Notebook Wall Hangings

I came up with the idea for the notebook wall hangings when I came across a project in a magazine. I also used to own one when I was much younger and I think it's always handy to have a notebook on hand. They are also very decorative (and perhaps a little too nice to use?) but they would make great presents.

The first one I made was this 'To do List':

The main notebook is made out of A6 card blanks and scored and taped together. I then covered the front with patterned paper and wrapped some coordinating paper around the top to hide the joins in the layers.

The backing was made from a chipboard album page and covered with patterned paper with the edges inked. I cut out a lace effect border for the bottom strip and used some adhesive white letters for the words. To emphasise them I outlined each letter with a brown fine liner pen.

The roses are made from embossing powder, heated up with some mica powders thrown in, and poured into a mould.

The next one I made was this flowery plain one:

I wanted to make it as girly as possible and I added some vellum heat embossed butterflies.

The notebook on the next one was made using a lacy die. It was quite time consuming as I had to cut each page individually, and then poke the holes out from the decorative edge as they didn't all come out when I took it out the die cutter:

I really like the Wellington Bear range that Papermania have recently brought out and this image was so cute. The letters on this one are chipboard letters which I them heat embossed in blue.

I made another Wellington Bear hanging also in blue but this time I decided it was easier to make the notebooks using the card blanks

And finally another girly one:

I have lots more ideas and things to put on the notebooks so there will be more shortly. I (might) also try and make some more using the die cutter because even though they are quite fiddly I think they look very effective!

Claire

Mothers Day Crafting

Mothers day posed me with several problems, the main one being that I had lost my craftiness and wasn't sure what to make. I had decided on a design for a card:

I heat embossed the flowers at the bottom with white powder on brown kraft card and painted with vintage mica powders. The strip on the left is a swirly embossing folder brushed with distress ink and mounted onto a scallop border. The butterflies were heat embossed with white powder onto vellum and used as an overlay to purple butterflies to make them 3D.

Once I had the card I thought I would keep the butterfly/flowers theme. I had been meaning to try stamping on candles for a while so, after a few attempts, I managed two different candles in co-ordinating designs:

Once I had got the hang of it, it's quite an easy technique, but if you are doing it for the first time then make sure you have a spare candle to practise on first.

Then I thought of making a plaque. I wanted to include a quote but couldn't find anything appropriate and along with my craft inspiration, my writing inspiration had disappeared too. I also wanted to try the letters with some ultra thick embossing powder but that idea fell through so they stayed matt with just the patterned papers for decoration.

However, with my love for embossing powders I couldn't create something for Mum without embossing it, so I used my new purple pearlescent powder for the tag and that turned out brilliantly. Sometimes the powders aren't thick enough to cover the colour underneath so I did colour the tag in purple with my pro markers first. But I needn't have bothered because the powder covered it perfectly.

Mum loved all her presents, especially the candles. I think I am going to make more of these now I know how it's done and plan on selling them at a craft fair I've got planned for the end of the year. Some Christmas themed ones I think!

Personalised Calendar 2012

I decided this year that I would make my Mum a calendar that features pictures of me and my brother and sister from when we were younger.

I started making the calendar in August and had it finished just in time for Christmas. I thought I would share with you some of my favourite pages. The picture above is from the front page and has an embossed flourish across the middle of the page, with embossed chipboard letters and some adhesive card numbers.

I tried to theme each page to the month as much as I could. Here is the January page with a lovely snowy picture from when we were young. I took some chipboard letters and glittered them by covering them with glue and sprinkling loose glitter over them. It kind of worked - some of the glitter fell off, but I am pleased with the result as it looks good on the January page.

My next favourite is the June page. Again, I glittered the chipboard letters with sea green glitter. To make the blue background, I brayered a royal blue ink, which gave it the watery look. The waves were cut out of some backing paper I had and the calendar tab was mounted onto a piece of blue core'dinations card with a light blue inside.

I love the picture on this one - my brother looks so excited for his first day at school. I used core'dinations card again for the background, in colours that were our school uniform - purple and green. I found some stickers with a school theme which I added which finish the page off perfectly.

And the December page which had to have a Christmas theme. The picture is of my Grandma's Christmas tree and I used a festive themed backing paper with some baubles. The bauble on the left was embossed with silver powder onto vellum and coloured on the back. The bauble on the right was embossed onto black card with white powder and painted with perfect pearls. The greeting in the middle was embossed with green glitter embossing powder.