Cardmaking Conundrums

My first love is paper and card - mainly because projects don’t need unpicking when you mess up as frequently as I do - the offending card just needs tossing into the wastepaper basket as I did with this one:

You can see it had possibilities but I kept adding things and in the end it got tossed.  The butterfly stickers are exquisite, I bought them from a lovely shop in Olney over a month ago and have struggled to find a use for them ever since.  The main problem is that they are very specifically stickers.  They look like stickers when stuck on a card and no amount of embellishing is going to take that away from them so I’ve decided to use them on the back of my cards as an emblem kind of thing.  You can see how I tried vainly to add a soft muted tone of gingham and a linen coloured card to balance them, well, after that I rummaged around in my stash then out came the Promarkers and the foil borders…eughhhh.  It was definitely time to toss!

It’s been a while since I ventured back into this craft, I toyed with it for some years but didn’t get much satisfaction from it but since the weather is so dire I thought I better get out my guillotine and have another bash.  I really struggle with making cards as I have such a specific type of card in my mind when I start out and my completed project hardly ever looks like the one I had in my head.  Most get thrown away because I’m a perfectionist and I like clean and simple lines.  A lot of cardmaking stuff has me running for the hills, I hate garish, bright colours and gaudy embellishments. I also dislike stamping and embossing, I much prefer matt and layering cards and combining soft tones rather than shouty-out-loud things. 

There didn’t use to be much of a choice for male cards but I’ve discovered the Wellington range and I’m hooked.  Although I detest decoupage (too blousy, fiddly and false-looking for me – but hey, it’s just my opinion) I was smitten with a sheet of Wellington bear pictures so I thought I’d give it a go.  The sheet wasn’t die-cut so I had to cut it out with small scissors – it looks dreadful, see for yourself:

You’re not surprised that ended up in the bin are you? It looks like my cat cut it out with a trowel.  

I decided that I still liked the base layer so I made a card around that instead.  It’s a bit of a departure for me to tear paper but I used a ruler to do it and I think it adds a nice texture to an otherwise flat card.  The background of the image was a harsh white so I used an oatmeal coloured Promarker to wash over the whole thing.

Personally, I’m really pleased with it – if I wasn’t happy then it wouldn’t have got out of my craft room:

 Goodness, I’d be so useless at selling cards.  I’d have to make them for all manner of tastes and frankly life is too short for me to make anything that I wouldn’t buy myself!

To Sell or Not to Sell…

Now play nice and stop tittering, I’m well aware that no-one is going to part with their hard-earned cash during a recession (or a boom for that matter) on my stuffed chicken but I was wondering if all new crafters aspire to make things to sell as well as gifts for friends and family.

The reason I ask is that I keep seeing stuffed hearts (note: not chickens) and although they look lovely, they really are just stuffed-with-wadding heart shapes!   I have recently seen one priced at £12.95 – Gah!  I can get three bottles of wine for that! 

It inevitably got me thinking if I too – once I’ve mastered the art of cutting fabric without cutting through my tablecloth – could make my fortune selling my crafty goodies.

Just when does one think ‘Hmm, that one looks good enough to sell…’?  And indeed if I ever got that far then what are the implications?  Labelling seems a nightmare – do I really have to make it clear that my miniature shed has ‘choking hazard’ parts or are parents smart enough not to leave it in the hands of their toddler? 

Must I label my stuffed hearts ‘made at the kitchen table where at one time or other we may have had peanut butter and/or the cat may have sat on the kitchen chair’? What about the painted pots I did?  Surely I ought to mention the fact that they are neither dishwasher nor microwave-safe?    Will they know automatically that they are not to be used for cooking or is it obvious?  

What about copyright?  Who actually owns the pattern for a heart or a star?  Those lovely Christmas stockings seem innocuous enough but do we have to pay our dues to Santa to use a stocking-shaped-template?  When is a bag you’ve made that looks like someone elses a copyright issue?  I actually live in fear of writing ‘parsley‘ on a lollypop stick and someone shouting ‘Oi, that’s MY design!‘ over my garden fence…

Since I’m one of those people that like to follow rules I would have to set up my own business and stay the right-side of HMRC.  Hey, does that mean my Promarkers, card-making supplies and sewing bits-and-bobs including fabric are tax-deductible from now on?  Woohoo, can you see me skidaddling around Dunelm with the largest trolley available?   I’d probably have to keep costings too, mind you, I’d have to allow for the fact I unpick everything I make so it might be costlier than I thought…

I’d also need a proper grown-up and professional business name, I’m not sure More Quirky than Crafty is a cool name for a craft shop – goodness, people might think my stuff is not quite up to scratch…

So, my question would be - do all novice crafters look at things with a critical eye in shops and announce ‘I can make that!’ or is it just me?  Is the next step of selling just a pipe-dream or can it really come true?

The Placemat Palaver

I’m getting value for money from my Cath Kidston ‘Sew’ book – I’m making placemats now

I bought some gorgeous fabric from Dunelm Mill (I think it’s called Breeze) whilst out and about with my crafty Sister last week. It’s a really strong weave and we decided it would be perfect for my placemats project.  They didn’t have any wadding though so I decided to improvise by buying a pair of pillow protectors for £4.99 which I thought was a rather clever alternative given my problems with wadding in the tea cosy project.  I also bought some cream cotton for the backing:

With my crafty blog in mind I took pictures of my placemat project as I went along which in hindsight was just as well because what I did has to be seen to be believed…

I skimmed through the instructions in the book and ignored some of them as they seemed a bit complicated for a simple placemat before cutting some of the square/top fabric into a rectangle.  That in itself caused angst – the squares aren’t exactly ‘square’ when you cut the fabric so I jiggled about a bit until I was happy.  I then cut up the pillow protectors and the cotton backing so I had a nice sandwich of fabric. Top, wadding and backing: 

I then sewed all three together….

…and turned it inside out.

Only to discover than I had the pillow-protector/wadding on the back rather than the plain cotton I had intended.  Not one to be deterred I reached for my unpicker and started again with the help of the book.  I read it through half a dozen times and it made much more sense now that I knew how not to make a placemat.

I unpicked and reassembled the fabrics the right way round – the top fabric is the filling in the sandwich – hey, who knew?!  

The eagle-eyed amongst you will see my unpicked seam on the left.  *ahem*

I sewed it up and pressed it and it looked a bit dull so I had another look at the book and it mentioned top-stitching – it looks quite good now.  I showed Mr Quirky and he said it was fabulous and that now I just needed to make another five.

I need to lie down first – I have no idea how to make another one that will faintly resemble this first one never mind six that are identical!

* I learned that I must play with sheets of paper to get the fabrics in the right order – I could even take a leaf out of my miniature shed project and make all of my projects in miniature first to save fabric

I’ve fini-shed my mini-shed!

I will probably spend hours re-tweaking the objects but I really wanted to share my finished shed with you:

A close-up of the inside: 

The clothes peg below should help you comprehend the tiddliness of this 8″ x 6″ shed…

 A major shout-out to Joann Swanson for her aerosol can papers – thanks!

And that’s it for now, I will mount it on a base and probably buy more tiddly objects to put inside and out but as a work-in-progress woodworking-wise consider it complete.

Thanks for your continued interest in my quirky blog, it never fails to amaze me when I see how many people stop by for a browse or to cheer me on, I’m having a ball! 

Now, where’s that Cath Kidston fabric I bought last month…

 

Miniature Shed Shennanigans

I received a lovely email asking if I used any specialist tools to make my miniature shed so I thought I would share the behind-the-scenes access to my ‘workshop’ in case you were under the misapprehension that I know what I’m doing…  

As you can see my workshop is actually the table in the conservatory.  If you look very closely you’ll see I have actually sawn through the tablecloth a couple of times!  My highly specialised tools include 6 clothes pegs for clamping and that rather fabulous length of wood at the back with a chunk taken out of it is my saw bench.  The two sets of scored lines are exactly 1/4″ apart and I use them as a guide for the notches in my cross-half joints.  There are two because over time my teeny saw chews the edge and the gap gets too big so I have to get my Dad to ‘re-notch’ me a new guide. 

Incidentally, the furry tabby thing on the chair is Coco-the-cat.  He’s our manky old rescue cat and as he’s totally deaf he never strays far from the house and patio.  He generally sleeps most of the day.

Sorry, I digressed,  If you’re a regular reader then you’ll know that I do that a lot…you want to see my shed progress don’t you?  Click on the photos to enlarge:   

Do I hear a woohoo?  I’m so pleased with it!  The fiddliest part was the section between the door frame and the shed edge.  In the end I rough-cut 14 sections and sticky-taped them together like a ladder before I sawed a straight(ish) line.  I ended up with a bit too much on the door frame side so I just sanded that edge flush when the wood glue had taken effect.  The Evo-Stik wood glue is brilliant, it dries really quickly. 

This afternoon I’m going to paint the shed before putting the roof on for ease of access.  This is the most nerve-wracking part, the colour last time was dreadfully dark so I’ll be practising on some scrap wood to get it just right.

Miniature Shed Progress

I had hoped to be much further forward with this today but I needed to do some housework and laundry first so I have only spent 2 hours on it this afternoon and I only got as far as finishing the back.Putting on the planking/cladding is harder than I thought, last time I used balsa wood and was able to cut it with scissors but this time I decided to use pine strips as they are much sturdier (but harder to cut).  The biggest problem is having to have both of the ends really square or else they look odd.  They aren’t perfect alongside the window frame but I think I will be able to sand them against the frame edge when they are bone dry. 

It looks great from the inside, I had to be very thorough about wiping off excess glue as it shows up dreadfully when painted over.  Not sure yet how I will finish it, either a wood stain and varnish or acrylic paints and varnish.  I’d welcome any ideas…  

Not sure how much I’ll get done over the Easter weekend as I will either be eating chocolate or watching the Masters from Augusta, two Brits are leading the field as I type.  :)

Mini Shed Update

The first time I tackled this project it took forever and I didn’t enjoy the process so I’m very proud of myself for starting again.  I’m dealing with silly measurements – 1/16″, 7/32″ and worse but this time I have a rough idea of what I’m doing and I’m really enjoying my second generation shed project.  The photos speak for themselves but they make it look easier than it was – I’ve had a busy day!

The 3-sided framework I made earlier is glued to an 8″ x 6″ cardboard base (well, I did say it was a miniature shed!)

The floor, window and work bench go in with a few rude words and lots of re-jigging, I used a sheet of acetate for the ‘glass’ and balsa wood for the shelf tops.  All of the framework is put together with cross-half joints rather than sticking things ‘end-to-end’.

Then the door and roof beam are constructed and added along with the front

The shed will be open on the front and enclosed on the other three sides.  All I have left to do is the roof and outer panelling.  After that comes the fun part of accessorising – I promise not to make Cath Kidston curtains

I should have this finished by the end of the week so do come back and see it

Oops – a blot on the landscape!

More like a blob on the landscape actually.  I know the printable transfer from Graphics Fairy says ‘Mme Boileve’ but I truly didn’t expect it to display an actual boil after a bit of rain!

Last evening Mr Quirky asked if he should bring my newly-painted and Frenchified terracotta pots indoors as it had just started raining.  “No need, they have been Outdoor Modge-Podged” I countered breezily…

…I wish I had said “Yes please, I’m not sure if they will stand up to a spot of English rain”

Oh well, back to my miniature shed – if anyone knows what might have happened to my pot then please do share, I don’t mind making mistakes but it’s tiresome making the same mistake twice!

My Miniature Shed

I’ve put away my sewing kit for a while and I haven’t yet taken pictures of my garden pots so I thought I’d better share exactly what I am doing this week…

Can you guess what it is yet?

Of course!  It’s the back and sides of a miniature shed!

I have attempted this once before and it was an unmitigated disaster so I’ve decided to adopt a ‘no fear’ attitude to crafting (just as well if you saw my latest stuffed chicken doodah) and tackle this again.

It’s a rather daunting project as it’s exactly to a scale of 1/12″.  (1 foot is one inch)  It is also constructed in the same way as a big, proper shed so I’m having to start with a framework and build from there.  The blueprint for it comes from a book my Sister found for me in a charity shop ’Making Miniatures’ by Venus and Martin Dodge.  I decided not to bother starting with the easy stuff  and threw myself into the most complicated project I could see.  Box rooms don’t appeal too much but this potting shed is delightful so I hope I can do it justice this time round.

For those of you that like seeing crafting disasters here’s a picture of the ‘prototype’ (that sounds so much better than ‘last failed attempt’) I made last year:

For some reason I painted it a revolting brown colour and from then on I couldn’t get motivated to finish it.  I also used cedar shingles for the roof which looked totally wrong so this time my shed will be sporting a balsa wood roof instead – much easier to cut and much easier to paint!

I’ll keep you updated, that’s half the fun of crafting   :)

Picture Perfect!

Well, not quite perfect as that wouldn’t be my style but I’ve spent a very enjoyable afternoon getting to grips with chalkboard paint.  Basically I just added a tablespoon of wall tile grout to a cup of paint and added enough water to make it manageable instead of lumpy and off I went in search of things to daub.  I painted four terracotta pots and a pine frame plus two planks of balsa wood just to see how it works on different mediums – don’t I sound arty?

I’m going to decorate the pots with French labels from the Graphics Fairy but for now I concentrated on the frame.

It was a rather ugly, orange pine colour to begin with…

…now it’s a gorgeous posh sagey-grey-green colour that I can’t ever repeat as I made it up! 

I mixed up a cup of Egyptian Cotton with a matchpot of Sage Green that I got from a Salvation Army charity shop for 10p, I think the gorgeousness comes from the fact that the Egyptian Cotton is quite a grey base.  I’m delighted with the colour and the fun part was daubing it onto the wood.  One of the benefits of adding tile grout to the paint is that the paint really grabs whatever you are working on plus it fills in any little holes or gaps.

Something this classy needed an equally classy something in it so I hopped over to the Graphics Fairy and downloaded this Country Living Project Spring printable  here 

 This photo does the colour more justice

 I’ve never painted anything other than a wall before so I’m thrilled to bits with how it turned out.  I used a gloss varnish spray to seal it and as soon as it’s dry it will be hanging up in my kitchen.

Finally I’ve done something that feels more crafty than quirky