond.

Hope that Diane likes my little Triptych (even though she might hate clowns !).

Sid xx

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Upcycled Packaging - Cottonwool Bud Container !!

Everyday we dispose of endless amounts of waste packaging. Everything from food cans, cereal boxes, plastic meat containers to clothing tags. Why not just look in the bin for inspiration. I challenged members of UK Stampers forum to alter a piece /or pieces of packaging of any type and turn it/them into a piece of art.

I chose a Johnson & Johnson cottonwool bud container which had a cardboard base and a polythene lid as my piece of art, and here it is.



The body of the container was first gessoed (I applied a couple of coats), and allowed to dry. I used Whispers dye inks in orange and red applied with cut'n'dry foam to the bottom half of the container. I masked this with a Tim Holtz mask of a fence and applied more red ink over this until it looked ok. I used green dye ink to colour the top half of the container by the same method. When happy I sprayed the base with cheap hair laquer to seal the dye inks onto the gesso.

A striped self adhesive ribbon (DCWV) was applied to cover the join between the two colourways. Next a very small dragonfly stamp was inked in black Stazon and stamped along the sides above and below the ribbon in a random fashion. When the ink was dry some pink Stickles glitter glue was applied over each dragonfly image and allowed to dry.

Next I made the flower embellishments. I used die-cut flowers from mulberry paper in green, blue, ecru & pink. I laid these down on a non-stick craft mat and sprayed liberally with mica spray with silver mica. Once dry the flowers were stamped with vintage sepia Versafine ink using a small flourish stamp from Elusive Images (Graphicus). Each flower was then assembled with a pastel brad and shiny sequin, the legs of the brad folded back to hold the flower together. The flowers were then adhered to the box as shown in groups of three with sticky dots to secure.

Finally I had the lid to decorate. I took various alcohol inks and dropped them onto the lid top and sides, quickly blowing the ink around with a drinking straw ( the ink can fly, so if you do this protect yourself and the area around you). Once happy with the effect the whole lid was coated on the outside with matt acrylic varnish and allowed to dry. The inside of the lid was given two coats of cream acrylic paint acting as a backdrop to the colours and allowing some of the uninked areas to be highlighted. I think the lid reminds me of Moocroft pottery actually !

Finally the lid lacked something, I thought of adding a metal knob of some type but ended up making another flower (as described before but with more layers) this time with some sequin leaves and a pastel flower brad.

The last pic shows a top down view of the embellishment on the lid. Very interesting to alter something that would have definately been binned.

Why not try it?

Hope the one receiving it is pleased !

Sid xxx

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'C' is for Child Tag

Tag time again !! This is the 'C' for Child Tag I have crafted as a challenge over on UK Stampers Forum. I thought the Klimt image was appropriate and it looks really cool on the metallic card that looks very much like copper !

Pale blue card was used as the base tag. This was then coloured with Distress inks applied with cut'n'dry foam in shabby shutters & vintage photo. This was then stamped with vintage photo and a diamond stamp from PaperArtsy at the top and was heat embossed with clear embossing powder. Two background stamps (dots & sticks ?) were inked in Distress pine needles and vintage photo and stamped as seen. A mask (Heidi Swapp) of a tree branch was applied at the bottom right and more Distress pine needles applied over it. That completes the base tag.

Next a Klimt image of a mother and child(Cherry Pie) was inked in black Stazon and stamped onto a two-tone metallic card. This was trimmed out and applied to the tag with foam pads as shown.

A chipboard 'C' and a star were coloured with Distress vintage photo and applied as shown with Glossy Accents. The pre-printed 'precious' and letters (K&Co) were inked with vintage photo Distress and applied as shown. Finally the whole tag was edged in dark brown chalk ink and an eyelet and satin ribbons threaded through to decorate.

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'Pets' Twinchies

Here are a set of twinchies done in the theme of 'Pets'. I have spray coloured the backgrounds and stamped with some little stamps on the backgrounds in Versafine onyx black and then used Copics to colour in selected bits of the images. The animals were printed on the inkjet printer as sadly I have no real stamps of pets !! These were then trimmed out and applied with glue stick.

Sid xxx

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'Ladies' Inchies

Here are my Inchies for our monthly swap over on UK Stampers Forum. The theme was 'Ladies'. I used a stamp from Tanda and stamped this in onyx black Versafine onto dark peach cardstock and then trimmed this out. The white background was cut out with a punch and coloured with Distress inks in mustard seed, worn lipstick & shabby shutters applied with cut'n'dry foam and was then stamped with a text stamp from PaperArtsy using vintage sepia Versafine. The ladies were then stuck onto the coloured bases and 5 blobs of pink Stickles applied as shown. When dry each inchie was edged with Versamagic perfect plumeria chalk ink.

That's it.

Sid xx

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