Craft Project

I do hope that Paul likes this project, I made it for him.  Paul is currently away on business and in his absence I sneaked into his study and took a precious memento without his knowledge.

His dear Dad started his career as a PC in the Metropolitan Police Force, and he sadly passed away in November, but Paul took from his house his old police whistle of which he has fond memories of as a child.  It's been sitting doing nothing for the past 2 months so I thought I would try and "do" something with it, so off I went to The Range for supplies.  And this is what I made for him, I hope he likes it.....

The writing at the bottom is his Dad's full name and the years he lived, it was drawn by my Silhouette in a silver pen as I wanted the colour to match the whistle.  The whistle is mounted with silver wire holding it up, which surprisingly enough wan't as easy as I thought it would be, and I have the pin pricks in my fingers to prove it!  The bottom right corner looks smudged, but I promise, that's just the picture, it's fine in real life.

I shall now go and find some wall space in his study and hang it before he gets home on Friday.

Thanks for looking xxx

Craft Room Tour

After much nagging, I have finally filmed my very own craft room tour.  I have no idea how many of these I have watched on You Tube and I never thought I'd actually do one of my own, but I have.  I apologise for the quality, in places it would appear that I have forgotten how to talk and in many places forgotten what the product is called that I'm trying to talk about, Doh!  Also half way through the battery on my camera died and I had to switch to my iPhone and the volume goes way down, so you'll have to turn it up half way through, sorry.  Also, do I really sound like that?!

I really should have taken a "before" video, but I didn't, I have a few photos of one corner of my room, the corner where my old glass desk used to be (the desk was bagged by Joshua as soon as he heard there was no room for it in my new space!), you can see just how cluttered the desk top is and there is also loads of "stuff stored under my desk.  The room also had 3 full sized book cases overflowing with craft stuff.  My craft room had just grown over the space of about 10 years without any real organisation so the was a very welcome project.

 This photo was obviously taken on a "tidy" day, I loved this corner desk, there was room for everything.

On this part of my old desk were the two units I made out of foam board.

More "stuff" below my desk which had to go.

For those that don't know, the whole craft room remodel came about because of my two lovely bunnies!  I had a single bun and he lived free range in the kitchen, the door was always open but he never ventured towards the magic portal where hoomans appeared and disappeared.  Anyway after having him about a year, I felt he needed his own species for company, so I adopted him a wife.  Roughly at the same time we had a new kitchen installed, however, my newly adopted bun took a bite out of one of my brand new cupboards, let's just say hubby started chopping vegetables for the rabbit pie!  I then set up an x-pen in the kitchen to keep them away from the cupboards.  This lasted for several months until we couldn't take any more, we had a beautiful new large kitchen but we could only walk round a 1ft perimeter as the buns had the rest of the space, they had to be relocated.  Apart from the garden, and I really really didn't want to put them outside as I had campaigned for so long for a HOUSE rabbit, putting them in the garden was not an option as far as I was concerned.  Hubby was the one who suggested they moved into my craft room.  Needless to say I was over the moon and immediately started saving for everything I would need to rabbit proof a room and buy the furniture I wanted.  The project began....

The room is not that big, it's about 10' 6" x 9' 6", but with a 3 seater sofa bed there didn't leave much room.  I really wanted the Expedit storage units to put as much storage on a wall leaving as much floor space as possible for the rabbits that were about to move into my room.  Unfortunately when I went to Ikea to purchase the Expedit units, the range was being discontinued and I couldn't get the 4 x 2 unit anywhere in the country so had to resort to Ebay.  Fortunately I found one with the attached desk not that far from here, but the downside was that it was in black.  No problem, I thought, so went and bought the paint to turn it white, big mistake! The painted desk was a complete disaster and looked really ugly so I stopped, the top side of the desk is painted and the underside isn't.  I decided that when the new replacement range came out then I'd just replace it, so the black units' days are numbered, but it works for now.

This is looking into the room from the door, you can see the dark stain on the carpet where i dropped a pot of glue under my desk - oops.

Looking out of the room 

The old carpet

The new flooring, the carpet had to go otherwise Sweet Pea The Destroyer would soon eat bald patches into it!

In the middle of building the huge Expedit unit

It took up pretty much all the floor whilst building it and yes I did build it on my own.

Finally built, upright and in position

So here is my craft room tour, I tried to keep it as short as possible, but I think I failed at that!  If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below.  Also, now that I've shown you mine, time to show me yours!

This is my favourite view anywhere in my house, the view from my sofa, especially when I have a couple of bunnies sitting next to me that you meet in the video!

Thanks for watching x

Wedding Anniversary

Well, just look at me, two posts in the same day!

It was our wedding anniversary last week and as you all know it's really hard to make a card for a man, but I needed to make one, so after a trawl through the internet, I found a card that I really liked, however, I think it was actually a Christmas card but as we had a winter wedding, I thought with a bit of tweaking it would be suitable for a male anniversary card, and this is what I made....

The original card was on the front page of CraftsULove website and it was a Penny Black stamp, but as I don't have it, I had a rummage through my Cricut cartridges and I found this one on the Heritage cartridge which was quite similar, so I thought it would do.

I used some Tea Dye Distress ink and the chocolate Stamping Up ink pads to make the two tone background.  I'm not the best inker but I had a go anyway.  The two birds were also in the Heritage Cartridge.  I love this card, it suited my purpose perfectly. I may even make some of these as Christmas cards, but not with two birds.

Thanks for looking

x

Planner Pouch

I know it's been a while since I last posted and I have no excuse, apart from I just haven't done it.

Anyway, I recently got an Erin Condren planner for 2015, if you don't know what one of these is, I suggest you google it, they're gorgeous (if you're into planners that is). For 2014 I was using a FiloFax personal Malden in ochre, it's such beautiful soft leather and I didn't want anything to damage it whilst in my bag so I ordered off Etsy a cover for it, but now that my EC planner has arrived, there are very little options for an EC cover and I also wanted one with a pocket so I could  carry some of my pens, washi tape, and post it notes etc but couldn't find one.  Well, that's not quite true, the EC site sells them, but as postage to the UK is $45 I thought I'd try something else....

The solution? Make my own!  So, yesterday whilst in town I went to the haberdashery shop and bought some fabric, some felt and a zip.  To be honest, sizing was a bit of guess work, but then again, most of my "projects" are, they're a bit like my scrapbooking and crafting, things develop rather than be planned.

This is what I started with...

And this is what I wanted to put into it, but honestly had no real idea how I was going to do this...

So, off I went with my sewing machine.

I'm not a great sewer even after getting an O-level in it at school, but then I haven't made much since.  Whilst making this I realised one important thing, you should insert the zip BEFORE sewing up all the sides as the zip won't fit under the zipper foot of the machine! Hey ho, but this is what I ended up with...

All in all, I'm very pleased with it, my planner fits in it like a glove and the pocket has plenty of room for my pens, wash, post its etc.  If I was to make another one, then I'm sure I would do some things differently but still chuffed with my effort.  I'm sure some of you will eventually see it in craft class!

Happy crafting!

x

Washi Tape Storage

After having fun making my stamp storage, I still had a sheet of foam board left and it was crying out to have something made out of it, so sitting in my craft room looking around wondering if inspiration was going to hit me, I decided that I needed some wash tape storage.

So, using the accurate measuring system that I used before I started cutting, estimating that each tape needs approx 5cm and I needed, perhaps 3 rows and estimated that it should be 30cm long, so off I went with glue gun in hand.

I wanted to be able to have this unit stand up as well as laying down so I also glued a small 5mm lip to the front to ensure that the tapes didn't just roll out.

This is how it ended up and now has a home on top of my stamp pad unit.

The true Smash washi tape is  bit of a snug fit and doesn't come out easy but the rest do.

I still have half a sheet left, hmnnnn, what else can I make..............

Stamp Pad Storage

Well, I finally managed to get this made, I've been looking at these storage units on You Tube and thinking that these people are making it look really easy to make, so I thought I'd have a go.  The upside is that its very cheap to make, the downside is there are no instructions on the internet (that I could find) as to actually how to make this thing.  I did find one site but they wanted payment for the instructions, so I thought I'd just "wing it" and here is the finished result (don't panic, I will give you instructions)

It's constructed out of foam board, now, this is something I had never heard of, but a quick search on the World Wide Web and I had tracked it down to Hobbycraft, so off I went.  One sheet of A1 sheet of this foam board is £4 and they're currently on 3 for 2, so I purchased 3 boards for £8.  I then stocked up on glue for my hot glue gun, as you will need plenty, I got through 8 glue sticks making this!

As I had no idea what the measurements were, I thought that 6 ink pads wide was about the right size and this is how I measured it!

I'm afraid my technique was not very scientific, I roughly measured 6 ink pad widths and some spacing in-between, so I roughly guessed it would be 60cm wide, which was rather fortunate as the A1 board is 60cm wide, plus if it was too long, I could always trim it off.  I also roughly estimated that the depth needed to be 10cm as this was just short of the length of the ink pad as it would be easier to remove them if they hung out over the edge.

Having never worked with foam board before, it was quite an interesting material, it was easy to cut with a craft knife but because of the thickness of it, it was quite hard to get a straight edge, quite often it ended up being cut at an angle, although this didn't seem to be a problem.  I tried using scissors but this tore the edge of the cut and you can't get a knife through all of it in one go, so you have to make several cuts to get through, but despite there already having a cut to follow, the knife did not always follow this groove and quite often make a new cut, so beware, cut against a metal ruler and press hard agains the ruler to ensure you don't make another cut where you don't want it.

I then decided that the width between the shelves should be 2.5cm, so I cut these at 8cm long so they did not come all the way forward to the front of the unit as it was quite hard to get a neat edge and then hot glue'd them at 10cm intervals as this was just wide enough to get the ink pad in.  So the first layer looks like this....

Then add layer 2, which again is 60cm x 10cm and add the 2.5cm x 8cm uprights, there was no measuring as to where to put these, I just eyeballed them to try and make them be in line with the row below.  This was not always successful and I kept having to offer up an ink pad to make sure that it would still fit, had to jiggle it a couple of times when the gaps got a bit small.  

Then just keep adding layers until you get it to the height you want or have enough space to accommodate all your ink pads.

I also tried it out for size to accommodate my copic pens, it's deep enough that they don't fall out, if you have a large collection of copics, you might want to make one row higher which is very simple do to, just cut the uprights taller.  I decided that I might like my stickles to go in as well so I roughly measured my bottles and then cut a row of uprights at 10cm x 8cm.  These were a little hard to glue as they kept wanting to fall over, but once proper up with a stamp pad, no problem!  I also stuck velcro on the underside of the top layer and corresponding velcro on the bottoms of the stickles bottles so they would hang upside down to eliminate air bubbles and make them easier to use.

I felt  at this point that it was at the right size so I needed to now measure the height and put on the sides and back.  As luck would have it, the unit was 30cm high, this was not planned as I didn't know how many rows I was going to make and the larger storage at the top was also not planned, so cutting two 10cm x 30cm strips these then went on the sides and one back piece at 60cm x 30cm.  I must admit that although the size of pieces going across was 60cm, once the back was put on, it was just a little bit bigger than this but it went on anyway so if you looks closely (but please don't) there is  a very small gap at the back.

By no means is this a perfect example as it's easy to see the uprights are a bit wonky, but it is incredibly sturdy and solid and once all the bits 'n' bobs are in, hopefully this distracts from the imperfections.  It took a few hours to make and a shed load of glue, but it was fun and as it only cost £8, so if I choose not to use it, then i'm not going to lose any sleep over it.  I still have one sheet of foam board left, as I only used 2 and am now wondering what can I make out of it.  Someone asked me how many times I was going to burn my fingers on the glue, and the answer is loads!

I now have my stamping supplies and stickles at hand so I'm sure I will now get more use out of them and I can also see which stickles I have, I discovered I have 3 icicles!

If you decide to have a go and make one, please let me know i'd love to see how yours turns out.

Thanks for looking x

Craft Room

My craft room is shortly to be undergoing  re-vamp, long story short, the buns that are currently living in the kitchen are, quite honestly, getting in the way, as the newly adopted Sweet Pea should be re-named Sweet Pea The Destroyer as she will take chunks out of anything and EVERYTHING, including the brand new kitchen that was only installed in August so we've had to restrain her/them in an x-pen which is taking up the majority of my lovely new kitchen which can't be enjoyed to it's fullest.  So, the buns are being relocated to my room, i.e., my craft room.

Stage 1 has already taken place, the sorting through "stuff" that doesn't get used, hasn't been used for years.  Quite honestly I moved into my craft room 10 years ago when we moved in and it hasn't had a sort out/overhaul since then.  Stuff has been added but nothing has ever been taken away (I think I might actually mean that literally!) so a lot of sorting out has happened, but a lot more needs to happen.  My craft room storage is mainly floor standing with units and drawers (maybe I should take some "before" pictures in the vein hope that the "after" ones will be so much better?) and lots of stuff stored under the sofa bed.  All this stuff needs to come off the floor otherwise The Destroyer will eat it!  And I don't want my craft stuff to be eaten (unless of course she poops something crafty!)

Last night I was mulling over how to store my ribbons, I don't have a huge collection and whilst in bed thinking about this particular problem, I know many of you use rails and/or baskets, mine was stored in a jar, on a hanging piece of string and just in a basket, then I had an idea, surely a trouser rail would do the job.  I spent half the night wondering if the bars would be too big for the holes in the middle of the spools.  I nearly got up in the middle of the night just to check as it was bugging me, but fortunately I managed to stay in bed and wait until this morning to check, and guess what?  It'a the perfect size.

Here is my new ribbon storage!