2 days ago, I shared what I had received from the lovely Tracy at Mad about bags as part of the Handmade heart swap. Today, I thought I'd share what I made and a few details of the how and why!
I admit, I was a little apprehensive when I first signed up at the prospect of making all 5 gifts, all with a heart theme! My crafting regularly consists of cards and now very simple jewellery. Nonetheless, I signed up, after Mary encouraged me. Then I found out I was with Tracy and I was scared again. Because, despite the fact that Mary said, things came from the heart and it didn't matter how experienced you were, there's still that part of you that wants to do the best that you can for someone and you yourself know when you feel you haven't made something the best you can. I do struggle with insecurities in my abilities, even things that I consider I am good at! Tracy sweetly reassured me similarly and I just thought I had to give it a go! Even though I stressed over it in my head for 3 weeks, spent about 20 hours making everything over 3 days, it was a worthwhile challenge- it's been lovely getting to know Tracy.
So here was the pile of finished goodies! "What did they contain?" I hear you ask!
Well, Tracy said she liked a nice cup of tea! So I remembered that I had been to a ceramics workshop at Christmas and made a Daisychain fruit bowl (in fact, I don't think I ever published my post about the workshop...). So I bought a plain white mug, some peel-off stickers and some ceramic paints.
Firstly, I stuck the stickers to the mug (which was unexpectedly time-consuming lining them up!)
Ceramic painting mug
Then I used a sponge and ceramic paints to paint colours that Tracy said she liked (the handle was a bit lumpy so it caused issues!). You had to leave to dry for 24 hours.
Subsequently, I peeled off the stickers and saved them for later...
Finally, I baked it in the oven for 35 minutes.
And voila, it came out looking slightly shiny! It's now dishwasher safe!
I filled it with some individual tea-bags before wrapping it up.
Stained glass tea-lights
For my second gift, again, I tried to think of crafts that I hadn't seen Tracy do on her blog and I hadn't seen any stained glass painting and thought that she might appreciate some tealight holders in her favourite colours of turquoise, green and purple.
I have to say, these were by far, the most problematic make of the swap! They were so so so time-consuming and very very stubborn. Painting on a curve was not easy!
I bought some mini shot glasses. Then I attempted to use my stained-glass black relief outliner from Anita's crafts which refused pointblank to come out of the squeezy bottle. So, I poked it with pins to no avail. Finally, I took the lid off and just tried to paint it on with a paintbrush. I maskingtaped a template to the inside and painted the black outlines over about 3 hours, which was hard on a curve. The next morning, I filled the gaps with 3 different colours. I obviously hadn't entirely sealed the borders between them enough as there were several leaks. Finally, after leaving them to dry half a day, I painted the rest of the glass in one colour. I did the same with 3 of them. Then put in tea-lights with a couple of spares in each one.
Rose bath fizzers:
As I found out Tracy was a busy Mum, I thought she might appreciate something indulgent like a soak in the bath. Again, I hadn't seen she'd made any bath-bombs (although one of the pictures in her header could have been....) so I thought this might be a nice idea.
My Mum makes bath-bombs/fizzers so I asked her if she would teach me how to do it for this swap. She
madly kindly consented to.
She thought that rose bath bombs would be a good one as pink hearts and all that.
With much supervision
frustratedly wrenching the spoons out of my hand, we heated olive oil (over a saucepan of water) and added rose, lavender, geranium, rose maroc, sweet almond oils and some non-water based red food colouring. In a seperate bowl we mixed bicarbonate soda and citric acid. Next, we took the bowl off the heat and mixed the solids in slowly with the liquids (this was the moment of spoon wrenching) until they made a firmer mixture.
Next, using the heart-shaped silicon moulds I'd bought, I spoooned the mixture in and pressed/packed it as tightly as I could. I don't think I did it as well as I should have- it was hard with the heart shaped moulds which kept moving. Mum says that normal circular ones are much easier.
Finally we added Neal's yard rosebuds with a drop of rose oil on each.
I packed them in clingfilm as they need to be kept out of contact with water. They smelt really nice and I was glad to give this a try!
Heart box and cards
It is clear from Tracy's blog that she has an eye for pretty things, so I wanted to make something pretty for her in her favourite colours. Since card-making is the craft I indulge in most, I thought I'd make her some cards and somewhere pretty to keep them.
I took a small textured brown box; some acrylic paints in purple, green, dark turquoise; some silver outline stickers; some mini gems; a heart shaped punch and some stickidots.
I
I drew pencil lines where I wanted to apply paint to the lid. Then painted strips of different colours on the lid and the bottom in green (acrylics) using a sponge to get an even finish. Left to dry.
Then I created a stencil using a heart punch (see below) and applied a line of green hearts to the lid
Then I added some outline stickers to mask the boundary between colours.
After that: I punched some silver mirror card hearts and layed them on top of each other with 3d pads
The final touch was adding 3 little gems to each one with sticki minidot.
I have to say I was really pleased with the results.
The cards:
To go inside, I measured and cut cards to the size of the box, punched a heart border down the side of each.
Next, I created hearts out of 4 different envelope inards and attached to white card, cut with scalloped scissors. Finally, to ensure Tracy could use them for any purpose, I added some
Best wishes stickers.
The design is one I have made for Engagement cards on quite a few occasions and it adapts an idea I think I got from Papercraft inspirations magazine many years ago.
I HEART TEA charm bracelet:
Tracy said that thought she doesn't wear much jewellery, she likes a nice bracelet or two. So I tried to find some purple buttons to make a base-bracelet with jump rings. Then, I added a purple glass heart I had bought the day before. Remembering Tracy's love of tea, I added a tea-cup and milk-jug charm which I had from a doll's teaset I'd bought for the purpose.
Here it is wrapped up in some recycled organza and chiffon ribbon.
Jubilee heart decoration:
It was only as I was wrapping everything up, that I caught sight of an article in the Docrafts magazine that showed how to make a gorgeous paper/card heart. I thought it was so pretty!
It was easy to make with different length strips of paper which I secured with a bulldog clip after making 2 teardrop shapes with some red satin ribbon sandwiched in a loop between. The ends were tied in a bow at the bottom. To stop the heart from getting crushed, I put it in a recycled thorntons box which I painted and put a heart on.
Bruges chocolate:
I still had one lolly-pop left from Dumon chocolatier in Bruges (2nd best chocolatier in Bruges) which I hid in the box under the heart as a surprise.
Knitted heart
Sadly, not by me! But it was too cute and I thought Tracy would like it! Some choccie and a badge from the British heart foundation which matched the recycled map envelope I made.
Did you wonder what happened to those heart stickers that had been painted on the mug? Well, I stuck them to a black card to make a greetings card for Tracy. I couldn't possibly throw them away!
Here's the whole collection: (Thanks to Tracy for this photo and the knitted one. You can also see the Thorntons protecting box to the right). I always include little cards explaining what things are and why I chose to made them. I always think its nice to know how and why someone chose something for them!
So I survived my first totally handmade swap and I am so glad that
Tracy liked what I made for her. I've been thinking about it constantly for 3 weeks now! Thank you Tracy for being such a lovely swap-partner. You are welcome to go and check out Tracy's
pretty blog!
I think June's Make a month with Annie the Felt Fairy is more packed than any other month! I may just flake in July!
So what do you think? And what have YOU been making!
If you haven't made anything, what WOULD you like to learn to make? I'd love to be able to make mosaics and make dresses and other lovely sewn items!
