3D Thursday: Easter Pillow Boxes

Pillow boxes. An ‘in and out of fashion’ item, I think, for crafters. Actually I don’t know if they are in or out right now, but I do know I was for some reason possessed by all the devils of craft to make some this week.

I was also convinced that somewhere I had an one on an embossing board – crafters will know what I mean. A big slab of some science-y compound or resin or such, with grooves and channels to score the lines, to then be cut out.

A craft hunt! Hurrah! I NEVER do one of those, right?? So, donning crampons and grabbing belaying thingies I tackled the craft mountain. Like A-ha, I hunted high and low but could not find a scoring board. BUT, after a bit of pondering and some much needed Kendal Mint Cake I remembered an ancient purchase, back when the internet was in short trousers, of a bunch of Anna Griffin templates. Back to the north face! The templates had survived their spell in the wilderness and I could get going. Of course I could have downloaded one, or used my Cricut, but you know how it is when you get a bee in your bonnet. Oh, no, I have just reminded myself of the bridesmaid bonnets. On reflection I am quite surprised we weren’t attacked by a swarm of bees, actually, mistakenly thinking we were a good pollen source…

Anyhoo, back to the pillow boxes. I used quite a few things on these. The base is an old pad of Kanban card and the rabbit is from my Rabbit’s Tea Party digikit. The other bits and pieces are just from stash.

I know the ribbon has fallen in a rather unfortunate place on this one – I only noticed after I had taken the photos!! I’ll go fix it…..

 

 

 

3D Thursday: calorie free cake!

Well maybe that is not true. Perhaps paper, glue, batteries and plastic do contain calories, but not the tasty, moreish kind. And my alternative title of ‘inedible cake’ sounds rather less enticing.

I like giving ‘alternative’ or unexpected birthday cards and that box is certainly ticked here. Pinterest is to blame again. I decided to make one of the cute little battery tea lights turned into a birthday cake. I had seen a few, with varying degrees of decoration. Mine are, of course, on the less decorated side. Partly from personal preference and partly because I don’t have much time for anything more.

There are no doubt plenty of tutorials out there, but I chose to ignore them and just go for my own version. Sometimes a quick ten minutes in Pinterest can morph into several lost hours! I took a favourite pad of papers (Craftwork Cards Heritage Rose) so I knew everything would go together, something always worth doing when time is short or a deadline looms. For the first tea light cake I simply covered the sides with spotty paper and die cut two scallop circles for the top and bottom. Then I punched a hole roughly in the centre of one and made some small snips outwards from the hole. This allows you to ease the circle over the light bulb, but obviously looks a bit messy so needs covering up again afterwards. Some punched flowers did the trick. I wanted the same scallop circle for the cake base, but you also have to be able to switch the bulb on, so I used a small oval die to cut a neat aperture. Perhaps those tutorials might have given me a better solution for this, but hey, it works! A simple box from the same paper range helps to present it nicely. If I had more time this box would have been a bit fancier for sure.

I also cooked up a second ‘cake’, even more quickly. This one was made with a Christmas purchase for the bargain price of £1 for 4 tea lights! They are already covered in a smoky quartz shade of glitter – yum! Basically I did the same thing but used a fancier and slightly larger scallop circle die for the base. Also because this light has little ‘feet’ I just stood it on the base scallop die cut. It would certainly be possible to fix it permanently to the ‘cake’, in the same way as the top layer really, but I think it is fine as it is.

So there we have it. Two cakes, no calories. I did think about naming them “shark infested” cakes actually. It’s the shape of the bulbs…..

 

3D Thursday: Brew-tea and the Box’d

Sorry, Mr Disney…..

Once upon a time, whilst foraging for craft supplies, PaperPuff came across a small cardboard curiosity. “WTH (polite version) is this?” She thought. On further tentative inspection it appeared to be a kind of favour, or gift wrap for those cute little individually packaged tea bags. The mists of wine time cleared and PaperPuff remembered the box, and how it came to be. She had seen it many moons past on Craft telly and made one quick, before she forgot about it. Then she forgot about it. Silly PaperPuff!!

Don’t you just love it when a plan falls apart?!

I honestly don’t know if these are faithful replicas made from measurements supplied, or whether I employed good old Brain to work it out. However, to be honest, some basic measuring is all we need to do. I hope I am not doing anyone an injustice.

So, I thought it might make a nice 3D Thursday project and set about re-measuring and making another. There are I believe many versions of this kind of holder out there: this one is super-simple and requires a minimal amount of tools.

If you want to have a go, here is what to do:

I used Twinings individually wrapped tea bags which measure 6.5cm wide x 7.5cm high. If yours are different you will of course need to take this into account.

1. Grab a piece of decent weight double-sided card and cut it to 8 x 25cm

2. Score this at 9, 11, 20 and 21.5cm, fold and burnish the creases. If you want you can round the corners of the top flap (the 3.5cm panel). I couldn’t find my corner rounder (I know, find one thing, lose another!!) so went for a WRMK scallop Chomp instead. I expect this too will have disappeared next time I need it.

Tip: if your card has a one-way pattern, remember that as you are basically making a wrap, at some point the pattern will be upside down. Obviously the back is the best place for this (and you can always cover it over with another panel if this bothers you)! If you make your first score at 9cm from the top of the pattern (think of it as a roll of wallpaper) this should work out fine and your top and lower flaps at the front should both be the correct way up. If your one-way pattern repeat is going to be on the inside you will need to flip this, so your first score (9cm) will be at the bottom of your piece. Or, make life easy and just choose a non-repeat patterned paper!

3. Next cut 2 pieces of card 11 x 8cm. These are going to form the pleated side sections. You can go crazy and choose another pattern here for extra interest. I did on the first holder I made (the spotty one) but figured I had enough going on already on the second one with the birds.

Score these pieces at 1.5cm, then again at 1cm intervals until you get to 9.5cm, leaving a last section of 1.5cm again.

4. Concertina fold these score lines. Add strong double-sided tape (or glue if you prefer) to the outside of the 1.5cm tabs and fix them inside the ‘wrap’. I found it easier to stick each of to the back first, then the front, and you want the raw edge (not a fold) of the 1.5cm sections to be on the inside. If you butt the pleated sections up to the score lines and the base, and just keep the sides square with your hand, it happens really easily. If this is at all confusing, look at the images below for the positioning. Much better than me trying to explain!! The slideshow I planned would have been even better, but it is refusing to work for some reason I cannot fathom.

5. To make your dividers, just cut more patterned card into 7.5 x 8cm rectangles – you will need 3 for this configuration. Slide them into your pleated sections and ba-boom, instant little pockets!

The fastening can be whatever you want. I had used baker’s twine on the first one and ribbon this time. Cut enough to wrap around and tie in a bow – I snipped a length a little under 60cm to give enough to play with and trimmed the excess. I used a die cut for one closure and fussy cut an image for the other, and punched a small hole at the bottom. The ribbon or twine was glued centrally on the top flap, close to the edge, and then fed through the hole and tied.

 

What did I learn second time around? Well, because my one-way pattern repeat was quite large I wasn’t happy with how it looked where the top and bottom sections met at the front, so I just cut a panel the same size from a closer pattern repeat and covered the offending top tab completely. Really, smaller, or massively larger patterns would probably be better options. The spots I chose initially were a good way to go if you want to keep it simple.

You don’t need double-sided card, it just makes it more interesting if the inside is also colourful. I want to make a stamped version too, with a teacup as the fastener, which I think will be kind of cute. Time is always an issue though!

These little pouches could be for gifts, showers, favours, or a small thank you, perhaps. You could leave out the concertina folds in the sides and just make a small unpleated section to create a simple single pocket. But something about pleated paper makes me happy…..

Supplies: both holders are made from Tilda Winterbird paper pad

3D Thursday: travelling light

Today I have 3 tiny little suitcases. They are made with Tonic Studio’s King’s Cross dies. Naughtily, Tonic omitted the apostrophe on the packaging. I think this could therefore mean the monarch is having a hissy fit instead…. I used a sheet of yellow gingham to brighten the day for one of them and some old Kanban printed cardstock for the others.

They are pretty easy to do – just a bit fiddly getting one side to close into the other as the are both the same size. The extra bits and pieces to decorate them are fun, and the corner bracket thingies were vital for me as I struggle to get a really good finish trying to shape a curve, so they hide the carnage nicely. They are 10 x 2.5 x 6cm, so good for small gifts, favours, gift cards etc, but definitely no heavy luggage!

 

Travelling light is exactly what we had to do at Christmas, as Riley (the cat) was going on a long train journey for the first time, and carrying a wriggly cat is not the most practical way to travel. I won’t bore you with all the details, just the funniest bit. We were staying with family and basically I think we blew Riley‘s furry mind, briefly. Mum, sister and BIL have three cats between them already, so Riley was given my mum’s bedroom as his ‘safe place’. Early signs were promising as he seemed to be willing to leave the room and explore a bit on the second day. Although it was a few inches at a time, then back to the safety of under the bed, briefly, to then try again. I should explain here that the house has a flight of stairs, then a bedroom off to the left and living room to the right. For some reason (probably to do with the age of the house – it is a couple of hundred years old) there is an additional step up to floor level on each side once you reach the top of the stairs. So you arrive at the landing level, then turn either left or right and step up one more time to continue. I hope this makes sense?! Now the level that Riley’s room was on also has an area between the stairwell and the living room leading to the stairs to the next level of the house. Still with me? Good.

So, Christmas Eve, bed time. Riley decides it is time to channel his inner Christopher Columbus and go exploring. He makes it out of the bedroom, and oh-so-fleetingly across the stairwell and into the living room he had been eyeing up from a distance for a day or so. Then, panic, and he scooted back to the bedroom. But, he went for it again! I was so proud. Briefly. Alas he got it wrong, didn’t make it as far as the living room and instead tore around the corner and off up the stairs to where sister and BIL had, I thought, gone to bed.

Now, the layout of rooms and the location of the stairs and the superfluous steps is EXACTLY the same on this top floor. So Riley headed for the ‘bedroom of safety’, only to realise it was not the room he anticipated. So he shot across the gap at the top of the stairs and into the living room opposite. But, of course, this was not the room he expected or had familiarised himself with either!

Any proud cat owner would hope that their furry charge would realise the error, remember the stairs and slink back down to familiarity. Right? Well, sadly my friends that did not happen. Riley just shot repeatedly from bedroom to living room, vaulting the stair gap like a gazelle fleeing a crocodile. Each time he found himself in the ‘wrong room’ he froze, turned and legged it out again at speed. We realised what was happening after about the sixth time, and, well an intervention was staged. I never knew I could catch a speeding cat in mid-air so cleanly. Maybe this should be my Olympic event?

 

3D Thursday: on a Friday. Because thinking can be dangerous.

Yes, I am a day late with this post. May the gods of Blogland forgive me. Apparently there are one or two other things going on at this time of year….

Christmas cards are finally finished (hurrah!!), including some last minute ones for my sister. I was happy to make them for her, until there was another cat-and-die related incident. As I was cutting out 60 individual fairy lights with the smallest die known to man (1cm x 1.5cm, and a tiny part of a much larger set) I randomly thought ’How awful would it be if I lost this die? I wonder do craft companies ever let you buy replacements for individual dies? If not, they really should….’. Then the cat decided to jump up on my desk, at the opposite end to where I was working. Normally this is fine, but this one time he got the maths wrong and launched himself and several small ink pads I was using onto the floor. In my haste to make sure no inks opened and stained the carpet, and that the cat was ok (only his dignity was ruffled) somehow I lost the tiny, tiny bulb die. And spent TWO HOURS looking for it. Eventually I found it of course, several feet away from where I had been, in a box of cards that were finished and ready to go. I really should learn to think less, because the consequences can be dire.

So, my schedule was thrown out a bit. But, as I was clearing my workspace up I decided to use some of the card making leftovers to make bottle tags, rather than just throw them away. It is probably a crime against glitter paper to send it straight to recycling without ever being given its moment reflected in the twinkle of a Christmas light.

These are the same measurements as I used for the male bottle tags I posted before. So. 6cm wide, 21 cm long (which is the width of A4 card); score at 6cm from the top and die cut or punch a hole in the 6cm square you have made with your fold line. Super simple. I ran a couple of them through an embossing folder and cut a pennant shape at the bottom. Then just chuck on anything you have carefully select your embellishments and sentiments, a bit of the sticky stuff and you have busted some scraps in no time at all.

Cheers! I could do with opening that fizzy stuff right now!

 

3D Thursday: salty baubles. Really.

Thursdays seem to be coming around quick these days. Today I have another home made Christmas bauble/ornament to share. I have a bought a lot of fancy tree decorations in my time, and one of the favourites is the inspiration for this project.

Again I have used the kids toy balls that my sister covered with papier mache. This time I coated it with Brilliance Cosmic Copper pearlescent ink. The ink was still tacky after two days, which is odd, because it should dry on non-porous surfaces. As the next step was to paint on diluted pva I was worried it might slide off with the glue, but it was ok. So, I used approximately 2 parts glue to one part water and, resting the ornament in a votive candle holder (like an oversized boiled egg) I painted the glue on from the top to about 2/3rds of the way down. I had already decided to go for a rough edge and leave some of the shiny copper showing at the bottom. Partly a design feature, mostly practicality!

Then, the really quite astonishing bit – I threw Epsom salts over it! Honest! And look, you get this rather nice icy effect where they stick to the glue. Proper chuffed, I am. Also, clearly, becoming Yoda again.

I then made a couple of holly leaves from sheet music, distress inks and good old Smoky Quartz glitter, my ‘signature’ glitter shade this year! I bought a book of sheet music for craft purposes years ago. I think the sales assistant was confused by my reply to the ‘can I help you?’ question. ‘Oh yes, please. I need a big book with music that has LOTS of notes in it’. I expect the word ‘philistine’ popped into their head. Or maybe just ‘pleb’.

I tied the holly leaves on with garden twine and job done.

You can see the ‘blank’ ornament in the pictures above. Also, I finally have the tree up! No decorations yet, just lights. And one salty bauble, of course!

If you try the Epsom salts lobbing technique yourself, my top tip would be to stand the object to be a-salted (sorry) in a container which has quite high sides because the crystals ping around all over the place. I used a large cooking saucepan in the end, which did the trick nicely.

Hope everyone is steaming ahead with Christmas projects and chores!

 

 

3D Thursday: sometimes it isn’t rude to point

This is a WIP post. This week I enjoyed reading the results of a couple of Pinterest projects from gillyflower over at Wood So Wild (very cool blog). It is so useful when a ‘real’ person attempts some of these things and lets you know the outcome. I really liked how her sea glass turned out!

As of this morning I had a big fat nothing prepared for 3D Thursday so no post, or a quick project was the order of the day. Nothing like a deadline to sharpen the mind! Then I remembered that a while ago, whilst Pinterbinge-ing (as in looking at Pinterest for way longer than is healthy) I came across a link showing how to make a five-pointed origami star. Hurrah! So gillyflower is my inspiration today and I am very grateful!

I did my searches and found the site here. I watched both the videos – one to make a pentagon and one to make the star, then went for it with a sheet of copier paper to practice. This is the first star I made.

Not bad, huh? Of course I had to pause the videos several times to catch up: I haven’t done much origami since I was a kid and am a bit rusty. But don’t worry, you definitely do not need a black belt in origami to do this.

Once I had made the initial pentagon shape I was a bit concerned about all the random score lines, but most of them became integral to the star shape. If I was doing a lot of these stars I would probably make some pentagon templates to save a bit of time, but to just get a couple done whilst there was still some daylight available, and in case we get yet another power cut, it was as quick to make them from scratch.

The papers I used are single-sided. Initially I was looking for double-sided as per the website but once I watched the videos I realised you only see one side anyway. Mine are good quality 12 x 12 inch K&Company that my sister bought for me when I started card making. I love them so much I use them sparingly! Actually the quality probably made the folding a bit trickier, so you definitely want to use paper weight only. The end result is better with the quality paper though, so it is swings and roundabouts!

The trickiest bit I found was the very last fold, but it just needs a bit of finagling and you are fine.

I had just enough time to get some of my lovely Martha Stewart Smoky Quartz glitter on the edges of one star and take a couple of photos. I was trying to catch the glitter in the sunlight, but no luck. You will just have to believe me when I tell you it looks not too shabby at all.

So, I made three stars, they all worked, and by the time I was making star three I had most of the fold sequence in my head and could (almost) do it as quick as the demo chap. So it is easy, believe me!

I said at the top they are a WIP, because of course you could add all sorts of things to them. I have an urge for jingle bells on the points. Maybe I am just getting confused with jesters’ hats?

 

3D Thursday: It’s Shakespeare, Jim, but not as we know it…

Sorry Trekkies….

Last year on Pinterest I saw lots of Christmas ornaments with a honeycomb paper look. Now, I can just about remember from childhood many Christmas ornaments being made from honeycomb paper. They would be something like a bell, or a tree, probably about a foot long. They would be multicoloured, and be able to open for the festivities and fold closed again to store for next year. The honeycomb effect would be quite elaborate too. The ornaments I saw on Pinterest were handmade, and therefore much less elaborate, but really appealed. Also many were made with book pages. I wanted to try it last year but never had the time. I know some people feel that books should not be cut up, or cut into, but I feel differently. I love books. I love to read them, flick through them, even pile up old interesting looking ones simply for decoration. But I also just like the look of the text and the feel of the pages, so using them as a craft material is fine, for me. Otherwise these books are sitting alone and unloved in a charity or second-hand shop somewhere. Where is the glory or dignity in that? If you feel differently, it’s ok, just look away now and come back another day maybe?!

Still here? OK. So, yesterday I watched various YouTube clips to see how to make the honeycomb paper effect. Then armed with some knowledge I waded on in. The method I came up with was a bit of a mixture of the videos I watched. Isn’t that often the way? If anyone wants to know specifics just let me know in a comment and I will put something together, but really if you fancy having a go there are plenty of tutorials already available.

I used an old book of Shakespeare plays. Probably just a twisted amusement at making something which vaguely resembles an Elizabethan ruff from The Bard’s works. Or shall I pretend it is in homage?! But for the record I don’t actually see Shakespeare’s visage in honeycomb paper, or on my toast, like some people do…

As I said, I won’t go into masses of detail, but basically you cut your shapes, fold them in half and then stick them together one on top of the other, but alternating the sticking points. Really, seriously, I can try to explain this more but other people have already done it way better so I won’t. YouTube is great for this!

Once you have your basic shape done, again you have choices for the hanging loop and decoration at the bottom. Or at least you would have choices if you were a crafter with a selection of beads to hand. I am not, so ended up using a snowflake charm that was free with a magazine about a million years ago.

I wanted more bling. I wanted those pages GLITTERED! A rifle through my glitter stash and I plumped for Smoky Quartz by Martha Stewart. It is an old-fashioned kind of colour, exactly what I had in mind. So late last night I was sitting painting diluted pva glue onto the edges of the pages and then liberally sprinkling with glitter. Some pages are a bit more glittery than I would like, but too late now. Next time I will do the job in better light. I also decided I loved the glitter so much that I added it to some simple die cut holly leaves too and stuck these at the top of the ornament.

 

What I learned from this first one is that it is worth taking some time to work out the position of your fixing points. This ornament could have looked better with a different choice I think, but now I know.

Also, glue dots seemed to be the weapon of choice for a lot of the YouTube-ers, but I gave up on them pretty quick. You simply cannot easily see where you are putting them because of the carrier paper. I just used a sticky tape runner and it worked fine.

I know you would have to be very careful about where you placed a decoration like this but I do find them interesting to look at. Again this is another project that you absolutely could replicate without a die or die cutter. Just draw half a simple ornament shape, cut it out, draw around it on your already folded book pages and you are good to go.

 

The die I used was the largest from Spellbinders 2010 Heirloom Ornaments

 

3D Thursday: Chirps, cheap as chips!

This is a quick project as I have not had time to make much this week. I did though have time to pay a visit to The Works, a shop I have only relatively recently discovered has a selection of craft items, often at really good prices. Amongst other things, I bought a birdcage die. I know birdcage imagery has been around for a long time and is probably out of fashion again now, but I have always liked ornate wire cages: whether fashionable or not, I just think they are very pretty. And at only £3 for a die which is nearly 10cm (4”) tall, well it would have been rude not to make a purchase. Of course I overdid the politeness and bought a lot more besides but we will gloss over that.

So, today I needed to make something for 3D Thursday. I had a few ideas in my head but all were quite time-consuming, then I thought about trying to 3D the birdcage. It is symmetrical apart from the bird on the top (I am glad he is sitting on the cage and not in it!) so in theory it should work. And guess what? This time the theory was right!

I cut the image four times for each cage from decently thick card, one lot in white and the other in silver, then folded back the small curlicues at the sides on the lower sections. I then glued these together to form the basic ‘square’ shape. Next came some semi-complicated and totally unnecessary faffing about with the tops of the cages: I cut the bird off the back one as it pointed in the opposite direction and looked odd in a photo. I also cut the bird and curlicues off the two side pieces, then pinched and glued them together to make a kind of dome. In practice this makes them look a bit complicated in the photo, although they do make interesting shadows. What I really should have done for an easy life is just cut the tapering top section off all but the front piece. Never mind, I know now!

Once this was done I die cut the bird only from silver glitter card and stuck it over the plain bird. He even has a little wing you can fold out. Nice to know he is capable of escape should he wish. Also a pearl for an eye as we don’t want him crashing into the furniture. I could have gone on and decorated the cage more, but I had no time.

To make them each into a lumiere I rustled up a quick sleeve for the battery tea light from white vellum, just to diffuse the light a bit. They could though also be used for tree decorations. For a quick project I am pretty happy with the results!

 

 

3D Thursday: Gilty pleasures

I have been playing with the Christmas ornament ‘blanks’ my sister made again. I previously posted a WIP, which I think I may have now ruined. More of that in another post perhaps. However, this is bauble number two. Just to explain I will be freely switching from using ‘bauble’ to ‘ornament’ and back again, partially so I make sense to the majority of those I know read my blog. Also, whilst a big fan of the English language and a stalwart supporter of using a wide vocabulary, I HATE the word bauble. It sounds vaguely anatomical, like an appendage or a minor organ, maybe something that is prone to swelling and bursting, akin to the appendix. Got an attack of bauble bursitis. Ouch!

Anyway, enough of the inside of my head for now. Here we have ornament number two. I started off by covering it with IndigoBlu gilding flakes in Winter Dawn. Can I say that this is not an endeavour which should be undertaken lightly. There was A LOT of mess, and most of it was stuck to me. I tried to keep one hand ‘clean’ and one hand sticky but it was just not possible. By the time the whole bauble was covered, at least 40% of the surface of my hands was too. Then the cat came along and somehow got a large gilding flake on his nose. Some comedy hissing and ‘pffing’ ensued. Him, not me. Obviously I did not want him to ingest it. I was pretty sure the manufacturers would not have thought it necessary to include any details about whether it was safe for cats to eat. In all fairness, they should not be expected to! So I attempted a pre-emptive snatch and grab (still with my heavily gilded fingers), which of course Riley (cat in residence) eluded. But I couldn’t assume the large flake was not stuck to him – the state of my own paws were evidence this was a definite possibility. So, the chase was on.

Anyone own a cat? Anyone know that a lot of them don’t like tin foil (maybe called kitchen or baking foil too)? Yep, Riley is one of them. I always thought it was the noise the foil made but, seeing me approaching with hands that have suddenly become reflective from all the silver gilding flakes and glue (believe me, it is good glue ‘cos everything stuck fast), well he was either genuinely freaked or just decided it was a good opportunity for a game. After haring up and down stairs chasing him a few times I was satisfied that he was a gilding flake-free zone. I, however, had added a couple of interesting hand prints to the banisters. Oh joy, I thought.

Back to the bauble. The reason I was all glued up was mostly because I was trying to cover a round object; so, holding it, applying the glue to an area and then turning it meant I just. Got. Sticky. I could have done smaller areas at a time, but I was rushing; and maybe latex gloves might have been sensible, but hey, we learn by our mistakes. It was user error, not the fault of the product. You can’t blame a good glue for being good! Once the ornament was all flaked up I just went in with the sponge and gave it a buffing to remove the loose or partially stuck flakes. This is when you can really see the results of your efforts. So, the orb was now covered and the next stage had been inspired by my thoughts on the handprint on the banisters, which in a way was serendipity, or payback, whichever way your mind works. I had an Anna Griffin ’joy’ die which I dug out, cut from gold card and then covered in Martha Stewart Copper glitter, to match the hanging loop. If anyone is wondering ‘why gold card?‘, the answer is that I don’t have any copper coloured, and if you want a coloured glitter to show up really well, stick it onto something which is as close a colour match as you can get. If you put it on white it just doesn’t pop in the same way and black can change the colour quite radically. I tied two fairly extravagant bows of double-faced satin ribbon, and glued them to the top of the ornament so it looks nice from both sides. Then added the copper sparkly ’joy’ and job done.

Photo taking was a bit of an adventure. It is really not easy to do a bauble justice if you don’t have a tree to hang it on! I held it in the sunlight (I know, sunlight in the UK in November. Put it in your diary!) to show how sparkly the copper glitter is.

I also wanted to hang it though, so rigged up a makeshift hook from a silver pipe cleaner, pegged some black card to the curtain and hoped for the best. Here is the ‘warts and all’ zoomed out shot!

I bought these gilding flakes quite some time ago now and I haven’t used them nearly enough. You can use stamps with the Flitterglu or like I did here, cover a whole area. The tubs of flakes are in single colours or several different colour combinations, some warm coppers, rose and gold and some cool greens and silver with slivers of gold or copper too. All are luscious. Please excuse me, I gotta go gild something. Where are the gloves?