Fabric Book Covers

 

I have been frantically making some more book covers as I am at the Shambles Market in Stroud on Saturday 12th August.

 

Two of these have been made by sewing together 2.5" strips of fabric for the outside and them quilting them onto the wadding. The other 5 are all block printed. Some were block printed on commercial material while the rest started out with white fabric which I coloured and dried before block printing over the top.

Hello.

A good morning's work this morning with both block printing and screen printing

The block printed linen strips are for embellishing some of my fabric book covers.

The screen printed zentangle animals have been printed on both sides of small calico drawstring gift bags.

 

All I have to do now is wait for them to dry completely and then iron them to heat set the inks to make them washable.

 

I did some other things too but they are still work in progress and will be included another day.

Zipped Pouch usnf hand screen printed fabric

A second post for today just to make up for lost time.

 

This fabric as screen printed using the products of Screen Sensations. Once the ink had dried and been heat set by ironing, I made this zipped bag lining it with curtain "blackout" lining. I was quite pleased with the outcome as I haven't sewn a zip into anything for years!

Block printing fabric - Notebook cover

Hello.

It is so long since I posted, I can't believe it. Since my last post my crafting has changed beyond all recognition. I am now much more into fabrics than paper crafting.

Block printing and screen printing of fabrics are now very much to the fore although I use these techniques on card too. I am now getting into sewing to use the fabrics that I produce.

The notebook cover below is the first of my products from my own fabric. The base fabric was a commercial print but then I have block printed over the top with fabric paint using a block from Colouricious.

Messing with Pebeo Fantasy Prisme Paints

Good morning.

Happy Sunday. What with one thing and another it has been so long since I have blogged. I just hope I haven't forgotten how to do it! But now things should be slightly less hectic at work and so hopefully I will be able to craft in the evenings instead of falling asleep!

Last weekend, I did manage to have a bit of a play with "free form" fantasy Prisme paint. No Cerne Relief paste was used.

 

These two frames were laid on my desk ensuring that they were a flat and level as they could be. Then I just poured and dripped various colours onto them and let them do their own thing. The results are brilliant. I hope you like them.

A Busy Time in February and March

Wow, what a busy month we have had, hence no time to do crafting things for the blog.

We have had one craft fair, several stalls at the Shambles Market in Stroud, 2 visits to the craft trade fair at the NEC in Birmingham and a flying visit to Essex.

The latter was exciting as I have been given a professional machine to manufacture my own stamp range. Yes, it is true, I was given £3,500 worth of machine by someone who no longer had use for it! Over the next month or so I will have to gather the other things required to make the stamps and then try and work out how to make them. Chris was very kind and wrote down as many instructions as she could.

So watch this space for news of me producing my own stamps for sale.

Heart Card

Good evening,

A nice simple heart card for Tuesday Alchemy Challenge-50-my-hearts-all-flutter.html


The base, A5 size, card is made from a beautiful patterned mirror card which I though set off the embellishment well.

The heart shaped piece of board was stamped with a flower image by from Sheena Douglass. The individual flowers were linked together with relief paste to add the leaves. Everything was then coloured with Pebeo Fantasy Prisme Paint which was allowed to dry thoroughly. The lace was added to the back of the heart before it was mounted over the pink ribbon using Pinflair Glue Gel. The bow was added last to complete the effect.

NEC Craft Trade Show

Off to the NEC today to the biggest craft trade show in England. It is only on once a year so I will have to make the most of it. I am hoping to make decisions today on what to stock in our website shop. I will be a tired but happy bunny by the time I get home.

Needle Felted Scenes 2

 Here are three more needle felted scenes. These are mounted onto A5 card bases but I thought I would just show the detail. They were made in the same way as detailed in yesterday's blog. It was mounted on a layer, that was die cut with a Spellbinder die. The die cuts have been was tinted with Broken China Distress Ink whilst the cut outs were still in the die. This gives the white border around the edge.

Tag Bookmarks

 Good morning. Here are some examples of the tag bookmarks I have been making using Sheena Douglass stamps on mount board. 

The images have been outlined with Cerne Relief and then they have been painted with my favourite Pebeo Fantasy Moon and Prisme paints. I took these to the Stonehouse craft fair yesterday and they were much admired. I even sold the poppy one in the top picture. The rest will be uploaded into my Folksy shop in the near future.

Needle Felted Scenes

Good morning,
I have been experimenting again. Last weekend, when I was staying with some friends, I took my needle felting stash as I knew I would be awake long before them!
Hence I started having a play and this is what I came up with. They are all made from wool fibres from the base up.
Once I got home I ran them through my embellishing machine just to make sure that they were well and truly needle felted. I have to say that I am quite pleased with the effect.
I trimmed them up and mounted them onto white card cut out with a beautiful Spellbinder die before attaching them to a A5 card base embellished with a beautiful double sided satin ribbon.
I will have them on my craft stall today the the Stonehouse Community Centre in Gloucestershire.

Valentine's Card

Good afternoon.

Now that Valentine's Day is over, I thought I would show you the card I made for Keith.

The A5 base card is suitably red and the embossed Centura Pearl card was made using my E-Bosser.

The heart was one of Sheena Douglass' die cut shapes - the largest size in the pack. The stamped images are also from Sheena,  - the Fantasy  stamp designs. This was decorated with Pebeo Fantasy Prisme and Fantasy Moon paints having first outlined the flowers with relief paste. I rather like the whole effect. It is simple and un-fussy but it looks a treat! The paints do give a lovely finish.

January Crafting Challenge - Flowers

There are only 4 days to go to enter our first crafting challenge. Go on, have a go at:

January-2013-Craft in Challenge - Flowers

A Card for 4 Challenges

Good morning.

Here is a card for 4 challenges, my first challenge entry of 2013.

Crafty Creation Challenge Just Take 2
Critter Sketch Challenge #148
Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #83 Belated Birthday
Cards for Men Challenge #2 - Transport

I used Spellbinders to cut out the image, the image mount, the square (cut into two triangles) and the two banners for the belated birthday greeting.

The image of the van was from a Sheena Douglass (for Creative Expressions) stamp and the sentiment from a stamp by Chocolate Baroque. The main image was stamped with Mahogany distress ink and a damp paint brush was used to pull the ink in from the image to shade it. I loved the sentiment for a belated birthday card - An elephant never forgets... Unfortunately I do!

The square and the banners started out as white card which was coloured all over with various Distress Inks. Splashes of water which were mopped up with tissue, give the extra distressing effect.

The design was taken from the Critter Sketch Challenge, which I turned on its side. I took the liberty of adding the sentiment.

The background is navy blue pearlescent card and the "brad heads" on the banner were made with Copper Pearlidoodles.

Original Design Paper and Card

Good afternoon,

I have been busy this morning uploading packs of my own design 100% cotton rag papers onto my Folksy shop. I am intending to load lots more packs over the coming weeks. I have also listed framed encaustic art pictures, bags, picture frames, key charms and all sorts of other thing.

Do pop over and have a look. Designs on Craft Folksy Shop

The papers are similar to the ones that I am giving as a prize in Designs on Craft's first Crafting Challenge. For details of the challenge click on this link: January 2013 Crafting Challenge . Go on, do please enter and have a go!

  

Hugs, Shirl x

January 2013 Crafting Challenge - Flowers

Welcome to our first monthly crafting challenge. I do hope that you will join in and will enjoy the prize that I have chosen for you.

First - the rules, and you will be pleased to here that there aren't too many of them. These are displayed on the challenge rules page of this blog but for the first one I thought I should list them here.

1. The challenge is open to any type of craft be it paper crafting, sewing, art or anything else as long as the entry fits the theme of the challenge.

2. For paper crafting entries, please do not use pre-printed papers. We would like to see as much creativity as possible so it would be great if you can make as much from scratch as possible including your embellishments..

2. When adding your entry, you must link directly to the entry on your blog, not to your whole blog to save us having to look for it.

3. You may enter up to 3 times for any one challenge.

4. You must not back link to an old entry on your blog. It must be a new crafting project.

5. You must put a link back to the challenge blog onto your entry.

6. You can enter as many other challenges as you like.

7. For now, the winner will be chosen by ourselves based on how the entry fits the challenge theme.

8. It would be brilliant if you could leave a comment when you have posted your entry as we would like some feedback on how you are enjoying the challenges!

9. If you would like us to leave a you comment, please turn off Word Recognition as it really slows things down.

There now, that is the boring bit done so onto the challenge.

Having had some really awful weather lately I thought the challenge needed to gladden our hearts a bit so the theme is Flowers.

Here are a few of our ideas to inspire you.

A picture frame decorated with flowers and leaves.

 



 

 

A small papier mache box painted and stamped with flourishes with individually stamped and cut out very small flowers bonded in place.

 

 

Hand painted daisies which always make me feel cheerful.

 

 

 

Hand marbled paper with a beautiful flower embellishment

 

 

Snow drops, the first flowers of Spring

 

 

 

and finally.....

Pansies painted on a mirror frame

 

 

And now for the prize:



 

4 x A4 sheets of 150 gsm hand made paper which I have dyed with various mediums and then block printed with acrylic paint plus 2 x A5 sheets of 150 gsm hand made paper which have been dyed and machine embroidered. These will be great for so many different projects. I do hope that you like them.

 

 

 

One last Christmas card before the end of 2012!

Here is my last Christmas card for 2012 which is the one I made for Keith, my other half.

The Poinsettia is on the front cover and the other images are on the inside surfaces of  a concertina card. (The greeting is on the back of the card).

All are images taken from Sheena Douglass stamps and they have been painted with Pebeo Fantasy Moon and Fantasy Prisme paints once the relief edges had set.

The labels were also from Sheena's stamps which were stamped onto white pearlescent card and then heat embossed in gold.

The various shaped black layers behind the images were cut out with Spellbinders dies using my e-bosser machine.

The double sided pearlescent card used for the card base was embossed using the e-bosser machine in an A4 size embossing folder. The finished card is A5 in size.

Coming Soon - A New Monthly Crafting Challenge

Good afternoon.

It is nearly the end of 2012 and will soon be the start of a New Year. To celebrate this fact, I am starting a new  Crafting Challenge. It will be a monthly challenge for now but I want to make it fortnightly in the future. I hope that you will like the fact that it will be open to any type of craft as long as it fits the challenge theme. I do not want to limit it to one craft as there are so many out there which need an outlet for the world to appreciate.

With any luck, the first challenge will be announced on 1st January...... as long as I can work out the technical bits! Do please watch this space for more information.

Love,
Shirl xx

And the winner is...... for Giveaway III

Congratulations to Nannie Flash, our winner of Giveaway III. The two sets of Sheena Douglass stamps are yours. Please can you e-mail me at [email protected] and let me have your address and I will put them in the post.

Thank you to the people who entered.

This is the last giveaway this side of Christmas but more will happen in 2013.

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all followers of our blog. We hope that you have found it interesting and a possible source of inspiration.

See you all in 2013.

Love,
Shirl xx

More Decorated Tiles

I think I am getting the hang of this!

Here are 4 tiles all of which have been painted with Pebeo Fantasy Moon and Fantasy Prisme paints.

All the images are from stamps by Sheena Douglass.

I am looking into how to best mount these to make teapot or saucepan stands.

Giveaway III

Good morning,

Just a quick reminder that Giveaway III ends tomorrow. Don't forget to enter at: Giveaway III

Shirl xx