A Wintery Altered Matchbox

I'm back on the matchboxes again - lol

The theme for this month on the Flickr group

Matchbox Monthly Swap

is 'sparkly, blue winter'.

I covered the matchbox with watercolour paper

sprayed with tones of blue.

The focal point on the top of the matchbox

is a sparkly white tree which is die cut shrink plastic

using the Sizzix Alteration Bigz die 'Branch Tree'.

I wound some white wire around a few of the

branches to hang some sparkly blue beads

- you see it is a magical winter tree!

I sprinkled some glitter here and there

and some sparkly flakes at the foot of the tree.

As you can see from the above photo, I glued

some lace on the edges and the ends (and the inside) were

covered with self adhesive glittery shiny paper.

For the drawer pull, I used a large holed bead

with a brad inserted through.



I filled the matchbox with an assortment of

little goodies - I tried to keep to the blue

and white/silver theme.

My swap partner

 Lesley of Harmony Road Studio

has now received this matchbox

and I'm pleased to say she liked it - yay!!

Thanks for looking :)

Valentine's Day Craft Swap

I know it's early and it's not Valentine's Day yet,

but I've already made my item for this swap

hosted by Amy on her blog

And Sew We Craft

and as my swap partner

Rae of Felt by Rae

has now received it, I can show it here.

I intended at first to make a padded heart and cut two

heart shapes from an old embroidered table runner.

This picture is of the back.

For the front I collaged various pieces of old lace

doilies and cheesecloth over the top.

I rubber stamped 'Love' onto a cotton scrap

and machine stitched the whole lot together

in a haphazard fashion.

As I was stitching it together it occurred to me

that rather than just being a padded heart,

it would be more useful as a pocket -

so I left the top unstitched.

(There is a layer of thin wadding between the

top and backing fabrics to give it more of a lightly quilted feel)

For the hanger I plaited three strands of string together.

As it was a pocket now, it needed a little gift inside!

This is the gift - a little Metal Pendant.

I was pleased with how the heart pocket turned out

so I made one to keep for myself too!

....  but there's no Valentine gift in mine -

oh yes, it's too early yet isn't it!

My inspiration for making this heart came from

Lilla of Just Lilla

who makes the most beautiful things and shares a

tutorial for a lace collage on her blog

which I followed when making my hearts.

I was lucky enough to win one of Lilla's lace collages

in the form a little book last year.



Isn't it beautiful!

Thank you Lilla for the inspiration,

and thank you for looking :)

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday Week 137

... or to be precise, look at what's on my workdesk Tuesday evening.

I am going to try to schedule this post to appear on Wednesday

(no, don't laugh - as the last and only time before that

 I tried to schedule a post I failed miserably -

 so if I fail again I'll expect a few titters -

mostly from me!)

Anyway, back to my desk ....  I made a card - yay!!

This is a 'tent fold card' which I hadn't heard of before

seeing some in the February edition of

Craft Stamper magazine.

On pages 28 to 31 Joanne Wardle shows how to make

these simple and interesting cards which hold a secret panel -

a pull out strip of card which can be re-used as a bookmark.

Supplies I used to make the card were:

Artistic Outpost stamps - 'London Underground' set

Tim Holtz Kraft-Core Nostalgic Collection card

A Sizzix embossing folder (I wish they'd put the name on the folder)

Gold Pen, ribbon and a few brads.

What else is on my desk?

The parcel at the front in heart wrapping paper

is for a Valentines Day craft swap I'm taking part in.

I can't show a photo of what I made yet as it's all very secret squirrel!

The pile of papers towards the back are what I retrieved

from the loft last week including my old school reports, old letters

and photographs etc.  I am going to use copies of some of it

on a small canvas for the final part of the

She-Art Workshop

- I just haven't got around to it yet - you know how it is!

There's a few wooden blocks on the desk too - I ripped some of the

red rubber (stamps) from them last week - and very satisfying it was too.

I just need to remove the very sticky residue,

and then decide what to do with the blocks.

Finally, on the pile of old papers you may be able to see

a large sheet of pink scrapbook paper, glass beads,

a pink silk flower and a silver butterfly.

These were items sent to me by my lovely blogging friend

Mrs A of It's An Alien Life

who challenged me to a '4 piece swap' -

we send four items to each other and make something

with them adding items from our own stash and then send it back.

I keep changing my mind as to what to make!

At least it's keeping the old grey matter working.

If you want to see more workdesks hop on over to Julia's blog

Stamping Ground

where you can have a great nose around!

Thanks for visiting - if you have a desk on show this week,

I'll try to come and look at yours - and even if you haven't,

I'll still come over - delaying tactics for the 4 piece swap

(shhh, don't tell Mrs A!!)



Ta-ta for now!

Not So Friendly Plastic!

 I saw a blog post recently from

Elaine

who had found a box of Friendly Plastic amongst her craft stash that

 she'd bought many years ago when it was being

 sold off in a closing down sale.

She offered to share some of her supply but said as it was so

old it was quite brittle.

This is what she very kindly sent me (along with some Grungeboard pieces)

The individual strips were all in tact (apart from one tiny bit that had

broken off) when it arrived and I thought that it was fine.

When I cut into a strip though it shattered into tiny pieces!

Elaine was right - it had become brittle with age.

I compared it with some of my own strips (which I'd bought about 

four years ago) and although they looked the same,

the newer ones were much more pliable and didn't

snap when flexed.

However, I kept calm and carried on - spoke to it nicely

and the plastic became friendly again!!!

I cut the brittle plastic and made little piles of it

on my black craft sheet - starting with the red central cross

and heated it with my heat gun - and it all melted together nicely.

I then made piles for the white sections and then the blue -

it melted into each other so the Union Jack flag

took on a rather stylised image, but I quite liked the effect.

I made a little post it note book using two chipboard covers

with a Bind-it-all spine and hot glued the Friendly Plastic flag on.

The 'Keep Calm and Carry On' is a rubber stamped image

from the 'London Underground' set from 'Artistic Outpost'.

I stamped another image from the same stamp set

onto the back of the book.

This little book will be winging it's way over to Elaine

as a thank you for her generosity.

Thanks for looking x