From the Archives- My Ivy heart

Here is another post from 2014.  I haven't been able to go to my regular music camp this year for obvious reasons but it was lovely to see this post from 2014 which was a post about creating my own unique art piece.

My ivy heart

At my annual summer music camp last week, we had a fun fete which we put together ourselves to emulate the usual village fete that we attend. For some reason, this year, it was not held on the usual date which means we usually provide a windband, buy lots of items and win prizes in the local competitions much to the chagrin of local people!

The classes you could enter included Handicrafts, vegetables and fruit, wellies (!), flower/plant arrangement, original art-work, jams and preserves and a few others. Originally, I considered bringing along some of my cards but then chicked out of it.  Instead, on the Friday night, the day before the fete, I was luckily not involved in the rehearsals or performance of Mendohlssohn's St John, so I decided to see if I could create some original artwork for that discipline thinking that I'd make use of what I could find around camp in hope people would appreciate the innovation.

I found an old cardboard tomato crate, some old, old sheet music that was going to be chucked out for recycling and prised some ivy leaves off one of the many covered walls and happily remembered that one of the clarinettists had won a pritt-stick in a 'guess the music score' competition, that very afternoon. Finally, I purloined some scissors from the kitchen and set myself up.

After cutting the base of the tomato crate to free it of its sides, I sat and ripped the manuscript paper into jagged pieces and began sticking them onto the tomato crate base. I ensured they overlapped and covered the entire box in them, cutting at the edges to try and make sure it roughly met with the edges.  Lastly, I arranged the ivy leaves into a heart shape and overlapped these and piled them on top.

Here's what I ended up with:



Alas, I did not win first prize (that honour went to some beautiful close up photos of bees) but second prize and sadly, there were only 3 entries into that class. Very disappointing that no-one else bothered to try and do something, even something silly like mine.  Never mind.

I was rather pleased that this was all made from found materials and all the more pleased when my friend asked if she could buy it. I laughed lots and just gave it to her. She's going to frame it and put it up with all the other artwork in her new house.  It's nice to think that in a little corner in Liverpool, my memory of this camp will hold its place.

Linking up to Creative Mondays with Claire Justine.

A rather nifty QUOTE Craft idea avec tutorial

I mentioned a little while back, that I am none so keen on those inspirational quotes. Please note, I am talking about those saccharine ones that make me feel a little nauseous when I read them. You know, "Friends are like a pot of gold,"

That hasn't changed, but every so often, there is a book quote or a TV film quote that I love.

The latest of these was a Clara Oswald quote from Hell bent, the last Doctor Who episode of series 9.

"You said memories become stories when we forget them.

Maybe some of them become songs."

I really liked this quote. Firstly, it was said by my favourite character- we know I love Clara!  Secondly, it's a musical quote! 

Thirdly, it involves stories.

I thought it would be lovely if I could make a little brooch containing this quote. Note, I was going to give it a hole at the top so it could also be a pendant but I forgot!

If you had a quote you wanted to make into a brooch, a quote you really valued and wanted to carry with you,  here's my idea for doing it. Use this especially if you aren't so confident at drawing.

1. Find your quote.

2.  Find a picture you'd like to superimpose it over.

3.  Save the picture to your computer.

(If you want to change the colouring on it- paste it into an editing program.  I actually just used M.S. Publisher, recoloured it so it was very faded and then saved it as a Jpeg, NOT a publisher document.

4.  Go to www.Picmonkey.com 

5. Click on Edit and open the picture you've saved.

6.  Click on 'Add text' and then select the font of your choice and type in your quote.

7.  Position it and resize it so it is laid over your quote in a way you are happy.

8.  Add a frame if you want- I added a rounded frame.

9.  Add any overlays or little images you want- I added a treble clef and quavers.

10.  Save it.

11.  Open publisher and resize to how big you want.  Remember shrink plastic makes things 7 times smaller.

11. Print and lay a piece of shrink plastic over it.  Masking tape it down.

12.  Use colouring pencils over the top to colour your background image.  I did my TARDIS in normal pencils and my white background in a water colour pencil. Please note, I am STILL not happy with my white pencil colouring- it seems to be rather grainy. 

13.  Use a permanent ink pen to write over your quote to make it stand out.   I use a very fine-tipped Pilot pen. I asked in a stationery shop about what was most like a very thin sharpie.

14.  Shrink it in the oven.

15. Add a brooch back.

And that's it.

I am not totally happy with my white background but if you can find a coloured background you are happy with with a good colouring implement, cling onto it with all you can!!!

It's pretty unique, I haven't seen anyone use this Clara quote on any memorabilia yet, so I feel rather chuffed!

Linking to Creative Mondays with Claire Justine and Brilliant Blog posts with Vicky

What do you think?

Speaking of quotes I love, I found an old diary of mine from 2004 in which I used to write any quotes I loved- this is a classic Terry Pratchett which you will only get if you are a long-suffering viola player or an evil instrumentalist who mocks viola-players!!

Having just chucked this diary out, I am slightly wishing I hadn't- Ang, you were right, don't ruthlessly chuck things out!

xxx

P.P.S.

Here is a jpeg of my Clara quote if anyone wanted it...

5 brooches 14- knitted, painted and glued

Hello there!

Welcome to the first edition of 5 brooches for 2016.  I received a fair few brooches for Christmas (mwa ha, the news is spreading!) so we shall be continuing for longer (I still had some to share anyway, but not worn them!) 

 The first one was a very surprise present that came through the post!  Hazel sent me a parcel of joy including this wonderful knitted brooch which she embellised with buttons! It went perfectly with my  sparkly blue top!

 CBC spent all of December saying I had too many brooches and when he kept saying he didn't know what to buy me and I mentioned I liked Erstwilder brooches, I thought there was no way he was buying me any but to my delight, this message in a bottle turned up inside a velvet bag inside a plastic noodle microwave bowl! Acrylic brooches are my favourite kind, like this!

 If you saw my Boxing Day post, you've already seen R2D2 who I made specially to go and see Star Wars!

Glittery cactus brooch went very well against a black polka dot background!

Ok, so it isn't a brooch- I've not been really wearing them much over the holiday but I did want to include my icicle necklace which I've worn alot, alongside the Tatty Devine and Punky pins snowflake necklace.  This is what I've been wearing INSTEAD of the fifth brooch!

What about you? What brooches have you worn recently?
xxx

Linking up to Visible Monday with Patti and #I will wear what I like with Catherine at Not dressed as lamb

May the force be with you!

Our friends organised a trip to go and see James Bond together on opening night in October which we did and really enjoyed so we booked to go and see 'The Force Awakens' on Saturday 19th December.  I've been really looking forward to it!

Having not done TARDIS Tuesday for a little while, I was keen for a little themed-dressing to attend it!

It originally began with this R2D2 novelty handbag I have. I bought this in 1996 in Miss Selfridge sale for £1! We'd been to watch Return of the Jedi earlier that year and I had to have it!  I've kept him ever since and he's made an appearance over the years! Almost had him 20 years!

I decided to try and white his colours with my outfit so it was a subtle cosplay.  Just the red hat and belt as that was the least (couldn't find my grey beret!) 

 The white dress which formed the basis of my Dalek dress.  Appropriate eh- from one robot to another.Ahem, droid!

 White trainers and my TARDIS blue cardie.

 And of course, I had to make a brooch!    Was rather pleased with my little R2D2 pin to finish off the look!

The film was excellent.  I couldn't believe I was finally going to see how the story continues!  I thought it was excellent and I didn't know they are making another 2 films so that is exciting!  Be prepared for some big shocks though! Star wars had a big influence on my life from those ewoks from Return of the Jedi- I LOVED the ewoks cartoons that I watched as a 7 year old and I wrote my own stories- I filled about 2 exercise books full of my own Ewok spin offs. And my sister tells me that I had a huge crush on Luke Skywalker aged 4-6!!!

Budgie in the tea pot! A DIY brooch post

Aloha!

Whilst there is a still an amount of shrink plastic in my house, I have found reasons to make brooches or other items - it's funny but it's the drawing and colouring I am loving but with a purpose. I did buy one of those adult colouring books at last but a cheap Poundland one, but it feels like it doesn't have a purpose so I haven't started it yet.

Colouring and drawing brooches feels more purposeful!

 The first brooch was actually made as a present for one of the deputy heads at school. She has a cute budgie who I LOVE to hear about (living vicariously through her with my lack of pets).  She'd mentioned that I should make commissions which of course I looked horrified at (makes it SERIOUS and more of a chore!)  but it did remain in my mind that I'd like to make her a budgie brooch. It was her birthday last week and I went home intending to make her a brooch but it didn't happen, I didn't finish it.  I meant to do it and give it to her late but then she came into school with a beautiful budgie necklace given by a friend (also Shrink plastic I believe!) . I kind of felt at that point, that it would probably be too rubbish. She's a very clever and talented lady and also, I just felt perhaps, that since she's my boss and is very professional about friendships with staff that perhaps giving her a crappy handmade brooch was a bit silly. Anyway, I made it, it's a little smaller than I'd anticipated but I might still give it to her- I don't want it to feel superfluous though as she has the budgie necklace though!

The second brooch I made was this teapot. When making my teacup brooch, I had decided that I would make an accompanying tea pot so I could wear them as a pair but only just got round to the teapot. It's er- an interesting shape!  I'll try pairing the two together soon!

I'm thinking of trying to make a Jack Russell brooch for another colleague who I DO give presents to usually but I'm not so good at dogs or hairy animals!

Have you got any ideas for what might be a quirky, cool brooch or pendant?

xxx

Linking to Creative Mondays with Claire Justine

Droppping in

Hello there!


I've just returned from 10 glorious days of camping, pretty much cut off from the world. Apologies if you think I have been ignoring you but the internet reception is pretty awful there so I barely managed to check it. The wonders of scheduled posts eh?!

It's been very refreshing to be pretty much completely cut off from the world. Having the time to think, getting away from technology and being surrounded by amazing, clever people, you get inspired. I've played symphonies by Shostakovitch, Tschaikovsky, John Adams, Schumann;composed and performed variations on a theme by Paganini; washed up for 150; made around about 50 envelopes and 40 tags out of music paper; made a ladybird circle skirt; written a song; taken part in crazy antics and created milk bottle hoopla; eaten lots of food and now I am exhausted!

Oh and it is my 2nd anniversary!  Happy anniversary to CBC and I!

xx

One for all and all for one!

Oh the joy of scheduled posts! I've had a stonking headache for about 3 days so it's a relief to feel marginally clear of it!  As you may or may not know, it was World Book Day on Thursday and thanks to my advance pressuring of the Headteacher and Literacy Coordinator, we dressed up again for it. The premise was that the children should dress up as a favourite or well-known book character.  I'd had the idea for my costume two years ago whilst watching Dogtanian dvds with CBC and decided I wanted to be a musketeer.  Aramis actually, but for the sake of people knowing, I said I was D'Artagnan,  I do like costumes which are combinations of items you have already or something you've made that isn't just a one-hit wonder.

And now you know why I always smile in photos- otherwise I definitely have bitchy resting face. Admittedly, I was trying to look like I was fighting a duel as this was taken. 

Thus, only two new items were acquired or made for this costume. The others were in my own wardrobe or CBC's.  So, how to recreate my D'Artagnan/Aramis costume:

•  1969 navy floppy hat: My Mum bought this in Piccadilly from a really nice hat shop. I acquired it some years ago.
• White plumed ostrich feather: I bought this in Hobbycraft last week for £2.20. Add it to the hat.
• Steal your husband's white reproduction regency shirt he bought from the Vintage shirt Co some five years ago. Yes, ladies, my husband is willing to be Mr Darcy for costume parties!
• Add a white crocheted collar you bought from the Asos sale about 5 years ago.
• Put on the blue cape your husband bought you and undo the side buttons.
• Belt it with your Mum's vintage leather belt.
• Don brown leggings under the long regency shirt. (Just realised I could totally dress as Wendy or Michael from Peter Pan with this next time)
• Add long knee high boots. Brown in this case.
• Finally, despair at midnight the night before, that you have no sword. Find large cardboard box and google musketeer sword pictures.  Draw something similar onto cardboard box. Cut out with craft knife and scissors. Cover in kitchen foil and PVA.  Wonder why it is so floppy. Wish you had reinforced it.

I chickened out of drawing on an eyeliner moustache onto my upper lip- I have a mild-phobia of drawing on skin. Thanks to Picmonkey for the addition,

I dressed like this and walked the mile to the station. I nonchalantly waited with commuters who stared at me wondering what on earth I was wearing. I got on the train and changed trains and didn't bat an eyelid and finally walked the half mile to school.  Apparently, the husband of someone spotted me walking down the road. Mwa ha, love freaking out commuters!

There was a good effort made by most of the staff.  One of my colleagues borrowed my 1970's does Regency dress and a bonnet and did Elizabeth Bennett and very pretty she looked too!  There was Carrie from Carrie's War(Nina Bawden), the Park keeper, Mr Bump (my colleague adopted my idea!), Robin Hoods, Mary Poppins', Demon Headmaster and more.  The kids made a great effort, one of the kids told me she was using my idea and dressing up as Matilda and another did the Ancient Greek goddess. There were several Elsas (Miss there's a Frozen book) and a few tenuous ones but otherwise it was great fun!!!

Linking to Creative Mondays with Claire Justine. And Hat Attack with StyleCrone

xxx

A right old crafting fest: Making up my Blogger snail mail parcel for Janet

Hi, I thought I'd share a post about what I sent to Janet reciprocally for the recent Blogger snail mail swap. I was waiting to see if she'd post first anything first, but she doesn't seem to be so I will just go ahead and write this anyway.

One of the things I like about Blog swaps is really really trying to think about what to get for someone, particularly when it inspires you to craft.  I have always tried to make something for most swaps I do, though the pre-Christmas ones didn't really give me much time for this.

I do like to a proper thorough job on trying to find something for that person by reading the blog archives (that makes me sound scaaaary, but I'm trying to show the dilligence!) of the blogger in question. By that, I mean, really going through their archive to find what they really like. I did this with Janet, reading every wishlist she'd posted ever, looking at particular themes that arose.

In this case: books, words, lettering, maps, mustard, Peterpan collars, vintage fun, dresses were main themes that I noticed.

The first item I decided to make was a Scrabble Brooch.  I'd seen a brooch on one of her wishlists, seen she'd recently starting wearing a brooch and I had been intending to make Scrabble brooches for a while with my Nan's Scrabble set. Having purchases some tiny brooch-backs a while ago, I just needed to use some strong all-purpose glue as I have not plucked up the courage to try my glue-gun yet (I am scared of them!). It wasn't particularly neatly done but from the front it was fine.

 I had a small white box from a pair of earrings I'd bought so I decided to customise it. I know Janet likes book text crafted into other things, so I found these love heart confetti pieces I had picked up from my table at a friend's wedding last year (yes, I know that's a bit cheeky but like they were going to go round and rescue every bit of confetti after their wedding, they'd have just ended up in the bin) and stuck them to the lid with an edging sticker from my craft stash.


Pre-making this card, I'd picked up a 25p book in a charity-shop to use for craft purpose, making sure it wasn't something I'd love but you know what, I could not bring myself to rip out pages of the actual story, it just seemed sacrilege so luckily, it had a preview of the next book in the series at the back and so I ripped those out to use, thus meaning I didn't feel guilty.

Janet declared her love of peter-pan collars, so decided to use a circle punch, dress-shaped punch and edging punch to make this card. I'd love a dress like this.  I wrote a rather long and rambly message inside explaining why I'd chosen the gifts. Was rather pleased with it.


Having seen Janet's liked to make craft items out of old music, I decided to use some music which had been destined for the dump at Music camp (the book I used for my Ivy Heart  collage in the summer) and an envelope template to make her 5 envelopes out of them, added some gold ink to the edges and tied them up.

Since Janet showed that she liked map-items in various wishlists, I used an old 2002 atlas I'd saved when we were clearing out Grandad's house to make some larger sized map envelopes.


The next item was a bit of an afterthought.  I spied a small decoupaged music heart (you can see it below in the 7th picture) I'd made in the summer and decided to try and make a coaster using decoupage technique for Janet, double-sided with book paper and maps. You can see the process below, which included trying to varnish it with PVA glue.



It looked ok though I wish I'd have avoided the yellow borders!

The other side, still from the preview chapter.  I did varnish it with PVA. Not sure how durable or waterproof it is though, but we'll see...


The final hand-crafted item I made was a bookmark. I used the remainder of the turquoise card from the card and cut out yellow letters and shapes with some punches.  Janet had featured a Hello Sunshine postcard on her mantelpiece and a bag in her wishlist so I figured she might like it for a bookmark since she is an ardent book reader.  Luckily, I had some laminating of Music Vocabulary to do at school and the word cards are slightly smaller than A4 so I squeezed the bookmark in with them.



So that's almost the end of crafted items which I was quite pleased about though nervous of Janet's reaction because she is a neat crafter and I a scruffy one.

What about the other items?



I know Janet likes Crocheted Peter pan collars and I had picked up one or two when I visited Bruges, a place famed for its lace, (indeed, I sent one to my Blogger friend Lauren of Someonelikeyou) and had had it in my storebox for a long time, intending to give it to someone who'd loved such collars and would appreciate it so I was delighted to think of it for Janet.

Janet declared a love of mustard clothes recently and when I saw this bangle, it reminded me of the cable knit jumper she'd worn in a blog post.

Finally, Janet loves books. I stalked many blog book reviews in order to see if she'd come across Carola Dunn (whose books I love), and took a chance that she enjoyed Agatha Christie so might like this gentle Whodunnit!


The last task remained to wrap up the items. I decided to design some wrapping paper especially for Janet. I opened an A3 sized Publisher document found the opening quote from our mutual favourite book, I capture the castle and collaged this all over the page.  I then cropped an image of Janet's own logo and superimposed it over the top at equal intervals and then, after printing, had some unique wrapping paper.


You can see the items wrapped up in their box (recycled Glitterati box so had a nice sparkly bow on it) ready to go. I accidently left out a roll of vintage ribbon I'd intended to send also,but never mind!

It was great fun trying to think of things that Janet would like, she really did make me get my act together and do some crafting, which I haven't done much of for ages,so I love it when a swap partner is the type of person to spark my creativity!  Thank you Janet, and I'm so glad you liked your presents!



Linking up to:

A round tuit with Creating my way to success



Creative Mondays with Claire Justine

 Brilliant Blog posts with Honest Mum


 You're gonna love it Tuesday with Kathe with an e

Wear the melody of your heart around your neck

It's absolutely ages since I've coimpleted a craft blog post so here I am to rectify this.  When I was at music camp this summer, you might remember I made an ivy and old music collage. which was almost my first bought art-work.  I came home with a large quantity of old sheet music so I decided to make a necklace using these, based on the Kirstie Allsop book design I made earrings with  a few years ago.  In her book, Kirstie uses old books but music looks easily as striking.

It's not at all difficult to make, but it IS time consuming.

What you will need:
A circular paper/card punch (mine is about 3cm diameter)
You'll also need: glue- (pritt stick is fine), beads for spacing, leather-cord, pliers, jewellery finding for clasp.

Each bead requires around 40 paper circles each, so this necklace required 160 circles all in all. You can make them with less, but I liked my beads plump.

What to do:

• The basic premise is that you fold all of your circles in half.
• Glue these 40 into pairs - back to back, making sure you line them up exactly. You will have 20 segments.
• Glue these 20 into pairs again in the same way.
• Just keep doing the doubling process until you end up with 4 segments.
• Glue these segments together and they naturally form a spherical bead. A hole naturally appears in the middle.

I ended up making 10 beads all together but decided that 4 looked nice on the necklace.  I chose to thread mine onto a black leather cord and handily, had broken my red beaded bracelet so decided to use the red wooden beads to seperate the music beads.
I then used pliers with a chain, jump ring and lobster clasp and clamped the leather cord between the edges of jewellery finding- I used this Youtube video to help me get it right.



Here is an up-close look at one of the beads.

And there you have a very pleasing musical-necklace crafted by your own fair hands.



You could try this with many types of paper- thick or thin- patterned paper would be great fun too, as well as old book or music paper.  I like the idea of doing this with polka dot papers in pastel colours for the summer too!Why not make necklaces as Christmas presents if money is tight?  My music paper was going into the bin and the beads came from my broken bracelet.  The cord and jewellery findings can be bought very cheaply from Ebay if not from your local haberdashery or craft place.

This could easily be done with children too-at least the punching circles, folding, gluing parts would be a place where they could join in.


Would you give this a go?

What do you think?


xx

Linking with Claire Justine's Creative Mondays



Monday's Parenting Pin party with Romanian Mum and hosted today by Kiddie Charts


Tuesaday's In and out link party with Cynthia Ladrie at Feeding Big

and Kathe with an E's You gonna love it Tuesday